For anyone that does not know me or my play style, I am mainly a healer that will lay down good dps when appropriate and if the party wipes I just kill everything myself, raise everyone and then move on. This even happened on pt 4 of an elite shroud once. Pots were used. Needless to say I build for my own personal survivability first and for most. My view is, if I’m alive then the party is alive. My toon dying is just not acceptable and I won’t put up with it. Next is my healing ability. My fvS which I have played almost exclusively since FvS was released, can easily solo heal hard/elite shroud and most other raids. Third comes the dps. I don’t expect to be able to top kill charts. If I’m on a raid as a healer I don’t even concern myself with kills. BUT, if the S*** hits the fan, I have to be able to survive and kill mobs quickly. FvS has divine punishment, blade barrier and unlimited searing light and avenging light. With these spells I can do nice dps when called for.
Now I haven’t said all this to blow my own trumpet. I just want to be clear on what I expect from a toon, what I build it for and give you an idea of my play style. So now I am free to unleash my opinion on the much slated druid.
Four or so weeks ago I tr'ed my FvS. The toon that I had used to achieve almost everything there was to achieve as a healer. I wanted to see if a druid could cut it as a healer. Their HoT's sounded interesting and since DDO has never really had decent HoT's before now (don’t say RS because having to stand next to the fight in order to heal for 50 a tick is just wrong. Putting myself in danger and at risk of dying for low healing is just crazy and something I would never do.) I wanted to see how powerful they could become. HoT's are a funny thing in mmo's. Getting the balance right is hard. In most games they either end up being under powered and useless, or they become to powerful and pretty much make you unbeatable. Its hard to get the balance right.
So despite all the doom on the forums about how much druids sucked, I went for it! And after being capped for 3 weeks all I can say is, I will NEVER go back to a FvS, and I will explain why.
Survivability: I don’t understand people saying their caster druids suck for survivability. We have heal just like a FvS. We can reach the same ac as a FvS. We can reach the same hp and a FvS. If you go exalted angel you can even have leap of faith like a FvS. The only thing we don’t have is natural dr 10. Sorry but if you think that dr 10 is what is keeping your FvS alive in epics then you need to wake up. Useful against a barrage of arrows but that’s about it. What the druid does have however, is a stacking 100% fortification when in elemental form and earthquake. IMO the best crowed control spell in game. Evocation dc, length of 30 seconds and mobs have to make a reflex save every 2 seconds or fall over. I have used this on mobs with some of the highest reflex saves in game and even they spend a fair amount of time eating the floor. And it has virtually NO cooldown! Instant win anyone?
My final verdict on survivability - FvS suck for cc. Comet fall is a one shot, costly cc if your spaming. And soundburst and greater command are ok, but once the mob saves, thats it. Recast is needed. For me this is one area that the druid kills the FvS and imo puts it ahead in survivability.
Healing: I’m still in the testing stage with this as it is going to take a lot of time before I can give a fair comparison. However, so far my druid has passed every test that has been thrown at it. I’ve healed every epic quest in game with no problem what so ever. I have healed an elite shroud with no problem. I have healed through demon web hard with no problem. So far my healing power does not feel less than a FvS. It’s just different and I feel like maybe it is even more efficient. For example, if a group all take 300 points of damage. I have to throw a mass heal. Can’t risk everyone been 300 life down all at the same time. So on my FvS I cast mass heal and heal everyone for 500+ hp. Great everyone back up to full. But 200 of that were wasted on every single person as I was over healing. Not an issue since this is the reason I never put points into crit healing on FvS as it is a total waste of time. Just causes more over healing. Same situation on a druid however, I cast mass regenerate. Heals everyone for at least 150 straight off the bat. Some people even taking 300hp. And then everyone getting another 4 ticks of that over the next 8 seconds. During which time the party is likely to have taken more damage and those ticks heal that to.
I am not going to sit here and say druid is a better healer than a FvS. Just different and IMO in a lot of situations more efficient. But on the flip side there are situations where a FvS will be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with a single mass heal. Taking a hole party from 10% health to 100%. In that situation I’m not sure the druid will be able to keep the hole party up. But I’ve not been in that situation yet and no party should get in that situation in the first place without something being wrong.
