Druid/Shaman Question

Argent Dawn
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Akamito sounds the horn of the loremasters, summoning all of those burdened with knowledge to his thread.

What up people, got a lore question that I need answered and I hate the story forums.

Is there a distinction between the realms of power that Druids and Shaman have influence over? For example, a druid can control the wind to create cyclones but a Shaman can also control the wind by way of their pact with the elements.

What is the difference between their actual command of these elements, and theoretically which would come out on top if they were to go head to head? Assuming a similar level of power between the two casters.

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In a head to head I’m pretty sure a druid would come out on top even if just simply due to pure versatility. Then again, never underestimate someone that can throw around actual lava on a whim.

As far as their magic goes, I’m pretty confident that it’s much like the many forms of Light wielders, they’re pulling from the same domain but just from a different angle. As far as that goes, the shaman would probably come out on top in that field alone due to their closeness to the elements, while for druids it’s more a secondary thing.

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The power cap for both sides is basically “country destroying”. Imperator Molok (then Sorcerer-King of the Gorian Empire) pooped on shamanism until he saw a single shaman easily deflect a village-destroying flash flood from an orcish village and then he went “oh shizz this is real strong lets all learn shamanism too”.

On the flipside you’ve got Malfurion who’s equally as destructive+powerful+scary.

So class vs. class is fairly pointless, you’d want to be looking at individual vs. individual.

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Arrghhh my ears!

Putting together snippets from the story of Malfurion, the story of Broll, and how Druids of the Talon behave in WC3, there is this conclusion:

A druid starts as a stranger: Whispering the wind (or other form of nature) through means of polite requesting and diplomatic manipulation (like when Malfurion played on the winds’ vanity and told them that the Houndmaster (a demon) is bending lightening into his whip, luring the winds into shocking the demon with lightning to kill him).

Then it develops into more skill from the druid’s side and more trust from nature’s side, so they spend less time talking and also possess a stronger grasp that allows quicker channeling. (I.e. Malfurion in Wolfheart and Stormrage, and Druids of the Talon in WC3)

Then at peak performance it becomes whimful; the druid and the forces of nature are now so intertwined that they behave instinctively toward one another; reaching the stage where the force of nature in question is invoked at will (not forcefully, but through very instinctive understanding and empathy between the druid and the force of nature).

You can also see this instinctive and empathic teamwork with one another when a druid goes as far as developing their own reflections of the animal spirits (like when Broll possessed his own reflections of the Ancient Guardians, rather than having to reach out for the Ancient Guardians themselves.)

So the difference between them and shaman when it comes to, say, the wind, is diminutive when it comes to the path of training and the method used.

Bear in mind however that druidism is based largely on secrets and mysticism; endless research, variety; one Shan’do may research new ways or old and forgotten ways in how to teach and how to channel. They deal in the elements in their most primordial form aka the essence of life, the solar energy which takes colossal shapes in the universe to sustain a world’s life and warmth, the lunar and stellar elements which maintain a world’s balance and soothe its creatures; these elements are very fluid and can be dealt with in a great variety of ways, allowing the individual to be creative and distinctive with their approach.

Edit: By ‘balance’ here I meant maintaining the gravitational balance, the importance of lunar gravity and why it needs to exist.

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I think my question is more around the interactions between those two very different forces.

If a shaman calls on the elements to bring a storm down on a druid, and the druid turn calls that same storm to calm. Who does it obey?

They both have crossover in the realms they control but through different methods. It’s probably not a question that is easy to answer but I want to understand how differently they control their domains.

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In terms of control, there seems to be overlap of some sort - druids have some power over wind, earth (rock/tiles?) and fire (as per the comics). Since druid lore is more my fortĂ© than shaman lore, I’ll opt to compile some druid quotes to explain how druid mastery over elements works and give my thoughts regarding the two’s differences.

I’m going to go on a bit of a ramble with some quotes, sectioned per element:

Earth

The array shifted out of sequence. Two of the Highborne hurried to adjust it, but the floor beneath their feet suddenly gave way as the stones there acted on Malfurion’s silent request to cease their natural tendency to be strong and hold things together. With a scream, the pair dropped from sight.

– WotA Trilogy, pg. 206

This quote suggests druids (or at least Malfurion) have some degree of power over earth(?). Malfurion essentially “undoes” the tiles by asking them to forgo their “natural tendency to be strong and hold together.” The following quote makes me wary that they can actually do this and that maybe, just maybe, the writer thought the tile-undoing was simply cool:

Deep below the earth, Malfurion found the burrowers, the worms and such, who had managed so far to hide from the evil. Urged on by him, they churned away at the ground, making it unstable. Tusked warriors suddenly sank beneath as if in quicksand, while others, bogged down, fell easy prey to archers and lancers.

