Interesting thread...am I qualified to comment?


1) There were about seven situations I remember where I got amazing protections from herbs. Once of these was when a paladin fought me.
In each case I had 5 protective herbs and it seemed to have to do with the moon phase or other affects. I never understood it really as just as often I would have a bunch of protective herbs and take full damage leading to my amazingly fast suicide.

2) Druids always have and still have amazing protections against invokers.

3) Druids are almost just as powerful today as they were back then. The only change I think is that you are offered near to none protection these days against zombies, guards, earth elementals, etc. Druids are a lot like playing a priest who forgets to put up sanctuary and has the offensive (non-area) potential of an invoker.

3) I've noticed no significant power differences in the Hunt today vs back then. Especially offensively.

4) Briars are not near as threatening today, mainly because of the potential for your target to back then enter briars, flee, and keep walking back into them if they weren't careful. (This allowed you to oppose bigger groups and fight strategically around briars.)

5) Amora didn't have birdform. (Today I think birdform is great for last minute scouting right before herbs go or to intercept a fleeing target. Bearform is useful only if forced dueled and about out of mana, and put up last second Happened with....dakzin?, forget force dueling invoker name.) The problem with bearform is that all protections get nullified when you shift. So you are a non-hasted mediocre offensive form with no protections, who if healing in combat...is healing when they shouldn't be anyhow. And just better uses for herbs.

6) Amora did pretty good I think, no idea how many kills but the pk ratio was 85%. Graveyard was different back then. She got about 8 con from trains and questing put back. She had about 5 to 10 mob deaths. She had a wide variety of enemies, so constant action. If asked why she was successful, some reasons would be...

-Druids were little understood by enemies
-Variety of Enemies as a Scarab
-Same Offensive Power as Druids Today
-Fanatical Agressiveness
-Ability to shrug off deaths and not autodelete

Ironically, I think a druid I played today would beat Amora. I don't think it would have as many kills, but I think it would be more powerful given the higher wilderness familliarity and better suited cabal choices for the encounters. It would have less kills simply because the way the playerbase has evolved and people are higher up on the learning curved and generally more prepared.

-Oh, and an important point. Some characters just click better than others as Aarn once posted. I also played Crystanthia (Yay, I was mentioned in one of Nepenthes roles? *istendil*) who while killed a fair amount, died to Istendil about 20 times in horrible ways. Crystanthia who led Sylvan and was empowered by Jezral pre-dated Amora though.

PS: If any anything was different with druids, I just wish they had carapace upped or some slight damage reduction to offset the priest-who-forgets-sanctuary feeling. Also, it would be nice to have more things to do in Area Explore areas. They have to be one of the most unfriendly exploration characters. Indoors against fire immunities, no options. Can't call of the wild or gather herbs in places like Thar-Acacia, Hell, Oragonia, etc so really really limited. *Oh and customization is always good for any class and makes things fun*