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Druid all-in-one guide by Gaviilan

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Notice from author: This guide is made for Vanilla EQ and it's first expansion, The ruins of Kunark. It does not show the actual places that you can go in P1999 with the addition of the Scars of Velious expansion. I will slowly update the guide to include those, however, all the other hints and tactics and also the places of Kunark and Vanilla EQ still work, so feel free to read it anyway :)

Contents

Preface

Abstract of the guide: Hello druid, my name is Gaviilan and I have been playing in Project 1999 for a long time. I also played as a druid until Planes of Power era in live. I always kept druid as my main character, despite the many challenges druids have to face. The purpose of this guide is to offer some help and tips to druids, in order to maximize the potential of the class. Also I want to show druids "solo" level tactics, like quadding and charm kite. Lastly, it's also the purpose of the guide to point out the strenghts of the druid either in a standard group and when raiding.
Introduction: Ok, so you made it. You kept levelling your druid. You fought against all those who told you a druid is useless in the high end and you should leave it at lvl 39 forever to rot as a porting machine. You ignored all those people that insisted you should level a monk/rogue instead. You sweat to explain people that a druid is indeed useful in groups. You experienced victory when a possible wipe, followed for a 2h CR in Sebilis disco, turned out in a safe and pleasant walk from Emerald Jungle with an evacuate. You emerged victorious while solo kiting. You embraced the joy of outdpsing people in certain raids with charming tactics. Yes, you are a real druid. This guide is for you.

Good histories always have a sad part

To begin with, I must warn you, the path of the druid is not easy. We can't heal as well as a cleric, or even a shaman, until Velious expansion hits. We don't have the myriad of buffs that a shaman has, but our natureskin buff it's probably the best all in one buff in game. We can't deal as much damage as a wizard, but we're similar(if not better) than a magician class. Our last nuke, wildfire, is similar to the magician high end one, plus we have DoTs and some useful clickies.

But by far, the real handicap of a druid is the lack of a slow/debuff spell. This can often turn you down in groups for shamans. We have to deal with this problem with our own strenghts, and remember that we have ports.

Many people won't understand our true potential in groups and you'll often be turned down for another class; its our duty to make those close-minded people change their mind about us. To make this happen, be sure that you always have the appropiate spell set in any group given situation. Use your nukes, heals, damage shields and buffs efficiently. Remember that you can do almost every role in game with a druid - so take advantage of it.

However - let's not fool ourselves. A druid will never fit in a min/maxing group (at least if there's no animals to charm around, and even with that). Think of the druid class as the number one soloers outdoors, and a very entertaining and challenging class to play in general. In certain zones (like Chardok, Kedge Keep or even SolB) a druid can perform very well, using charm tactics.

Druid strengths

  • BUFFS: It's your duty to keep the party buffed according to the situation. A level 59+ druid can do a huge favor to the group by boosting it's hitpoint Regeneration by 15 per tick (regrowth of the grove), Increase AC by 19 and HP by 405 + 4 HP regeneration (natureskin), increase Magic, poison and disease resist by 40 each (resist magic, poison and disease), increase Fire and Cold resistances by 45 each (circle of summer/winter), increase Strenght by 42 (girdle of Karana), increase attack of party up to 42 (Share Wolf Form), and put a DS up to 32 in main tank (Shield of Blades). Not counting having the most extensive travel buffs with SoW, spirit of scale and even share wolf form.
Use the appropiate buffs for a given situation always, and remember that natureskin doesn't stack with heroism and that your strenght buff doesn't stack with the high level shaman one. Also remember that our resist magic doesn't stack with the group resist magic of the enchanter class. Lastly, our circle of winter/summer spells will overwrite every other resist fire/cold spell and the high level magician damage shield will overwrite our damage shield.
  • Charm animals: Go ahead and do it everytime that you can. We have a single target magic resistance decrease spell (Glamour of Tunare), we have charm spells, we even have a buff to our pets (feral spirit). Go ahead and charm as much as you can, it will hugely increase your DPS/usefulness.
  • Direct Damage and DoTs: Druids have 2 line of DoTs, one magic Based and other fire based, along with a clicky Drones of Doom that stack with any other DoT!. Our epic has also a DoT + snare. On the direct damage side, we have a strong fire based DD line, caping at 1024 hp with wildfire. Lastly, we also have some ice-based DD, but they are not as strong as the fire line.
  • Ports: I don't need to say anything here, do I? Bread and Butter of every druid !
  • Tools to enhance mana regeneration: We also have some tools to enhance our mana regeneration: 
- Spirit of Oak (+9/tick) (downside is that it turns you into a tree, thus unable to move) (also it overwrites SoW).

