Druid Class. Outdated?

Asmodron

I've been a Druid for some time, and I admit that the sole purpose  of why is because it makes my lazy life easier. As the years go by and new more flavorful and advanced aspects of gaming are presented to us, I cant help but look back to some of our oldest and sadly outdated classes. Druid -was- the first Forestral class, literally the core of what being a Forestral was back in the first days of Achaea and as such was incorporated to define the aspect of their bond with nature. With time, breaking away from the class happened giving us sentinels and sylvans, and as time went on with nerfs and better developed classes, Druid become almost obsolete and invisible.

Now dont get me wrong, there are still pros of being of the Druid class. The skill Metamorphosis which gives me the track ability (the single most useful and best travel ability in the game) allows me jump around sapience almost effortlessly, I havent walked in ages. The skill of Groves, now severely nerfed in power and offense from the fearsome beast it once was, still offers the ability to return to safety from any forest/garden/jungle room back to your loving branches. It also offers the ability to self-resurrect yourself, as well as your allies, and travel to any being in a forest room. Let's not forget the ability to harvest herbs and sell for profit. However as I said these are all generally luxury abilities and offer nothing more than easier travel and lazy life.

Now let's look at some of the basics. Firstly Druid is the single most non-unique class we currently have, having not one unique skill to it, nor any unique flavor to itself. Yes it has the forestral flavor, but that is shared with two other classes (stronger and more reliable classes at that) which overshadow the Druid's use in such an environment. Heck sylvans are more druids than druids currently. The Druid skills are severely outdated and some generally just dont make sense. Metamorphosis offers general abilities with each form, yet in the end there are only 4 morphs you will ever use since they contain the abilities of all the rest. Their abilities dont mesh well together at all, their "instant kill" ability of Incinerate requires both the target to be below 50% hp and the druid to prepare his flame beforehand by 10 seconds..something that is extremely unlikely to occur ever at the same time. The only chance a druid has of lowering a proficient enemy's health to 50% is if they are a troll in jaguar form with reflexes up and mauling away (sadly yes, jaguar form does not summon flame :P).

Metamorphosis in itself is just a poorly made ability and seems to be directed (or attempted to be) more towards thematics of "animal spirits" rather than general game mechanics. Taking the new Groves into consideration, it has I believe the most abilities of a skill in the game currently...and yet over half are never used/useless. There are 3 abilities which "show all those in the forest" and some abilities that are just never touched. Forestbinding is the most costly and "powerful" ability in groves..and yet it is more a hindrance if used since you are pretty much trapping yourself and your friends in too, not to mention there are still several ways to get inside easily.

Ever since the grove changes that made quarterstaves more useful and gave us portable grove powers... a grove have become practically empty space. A grove is useful for only 3 things now: Making quarterstaves, resurrecting others, Having a hive to summon bees from and that's it. Honestly other than the ability to preserve 1 forest room against exterminating forest-griefers, a grove has literally no use anymore, they may as well be  scraped and those 3 abilities become doable from any forest room/via quarterstaff.

Druids should get some remodeling done to shine as a class in Achaea should, not just have the look of some copycat'd class of the "2 other forestral classes". Make Druids the prime core of forestral life again please.

Edit: I forgot the ability to make gateways, which isnt very necessary unless you want to bring someone to your grove. Also a Druid will usually just Wyvern form and Track to someone if they want to go to them. With the new introduction of evoke-able gateways to those nearby, well then that also becomes useless to Druids since they could already track to them.

Asmodron

Yes true, Sylvans also suffer from no unique skill, however I always found Viridian to be amazing in itself from its flavor to its use, aswell as that heartseed. However a difference is that elementalism is actually an awesome and great skill for combat and utility whereas Metamorphosis is just..wrong.

Delphinus

• I've already classleaded something about forestbinding.
• There are other classes that don't have unique skills; Runewarden, Infernal, Paladin, and Sylvan come to mind. If you mean unique abilities, hydra and harmony are unique to Druids.
  
