Has anyone completed improved anvil without an auramaster Options

[Patrick_hindman]

This is just an opinionated post on why i love the auramaster
From my experience so far the auramaster seems to me an essential asset to any party going through improved anvil, his improved caster speed makes him a lifesaver in any battle situation and the extra spells he gets makes him an excellent damage dealer and great defender. Right now with cernd's upgraded cload, ring of protection and helm of defense he basically saves every time combined with his defense spells make him a great tank against mages and his faster casting time makes heal a incredibly useful spell in battle (saved my fighters so many times from those damn skeleton lords).

This in my opinion though makes all the other druid classes underated... because really having low health, low strength(sif he needs any) and the ability of not wearing armour, natural resistance(he has all the resistance spells anyway) and immunity poison and shapeshift(which is useless anyway) is a small price to pay for the bonuses you get in return.

So i would like to know other opinions on this.... is the auramaster too weak(i doubt it), overpowered, or do the druid classes need a makeover to match it.

[Shadan]

Auramatsers can't cast Wish.

I played Cernd in my 4.2 run. I found auramaster extremely useful in SoA (except hardest fights at end of SoA), but he was much weaker in high end game. As LZJ pointed out, Greater Restoration is much more useful than Heal from Auramester with lower casting time, and much more useful than Regeneration. Also they are lack of offensive ablities when you encounter with those enemies, who are immune to fire and magic damage... Elemental princes were weak, happily they will be improved in v6. Lets see how offensive can be an auramester against Skeleton Lords/Grandlords, golems, rakshashas... even high level human enemies have many immunities...
I found Haer'Dalis or a custom blade much better than an auramaster, when they have Ethernal Melody, high level Remove etc... With those nerfed bard spell progression in v6, blades will be maximum mediocre characters, other bards will be very weak.

So all in all auramesters are the best single class druids, but there are some classes/kits in IA, which are stronger than they.