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The Official Children of Tunare's Druids's guide to Norrath Written by : Brillig Borogrove Introduction In this guide I'm going to try to cover all possible topics relating to playing the Druid class, from the spells we get, to the tactics we can use, to what we can expect in the future, and beyond. My experience playing a Druid is mostly solo, with a lot of kiting for the past dozen levels or so. I do have some grouping experience, so I'll cover that as well. Lastly, my experience is as a Wood Elf Druid, with Forage (wonderful) and Hiding (eh) as default skills. For Human Druids, many of the things I say might not apply to you. Really lastly, this is written from the perspective of a 33rd lvl Druid. Finished writing at 35th lvl. The Druid's Grove Before I go any further, I'd like to point people to this wesbite, at http://206.86.100.18:8080/bthedruidsgrove, a truly excellent site that has helped me immensely in my career as a Druid. Many, if not most, of the thoughts, opinions, and attitudes listed below were ingrained upon me as a result of my constant perusal of the Grove. Creating The Beginning Druid After sometime after level 25 or so, possibly later, a Druid really isn't, and can't be, an effective tank. It's at this point that the mobs start hitting for some serious damage, and Druids really need to either group or kite. With this in mind, I think that Wood Elves and Halflings make the best Druids. I would suggest putting 25 of your 30 bonus points into Wisdom. The game would suggest you place the other 5 points into Stamina, and this is what I did, but I now feel that those 5 points should have instead gone into either Agility (so I'd be hit less and maybe move slightly faster) or Dexterity (so I'd be interrupted less often and maybe cast faster). A big advantage to creating a Halfling is that their starting stats make them very good fighters and, more importantly, they start next to Misty Thicket, a wonderful place to level up all the way to 14th. I chose to make a Wood Elf since I was familiar with Faydwer, but I left for Misty as soon as I hit 6th lvl. The Beginning Druid The novice Druid has to make some choices as to which skills to advance at first level. These boil down to one or more of the three weapon skills (1H Blunt, 2H Blunt, and 1H Slash) and one or more of the five spell skills (Evoke, Abjure, Alter, Divine, and Conjure). I'd suggest passing on Divincation until you get five more practice points at second level, since Divination isn't particularly useful until you get Camouflage at 5th lvl. Also, wait until 5th lvl before training a point into Conjuration. If you wait, it'll start at skill 5 (or possibly 6), saving you a tiny amount of practice effort. So, with your 5 starting points, I'd suggest one point each into Abjure, Alter, and Evoke, and one point into two of your three weapon skills. Which two? Well, there are some very nice staves out there, so 2H Blunt is really a must. There are very nice Scimitars out there as well, but they are exceeedly rare. On the other hand, Scimitars hit very, very quickly. It's really a matter of personal choice, and you can always get the third skill at 2nd lvl. What should you do with these skills? Practice them constantly. I (and many more experienced Druids) would suggest trying your best to keep all your weapon skills maxed at each level. The equation for weapon skills is (lvl+1)*4. So, at lvl 4, once your 2H Blunt reaches 20, you should switch to one of the other weapons and start working on that one. Also, at the earliest opportunity upon reaching a new level, you should go off somewhere safe and practice up each of your magic skills to their maximum, which is (lvl+1)*5. Basically, you should find your least expensive spell for a given skill (such as Sense Animals for Divination) and cast it over and over until the relevant skill is maxed. This will greatly increase your chances for survival as you fight with your new level. Spells First, I'd like to cover the spells, rank by rank. I'm mostly interested here in discussing interesting aspects of each spell, but all will be mentioned. Rank 1 (1st lvl): Minor Healing: Your only healing spell until lvl 9. Use it to max out your alteration. Skin Like Wood: Your cheapest Abjure spell, so use it to max out this skill. Additionally, this is a fairly longlasting buff that is extremely useful. If there's any chance of you going into combat, you should keep this spell up at all times. Endure Fire: This spell really only becomes useful when you finally visit Lavastorm or areas with Desert Madmen (who cast fire spells frequently). You can skip buying it for quite a while. Flame Lick: This will be a mainstay spell for you at least until the late twenties and probably beyond. It reduces the target's AC by a bit and does 