A well rounded group . . .Follow

I dont think that is enough dps at all. You really do not need a chanter in that situation if you have the bard to mez and the shammy to slow/haste. A Rogue would better fill that slot for considerably more damage.

5 Beastlords and a Druid...

Just a thought --

We did an LDON one night with 6 mid 50 druids.

We rocked.

Believe it or not you can have more hp with symbol and Pot 9 then you would with virtue. So a druid with a pally works very well (besides the druid is me and the pally is my hubby so hes stuck with me whether he likes it or not lol)Also we odnt have to worry about buffs fading, including mana regen since we have the chanty. So we never have to wait around for rebuffing.

We have been playing as a druid/Pally combo our whole EQ lives and just added the chanty very recently. Ive been surpriesed and very well impressed with how well we rock at any camp, even without a clr. In fact, most times I am the MH in a group since there is no other thing a clr can add that the pally/druid really cant do. Im sure there are a few things, but nothing that has slowed us down.

Every night we have been logging on with our core group of druid/pally/chanter, and within 5 min of finding a camp we have grabbed whatever DPS we can get and kick butt. Minimum to no deaths every night and our chanter is reaping no less that 40% a night for 3 hours of playtime. Its not too bad considereing I remember the level 50's and my playtime I was lucky to get 10% reg xp a night then. 40% for our chanty is about 4 days of playtime for us.

Edited, Thu Sep 9 20:19:37 2004 by deadsidedemon

Actually, that is true *if* your tank is not a paladin. That's because Pot9 blocks AoC. Any level 65 paladin would know this...


Additionally, *symbol* plus Pot9 requies that something be added to the group. What could it be? Oh yeah! A cleric!

Alternatively, the paladin could use his own symbol, but oddly enough, he'd be better off with HB, Bulwark, AoC, and symbol, then with Pot9 and symbol. In other words, he self buffs for more HP/AC by himself then he does with the druid helping.

The only advantage Pot9 has is the 8 mana per tick regen, but AoC has 3, and if you've got a chanter in your group, the difference is pretty negligible.


I'm not saying druids are "the worst" healer class. I'm saying they are the worst healer class to work in conjuction with a paladin, especially if you already have a chanter in the core group. You pretty much have to have a cleric to make it not suck, so why not just have the cleric in the core group in the first place?

Just to list the differences:

Paladin at 65 self buffing:

Heroic Bond: HP 450. AC 19
Bulwark of Faith: AC 37
Aura of the Crusader: HP 350. AC 30
Brell's Stalwart Shield: HP 330
Symbol of Marzin: HP 700

Total: HP 1830. AC 86

Paladin and Druid together:

Protection of the Nine: HP 618. AC 32
Bulwark of Faith: AC 37
Symbol of Marzin: HP 700
Brell's Stalwart Shield: HP 330

Total: HP 1648. AC 69


Druid + Cleric buffing paladin with Pot+symbol:

Protection of the Nine: HP 618. AC 32
Symbol of Kazad: HP 910.
Ward of Gallantry: AC 54
Brell's Stalwart Shield: HP 330

Total: HP 1858. AC 86


Cleric buffing paladin alone:

Virtue: HP 1405. AC 72
Aura of the Crusader: HP 350. AC 30
Brell's Stalwart Shield: HP 330

Total: HP 2085. AC 102


Ok. So it's not 2k more hps, but it really is significant (moreso if the pally doesn't cast his own symbol on himself when grouped with just the druid, which does bring it up over the 1k difference mark).


Additional point. Symbols last for 1 hour 30 minute. Virtue lasts for 2 hours 30 minutes. Why on earth choose a combination that results in less hp and less ac, and costs more dots over time?

Even with a non-paladin tank, you only gain 123 hp using pot9+symbol over using virtue alone. You've used up an additional buff slot, and are burning through dots 66% faster. Not to mention, you are now using two healers in your core group when you could have used just one. I'd much rater start with a core of tank/cleric/chanter, and add a shaman to that mix then a druid. The Shaman will add more stackable buffs for the tank, and can help out with CC/slows/whatever.


