I haven't played this game for a really long time, but am back and loving it. No one seems to reply on Tunare server in the Druid channel and I don't really see any Druid discussions going on on this forum. Is Druid an underplayed class now? It is currently my main (level 29) and I love the class. I'd like to know if there is a reason I don't seem to see a lot of Druids or maybe it's just because I'm low level. Summary: Are Druids still prevalent in high end content or am I playing the new unfavored class? Even if I'm wrong I'd still like to have some Druid discussion since I am feeling like a first timer all over again. I have a lot to learn about the new EQ. Thanks for your time
There are still plenty of druids around. In the later part of the game, druids did became mostly healers. Ours DPS isnt too bad but we are at best half DPS of a DPS class. We still can solo none-summoning mobs with our range DPS but since everything and their mother summons in the high level game, their a few places were this can be used. We cant take melee hit very well at all. Ours utilities are still interesting but I would said that we are not the jack of all trades we used to be.
This is a shame. Thanks for the info everyone. Cleric was my first love, but I wanted something a little different. Hope I'm not wasting my time.
It's a great class to box. I mean there are better. But it's good. What Oakenn put so uh... eloquently is that recently one of the devs clarified his vision for druid class: we are meant to heal single targets. We heal single targets better than shamans. Shamans heal groups better than druids. Clerics do both jobs better. We also have a lot of debuffs. Too many for a single druid to load in his spell list without sacrificing stuff that shouldn't be sacrificed (working as intended). None of them are individually very good but in aggregate they're useful on a raid (in the group game, not so much).
To the OP, Another thing you're seeing here is the age of the game. Most classes go through the same thing (specifically in terms of the lesser amount of communication you see on message boards and in the serverwide channels). It's in no way restricted to druids, or even priests for that matter.
Thank you for your answer I'm still having fun but wasn't sure if I would all of a sudden hate my life for leveling a Druid to cap later lol.
Druids are not a very common class. They are a good main class, but IMO not an amazing class to play casually for grouping/raiding. At the high-end with shawl / good AAs, its a great class. With few AAs, not much gear the class is pretty bad, relative to what other classes can do. You can heal great with these low-AA / no-Shawl situations, but you don't really get to utilize the essence of the druid -- That being the ability to do multiple roles in a group simultaneously (Heal, DPS, Pull, Root CC, Debuff). We aren't lesser clerics, just a different version of clerics. Skilled druids can heal at the same rate/ability level of clerics. We lack the ability to splash heal, and a few survivability AAs relative to clerics. While they have some great abilities on those fronts, we've got our own (3rd spire, Spirit of the Bear, XXX Growth, etc.). Clerics have the ability to take more hits, effectively heal groups of people quicker/better/more of them... while Druids have the ability to DPS, and Debuff. It wasn't a certain dev that pushed us into this role. It was Shadows of Luclin, we could've gone the wizard root and had Moonfire be a boss spell... or get Tunare's Renewal and become a pseudo cleric. We went more cleric oriented and have been down that path ever since. The difference between us and them isn't as stark as it used to be, or even noticeable at the highest levels of play. Its been going this way for years, but it does have to stop / slow down IMO. I'd like to see us more equalized again toward the wizard half of the class, but we will see how that goes. All that aside, druids can still solo pretty effectively with charm / AE nukes at higher levels. So for casuals who just want to do that you can get that done.
Weeeeelll.... I mean I can top a heal parse -but that's really not quite the whole story, is it? Need faster heals? Cleric. Need heals quickly after a death/mana drain? Heh. Need a healer to take a beating as he heals? How about we compare epic 2.0s! Derp! We're certainly underrated but I feel oakenn wasn't really that far off in calling Druids "lesser" -I play both, even at half the aa's my cleric is what he is.