20 pts of damage to the target over the course of a minute. This is a great opening spell to use, but since it has two effects, it is resisted more often than other spells. Also, it's great for practicing Evocation and Specialize Evocation. It requires, but doesn't consume, a fire beetle eye to cast. Burst of Flame: Pitiful damage, but when you're constantly whiffing in early combats, it's nice to do _some_ damage. Snare: This is an incredibly useful spell. It rivals Spirit of the Wolf in power. Seriously. Being able to slow down a target is wonderful. When the target starts to run, you can easily follow it and smack it some more. Eventually, once the target takes enough damage, it'll stop moving, but it won't attack you, so you can keep smacking. With the Root spells, the mob will attack you as soon as you get into range. Really, a wonderful spell. See the Being Picky tactic below. The next in the line, Ensnare, offers no advantages whatsoever. Dance of the Fireflies, Sense Animals: Eh. Lull Animal: This spell must be used _before_ combat, but can be useful. If you want to fight something, but a giant plague rat is right next to it, lull the rat, flame lick the target, and back off so that when the lull wears off the rat won't come after you. I have to admit, I've never bothered with this spell, though. Panic Animal: This is a fairly nice spell. Combined with Snare, it can be a great way to raise weapon skills. Find an animal, Snare it, Panic it, and start smacking away. Reapply Panic or Snare as appropriate. Since it works in combat, if a rat (or whatever) attacks you while you're fighting something else, just Panic the rat. I've used this spell against elephants in South Karana. See the Yoyo tactice below. Rank 2 (5th lvl): Cure Poison: Useful once you start fighting the various spiders and snakes. Some mobs require multiple applications of this spell to rid yourself of the poison. For example, Darkweed Snakes need 3 castings. Cure Disease: Useful when you start encountering mummies. I haven't encountered a disease that required multiple castings. This is also a spell that will make you very popular, since disease is such an incredible hassle. Burst of Fire: A welcome DD upgrade. Ward Summoned: At around 9th level or so, you're going to want to visit Steamfont and this spell is the reason why. Defeating the Earth Elementals there is quite easy when you're doing 45 pts of damage for only 30 mana. Snare the Ellie and it might not even get to you before you Ward it out. Whirling Wind: In every combat you're in, you MUST cast this spell when it is available (it has a bit of a long refresh time). Why? Because it is Conjuration-based, and you really want your Conjure skill to be maxed by the time you reach lvl 14 and get ahold of Stinging Swarm. Invoke Lightning: You really don't want to be fighting multiple creatures at a time, unless you're grouped, of course. Grasping Roots: Normally, spells with multiple effects resist more often, but according to Geoffrey Zatkin (Archmagi of Norrath), this is not the case with this line of spells. Still, root spells aren't particularly reliable for quite a while. I did the Root n Burn tactic a bit in Misty Thicket against Giant Wasps and then later in South Karana and Unrest. Camouflage: A life-saving spell. When medding or travelling, you should have this spell up. I still have it memorized always. Harmony: This was recently "fixed" and appears to be a quite useful area effect lull. See a camp of 6 bandits, get safely close, cast Harmony on one of the bandits, lulling all of them, and lure one of the bandits out with a damage spell. Be careful of course. I don't even own this spell yet, though I plan on buying it soon. Gate: A wonderful spell, of course, especially once you get Bind Affinity. Even without that, though, it cuts loot-selling trips in half. Rank 3 (9th lvl): Light Healing: Finally a new healing spell! Enduring Breath: You shouldn't need to breath underwater for quite a while more. Pass on the spell for now. It consumes a fish scale when cast. Endure Cold: See above for Endure Fire. Not very many cold-casting creatures for a long time, though. Firefist: This is a very short-duration buff, but is a very useful aid to being able to solo tough creatures. If you're going to go hand-to-hand, keep this spell up. Strength of Earth: Strength does add to ATK, so keep this spell up, too. Also, being able to carry more loot before becoming encumbered is great. Lastly, tanks in your group will very much appreciate this spell for a quite a while. Ignite: Another welcome DD upgrade. You'll be using this spell until 19th lvl, which is kind of depressing to think about. Shield of Thistles: If you're going to fight something, cast it on yourself just before you engage it. This spell doesn't last long. If you're in a group, cast it on the