- Mask of the Hunter (+3/tick) (Now it stays after zoning, so be sure to have this spell always on).

- Form of the Howler (+2/tick) (Second highest druid runspeed spell in-game without handicaps).

- Protection of the Glades (+6/tick). (Velious) (Arguably the best buff in game).

Druid strategy

Druid solo tactics

Tank n'Spank

Druids can melee to some extent. Surprised? We're priests after all!. We will never be as good as a shaman or a cleric, but it's doable. And it will be a very good method to gain experience all the way to level 24.

Places to tank n'Spank
  • Level 1-5
    • Stick to your newbie zone. Even at level 4, when you see experience starts to flow slower, it's better than moving to another places.
  • Level 5-9
    • Move a little further from your newbie zone. Qeynos hills or "orc hill" in Greather Faydark are good places for this. Misty ticket is a good place aswell.
  • Level 9-15
    • One word: Orcs!!. Move to Chrusbone or East Commonlands and start hunting them. Use your Harmony spell to split them.
  • Level 15-19
    • Nybright sisters in Lesser Faydark: Great cash camp. I did about 2k hunting here for those levels (although you can start at level 14). Use Harmony to split them.
    • Oasis: Go for the crocs or the orc highway
    • Karanas: Just kill everything that's blue.
    • Unrest: Great place and it's outdoors.
    • Lake of Ill Omen: Fight near the windmill. This place is one point riskier than all the mentioned above, Kunark is wilder, in general, than the old world.
  • Level 19-24
    • Crag Spiders in East Karana, near the long windy entrance to Highpass Hold. Those are great experience and they drop spider silk every time, sell it to other players.

After level 24 tank n'spank tactic is not so useful. MoBs have too many hitpoints and hit too hard for us to effectively hunt them down.

How to Tank n'Spank

Not much to explain here, just buff up skin, strenght, Firefist, coat and don't forget to damage shield yourself. Use Harmony to split the camp you wish to hunt in and pull the MoBs with either Snare or better yet, Flame Lick. Melee them to death, with the aid of the damage shield. Rinse and repeat.

If you finding troubles downing MoBs you can use your Treeform spell when melee'ing. It will increase your regeneration a bit.

My advise is to save all your coin and buy a weapon first of all, before any other equipment. Tainted Battleworn Morning Star or Springwood Club are both cheap and good weapons (as a curiosity, springwood club was the very first item I bought here in P1999 :))

Root / DoT

Probably the most known druid tactic to solo.

  1. Find the MoB that you want to kill and pull it to a safe place.
    1. Tip: You can use snare to pull the mob or directly a DoT (damage over time)or DD spell. If you don't want to waste mana when pulling you can use the Flame Lick spell, which it's also very quick casting.
  2. Use your higuer level root spell avaliable and then DoT the MoB. For quicker killing, you can use both your magic based DoT line (Stinging Swarm line) and your fire based DoT line (Flame lick line).
    1. Tip (1) : if you have the Elder Spiritist's Vambraces you can also use them in order to triple DoT the MoB (it stacks).
    2. Tip (2): If you have your epic weapon ( Nature Walkers Scimitar ) you can use the click DoT it has. However, this DoT also have an snare component (/bonk Verant) so it's of little use right now, since root/snare doesn't stack. However, if you are outdoors and ran out of mana, you can slowly kill any mob with this item, by simple using the click and having the mob slowly die when chasing you. When Velious hits, and root/snare stack, this item will be of much more use.
  3. Repeat untill the MoB is dead, loot, rinse and repeat.