• Incinerate isn't viable in 1v1, but it is amazingly powerful in groups.
• Of the three "show who's in the forest" abilities, I use two of them regularly and for different purposes.
  
• You can't grove return from gardens.
  
• Groves wasn't more powerful before, it just had wider extremes: potent in the forest, useless outside. Now it's useful in a broader range of situations -- situations that people are actually willing to enter.
• You can't track to someone indoors, nor can you use tracking to bring someone to you, nor can you lead a non-flying party that way. These are all times in which gate (either version) is superior.
• Groves are useful for hives, resurrections, and quarterstaves, yes. They're also useful for: travelling quickly through Isolation, breaking shields with golems, gating to people for instantaneous travel (see above), gating people from places for quick escapes, flowing to enemies for instant ambushes, calling your loyals from across all continents at once, concealing entire groups as with a veil (a 2000-credit artefact), screening entire groups against area-wide Telepathy, restoring the willpower/endurance of entire groups with rain, summoning people across entire continents regardless of monoliths, and pulling from emergency energy stores in case your staff runs out. I use all of these often.
  

The Druid class does require some tweaks, but not along these lines. It might simply be that you aren't seeing the abilities used much because you're not in a forestal org.

Asmodron

Delphinus said:

• There are other classes that don't have unique skills; Runewarden, Infernal, Paladin, and Sylvan come to mind. If you mean unique abilities, hydra and harmony are unique to Druids.
  

Knights in general are considered one class except each taking up a different spiritual calling, so I saw no real need to mention them. However even mentioning these three, they still have abilities that mesh far better and flow into one another for combos whereas Druid just...no.

Delphinus said:

• Of the three "show who's in the forest" abilities, I use two of them regularly and for different purposes.
  

Im not sure why you would...one shows those in the forest, and another shows those in the forest AND the room they're in. Not sure how different purposes can arise from that .

Delphinus said:

• Groves wasn't more powerful before, it just had wider extremes: potent in the forest, useless outside. Now it's useful in a broader range of situations -- situations that people are actually willing to enter.

That is somewhat incorrect. In the past a Druid was feared in their groves and forest, which fitted very well thematically. Yes the problem was when they left the forest they lost an entire skill, however now with the changes they didnt gain much in favor for that either. However the concept behind a Druid being powerful in the forest was a nice one and Druids were actually considered very formidable within their groves, it is a shame they lost so much of that strength.

Delphinus said:

• You can't track to someone indoors, nor can you use tracking to bring someone to you, nor can you lead a non-flying party that way. These are all times in which gate (either version) is superior.

With Track you can travel at any time you wish, Gate requires you be in your grove. With Track you will 95% of the time find someone just standing in your city meeting area, allowing you to effortlessly return home whenever you choose, with Gate you cannot unless you are in your grove AND there is no monolith. With Wyvern form you can see the locations of all trackable targets in the land, allowing you to quickly hop to someone in a location closeby to where you wish to go, gateway you cannot. If you want to bring someone to you and you are not in your grove, you can still TRACK, HOIST <person>, TRACK back to city if you wish, gate would be more useful here I admit. Tracking costs nothing to use, gateway costs 300 energy. I still see Tracking as a far superior traveling ability than gateways, added with grove isolation you almost never walk anywhere as a Druid.

Delphinus said:

• Groves are useful for hives, resurrections, and quarterstaves, yes. They're also useful for: travelling quickly through Isolation, breaking shields with golems, gating to people for instantaneous travel (see above), gating people from places for quick escapes, flowing to enemies for instant ambushes, calling your loyals from across all continents at once, concealing entire groups as with a veil (a 2000-credit artefact), screening entire groups against area-wide Telepathy, restoring the willpower/endurance of entire groups with rain, summoning people across entire continents regardless of monoliths, and pulling from emergency energy stores in case your staff runs out. I use all of these often.
  

