Useless druid spells

gloworm

Dalayan Beginner
I was just wondering. I know druids are supposed to be the masters of travel (which is about the only thing they are best at) however some of the spells we get i've noticed are totaly useless. In WR I have never once been asked for a SoW or even a teleport. I know this is primarily because of the few people on the server but even at peak times never once. And I see another reason being that SoW can't be cast indoors and since there are fewer outdoor zones where people group this can be another reason. Also there is "Spirit of Cheetah" which is a self only movement buff. This spell would be awesome if the duration was extended so it could actually be useful. How it is now it only lasts like 20 seconds, over-rides SoW so if you have it and use it for a quick escape in a bad situation it takes away your SoW and in 20 seconds if you don't have enough distance between you and the mob you are screwed. Also there is the Tree Form line of spells. These could actually be awesome if the mana / health regen was incorperated into the first one and increased in the second. These spells prevent you from moving and make you very weak to fire but provide very little health regen. So people tend not to use it. In a group this would be great if the regen's were increased so the druid could focus on healing etc. while getting a steady mana rate with the downside being he can't move. This spell also requires there to be a tree in the zone which is hard to find in a lot of WR zones that people group in due to the exp bonuses.

It would be great if Spirit of Shrew should take place of Spirit of Wolf since this is indoor and about the same movement rate. And Spirit of Cheetah had a longer duration (since it's self only, over-rides sow, outdoot only) and the Tree form spells have a slightly increased mana / health regen (like breeze for first one and clarity for second one since of course these are self only, make you immoble and vulnerable, and weak to fire ). These spells have had a HUGE amount of complaints from the beginning in live servers and SOE is just too evil to do something about it :)

Also, is there a place were you can find the explanations of WR spells? Or spells that have been modified already for WR? I got the spell "Call of Spirits" last night and have no idea what it's for. Would love to know what it does sounds cool!
 
I agree that Treeform spells could be made to be a lot more useful. A good self-only, root-self mana and HP regen wouldn't be too over-powering and might actually be pretty cool. :p

As for indoor SoW... I don't think I like the idea much. I would be quite happy if illusions and run speed buffs would carry into zones where they're uncastable, but I dunno. I suppose that's what AA RunSpeed is for.
 
Run speed buffs do carry. I use selo's Accelerating Chorus (long duration selo) to run through Neth Lair, and it definitely carries over.
 
I understand the runspeed AA however this is for 50+ levels. I'm talking below that, plus it's not as fast as SoW. SOE realized indoor/outdoor restrictions were kinda pointless with their new dungeon/indoor exp increase so they threw in Spirit of Shrew. Beastlords get a indoor SoW so I figure so should shamans/druids. I also wanted to point out the druid spells "harmony" and "harmony of nature" are great spells but again carry the "outdoor" restriction. I have yet to use either of these spells unfortunantly. And they are really great spells given the right circumstances.
 
Beastlords shouldn't be getting an indoor SoW on WR, that would be a bug. And Spirit of the Shrew isn't as fast as SoW is, even on live. SoW maxes at 55% increase, Shrew is only 30%.

But I do agree that druids need something. On Live, they were merely soloers that were weak healers and weak nukers. They could do anything, but unlike bards, didn't really add to the group as much as picking a pure nuker or pure healer over them.
 
Yeah I agree, I mean I'll be honest one the really really enjoyable things about druids to me was their soloing. In live I could never get a group, and if I did I was always the support something, healer, buffer, damage do'er. The only thing I was useful for was transportation. Maybe indoor sows are too much to ask for, it's not that big of a deal anyway for me I can zone out and recast but for a summary tell me what you think of these suggestions:

1) Tree form spells have mana / health regen increased to a worthwhile point. Having the group gather around a giant tree for heals and buffs would not only look cool but play into the druid being a "woodland priest" role playing aspect. *wolf forms are great for this too, come on druids use those spells!* It's self only, you can move, and subseptable to fire, so won't be over powered. *also removing the tree needed to be in zone restriction would be nice since come on, why don't you have to have a wolf in the zone or for enchanters air elemental etc.*

2)Harmony line have outdoor only restriction removed, these spells are usefull but not so much in many WR zones. I get asked a lot if I can calm a room and always have to say "nope, have to be outdoors". In outdoors zones you normally don't have to calm because mobs are spaced further apart anyway, so this would make it very useful.

