I could easily argue that a hybrid like bst/rng could heal a single target better than a druid with the changes to their direct healing. They don't even have to change targets and can spam several within the same line if they needed/wanted to.
Cleary you must play with the worst shamans in game because I see shaman top 5ing healing and dps parses way more often than I see druids doing this. So what are shaman? Necro dps? AGAIN. This thread isn't to bring other classes down or trying getting classes nerfed, or for complaining about others' perceived inadequacies in non mana using classes. Please post those in the tank thread. This thread is to address the obvious oversight of the devs when it comes to handing out healing tools to druids.
Please, do show us the Paladins who are regularily topping the dps charts (espeically if its not the rare undead thing). Show us the SKs who cannot keep agro off of paladins. Show us druids who are out healing shamans, who are out damaging mages. ESPECIALLY if these players are all equally as good. But lets look beyond this. The point of the thread is about issues druids have. You are just pooping all over it, because you feel threatened having your favored classes pointed out as OP, as is getting some attention on the boards.
Druids have a rudimentary healing ability set. It isn't so much of a problem of 'can't do job to basic requirements' but rather DP's (and DBG) mishandling of Paladins and Shaman. When SK's were ordained the Swiss Army Tank Paladin's healing abilities were further increased to make them raid healers (a role many Paladins, including myself, didn't sign up for) - hence splashes. I have zero explanation for how Shaman got HoT, splash, and unlinked heals very nearly as good as clerics on top of debuffs, buffs (ADPS), and dots. I am not calling for any specific action. This isn't a nerf call. But what I am failing to see is any path to 'near healing parity' that wouldn't also result in the need for 'near DPS parity' and 'near debuff parity' and 'near utility parity'. This isn't a 'call to nerf', but do I think that Druids should have more/better healing tools? Yes. Do I think Paladins should have less? Yes. Do I think Shaman should have less? Yes. Do I think Clerics should have more DPS? Yes. I'll respect the OP and leave the tank specific balancing out and keep this focused on the healing aspect. So would increasing Druid healing help Druid healing? Sure. Would it simply amplify the already loud why make a Paladin / Cleric? Yes. Does it put a dent into the ever growing presence of SK and Shaman? Nope. I simply don't know how to solve this for multiple classes including (the most important class for this thread) Druids by simply giving. It would simply result in 'well, I'm still not a good choice, but not as dreadful as before....uggghhh' situation.
While i agree on the initial post, i wonder what you all think about the remote heals? (remote sunbolt, ecliptic winds) They are not mentioned. I play druid in groups and most times boxed, so i have another view as people who have a druid as main in raids. While hitting trash in current expansion, the remote heals are enough to keep my warrior alive and i dont have to change targets. I often use em together with distant conflagration, twincast and rarely bifold focus. Do you use remote dd-heals at raids at all or are they too weak, not enough gem slots etc? I would be glad to have a 3rd remote dd-heal combo that heals the whole group (or splashes). This would be a second groupheal with a faster cast time, but it needs a target to be nuked at.
They are kind of weak imo and they are timer linked for the two resists, fire and ice. Another part of the druid spell toolkit that is limited by timer linking, like the heals that are mentioned in the OP. A previous vocal druid pushed to have the focus effect changed on the druid BP to reduce reuse of the remote line...and I personally miss the group wolf extension for sustaining higher dps burns for raid settings. But since it has been several years of this reduction in reuse, perhaps they should unlink those so that druids can use their toolkit and not just half of it.
Does noone else has the feeling, that this poster is dishonest and not good for anything but calling for disagreement to any changes at the healing as is?
Well, I raided on a Druid from ToV to NoS and I felt I should add my observations. I have never really seen Shammies or Clerics run out of mana on raids, while the Druids always do unless it is a burn event. When the events are AE heavy, a lone Druid healer in the group is not able to keep the group alive. Even if you ensure every group heal you cast is twincast, the recast time is too slow. You can usually manage for a while with AA group heals, emergency group heals, etc. but if you take AE damage for any length of time, if there is not enough splashing going on your group will die. Single target healing wise we were not too bad. The long cast heal is of course the weak spot. I have started casting that on a 100% HP Tank and had them die in a damage spike before my heal finished casting. While I have moved on to playing the Pally as my new main and as such have not played the Druid at all in 6 weeks, if you wanted to boost healing on the Druid my suggestions would be as follows: Unlink the healing nukes so they have different recast timers and you don't have to use one or the other, but can use both. Lower the cast time of Vivavida line of spells. Noticeably. Maybe 2.5 seconds before Foci? Lower cast time of Lunacea line of spells AND recast time. Or ensure previous iterations of that spell line are not on the same timer and reduce cast time. If you have a 3 second cast time (after Foci) and 12s recast time, you are just not going to keep your group alive in a raid setting if you can produce a group heal every 15 seconds. For the group game, it does not really matter one way or another. Both my Paladin and Druid have functioned perfectly fine as lone main healer for normal grouping. Or even S19 Augment farming in raid zones.
