This was a topic suggested for the Special Report. Now I'm not seeing the major imbalance here. So, if someone can lay out the "major imbalance" for me, so I can see the problem, it would be nice.
A few questions:
What exactly are you comparing against in terms of this "major imbalance"?
Are you comparing melds, and if so which meld, all of them?
Are we comparing afflicting power? Damage? Hindering?

More questions when I can think them up, but those are the current ones.

Mages can operate (very well) outside their demesne. Druids cannot.

Druids depend on sticking sap in groups, which due to being able to cleanse others, is very difficult.

Druids have a longer, more power intensive setup on their kills, that is more vulnerable to disruption.

My understanding is that the complaints stem from portability. A psionic mage can do just fine without a meld. There is no such option for druids. Being a dreamweaver, my complaints go in the opposite direction (druids are better at it), so I can't say much more than that.

TBH I think if I were to sum it up, I'd just ask for cleanse to only be castable on yourself. That would solve group sap. The Druids not being good out of meld needs more talking about however.

Yes, Dreamweaving is really mostly useful in sap right now, which kind of sucks for Druids also.

I agree with Sojiro, point cleanse and point ignite at others needs to kind of die. Or be reworked.

Is there going to be a general 'Druid' thread, or is this the only one?

I'm making the topic voting thread now, then if druids get voted in, I'll be making a thread.

Alright. Then I'll back off druid specific problems.
Okay, regardless of how strong druid melds are compared to mage melds, one big issue is that mages plain don't need their meld. The idea behind druids is that we are like Kiakoda, who isn't much at all, but when enraged and in the forest, is ubergod-like. As a result, we literally have no offense outside of forest terrain, our nature and druidry skills both shut down and none of our tertiaries have a generally viable kill method. The problem comes that in our demesne, we have gain some viability, but the 100% offensive functionality of a mage out of their demesne carries over into their demesne and adds to it. Outside of demesnes, mages are obviously better then druids. In their demesnes, nothing that made them obviously better outside goes away, and is only added on by their demesne, to devastating effect.

One thing in general that I suggest (outside of giving druids a tertiary that is on par with psionics) in addition to druid specific fixes (sap stuff), is giving druids bigger demesnes, and making them faster or otherwise better at melding neutral (not Ethereal or Elemental) ground. Druids will always sadly remain chained to the demesne, they should therefore be better at it then mages. Second, some look at buffing our demesne to be on par not just with mage demesnes, but mage demesnes plus psionics (the OBVIOUS better choice). That falls kind of into druid specifics, but meh. Making druids and mages have different mechanics will give them the impression of actually being different archetypes, instead of mages and mages that can't fight out of demesne.



EDIT: @Neos, I feel your pain with the health instakill. Read report 629.

What about buffing druids with abilities in druidry that can only be used outside of Demense/forest environments? I am not sure of how to explain that with RP, but it would be a way to add viability outside of demense without making them any stronger in it.

There have been several suggestions in the past on forums to that effect, including planting your cudgel for a sort of quick/portal minidemesne, summoning an ent (LoTR style) to help you in and out of demesne, and so on. I don't think it's going to ever happen, not the direction we're ever going to go. Druids being chained to demesne is 100% intentional. Really, my plea is to make us good in our demesne to make up for mage mobility and power in demesne.

AquaNeos:

This was a topic suggested for the Special Report. Now I'm not seeing the major imbalance here. So, if someone can lay out the "major imbalance" for me, so I can see the problem, it would be nice.
A few questions:
What exactly are you comparing against in terms of this "major imbalance"?
Are you comparing melds, and if so which meld, all of them?
Are we comparing afflicting power? Damage? Hindering?

More questions when I can think them up, but those are the current ones.

It's called "Psionics". If any other spec the difference is far less obvious.

Druids need a tertiary that they don't share with any other classes, which makes balancing them a pain because it buffs a class that doesn't need it. Buffing Ecology will buff Bards, for example.

They need their own tertiary at this point. It's becoming vastly necessary and they need to not be as dependant on their demesne. Most of all: Change Sap or remove it outright. Druids are presently one-trick ponies around an outdated concept that even the most simplest of systems can counter.

I understand lack of viability, but I'm still not seeing the "major imbalance" (according to Shuyins definition) But I'm seeing a comparison of all of a Druids skills against two specs and a generalization of mages. (yay chills). Are we balancing afflictions, damage, hindering, or what?

How is a lack of viability not a balance concern? If druids are less viable then mages, there is a problem. Every class should be equally viable.