puller just before he goes out to pull, since if you cast it after he gets back, the mobs will be very angry with you. Thistlecoat: All the Xcoat spells are extremely longlasting. Keep this up at all times when in hostile territory. Invis. to Animals and Starshine: Eh. Treeform: This spell used to be wonderful, even though some Druids never used it. I found I could fight right next to a giant and not have the giant attack me. It was recently changed to disallow movement (though a bug still will let you move), but with increased regen. Some Druids are becoming ecstatic over this regen, claiming the spell is vastly improved. One Druid said that, combined with the Regenration spell, she was gaining _25_ hps per tick! Rank 4 (lvl 14): Invigor: This spell restores fatigue, so if you are doing a lot of swimming, or using a 2H Blunt weapon for quite a while, it could be useful. Extinguish Fatigue is as "useful". Skin Like Rock: A very nice upgrade to Wood. Spirit of the Wolf: The best spell in the game. Expulse Summoned: This spell will allow you to go to Lavastorm and beat up elementals. Cascade of Hail: The problem with all Area of Effect spells is that they are really just an indirect way of committing suicide. If you really want all the mobs to target you, by all means cast AoE spells. Stinging Swarm: See the Kiting tactic below. Damage over Time (DoT) spells aren't useful in group combat since you want to defeat mobs as quickly as possible. If Druid DoTs really do have their duration halved, while doubling the damage they do per tick, then perhaps DoTs will be useful in group combat, and especially in dungeons where our fire-based spells get mostly resisted. We'll see. See Invisible: Many, many people go around Camo'd or otherwise invisible. Plus, there _are_ invisible mobs. I keep this spell up all the time. Levitation: Useful around Lava or water. I don't really use the spell much, though I suppose I should. Halo of Light: Eh. Befriend Animal: See the "Pet" tactic below. A dangerous, but potentially rewarding, spell. All future charm animal spells are ignored. I don't know if you need a high level version to charm high level mobs. Most high level dungeons lack charmable stuff, anyway. Summon Food & Drink: If you haven't been maxing your Conjure skill, here's your chance to do so. Also, store the food in drink in a bank so that it won't disappear when you log out. Bind Affinity: Hybrids and non-magical classes envy the heck out of us casters for having this spell. Bind outside a zone you plan to hunt in. If you die, you're close to your body, if a warrior dies, he might have a very long trek. Rank 5 (19th lvl): Healing: Another welcome upgrade, making us viable healers in groups for a few levels. Endure Disease & Poison: I still haven't purchased these spells, but I really haven't spent much time in dungeons... Feral Spirit: It's rumored that casting this on a charmed pet of yours will allow it to attack any opponent, whereas usually pets won't attack things too much higher than themselves. See below for the dangers of using this spell under the Pet tactic. Careless Lightning: You'll be surprised, unless changes are made, how long you'll be using this spell. 50th lvl Druids are still using it, because all creatures in the high level dungeons resist fire really well. Hopefully, we'll get an upgrade version of this spell in some upcoming patch. Dizzying Wind: I avoid the wind spells due to their long refresh time, high resist, lack of spell slots for multiple DDs, and outdoor only status. Shield of Barbs: A welcome upgrade. Barbcoat: Expensive, but a welcome upgrade. Superior Camouflage: Castable indoors. Cancel Magic: A warning: Other PCs can cast this on you, taking down your SoW, Wolfform, etc. Be very wary when kiting evil guards. Terrorize Animal: See Panic Animal. Calm Animal: See Lull Animal. Ring of Karana: Personal teleport to North Karana, which has all your non-ring 19th lvl spells. A griffon has this Druid Ring on its travel path, so always have SoW up when teleporting. Don't forget that form spells drop when zoning. Ring of Commons: Personal teleport to West Commons, which has all 19th lvl Ring spells. Buy this spell before 19th lvl, so when you hit it, you can go and get all the spells you need immediately. Ring of Toxxulia: I forget which spells this place has. The Circle spells? Ring of Butcher: This place has really high level spells (39th?), but you really want it so you never have to ride the boat again. Rank 6 (24th lvl): Resist Fire: I just realized I never bought this spell. Oops. Skin Like Steel: Very nice. Up on you and tanks at all times. Spirit of Cheetah: 10 minutes after you first memorize this spell, you can cast it. Or, if you zone, you can cast it. A wonderful escape spell, and also fun to cast just before zoning. Dismiss Summoned: I need to