Something's Gotta Give

I played a Druid on Selos, pretty useless class in the group game once you hit about Luclin/PoP... they cant heal as well as a cleric, and cant sustain like a shaman because of mana issues

So i guess enjoy your OPness while Kunark is here, because Druids quickly become one of the least desirable classes for quite a few expansions

Can you feel the love?

A druid doesn't heal as good as the best healer in the game? Huh, who'd've thunk it?

Not all of us are min/maxing powergamers and my druid did/does just fine as the healer in my 3 box crew (which means a druid that isn't distracted and not being boxed should be just fine...). There hasn't been any group content that my SK/Bard/Druid combo couldn't handle from classic to TBS on Coirnav.

I may not be the first one to kill something, but I ain't dying either.

A bard makes that work, on my Druid if we didnt have a slower there was no chance in hell i could keep the group alive in Planes of Power because of the raw damage output of mobs

I got away with healing all the way thru Luclin, but once PoP hit I couldnt heal unless there was a slower and a good tank.. and even then, mana was tough to keep up (granted i wasnt a raid geared druid.. im sure raid geared druids do much better). My main was a warrior who was a raid tank, so he had good gear and my druid struggled to keep him up in PoP

I love my shaman and think he is wayyyy more powerful than my druid

If Incarnate Anew is on Coirnav, it's way out of era, but then a whole slew of things on that server are way out of era (like Defiant armor drops). Prior to the SoD revamp, druids had the 0% rez AA. If they're now assigning spells to TLP expansions based solely on level, then Incarnate Anew would be in Kunark, and this whole thread would be pointless.

Taking nothing away from a good Druid, please explain how a drood would edge out a necro in a charm group for dps. I feel like a necro's mana efficiency and mana regen beat out the drood over a long enough period of time with non stop pulls. Maybe factoring in ds on unslowed mobs?

I call him "My sacrificial druid" he's not raid geared. Mostly in Theatre of Blood gear. I JUST replaced his Elysian helm last week (Coirnav is in TBS...)

And you're right, without the bard slows, I wouldn't be nearly as effective.

The SK is raid geared and the bard is in a mix of raid gear from GoD>TSS.

A shammy is BY FAR a better healer and a better slower and WAY more DPS (in most situations). Druid gave me a means to move around Norrath with ease. I chose it for it's utility.

I don't remember when Incarnate Anew became active on Coirnav, but it's been a while. Maybe GoD? Was it part of the Druid/Shammy healing revamp when they gave them heals earlier to make them viable in Kunark/Classic?

This is my first TLP as a druid and I find the class very fun and powerful. I am top 10 on most boss parses, I have a ton of group utility, I can get around the world quickly, I can charm dps in many zones, and solo almost anything I need to solo. I was one of the first classes to level 50 and 60 on Aradune.

Parsed 6th on Server First Trakanon only 2 actual players ahead of me others were charm pets.
Trakanon in 139s, 110k @791 | #6 Kubat 3397@(45 in 75s)

For grouping I would suggest offering more than just healing. DPS/Pull/Splash. I maintained a charmed dog, pulled the whole grind from 50-60. I covered heals while the cleric went afk. I root CC'd while the Enchanter was LoM. So much utility it's crazy good.

To be fair, this is more an exception for druids than the rule. My first thought was that you split this way down, which means 6th out of like 40 total in raid makes sense for that 45 dps. But then I see that you only did 3400 damage total, which is basically nothing. So that means to be 6th you had to have a bunch of people under that amount of damage, which means you probably had a full raid.

You probably got a bit lucky with 0 resists and the mob died super fast (75s). No self respecting monk/necro/wizard should ever really lose to a druid (on a regular basis). I would imagine depending on the fight it's rare that a druid would beat a rogue or ranger.

They are amazing utility and convenience, there is no doubt about that! I do miss the ports I had available on Selos, almost as much as i miss bard speed

My whole crew is built around utility. I cant think of one thing I can't do, at least at a mediocre level, with SK, Bard, and Druid.

Mangler got incarnate anew with OoW release.

Good to know, that's still of little value to Druids on Aradune/Rizmoana though, it's a big part of why they struggle to find groups (nobody wants to die and not have a rez immediately available).

As a Necro I was able to keep a charmed pet and VoTS every mob as it came to camp, once I got Demi Lich I was able to sustain Ebolts. I could mez my own pet or the chanters every time it broke, giving 18 seconds to get fresh debuffs and recharm. Skelly pet doesn't dot everything it touches either.

Pretty much every group I had 50-60 was Me and an Enchanter, dual charm pets a Cleric healer, Mage/Shm for debuffs some kind of tank or puller to fill it out. I think I grouped once with a Druid that whole time and saw many sitting at zone in LFG.

Single Cleric was all that was ever needed and if they got LoM from a bad pull, double charm break etc I could just toss them a few twitches and get them back in the game.

Delete Druids

Quality post.

Druids have significantly better spells vs mobs that die in seconds. The necro would of course edge them out if the mobs lived a while but in this scenario they won't. You could also win out on a necro if you do something weird like you have multiple mobs that are all being offtanked/dpsed but not mezzed, yeah, necro will absolutely clean up. A solo nec will also crush a solo anything here. I assume in these kinds of situations that you have a tank, an enchanter, a cleric, or similar type coverage along with you.

Serious question for some of you old vets who've been playing forever:

I think I've heard virtually every class but maybe Enchanters and Clerics claims they are hated for groups and they are underpowered and nobody loves them and blah blah.... is there any truth to most of this? Are there any classes that everyone agrees sucks in the TLP servers?

I've had rough nights finding groups before where I couldn't find any healers on LFG and would have been thrilled to take a druid...

In my experience finding a group was always a challenge except very early on in any server's life.
Making a group and finding players to fill it gets harder over time, but especially on TLP as a lot of players on TLP prefer to play with guild-members.

I mostly 3 box now but always remain available to groups wherever anyone needs a hand and that works out okay.

Maybe Rogues?

They tend to get passed over quite a lot, seemingly. Too may min/maxing powergamers out there can't stand to have a slightly lower amount of melee deeps or a group that isn't perfectly optimized. As long as I have CC, pulls, slows, heals, and a tank, I don't really care what I fill the group out with.

The idea that mobs die in "seconds" in this era I think is a bit off. My static is sk/cleric/chanter/ranger/necro/monk. We also had a shaman/mage oog sending in pet and slowing. There is always mobs in camp. I keep VotS and E-bolt on my bar, if i'm over 50 mana, which is rarely i used e-bolt, otherwise i'd use venom. I'd lifetap every other mob or so because i would pull aggro often. I don't believe that a druid would have the mana to sustain constant DPS over a long enough period of time. The longer the exp session goes, the farther a class like necro pulls away from others, unless it's a slow pulling a lot of medding exp group.