Currently, Druids are outstripped in all of these things by mages, and other guilds. Aquamancy demesne has excellent group control (better then druid's hate/feared treelife), does more damage (by 100%?), and only has a small amount less afflictions. The main problem is that your demesne needs none of those things, and you'd still be good via psionics. Druid demesne doesn't need to be as good at all of these things as all the mages, but it needs to have SOMETHING it's comparable in, and that needs to make up for the fact that unlike a mage, a druid is useless outside of the demesne, so druid demesne should by all rights be stronger.

Edit: Reorganized

I'd rather not see melds that are "stronger" than the current mage ones. I understand the concern that druids just don't compare to mages outside of their meld, but using that as a justification to make druid melds even stronger than a mage meld will create 2 major problems. First, that the mage melds are already (relatively?) balanced, a steroid-pumped version of that will simply be overpowered. Secondly, that doesn't solve the "useless outside meld" problem, which as you have pointed out, is a very valid balance concern.

Adding a new tertiary won't be a good solution either. If the tertiary balances the "useless outside meld" problem, then naturally, all combatant inclined druids will gravitate toward that tert ala psionics, leaving terts like DW even more unused and sad. We'll see psionic mages and druids as the combatant standard, and that's the end of the story.

The natural answer will be to buff druidry to have some kind of functionality outside of their meld. Definitely not at a level on-par with psionics, because then druids without terts, and only druidry+crow = a psionic mage? That would become an imbalance by itself. I understand your point about how the admin, or rather, the RP of the druids have led to attempts to implement this functionality being rejected. But however you think about it, making a class so dependant on their melds that they have no feasible way to kill their target outside of it is a combat imbalance that must be fixed. There is no justification for this kind of disadvantage, especially when a druid in his full meld should not be significantly stronger than a mage in his either, for the sake of balance.

This would probably fall under special report attention: the problem has been around for a long long time, and solutions have been rejected in favour of keeping druid flavour. While making druids mages 2.0 may be distasteful to some, I'd rather see that happen than leave an acknowledged imbalance that has existed for however long to continue to fester.

The problem there is that the druid is intentionally restricted to demesne, so I don't see that changing in this report.
The idea behind having a stronger demesne is that with more restriction, you have to step things up to compensate. If the Mage gets a certain level of power in and out of the demesne, and the druid only gets power inside demesne, for the two to be equal, the druid needs to have that outside power inside their demesne as well.

I do agree that just buffing druid demesne with no other changes would be a problem. They don't have to just hit for more effects, some sort of useful mechanic could work. I would love a rework to fix this problem, but outside of that, I see little other recourse then to empower the druid in their demesne by a lot. There are little changes here and there to be made to help druids, but fixing druids to be what they are intended still leaves them behind mages (as far as I can tell).

EDIT: The issue with sap is that it's totally dependent on the coding power of the other person. Against a bad system, it's autowin and brokenly powerful. Against a good system, it's useless. More and more systems are moving into this latter category, and new clients are making it easier and easier for different types of coders to get up to useful proficiency. This is an issue for some other classes, but they generally either have some eventual surefire method of killing, or more options then just the one. Back in the old days, druids were more powerful in general (what with bigger demesnes and demesne wide hitting), and were rightfully toned down. However, new affliction and group control classes outstrip druids, and advancements in technology left us behind.

Nienla:

Druids need a tertiary that they don't share with any other classes, which makes balancing them a pain because it buffs a class that doesn't need it. Buffing Ecology will buff Bards, for example.

They need their own tertiary at this point. It's becoming vastly necessary and they need to not be as dependant on their demesne. Most of all: Change Sap or remove it outright. Druids are presently one-trick ponies around an outdated concept that even the most simplest of systems can counter.

The issue here is that druids will only be balanced when they have that tertiary and so the other three would likely become non-options.

What would make a difference is if druids had their own primary or secondary.

AquaNeos:

I understand lack of viability, but I'm still not seeing the "major imbalance" (according to Shuyins definition) But I'm seeing a comparison of all of a Druids skills against two specs and a generalization of mages. (yay chills). Are we balancing afflictions, damage, hindering, or what?

As an example, the old stalemate of two melders fighting each other.

All things being equal in terms of player skill, I would bet a torus that the psionic mage would beat the druid.

Lerad:

I'd rather not see melds that are "stronger" than the current mage ones. I understand the concern that druids just don't compare to mages outside of their meld, but using that as a justification to make druid melds even stronger than a mage meld will create 2 major problems. First, that the mage melds are already (relatively?) balanced, a steroid-pumped version of that will simply be overpowered. Secondly, that doesn't solve the "useless outside meld" problem, which as you have pointed out, is a very valid balance concern.

I'm not sure you are understanding two very valid points.

1) Druids and Mages are separate archetypes, one can be better at something than the other. Just because druids are really good at setting up a meld doesn't mean that mages have to.

2) Making it easier for druids to get their meld going means less worry about being stuck outside the meld.


