Haters gonna...

[dean.rys]

It's really funny to me how disparate the opinions of druids are.

Speaking only of the people that have actually capped their druids (or at least have claimed to)... some, obviously, think they are garbage and aren't worth the time. Others are so impressed that I've even heard that they need a couple nerfs.

I'm beginning to think that it comes down to HOW people are playing them. IMHO, they aren't "Melee" or "Caster". They are both.

Speaking for myself, I love the class. There's a few key tweaks that I would love to see, but overall I think the nay-sayers need to take a closer look.

There are a handful of unique abilities that are incredible... and useful despite the player level.

My advice to someone who hasn't played on yet:

Don't listen to the forums as far as opinion of the class is concerned. Roll yourself a pure druid and have fun. experiment and see what you like. If you expect to read the forums to get the best max/min build, you'll be disappointed.

Druids, at this point, may not be the best at any one thing, but their versatility allows them to do a bunch of things great. Be a team player, because that's how druids shine.

TL;DR: ITT ****storm

[arminius]

Do you have a recommended build for how to achieve this balance? I can't get my head around how it could be done. You either have to pump DC's and spell power or you have to pump strength and power attack and melee feats. The same would apply to loot--I can't imagine dragging around a whole set of loot that boosts spells and a whole set of loot that boosts melee, then frantically switching between them when applicable.

I believe you when you say it can be done, but can you provide a bit more detail on exactly how? I have zippo experience with druids at the moment, having been put off by all the people talking about how gimped they are.

EDIT: also, the enhancement lines for melee and casting are contradictory, as are the ED's. If you do shiradi's then you gain in casting and lose in melee, since it only boosts ranged. If you do draconic or magister, you not only lose on melee but also wisdom. If you do dreadnought or fury, then you have no casting boosts.

[dean.rys]

Unfortunately, that is exactly what I was trying to avoid. I really feel the best thing to do is to experiment. I LR'd 2 times and swapped endless feats and enhancements to find what was best for me.

I fell that a lot of people won't even roll up a druid because of the negative feedback.

Players with negative feedback are a lot more vocal on the forums then those that are enjoying their druids.

Again, I feel that the discrepancy is because some are trying to play their druids like they would a sorc, or a barb, etc.

Aside from giving you a complete build, I've found what works best for me is an melee elemental.

I've jumped back and forth between the 2 PrEs to see how I can squeeze a little more out of the melee and spell DPS at the same time.

Currently, I'm trying (again) the caster PrE and swapping the ele forms. I had melee feats and one by one found that they were less and less important so I swapped them all out for metas. (the feat starvation is one thing I would change - grant Augment Summon at lvl 5 maybe?)

In fire ele form, my Body of the Sun hits normally for ~200 and crits for ~400. My fire seeds are respectable as well, crit'ing for +300 on each seed.

In water ele form, my Ice Flowers have hit for over 400 between the cold and slashing damage. Greater Creeping Cold hits for over 1k on the last tier.

Aside from all that, I swing around a LitII stave and can spam earthquake (which is one of the most effective spells IMHO plus it looks awesome), blind mobs with sunburst, heal yourself endlessly for free with Spring Resurgence (if you do it right)... tons of fun and effective stuff, which is why they are great team players. (even though I solo a lot without any major issues)

Also as a side point, regenerate - unlike heal - gets rid of neg-levels. Which I think is a nice little bonus.



My point is, it's respectable and not as d000000m-y as some people feel.

[Mubjon]

I have a druid that is level 8 now, did not start it with the fix to vetII so I have been playing when I can and loving it.

Still messing around with the feats though and I doubt I will be happy with it until I get to the elemental forms.

[Chai]

I agree with the OP.

The popularity of the "Tukaw" style builds and all their variants show me that there are a contingent of forumites who know how to play caster/melee hybrids. The large number of melee FvS show me that people are familiar with melee divines. People are familiar with sacrificing full caster functionality for some melee functionality and utility.

It is well known that the class will not do any one thing better than the specialist class that does that one thing the best. This does not gimp druids however.

If we compare druids to sorcs, we see that druids dont do spell damage as well as sorcs. What is often neglected in that statement is the druids melee damage, utility, and healing trumps sorcs (yeah people can roll WF, but they arent healing entire group) A druid through all 3 can contribute as well as a sorc can with just their damage.

