Druid Review (The Good, The Bad & The Ugly)

[Failedlegend]

Well me and my friends have been trying to play various Druid builds both single class and multi-classes and well here's what we think so far.

The Good

Most of the Animations: Somebody(s) put ALOT of love into this cleave, summoning, intimidates, dancing, trip,etc. all have unique animation whilst in animal forms and were loving it

Ease of Shapeshifting: No stupid timers, no healing penalties/immunities, instant transformation with a minimal cooldown well done

3 Druid Past lifes + Augment summon + Magister + Palemaster or Arty make an awesome "Summoner" build

The Bad

- Animal form abilities such as slashing, roaring, leading your "pack", etc. cannot be done whilst raging since for some odd reason they've been made spells instead of subfeats of the animal forms granting at certain druid levels...also causes them to require SP...so you know I cannot roar w/o mana

- "Flame" Blade...why choose the most commonly resisted element...why not make it Elemental Blade so you can swap the element depending on the situation...maybe make them different weapons if you'd like...Earthen club, Lightning Spear, and Ice Sickles or something similar

- Good berries have to major issues, can only be used in taverns but can only be created in quests AND disappear upon logout them also they only heal hp for warforged (lubricated seems to heal sp for fleshies)

- Monk Unarmed damage and Animal form damage do not stack greatly reducing the usefulness of the iconic Drunk

- Healing capabilities are subpar when compared to other classes especially with their unique regen spells only lasting a few seconds and having no mass heals of any kind.

- Schizophrenic in both elements & spell school...druids have very few spells in every element in ddo but not enough that you can actually focus on an element (8 Fire 3 of which are useless, 4 ice, 3 air, 4 untyped/physical/force, 2 radiant)

- Bear form while awesome thematically is underwhelming both because it falls WAY behind in defensive capabilities to SD Fighters, DoS Paladins or Earth Monks and offensive capabilities of well pretty much anything...the attack animation while cool is very slow especially the first attack is delayed.

- Requiring Druid 9 before being able to take Nat fighting is a PITA for multiclassing builds it means regardless of the build you can NEVER MC before 9 or delay these 100% required feats to not suck.

- This is a minor mostly flavor driven complaint and I can understand why it was done but I was very disappointing when I realized my Zombie Bear (or Ghost Wolf...or Fire Elemental Vampire) would not be possible.

- The Prestiges are not even worth taking some normal enhancements are more powerful than these

The Ugly

- Whenever you interact with ANYTHING you disappear for a second than switch to a human than disappear for another second or two than switch to animal form again, it looks stupid and my dog can pull switches fine without twitching out...why the rapid transformation to flip a switch

- When falling or feather falling the animal form shadow is your normal form (ie dwarf)

- The Wolfs equipment icon seems to get stuck (ie. mine still looks like generic starter leather armor despite him wearing +3 Ice guard leather armor now)




Anyways I'm going to be continually editing this as were current discussing our various likes/dislikes but feel free to respond and I'll add your druid grievances/likes to the list...overall though Druid seems fairly underwhelming

[Daemoneyes]

- Monk Unarmed damage and Animal form damage do not stack greatly reducing the usefulness of the iconic Drunk

Does work, my Drunk has atm in Wolf-form 4,5 d10 17-20 x3
It only shows the correct value with Wraps equipped (and empty) but it works with all weapons


- "Flame" Blade...why choose the most commonly resisted element...why not make it Elemental Blade so you can swap the element depending on the situation...maybe make them different weapons if you'd like...Earthen club, Lightning Spear, and Ice Sickles or something similar

Flame Blade is a very iconic spell of the druid and its not that bad, only 16-20 is problematic.
But yes more options would be welcome.


- Bear form while awesome thematically is underwhelming both because it falls WAY behind in defensive capabilities to SD Fighters, DoS Paladins or Earth Monks and offensive capabilities of well pretty much anything...the attack animation while cool is very slow especially the first attack is delayed.

Yupp, Baer Form is Fail Form.
Animations are like slow motion, it reduces damage so much that only fluff maniacs use that form (well they and noobs)


- Whenever you interact with ANYTHING you disappear for a second than switch to a human than disappear for another second or two than switch to animal form again, it looks stupid and my dog can pull switches fine without twitching out...why the rapid transformation to flip a switch

yupp, horrible, it makes me want to switch my build from wolf-form fighting to normal monk style
that animation uses way to much cpu and that in combo with ladder bug is pure horror for low-mid PC user
Wish the Devs would actually try such stuff before releasing it, would love to see there faces when they try to jump out of water onto a ladder in form...

