Druid, it is as good as the hype says?

[Chaosticket1]

the Druid is hyped up as being very powerful. Its also quite costly. So Im fact-checking because grinding for DDO points and unlocking the Druid is a big goal.

#1 Druid has free Animal Companion.
#2 Wild Shape forms
#3 High spellcasting ability.
#4 Druid has Summon Nature's Ally 1-9 at each spell tier. These spells dont have material requirements.

On paper this is great. You can be your own party. There are plenty of offensive and healing spells. Your animal forms mean you can also fight in melee pretty well.

[Coffey]

All classes are good in there own ways. Save yourself the agro and get VIP for a month and unlock everything you possibly can :)

[SirValentine]

the Druid is hyped up as being very powerful. Its also quite costly. So Im fact-checking because grinding for DDO points and unlocking the Druid is a big goal.

#1 Druid has free Animal Companion.
#2 Wild Shape forms
#3 High spellcasting ability.
#4 Druid has Summon Nature's Ally 1-9 at each spell tier. These spells dont have material requirements.

On paper this is great. You can be your own party. There are plenty of offensive and healing spells. Your animal forms mean you can also fight in melee pretty well.


I must have missed wherever you were seeing hype about DDO Druid.

DDO Druid is OK. It's what I'm playing. But it's not the Uber-Powerful Flavor Of The Month.

#1 and #4 are actually very minor benefits. Pets and summons are not that useful in DDO.

#2 is a lot of the flavor of what makes a Druid a Druid. It allows multiple different styles of play. If you like melee, maybe you usually run in Wolf form and melee. If you want to be a tank, you can run in Bear and take the appropriate enhancements for it. The elemental forms lend themselves more to offensive casting styles. Someone with more familiarity with playing the animal forms might be able to chime in with some more details on that; most of my experience is with caster Druids.

#3 "High" spell-casting? Well, Druid is one of the 5 full, 9-spell-level primary caster classes in DDO, along with Cleric, Favored Soul, Wizard, and Sorcerer. They have their own unique list of spells. But they are not necessarily the best at any particular spell-casting role. If you want a full-blown nuker, a Sorc is probably a better choice. If you want a DC caster, Wizard can reach higher DCs. If you want a healer, Cleric might be a better choice. Druid can do all those things reasonably well if you work at it, but I'm not sure I'd say to the point that they'd be hyped as being powerful over it.

So...to summarize: they don't suck, but they're not super-powerful. Play one if you think you'd have fun playing one. They are plenty powerful enough to contribute, but if you're only concerned about what's the very most powerful, you'll probably be disappointed.

[HungarianRhapsody]

the Druid is hyped up as being very powerful. Its also quite costly. So Im fact-checking because grinding for DDO points and unlocking the Druid is a big goal.

#1 Druid has free Animal Companion.
#2 Wild Shape forms
#3 High spellcasting ability.
#4 Druid has Summon Nature's Ally 1-9 at each spell tier. These spells dont have material requirements.

On paper this is great. You can be your own party. There are plenty of offensive and healing spells. Your animal forms mean you can also fight in melee pretty well.

Druid is currently the very best Two Handed Weapon melee fighter in the game.

Two Handed Weapon melee is currently the weakest build style for a variety of reasons.

Druid has excellent spellcasting (they're not Sorcerers, but they're still very good). You can't reliably make your offensive spells land AND be a melee combat monster. You'll have to pick one or be seriously mediocre at both. It can do either one just fine, though.

If you enjoy melee and you have a variety of nice Two Handed melee weapons that you want to enjoy, Druid is great. Aside from that, Druid is still pretty good.