While this tactic can serve you well when killing strong MoBs, it's often turned down for our other ways of gaining experience, because they are much faster. However, when killing nameds or place holders of a certain camp, this tactic is a must to use.

Quad Kite

Now we're talking !! Who doesn't like to kill four mobs at the same time, while obtaining full experience for each one? Well, a druid can do it and very well, at that. In order to do a quad kite safely, you need to be level 36 or higher and have at least 175 Wisdom or you will run out of mana before finishing the mobs. Quad-kiting before level 36 is fairly difficult, but it can be done. But for the purposes of this guide, I will focus on the level 36+ quad kite.

Places to Quad Kite

Here are some places you can quadkite in (this is not an extensive list).

  • Level 36 - 40
    • Frontier Mountains: Giant fort.
    • Overthere: Random MoBs.
  • Level 40 - 53
    • Yetis and Drolvargs in Dreadlands.
    • Certain Dwarfs in Butcherblock (they don't hurt your faction) (I personally recommend to do this, great loot and xp).
    • Aviaks in Timorous Deep: Great place to quad kite. (starting at level 48).
    • Ogre Bouncers: Move into the city and quad them (Starting at level 45)
  • Level 53 - 60
    • Raptors in Timorous Deep: Huge aggro range and very difficult - only for the experimented ones.
    • Seafuries in Ocean of Tears: Great money, but they start to /con light blue at level 56-57.
How to Quad Kite

First of all be sure that you are at least buffed with your bramblecoat/skin like line of spells. Be sure you have SoW or better yet, wolf form. For further safety, you can also regen yourself, but not needed.

  1. Find four mobs you can kill with your Lightning Strike or Lightning Blast spell (depending on your level). Pull them.
    1. Tip (1): To see if you have enough mana to finish a quad, it's better if you first try to kill a MoB solo only with the spells listed above. Don't forget to ensnare the MoB 4 times, because you will need to use that spell 4 times later.
    2. Tip (2): Always use the Ensnare spell in order to pull. It last longer than Snare and it's much safer to use.
  2. Run in circles around the MoBs and pack them. The spell needs to hit all 4 mobs at once, so they need to be real packed in order to quad successfully.
  3. Nuke the mobs to dead using the any of the two spells listed above, loot, rinse and repeat.
Advanced tactics - SESSWRT tactic, Luminescent staff and others

If you find yourself lacking one more nuke to finish the quad kite, you can use the SESSWRT (Gav's tm) tactic. SESSWR stands for sit-every-six-seconds-while-running-tactic. It involves sitting every 6 seconds, as the name states. Everything in Everquest runs on a 6-seconds tick, mana regeneration too. In other words, if you manage to run and sit down for 1 second every 6 seconds, you will get the full meditate tick (just like if you would be sitting non-stop). If you manage to use this tactic efficiently, you can finish every quad, no matter your equipment. You can also greatly minimize your downtime between quads. Be careful when using this tactic, because being hit by 4 angry MoBs while sitting involves at least 4 critical strikes on your back, and it's not funny !!

Quad kite has always been my favourite method to level. If you have a Luminescent Staff you can basically powerlevel yourself from level 46 to 53 on Aviaks in Timorous Deep, and then move on to Raptors in the same zone.

Always keep your Lightning Strike spell memmed along with your Lightning Blast, it will be usefull to finish off mobs. Also it's nice to keep a low level nuke to finish runners/low HP mobs.

Always use Ensnare. Snare will 80% of times run out before finishing a quadkite.