[Failedlegend]

Does work, my Drunk has atm in Wolf-form 4,5 d10 17-20 x3
It only shows the correct value with Wraps equipped (and empty) but it works with all weapons

Hmmm...really cause i tested it a few months ago...was it recently changed?

- "Flame" Blade...why choose the most commonly resisted element...why not make it Elemental Blade so you can swap the element depending on the situation...maybe make them different weapons if you'd like...Earthen club, Lightning Spear, and Ice Sickles or something similar

Flame Blade is a very iconic spell of the druid and its not that bad, only 16-20 is problematic.
But yes more options would be welcome.

Oh yeah I know only flame exists in PnP but DDO is highly Anti-Fire so its less useful.

- Bear form while awesome thematically is underwhelming both because it falls WAY behind in defensive capabilities to SD Fighters, DoS Paladins or Earth Monks and offensive capabilities of well pretty much anything...the attack animation while cool is very slow especially the first attack is delayed.

Yupp, Baer Form is Fail Form.
Animations are like slow motion, it reduces damage so much that only fluff maniacs use that form (well they and noobs)

Yeah the only reason I'm still doing is I want to test it all the way to 20, I'll likely LR to wolf when I hit that if we don't all just TR out of Druid

- Whenever you interact with ANYTHING you disappear for a second than switch to a human than disappear for another second or two than switch to animal form again, it looks stupid and my dog can pull switches fine without twitching out...why the rapid transformation to flip a switch

yupp, horrible, it makes me want to switch my build from wolf-form fighting to normal monk style
that animation uses way to much cpu and that in combo with ladder bug is pure horror for low-mid PC user
Wish the Devs would actually try such stuff before releasing it, would love to see there faces when they try to jump out of water onto a ladder in form...

I really just wonder why they bother'd it looks stupid just leave us in bear form and give us a bear climbing and "action" animation (a quick claw swipe would do for doors, switches, chests,etc.) I'm sure they could repurpose swimming for climbing and the Shred for "Action"

[EnjoyTheJourney]

The Good:

On a first life, under-geared character, which is typical of a new or casual player, a druid is likely to be a particularly attractive choice for a first character to level up to 20; the wolf takes aggro (including when the druid is laying on his or her back after being tripped), provides a second damage source, and spots traps and hidden mobs / doors.


The Bad:

I'm not bothered by anything other than the fairly small SP pool that druids have. Then again, I haven't tried a bear build, and I can see from the feedback of others why bear form is likely to be disappointing.


The Ugly:

These kinds of things are "eye of the beholder" stuff, and I'm not seeing any ugly over this way. I like druids.

[dunklezhan]

seconded for bear form improvements being needed. That right there is why I don't play a druid. All I fancy playing is a huge bear tank and it just isn't feasible pure class, and I don't particularly like multiclassing personally. Druids can do a lot of different things, and I've seen some awesome casters, but the only bit of Druid *I* want to play with is a waste of time.

Maybe they're not the best first life class. But I've seen too many running about the place and doing very well thank you to think that they're more sucky than good overall.

[Ghwyn]

I enjoy playing my druid; it is one of my favorite classes. It is very veratile, and requires an adaptable playstyle. I go from healer, caster, and melee switching forms as needed. I end up in bear form most often as the con bonus and 20 extra prr are nice. An aoe, dot, and dps will take most all mob encounters.

Bear form does need more improvements. I think it should a +4 to str.

[Failedlegend]

I enjoy playing my druid; it is one of my favorite classes. It is very veratile, and requires an adaptable playstyle. I go from healer, caster, and melee switching forms as needed. I end up in bear form most often as the con bonus and 20 extra prr are nice. An aoe, dot, and dps will take most all mob encounters.

Bear form does need more improvements. I think it should a +4 to str.

Oh dont get me wrong its not a terrible class and I actually love its concept its just ok at everything making for a mostly useless class.

[Grailhawk]

The Good
- Earthquake
- HOT's
- Temp Spell Points.
- DOT's both AOE and Single Target

The Bad
- Prestige Enhancements
- Low damage Class in general.
- The wolf builds can be good DPS but still come behind the Top tier DPS melee class.
- The caster builds lack instakills or High burst Damage Spells.
- No scroll mastery

The Ugly
- Bugs.