Breaking shields with a golem is as you said above, a situation ability in which the target must be in your now de-clawed grove, also the golem can be taken down fairly easily, I do not see him as worth mentioning sadly. Gating I talked about above. Flowing to enemies is also situational and usually a suicide mission as a Druid. If a forest enemy is foolish enough to enter the forest alone then yes perhaps, but flowing to an enemy will find you in gravehands and vivisected in seconds. Calling loyals...unless you have a special pet you need back, then there is no need for this for the Druid. Bees are callable back from anywhere, and steeds can be whistled back. Grove Concealment is a flawed idea in itself since if you suddenly DO have a veil across you then the enemy can easily guess "ah he is in his grove then". Honestly all you have to be is a little bit known, like yourself, and enemies will quickly know where you are. Telepathy screen is also flawed, it doesnt remove a mindlock already on you, but will (for a short time and a painful energy cost to keep recasting) stop future mindlocks. Unless you are expecting a monk to attack you any time soon you cant stop it from happening. Also in all honestly the monk could just walk into the grove and whoop the druid's ass anyway with little effort. Rain is helpful yes, forgot to mention that. Grove summon is only usable if the target is in a forest location though, and gives warning beforehand.


I honestly think revamping groves into just a quarterstaff ability might be a good general idea as the few left mini-abilities in groves can be easily made into quarterstaff cast abilities now.

Prythe

I don't think of my Grove as a skill set. My Grove is a part of me, my life, my lifestyle, and my roleplay.

I never thought about it in the terms you discuss above. I can understand from where you are coming, but I would hate to lose the global concept of what Druids have.

Grandue

Asmodron, are you arguing just for the sake of arguing? I completely agree with Delph, except for the incinderate comment. It is viable 1v1 even without artifacts, knuckles and bows only increase how viable it is.

There are several classes that are just "ok" without artifacts. With artefacts, Druids can be damn near impossible.

The problem is that a majority of those who play the class enjoy it because of the utility. Those who prefer combat will get frustrated with the class, but you can't have a class with the best utility in the game AND some of the deadliest offensive abilities. Since the majority of Druids prefer the utility, I agree with the admin in not making it an extremely easy, deadly combat class. The Sentinels are considered the "fighting arm" of the forest. You can't choose the best class to be lazy with and rave about their utility and then bitch because you can't 1v1 top tier combatants without arties.

Erasariel

Gotta agree with Grandue and Delphinus. Druid has huge utility, seconding only to, say, Alchemist - and the sheer number of things you can do with the Druid is where it's at.

I may not be a combatant at all, but I know, first-hand, that Druids can really help pin someone down in a group fight or simply deliver massive damage. Druid, in my opinion, isn't designed with damage and dueling in mind - it was designed for utility and group combat.

In a nutshell, Druid is fine as is, with some minor tweaks.

Asmodron

I know that many of the  forestral calls, Druids especially, are players who have been with the class for a looong time, newer players being attracted to more of the shinier classes, and I know that in general with such  long term attachments that change is unwanted, however I am bringing up points of why Druid skills are outdated in comparison to the other classes of the game. Druid have been at the bottom of the class list for some time now and I think a simply revamp to their skills (not a remake or change) would make it less messy and flow better together. Currently it feels like a bunch of puzzle pieces forced into each other to fit.

Edit: So yes by all means keep Druid as mainly a utility/support class if you wish, but perhaps cleaning up their skills to better even reflect that wouldnt be a bad idea?

Idelisa

@Prythe: Hippie.

But in all seriousness, as a Sylvan - Idelisa feels the same way as Prythe. She would keep her grove even if she got literally no skills from it and she just had to tend to it.

When I switched from being a Druid I actually chose Sylvan because I/she didn't want to give up groves.

Erasariel

They have said all and much more I would say though.

Delphinus

Asmodron said:

Delphinus said:

• Of the three "show who's in the forest" abilities, I use two of them regularly and for different purposes.
  

Im not sure why you would...one shows those in the forest, and another shows those in the forest AND the room they're in. Not sure how different purposes can arise from that .

Grove eyes for seeing who's already in (e.g. to stop an extermination in progress), forestwatch to see who enters (to prevent other attempts). Grove who is the third one, and it goes unused.

Asmodron said:

Delphinus said:

• Groves wasn't more powerful before, it just had wider extremes: potent in the forest, useless outside. Now it's useful in a broader range of situations -- situations that people are actually willing to enter.

That is somewhat incorrect. In the past a Druid was feared in their groves and forest, which fitted very well thematically. Yes the problem was when they left the forest they lost an entire skill, however now with the changes they didnt gain much in favor for that either. However the concept behind a Druid being powerful in the forest was a nice one and Druids were actually considered very formidable within their groves, it is a shame they lost so much of that strength.

In the past, people would refuse to enter groves to fight. This isn't because, hey, that Druid is such a Barney Badass that he's going to wipe the floor with me -- it's because the class was unbalanced. The design also forced Druids into a position of irrelevance for anything beyond forest defence, which encouraged stagnation. In a conflict-based game, fights are a good thing; discouraging it from both angles is bad design.

Asmodron said:

Delphinus said:

• You can't track to someone indoors, nor can you use tracking to bring someone to you, nor can you lead a non-flying party that way. These are all times in which gate (either version) is superior.

With Track you can travel at any time you wish, Gate requires you be in your grove. With Track you will 95% of the time find someone just standing in your city meeting area, allowing you to effortlessly return home whenever you choose, with Gate you cannot unless you are in your grove AND there is no monolith. With Wyvern form you can see the locations of all trackable targets in the land, allowing you to quickly hop to someone in a location closeby to where you wish to go, gateway you cannot. If you want to bring someone to you and you are not in your grove, you can still TRACK, HOIST <person>, TRACK back to city if you wish, gate would be more useful here I admit. Tracking costs nothing to use, gateway costs 300 energy. I still see Tracking as a far superior traveling ability than gateways, added with grove isolation you almost never walk anywhere as a Druid.

I'll just tell the Mhaldorian defenders to pause while I hoist our raiders into their city one by one. Or hey, I'll tell them to come outdoors. Here's hoping none of our guys have a mass salve.

Asmodron said:

Delphinus said:

• Groves are useful for hives, resurrections, and quarterstaves, yes. They're also useful for: travelling quickly through Isolation, breaking shields with golems, gating to people for instantaneous travel (see above), gating people from places for quick escapes, flowing to enemies for instant ambushes, calling your loyals from across all continents at once, concealing entire groups as with a veil (a 2000-credit artefact), screening entire groups against area-wide Telepathy, restoring the willpower/endurance of entire groups with rain, summoning people across entire continents regardless of monoliths, and pulling from emergency energy stores in case your staff runs out. I use all of these often.
  

Breaking shields with a golem is as you said above, a situation ability in which the target must be in your now de-clawed grove, also the golem can be taken down fairly easily, I do not see him as worth mentioning sadly. Breaking shields is pretty important if you summon an enemy there, or if they come to attack you, both of which happen to me often. Gating I talked about above. Flowing to enemies is also situational and usually a suicide mission as a Druid. Unless you're flowing with a group, or flowing to a soul to resurrect an ally. If a forest enemy is foolish enough to enter the forest alone then yes perhaps, but flowing to an enemy will find you in gravehands and vivisected in seconds. Calling loyals...unless you have a special pet you need back, then there is no need for this for the Druid. Bees are callable back from anywhere, and steeds can be whistled back. Steeds can't be whistled back from other continents. Also, it requires and uses no balance, which is good when you're doing a million other things. Grove Concealment is a flawed idea in itself since if you suddenly DO have a veil across you then the enemy can easily guess "ah he is in his grove then". Honestly all you have to be is a little bit known, like yourself, and enemies will quickly know where you are. Which doesn't matter if you have dozens of potential grove locations, not to mention portability. It also makes it more difficult to tell who's with you. Telepathy screen is also flawed, it doesnt remove a mindlock already on you, but will (for a short time and a painful energy cost to keep recasting) stop future mindlocks. Unless you are expecting a monk to attack you any time soon you cant stop it from happening. During a raid or extermination defence, if they have a monk, you can usually expect monk attacks. Also in all honestly the monk could just walk into the grove and whoop the druid's ass anyway with little effort. Rain is helpful yes, forgot to mention that. Grove summon is only usable if the target is in a forest location though, and gives warning beforehand. That's why you use it in conjunction with other things, like a monk's batter, or while the enemy's engaged in 1v1 with a single person from your group. You can also use it to rescue stragglers who are being attacked, and are too afflicted to move.

