Druid balancing

[Harney]

I wanted to open a thread for discussion on how to improve the druid class. On live they were always great utility between their ports, sow, being able to kite / DPS etc all while being a good support healer. Here, they really don't have any of that. DS clickies are a dime a dozen on items, can get sow from the buffer, don't need ports from players because the forest bot sends you anywhere you want to go. Their DD / dots don't scale like they should for them to want to cast their DD / dots. They are currently a weak cleric.

Druids don't do anything on raids except for healing. They're worse off than clerics because they don't get spell haste or DI or group heals to go along with their single target heals. Skin of Chaos ( a defensive proc that heals the tank ) is the only spell I see Lang cast besides his single target heal.

I'd like to get feedback on what others think druids need to bring them in line with shamans and clerics. You currently don't have any raid guild, save ours, that ever has them on raids, I'd like to see that change and for those wanting to make druids be able to and not fear they're not going to be wanted at all once they reach level 70.

I went and looked at guild rosters, I see 1 druid in Sereas, 1 druid in progeny, 2 in Evolution ( not counting the level 56 one ), 0 druids in Fusion, and 1 druid in dinodeeps. That's not even enough druids to fill a group in the entire raid game on this server, obviously something is wrong, there are no druids because they have nothing anyone wants to roll one for.

[Harney]

My personal suggestion would be to put their single target healing above clerics, slightly. Clerics are always going to be required, their group heals, spell haste, and DI are irreplacable, they get utility in a sense, druids do not. I'd put them 10% above clerics for single target healing.

Edit: Second Idea I had would be to give them a 10 minute buff, 1 minute recast that improved healing by 30%. So 1 cleric 1 druid would be better than 2 clerics, therefore making druids wanted on raids.

[Tyler]

Fun, one thread below you explain in great detail how the parent class (warriors) should always be better than its child class (knights)

Im open to suggestions, but i will not put up with the outcry of the clerics on this server.

[Harney]

I've said long ago ( months ago, when I started playing here ) that knights should have their defensive disc lowered from an hour but to not give them a warrior disc as warriors have always had their mitigation, knights still have their utility. Paladins still heal well in groups, they still have DA, they still have buffs. Sk's still lifetap, they still have FD, DA, and ae aggro spells.

Druids have lost all of their utility, my stance on knights hasn't changed since I started, and won't change, they should be the king of aggro, and tank slightly under where warriors can tank, it's how they've always been. This thread is to discuss druids and how we can improve them so that they are a) wanted to be played by people, b) useful in the high end.


http://forum.thehiddenforest.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1638 is a thread of mine from Dec 02 asking for knights to have their aggro upped and their disc lowered to 10 minutes but be a 35% mitigation. December 2nd. Everything I said in that thread I mirrored in the recent topic of knight defensive disciplines. Please, if you want to discuss knight issues, leave it to the knight thread, I felt like you attacked me in this thread so I'm pointing out to you that my stance has been the same since I came here, and that in that thread, if you reread it, you'll see I asked for knight aggro to be upped.

Back to druid discussion.

[Tyler]

Yea - back to druids.

I was thinking to boost the things that made druids so nice, regen, ds, buffs mainly. I am totally with you, i want every class on the server to be desirable. I hate that on 99% of Emu servers you see Warriors/Clerics/Rogues only or rather mainly.

So how about making the regen line worth casting the mana. Currently their top regen does 60 hp/tic. How about we 1.5x that to 150/tic or so (just throwing out numbers, don't quote me on that).

Same with Damage Shields - druids have a self only damage shield line that has high ac and moderate DS that stacks with existing spells - how about we open that up to be /targetable and fine tune the values?

Third suggestion is about the heals. I dislike the idea of anyone healing better than clerics in spot heals. But how about an elixir that heals for high value but only 2 tics? Let's say 5k and 2 tics?

The heal focus buff is also a good idea, maybe not necessarily 30% but in general a good approach.

Discuss!

p.s. i know Chaosslayer always wanted to give Druids an entire line of pet spells, that's also ok but needs to be balanced against all the other pet classes - in other words rather weakish. Still, i am always looking for good ideas to improve this class

[Lillu]

druid pet could be something like a black puma?

[Tyler]

Yea that would certainly kick ass.

[catthib]

Lillu, my Druid Tamae really,really likes the idea of that Puma.

And Tyler's ideas of upping the regen amount but lowering the tick is definitely fair. My Clerics couldn't find a reason to kvetch about it, and let me tell you, if Mierrie and Cellice could find a reason, my ears would be ringing!!!

Anxiously waiting to see what the results are gonna be!!

[ChaosSlayer]

important note: the pet should be a rogue, so it would serve to boost druid DPS side (even on raid), rather than to be another generic tankish type pet.
And considering its a cat - heavy magic resists suggested.

[Arremis]

I disagree with making them heal better than clerics. I agree they should have the most powerful regens in the game (that would be handy on raids to have the druid regen the tank, and the cleric spot heal - it would ease the pressure on clerics). I agree their damage shields should be increased (only mages should be able to out DS them). I would like to see their single nukes hit a little harder. DoT's seem to be ok at the moment, they stack for some pretty good DPS (although I'd like to see the 1.0 DoT have a shorter recast time and maybe the damage scale with level (would also like to see this on the Necro 1.0, but that's a different thread) - originally the 1.0 click was a combat proc on Live that scaled with level). I like the idea of the puma pet, and as much as I'd like to see it be a rogue pet, I think that would be too much of an advantage DPS-wise (Tank Bot + Rogue Pet + Healing Player), I think it would best to have a tank pet (after all, druids are kinda squishy, kind of a non-DPS version of the beastlord - that's the last thing we want is for the druid to out-DPS the beasties). I would also like to see more druid shields in the game (so far, after getting the 1.0, the only off-hand items I can use are the Manastone, the Newbie Lantern, and I'm sure if I look around I might find a vendor-bought shield).