[unbongwah]

I'm not sure what hype you're talking about, but:

Summoning is basically useless at higher difficulties, because even with all available buffs, the CR rating of your summoned creatures doesn't scale up enough to match enemies. Also you can only have one summon at a time, rather than a mini-army like you can in PnP or other D&D CRPGs.
Pets are a little more useful if you're a pure build, because you can equip them with gear (just armor and a collar though not a full set), but it's basically the same problem: namely you can't scale their power up enough to match monsters.
Historically I would say druid spellcasting is middle-of-the-road. The best and worst feature is they can do a little bit of everything - DPS, CC, heals/buffs - so they're versatile but they also don't excel at any one thing: the typical jack-of-all-trades master-of-none problem. Also druids are more focused on damage-over-time (or heal-over-time) spells, rather than burst-DPS or instakills. Again, this can be an issue at higher difficulties, when a good instakiller like e.g. Deep Gnome Pale Master / Illusionist can clear content faster.
Animal forms are the funnest part of druids for me. You can go with either a tank-y bear or DPS-focused wolf; you can either stick with pure druid to max out your spellcasting or multiclass to improve your melee DPS; and if you have the Falconry tree, you can turn WIS into your caster and melee DPS stat.

[Chaosticket1]

I cant say for certain about a lot, just reading things online.

Wolf Companion is bad? I read up on it and it can equip various items, like a character thought for weapons its limited to the equivalent of Monk Handwraps, and Druid-Compatible Armor. The bigger issue I can read on is the Wolf's Enhancement tree. Its quite a bit more limited in Action Points and options than an actual Player Character. But when you actually count it the Druid is already 100% of a character, so a sidekick would be a big help. I find hirelings to be essential, and adding a solid Wolf Companion would be quite helpful.

Comparing a Sorcerer to a Druid is a huge difference. The Druid can using Healing Spells and has access to 116 of its 116 spells so 100%, while he Sorcerer can only learn 32 of its 199 spells so 16%. Sorcerer is limited to spamming a few spells quickly, while a Druid has a considerable selection to suit different situations.

[Merrillman]

Even with my limited Druid use, Mass Regenerate if you have conjured and summoned beasts (and for some packs, they include summoned creatures — lev 18 Panther, 17 & 25 Owlbear, and 15 & 30 Shield Guardians) while Earthquake is running plus a storm is a LOT of Physical, Trips & DOT all while everyone in the circle is being healed and prevented from energy and stat drain. Druids can be very good. If you can’t stand up and have A half dozen pets stone skinned whacking things you can do quite a bit of damage while you’re healing.





I must have missed wherever you were seeing hype about DDO Druid.

DDO Druid is OK. It's what I'm playing. But it's not the Uber-Powerful Flavor Of The Month.

#1 and #4 are actually very minor benefits. Pets and summons are not that useful in DDO.

#2 is a lot of the flavor of what makes a Druid a Druid. It allows multiple different styles of play. If you like melee, maybe you usually run in Wolf form and melee. If you want to be a tank, you can run in Bear and take the appropriate enhancements for it. The elemental forms lend themselves more to offensive casting styles. Someone with more familiarity with playing the animal forms might be able to chime in with some more details on that; most of my experience is with caster Druids.

#3 "High" spell-casting? Well, Druid is one of the 5 full, 9-spell-level primary caster classes in DDO, along with Cleric, Favored Soul, Wizard, and Sorcerer. They have their own unique list of spells. But they are not necessarily the best at any particular spell-casting role. If you want a full-blown nuker, a Sorc is probably a better choice. If you want a DC caster, Wizard can reach higher DCs. If you want a healer, Cleric might be a better choice. Druid can do all those things reasonably well if you work at it, but I'm not sure I'd say to the point that they'd be hyped as being powerful over it.

So...to summarize: they don't suck, but they're not super-powerful. Play one if you think you'd have fun playing one. They are plenty powerful enough to contribute, but if you're only concerned about what's the very most powerful, you'll probably be disappointed.

[Pilgrim1]

These statements may be a bit different from what others say but From the perspective of someone who plays a druid extensively, and has a “final” druid (ie, i have almost everything i could want) this is what i think.

Druids are the best group healers in the game. Many different classes can be functional healers however.