buy this spell but haven't since I have yet to encounter really tough pets or ellies. I'll buy it soon, tho. Pogonip: AoE spells are usually bad. Tremor: AoE spells are usually bad. Of course, if you wanted to dramatically improve your Qeynos faction, you could go to Blackburrow, find a horde of Gnolls, and Tremor them. Creeping Crud: The upgraded Stinging Swarm. Since they're in the same line, they don't stack. Very good spell, and lasts longer than I thought, unless that was a recent change. I'll be switching to Drones of Doom soon, but I've heard that's not such a great improvement. I'm not sure. Ensnaring Roots: I'm probably imagining it but this spell seems less reliable than Grasping Roots. Sunbeam: Eh. Wolfform: Woo hoo! You look cool, get a nice ATK bonus, built-in SoW, and faction stuff is the BEST. Seriously. You could, if you wanted, visit evil cities (being careful to zone in Camo'd and cast Wolf somewhere safe). Before you screw up your faction too much (which takes a long time) you can explore all of Unrest and Mistmoore. Fun. Greater Wolfform gives only a bigger ATk bonus. New Ring Spells: The new rings are nice for the spells you'll be getting from them and the time savings visiting the nearby interesting dungeons (Cazic, Guk, Najena, Solusek). Rank 7 (29th lvl): Greater Healing: Our final healing spell. We again become decent healers for a short while. Counteract Disease & Poison: Haven't cast. Immolate: If this weren't resisted the vast majority of the time, it'd be great. I'd love it if the AC debuff were removed so that it could be resisted less and Druids would have two useful, stackable DoTs. Combust: Ugh. Very useful in Unrest, may be good in Cazic, but after that all I hear is that everything resists it and high level Druids just use Careless. Sad. Shield of Brambles: Tanks love this. Bramblecoat: Lasts ages, so keep it up. Succor: East: Casts as fast as Gate. The one time I tried it, it was interrupted. Hard to use if you've been healing. Circle spells: Expect to be bombarded with port requests immediately. Also, newbies will somehow expect you to port them for free or for a few gold. Weird. Lastly, people of your level will ask you for ports to a cool dungeon, but you're not invited. Being a taxi for your guild is one thing, but being a taxi for others is not good. Rank 8 (34th lvl): Resist Cold: Nice. Strength of Stone: Tanks love this. Endure Magic: Wonderful spell! The +20 increase in our resist magic makes a truly gigantic difference. Amazing. Regeneration: Eh. I keep trying to convince people not to top off their HPs when they have this spell up, but the Clerics refuse. Could make soloing faster, combined with Treeform and a Mana Stone. Dunno. Lightning Strike: Did less damage than Combust. Might be small area of effect. I think it is outdoor-only, but not sure. Earthquake: Easier ways to commit suicide. Drones of Doom: Seems to be a good upgrade. Succor: Butcher: East Karana lacks a vendor. New Circle Spells: Now, high level friends can get to the cool dungeons quickly. Tactics Kiting: The most well-known Druid tactic, despite the fact that Shamans and Bards can do it, too. Also, Necros with booties can kite well, and anyone with booties and efficient DD can, too. Simply put, you cast Spirit of the Wolf (or other speed enhancer on yourself), cast a Damage Over Time (DoT) spell on your target, run in big circles until the spell is up, recast the DoT, rinse and repeat until the target is dead. Boring, but can be profitable in terms of experience and loot. Also, kills your combat skill advancement, so I'd say to use this sparingly, or only after combat skills get maxed for a level. Advanced Kiting: Run in a straight line for 30 seconds, meditate for 10 seconds, repeat until the spell time is up. There may have been recent tweaks to mob speeds, so this may not work anymore. We'll see. Also, you could use Snare to slow the mob down a bit, allowing you even more time to meditate during the kite. This is risky, since you don't know when it'll wear off. The bottom line, though, is that you want to minimize downtime between kites and you don't wants resists to screw up a kite by running out of mana. Personally, I don't use Snare during a kite, unless it's to slow down a passerby who has joined in. Petting: Using Befriend Animal to charm fawns (that is, Griffawns) is very risky, but can be rewarding. It's risky because the spell can be resisted, it can wear off in just 5 seconds, it can wear off unexpectedly in the middle of a fight, and so on. However, any time you get a low blue fawn and have it kill a red spider, two yellow gorge hounds, 3 blue crawlers, and a couple greens, all while using just one bubble of mana, it's a beautiful thing. Just remember that when it is all over, you'll have to either kill your pet or zone. Also remember to only