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

In classic? Dps difference between a mage and druid isn't that much in a group when you're talking maybe 1-2 nukes and a mob dies. Plus you just named 2 slots that can be accomplished in 1 slot. Why not a druid who can dps better than a cleric while providing heals (in classic lets be serious the heals are nothing to worry about) + a mage?

6 dps > 5 dps

Naw, they just don't. A group should be pulling fast enough to just keep up with the healer's mana regen. Clerics more efficient heals and shaman's ability to slow and canni means they can heal those big pulls without having to evac or wait for ever for mana. No pug wants their healer nuking. If the healer is DPSing because you aren't taking any dmg you are at a bad camp for your group and should move on to higher level, better exp mobs. Or pull more of them.

And it's not evac and go back to pulling. It's evac and run back to find that someone else is now killing at your camp good luck finding another one. Where are you even getting these 20 mobs? Or even 10 mobs? Pre-GoD people are packed in like sardines. You can run from zone in to Ghoul Lord in LGuk without seeing a single mob. The same goes for every exp zone. The Hole, Old Seb/Chardok, Velks, GE, Fire, Paw. Those are basically the only zones people actually go to for pugs, and they know the pulls.

Druids make good pullers because every other class is better off staying in camp. A good puller is never in camp, they are bouncing back and forth keeping a constant stream of mobs in front of the DPS. It is a waste for bards or monks to be out of camp 90% of the time, when they could be benefiting the group far more DPSing or buffing. Especially considering pulling requires zero finesse these days. A druid on the other hand? They weren't going to be nearly as useful as the monk/bard/literally any other class while sitting in camp so they might as well pull their weight by pulling. It is about the only role where they can do just as good a job as another class, if they know what they are doing.

Well the main reason is cause that takes 2 groups slots. Say my group is an SK, Monk, Mage, Ench, BST. I do not need a cleric. SK can mitigate enough damage that healing him wont be a giant stress and the BST can assist with slow and heals what I really want is more damage druid make a lot more sense than any other priests.

No. You need the cleric to heal the enchanter's pet, who will be doing most of the tanking, and is going to need Cheal. As well as the safety of res incase the chanter gets murdered by a poorly timed break. A cleric's faster casting heals are also more likely to keep the enchanter alive when there is a break. Cleric still out shines a druid in that group.

Druid and cleric heals are the same cast time. Kill pet if it gets low for more xp have druid nuke and DoT for even more XP. DPS makes XP happen.

You have a beastlord in your theoretical group, which means that Luclin, at least, is out. This means clerics have access to their remedy line, which casts faster than anything a druid can throw out. Seconds count when keeping a squishy chanter alive.

Killing your pet forces you to then find another one. Also, why are you in a camp with mobs that are low enough level the chanter can charm them? With that group (and a cleric, instead of your druid) you should be fighting things regularly that are too high level for the chanter to charm. They should have grabbed their pet on the way to the camp, not from the camp. Are you going to run back to the field in fire to get a new horse every time the pet get's low HP? Cause you can't charm anything at tables. Having a druid nuke is not going to net you more exp per hour than a cleric if you are killing level 62-64 mobs instead of 65-68 mobs.

Druid nukes are okay, but until they get their short duration dot it takes far too many ticks for the dot to be more efficient than the nuke from a dmg/mana standpoint. It's like 6 ticks before casting a drones line dot over a nuke is even worth it. I sure hope that, with your group's make up, and only fighting things that are of level for the chanter to charm, that your mobs aren't living 36 seconds.

You aren't min/maxing by taking a druid over a cleric. Ever. A group will always be able to tackle harder mobs that will give more exp if you had a cleric instead of a druid. Only time to take a druid is if you are at an easy camp and you don't really care about getting the most out of your time. In a camp like that your druid is unlikely to be adding anything over the cleric, as chances are your group is going to be killing the same number of mobs either way. There are only so many mobs in those easy camps.

You know I was just thinking about this myself and while I get that the reason monks and bards tend to be pullers is they have the toolset to do it and do it well, both classes really should be hanging with the group either pumping out DPS in the case of the Monk or providing ADPS and Mana to the group in the case of the bard.

Also odd as this may sound, but I remember back on the Brell Serilis back in the day, aside from spilt on a raid, the tank was always the designated puller and the monk and bards stayed with the group. It still feels weird to me to see the tank standing around waiting for something to be pulled to him. We also didn't have a huge population of enchanters so most of the groups I was in lacked any sort of crowd control other than root, yet we seems to be able to handle things just fine. It is really odd seeing how the gaming dynamics have changed over the years.

Early on EQ their healing prowess is similar. However, shaman slow isn't mitigated for a while which makes them one of the most op classes in the game until that changes. I believe the first time you see trash mobs start to mitigate slow is in GoD. A fully slowed trash mob can be tanked by any class pretty much. Their mana regen is also significantly higher because of canni.

