Why are Shamans almost universally thought to be better then Druids?

This is a question that has me kind of perplexed. I was considering a Druid alt for a while but the negativity around Druids prompted me to do a Shaman instead. However, looking at the spell line up, I can't really understand why Druids get such a bad rep.

Looking at the two classes at least in Classic:

1. The healing power seems the same for the most part, Shaman gets more stat buffs, but aside from AC and Stam/HP buffs, casting stat buffs like Str, Dex and Agi don't seem to have much impact on a fight.
2. As a Shaman I have slows but at least early the mobs are dying too fast or resist too much to get much use of it at least at level 28 whereas Druids get a pretty hefty DS which lowers the kill time on mobs very significantly. I know that slows really pay off later in the game I am not doubting that but I have to think the Druid DS really pays off as well. A mob or multiple mobs taking 29 damage every time they hit the tank has to add up to a pretty significant kill time reduction both speeding up XP gain and reducing the mana cost for healing. I have to think this at least somewhat compensates for lack of slowing.
3. Druid DoTs, from what I have seen, seem to be resisted much less than a Shamans, hell even on raids I generally see druid DoTs sticking while the mob just laughs at my Necro DoTs, including the ones the Necro shares with the Shaman.
4. Druids get better Nukes than the Shaman.
5. Druids also get an extremely useful Charm. As long as they can find an animal their DPS can be through the roof without even counting their DoTs and Nukes.
6. Druids also get amazing travel spells.

About the only real advantages I see Shaman having are the ability to take hits much better and mana regen in the form of cannibalize. Is it really only this that is the difference between Great Class, always want a Shaman in a group if a slot is open, to anything but a Druid? I really am curious because I realized I do actually feel that exact same way, that a Shaman is superior to Druid, even when logic doesn't seem to support that assumption.

I think you are looking at the wrong level range for this question and it is more about the end levels for each expansion when comparing druids and shaman.

Druids are the best class in the game to level up on a spare account and then use for porting and power leveling an actual good class that you want to play.

During Call of the Forsaken, shaman got a new and powerful healing spell line starting with spiritual surge. This heal is cast at a single target, but repeatedly 'rains' a heal on all friendly targets around them. This makes fully healing the raid with a few shaman a trivial thing and against any foes that use aoe damage, the shaman becomes invaluable and their healing parse goes through the roof.

The shaman can strongly single target heal by chaining their older versions of their reckless heal line, which does a little bit of damage to themselves, but yields a fast and strong heal. Their group heal line also repeatedly heals the group at regular intervals, making up for its cool down timer. They get a nuke that causes their next few heals to automatically twincast and when paired with their splash and group heal, is amazing.

All these tools put shaman on par with clerics for healing capabilities and make them shine during aoe heavy fights where the raid can just stack in one spot and get splash healing.

It sounds like you are focusing on early game comparisons, so:

1. In Classic, yes - but when Shamans get torpor (in Kunark), that's a game changer. Druids get these partial_complete heals later on in Luclin, but they're not great.
2. Slows get better with age and damage shields do the opposite. Come lvl 50 or 60, you will need slows to handle most mobs efficiently. After about lvl 45, damage shields really drop off a cliff as the damage from them just doesn't keep up.
3. Druid Stinging Swarm line has a -100 resist modifier, so yes, it sticks on just about everything. Necros get a similar -100 modifier on their fire-line of dots. Shamans don't get this, so you will get more resists. Shaman DOTs are much stronger though and they also have the Malo line of resist debuffs they can use.
4. Druids do get better nukes - but neither class has really good nukes.
5. Druid charm can be quite useful and is easily the most underrated part of the class.
6. Teleport spells are nice early on - less useful in later-game expansions.

The big perk of a shaman is that they have basically unlimited mana when they get Torpor since it is so mana efficient, they get the best slows, and they get righteous buffs later on in the game. Their DOTs are also nothing to scoff at.
They are a perfect "duo" companion because they can do all of the above and heal well.
You will find that druids start to fall behind shamans in usefulness because of their inability to slow mobs and the shamans ability to regen mana insanely fast.

In the earlier expansions Shams are practically stupid broken with how powerful they are. They are textbook example of how terrible game design and balance was/is. They basically have unlimited mana while druids ride front seat of the struggle bus when it comes to mana availability. Druids have some niche utility in the early expansions such as porting, but that dies off with the introduction of POP. The severe imbalance between druids and shams will remain until fast ooc regen kicks in, which is now earlier than ever (thank goodness). You really have to ask yourself "what in the .... were devs thinking when they created these two classes? They aren't even in the same realm of power balance."

Eventually druids become the certified "DPS" priest as well as being essential adps for casters. Shams won't be able to touch a druid in terms of dps between two players of equal skill & knowledge of the classes. Shams excel more at versatility and healing. They can essentially replace a cleric in 99/100 scenarios, even in raids. Shams can lay down solid dps, provide some of the best buffs, have essential adps for melee, debuff, etc. Druids are more narrowly focused class.

Shamans have an insane DoT in classic. They have canni and guess what you can bind wound while sitting so you just go ogre for stun immunity. And the big one is SLOW. Slow is just so strong you can stop a mob from doing 75% of its dmg.

While shaman can slow, they can also cast haste. Most melee will want a shaman over a druid if they have no chanter...throw in OOW expansion and epic 2 and well, what melee wouldn't want a shaman?

Like has been said before:

Shaman advantages -
1) Shaman get slows which are a game changer at higher levels.
2) Shaman dots are better damage (yes the one druid dot has a -100 resist mod which is nice but it doesn't do the damage of the shaman poison dot).
3) Shaman can be Ogres and frontal stun immunity on a caster is immensely valuable.
4) Shaman buffs are far more beneficial than druid buffs.
5) Shaman get malo which is great for a group.
6) Shaman get Canni which can be used while you also have Clarity so your mana regen can be quit high.
7) Shaman are the only class that can do Alchemy.