Considering a scenario where a mage and a druid are jumped. The mage is more likely to have an easier time setting up their meld thanks to viability outside of the meld and when they get inside, the meld backs them up. Without this ability druids need either effectiveness outside their meld, or ease of getting inside the meld.

I.E if Druids are meant to fight almost exclusively in their demesne then their abilities need to reflect this and support the goal of getting people inside it.

The natural answer will be to buff druidry to have some kind of functionality outside of their meld. Definitely not at a level on-par with psionics, because then druids without terts, and only druidry+crow = a psionic mage? That would become an imbalance by itself. I understand your point about how the admin, or rather, the RP of the druids have led to attempts to implement this functionality being rejected. But however you think about it, making a class so dependant on their melds that they have no feasible way to kill their target outside of it is a combat imbalance that must be fixed. There is no justification for this kind of disadvantage, especially when a druid in his full meld should not be significantly stronger than a mage in his either, for the sake of balance.

It's not making them dependent on their melds... they already are and this is the status quo which has been maintained for years. We've asked for more viability outside the meld and this is consistently rejected.

Giving druids methods to get people inside their melds more easily seems like it wouldn't affect their abilities once inside the meld. It just makes it easier to ensure that the druid is stuck inside their meld where they apparently belong.

If you're going to go the way of making druid melds just plain better and easier to set up and keep over mage melds, then you're going in another dangerous trajectory. Sidenote: I was objecting to the idea of making a druid meld stronger when set up than a mage meld. (Ie. more damage, more affs, more w/e) instead of making a druid meld "superior" in ease of setting up and keeping up.

However much you want to say "druids and mages are different", the fact remains that they both serve the same role in their respective orgs: melders. Melding is an integral part of team combat. You can't just give communes a clear advantage in making and breaking melds, and keeping melds on the enemy group and justify it because "druids have little offense outside of melds". This might be a solution if melds weren't mutually exclusive or plays less pivotal roles in a group fight. The status quo, however, already gives the meld-holding team a huge advantage with all other factors (number of participants) being equal. If you give one side a clear advantage in putting their meld up, it will unbalance the scene of group combat too much.

Lerad:

If you're going to go the way of making druid melds just plain better and easier to set up and keep over mage melds, then you're going in another dangerous trajectory. Sidenote: I was objecting to the idea of making a druid meld stronger when set up than a mage meld. (Ie. more damage, more affs, more w/e) instead of making a druid meld "superior" in ease of setting up and keeping up.

However much you want to say "druids and mages are different", the fact remains that they both serve the same role in their respective orgs: melders. Melding is an integral part of team combat. You can't just give communes a clear advantage in making and breaking melds, and keeping melds on the enemy group and justify it because "druids have little offense outside of melds". This might be a solution if melds weren't mutually exclusive or plays less pivotal roles in a group fight. The status quo, however, already gives the meld-holding team a huge advantage with all other factors (number of participants) being equal. If you give one side a clear advantage in putting their meld up, it will unbalance the scene of group combat too much.

Why not? It's always like 1 druid against 5 mages anyway

Clearly I should trade in my runes and guild hop.

Lerad:

If you're going to go the way of making druid melds just plain better and easier to set up and keep over mage melds, then you're going in another dangerous trajectory. Sidenote: I was objecting to the idea of making a druid meld stronger when set up than a mage meld. (Ie. more damage, more affs, more w/e) instead of making a druid meld "superior" in ease of setting up and keeping up.

However much you want to say "druids and mages are different", the fact remains that they both serve the same role in their respective orgs: melders. Melding is an integral part of team combat. You can't just give communes a clear advantage in making and breaking melds, and keeping melds on the enemy group and justify it because "druids have little offense outside of melds". This might be a solution if melds weren't mutually exclusive or plays less pivotal roles in a group fight. The status quo, however, already gives the meld-holding team a huge advantage with all other factors (number of participants) being equal. If you give one side a clear advantage in putting their meld up, it will unbalance the scene of group combat too much.

You strip away the melds though (i.e when someone is setting a meld up) druids are not effective, Mages can be.

Let's look at the other guilds.
Wiccans share a core mechanic of a large entourage.
Guardians... well two have a single mob, one has something kinda like wiccans but not really and the other one is just weird.

I guess the question is, "Do you prefer archetypes to vary from guild to guild like the new guardians do? or do you prefer them to remain uniform?".

The push towards that is very likely outside the scope of this report, however the mindset that doing something creative and different with demesnes isn't necessarily a bad thing opens more avenues at the least.

*is trying really hard to not imagine an ability where the druids lose their physical body temporarily and merge wholly with their demesne*

edit: As a side note, there is a deeper frustration here that is the result of it feeling like every time someone tries to make a suggestion that is druids only, mages go "That's Awesome! Mages should have that too".