I'm chopping up the post quite a bit here to keep things, hopefully, readable.
Matthew Hayward wrote: Your insistence that the Druid is in last place in a variety of categories where it is clearly not substantially undercuts both your argument, and my desire to attempt productive dialog on this topic with you.
You might have a point here, but "druids are last at X" is hyperbolic and does not advance your position.
Honestly, its no more insincere than saying "druids are 3rd best offensive spell caster" when 9 classes don't really do offensive spells.
Matthew Hayward wrote:
Druid is last (3rd place) for spell damage behind both wizards, as no one is actually counting Cleric or Bard as spell damage dealers. Wizards don't have their legendary yet, so expect this gap to increase.
BiS Druids deal 95% of the spell damage as Wizards while also maintaining an awesome repertoire of spell healing, massive melee damage bonuses and an expanded crit range due to polymorph, and many other benefits.
That 95% spell damage presumes spell swapping all heals to offensive spells, correct? So to get to that 95%, we must presume 0 healing, and we must reduce poly effectiveness by, at minimum fitting +5 and +3 focus rings in addition to SRoEC (thus removing gloves of brute).
Matthew Hayward wrote:
The Druid is the last place healer, unless you're counting the Bard, (given the effectiveness of Soothe wounds, I'm not certain the Druid exceeds the Bard). Cleric is a better healer, but IF you already have a Cleric and the Cleric isn't enough healing for the group, and you don't use restore spell on Soothe wounds, you can boost the Druid to be better than the Cleric..,.. which you probably don't need because you already have a Cleric. The Cleric does not have it's legendary yet, so expect this gap to increase.
There are 3 healing spell healing classes (I'm not counting 5th level Ranger), you claim Druid is 2nd of three. Last place would be 3rd of three.
With Charm of Spell Swapping 5th level Clerics and Druids get, in terms of max healing:
Cleric: 6 cure minor, 5 cure light, 3 cure moderate, 1 cure serious.
Druids: 7 cure minor, 5 cure light, 4 cure moderate, one of which is doubled.
It is not clear that Druids are not the #1 healer at UR+ gearing levels.
Presuming the same +heal amount, I believe the doubled cure moderate wounds should push the druid ahead of the Cleric in HP gained, especially if you don't count Restore power / restore spell since those require a partner so to speak. I can see how we could get to Druid as potentially the #1 healer, and I can concede that point.
Matthew Hayward wrote:
The Druid is the 7th place melee fighter with an optimized poly build (which reduced effectiveness of spells as this thread points out since the +3 and +5 rings of focus don't affect poly). While I won't claim to have the most optimized builds ever in my phone, I have the Poly melee Druid behind Monk, Ranger, Barbarian, 2H Fighters, and 2H Paladin. If the monster needs to be hit by ranged and spells, the GotFF Monk is still hands down better than the poly druid (can the air elemental fly?) and Thor's means most of those classes are actually pretty good at ranged damage. The Fighters don't have their Legendary yet, so expect the melee gap to increase.
You should maybe post some builds.
2019 Barbarian BiS build, +22 hit, +41 damage.
Key items (which I believe are all usable by Fighters and Paladin, but numbers shift a bit)
*Redoubt Set (alternatively, replace redoubt helm with Crown of Might or Helm of the Boar, and tweak armor to Nether Brute Armor)
*+5 Deathcleaver
*Str neck (either stu's or valhalla)
*Charm Bracelet -> 5 charms. CoA, CoAS, Dracolitch, Greater onyx, Fiendish
*SRoEC, Ring of the Eel
*Gauntlets of Linked Fury
*Sutr's Girdle
*Shirt of Blessed Strength
*Bot4W
*Dungeonbane (Str)
*IS Onyx Cube, Infernal Fire, (Onyx Sphere if you break redoubt set)
*Ro7P
2019 Druid BiS build, +18 hit, +35 damage in poly
Key Items
*Iktomi's
*Crown of Might
*+5 Baton of Focus, Brawlers Horn
*Charm Bracelet -> 5 charms. CoA, CoAS, Greater onyx, Spell Swapping, Brooching (could become dracolitch, but then the barb has better saves)
*SRoEC, +5 ring of Focus, +3 Ring of Focus
*Gloves of Glory
*Sutr's Girdle
*Shirt of Focus
*Bot4W
*Dungeonbane (Str)
*IS Onyx Cube, IS Onyx Sphere, Infernal Fire
*Gregor's Tome of Focus
*Ro7P