Celtic Heroes

was wondering this while i was lixing but... who thought it was a good idea to create totems/staffs that are melee ranged and not have wands like mages?? im dps and storm touch requires me to go up in front of the mob to cast spell....i'd replace with swarm but that skill takes waaaaay to much energy. Every other skill is basically ranged. If we have to enter melee range to cast storm and have totems/staffs...why can't we have swords or something? and i dont mean a steady small sword....might as well get rid of storm touch or alter it if our weaps isnt melee because of the skill...or give us ranged weaps. and ye, i could cast root, but no one uses that and whats the point of casting roots in a tight room? i just dont understand the logic sry. kinda dumb having a ranger with a spear as well, would call that a rogue or something instead....can someone please explain why otm decided to do this?-?

I feel your pain...

Druid class is the red headed step child of CH. They don't get low level totems, they get totem ability later than other classes get their weapon abilities, but somehow OTM designed them to melee - which is obvious by end game drops like the defense proc on necro totem weapon and the plethora of +totem rings (mages don't even get any +wand rings), they have high energy usage which further proves that Druids should melee because they run out of energy so fast. I guess the question is if there is actually someone at OTM that plays a Druid and can tell us their experience about leveling and playing a Druid, see how that worked well for them.

I have suggested previously for otm to replace the starter staff with a totem instead of waiting till they enter stonevale to be able to equip one. It makes no sense considering every other class starts with the weapon type that they get from the warden quest line. Removing storms melee range requirement would also be good. I dont know what otm was thinking when they made this skill

Did OTM move the Spear ability npc from Shalemont to Farcrag Castle? It was one of the feedback from beta, and OTM said something along the lines "Yep that's unfair, we will move it to castle". Then when I asked why they aren't doing the same to Totem.....crickets.....<chirp>

Did OTM move the Spear ability npc from Shalemont to Farcrag Castle? It was one of the feedback from beta, and OTM said something along the lines "Yep that's unfair, we will move it to castle". Then when I asked why they aren't doing the same to Totem.....crickets.....<chirp>

Both are in Shalemont I believe

Dexxa moved the totem trainer after feedback received in Beta

Totem has always been in SV. Didn't realize totems existed until I saw the totem at lvl 30
Didn't see the ability till lvl 50. New players are screwed over.

Guess I kinda got screwed over, got my first totem from the warden quest and didn't even use it cause I had only flute for a regen. Only started using a totem and an axe near lv160 and I've stopped because I lost to much energy, rather hold a book and kill mobs with paper.

It'd be nice if storm touch could be casted from a distance -.- or decrease recast time a bit

Yeah, I try to bring Druids to Stonevale so they can get the totem ability before they are in the mid 50's. Not that it really matters. Totem is soooo slow and does such little damage. Any other class does well over twice the damage at almost twice the speed, which takes me wearing heroic haste gloves and having a fiery axe offhand that more than doubles the damage I can deal. Auto also interrupts skills, so you spend more time attempting to cast than anything else.
Try attacking mobs without auto, you'll kill a lot faster. It takes a few seconds after disabling auto to stop attacking, after that you will have no problem healing or casting anything else with a cast time longer than swarm.

If you get practiced with disabling auto far enough in advance and equip an offhand axe, you can start doing decent damage, depending on the mob's star rating and how many you end up having on you. Druid is feeling more like figuring out how to work around the bugs in the game than figuring out a strategy of game play. It has been quite frustrating lately and quite disheartening, I've been contemplating whether or not it's even worth playing. I would have quit if I didn't have so much time and money invested and if I didn't like my clannies so much. I guess there aren't enough Druids to make enough racket to get things fixed, for a reason. I know so many people that quit being a Druid before level 100 because it was way too difficult to level or do anything.

I gave up on storm touch. There are charms I'd rather have equipped than the storm cast reduction charm. I've got stuff equipped that doubles my energy and I've got almost 1,000 sigils, so unless I'm going against boggans (which seem to evade excessively and suck down energy, no energy issues anywhere else), the swarm energy issue isn't a big deal. They may have reduced the energy consumption (still higher than everything else, but there is little poison resist until endgame). Evasions are down a little bit as well. Not as much as when Belantine first came out, but far better than before Belantine, or after the patch.