Do you realise that I play an actual forestal? Like, who does foresty things? I'm not just a rogue. There are defence things and protect-the-green-stuff initiatives that people actually use when they aren't just making their "lazy life easier."

Honestly, I'm not just arguing to argue here, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I've played the class for a long time. It comes from the fact that I use most of these abilities on a daily basis, and often to our marked benefit.

TL;DR: The Druid class does need changes, but they mostly revolve around a lack of reliable, versatile, class-centric 1v1 strategies. None of the stuff mentioned in this thread needs to be changed.

Asmodron

hmm well I guess the votes have it then, Druids class is good as is.

Zeon

Delphinus' latest post nailed it. You're not going to get the most from your faction aligned class unless you put yourself into a position to do so. In this case being an active member of the forestal community. 

Eurulis

Delphinus has essentially hit the nail on the head here. We're rather useful in group combat, but 1v1 is rather difficult. There are also a few abilities that I feel have been legitimately useless/changed for reasons I don't understand, some of which I think is due to cage/trap being deleted, and this seems to be the best place to ask about them. I'll go down the list.

Eject: Throws victims from your grove. The victim doesn't have any balance loss, however. They can very, very easily just go right back in while the druid is off balance, or worse, jumpkick back in or something. Cage used to force the person to crash past, and eject was rather useful (And a rather unbalanced, if I'm being honest). However, the lack of cage just makes this ability not really worth bothering with if someone is on the ball, especially since mass prevents it.

Fertility: I can only claim to have heard this second hand, but I've been told that fertility only lasts a day now. It's been a very long while, but I believe it used to work for an entire month, though only in the grove. I feel like this could be lengthened to maybe two or three days. Seems like the benefits for using fertility are extremely low, and I can see why. It essentially speeds herb growth for almost nothing. Still, at best, you're not really speeding growth very much, so in the end, I don't -think- people really bother with it.

Lightning: This used to be a quasi-area attack where it hit anyone in the same area as you were, as long as they were in the forest. Didn't break shield or anything, just did straight damage. I'm not entirely sure why it was decided to be changed to an LOS attack, though I'm certainly not complaining. Just curious as to the reason for it's change. Seems logical to me that it should have been changed to just a straight area attack, though I'm not really a combat mastermind here.

Everything else I can understand perfectly (Especially hinder/displacement when grove totems were a thing), except Summon, really. It's been nerfed pretty hard, with the fact that if you move even one room away (And it's been a while, but shield stops/prevents it, I believe), the summon stops. In theory, this really shouldn't ever work unless someone just missed the prompt, or was off balance from combat already in progress, but people still get caught by it, so I really can't complain. Simply that it's not viable when you're not in a large group.

Asmodron

Eurulis said:

Lightning: This used to be a quasi-area attack where it hit anyone in the same area as you were, as long as they were in the forest. Didn't break shield or anything, just did straight damage. I'm not entirely sure why it was decided to be changed to an LOS attack, though I'm certainly not complaining. Just curious as to the reason for it's change. Seems logical to me that it should have been changed to just a straight area attack, though I'm not really a combat mastermind here.

God I miss lighting, used to be so much fun! Also was a true expression of who is master in the forests.