– WotA Trilogy, pg. 520

Since indirectness is a recurring theme when it comes to druids & the elements, I think it’s safe to say the latter is a better way to go about it. After all, if Malfurion could simply control rocks/the earth, why didn’t he simply do that instead?

Fire

The main instance of fire that we see is Broll Bearmantle in World of Warcraft comics issue #4 - he calls on the “tongues of fire” and summons them to Ashenvale, alongside the elements of storm & thunder:

https://imgur.com/a/Jwv7jlf

There’s also a small section in Traveler where Thalyss uses “a bit of simple druid magic to spark a fire”:

The rain had picked up, and Thalyss used a bit of simple druidic magic—simple according to him, anyway—to spark a small fire beneath the rocky ledge with Aram’s damp wood.

– Traveler

I wouldn’t assume druids have great mastery over fire, though – it is probably done indirectly through the winds, because that seems to be how druids gain their “mastery” over elements. The above quote could simply be attributed to spells like Sunfire.

Air

Wind is the biggest one. Druids of the Talon are supposed masters of wind, falling well in line with their knowledge of flight. There’s various instances in the novels where a druid seems to call on winds, but like all druid magic this appears to happen through requests and pleas, which the wind then answers.

Druids used to have abilities like Hurricane and still have abilities like Typhoon and Ursol’s Vortex, further solidifying this.

TL;DR, druids do elemental things indirectly. They make use of their surroundings, e.g little insects, to have some control over earth. They may have some small power over elements (Thalyss sparking a small fire), but it’s nothing much - especially not compared to Shamans, who likely simply commune with the elemental spirits(?) directly.

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I refer to Elenthas’ point here about who is more powerful; it indeed depends on the individuals moreso than the source of power involved, looking at the examples he provided plus Ralaar, Fandral, Thrall, Broll, and so on.

In the end, the person is the vessel and the bridge, the anchor, so they’re as important a factor as the powers they control, and can turn the tide of battle based on their own capability. Fundamentally speaking, I think both schools are equal, as they in essence draw from the same origins, but with different details, ranging from cultural influence that determines the person’s preferences, to the environment they live within, and so on. Shaman are more likely to be shaman when they live in drier regions as the other elements are more ample in resource, and druids are more likely to be druids because they live among the fifth element and how abundant it is, so they see the need to preserve it by calling upon its power instead (flora, fauna, mystical and magical creatures), rather than disturb it with the other, more chaotic elements which could burn, sweep or choke the flora and drain resources. Same source, but the culture, environment and situation determines how to shape this source into different schools of natural methods.

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Don’t druids utilise their magic through communion with Spirit rather than elemental forces discreetly? I know shaman utilise spirit too, as the lynch pin, but as far as I’m aware druids accomplish everything through spirit.

As poster above me said, this would mean druid powers heavily rely on the natural environment and their knowledge of balance/cause and effect. A shaman can quite possibly cause a volcano to pop up if they are in good relations with fire, a druid cannot if they are in a land where no such natural reservoirs exist.

As far as I’m aware also a druids magic will not bail on them if the land itself is in a healthy state. A shaman could have their powers denied to them by their elemental patrons, a druid will not.

Don’t cite me on any of those, this is kinda hodgepodge what I’ve worked out from here and there.

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Thanks to all the druid loremasters, those are some genuinely interesting points you’ve raised. Always been interested in druids so wanted to know a bit about how they interact and you’ve given me just that.

Be interesting to hear as well from anyone shaman loremasters if they exist.

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Malfurion as a stand alone ancient druid aside
 because he sits a little oddly above most if not all other druids


Shamans > druids with the elements. I’m basing this on more standard shaman interactions, including Thrall, Nabundo and such. This can be reflected in game, as druids tend to command minor cyclones and whirlwinds whereas Shaman command powerful arcing bolts of lightning, lava bolts and earthquakes. Drek’thar in WoD called on quite the powerful lightning storm to defend the frostwolves for example.

Druids > shamans with the “spirit of life”, aka healing energies. Shamans tend to have to use more water based healing spells rather than pure life energy as their grasp of the essence is much more tentative. Whereas the element of the water is much more easily called upon.