Druids are the best spell dps in the game. Thats right, they are better than sorc’s at end game.

Druids are the second best self healers in the game, undead beat them out.

Druid wolf form is top tear melee damage (EK, rogues, tempests, and fighters can be great to).

Druid bear form is a great self sufficient tank, but there are better tanking options available and druid doesn't mesh well with them.


All in all i find druid really fun to play, but others can be fustrated by them. They also don’t shoe there true (caster) potential till 15 when you get earthquake.

Ill just echo what an earlier poster said, just get 1 month vip and try stuff out.

[marinersfan]

the Druid is hyped up as being very powerful. Its also quite costly. So Im fact-checking because grinding for DDO points and unlocking the Druid is a big goal.

#1 Druid has free Animal Companion.
#2 Wild Shape forms
#3 High spellcasting ability.
#4 Druid has Summon Nature's Ally 1-9 at each spell tier. These spells dont have material requirements.

On paper this is great. You can be your own party. There are plenty of offensive and healing spells. Your animal forms mean you can also fight in melee pretty well.

I agree with others that druid is pretty fun and powerful. I also agree the nature's Ally summons are not worth getting very excited about. The wolf companion is a little better, but honestly I don't really notice him most of the time.

It's pretty easy to make a solid caster druid for lower levels and difficulties on a first lifer just by spamming the SLA options while taking empower, maximize,, and quicken then get the cloak and bracers from the house C challenge pack to boost spell power (can get one free pass per day if you don't own the pack).

I can't attest to endgame, but can tell you my level 12 first life druid seems stronger than my level 16 second life paladin

[SirValentine]

Wolf Companion is bad?
...
But when you actually count it the Druid is already 100% of a character, so a sidekick would be a big help.


It's not bad, it's just not great. And it's already part of that 100%.



Comparing a Sorcerer to a Druid is a huge difference. The Druid can using Healing Spells and has access to 116 of its 116 spells so 100%, while he Sorcerer can only learn 32 of its 199 spells so 16%. Sorcerer is limited to spamming a few spells quickly, while a Druid has a considerable selection to suit different situations.


You seem to have been misled. A Druid does not have 116 spells prepared, only 54. It is easier for a Druid to change their selections than Sorc, but it's not impossible for Sorc. And, honestly, having the vastly larger selection to choose from is more of an advantage than having a few more prepared.

[Chaosticket1]

This is going into Build discussion, and thats okay. Again, Im reading Information as I have no experience.
===============================================
Season's Herald Enhancement tree is the "Caster" tree. Quite a few Spell-Like Abilities available.
Produce Flame, Creeping Cold, Call Lightning, Salt Ray, Word of Balance, Sunburst, Storm of Vengeance, and they all work with the usual Metamagics of Maximize, Empower, and the like. They are mostly elemental damage types so enemies may have immunities, though the variety makes prevents the spells from ever being useless. Outside those there are also boosts to critical chance, spellpower, and DCs.

The Animal Form trees both mitigate the problems with being in the different forms. Nature's Protector is the Tanky Bear tree. High levels allows you do ignore the Druidic Oath limit on armor so now your have Planetouched Full Plate.

Nature's Warrior is a Melee DPS tree. Seems like a Melee Ranger.
=====================================
The problems Im reading from others are that its not optimized to be a ultra specialist for Level 30/Reaper mode/Raids, like a Sorcerer or Barbarian would be.

The big benefit Im reading from all this is that you dont really have to cut out areas. IF your pick a Melee Druid you can still use your whole spell list. IF you have a Caster Druid your wont suck in melee. This goes well with solo-playing. Sounds perfect for me.

[Coffey]

Druid is one of my favorite classes. They are similar to a Cleric in that you have no choice for Wisdom to Hit and Damage so its difficult to be both Melee and Caster.

As unbongwah said earlier, you really need the Falconry tree to do both.

