Problem..Follow

1. Yeah, Druids are good soloers, and you'll pretty much be soloing the whole time. Most people don't want druids in their party =/

I quote this from GameFaqs WoW forums..
Man..is this another FFXI?? Cant believe this..

Druids fill 3 gaps when it comes to filling a slot in your party.

1) Priest (Healer) in Night Elf/Tauren form. Only downside is you cannot raise the dead.

2) Warrior (Tank) in bear form. Downside is the lack of stances and abilities. Also, if you change into or out of form, you will have no rage.

3) Rogue (Melee DD) in tiger form. Not too sure about the downfall. Obviously the damage will not match a true rogue but should be good enough to try.

According to Blizzard, Druids are meant to fill roles and shapeshift constantly. Only problem is that people still look down on druids as weaker priests. Good god, it reminds me of red mage... *bad memories being told what to do and abused by elitist FFXI gamers*

Edited, Fri Oct 15 06:42:43 2004 by Redmoonxl

Blizzard wanted the druid to be the jack of all trades which is why they actually allowed mana regan while in animal form. Blizzard didn't want druids to be just healers, hench the animal forms. The thing is, much like red mages in FFXI, they get pushed into healing roles when a priest is not arounds. I never recalled anyone while in stress test say that since we didn't have a warrior, we should get a druid instead. Maybe I experienced bad party members but the class just reminds me too much of red mage. I hate the thought of picking a jack of all trades while only using one trade...

Ignore the rant. Flash backs...

Actually, red mage was the other class who could solo mobs their level in FFXI. Down time makes it way too laborious to level that way but it can be done easily.

As for the druid, he isn't finished yet. I saw posts on the beta board from devs who said they were working on the aggro managements abilities of the bear form and the druid players say the cat form doesn't have all his finishing move yet.

Right now, the party set up is pretty fluid. All that's required is a tank, a healer, preferably a secondary healer whose first job is damage, and everyone else piles in with lots more damage. Right now, that means that the really high-level stuff demands a warrior, because no one is better at aggro management. Other than that, priest is the preferred primary healer, but a suitably-equipped or talent-specced druid or shaman can fill in without too much trouble. (The general agreement, if a group takes a druid, is to find a shaman or pallie for rez purposes and back-up healing.) For the rest, you can have whomever and generally do well. Duplicates aren't bad, though too many might be. The point is if you have 1 warrior and 1-2 good healers, the party can handle things if they're on their toes. In practice, this seems to not QUITE be the case; most people still aren't terribly sure about including a hunter in their group, from what I've been hearing. But the druid and the warlock, classes that were once shunned, are now finding more acceptance. This is very healthy.

WRT the "required" warrior: Blizzard has said repeatedly that they're looking further into aggro management, with the goal of making Druid-bears and Paladins viable tanks. I wish them luck-- it'll make things more interesting.