Advanced tactics: Quad kite in DL - other approach

At level 45 and onwards (mostly all the way to 60) you can quadkite roamers near Karnor's Castle. Problem is that there are a lot of adds around, and it's not easy to finish a quad without having to root other MoBs in way. There's a good way to avoid this: quad kite on the top of Karnors. Procces

  1. Buy a lot of bat wings for levitate or get a Dead Man Floating from a friendly Necro. Invis, levi and when standing before Karnor's Castle, facing it, go left (north) on the direction of the zone wall (careful some see invis mobs on the way) and levitate back on top of KC - you can reach the top left wall from the edge of the zone (You can also reach the top of Karnor's Castle easily by just levitate from the tunnel that leads to the hidden valley and go straight). Then run on top of the wall to the end of the building (east, towards FV) and bind on top of the wall (north/east corner on top of the wall).
  2. Fetch your quad and lead them close to the spot where you are bound. Then gate and quickly jump down into the building. It's a empty place with no obstacles/adds! the dream or any quad kiter!. The mobs will warp through the wall - start quadding inside the building until mobs are dead, gate, med full, jump down and start again. Careful: Inside the building you WILL zone into Karnor's Castle if you get too far south - but this also a nice escape point if something goes wrong.

Thanks Mascha for this contribution

Charm kite

Charm kite is a very effective way to level up your druid. For most druids, charm kite is the fastest way of leveling, since it needs very little gear, and you can repeat it almost forever without downtime. Charm kite basically involves killing an animal after another, by making them fight each other to death, and then finishing both with a nuke.

Preparing for charm

To begin with, I will talk a bit about the charisma issue. It have been stated by the developers of the game that druid charm it's the same as necromancer charm, and the latter doesn't use charisma, so it's very probable that druid charm doesn't use charisma after all. If I would need to give you a tip I would say that in most situations you will probably do better simply keeping your +WIS/MANA equipment on, in order to have a larger mana pool. However, even with the above statement, I would advise you to stay above 75 charisma when charming (A charm buff always come handy, and you dont have to swap gear).

Anyway, if you want to test it by yourself,here are some items that will help you boosting your charisma.

Places to Charm kite

Here are some places you can charm kite in (this is not an extensive list).

  • Level 14-21: Elephants in South Karana
  • Level 24-30: Mammoths in Everfrost peaks.
  • Level 30-40: Tigers/tigress in Overthere. Griffons in North Karana.
  • Level 40-50: Gorillas in Emerald jungle. Sharks in Kedge Keep.
  • Level 50-60: Chokidai Lacerators in Chardok. Bats in SolB. Polar bears in Everfrost (probably starting at 53-54)
How to charm kite

First of all be sure that you are at least buffed with your bramblecoat/skin like line of spells. Be sure you have SoW or better yet, wolf form. For further safety, you can also regen yourself, but not needed.

  1. Find the animal MoB that you going to use as your pet. Cast your charm spell on it.
    1. Tip (1): It's a good advise to first use snare on the pet you are going to charm if there are plenty of targets around. It will help you outrun it if you are in trouble.
    2. Tip (2): Never use the Tunare's Request spell when charming. Always use your higuest level charm spell, caping at Call of Karana spell. The reason it's simple, Tunare's Request is not working as intended in P1999, it will not last 2:50 hours and it won't make the animal aggro-less upon break.
  2. Send it to fight a similar (if possible) kind of MoB or, at least, of the similar level. Don't forget to use your root on the MoB the pet is fighting or, at least, snare.
  3. Wait until both MoBs are low on HP.
    1. Tip: You can turn the tides for your pet or against it if you see the HP gauge of the MoBs is not going down proportionally. To turn the tides for your pet, just cast a DoT, or better yet, use your Elder Spiritist's Vambraces. To turn the tides against your pet hit the /pet back off button untill you see the fight is even.
  4. Use your Invisibility versus Animals spells in order to dismiss ("break") your pet.
    1. Tip: You can use your hide racial ability to dismiss your pet. Better yet, you can use your Goblin Gazughi Ring.
  5. Use a low level nuke or a DoT to finish both MoBs. Get full xp for Both. Loot and repeat.
Advanced tactics - Plane of Fear