Druid advantages -
1) Druids get ports, but those are mostly irrelevant by PoP
2) Druids get snare which is nice but Necros and SK's can also do this so nothing that can't be done by others.
3) Druids can charm animals similarly how Necros can charm undead which is a good thing but Shaman get a weak pet that offsets a bit of this advantage.

I'm not sure if I'm missing anything but there are just too many things Shaman get that are super important and Druids get nothing that is super important, only some "nice to haves".

If Shaman did not have slows it might be a closer race but I'd still pick shaman for all the other things they get.

Many folks have already pointed out why Shamans > Druids. Such as the fact that slows get more powerful/required as levels go up where as DS's don't keep pace with mob health. At level 70 with my DS on the tank AND a bard DS on the tank the extra mobs take less than 5% of their health by the time we switch to them to kill them. This is further reduced when they are slowed, and no group goes anywhere without a slower of some sort. No one cares if they have a DS in group or not.

Mana regen is a huge boost to the shaman's power. Yeah, they heal roughly the same in classic, but with canni you are never waiting on the shaman's mana.

Shaman's get a very mana efficient HoT in the torpor line, and it only gets nicer when the snare/slow is removed. Druids get... nothing.

On raids druids bring nothing unique to the raid. There is 1 necro on our raids who asks me for my HP buff. One. And I am pretty sure he is doing that out of pity. There isn't a single buff that I can cast that some other class can't match or beat. Everyone else would rather have the Cleric HP buff to save buff slots, especially with OOC regen being in. With bards no one worries about resists. The only thing I have to MGB on a raid is Spirit of Wood and that is rarely needed because the clerics, shaman and bsts all can do the same thing only better. Yeah it stacks, but it's overkill and the healing is wasted.

Shamans bring the best slow in the game, as well as the only slow that lands on certain mobs. A HP buff that stacks with the clerics. An attack buff that literally every melee wants. A run speed buff with an attack component that also stacks with their other attack buff. Better cures. Why would you ever pick a druid over a shaman?

If you need heals a shaman or a cleric will out heal a druid either through strength of healing or mana regen, and there are usually plenty LFG to choose from. Druids will get picked last. If you need DPS there are half a dozen classes that can out DPS a druid.

I have literally had people send me tells while I had my LFG tag up asking if I would come out to some random zone and port them because I obviously wasn't doing anything more important. Ports don't get you groups. Evac? Bleh. If you have to evac your group is a failure and by the time you get back to your camp someone else will have taken it. And, chances are, if you had been a shaman and could slow the group never would have had to evac in the first place.

Well said. It's a shame that class balance stopped about 20 years ago in the timeframe that TLP servers thrive as it would be nice to finally see some balance across classes like the Druid, Rogue, Wizard, etc.

Thanks for the responses guys. I am sure there are a million debate on this but wanted to get a fresh perspective. Honestly I was thing that perhaps the perspective might have been the issue, i.e. Druids were being perceived a weaker class vs they actually being weaker class but you brought up some points I didn't think of. Thanks. Feeling much better about shelving my fledging Druid in favor of a Shaman now.

Druids in the early game suffer similarly to rogues in that most of what made their class "good" was utility that is no longer as relevant due to how much of a "solved" game EQ is and other classes perform the role desired better (monks vs rogues , shamans vs druids).

A decent HoT and/or a group heal would help but in the minds of most I don't know if it would ever replace the slows/haste/buffs shaman bring and the ability to blast heal a tank/charmed pet that a clerics CH gives.

Druids get some useful attack debuffs.
The also get mana regen in their skin line.
The casting time on druid healing is generally to slow.

However Shamy get a crazy tool box. It's more noticeable as content starts hitting harder.
The reactivate slow is an amazing buff to keep on tanks.
Once you get to PoP you can keep Avatar up on a solid list of melee DPS. This a considerable DPS increase. It better with Champion in OoW. It later get meagered into unity in HoT.
The Paw line of proc buffs is crazy.
The Shaman 2.0 is must burn clickie forever.
Shamy get an AA that allows them to cast off there HP pool, then you start getting various AE healing effects, this gives nearly unlimited mana.

I disagree with Kahna that druids don't bring anything unique to the raid. They have some pretty potent debuffs that reduce the raid target's ac and attack ratings. They also have a spell that ups fire damage to the mob and turns them into a plant body type for necros to get full benefit of their corruption line of dots from. Druids have strong adps features for caster dps groups, and so an optimal raid would have a druid in each caster dps group for the benefit of their aura and group black wolf buffs.

Shamans can fd.

Shaman becomes the go to class for melee support Priesting

Druid is the go to support for casters but their focus leans more to personal damage dealing.

But for overall flexibility the Shaman grows & grows across Expansions becoming the Melee Group & Main AoE healer with a lot of ADPS & while Druids narrow down to being a powerful DPS priest that has heals to keep a few ranged classes alive.

Shaman can do great DoT dps under the right circumstances (low amounts of AoE damage/AE Rampage) While Druids can usually Focus on DPS while doing lower amounts of healing as their group is usually not eating rampage.

Later in the game of course many casters are also meleeing & eating ae rampage so it's not a simple overall picture.

As a BOXed Character a Shaman is immensely powerful but they are also a very busy class so you need a high amount of micromanagement to use them really effectively, great if you have a high degree of attention & can split it quickly as the situations demand.
If you can't micromanage well you're better off boxing a cleric.

druids just destroy in chardok

Shamans have slow and haste. Druids don't. Looking at classic what class is most prevalent by far? Monks. Big Monk keeping Druids down.

Druids are gods