While waiting in line for open beta, I watched Rhykker play Diablo IV necromancer on Veteran (World Tier II). There was very little that had to be evaded and the skeletons did most of the work. That was level four.
I thought I would have a similar easy beginning, but nope!
Druid werewolf attacks felt so inferior to the skills of the necromancers I saw.
Skill I used at the time
Basic: Claw
Core: Shred
Core skill is so expensive compared to the damage it deals and it is just one (D3 barb) Cleave-like attack. Hitting several times depletes your Spirit so fast and I do not think the damage adds up to the ressource cost.
The skills looks good though!
Now I go to change my World Tier to I, so I can get the most out of open beta … Bugger. I had hoped to wait to at least level 10-15 before I had to do that >_>
1 Like
I havent tried Necromancer yet. But even compared to rogue (I played during the early access beta) Druid feels lacking.
1 Like
I was so excited for Druid when it was first announced, but wow is it bad. I went in with World Tier 2 and everything took forever to kill. Made it lvl 11 and had enough, rerolled a sorc and it was night and day.
The first boss alone, I needed to constantly heal with my druid and it took me like 5 or 6 minutes to kill. My sorc killed him in around a minute without healing once.
3 Likes
That was exactly the druid-experience I had with the first boss. I thought they had nailed this, but some design philosophy must have changed from their original plans with it. Maybe it gets equalised in the end-game, who knows, but while leveling it is not an equal playing field, pun totally intended 
1 Like
druid is the same as barbarian. Forced to use first skill to raise spirit, and CD everywhere with noway to reduce it. Sorc and Necro have all the good stuff, can passive regen, raise resource with other skills, have CD reduction, huge clear speed right from the start.
Druid & barbarian have cool skill feeling, but very underwelming performance, thanks to a bad resource system.
3 Likes
My damn game keeps crashing from a memory leak whenever I try to create a new character… Wanted to try the Druid, damn it! 
Morning 
They released two patch over the night that disables the Exclusive Fullscreen option in settings. Maybe that fixes it for you?
I have a sick Druid build that just destroys everything it its path. It’s a force of nature. Try synergizing your builds.
2 Likes
It might me dependend on the level and maybe you cannot make a 1:1 comparison with classes on each level 
Update on the skill feel
Using Claw + Shred feels so much like each other.
Only difference between Shred and Claw is that Shred lets your druid jump to the nearest monster and attack + it cost spirit and Claw does not.
In the skill info for Shred it does read: perform at trio of combo attacks. But the way it works is that you have to spam the attack button to get the trio-effect, if you wait too long, the game thinks you are performing a new core move and drains your spirit again.
I think Shred should attack three times in a row or at least until now monsters nearby are dead, instead of expecting the player to be precise in their timing of the button-presses. (I notired that you can hold down to attack all three times, however it will auto-initiation a new series of attacks if you do not let go of the button in time. So I still think it is an issue with cost and timing vs. the dmg. you deal.
Thoughts?
A little bit of precision and resource managment never hurts, and can be fun once you get good at it and become more mindful of your abilities. There are other druid abilities that depend on your patience and it pays up. Wait till you are farther down the skill tree to see other skills that have stacking. Make sure your spirit is high enough to land good combos. This ability will also be enhanced throughout the gameplay and it will change the animations as well.
It’s a diablo game expect to see a lot of scaling for all the abilities and more theorycrafting
Try to synergize with different elements. He’s a druid that can make storms and turn into a bear, summon beats, and use power of vines. Mix it up and see how you like combos. You’re in for a treat.
They are buffing our experience giving us more legendaries and faster leveling to stress test the balance, it’s going to be a little slower on release. I’m not expecting to be OP and all god like in the beginning of the game. This is what makes theorycrafting a lot of fun. The chase to be a god.
They’ve only given us a taste, we still have paragons, exotic weapons, and personal class quests that unlock a different kind of skill tree. None of those are in this beta.
1 Like
Hm… I will give it a try and return when I am full level with a deeper insight
Thank you for sharing your insight and well-thought out replies, unlike mine, that are only based on a druid between level 4 and 5 
Necromancer still feels much more powerful by comparison in these early levels though. But as long as it is balanced out in the end (50), I do not mind the difference while leveling up
1 Like
Sorted it when I uninstalled the HD Pack. 
1 Like
correction … every class feels inferior to the necromancer xD even sorc i had to be aware of my surroundings necro not so much :). i hope some tuning gets done feel like druid warebear is lacking in damage in take stability since this game seems very melee unfriendly.
1 Like
Its not that its lacking, it has 1 or 2 skills you can use for really good damage and everything else its garbage. For example I use claw & shred for single target and then cyclone storm + creepers for aoe. it works I kill stuff faster than on my necromancer.
But that is it the other skills are not even worth using, I finally got hurricane and it was such a let down. But again we only playing up to lv25, I guess its just that if you use an ultimate skill even if it is low level, shouldn’t it hit harder than the basic skills?? Tool tip says it does but it really doesn’t.
1 Like
You also have to remember that we havn’t unlocked our full tree yet (including paragon) and class quests. After spending over a day playing Druid it takes a lot of synergy and gear to get it going.
1 Like
It does seem pretty bad overall, at least the melee builds. It seems like melee in general is going to struggle in this game unless something really changes at max level.
1 Like
All classes feel inferior compared to the Necromancer. Tested them all. Druid’s better than Barb, though.
1 Like
in World Tier II: Druid werewolf indeed does litterally no damage atm. I had to stop at level 6 during a quest mob wich almost two shottet me, and even with claw and shred u deal absolute zero damage at this moment in comparsion to any other class…
Switched to Necro… it was a 6 second fight -.- 
Btw. did not test any other spells of druid, wich may work fine… Meele werewolf for sure dosen´t. Sad 
1 Like
The druid definitely needs work. It feels slow and weak.
Was there not supposed to be Crushing Blow chance with earth skills? Where is this?
1 Like
Now I have had the time to fully play the druid 
I still think that it cannot comfortably handle World Tier II as level 25, if you play as a werewolf with Claw, Shred and pets.
I tried a wide variety of pets. Ravens, wolves, poison vine. The poison vine was absolutely the best, damage wise, because of its active snare/trap effect and comparable violent poison damage on top.
The werewolf-ultimate felt weak. But I sense a common concensus that this was an issue for all classes’ ultimate skill at level 25.