Hello im a MM 6-9 veteran, tried almost every possible team combo and setup. Favourite game is MM6 by a long shot. Ive completed MM6 in 21 days during a "Full quest", that means no speedrunning while skipping 90% of the game/quests. It means you have to do ALL the quests (Dont talk to nicolai or it wont work) And i held the highest score on the 3do site when it was still up and running.
But enough about me, i just wanted to get that out there so that most ppl who read this post will understand that im not just rambling. There is testing and many hours of gameplay to back up what im about to write:

Druids in MM9 are completly insane at higher lvls, and it dosnt take much effort to get there. First of all make a team of 3 druids and 1 assassin (the assassin just for fun and traps, otherwise u can take another druid)
So here is what you do: Lvl up your chars the normal way by completing turnin quests and many of the easy promotion quests. Once you are about lvl 15 or so you should be able to get your ass to the "green man" in frosgard, especially since there is a jump point at the first yeti ambush while going to the green man, you can basically jump the mountain and skip most of the yetis/gezzampts and just go talk to him to get the promotion (its easy, the hard part was getting to him). So anyways once youve managed to get your druid promotion everything is a cakewalk from here... Basically get unarmed skill to 10-13 or so, then dodge to 4 and bodybuilding to 7 (then the rest to unarmed up to 40+)

And ofc if you wanna get to the green man as al vl 15 healer without any cheesy jumping it is possible, just gona take alot of time/semi kiting.

If you do this, there will be NO NEED for any spells at all(Except for armor skin/bless for extra bonus, fuck Faith its useless). You will have around 15 attacks per round and you will hurt more then a gladiator with artifact weapons since the unarmed skill is so broken (3 points to hit AND dmg per skill)
so a 40 skill equals 120 dmg and the highest "to hit" bonus in the entire game. You rarely miss, and you also have very fast recovery since you are unarmed (and ur assassin is daggers if u have one).

This basically makes gladiators/paladins/assassins and all other melee you can think of, completly obsolete since there is nothing they can do better then a druid. And before you start rambling on about gladiators AC, keep in mind that druids get GM bodybuilding and GM dodge.

I basically just wanted to share this since ive seen soooo many posts about mm9 over the years and ppl bickering back and forth about what melee is the strongest etc etc. Also during the "Healer" stage wich is VERY easy to get a promotion for, you can expert unarmed/dodge wich will make you quite sufficient untill u get ur druid promo. So melee druids are basically Medium/easy in the start and "Cakewalk" endgame.

Cool!

I suspected that 4x druid was mega OP and made a post about it a while back. Never got around to testing it, but I will the next time i get the MM6-9-scratch.

Did you use CL at all for ranged combat? I feel like CL + master meditation can be really fun as well.

Actually, for many games there is a 100% speedrun category, where you try and complete 100% of the game (however that's defined for the game) as fast as possible.

So, in a way, you could speedrun what you're calling a "Full quest"; do all the quests, then beat the game, in as little real time as you can. On the leaderboards, this would be considered a different category than the "Any%", where you merely try to beat the game skipping unnecessary quests (except when doing the quest would save time compared to skipping it).

They're both speedruns; they're just different categories, and their times would be on separate leaderboards, just like you don't get sprint and marathon times competing with each other.

Yeah honhestly i dont like the speedrunning parts of the game, i enjoy it much more when i try to create an uber powerful party and play casually.
Also i know CL can be quite strong aswell, and im pretty sure a party of 4 mages/priests whatever can do just aswell as the 4 druids (By abusing Lloyds beacon a little bit when u dont have anymore mana). I just like the melee composition in MM games in general due to one fact... It feels more honest not abusing Lloyds. But on the other hand, wtf is "Abusing" Lloyds? Its basically doing what its supposed to do.

But anyways yes, i have also tried CL parties and they are strong AF, especially when u reach skill 30+

I can't help but think of the Might and Magic 3 speedrun where the player actually reaches level 200 (the highest level you can train to); the endgame level ends up a bit lower because of Mr. Wizard, however.

The way you quickly reach level 200 in that game is as follows:
* Take the default party (or one containing only throwaway characters), and complete the first quest. Also, consider using the special mirror password to get a bunch of money. This will unlock the Gold->XP fountain.
* Deposit all your money in the bank. Also, while we're at it, deposit gems as well.
* There's a place you can get paid to work a week. Do this, as each time, the money deposited at the bank will increase 1%. (Note that this is exponential growth.)
* Keep doing this until you have around 1.5 billion gold in the bank. (Just make sure you stop before your banked gold reaches 2^31, or it will overflow and become negative; at least I *think* that's what will happen.) After you do this, your party will likely be very old.
* Go back to the guild, and hope at least one character doesn't keel over and die do to having stats at 0.
* Create the characters you actually intend to use.
* Have each of them throw 200 million gold into the fountain. This gives them the XP needed to train to level 200.
* Now go to the last town using the mirror and train to level 200.
Drawback of this method: You won't be able to effectively use hirelings, as they will be too old to survive. (Good thing the game doesn't have a functional time limit.)

This sort of thing also makes me think of how, in World of Xeen, I've been able to complete the Dragon Tower early in the game and get the XP and treasures there, including reaching that one fountain in the clouds above the tower. Or how, in MM2, I've been able to get enough XP to reach the 20s from the first battle victory.

Yeah it is true most of the games has these "cheese" elements in them. But thats part of the charm.. Use them if you want, dont use them if you are serious about the game =)

The interesting thing about these elements is that it's actually not that easy to pull this off. For the MM2 example, you need some pretty good knowledge about the game, including where temporary boosts are and how certain things behave, in order to pull it off. (I did make use of something I consider a glitch when I did it, but have worked out a way to do it without.)

So, in a way, using and figuring out these strategies are the sort of things you only do if you're serious about the game; a casual player would typically not do this sort of thing.

I completely agree. It's a different way to play a game and a lot of the speedrunning strats demonstrate great knowledge about a game. What does being "serious about the game" even mean?

How much do you think others care about your approval on how to play a game?

I think ppl got too hooked up about the whole seriousness thing, what i meant was: Ofc it requires knowledge about the game etc etc, but for me personally it takes the edge of the game when i use to much cheese. I have used it so much in MM games before. But ive gotten to a stage where im trying to play the games as "serious" as possible. And for me and many others that ive spoken to is without these elements.
Cuz honestly, doing a speedrun in MM6 for example with the NWC Dungeon etc etc, is no a speedrun, its a cheeserun.

Also i dont know how "my aproval" was part of this at all. ^^

Anyways, back to the topic a hand: MM9 Druids being the most broken melee class in the game.