why do so few people play druid?

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why do so few people play druid?

by dngrs » Sat Jan 16, 2016 7:33 am

by far the less played class is druid. why?
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Re: why do so few people play druid?

by snowtime » Sat Jan 16, 2016 9:08 am

Balance and kitty both have problems with dps. Bear tank is only good for dungeons and their healing spec while viable isn't close to priest, paladins or shamans. They only have combat res which sucks for healing dungeons. The weakest class in pvp but they still have their moments.

They are easily the worst class in the game simply cause with the exception at running flags in wsg they just don't excel at anything.
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Re: why do so few people play druid?

by kanem » Sat Jan 16, 2016 10:45 am

Highest skill cap healers, and only excel at running flags. Boomkin and Feral have no place in a serious pve/pvp environment. However, a very good druid can beat anyone at healing endgame. But, you have to be an extremely good player.
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Re: why do so few people play druid?

by Thatoneguy » Sat Jan 16, 2016 4:32 pm

kanem wrote:a very good druid can beat anyone at healing endgame..


What does this mean?
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Re: why do so few people play druid?

by Levinas » Sat Jan 16, 2016 4:36 pm

Only somewhat viable Druid spec is resto, but most people want to play Feral, so there's your problem.

The issue is a combination of an unappealing endgame and not being able to pursue the "cool" talent tree.
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Re: why do so few people play druid?

by DrearyYew » Sat Jan 16, 2016 6:03 pm

kanem wrote:a very good druid can beat anyone at healing endgame


Only in MC. Druids have the unique characteristic of having very high base healing, but extremely low healing power scaling on their abilities. We're past the point where Druids are competitive.

Feral also suffers the same problem. They have extremely high base damage, but have extremely low gear scaling. Compare that to rogues who also have extremely high base damage, but also have moderate gear scaling and significantly better weapon options. There just isn't any reason to take a Feral.

Boomkin has one thing holding it back, and that's mana inefficiency. Boomkins actually do pretty good DPS, but their mana costs cause them to be unable to consistently deal damage, and are forced to use Innervate on themselves rather than a Priest.

And for Tanking, Ferals lack the mitigation that Warriors have by a significant margin, and are less reliable when it comes to threat. Gearing options also make Feral tanking quite difficult.



Overall, I would say that Boomkin is actually the most viable of the 4 specs, but having a Resto Druid will have less of a negative impact on raid performance than having a Boomkin.
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Re: why do so few people play druid?

by Undertanker » Sat Jan 16, 2016 10:41 pm

Do yourself a favor.... ignore ^ and ^^ and ^^^.

Just because they have a high skill cap for healing, doesn't mean they are bad at all. Just because they can't rez shitters non stop in 5 mans doesn't mean they are bad.

On the competitive raiding scene, is what you want to look at. Why? You don't judge a class by the people who suck at it. You want to know the skill cap and performance range based off of the best of the best. So let's look at that for a second.

**This takes into account the top healers across all major Vanilla Servers within the last 30 days**
Boss fight average is calculated by taking the 5 best performing(for the player) encounters out of the last 6 attended. So no fluke numbers.

MC:
#4 Healer is a druid from our server. So is #8 and #10. So top 10 has 3 priest, 3 druid, 3 shammy, 1 pally.
http://realmplayers.com/RaidStats/Ranki ... &realm=All

ZG:
2 of the top 3, no pally in top 10:
http://realmplayers.com/RaidStats/Ranki ... &realm=All

AQ20:
Druid top healer
http://realmplayers.com/RaidStats/Ranki ... &realm=All

BWL:
Top healer is a druid using a mix of T3/T2. #7 is a druid using T2 and less gear.
http://realmplayers.com/RaidStats/Ranki ... &realm=All

AQ40: (no optional)
Top 2 healers are druids with end game gear. 4 druids in the top 11.
http://realmplayers.com/RaidStats/Ranki ... &realm=All

Naxx:
Realm Player data is limited due to most Naxx raiders have moved to Nost, this is from Agent Crusade.
http://realmplayers.com/RaidStats/Ranki ... &realm=All


Why are they least played? Perhaps they lose appeal having to look at an animal while leveling, or have not "I messed up bad, get out of jail free ability". Can't tell you. I love playing my druid, when I'm not tanking and look forward to when I can one day do some raid healing. "High skill cap" = reserved for the best.

Don't respond with, well they are geared, so are their competition on these stats.
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Re: why do so few people play druid?

by Thatoneguy » Sun Jan 17, 2016 2:30 am

Undertanker wrote:they have a high skill cap for healing


Do they? I don't see any evidence of Resto Druids having a high skill cap. I simply see Druids performing just like any other healer on the HPS meter... which brings me to another point. Why would you want to bring another Druid when you can bring a Priest, Paladin or a Shaman who performs just as well (or better depending on the raid) but provides more utility?

Edit: After searching through the specific raids that these high HPS Druids attended I found the answer, you ever bring 1 Resto Druid to a Raid. Raids with +/- 10 healers have multiple Priests, Shamans/Paladins (depending on the faction) but 1 Resto Druid.
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Re: why do so few people play druid?

by kanem » Sun Jan 17, 2016 5:53 am

Undertanker wrote:Do yourself a favor.... ignore ^ and ^^ and ^^^.

Just because they have a high skill cap for healing, doesn't mean they are bad at all.


Wot. I never said druids were bad. I said they were harder to play and it is easier to top meters on something else. Druids are the highest skillcap and best endgame healers is what I said. Shitters will be shit a healing on a druid. Very good players will dominate with a druid.
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Re: why do so few people play druid?

by kanem » Sun Jan 17, 2016 5:59 am

DrearyYew wrote:
kanem wrote:a very good druid can beat anyone at healing endgame


Only in MC. Druids have the unique characteristic of having very high base healing, but extremely low healing power scaling on their abilities. We're past the point where Druids are competitive.


You should have just wrote "I have no clue what I am talking about." Vanilla coefficients were based upon a 3.5 cast time. Anything less than that does not get the full value from + healing. Druids have longer cast times so they benefit more from + healing. They literally scale better than every other healer.
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