charm when a target to kill is extremely close by. Yoyoing: Cast Snare on an animal such as a bull elephant. Cast Panic Animal before it gets to you. Cast a DoT on the animal. When it comes back, Panic it again, rinse, repeat. Also, you could get some Offense and weapon skill practice in on the animal by whacking at it as it runs away. Keep the Snare up. Being Picky: I never called it this when I was using it, but basically it just means casting Snare on the creature you _don't_ want (such as an Aviak Egret) so that you can fight or kite the mob you do want (such as an Avocet) far enough away so that the snared mob loses interest in you and stops chasing. Works very well in South Karana, of course. Grouping: Remember that I foolishly haven't done a lot of grouping. Obviously, keep SoW up on everyone. Keep Strength of Earth or Stone up on the tanks. Try to Shield of Barbs or Brambles the puller _before_ he goes out. Don't heal or burn too quickly. Only melee if you're at or near full mana. Otherwise, sit down and meditate, keeping an eye on the health bar of everyone and the message screen. Flame Lick the primary mob to help if you want. If the puller or other tank has gotten hit, but the mob isn't pierced by thorns, cast a Shield on your him or her. You can take hits better than pure casters, so blast mobs on casters. Check tracking every once in a while for interesting stuff. Where and What to Fight Keep in mind these are only suggestions and that I (perhaps foolishly) soloed my way up to level 30, and most of the way to 35. Also, I'm mostly ignoring loot, at least at the early levels, since I twinked my Druid. The Newbie Levels: From 1st to 4th or 5th, I'd suggest just smacking away as quickly as possible at the newbie monsters in your area. You could make 5th lvl in 5 hours doing this. The Crawl To Meditate: At this point, you have enough mana that recovering it by sitting is extremely painful. I went to Misty Thicket and smacked away at the evens and yellows I found there. The Journey To SoW: To get to 14th, from 9th or so, I spent the first 2 levels in Steamfont, fighting the Earth Elementals and Clockworks. Then, I boated back to East Commons and fought Asps, Young Kodiaks, and spiders. Three Cure Poisons to remove poison is a lot. An Introduction To Kiting: Once I got SoW, I resolved to only kite after my combat skills had been maxed out. This resolution lasted until 22nd lvl. Until 20th lvl, I fought in East Karana against Chasm Crawlers (great), Gorge Hounds (had to kite), spiders, high level lions. In North Karana, the beetles were fantastic for combat skill training, since they don't hit very hard. Also, I kited fawns and charmed them when a nice beetle was around. The Twenties: At 20th lvl I went to South Karana and the birdhouse there. This was 3 or 4 days before most people knew about it, I think, and it was truly wonderful. I killed Aviaks and Centaurs here until 30th lvl, actually, with a couple grouping excursions to Runnyeye on the way. I managed to kite 5 of 7 Avocets at 23rd lvl, but the last two resisted so much I decided to wait for 24th lvl to do more. It was during this stage that I started to amass wealth again, since Aviaks and Centaurs load pretty decent loot on a regular basis. The Early Thirties: Soloing in Unrest against just about anything less than a Hag is perfect viable. Great loot (bronze and fine steel galore), some interesting loot (Savant's Caps, runes, etc.). Just a nice place. Plus, you might be able to get into a group camping for Dwarven Workboots, although that is insanely boring and tedious. Also, at 31st lvl I started kiting Troll Bashers in Innothule Swamp. The always have a Longsword (10 plats), a Round Shield (1.3 plats), and an Intestine Necklace (+5 HPs, 1.8 plats). They can have up to 5 plats in money. Gems, runes, etc. are a bit rare. They have a FS weapons sometimes. You only see the Short Swords and Rapiers, though they also have other types. I started with Trak and Smag, but this was kind of mean to the newbies since those two help newbies the most. Once switched to Sklama and Oggrik the complaints were over. However, a Troll PC named Detrytis didn't like me killing his guards, so he disspelled my Wolfform every chance he got, which nearly got me killed once. It was tremendously exciting, though. I managed to kite 3 Ogre Bouncers, who have A Crude Stein (most of the time), a valuable item I could probably auction for a fair amount. They have tons of HPs, hit extremely hard, and Feerrot has serious warping, so it's been scary, but no deaths. 35th Level: Currently, I'm 35th lvl, 2 bubbles in. I'll probably look for grouping opportunities in Cazic-Thule and maybe Solusek A in the future. Additional Thoughts I suspect I'll have more drivel to shovel later. Be happy. | ||
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