Grandue

Lighting was changed so that it could be used out of the forest, giving Druids a LoS attack which was previously unavailable unless you had an arty bow. It also helped spur conflict with Eleusis. Raising Eleusis when 10 Druids could just sit in a grove and hinder/lighting you non-stop was stupid. Now enemies can at least have some viable strategy outside of just staying out of the area and then rushing

Eurulis

Grandue said:

Lighting was changed so that it could be used out of the forest, giving Druids a LoS attack which was previously unavailable unless you had an arty bow. It also helped spur conflict with Eleusis. Raising Eleusis when 10 Druids could just sit in a grove and hinder/lighting you non-stop was stupid. Now enemies can at least have some viable strategy outside of just staying out of the area and then rushing

A question, then. How would making lightning an normal area attack (Think along the lines of meteor arrows, without breaking the shield) any different than, well, an archer using meteor arrows? Or thurisaz? Is it simply the fact that one uses an actual item and one uses an easily renewable resource? Or is it that the combination of skills is still a bit OP?

Tanris

Its worth noting that Eleusis' primary strength when it comes to factional advantages is unquestionably melee. They boast the classes with some of the best in room potential in the game: maul (very fast, good damage), hydra bind (hinder plus damage with the instant followup attacks), good tanking across the board (druids awesome, sylvan good, sentinel decent), probably the most viable group instakill on the game when dealing with large numbers (incinerate), wildgrowth (its no ghands/piety but its something), darts if the people rush you, trumpet, the list goes on. With that in mind, Eleusis' ranged all seems to be primarily LoS based. It would be counter intuitive for them to also excell at area combat when practically speaking they should be attempting to rush (gate change facilitates this) to take advantage of that potential.

Druids one v one is lackluster, but its also one of the most potent group combat juggernauts around, and having just one in your team can change the name of the game completely. This comes back to the old argument of should classes be able to be both good at one v one and group combat. My opinion has always been yes or delete monk, but the changes needed to make druid high tier viable aren't that significant. Adjustments to freeze pound would probably be sufficient alone.

Grandue

Eurulis said:

Grandue said:

Lighting was changed so that it could be used out of the forest, giving Druids a LoS attack which was previously unavailable unless you had an arty bow. It also helped spur conflict with Eleusis. Raising Eleusis when 10 Druids could just sit in a grove and hinder/lighting you non-stop was stupid. Now enemies can at least have some viable strategy outside of just staying out of the area and then rushing

A question, then. How would making lightning an normal area attack (Think along the lines of meteor arrows, without breaking the shield) any different than, well, an archer using meteor arrows? Or thurisaz? Is it simply the fact that one uses an actual item and one uses an easily renewable resource? Or is it that the combination of skills is still a bit OP?

Area wide grove lightning was fairly fast and it didn't have a charge time of 10 seconds like meteor, it was instant. At the time, a very large majority of Eleusis' defense was made up by those with groves, so having ~10 who could instantly zap you from across the map was insane. Most cities have a more balanced defense team. Rarely do you see 10 knights or 10 monks area attack you the instant you enter, but with Eleusis that was easily done. The main reason it was switched, however, was to give Druids more mobility.

Cahin

RE: Forestbinding.

I can't really support a change to forestbinding with how forest conflict, forest enemy cause, and grove summon currently work.  Yes, gravehands and piety are powerful, but they would quickly be nerfed into the ground if we had an area wide summon that took 6 seconds, could deliver someone onto a stack of people, and was only prevented by leaving the area.

Delphinus

@Cahin: Forestbinding uses 25% of a grove's energy. If you use it a second time in 24 hours, it takes an additional 50%. It isn't really something you'd be using for petty flowganks.

And grove summon is prevented by moving away from the room, not the area.