I've boxed both classes through PoR, Shamans get a hot which has a lot of value, but heals aren't too far apart, by dodh I'd probably give the pure healing advantage to druids. Debuffs between slows resists and attack are fairly even. Where shamans separate themselves is buffs. Their buffs are so incredibly good that it makes it hard to not just use a shaman. The adps they provide is so much better than druid up to this point in the game, that it doesn't matter if a druid can do a bit more dps if they really tried.

So yeah, buffs and ADPS separate shamans by a large margin. This may change as expansions move forward, but through PoR I find it hard to take my druid over my shaman.

1 Slows
2 Slows
3 Slows
4 Cani
5 Dots that hit like a truck

To be fair when taking about druid DoTs vs Shaman or even Necro, is that they are resisted a whole lot less. I would say that from a mana efficiency standpoint, being able to actually land the DoT in one cast is a whole hell of alot more efficient than a Shaman or Necro having their DoT completely resisted... multiple times...sometimes never landing....especially against those deep red mobs you say they should be fighting. Also spells are only inefficient if you run out of mana so it doesn't matter if your DoT does 1 tick of damage or 20 as long as you can cast it on each MoB that is brought to camp without fail. Clarity and a conc potion go a long way to making this a reality.

This is 100% true. I am and have been convinced for a long time that Clerics are by far the most OP class in the game, at least levels 1-70 as that is as far as I have ever played the game. They truly trivialize content. I mean can you imagine only having no Clerics, only Shaman and Druids as healers in a raid? There is also a noticeable difference to the feel and pace of a group when a Cleric is healing vs a Shaman or Druid. It very often goes from tense when a Druid or Shaman is the main healer to perfect calm and tranquility when a Cleric is the main healer. Only an Enchanter has as much effect on the pace of the group and even the Enchanter can't be effective without a good healer.

Honestly, the only reason Clerics haven't been nerfed is because the only thing they can do is heal and not many people want to heal, even Druids and Shaman, so their OP'ness doesn't step on anyone's toes. Cleric's aren't soloing group content or outtanking tanks and aren't filling a role that any other class really wants to do. Also they are an enabler class, enabling all the other classes to do content and XP faster than they could do without a Cleric so hell yeah to OP healing powerz Woot!!!

I never played a Druid past PoP, so keep that in mind

I’ve played both Druid and shaman on TLPs with Classic start, and at least thru PoP I can say that Shamans are better without a doubt

I tried a beastlord/Druid on one TLP. Eventually changed BL to a Warrior because BL weren’t really good yet (think they start getting good around PoP). I struggled in Luclin to duo or group with Druid healing, his mana was always tapped and it was a constantly stressful management of mana trying to keep up with heals that would ultimately leave me having to med for awhile. I’m once PoP kicked in, my Druid could no longer heal in virtually any of the PoP zones because the damage output of mobs is too high. Even with slow it was difficult to heal, without a slow it was impossible

Shaman on the other hand are tanky and have endless mana with Cani. Their healing is pretty solid and their slows mitigate so much dmg you can basically get away with using HoTs to heal tank a lot of times . Shaman buffs are also much better, and they can add some nice dps with powerful DoTs, which again is easy to sustain with Canni

Granted my Druid was not raid geared, but outside of charming in PoP, my shaman out performed the Druid in virtually everything that mattered and made the fights seem almost trivial. The Druid was just an endless panic of worrying about getting even 1 add that would completely deplete his mana spam healing the tank trying to keep him alive

I’m now duo boxing shaman/SK on Mischief, just started on the server 3 days ago. Since it’s already past PoP, the port utility of Druid is significantly negated

Because shaman are big beefy characters, even da wimmen, while druids act like little chihuahuas and squeal when they get hit

It's just way more efficient to have a puller who is free to run back out again before the last pull is completely cleared. A monk or bard can bring in a few mobs, then once you've killed all but the last one, they go back to pulling so that the group is never just sitting around doing nothing. And with Selo's working indoors, bards are just the fastest pullers. If the tank is also the puller, there's a long pause between pulls because he can't go out again until the last pull is fully killed and he has been healed up again.

Early on in the EQ timeline, bards aren't even that good at buffing/ADPS. Unless you have a group with like three melee DPS and no shaman or enchanter for haste (sounds like a horrible group to me), what does the bard really add? Mana song, and that's basically it. And in this era, mana song is kinda weak and has such a tiny AoE that the casters have to practically meditiate on top of the mob that's being killed (or the bard has to stand around with the casters, doing nothing else) which, while technically possible, is just not really something people do with any kind of diligence. In reality, mana song doesn't have 100% uptime because of this. People will forget to stay in range half the time, that's just inevitable.

In later expansions, bards actually get proper haste and other songs that buff damage output like Rizlona's, but early on, the class honestly blows at this job. Don't know why people in classic always think bard songs are super useful. Resist songs on raids are a no-brainer, but for an XP group, what bard songs really have a meaningful impact on the XP/hour? Like I said, unless it's a melee-packed group and there's nobody to provide a proper haste buff, bard is one of the bad classes until epic.