As a druid, you're one of the few classes (if not the only one) that can solo in Plane of Fear. Entering is tricky (if not nearly imposible without a raid force), but can be done. However it's much better if you wait until the plane is cleared, or, at least, the entrance is cleared. Entering alone is very difficult. Keep Gate memorized all times. If you're not level 60 (or at the very least 59) don't bother trying this, because it will be too difficult. Also it's good to have a good array of clickies and good equipment. This is probably the hardest thing a druid can do. Is your body ready?

Be sure that you full buff yourself before entering, it's better if you have clarity II from a friendly enchanter. Once prepared, invis yourself. Enter the portal and inmediately turn WEST (Left) hug the zone wall and continue south until you see a hill that you can climb. On the top of the hill is a small plateau in which you can set your camp. If the plane is full poped it will probably be difficult to enter without getting aggro though. If you get aggro - try to root every MoB and then quickly find a Gorilla to charm and finish them one by one. Then proceed to the camp site.

Once in the camp site - med to full mana. Go down the hill and turn left (North). A bit ahead there should be a single Shiverback (Gorilla). Use Ensnare on it, Use Glamour of Tunare on it, then use Call of Karana on it. After you make this friendly gorilla your pet, use Savage Spirit on it. You could also hit him with Regrowth if you want.

Now start moving through the south wall and pulling/killing everything you can (try to avoid toads, they cast nasty spells). If your pet dies, just go near the FF House (P1999 map) and get another one, there should be plenty of them . My advise is to do this very slowly and ensuring you're full buffed before each pull. Be sure to root any incoming MoBs and use your Spirit of Oak spell to regain mana if you need.

If you have a lot of time and you are very lucky you can (maybe) get to the gorgons and start killing them for your planar pieces (I have never been so far).

When entering, it's probably better to bring a group of friends before to clean entrance - some MoBs to the south wall. Also, having a friend cleric nearby is always useful. Mostly this is for druids that have done everything and want a higher challengue. Also don't forget every MoB here summons, so let your pet do the work. It's very difficult, you will die a lot, you have been warned.

But when you do it - the feeling is awesome.

Dungeon crawling

Introduction

Who doesn't like to get into a dungeon and kill powerful enemies for their loot? As a druid, you can do this. However, druids will never be as good as shamans, enchanters or necromancers soloing in high level dungeons. To be honest, probably other classes (aside from the listed above) can even do this better than you in most situations. But hey, cheer up! nobody said the path of the druid would be easy.

The first problem a druid has to face when dungeon crawling is that well ... most dungeons in game are indoors, this means we can't use many of our spells and specially, we can't use Harmony to split MoBs or move through a dungeon like an enchanter would do. The second problem druids have is the lack of a slow or even a debuff spell, this makes dungeon crawling extremely difficult as a druid and limited to a few dungeons, mostly those that have animals on them.

But the real problem comes when soloing summoning MoBs. We don't have a slow spell, as stated above, so when a MoB summons you, no matter how fast you can react, it will beat you hard. Most epic MoBs summon, so unless you have a fresh source of pets to get them down, it's difficult for druids to kill summoning MoBs. For your information, MoBs start to summon in Everquest at level 51, and they will not summon you if they're not under 98% HP.