Eurulis

Grandue said:

Eurulis said:

Grandue said:

Lighting was changed so that it could be used out of the forest, giving Druids a LoS attack which was previously unavailable unless you had an arty bow. It also helped spur conflict with Eleusis. Raising Eleusis when 10 Druids could just sit in a grove and hinder/lighting you non-stop was stupid. Now enemies can at least have some viable strategy outside of just staying out of the area and then rushing

A question, then. How would making lightning an normal area attack (Think along the lines of meteor arrows, without breaking the shield) any different than, well, an archer using meteor arrows? Or thurisaz? Is it simply the fact that one uses an actual item and one uses an easily renewable resource? Or is it that the combination of skills is still a bit OP?

Area wide grove lightning was fairly fast and it didn't have a charge time of 10 seconds like meteor, it was instant. At the time, a very large majority of Eleusis' defense was made up by those with groves, so having ~10 who could instantly zap you from across the map was insane. Most cities have a more balanced defense team. Rarely do you see 10 knights or 10 monks area attack you the instant you enter, but with Eleusis that was easily done. The main reason it was switched, however, was to give Druids more mobility.

Ah, I forgot it was instant! I assumed that the whole it going through instantly thing was why it didn't break shield. That would have been just massively insane.

And I do get the point about mobility, but a lot of the skills seem like they're still clinging to the older system. Like Grove Cure, I cure myself with that in my grove. Evoke Remedy cures others, and only other people. Grove Roots, which is essentially like mass for you in your grove, Grove Shake, which knocks people out of the trees in your grove and the rooms adjacent, Grove Guardian, which summons a golem that only stays in your grove, and so on.

See what I mean? It's a little MPD with both grove only abilities and the later evoke abilities. I'm not advocating deleting the grove itself, though I would suggest simply using it more as a place you are bonded and ultimately get the power from, rather than the place where some of the power is tied up in. As it stands, the skill itself is kind of split on the issue, at least at the beginning section. Granted, I have -no- idea what would happen should those above abilities become evoke skills. Probably somehow swing us back into OP territory.

Mishgul

Druid 1 v 1 is good and it is one of the best support classes to have in a melee.

There are other classes that require much more attention, like apostate imo. Deadeyes should do limb damage so we are on par with knights.

Iocun

You're just saying that because apostates mesh poorly with the shrubbery race.

Grandue

Eurulis said:

Grandue said:

Eurulis said:

Grandue said:

Lighting was changed so that it could be used out of the forest, giving Druids a LoS attack which was previously unavailable unless you had an arty bow. It also helped spur conflict with Eleusis. Raising Eleusis when 10 Druids could just sit in a grove and hinder/lighting you non-stop was stupid. Now enemies can at least have some viable strategy outside of just staying out of the area and then rushing

A question, then. How would making lightning an normal area attack (Think along the lines of meteor arrows, without breaking the shield) any different than, well, an archer using meteor arrows? Or thurisaz? Is it simply the fact that one uses an actual item and one uses an easily renewable resource? Or is it that the combination of skills is still a bit OP?

Area wide grove lightning was fairly fast and it didn't have a charge time of 10 seconds like meteor, it was instant. At the time, a very large majority of Eleusis' defense was made up by those with groves, so having ~10 who could instantly zap you from across the map was insane. Most cities have a more balanced defense team. Rarely do you see 10 knights or 10 monks area attack you the instant you enter, but with Eleusis that was easily done. The main reason it was switched, however, was to give Druids more mobility.

Ah, I forgot it was instant! I assumed that the whole it going through instantly thing was why it didn't break shield. That would have been just massively insane.

And I do get the point about mobility, but a lot of the skills seem like they're still clinging to the older system. Like Grove Cure, I cure myself with that in my grove. Evoke Remedy cures others, and only other people. Grove Roots, which is essentially like mass for you in your grove, Grove Shake, which knocks people out of the trees in your grove and the rooms adjacent, Grove Guardian, which summons a golem that only stays in your grove, and so on.

See what I mean? It's a little MPD with both grove only abilities and the later evoke abilities. I'm not advocating deleting the grove itself, though I would suggest simply using it more as a place you are bonded and ultimately get the power from, rather than the place where some of the power is tied up in. As it stands, the skill itself is kind of split on the issue, at least at the beginning section. Granted, I have -no- idea what would happen should those above abilities become evoke skills. Probably somehow swing us back into OP territory.