I would say paladins are a tank class and druids should be considered a priest class that can DPS (similar to shaman) at the expense of lesser heals than clerics. Paladins can outheal druids (I main a paladin and box a druid) but honestly they shouldn't be able to
He is saying druids should heal better but he doesn't think you can balance the classes out just by making druids heal more. Doesn't sound dishonest. For priest I don't think you need to reduce Shammie healing, just bump Druids. Then give Clerics 200k dots/rains, directional DDs, targetable DPS buff, increase their DDs, and bump their healing more. Then you get Healing cleric>druid=shammie DPS druid > cleric > shammie Utility shammie > druid > cleric
As stated a couple of posts above, with both of the fire and ice remote lines timer tied together and the recast time on it, it makes this a terrible heal for raids but a decent one for grouping. Also on raids, if you're using this spell you are healing whoever is tanking the mob your nuking. While that is kind of beneficial to the raid, it does nothing to help heal your group. There are events with really big ae dd damage, nasty dots that hit large groups of people, emote fail punishments that can take a fully raid geared member in your group in the raid from 100% hp down to low teens. That remote heal does nothing for them and you are left with hitting your survival heal, then your group heal, your AA heals if group heal is still down, and then forced to start using direct healing to keep group members alive if enough splashing is happening. So now you gotta start thinking about who am I going to keep alive and who am I going to let die? With the first person you're keeping alive being yourself. Remote heals do not help at all in these situations. What would help in these situations would be have a heal over time you could throw out so that while you're waiting on any of your group orientated heals to refresh, group members are still getting some kind of heal making it a little easier to move to direct heals to keep group members alive between group heals. I'm not saying druids can't heal during raids. I'm just saying that we have a much more difficult time of it that the other priest classes. Also, for the purpose of this thread, just leave paladins lumped in with the priests. They rez, they direct heal, they group heal, they splash, they remote heal.
Thank you. That is precisely my point. There is no reason why you "can't" do that, you would then have to see where these classes now balance vs. others (e.g. instead of dialing back 2 you can choose to bump up 14 others). In my opinion all classes should have a strong primary role, and their abilities within that role should not be approached by those who have a different primary role. I squarely blame developers (past/present) for their non-alignment to this ideal out of poor vision, implementation, or favoritism. Right now Druids are likely approximately balanced vs. Clerics. Without broader commitment to more significant revisions, changing the narrative from "Why didn't I make a Shaman" to "Phew... I'm glad I didn't make a Cleric" is hardly a win for the game as a whole.
If you want to compare classes you have to look at the whole picture. Cherry picking specific items doesnt offer anything enlightening or strengthen the case for how underpowered druids are at the moment. I started a spreadsheet where I am listing every spell and ability that druids shamans and clerics have at their disposal. It is a pretty big project and I am short on time right now. It isnt going to be perfect, but at least it will be a side by side comparison. Once done I will present to the class leaders of my guild for input as I am sure some things will need to be clarified. I am expecting once done whatever "value" one can attach to various attributes abilities and spells will be subjective. For example, the value placed on the ability to port is subjective depending on how you spend your time on EQ.
This doesn't make sense. The things priests care about are: 1. dps 2. buffing (especially adps if possible) 3. healing Shamans are pretty much the best at all 3...
When I rolled a druid for a caster box team I remember being shocked at how deficient their healing is compared to a shaman. I had kinda assumed they were equivalent, but the difference is massive. When I asked druids about the situation of being stronger nukers than healers, they responded with, "Mission Accomplished. What we really need is more mana to nuke more.". Meanwhile, shaman are such strong healers that in most healing intensive situations they are perfectly suitable compared to a cleric, which has very little role in the game if there isn't a massive amount of healing needed. You could address both druid and cleric balance issues by putting all the shaman's reckless lines on the same timer and adjusting their synergy to have the same value as a druid's instead of more than double. Note that a shaman is a core member of my box team and is the only healer, and this would dramatically reduce my survivability!
Shm synergy is big because it's attached to a spell that is only usefully cast once every 90s. Dru synergy is attached to a 6s reuse spell. Shm synergy is more dramatic how it can make 1M point knight heals, but is a much weaker AA overall.
How do druids quickly activate their synergy on their group during high AE damage situations? On my shaman i pop the spiritual line.
Shm synergy is triggered by casting their group HoT (top level is Reverie of Renewal), which is useless to recast before expiry. Putting on the shaman synergy wastes a spell cast if pursued more than once per 90s (longer, if there's a banner/fire active). Dru synergy is triggered by the group direct heal, Lunacea. both synergies work the same once applied, boosting the next three heals received by the characters the synergy is on. Any incoming heal (of lv110+ for the top synergy) will consume a counter to be boosted. If there's a high AE damage situation, then the next Luna cast will use one, plus apply more counters for future heals, 10 times per minute, productively.
Sorry for the confusing way I asked that question, but I meant how do druid's consume their counters on their group quickly in heavy AE situations? On my shaman I consume it with spiritual shower for a great 1-2 punch of group healing. With a druid pumping out 3 counters of synergy every tick, how do they consume it? I ask because this was something I struggled with when I played a druid (among other things), I didn't have the spiritual shower line to follow up my synergy. This was during TBL when, you know, the group game had AE damage to mitigate vs the last few expansion.
why is the solution for druid class struggles is to nerf Shaman? I want you guys to get better cause it will help everyone in the long run. Like you guys have it hard i get it. But you all seem to want to make it hard for everyone instead of easier for yourselves Honestly i hope you get some mana help hell even give you guys a spiritual swell to help out with the raid heals