[unbongwah]

Druids are the best spell dps in the game. Thats right, they are better than sorc’s at end game.
Really? That's surprising. What makes them so good?

Produce Flame, Creeping Cold, Call Lightning, Salt Ray, Word of Balance, Sunburst, Storm of Vengeance, and they all work with the usual Metamagics of Maximize, Empower, and the like. They are mostly elemental damage types so enemies may have immunities, though the variety makes prevents the spells from ever being useless. Outside those there are also boosts to critical chance, spellpower, and DCs.
Druids get a little bit of everything: primarily elemental damage, but also light damage (Sunburst/-beam), alignment damage (Word of Balance), and force damage (Salt Ray). The upside is that unlike, say, sorcerers you don't need to specialize in a couple of elements so you're not as worried about enemies with specific immunities. The downside is you CAN'T specialize the way a sorcerer does and juggling gear for different Spellpowers etc. can be challenging.

High levels allows you do ignore the Druidic Oath limit on armor so now your have Planetouched Full Plate.
This requires Force of Nature ("Your Druidic Oath is no longer broken by wearing metal armor or shields."), which is a tier-5 Nature's Protector enhancement. So you can't take it until level 12 and it blocks you from tier-5 Nature's Warrior / Season's Herald instead. There's enough druid-compatible armor and shields that this isn't that much of an issue, but it's always good to have options.

https://ddowiki.com/page/Druid_equipment

[Kinerd]

the Druid is hyped up as being very powerful. Its also quite costly. So Im fact-checking because grinding for DDO points and unlocking the Druid is a big goal.

#1 Druid has free Animal Companion.
#2 Wild Shape forms
#3 High spellcasting ability.
#4 Druid has Summon Nature's Ally 1-9 at each spell tier. These spells dont have material requirements.

On paper this is great. You can be your own party. There are plenty of offensive and healing spells. Your animal forms mean you can also fight in melee pretty well.

if these are your goals especially while soloing i will again encourage you to try out the pale trapper build

i assume there are also druid/rogue builds but since wizard is intelligence-based instead of wisdom the synergy is higher

[Alled78]

the Druid is hyped up as being very powerful. Its also quite costly. So Im fact-checking because grinding for DDO points and unlocking the Druid is a big goal.

#1 Druid has free Animal Companion.
#2 Wild Shape forms
#3 High spellcasting ability.
#4 Druid has Summon Nature's Ally 1-9 at each spell tier. These spells dont have material requirements.

On paper this is great. You can be your own party. There are plenty of offensive and healing spells. Your animal forms mean you can also fight in melee pretty well.

Dont think druid is so strong.
Unless you love druid, wait for Alchemist class

[Folker]

I don't know about the summons and pet. In order to be useful you need to take augment summoning and even then they are not useful beyond level 20. If you can augment them further with enhancements and/or the improved augment summoning maybe useful till 23 at best.


Druids maybe able to do everything, but they can only do one thing well.

[marinersfan]

My caster druid ran out of oomph around level 17. He's a first lifer with decent gear. Ive spoken with others in game who feel the same...hard to overcome opponent save numbers without a "rich uncle" to pass excellent gear. He has solid ice, fire, electric spellpower and crit chance and +5 Evo bonus with current gear and a +10 Wis item, +2 Wis tome has been eaten..

I think a high Wis tome and sorc past lives are almost mandatory to continue steamrolling in epics if you want to do big damage casting spells. I also have limited epic destiny xp, so that could be a game changer if I progress further.

I'm at lvl 22 now, have run level 20-24 quests, E or R1 with groups and find my earthquake doesn't land often at all, same with the SLA spells. I've kind of respecced to be more of a healer so still kind of useful, but not nearly as fun as heroic quests. I may switch out some caster investment and spend time as a bear doing melee CC and heals if I decide to take him to 30...

I rolled an iconic "big bear doing stuff" as well, and he's super fun so far. With current state of affairs, I think melee bear is the way to go with druids.