Amid the recent flurry of discussions about clerics and necros, I feel like its time for another druid talk after summoning two sprites in 3 summons.
I’m going to make a few claims here:
1) Druid is the most difficult class to play well solo. I don’t believe that any other class blends magic with melee to the extent of druid. Our spells vary in effectiveness throughout the areas of MD, and even within areas, our spells work in some rooms, work well in others, and not at all in others. No other class needs to be as persistently aware of the terrain. We must manage the health of 3 creatures, (4 including us) amid combat spam. Of course, the variability of summons makes your killing power vary from hour to hour.
2) Druid is even tougher to execute well in a party. While we bring defense by way of 4 new targets and a spell or two, there are frequently mages that are willing to offer a shield for free, $, or a share of the xp. So the defense advantage is questionable; it works in some scenarios, but doesn’t work in many. Downtime to summon makes killing choppy.
3) Druid is mostly useless in PVP. This is vague, and there are scenarios in which druid could do well. Our walls are decent, but not the best. If we knew when and where a pvp engagement would happen, we could possibly do well.
4) Druid lags behind in XPing rates. Yeah, I know, everybody hates a comparison along this line. Apples to apples is tough, but, I’m pretty sure it was Kira who told me that druid could never keep up in XP. While we have seen some upgrades to the class since that time, the story hasn’t changed. And frankly, how fast a character can XP determines how quickly he can advance.
5) Druid is particularly geared to modest to large kills, but it is hard to argue that druid is tops at this. We have some nice spells. Earthquake, sticks to snakes, faerie fire work almost everywhere. Insect swarm not so much. Landslide, tree attack, etc. not so much. The strategy is mostly to make a ton of targets, light the enemy on fire, and let the DoT and quake kill the enemy before it kills you or your summons.
So druid is one of, if not the, most difficult class to play well. One would think that for the investment we make in playing a druid up to aristo, there would be a nice payoff in power. Aristo druids are an elite few: Ylyndar, Kira, Rok, Me, Croc, Walker, and one other that I can’t remember. I aristoed around 2004-2005, Walker and the other last year, Rok maybe 2 years ago. Ylyndar, Kira, and Croc were 2-4 years before me.
It seems like the reward for playing druid is off. It is a decent class, and definitely more playable than it has been in the past. But we are still in this rut of being the most difficult class to play, without ample payoff for that work we put in.