However, they make perfectly fine pullers, and they can serve their most useful role while doing it: CC if there's no enchanter in the group. Being unable to mez anything over level 45 in classic isn't that much of a concern because very few XP mobs are over that level, and a pull will rarely contain more than one of those so you can just kill that first. And you can keep 100% uptime of your CC while being the puller because you're the one who brings in the mobs, and you leave for the next pull when there's only one mob left of the last. That's the only good use of a bard pre-Kunark.

Then they get gradually better with each expansion, and finally become obscenely good in PoP. But for classic especially, and to some extent Kunark/Velious as well, bards are just not that useful except as pullers. Hell, if it's between a bard and a druid, you will get more raw value out of a druid who is able to meditate at all times than you would from a bard who's able to stand in the camp at all times singing mana song (the only song that's relevant between pulls).

When saddled with the job of pulling, a caster provides essentially nothing other than the act of pulling because they'll never really get to meditate, and they'll do it worse than a bard or monk. There's basically no reason to have a caster pull. Even an underpowered class like druid still contributes, just not as much as others would. It's far better to let them meditate and perform at full capacity than to literally give up everything they do so that they can serve as a bad puller in order to... improve mana song uptime for the rest of the group? I mean, does that sound worthwhile to you? You would need a group with 3-4 caster DPS in order for that to even add up mathematically vis-à-vis the total mana given by mana song versus the performance of a druid.

If choosing between an entire druid doing everything that class does, or 100% uptime on mana song instead of 50% or whatever a pulling bard provides, we don't even have to do math to deduce what's more efficient. A druid who has to pull can't really do anything else. And then add the fact that the bard is actually better at pulling, having Selo's and the ability to lull, and is tanky enough to survive something like a ghoul root or an untimely bash from the mobs, and it becomes a no-brainer.

A bunch of people play shaman so there will be at least one slower/malo in a raid. If you play a druid/shammy on a raid you are probably on damage duty and the druid wins here. The melee are all going to get the avatar weapons so that turns to a nonissue.

You can knock out the leveling classic-kunark with both classes pretty quick. At this point you are plat farming when you are not raiding. The druid is a hunter. Not a group farmer. Pop into a zone, check for named mobs. Pick over. Track. Kill a placeholder. Port to a new zone. Check for named. Root rot with the druid clicky arms. Get that loot. Port to commonlands and sell. Stack that Krono

Luclin, charm in chardok and farm easy AAs then quit when you get bored with PoP

Sounds awful considering druids become even more fun the later you go and the content is 1000x moe fun.

If slow were mitigated from the get go then Shaman wouldn't be nearly as well thought of. Druid ATK debuffs aren't as noticeable to a raid geared tank as they are to a group geared tank and it can be shocking to see how much it helps on the more squishy characters.

Yeah but finding a puller can be tricky. It is one of the harder roles to fill in a group, because most people are lazy. So a druid who puts "Willing to Pull" in their /lfg message will have another opportunity to get invited to a group. Bards are rare as mains, and the monk is always better off in camp dpsing. Are bards better, It's debatable and would depend on too many other factors, but bards are hardly overwhelming the LFG window, where as you can usually always find a better healer LFG.

A druid who pulls can do plenty else. Pulling makes druid root CC more effective, because they have more control of the mobs before the mobs get in camp and then the druid has to yell at the stupid casters to move away from the rooted mobs. Which they never do. Sow is plenty of runspeed for pulling, you aren't running that far. Root and snare can stagger mob entry into camp, and most camps don't really need or want CC. You can still throw the odd heal or nuke, or catch a tick or two of mana regen during fights, just as a bard can toss out a few seconds of song buffs. If you are using your lower level spells, which you should be doing, you won't be using a ton of mana while running around pulling.

They are perfectly adequate in the role, and it's a role that only needs perfectly adequate in most situations. They are capable of keeping mobs in camp at all times without overwhelming the group and that is all that is needed.

This is all valid but let's face facts, the reason a Druid isn't good as a puller is due to the fact that are heart, they are a caster. Casters need to be sitting on their butts whenever they can to regen mana quickly enough to be able to last out the fights and Druids don't have the most efficient spells as is. A OOM druid is pretty useless and that is what they would be if they were pulling. Heck even SKs and Pallys lose tons of efficiency when pulling because they rely on mana for much of their toolset. That leaves Warrior, Bard, Monk and Rogue as the only classes that are manaless and are not disadvantages heavily for standing through the entire fight.

I think honestly, yeah even though it is not traditional, a Druid could step outside the box and make an excellent puller but like most arguments against Druids, there are very few instances where they are the best class for the job. That seems to be the mantra of druids, "I can do everything, but your better off with another class that does the job better."

It is a shame really because I can see how good Druids are as a package but they always tend to be overshadowed, perhaps unfairly, by the more specialized classes.

If you are not a druid. You are wrong.

/thread