This is not to say that druids aren't wanted in a group. I'm just saying that if you're going to start with a core three, I'd take a cleric as my "core" healer first. A druid can be added as patcher/snarer/dps to any group just fine. But he'd be my last choice as core healer for a group. You pretty much always need to add either a cleric or a shaman to a druid healer in order to make tanks feel like they're actually going to be able to survive.


The "Pot9+symbol is the best combo" argument comes from raiding. It's done because it is the "best" combo to MGB for a raid. Your casters gain mana regen and hp/ac, and your tanks get a good boost as well. But on a raid, it's reasonable to assume that you're going to have a MGB capable druid and cleric. It's not reasonable to make the assumption that both of those classes are going to be in your group. In a group, especially if you're talking about the best "well rounded" group, you want to get the most out of each group slot. Using up two slots to get a slight benefit over what the right class could do alone isn't really a great approach. That's not to say a druid can't fill another slot just fine, but you shouldn't start with that as your core.


Put it another way. Assuming you want Pot9+symbol as your primary tank buffs, then you have to expand your core group to 4 (tank,druid,cleric,chanter) to make it work (since we can't count the pally symbol since paladins can self buff better by themselves). Now. Pretend you've got those four in your core group. Now pretend that for some reason you need to trim one class out of that group of four. Which of those four is the most expendable? Yup. The druid. You can't get rid of the tank, or you have no tank. You can't get rid of the chanter or you have no KEI, slows, or CC. Given the choice between a cleric or a druid, which will you choose? The cleric can buff by itself better then the druid can. Thus, you keep the cleric. Everything else the druid brings to the group can be made up in other slots. There are 5 other classes that can snare (off the top of my head, there may be more!). There are a multitude of classes that can dot and nuke. The druid works fine in a "dps/utility" slot, but it not "needed" in the core group as much as a cleric is. You *can* work your group with a druid instead, but it would never be your first choice.

As a European playing on a US server (=off peak time) I had in about 70 LDoNs with my 2 mains all kinds of groups because I usually have to just take every toon in lvl range available (and end often with a group of 4 or 5 only).

So far the success was only based on the skill of the players not on their class so as long as were talking about a simple group of six and not a raid I vote for building groups simply around 1-2 other good players no matter what class and fill up the remaining slots with whatever seems helpful.

I had success on hard kills without any mez or root and failures on easy collects with the so-called standard groups. So as soon as any skilled former group member offers to join my group I stop looking for a certain class to fill the last spot.

And Im assuming you know better than me because you play this combo often? So even though I am coming here to let pple know that this combo rocks you still sit there and write that I dont know what Im talking about? Sorry to burst your bubble but this combo DOES rock, and rock well.

And, yes he has Aoc and uses it often. And while he may not have the Cleric's best symbol, he still has it. And with a 65 druid healing a 65 pally, he very rarely dies so........

Im going to suggest you take out the combo with some friends and do it a few times before you tell me the combo I work with on a nightly basis sucks. Im not having any diificulties playing with it. As I said in earlier posts, we kick butt from the moment we log on until the moment we log off. Maybe the druids you play with arent playing to my standards. (shrug)

Personally I like Cleric, chanter, monk.

I ran my firt 3boxed adventure last night in BB and walked out with time to spare on it.

Not sure I would do it again, cause, I can get better xp/loot elsewhere. But Cleric, Chanter, and Monk gives you the best of everything.

Granted we work well together but here is our standard group -

Shadowknight
Druid (that be me)
Rogue
Shaman
Ranger
and sometimes a cleric

However if the cleric isn't around I can more than suffciently heal my group.

anyway we do great =) love that group!

Guv

What are you smoking

druid over a shaman thats a waste of a group slot Shamans are better back up healers than druids plus their utility spells are far supperior. Shamans can slow malo dot and have god like HoT and good fast heals...

Are people really hung up on getting an ideal group, or is it more like fantasy football you're playing here?

Get the essentials covered (healing, crowd control if needed, tank if needed) and fill out the group with whoever.

Learn to shine in non "ideal" groups and you'll be a much better player overall, because you'll all be forced to really focus on what you bring to the battles.

Besides, when the day's battles have all been won, you can pat each other on the back, saying "I can't believe we pulled that off with this rag tag group."