[Kilbar]

My primary complaint with the Druid is that you're locked in to either bear or wolf, with no other options like, for instance, panther. I like cats and I'd really like a feline option made available.

The panther form could be a compromise between the speed of the wolf and the power of the bear with the form resembling the Fen Cats from the Red Fens out in House K. Make the monstrous version a Razor Cat.

[Maelodic]

have yet to cap a druid, but this is what I like and dislike so far:

The Good:
-Sleet Storm and Freedom of Movement combined with reaving roar make them one of the best zergers in the game.
-DoT healing is so synergistic with melees, as your health is always changing, and burst heals will more than often overheal you.
-Class is designed to be a melee caster.
-Great boss killing DoT spells for quickly murdering all the things.
-Plenty of utility.

The Bad:
-The animal form animations for falling, opening things, climbing latters and casting spells suck. The weird switchback is terrible.
-If you want to be a relatively viable damage caster and still be able to maximize animal form, you need the capstone.
-Flame blade is great, except it's just fire and you can't really spec into it viably.

[hermespan]

Oh dont get me wrong its not a terrible class and I actually love its concept its just ok at everything making for a mostly useless class.

Focus your build on either melee or casting, and pick the appropriate destiny. I assure you it's not Primal Avatar. The only business you have in primal avatar with any class is grinding fate points.

[hermespan]

have yet to cap a druid, but this is what I like and dislike so far:

The Good:
-Sleet Storm and Freedom of Movement combined with reaving roar make them one of the best zergers in the game.
-DoT healing is so synergistic with melees, as your health is always changing, and burst heals will more than often overheal you.
-Class is designed to be a melee caster.
-Great boss killing DoT spells for quickly murdering all the things.
-Plenty of utility.

The Bad:
-The animal form animations for falling, opening things, climbing latters and casting spells suck. The weird switchback is terrible.
-If you want to be a relatively viable damage caster and still be able to maximize animal form, you need the capstone.
-Flame blade is great, except it's just fire and you can't really spec into it viably.

Even with capstone, animal form casting is _way_ too slow. It's too slow for even buffing yourself at a shrine let alone in combat. I always get out of animal form for that.

[hermespan]

My 2 cents from a capped 2nd life melee druid perspective... :
The good
_huge_ (and very achievable) potential for melee DPS with the right build/gear
_huge_ potential for melee tanking with the right build/gear (unfortunately tanking is useless in this game)
self healing. in fact at level 25 I can solo tank some EE quest bosses in the right ED, usually while the rest of the party kills/preps something else. EE raid bosses? probably not.
Excellent buffs
Best hireling/summons/pet potential in the game out of any class
Survivability. Even in all out DPS mode, I stay alive in EEs. This often allows me to outkill eSoS barbs. You aren't getting kills when you are dead every few minutes and I'm finishing off what's left to res you.
Ridiculous HoTs. Too bad no one takes healing amp or they'd be useful. Oh well they are useful to me and the occasional player that takes survivability seriously.
Huge (I men gigantic) punch with the right build, ED setup, and gear.

Note: To get what you want out of druid, you need to decide something. DPS, Tank, or caster. You can't do all three well or even competently. Specialize or be disappointed. This is the biggest whine I keep seeing. It's not a valid complaint.

The bad
For all practical purposes, reincarnate is useless. I res people from scrolls. It takes much less time and despite needing to change to human form, it's still faster even if you fail the first attempt.
Pets are useless in EE. EH they sometimes die but that's to be expected. Pet HP should scale with difficulty and the scaling should be proportional to your feat and wisdom investment. Ditto for artificers. Pets should have a role to play in EE, however small it is. As it is they are a non factor, dead 10% into the first encounter, even with augment, past lives and a 40 wisdom.
So So HP if you've maximized damage out. Then again this is par for the course. No one is allowed to be superman except monks in this game.

The ugly
Primal Avatar. Any ED but this one is better for a druid, no matter what type. I have used Magister on my melee druid while grinding fate points and it was more useful than Avatar. That's pretty bad. As well Shiradi is better for a caster druid. Where does that leave PA? Fate point fodder. The upside to this is that you can make lemonade if you study the EDs and make a very high dps druid. I'll leave that as an exercise to the player. This is not a build thread.

