Druids suck - convince me I'm wrong!

Schnorki wrote: 1 week ago

DarkSoul48 wrote: 1 week ago

[..]
I think you got my example wrong (and of course you are exaggerating with your Den of Evil example). I did not say that D2R needed teamplay, I just said that this is how we prefer to play because this is much more fun for us, and Druid has a really appreciated place in that. I don't think anyone ever complains either if a Druid joins a public game to bring along his army, maxed Oak Sage to boost everyone, and at the same time he can tank (even if others do most of the killing). But no worries if you still think Druid sucks for you - we still enjoy playing our Druids very much, and I am fine with others having a different opinion
This might also be a case when we won't ever convince each other...

I'm inclined to say we just play in rather different contexts.

My lowest real char is 96 so I don't find myself in "non-endgame" situations really. And at that point, in basically any group scenario, be it organized or pugs, there's always at least one, usually more people with a build that will easily and reliably clear the entire screen on any player count, before any form of tanking or Oak Sage life boost makes any difference whatsoever. Sometimes, depending on the class I'm on, that's me making others obsolete. At other times, that's others making something like my druid completely useless. There simply is no real team play at that stage, there is merely a carry or two and the "useless folks" following along (or in some cases struggling to even follow along, thanks to crap tele speed).

And while instant mass slaughter does have its own entertainment value, I do indeed often miss the olden days, decades and patches ago (pre-runewords and whatnot), when things were indeed still harder and somewhat more team-oriented as a result.

Really the only exception to that these days is day 1 or 2 of a new ladder for that first play-through. But even then there tends to already be certain classes just doing all the work while the others mainly watch.

That said, I'll happily not convince you. That's not my goal. Quite the opposite, I'd love to be the one who is convinced. That's the point of this topic after all, that feint sliver of hope that somewhere, somehow, there is that one elusive subjectively fun druid build after all that I simply managed to miraculously miss for some 20+ years and that someone else managed to conjure up. Not necessarily some "annihilates P8 TZ96" build but simply an "actually fun and merely not complete and utter garbage" build.

krathkor wrote: 1 week ago

/quote/
To;dr:
What's the difference compared to e.g. the Barb?
(In my opinion Barb sucks even more than druid but many people like him)
/quote/

Don't listen to the mean man baba i will never give you up !

Schnorki wrote: 1 week ago

vued wrote: 1 week ago

[..]

But if this is your (only) context for evaluation, I have to ask:

[..]

To;dr:
What's the difference compared to e.g. the Barb?
(In my opinion Barb sucks even more than druid but many people like him)

Nah, that's not the only context by any means. It was merely the limited context in direct response to "play as a team" as that sadly just doesn't exist anymore in the reality of endgame D2.
Solo, I run anything and everything from P1 to P8 so the overall context is pretty much "all of PvM".

And as I said before, it isn't (just) about performance. There are absolutely some druid builds that can outperform e.g. my barb. The (again, very subjective) difference however is that my barb is still fun, even in those builds that aren't quite as performant as some other classes/builds (or anywhere even close if you compare them to the true top-end builds).

Ultimately, I think DasNarf is circling around hitting the nail on the head with his "randomness" comment. Druids just feel exceptionally clunky in basically every build because of (among other things) that. Half the fire stuff just doesn't hit half the stuff there and you're fully capped by casting delays on top of that. Tornadoes are just beyond annoying to aim. Wolves completely fail at even engaging a target to begin with on a (very) regular basis, making them more aggravating than anything else. And most shapeshifter builds are stuck constantly shifting in and out as you can't use the more basic general moves (CtA, tele, ...) while shifted. Ultimately, they're all just unnecessarily cumbersome and annoying. The only real exception to that I guess is "full-on" shifters that don't bother with any force-a-reshift-skills (so no Enigma or anything of that sort) as they can just stay in form but those (at least to me) tend to feel like "basically a pally or barb except boring".
None of that is really about performance (though it does impact it), it is merely about basically every druid build just feeling overly cumbersome and weird to deal with.

Schnorki wrote: 1 week ago

ganseng wrote: 1 week ago

careful what you wish for guys. you want Werebear/ Werewolf to use all spells?
watch out for the bear sorceress with Teleport..

I don't really see the problem.

If you don't want to lose even more than you otherwise have to (e.g. CtA or your main weap), you'll need to keep that Beast as a separate item to keep switching in and out so there'd be a decent "annoyance cost" attached.
But more importantly, bear form doesn't just grant you life. And it doesn't just help your FHR breakpoints a little bit as a sorc. It also kills your FCR breakpoints, effectively lowering a sorc's cast speed quite significantly by adding what would typically be 2 frames by comparison (roughly, cutoff points also shift a bit). That's a massive cost a sorc has to incur for comparatively little gain. Even for something like a blizz sorc that is delay-capped anyways, it still drops tele speed massively, killing your overall clear time.

Hell, even if you just gave sorcs infinite-duration bear form for free with no item needed, I'd never, ever use it on one.

It'd work for druids because their horrendous FCR breakpoints are actually improved by Werebear to become slightly less shit (but still bad). But for something like a sorc or barb or anything else with decent FCR breakpoints starting out, it is just an abysmal skill to ever want to use on a casting build, even if you could still cast while shifted.

ganseng wrote: 1 week ago

vued wrote: 1 week ago

Schnorki wrote: 1 week ago

I don't really see the problem.

If you don't want to lose even more than you otherwise have to (e.g. CtA or your main weap), you'll need to keep that Beast as a separate item to keep switching in and out so there'd be a decent "annoyance cost" attached.
But more importantly, bear form doesn't just grant you life. And it doesn't just help your FHR breakpoints a little bit as a sorc. It also kills your FCR breakpoints, effectively lowering a sorc's cast speed quite significantly by adding what would typically be 2 frames by comparison (roughly, cutoff points also shift a bit). That's a massive cost a sorc has to incur for comparatively little gain. Even for something like a blizz sorc that is delay-capped anyways, it still drops tele speed massively, killing your overall clear time.

Hell, even if you just gave sorcs infinite-duration bear form for free with no item needed, I'd never, ever use it on one.

It'd work for druids because their horrendous FCR breakpoints are actually improved by Werebear to become slightly less shit (but still bad). But for something like a sorc or barb or anything else with decent FCR breakpoints starting out, it is just an abysmal skill to ever want to use on a casting build, even if you could still cast while shifted.

All Amazons will go furry just to tele faster.

i won't.. unless it shows on the character load screen.. even then undecided

really don't get the amazon tp complains.. i swap to cta/Spirit when teleporting, and half of them wear Arachnid Mesh, one also an Opalvein.. so it's not that bad

and as for the sorc bear concern.. it was a joke