*I'm not saying this applies to you, i just saw you mentioned heal parses so it re-sparked this thought in my head* I don't like heal parses, I don't think heal parses gauge a healers skill nearly as well as a dps parse shows a dpsers skill. I always laugh *hard* when i see people get super excited because they have the highest heal value healed on the main tank or something. Heal parses largely encourage people to be lazy and focus their healing on the players that often post the results of heals that landed on their character. I prefer healers that are able to keep their group alive, assist heal on the main tank, and when needed even assist healing on other groups if the emergency arises, I know of some clerics (even at the highest levels of raiding) that will literally focus all their healing on maintanks that have a history of frequently posting parses of who healed them and for how much). The only thing useful about parsing heals is SOLELY to see what spells the priest cast and how many times they cast it... parsing heal values is so rofl worthy.
I will preface this by saying my druid is my one and only main, ever. First toon I ever created. Been stuck on the class hard for the past decade and wouldn't consider a main change not for an instant. Much <3 for my druid. However, considering the current state of the class and state of the game, I am dumbfounded why anyone would want to start up a new druid with intent to reach end-game play. If you just want a toon to screw around with in the low- to mid-level game, or exclusively solo, the druid can be a lot of fun. Also make excellent porter, spotter, tracker, and forage bots. /nod A half-way druid is about as effective as a half-way tank. Without a substantial and ongoing pursuit of AAs, gear, and augs, you're kinda borderline useless in any sort of current content -- and that will be readily apparent to groupmates/raidmates that expect to be able to rely upon you as a competent healer (like it or not, that will be your primary role (and possibly only role)). ^^ and that's a fact. Heal parses can help to identify who is lazy/semi-afk/sucking. Heal parses do jack squat to prove who's a good/great/top healer. I can top any heal parse I choose; its not terribly difficult to mash heal buttons mad crazy until OOM while disregarding everything else around me.
This kind of gets to what my first response was: it's a good class to box. If I were starting fresh, I wouldn't be opposed to making a druid -I would just team that druid up with a necro or an SK or something else. Druids are fine at high levels -as long as you're not playing just a druid.
Eh, heal parses are undervalued to some extent. Heal parses only register heals that actual heal. IE casting a heal on a tank at 100% doesn't show at all on a heal parse. It does however show on a cast parse. The problem with heal parses is that they are a small-picture. No raid is like AoW anymore with a single tank. Every raid will have multiple tanks, tanking multiple mobs at different points in time or for the entire fight. So seeing Druid X on the top of Heal Parse for a tank off-tanking some little trash mob just once in a fight is great... until you realize the other 6 tanks in the raid who alternated tanking the boss, minis or spent almost the entire fight dealing with adds register Druid X at the bottom of their heal parse. The biggest problem I find with this is... not everyone parses, very few guilds make parsing a 100% requirement, and due to this you have about 50% of your tanks parsing while the other 50% aren't. Which leaves you with an information gap, especially with the 50% not parsing are the MT, Backup Tank and main add control tanks. Cast parses are mainly useful, IMO, to see how much they go above and beyond. How often they use Spirit of the Bear / 2nd spire / Untamed Growth / Reptile / White Wolves / BP Clicky / SotW / CoS. Granted, again, even just 'using' them is all relative, as casting that stuff when the boss is weak or at the wrong time is useless. Then just to see the cast #'s. You really need basically every tank to be parsing heals + Cast logs + Group assignments / Group make-ups to be able to judge a healers worth. Very few guilds / raid settings give you all of those. "Topping a heal parse by mashing buttons" is a terrible misconception because that simply isn't how it works. You can mash buttons and show with literally 0 Heals on that tanks heal parse if every single heal you are casting is landing directly after that tank is getting topped off (100% HP) by another healer -- IE You are being useless --. However a coding change to allow for a new filter "Show Other's Healed" and some work on GamParse's end to edit his program to record others heals a bit better would be awesome. . I dunno, I hate grouping but I get stuff done alright with Druid + Merc (I have tank / healer / DPS depending on situation). Pretty sure I soloed / moloed basically every Partisan and Mercenary task in the expansion using myself as a tank + Healer Merc supplementing my own heals. Then again I'm one of the better geared druids around.