However, when it comes to ‘the wind’ or swirling winds as opposed to storms (and thus lightning), oddly druids come out on top in that regard, at least from what we see in game. But i’d rather get hit by lightning from a druid as opposed to a shaman. Garrosh can tell you why
 :cloud_with_lightning:

So when it comes to ‘winds and storms’ it’s a tricky question to answer. Druids bring the swirling hurricane winds, but the shaman calls down the power of lightning. I’d put my money on the shaman in this particular instance.

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On the old forums I posted some shamanism related quotations from the book Lord of the Clans, perhaps you’d like to compare them to the druid themed quotations Mythundis shared? There’s many similarities I think, the biggest differences probably being in the flavour of asking the nature to lend of itself vs asking the elements. Both WotA and Lord of the Clans are quite old novels by now, but might help in defining some subtle differences in how they control these powers.

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Also how does the whole lunar and solar magic work? I don’t remember ever reading anything about that.

I understand the concept of asking nature for it’s assistance as per WoTA. I still vididly remember the scene where Malfurion heals Korialstrasz. But how does moonfire and sunfire factor into this? It seems to the primary sort of magic used by balance druids in terms of gameplay so would like to know how that even works given it is outside of how I understand them to operate as masters of nature.

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The tauren introduced the balance between sun and lunar magic during cataclysm (check some sunwalker and seer lore). They thought the nelves focusing on only one was flawed. Nelf teachings —> almost exclusively lunar magic.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/An_Injured_Colleague#Dialogue

You’ll also find that spells like “Wrath”, previously a natural green in animation, changed to the colour of the sun. One could say the current balance specc reflects a tauren balance druid more than a night elf. I don’t believe the nelf druids adopted any of the teachings as they are fairly uninterested when it comes to changing what Cenarius taught them just by the input of the other races. At least we don’t see them do so.

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Like flora & fauna, stars, the moon and the sun are also very much part of nature. Think of how plants need sunlight for photosynthesis, how the moon influences the tide, yada-yada.

Druids normally cast their spells by drawing from things around them - a root is ushered into action after a druid communes with the tree closeby, for example. In the same vein, druids draw from the moon/sun to cast spells like Moonfire and Sunfire. They’ll use prayers and pleas - like their “normal” abilities - and go from there.

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Druids revolve around life. The sun and the moon play a great part in the creation and maintenance of life. So they wield the celestial, life-giving power of the sun and the moon as a part of their plants-animals-and-all-things-living theme.


 Though mechanically, it’s likely due to vanilla WoW depositing a whole bunch of night elf abilities from WC3 in the druid class, even if they didn’t really fit.

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Like what didn’t fit?

Classic WoW is basically pure night elf druidism as new races were just recently introduced into the Circle back then. All the spells fit quite well. Blizz added new and different spells according to lore developments ( see link above about tauren and sun-moon)

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feel like pure poop just want insect swarm back x

Also;

Druids literally had a Hurricane spell that called down lightning storms (and tornadoes after a visual rework, iirc), I wouldn’t say they’re weaker in terms of calling down lightning, but it’s less controlled.

In general, in terms of the overlapping elements between Druids and Shaman, the distinction comes how guided it is. Druids ask Nature to help them, and Nature may oblige, but much like natural disasters - they are hard to control.

Shamans on the other hand ask the elements and can have a more intricate grasp on what they want to do. Instead of calling down lightning and horrible winds on an area, they cast lightning from their fingers that goes precisely where they want to. Their winds are more precise and go exactly where they want it to.

Overall though, Druids are far more versatile than Shamans, so if the two go toe-to-toe at same power levels, it would be hard to say who comes out on top. If they ever fought, I doubt they’d only keep to one element anyway.

But I’d rather be struck by a singular lightning than face a natural disaster hehe :sunglasses: druid gang unite

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Lunar magic is granted by Elune/Mu’sha and Solar magic is granted from the Light(The Tauren belief in An’she is basicly the belief in themselves and thus they become capable of drawing the Light from theirselves)
 Thats what I know about it D:

Basicly An’she doesn’t exist and its the Light from within themselves they’re using

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Solar magic even looks different, both in quests and in druid animations. Doesn’t mean much that they joined the Silver Hand because they belief in somewhat of a light entity and Blizzard is too lazy to give tauren paladins unique animations. To just make them absolutely the same goes a bit far.

King’s honor, friend.

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No I mean I swear I read somewhere that the Tauren Sunwalkers’ power comes from within them, and that they’re misguided into thinking the Sun is their source of power


I’mma try and dig it up! D:

What if someone thinks the King is without honor for not keeping to his promises? :stuck_out_tongue: