Is it worth it?

[Nemesis]

I've been looking at the rebel units a lot, and I noticed that the Elvish Sorceress has no healing, Elvish Shaman has it. I'm just wondering, under what circumstances might the Sorceress be better than the Druid?

I'm guessing this is a noobish question, but I was wondering...

[F50]

The druid is a healer-mage, the Sorceress is a battle-mage.

[thespaceinvader]

The Sorceress can advance to level 4, which is very useful on long campaigns. Usually I fin i don't need more than a couple of healers, but extra firepower is always handy, and the Sylph has that in spades.

[Trau]

Sorceress is better at melting face
Sorceress uses an arcane attack useful against undead and elves
Sorceress has a more reliable ability to slow enemies
Sorceress can advance to level 4

edit: Oh, also, the sorceress has substantially more HP than druids... if that counts for anything.

[Jozrael]

Sorceress' kinda own. Anything that doesn't have a 20% resistance to arcane (read: humans) is a great unit to use the sorceress on.

Not saying druids don't have their uses too. My first shaman in a campaign always goes to druid, cuz I need the healing. If its one that doesn't have my favorite stat combination for them, QR, then the next QR shaman goes druid as well. If I have dire need of another healer or I want a druid for the -1 upkeep, I get another druid.

Other than that, every shaman goes sorceress. I happen to like getting shamans. This = lots of sorceresses. ^^

[Dodgy Tactician]

I generally find that the most useful thing about a Sorceress is the slow attack. By slowing a high level enemy unit, you halve its damage and therefore make it feasible to have several first level units attack it for the experience without imminent risk of annihilation. It works particularly well with leaders on keeps because you can surround him to prevent him recalling units if you have a few turns left. Assuming a the enemy leader has 60% defense two Shamen or Druids give a total of four attacks or an 87.0% chance of slowing the enemy (or 7.7:1), two Sorceresses or Shydes give a 95.3% chance (or 21.4:1), with two Enchantresses it rises to 98.3% (or 59.5:1) and with two Sylphs it rises to 99.4% (or 165.4:1).

I also tend to make more use of their slowing attacks than any other special attack. They may not get a huge number of kills, but by slowing a high-level unit on every turn, their experience mounts up surprisingly fast - seven attacks on third level units or thirteen on second level units if they are Intelligent is enough to level them up. Mix that with the occasional kill and they aren't all that difficult to level up, despite giving most of the kill experience to your archers and fighters. I don't tend to concentrate on levelling up my Druids unless I have a specific requirement for the speed and/or movement of Shydes, but I still use them in the same way, keeping their experience ticking over. Sorceresses however can gain their own experience, particularly against the Undead, Drakes and Trolls.

[nataS]

I think the lines shouldn't be compared as to where the one is better than the other. Both elvish druid and sorceress are important units. The druid line for it's healing abilities, and the sorceress line for it's very powerful magical arcane attack. They really have an entirely different goal with only in common the level one shaman. Nothing stops you from having one or more of both though. An elvish druid only take 32 XP, thats a tenth of the cost for a sylph. And you don't necessarily have to upgrade it further because the healing abilities won't get better.

[vicza]

I generally find that the most useful thing about a Sorceress is the slow attack.

I prefer using shamans (shawomen ) for this. When she advances to sorceress, I'd better recruit another shaman for slowing, and sorceress let better use her magic attack. Though, of course, when it needed, she can use slowing, too.

[Dodgy Tactician]

That's completely valid and I do do that as well, but a Sorceress has three chances to hit, which is a big advantage when taking on a unit with a good defense score. Enchantresses and Sylphs are even better in that respect.

[JW]

Use them both to kill Drakes and see which one you prefer.

[Daxam]

Both are good

Don't underestimate the power of "slow" and healing of druid (two helpful abilities). A 20+ attack by a level 3 troll can be halved to 10. Imagine how useful that is.

Sorceress' magic ability is most useful against undead.

[csarmi]

Well I choose sorceress about 90% of the time. Same with oracle/soothsayer.