My verdict on healing - Different but equal so far.
DPS - FvS are widely considered to be good to great caster dps, when they want to be. There are very few mobs that a FvS can do nothing to. Most are not immune to light damage and when that fails you always have bb. The only occasions I can think of right now, where I was a bit stuck on a FvS is Cratos in epic snitch. He is immune to light damage and does not kite very well. Also any situation where you have a lot of mobs in a hole you want to kill. Epic ADQ. Caster FvS cannot kill a lot of mobs that cannot be kited, without it costing a lot of sp. But these situations are very limited and rare. The druid has a lot more variety than a FvS. Instead of having 1 aoe that you have to kite to use effectively. They have 3 aoe's that last for a length of time (firewall - fire damage, SoV - acid and electic, Ice Storm - ice and budgeon), aoe crowed control in earthquake which apart from being IMO the best cc in game, also does damage and an aoe dot which does poison damage to all mobs affected. They also have an aoe aura which I haven’t personally used but my friend says he is doing a lot of damage with (I tend to play water ele and not fire). Next comes the dot comparison. Greater Creeping Cold can equal Divine punishment in terms of damage. It lasts for 12 seconds. For the first 2 seconds mine is doing around 200 damage on a non crit. Next 2 ticks are for around 400 non crit, and the last 2 are around 600 non crit. My divine punishment, when stacked 3 times was doing around 600 per tick on a non crit. But for that you needed to keep the stack going and if you miss one, you start from the beginning having to stack them. It can deplete sp quite quickly when your trying to keep it going, and doing that while healing a group is a skill in its self. But with GCC you get the same sort of output without the need for stacks. And our cold spells reduce mobs speed by 25%, attack speed by 10% and reflex save by 4. AND we can make mobs vulnerable by 25% for 30 seconds. Also DP is only good when fighting 1 mob. GCC has a very low cooldown so it is very easy to dot 2 or 3 mobs where that is just not possible on a FvS. Arcane’s can do 2 if they use both there dots on different mobs.
My verdict on DPS - Druids are the kings of Aoe. More variety and dps that can more than equal a FvS BB. I won’t say beat it because it will upset to many people. I know the power of BB better than most and in the right situation and used in the right way, BB wins. Every other situation, it loses and there are more loses than wins believe me. As for DoT's, you get a lot more bang for your buck on a druid compared to both FvS and Arcane. But DP has an edge by having a lot less mobs being immune to it and Arcane’s can say we have more variety as we have 2 of different elements. But as DPS comes second to healing for me, sp saving is important so Greater Creeping Cold is a lot better for me as no need for stacking and hardly any cooldown.
The Negatives - Three fairly big ones I am finding so far.
Number one, mass buffs. What I wouldn’t give for Mass Protection from Elements, Magic Circle and Mass Death Ward. It is true, you don’t realise what you had until it is gone lol.
Number two, raise dead. Or should I say reincarnate. Please tell me the cast time on this is a bug and not working as intended. The only words that spring to mind while thinking about it is ***!!!!! If you don’t know what I am talking about, think of mass heal un-quickened. How long that takes. Well reincarnate takes that long and quicken does not affect it at all. To work around this I have had to work my gear and spend points in Cha just to push UMD to the magic 36, so I can use raise dead scrolls. This is the biggest issue I am facing as a heal spec druid.
Number three, being taken seriously as a healer. I have already had groups where people think I am joking when I say I am a healer and we don’t need a divine. And nobody lists druid when they have 1 spot for a healer. But hopefully in time people will put up lfm stating "Cleric, FvS or Markeyx".
Final thoughts: Caster druids DONT suck. I think it’s down to play style. I get the feeling Arcane players are trying it and saying "Uh this sucks. My sorc can do more damage than this". Why yes it can, because a druid is not a sorc so don’t play it like it is one. Then you have the evoker FvS saying "Uh this sucks. My FvS can kite through bb and cast mass heal". Again yes it can, but a druid is not a FvS so stop playing it like one. I can only guess about the melee side, but if its like the caster, then I would say people in general need to stop playing a druid like other classes and start learning how to play a druid, like a druid.