Druid Raiding?

Having a last minute class choice crisis. Saw the great responses and advice given in a similar thread about Necro v Shaman raiding and thought I would ask about druids.

Have never played a druid before and am looking at raiding this time around. How are druids on raids, what is their role mainly? Also as a side question are they as bad in general as so many people make them out to be over the next few expansions?

Thanks much. I usually play tanks or melee, so this will would be something new for me.

Early TLP: Debuff and poor damage
Mid-Early TLP: Debuff and heal
Mid TLP: Debuff and heal and some added DPS
Late TLP (EoK+?): Debuff and Damage and spot heals.

On a raid, Druids don't really shine. Want to DoT? Necro beats you. Want to Nuke? Wizzy/Mage beats you. Want to heal? Cleric/Shammy beats you. What you always bring is some hefty debuffs (ATK/AC/FR/CR) and later, increased damage for Fire/Cold.

Now, this is NOT 100%. It flip-flops all over as the Dev's and Class Leads worked to find a place. Hence, around PoP, Druids got a quasi-CH. Eventually druids got a group heal. This was the "lean" towards another "main healing" class (focused on direct heals). Eventually this waned off and druids became more DPS-centric. For a while they were heavily fire focused, and eventually settled into cold.

What era you're in will define your role. The one part that never goes away, however, is getting those debuffs on raid bosses. You're sort of like the bard, for casters. You enhance the entire raid's ability by reducing mob AC (more melee damage taken), ATK (less damage to tank), and resists (more incoming damage from casters).

During the "healer" phase, you can easily replace a cleric for most roles. Be it CH chains, group heals, curing, etc. and will often find yourself as a primary group healer.

As you move into later expansions, you maintain that capability, but you can now focus more on adding DPS to the raid yourself (Originally started shifting around PoR era, before the DoT nerf pushed Druid DPS back down).

In later expansions, you can push significant DPS numbers, while maintaining a role as a group primary healer. Just remember, you're NOT a DPS class. The likely hood of hitting top 10 in a parse are slim to none. That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't do DPS. Raid DPS is just as important as individual DPS, and you'll have the power to bump that number up.

A lot of it is playing "by feel" as to what your guild/raid needs. Very early on (OG/ROK/SOV)? You're a red headed step child who Brad thought would be a bit of melee, a bit of healing, and a bit of caster. You excel at literally nothing (and yet somehow are pretty fun to play).


Your best bet to a detailed answer would be to drop to the class section of the forums and get insights based on your current expansion and current raid capability.

My only experience was I did a little bit of raiding in Velious and Luclin and primarily I would keep a heal spell channeling and watch tank HP and let it land when damage spikes hit the tank between the CH rotation. Also random buffing here and there.

druids can do everything... and nothing as well as others except for PL'ing via DMG shield and regen.

They are a really great class to main if you want to be able to heal, dot, charm, dd, port, and have the best buffs.

There is nothing you miss out on except being the best at any one thing.

Druids are pretty niche for sure but actually kinda worth it. You get some fantastic tools. PLing, Porting for cash until PoK, they are really good at quadding / root rotting I know that goes away eventually as more things "summon" but I always admired my former officer she was a druid main basically till the bitter end and watching her solo PoF c2 was pretty enjoyable.

Honestly we need more Druid mains most get lost as boxes, like shamans.

Great write up.

I wish I had the guts to play a Druid.

From a Class Mechanic standpoint they seem to be a class that would be amazingly fun to play. However, from what I have seen and heard, they are about the least desired class in the game. It seems like literally every other class in the game will get picked over a druid for a PUG and aside from one or two in a raid, only desired as a taxi to get people to the raid at least up into the mid 60s. There is just nothing they do that can't be done better by another class. It is almost like they gave them too much general utility at the expense of having a defined role to play where they could stand out.

That could be said for any class, a good druid who knows their class will most certainly get picked up often. I've never had a class that wasn't useful in a group.

very far from reality. They are mid pack for desirability and are picked often as they can fill so many roles.

I like to have a druid in my group incase the cleric has to suddenly leave or we cant find a rep. Druid can fill the spot until we get one or a shaman... or worst case a second druid.

Having a backup healer is always smart to keep the exp flowing.

Evacs, buffs, plus I think druid hp line stacks with shaman/paladin? focus/nine/bb -- sorry its been a super long time. I liked running shm/druid because between the two of us there was always healing and dps. Heck they can even CC with roots/snares for runners.

I think druid ended up being the most interesting and well designed class actually. I do wish they could be more of that melee/caster/healer role myself. In fact I would argue I would like to see them be more on par with a beastlord melee maybe slightly worse as I don't know how good a ranger vs bst melee is and there is a point where you might as well just be a ranger. I guess.

Focus/(Brells,Hunter, or Spiritual V*)/skin/symbol/AC That's the big lineup. Cleric all-in-one is normally only for classes with a self buff that doesn't stack with druid skin or after a mid-fight rez.

I thought it was something like that but I couldn't remember how the hp/ac buffs line up worked entirely

Raiding as a druid is about as fun/stressful/boring as you want it to be.
I can only speak to early raiding (Original thru Luclin) - but you're typically going to be a buffer / debuffer / spot healer / port_to_next_raid.

There's maybe a handful of raids where you <might> be able to make it somewhat high up on the parse, but not many.
Mostly you can just hide in the shadows, SoW / Skin / Buff people who ask, sometimes charm a little doggy or a bat to help with DPS, and then be the hero when everyone wants to get to the next raid location.

Not even close to true. Druids can not only break into top 10, it’s not uncommon for them to break into top 5.

I think we need more druids just to see how Vaniki/Yelinak will turn out ;s

Thanks much for all info! I will take the plunge.

They got me re-thinking playing playing a Druid rather than a Shammy or Necro though the last thing I need is a 3rd option when the server is up in just an hour and a half.

Honestly I had a friend, who I grouped with daily that played a Druid so personally don't have any prejudices against them rather is seems that others often apply prejudices against them. That perception is why I am leary about playing one rather than some other class. Maybe I will roll one as an alt at some point.

I am mostly settled on playing a necro. But may still go druid or wizard. Only a little over an hour to go. Decisions!

If you box... I would say pair it with a druid.

Druids are such good boxes which is why most druids are boxes.