Dungeons and Druids

Even with our handicaps, druids can still perform well at some dungeons:

  • Nagafen's Lair: Zone in and move right across the lava river (use levitate). A bit ahead should be a single bat standing in a little rock platform on your right - charm it. Once you have your pet hasted/buffed you can move and kill Royals, guano and drake. You can also try and move into Efreeti room. Take care when doing this, because the pet often bugs while in the lava and also there are some packed MoBs that you will need to root/DoT 1 by one and let pet finish them out. Once in efreeti room, there are 3 MoBs (One of them is the PH). My advise is to let your pet guarding the entrance and pull/root them outside. Then you can DoT them to death and use pet for the extra dps. You will need to be 60 and with good equipment to try this.
  • Kedge Keep: There are plenty of sharks to charm. some druids managed to solo Estrella of Goomwater as far as I know, but never tried myself.
  • Chardok: Zone inside and move a bit down until you see a sarnak with a hound on your left (You will maybe need to kill some roamers in the way, just use root/DoT to finish them). Get the hound as your pet and haste/buff it fully. From there you can roam a bit inside the fortress or set your camp in the tunnel that you access with levitate. Most MoBs in Chardok have nice drops (including good weapons if you want to twink another character, for example the Silver Swiftblade) also, the A Chardoki Golem got a chance to drop the Golem Tear Ring.

The 4 dungeons listed above are basically the dungeons in which a druid can perform well. I won't list the low level ones like droga/Guk and such, since they are not that hard and probably any class can get to the decent cash spots.

Sebilis and Howling Stones are a no-go for druids right now. Most MoBs can summon in those dungeons and also they don't have animals on them. Maybe if you have epic and when root + snare stacks, but not right now.

Cash - making

Although druids can't get to the real cash camps in Everquest (such as Hierophant in Sebilis or Howling Stones), we can perform pretty well in this matter. First of all, you can make good money just from doing ports or buffing people. Also we are great powerlevelers, so take advantage of that aswell.

Places to farm platinum

Aside from ports, buffing and powerlevelling, druids can also perform very well on certain zones, as follows.

Cycling

As druids, we are one of the few classes that can take advantage of the cycles in EverQuest (along with rangers and bards). Cycling involves killing certain MoBs in order. Each time you kill a MoB there's a chance for a named to pop in the next place in cycle. If not, a PlaceHolder will pop. Be sure to wolf form, Levitate and invis yourself before starting to look for MoBs. Places to do cycle:

  • Frontier Mountains: Easy cycles and you can start doing it since level 46 or so. I will just explain the basics here because you have all the information you need to do the cycles in the linked page.
    • Goblin/Giant/Burynai cycle: You can start looking for Goblin PHs/nameds in the souteast part of the zone, then move west passing the iksar ruins for the giants and then straight north to the hills for the burynai.
    • Sarnak cycle: It involves killing a lot of MoBs from all along the zone. I don't recommend it - it's tiresome and the drops are poor.
  • Trakanon's Teeth: This cycle is much more complicated, due to the high level roamer MoBs. I recommend start it at level 55 at the very least and with good equipment. The linked page has a very good guide for this cycle aswell, so I won't enter in details here.
Cash MoBs

You can quad kite or Root/DoT any of the above MoBs. All of them drop nice cash/gems/fine steel weapons.

Levelling - My experience

Levelling !! Gaining levels !! That's what's EQ is all about. In this section of the guide, I will share with you what I did for levelling Gaviilan to level 60. I spent quite a lot of time to level to the top, and If I can give you an advise here is to enjoy the journey, not the destination. Make friends, experience new places in EverQuest, test yourself, die and don't hurry. Level 60 will be waiting for you when you really reach it. I mostly did Root/DoT and quadkite to level up, along with a lot of grouping. Never been a fan of charm kiting, so you won't see much of it while levelling. However right now I use it everyday on dungeons. This is what I did:

  1. Levels 1-5: Greater Faydark, newbie zone
  2. Levels 5-8: Greater Faydark, Orc Hill
  3. Levels 8-14: Crushbone, Trainer hill/slaver pits.
  4. Levels 14-19: Lesser Faydark, Nybright sisters. (Good money here, managed to make like 1,5 ks)
  5. Levels 19-24: East Karana, Crag Spiders.
  6. Levels 24-32: Warsliks Woods, Forest giants at the fort. (all giants have a chance to drop Forest Loop)
  7. Levels 32-40: Frontier Mountains, Mountain giants at the fort (you can start quadding them at 37 or so).
  8. Levels 40-49: Butcherblock Mountains, Dwarfs (Quadkite or root/DoT them, they are all on the same faction).
  9. Levels 49-53: Timorous Deep, Aviaks (Probably the easiest place to quad kite in the game).
  10. Levels 53-55: Ocean of Tears, Seafuries.
  11. Levels 55-60: Mix of dungeons (grouping), I went a lot to Karnor Castle, Sebilis, The Hole and Howling Stones with guildies.