I pushed hard for Druid to get full mobility and not be tied to groves at all. I hated that I basically only had metamorphosis + bees while Sentinels had Meta + all of Woodlore. When I was classlead I tried to get Druid to be WAY more mobile than it was. The answer I was given was that Druids would always need to be stronger while in a forest/grove because that was very central to the class' RP. In order to make a Druid's grove abilities more mobile they had to make a Druid less deadly while in the grove. There had to be a middle ground. A Druid who was capable of using ALL of the Grove abilities outside of their grove was just WAY too OP. The happy medium they chose is pretty good. You also have to remember that Druids are @#$%^%$ retarded tanky. It is damn near impossible to damage out a Druid, and MIGHT is stupid OP when it comes to locks. One class can't have it all. For those whom the class was designed for (semi/non-combatants who prefer group combat and mudsex) the class is perfect. For those who want to excel at 1v1, they will be frustrated with the class at times.

Favonius

Some sensible points in this thread. I think Druid class is pretty balanced (as is Sylvan now since the changes to heartseed), but Groves could also use a re-work to get rid of some of the legacy stuff from when it was a very different skill.

In particular:

GROVE WHO - made redundant by GROVE EYES

GROVE SHAKE - tentacle tattoo does the same thing

GROVE ROOTS - does the same thing as mass but only works in your grove - never used this

GROVE PORTAL - made redundant by GROVE GATE

GROVE CURE - for use on other adventurers, EVOKE REMEDY does the same thing - could potentially be useful for use on oneself but in three years I've never had reason to use it

GROVE FORESTBINDING - controversial and rarely used, and I understand there are ways to get round it anyway

I don't think either Druids or Sylvans need a massive 1v1 combat buff - maybe some tweaks - but replacing all or some of the above with some more useful utility commands - or even just something that added to the class flavour - would be a positive step.

Oh, and long-standing personal gripe: in HELP CLASS DRUID and HELP CLASS SYLVAN files it still says:

"Within his Grove, none can stand against a Druid; there they reign supreme, backed by the full power of the forest."

"A Grove is a location devoted solely to a particular Sylvan or Druid, and within his Grove, a Sylvan is nigh-undefeatable."

I'm fine with that not being true any more but someone should really update the help files!

Mannimar

Apparently, not everyone finds a Druid slamming his staff into the ground causing it to churn and buckle, while sending forth a swarm of bees is not intimidating... what is wrong with you people?

Personally, the only thing more intimidating in my mind is disembowelling an Occultist, having their bodies transform into something monstrous, and then seeing them revive, look over themselves, and say, "F-, do it again." as they sit down and cross their legs.

Xith

1. The forest side does need some attention after we're done giving Mhaldor steroids.

2. I had a fleeting thought the other night about merging the three forestal classes together for one class that has Elementalism, Groves, and Woodlore. Call 'em Drusylvinels.
I don't know where we'd put concoctions though and I don't want to see it become a miniskill. So it could be merged into groves and/or woodlore. But hey, like all fleeting thoughts, it was probably a bad one.

Favonius

Since I suggested deleting a bunch of abilities, I probably ought to suggest some replacements:

GROVE ILLUSION - target illusions at people standing in the forest (could be neat, RP-wise!)

GROVE DELIVER - deliver an item into someone's inventory through the forest

GROVE LISTEN - hear what another adventurer in the forest says and hears - the trees have ears!

GROVE SNUGGLE - OK, I'm kidding with this one.

Xith

Grove deliver sounds awesome!
No to listen and illusion. Way too much abuse potential. We jesters have to fashion before abusing people that way : P

Idelisa

Favonius said:

GROVE SNUGGLE - OK, I'm kidding

Everyone knows forestals aren't allowed in Cyrene anymore.