Runes of Magic US / AU

Quoted from "Britanus;464018"

So. As the title states, once again, I am considering returning the RoM. I am starting to notice that Rift has begun to bore me.

Aside the butchered and destroyed P/W, my 1 love in this game has been the Druid. When Druids were first introduced I made a D/M, hoping to pump out the damage. So, just exactly how comparable is D/R damage to the damage of any Mage combo?

Also, once again, how cash shop heavy is this game? Has the reliance on the cash shop altered any, and is it possible to get up there without dumping money into the CS?

Also, how is PvP as a Druid? I would primarily end up playing on a PvE server, so my PvP experience would stick pretty much to battlegrounds.

Thank you all for your time, suggestions, and answers.

To be 100% honest. I don't ever see druids in our sieges on our side or the other. Not to say they don't exist but I don't think they are very viable for pvp at this time.

The game is still very cash shop heavy. ROM is like a noble confectionery. If you want delicious cakes or pralines you have to pay or you allure somebody to buy it and donate it to you. The confectioner want to be paid for his goods in any case.

Quoted from "spanthegnome;464023"

To be 100% honest. I don't ever see druids in our sieges on our side or the other. Not to say they don't exist but I don't think they are very viable for pvp at this time.

Heh, you never ran up against Xerise, back when she was the top Druid on the US servers. She was really, really, really good.

D/X is more of a support position in Siege, but X/D, especially M/D, can be very deadly when properly leveled and geared.

Quoted from "Britanus;464266"

I actually had the pleasure of creating and leveling a toon to some extent with her once upon a time.

It saddened me quite a bit, earlier today, to find out that she has left RoM.

I encountered Xerise precisely once, over a year ago, with my old guild on Osha (Redrum). I was playing a lowly (!) 50/50 M/P and watched her HoT a Knight that was beating on one of our gates--we couldn't take him down at all. I went outside, attacked her, and she deftly switched back and forth, healing the Knight and herself, without breaking a sweat or missing a beat. Awesome performance, IMO.

Back on-topic. I've been leveling an M/D (recently hit 55/55) and with its currently-limited dirty-statted gear, I manage to stay alive about 95% of the time when my guild runs me through HoS/ZS/DL. Have to do that on the Druid side, of course. (That toon averages 10.5K-11K HP right now.) I've found the combo to be excellent for questing and soloing.

Our guild has a couple of higher-level (endgame or near-endgame) Druids, and they fare pretty well in Siege and RT/KT/GC. Note that in Siege, they get targeted pretty quickly, as do most healers.

If you do decide to come back to the game, please consider visiting beautiful Osha.

I don't stat for dps, but I know someone who did try as a D/R and then a D/M to stat purely for dps purposes...and found the dps to be quite lacking, at least in comparison to a mage of same gear level and type. I don't know the specifics beyond that, and I personally don't try to dps unless I absolutely have to (quests, by myself somewhere in siege and someone is attacking me).

As far as cash shop heavy, I would say it depends on how patient you are. This is obviously just from my own experience and from what I've observed of others I know. With patience, you can probably be f2p (and by f2p, all I mean is someone else spent the diamonds on what you'd have to do, you just spend the in game gold). But if you want to get into the latest instance now now now, you probably would have to invest in the CS in some way.

As a healer in pvp, I have done best as a d/s in keeping both myself and my guildies alive. I did go as d/m until the third classes came out, but I find d/s to be an improvement for something such as siege. And I see druids in siege quite often In pve, I stick to d/m. I just prefer healing as that class, not necessarily consider it better than d/s.

d/r *used* to match a respective mage in dps, assuming properly geared, but in ch 4 mages got a huge boost (druids got a boost too mainly in heals), d/r dps does NOT come anywhere close to mage anymore.

The other thing is, it is extremely expensive to stat caster dps, as opposed to melee dps. Not sure why.

Would say if you're interested in druid, go healer druid - which is every other d/x but d/r.

Quoted from "Britanus;464018"

Also, once again, how cash shop heavy is this game? Has the reliance on the cash shop altered any, and is it possible to get up there without dumping money into the CS?

SUPER HEAVY!!!! This game is officially Pay to Win, especially that now you can +16 your equipment and there is no limit how much you want to tier item either, in short the upgrading process is limitless as long as you can pay for it.

No money? sorry....you won't get far...trust me.

And no, don't compare ROM Siege with WOW Battleground, ROM PVP is broken due to the problem above, not mentioning lag, crash, hax....you name it

You better have deep pockets to reach end game. The content introduced was not intended for the free to play crowd.