3)Spirit of Cheetah made useful by keeping the speed but extending the duration to say 30 minutes. Not having this the spell SOE designed it for granted (the quick get away from a bad situation) because thats what gate, and evacs are for. Imagine if your druid once he's in a bad situation instead of evacs the group SOC's himself and runs way the hell away. This wouldn't be overpowered because it's still not as fast as Bard movement speed spells, is self only, and really how powerful are movement speed? 45+ SoW's can outrun most mobs anyway this would just be a benefit to having a self only sow in your spell book.

I saw someone last night ask in OOC for a port to wyvernfang for 80pp and I almost shed a tear (unfortunantly I'm too low to do that but still). This made me happy because I felt like we were still needed. (Yeah he was probably asking for a wizard but I can dream ok?)
 
Spirit of Cheetah being 30 minutes would make it even easier for a druid to solo, and they really don't need help for that. You can always outrun mobs, but outrunning them faster allows for more med time, saving time to kite mobs, and generally speeding up leveling. That's why Scale of Wolf, the extra fast SoW on live was dropped when someone got hit. Movement speeds really do facilitate soloing.
Yes, there could be more outdoor zones, but as far as druid power and spells are concerned, it's not that crucial. Treeform, however, needs an upgrade. It's completely, utterly useless in its current state, and could use a boost to be at least usable, if not the living end of druid spells.
Spirit of Cheetah isn't that good of a spell, but perhaps it could stack with SoW for that extra burst of speed. It would retain its purpose of an escape mechanism without being useless and overwriting SoW.
I'm not an expert on druids. I've merely had friends who played them and I would play them briefly from time to time. It would be nice to get some other druids to comment on this. :)
 
Once upon a time, when I played my druid Melwin in ages past when I was not a tyrant GM, recast times were broken, and Spirit of Cheetah could freely be cast over and over.

This was horrendously overpowered. If I could land a spell on something and it wasn't a caster, it could be killed, because NOTHING could catch me.

So. I concede that Spirit of Cheetah should stack with SoW and have its duration extended to maybe a minute, but 30? No go, no way. :p
 
The treeform thing, I agree on.

Harmony is broke as far as I know, so it doesn't matter.

Spirit of Cheetah... listen to what Melwin said.
 
OK i didn't figure in people exploiting SoC like that. I was just wanting a speed similar to bard speed to get from here and there faster. I can see how people could use it unless....you added it dropped when they cast a spell? Either would be fine to prevent this, having it stack with sow but make it a minute duration or have it dropped with spell. However, I didn't know harmony was broke, is it going to be functional at some point? It's a really great spell, and so is harmony of nature, just the outdoor thingy. And glad tree form is recognized, I've heard so many complaints about it. I have got yelled at for using it and even mocked by live players becuase it's a self root with low benefit, I did it mostly for the role playing benefit. I don't even think half of the people that play know druids can do this :)
 
If harmony is broken, it should have been posted on teh bug list.
SoC could possibly be made like invis and stack with SoW (or just stack with SoW for a short duration and long recast)

I was speaking of Scale of Wolf, which was a useless spell in my opinion, which I don't think is on WR and probably shouldn't be.
 
I believe that I already did post it there.
Also, I don't think the issue is useless spells, but rather useless AA's. I havn't taken this up yet, because I'm still trying to figure out what we should have instead.
 
Well as far as the spells are conserned or AA's not sure what you have planned but I was more or less meaning the pre 50's game. I'm almost at 50 myself but these spells would've really helped me out later in the game. Pretty much the big 2 being harmony and tree form. So the spells could really use a revamp, it would be really helpful to use younger druids (maybe have an larger benefit post 50 with AA support?)
 
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