If we compare druids to melee, they arent doing barbarian-esque damage with their weapons alone. I bet its comparible when we add up their weapon damage, the fact that they are standing in a firewall, and their pet is also outputting its own damage. Situationally its even better than full on pure melee (shadow crypt for instance).

[LupusVai]

Do you have a recommended build for how to achieve this balance? I can't get my head around how it could be done. You either have to pump DC's and spell power or you have to pump strength and power attack and melee feats. The same would apply to loot--I can't imagine dragging around a whole set of loot that boosts spells and a whole set of loot that boosts melee, then frantically switching between them when applicable.

I believe you when you say it can be done, but can you provide a bit more detail on exactly how? I have zippo experience with druids at the moment, having been put off by all the people talking about how gimped they are.

EDIT: also, the enhancement lines for melee and casting are contradictory, as are the ED's. If you do shiradi's then you gain in casting and lose in melee, since it only boosts ranged. If you do draconic or magister, you not only lose on melee but also wisdom. If you do dreadnought or fury, then you have no casting boosts.

If you're looking for a competitive build, a raiding build or a power build it cannot be done. You've only got to read the posts by the more informed or competitive gaming orientated forum posters to see this. If you're looking for a bit of fun, solo friendly and don't care about raiding or playing elite endgame quests then it can be done.

The problem is this you either have to melee spec in which case you end up with a poor melee character or caster spec in which case you end up with a small spell point pool, low DC's low spell power, rubbish PRE, over expensive AP costing enhancements and lack of much group utility. A druid is much like making a multi class 7 wizard / 7 cleric / 6 fighter so far as it can do a bit of everything but about as well as the multi class split i've mentioned. Going a bit of this and a bit of that build on a druid only exacerbates the issue.

I've a capped wolf build druid and also have a soon to cap elemental build. I enjoy them both but they are both sadly lacking from being good in end game content or raiding. Druids just don't bring anything useful that cant be done much, much better than another class. They have some interesting stuff and ideas but it all lacks the umph and polish to actually make it shine at end game.

Of course I'd love the OP to find some mystical hidden secret and post the uber build that proves everyone else wrong.

"Druids, at this point, may not be the best at any one thing, but their versatility allows them to do a bunch of things almost ok. Be a team player, because then you may be able to join groups again despite how lacking druids are."

[pie2655]

Haters gonna what?

[Dolphious]

I have a capped elemental druid (Yhvain, Cannith, MyDDO him if you don't believe me). I basically agree with Lupus.

I started out as " caster" druid, but around lvl 16-18 (forget exactly when) I LRed to pick up the 2wf feats for better flameblade melee. I found, as most others seem to have, that you need to bring to bare both melee and spell damage to be effective.

When soloing you can be really effective by gathering up mobs for mass earthquake+firewall/icestorm+body of the sun+storm of vengeance, and a bit of melee if they're properly CCed. You can melee individual or small groups without burning a lot of SP, and you can dot tank very effectively (more defense than an arcane, more offense (though more subject to resistances/immunies) than a divine.

But when it comes to full group epic elite type stuff your effectiveness is pretty questionable. You're damage is just tickling mobs at that point, your healing can't keep up with incoming damage in tough fights, your CC is too unreliable (partly because of the many mobs that can't be tripped, partly because of the bugged sliding mobs after they've been tripped), etc. Basically nothing you can do is really up to par, so you end up just being crappy DPS with some generally uneeded support heals.\

So, yes, the "haters" are wrong. The class is not entirely garbage. It's fun to play and can do a lot of things well enough for epic hard. It's not even terrible in raids and epic elite, but it is sub-par in that content.

[dean.rys]

But when it comes to full group epic elite type stuff your effectiveness is pretty questionable. You're damage is just tickling mobs at that point, your healing can't keep up with incoming damage in tough fights, your CC is too unreliable (partly because of the many mobs that can't be tripped, partly because of the bugged sliding mobs after they've been tripped), etc. Basically nothing you can do is really up to par, so you end up just being crappy DPS with some generally uneeded support heals.

I definitely agree with that. I think it's a bit ironic that the epic level quests came out at the same time as the long awaited druid when that's exactly where the class is least effective.

If druids came out an update or two ago, they may have had the chance to normalize their viability building up to those contexts.

I'm sure (at least I hope) that the devs will increase their effectiveness within the next couple updates. Maybe they are waiting for the new enhancement tables to come out and have something special planned... who knows.