^and the fact that only some tanks or some players parse their heals that get cast on them is what leads to some healers *not you* but some healers focusing all their heals on the players that have a reputation for posting their heal parses thus a player will "appear" really good because they can generally be top healers on that player even if it means they neglect other players in the process that do not parse. IF EQ had some automated ability built in that basically generated all the heal numbers that each player in the raid recieved from each healer then I'd think heal parses would be an absolute must have, but since heal parses only get posted by a few people, it's as you said a small picture - which leads to my main problem with it, it leads to bad players "gaming the parse" and focusing all their energy on the players that will get them the most recognition without actually showing actual skill. The only thing I ever use non dps related parses for is to spy on what other players cast, and in that regard yeah heal parses are useful, but the ones people post in /gu /ooc /shout / whichever are usually just fluff and ultimately meaningless to the skills of the healers involved.
Well I am mostly no more raiding anymore at the moment, but I can still heal in group content (maybe with the help of a cleric merc as support). The diversity of druid capabilities is still alive -> heals / nukes / debuffs etc. and quadding is being replaced by qintinting (even it is too boring for me). But hey yes we are still in game
Dald hit it pretty spot on. Judging heal parses is really not accurate unless every single tank is parsing. I know even in my guild, we only have 4-5 tanks that even keep logs on during raid. Generally analyzing cast parses is the way to go to judge a priests performance, especially in comparison to those of a similar role or class. As far as Druid usefulness goes, I've played most every class at one point or another, but I've always stuck with my Druid since I returned to the game 6-7 years ago. I have a blast playing alts outside of raids, but even with near 20k aa, I'll still join an xp group on my Druid to test sustain spellsets, and just because I generally enjoy playing one. I would still argue that we can fit the role of a being a main healer in any given situation, being that a raid or a group. I have never once had an issue where I needed to be replaced with a Cleric, because the gap in primary healing between the two of us just isn't very big. While Clerics have a lot of tanking utility we do not, when it comes to actual healing, Druids are competitive on any event or mob in the game.
if your looking for group game healer.. your better off with a shm if your looking for raid game healer.. your better off with a cleric
and if you're looking for something that heals a lot but still fits in a lot of places, not just healing, but healing, nukes, dots, snares (single, targeted AE and PBAE (vinelash cascade like rangers can)), debuffs (we're the only class that gets massive AC debuffs), teleports self and group, stuns, group fixed invis, high speed movement buffs (not as fast as a bard but our high end group cheetah AA does get way up there and compete with mounts), buff a target at high level with a 10k hp boost (and boost dodge by 60 percent) for 30 seconds, ect... then you're looking for a druid (and halfling druids can both hide and sneak, which in some situations lets us walk behind KOS see invis that would splat regular invis)... Shammy has the great focus buff line, slows (without the chanter version that has cripples built-in them), haste (without the chanter's version that adds extra buffs to haste in their haste)... i still wish they'd put a potion for focus or a clickie or something... that's the one buff that has no comparison for shamans... cleric HP marks, they did add one clicky in serpents spine, but mercenaries now cast that too... but it's not that druids no longer are needed... it's a matter of what class do you like to play with the playstyle you'd be doing... they want all classes to be useful and fun... it's a balancing act doing that and not killing a class while making classes more useful and fun... so each class gets something unique or shared a little but not very far... Druids get the ONE distinction of being the only healer/priest class that can track. if you don't have a ranger or bard in the group, a druid can track for the group while healing/DPS'ng...
Heart of the Void clicky from Ssraeshza Temple BPs is extra HP on the Focus slot. Also, there's an upgrade to the Orb of Duskmold symbol-type clicky from TSS on Old Man McKenzie (although you still have mercs casting that line).
