[Waedawen]

the extra damage portion on druid roots is there just for a little bit of lemon pepper that the other classes don't have. compare ensnaring roots and instill, mid 20-ish level roots, both cost 60 mana, both have the same durations, but ensnaring roots simply has that extra 34-60 damage that it can apply. When you consider the level 19 druid nuke is 90 something damage, 40 damage is actually pretty cool and a welcome little bonus.

Scaling up, Paralyzing Earth and Engulfing, the level 49 roots, again essentially the same spells -- 3 minute duration, 100 mana cost, 2.5 second cast time. But, Engulfing also packs another 150+ damage with it, meaning that it's 1) a root 2) a nuke with a 1.5 dpm attached to it. Pretty fucking sweet, at that point.

Then when you get to the tippy top, you compare Fetter with Engorging. Both are 1.75 (!!) second cast times, 75 (!!!!!) mana, and a 3 minute duration. But, again, the druid root comes with a -very fucking awesome- 180-190 damage attached to it, which means that it's not only a root, but it also casts extremely fast and has a 2.5 dpm nuke attached to it. -2.5- btw. That's Wizard status.

So, while the roots may not be "stronger" than one another in any traditional sense, they all have a 0 Resist modifier, the druid roots are strictly -better- in that they also deal damage.

Engorging Roots itself is an -extremely- versatile spell that I found, quite often, just using as a regular nuke to finish a mob off. And for the level 50 era Engulfing is just as good. The only draw back to the 'stronger' roots is that 150-190 damage is enough to trigger a level 51+ mob to start summoning, and be that the case, just use Ensnaring.