As someone else in the forum said, for once they released a class that didn't need to be nerf'd with patch right away but instead will need a boost.

I think you sum it up nicely though:

So, yes, the "haters" are wrong. The class is not entirely garbage. It's fun to play and can do a lot of things well enough for epic hard. It's not even terrible in raids and epic elite, but it is sub-par in that content.

[jsaving]

I fell that a lot of people won't even roll up a druid because of the negative feedback.

Players with negative feedback are a lot more vocal on the forums then those that are enjoying their druids.

I completely agree that people need to try the druid class for themselves before forming a firm opinion about it. It isn't an easy class to wrap one's head around, and there is no substitute for actual experience to see whether what works (or doesn't) on paper will work in-game.

That said, I'm not seeing very many people refuse to roll up a druid because they've seen too much negative feedback. What I am seeing, all too often, is people who roll up a druid thinking it will be more than it is, and then post the disappointments they've experienced with the druid class in the forums.

Part of it boils down to design mistakes, in my view. People like the idea of a druid because they want to morph from one form to the next on the fly, but this is all but impossible as druids are currently implemented. Because the devs created a new natural fighting chain that provides no benefits outside of animal form, and eliminated standard TWF/THF benefits while in animal form, druids must choose whether to be melee-gimped in animal form or in human/elemental form. Because innate attacks are implemented as spells rather than SLAs, druids must further choose whether to be melee-gimped in wolf or bear form (if opting for natural fighting) or fire or water form (if going elemental). The end result is that druids find themselves essentially "locked" into a single form, negating the fun-factor people expected from the class.

Another part boils down to what is in my view a misunderstanding of flexibility. Other things equal, a class that can do more things shouldn't do each of them better than everybody else in the game -- that's a basic tenet of game balance. At the same time, though, every class needs some area at which it does excel, so it can be a contributing party member. If we truly were dealing with a situation where druids can do "a bunch of things great" but isn't quite the absolute best at any of them, as the OP says, then I think one could safely say the devs succeeded in bringing an interesting and well-balanced class into the game. But I would argue druids are only adequate at a bunch of things, not great, which leads to a decidedly less rosy conclusion.

Druids are my favorite class in the pencil-and-paper game and I really wanted to like them in DDO, but at the end of the day, they just don't measure up. Doesn't mean they're useless, doesn't mean they're dull, doesn't mean they're impossible to cap, doesn't even mean they can't be a meaningful contributor in most quests -- but it does mean some tweaks to the class are needed if they're to be the popular and productive class we'd all like them to be.

[DevHead]

Personally I've been thinking high Str/Wis H-Orc qstaff user to get melee and casting fairly well balanced. Can't say I've done anything with it yet, but that's what I'm gonna try; too many other things I'm doing right now.

[Galeria]

I think they are probably watching the stats on Druid pretty closely- how many have been rolled, how far they've leveled, how many are being played on an average day, etc.

I would be surprised if it was anywhere near as popular as the artificer was at the same stage, to be honest. But only Turbine knows for sure.

[DevHead]

I think they are probably watching the stats on Druid pretty closely- how many have been rolled, how far they've leveled, how many are being played on an average day, etc.

I would be surprised if it was anywhere near as popular as the artificer was at the same stage, to be honest. But only Turbine knows for sure.

Which would be funny, considering Druid has been wanted by the playerbase for yeaaaars.

[Xyfiel]

Currently on my 5th Druid build, having started since Beta Phase I, and there is without a doubt a problem with any Druid build I have played or seen. They are too versatile even when speccing for specific roles. It doesn't matter you can play them on EH, I can run any 14caster/6anything and do EH. EH isn't exactly hard. They level fine from self healing and firewall/icestorm regardless if str or wis specced. They don't do well in the hardest content.

What would you bring a Druid in for for a EE raid?
Healer: they don't get scroll enhancements or regular mass heals
Tank: horrible dps in Bear resulting in low threat
Dps: Nuke dps low due to spell points and no SLA's, wolf dps mediocre
Support: Druid buffs can be cast from other classes, no songs, no ranged, no traps, limited CC, no heal scroll enhancements

Comparing a Druid to leveling and running EN or EH is comparing them to 90% of the builds out there. Plenty of builds can do that and not be min max completionist types. The only thing they are better at in that sense is really messed up builds, like the Heavy Metal Dungeon God.

I don't think they are horribly gimp either, they just need some tweaks. Enhancements are the main area that they are weak in.