Druid vs. Enchanter
 

So back in live I played around with druid only til about level 20 or so, but never really got the hang of charming animals, didn't play with it much.

Decided to go druid on p1999, been soloing a lot with having two blues kill each other and harvesting the exp. I have finally seen the power of charm and have fallen in love with the ability. Druid was 29 in no time, and it seems to be getting even better.

My concern is that only charming animals is limiting me, and that the safety of snare + sow + open spaces won't help at higher levels when going into dungeons. Plus I heard a lot about druids in groups towards end game being the weakest link. So I rolled an enchanter alt, got to 12. Its pretty fun right now, even though he is fragile. I grouped a bit in Befallen and mezzing was a lot more fun overall than just mostly healing. And now I can charm anything, not just animals!

I guess it would make sense in the long run to stick with the Chanter... but at the same time I really miss those heals (almost never play classes that don't heal, even necro could heal himself). And sow, and tracking, and ports.

Should I stick with the druid and keep having fun? Will he still be strong at solo and useful in groups at high level, or will I start to feel disappointed?

Or should I push through the sow/tracking/healing/porting withdrawal and start leveling that Enchanter til I get jboots and more HP gear and enjoy clarity and haste and more variety in pets?

Any insight on this comparison would be very helpful, cause I cannot decide at the moment.

Druids got utterly screwed by Kunark. Here's a little math comparing Druids and Shamans. First, in Classic, lets assume we have a L50 warrior with haste (being optimistic here) who parses at 50 dps duoing with a L50 Druid and L50 shaman against a L40 undead frog in Lower Guk. The frog does 20 dps and has 3000 hp, making it a 1 minute fight.

Druid: 60s * 20 dps = 1200 hp = 4 greater heals = 600 mana
Shaman: 60s * 20 dps * 0.35 (slow) = 420 hp = 1.5 greater heals + 1 slow = 400 mana

Now let's run those numbers again in Kunark, with a L60 warrior at 65 dps duoing with a L60 druid/shaman against a Krup Knight with 8500 hp and doing 30 dps. The fight now lasts two minutes and ten seconds due to the massive increase in HP.

Druid: 130*30 = 3923 hp = 6.5 superior heals = 1650 mana
Shaman: 130*30*0.25 = 1.6 super heals + 1 slow = 670 mana

So the Shaman needs less than half as much mana to keep a tank up duo. Now combine this with the fact that the shaman gets canni and the Druid doesn't, and a shaman is more or less continuously killing (in practice a monk with a fungi + regrowth can basically fight a slowed mob forever without heals) and you can start to see why Druids are just weak at higher levels. We haven't even gotten to the part where Shamans get haste and Druids don't, or the part where the Shaman epic is 10x easier than the Druid one and better because it stacks with root.

Now the big equalizer Druids have is charm. Lets suppose we put our duos in Sol B at the Efreeti camp, and the Druid has a charmed bat. The druid duo is now doing 130 dps; the fight is half as long, and the Druid is using 825 mana which is suddenly much closer to the shaman. Unfortunately for this team, Druids also got screwed on animals in Kunark. In classic you can charm in Hate/Fear/SolB/Gukbottom . . . which is basically everywhere. In Kunark you have Chardok, which is the worst, most annoying dungeon, and nothing in KC/Sebilis/HS/Sky. I am told things get a little better here in Velious; at minimum Enchanters and Druids will both be rocking charmed dire wolves in Kael.

The one saving grace you have as a Druid is that if you make friends with a lot of enchanters, they can fix your weaknesses. They have slow and mana regen. Unfortunately, shamans are still an even better duo/grouping partner . . . . .

I'm biased, but your concerns about enchanters vs. druids are all easily answered really.

You're worried chanters can't heal? Well, they don't really need to, because they can use 2 lines of rune spells on themselves and they have roots, mezzes, and super-fast-casting stuns to help avoid taking any damage in the first place!

You're concerned about lack of sow? You can't sow indoors anyways, and dungeons are where all the best fights/loot are (imo. there is an appeal to fighting under the wide open sky, but meh). And you can get to the point with a chanter where you can just farm jboots pretty easily anyways.

You're concerned about no ports? Yeah, ports are super convenient. But if you set up base near a dungeon with a few stacks of food/water/rune components, etc., you can be there for a long time without needing to leave anyways. The one trip every so often you need to make to town you can buy a port or just spend 30 minutes to run!

No track? Yeah, track is another convenient thing. Chanters don't REALLY have an answer for this. They can work their way through any dungeon with invis, ivu, and lulls, but it will take a lot more time than clicking track. Of course, druid tracking range is due for a nerf soon!

I love this thread. I pretty much friended every single enchanter I came across leveling up to make life easier. A Druid and Enchanter can do a LOT of content together

What?

As for charming as a druid, there are some extremely viable end-game druid charming:
1) Permafrost pits are great solo exp from what I've heard.
2) Chardok dogs make great pets, but chardok is usually reserved for AoE and "normal" trinity+3DPS groups shy away from the place.
3) Kael should have wolves that are druid-charmable.

Druids are generally the "jack of all trades" but do not accel in any single role. Charming in these places will at least allow them to be competitive DPS.

I seem to recall a post in bugs somewhat recently that druid tracking was higher level on p99 than it should be. May have just been a heard-it-through-the-grapevine thing though.

Bind sight is a way for enchanters to explore deep into dungeons before moving in. Its not track, and it can take some time, but creative camera angles and target hoping, you should be able to see to the end of most dungeons while standing at the entrance.

At the top end (50s onwards) there's no comparison, enchanters are way more useful in groups for all their utility/CC.

Druids fall behind with heals, and while they make good PL'ers and porters... they're not so useful :(

Druid tracking seems to have less range here than it did on live.

*shrug*

Track is in fact getting fixed to match the classic timeline in the next patch, according to the bug forum as tecmos mentioned.

Specifically, it is going from max 125 skill to max 50 skill, and won't go back till a few months into velious. Considering bards (with track 100) can track roughly as far as they can see mobs, I'm guessing there's gonna be a lot of pissed off druids out there, along with an increase in the price of ranger/bard gear :)

Definitely 100% classic though. But the bottom line there is I wouldn't let track factor into your decision.

Honestly, I'm a bit biased too, but enchanter is a vastly more dynamic, adaptable, overpowered, and most importantly, FUN class to play. Since getting 60 on my chanter I've tried a lot of other classes, and compared to the functionality of an enchanter honestly they all feel like only half a class (in many cases much less!).