What's wrong with it? From a melee druid perspective there isn't a single tier 3 +2 or +3 w melee attack, and there are no attacks that increase your doublestrike or attack speed on crit, even for a few seconds, within this ED. Even if the melee specials were limited to only one weapon type, we'd have something useful here. +2/+4/+6 attack is useless. I have no trouble hitting anything to begin with, even in EE. Druids are killers. They don't like happy faces and unicorns, and that's what our ED is all about. There's nothing deadly in here.

For primal avatar be useful to a melee druid you need to throw us a frikken bone here. You shouldn't need to grind out 18 fate points and put together an ED puzzle to make a competent top 10 dps melee character when fully specialized.

Ditto for casting. Why should Shiradi get all the casting goodies? It's for ranger! The primal destinies all need a major rework and some ability swaps in the primal sphere. It's still laid out like there are only 2 of them and Primal is a collection of smiley face and unicorn stuff that doesn't really fit into any kind of serious dps or caster build.

When I look at the ED for my class I want to smile and drool a little. I look at PA and think "Kittens!!!!". Cute and lovable, but ultimately useful only for fate points or role playing flavor builds.

Conclusion

I've been playing druid since the day it became available. I like it more and more every day. In fact I have more fun with it now than I ever did with my ranger back when Exploiter was DPS king. With the right build it is top tier dps. Maybe not THE top, but it's top 5. For the benefits it offers, and the dps capability, I have to say it's my favorite class of all. I have a U14 capped melee ranger, fighter, and wizard. Basically druid came out and I've never looked back.

[buddabopp]

my thoughts on druid after playing an 18 druid 2 monk to max lvl


The Good
Druids have an extremly high ability to cc things that are tripable as well as have an easier time getting the dcs required to effectivaly cc things (icestorm + earthquake = awesome).

Druids also have an extremely high healing ability expecially if you are in EA destiny which gives you a very large burst aoe heal on a 15 second cooldown, effectavely removing the need for mass heal as it is faster casting more healing and cheaper(note if you need to build up charges to cast the spell sunburst is your best friend).

Moderate single target dps paired with highish aoe dps is a druids bread and butter words of balance is quite powerful for single target and a combo of icestorm earthquake and storm of vengance makes things dead quite quickly.

Also i love primal avatar for dc casting, most people find it underwhelming but if you get three ranks in cacoon, spores, and then just put points in wis increases and the drayad it is quite a nice destiny to be in.

as a side note to spores if you use it grab yourself a REPAIR spell power enhancing item, yes i know it sounds crazy, but it will increase spores damage since spores does rust damage.


The bad

The druid's small sp pool pushed me to take mental toughness, imp mental toughness, and epic mental toughness, but wihtout having to take spell penn feats to be able to cast a general caster has 3 freed feets.

Bear form kinda sucks.

Fire form kinda sucks compared to water form (-2%fort on mobs vs -4 saves on mobs).

highest casting damage form is actually bear or wolf form assuming max casting lvl (magic fang +5 enchantment = 15 extra spellpower).

Spring resurgance is kinda worthless after a while unless you target has a lot of healing amp.

no real burst spells.


The ugly

The wolf pet dies too quickly on EE.

The lag caused by oppening doors or chests.

[psykopeta]

druid is the best toon i played so far

god of stealth, i mean, lvl 1 spell + lvl 3 spell = hide and move silently capped at 11

hots, the ultimate sp management, because CLW heals far less than lvl 1 vigor, same applies with higher lvl spells

only 6 spells needed, 2 fire + 2 ice + 2 lightning

rest cc, hots/cures or buffs for pets/hires, no need to have druid pl to use the minilegion to clear entire rooms(i use mainly the reduce aggro, increase stats, alignment bypass and knockdown on 20)

the ugly for me are the animal forms i mean... im the tank of my pet,hire & summon, if i was in animal form... that would be quite PITA because the 2,5 times cooldown, if there wasn't such cd increase i would use bear instead of shield blocking while the spells + minilegion kills the mob

is the only thing i would change, but have in mind im a caster(and sometimes healer, because a barb hire + pet + summon + augment summoning is nice to see, more than using a clr hire lol)

if i wanted to melee i would change the damage mechanic of animal forms, something like both hands apply 100% (only different prefix/suffix) because that offhand has no relation with i would expect from an animal form

maybe doing double strike only apply with wolf while glancing blows only apply with bear, make THF line affect to the bear form and shield mastery only apply to wolf form

however, as caster is the best at low lvl lol (3 pl with rest of divines and arcanes), im enjoying it more than the bb zerging, wf sorc or pm