which is a better skill overall for a Druid?

depends on which you perfer:

- stealth and spying (dreamweaving)

- afflicting and being a merchant (runes)

Dreamweaving.....

*laughs evil and he and some other person he doesnt know are the only runists left in the basin*

Firsty Runes isn't a merchants skill, there's like no market for it really.
Runes are the combatants choice, dreamweaving is better for stealth and spying.
Runes are used for statues and totems, which are the main defence for a commune/city/village, both skills have the ability to embed/fuse which puts motes (Dreamweaving things) and runes into your demesne, and makes them fire every now and then i believe. It's really your choice, both are good, though runes you need it to be quite high before it's very effective in combat.

Honestly I'd wait until the new Druid skill comes out (hopefully in the next few weeks, but no one's sure of course), because it's bound to far outstrip the other two.

Next few weeks? It'll probably be at least a month or two, even counting Hajamin.

Well, how long did Psionics take to come out after Astrology? I wasn't counting.

EDIT: And a month is about 4 weeks, i.e a few weeks, silly lightbulb.

2 weeks or so

Eh, that's true, looks like it was about two weeks from the website, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that third Druid skill.

To answer Ryan's original question from my point of view, Runes are great for combat (afflictions, passive infused runes), Dreamweaving is good for spying, limited combat use, and just cool overall abilities.

For a druid? No idea. For a mage, I like Runes.

I love the Divine, and they do an awesome job, but if we have to wait MONTHS for a new skill, I'm going to be pissed. Especially since for all other purposes, it seems, we count as Mages, until time comes for a cool new skill. *mutter*

Anyway, if you're going to seriously fight, go runes. Dreamweaving is nice for having fun and screwing with people, but it's not the greatest for solo combat.

Having never been a demesne-holder, I can only speak here from the victims' perspective.

Dreamweaving in combat is a gloriously frustrating thing, if done properly. It requires a ton of patience, time to spare, and a fair bit of preparation. That having been said, the average, semi-mediocre fighters that did quite well against me as runists didn't seem to fare as well as dreamweavers, once I learned how to handle the afflictions. Then there're people like Geb, who would unquestionably win a fight against me given only a sparkleberry, a vial of bromides, and a shortsword. I didn't get a chance to spar him when we went to the arena. I accepted the challenge, some affliction spam flashed across my screen, and I was done. When they were runists, I could at least pretend to leave marks on Geb and Revan.

As a runist, Geb totally slaughtered me in my demense, without breaking a sweat.

Hmm, I don't remember Geb being a dreamweaver. Are you sure he wasn't pissing around with illusions? He does that stuff.

Anyway, I prefer to fight a dreamweaver to a runist. For one thing, they can't attack from range nearly as well. Thing is, when you fight a dreamweaver, you're on a time limit. You sit in there for more than a couple of minutes not being able to kill them (Which is harder than it sounds because of currents and stuff helping them run away while they prod at you with staves from the next room along and you get your defs passively stripped by needlerain as you flounder about working out which way you're meant to swim) and you're dead because you can't stay awake for more than a couple of seconds, and they're throwing motes at you while you're passed out and instakilling you with possess/absinthe/sipping craploads of venoms/whatever else they happen to be doing.

Long periods of time, I'd rather fight a runist (i.e you'd rather be a dreamweaver.) Short periods of time, a dreamweaver.

You just don't like runists because I turn on bolting and treelife and you can't touch me.

That's because you WON'T FREAKING STAND STILL. Of course I can't hit you!

EDIT: And you're a faeling, so I can't even web you to get my pooka control for like one second.

I was a dreamweaver for awhile. Did tests and found that my style of fighting (outside of my own demesne) did not work well as a weaver. Inside of a demesne, a dreamweaver can work things out to make sure time is on his or her side.

Druids are NOT mages, they share some aspects, but have many differences.

Wicca and Guardian look simular, but they have Nature, Totems, Healing(instead of Hexes), Totem specs, and Wicca spec. Hence, they both got Astrology as they already have MANY differences.

Mages and Druids... Druids have Nature, Totems, Totem specs, Druidry spec(which is basicly the same as an elementalism spec)... and I think that's about it for differences. Hence, they did not get Psionics, they will get something else to further the differences between the two archtypes.

when...? :drools:

Hopefully after knights finally gets something! We haven't been looked at aside from wounding since the game opened.