Spell setup

Having the right spells memorized in a given time can save your life and it will certainly make you a better druid. There's nothing established here, each played likes to order his spell gems in a particular order. In this part of the guide, I will share with you my usual spell setup, but it doesn't mean you need to have the same, just use the setup you're more comfortable with.

Spell setup when quad kiting

  1. Greater Healing / Superior Healing
  2. Nuke (The most powerful you have)
  3. Lightning Blast
  4. Lightning Strike
  5. Random (Levitate, Regen, Skin ...)
  6. Root (The most powerful you have)
  7. Ensnare
  8. Spirit of Wolf

If you dont have lighting blast yet, you can memorize lighting strike in the third position and leave the 4 for a DoT or a low level nuke, in order to finish off low hitpoint MoBs.

Spell setup when charm kiting

  1. Heal
  2. Nuke (The most powerful you have)
  3. Nuke (Careless Lightning works well in here)
  4. Charm
  5. Invisibility versus Animals
  6. Root (The most powerful you have)
  7. Ensnare
  8. Spirit of Wolf

If you have your Goblin Gazughi Ring, you can save the 5th slot for buffs or any other thing you may need.

Spell setup when dungeon crawling

  1. Superior Healing
  2. Wildfire
  3. Regrowth / Natureskin / Shield of Thorns
  4. Call of Karana
  5. Glamour of Tunare / Savage Spirit
  6. Engorging Roots
  7. Ensnare / Gate
  8. Winged Death

This spell setup asumes that you're level 60. If you have your Elder Spiritist's Gauntlets you can save the 7th slot for a fire based DoT.

Spell setup when in groups

  1. Heal.
  2. Nuke (The most powerfull you have).
  3. Buff slot (Regrowth / Thorns / Natureskin / Strenght / Resistances)
  4. Evacuate
  5. DoT.
  6. Root.
  7. Ensnare.
  8. Spirit of Wolf or second buff slot (The AoE root Entrapping Roots, can be usefull here too if you have it)

Spell setup in groups depends heavily on the duty you're doing in that group, so use this setup just as a guideline of a typical group, and adapt it to the groups you have. If you're not fighting "hard MoBs" and even in that situations, DoTs can be replaced with another spell and only nuke. The only situation I really use DoTs are when MoBs have a high fire/cold resistance, because our magic line of DoTs it's hardly resisted.

Considerations

Some people use Snare rather than Ensnare in groups/soloing. It costs a little less mana but last only 3 minutes (anyway, you don't need snare to hold more than 1 minute in groups). However, from "my" experience here and in live, ensnare is less resisted than snare, and so I use it always. Please note there is no proper evidence on this and is based on my personal feelings. If you have your Elder Spiritist's Gauntlets on, you can also save this spell gem for anything else

Maximizing druid potential

Tips when raiding and in groups

  1. Always ask for Enlightenment if you have an enchanter in group/raid. As druids, we are mostly manaburners: the more mana, the better.
  2. If you're above level 54, you can use the form of the howler spell for a nice speed buff and +2 mana regeneration. If you can use without disturbing the raid/group, you can use Spirit of Oak for a nice +8 mana regeneration (level 59).
  3. At level 60, you should always have your Mask of the Hunter spell on, it will give you a +3 mana regeneration. Downside is that it comes with a magnifiying glass effect. Before a recent patch, Mask of the Hunter would fade after zoning, but now it sticks and also the magnifying glass effect dissapears when you zone, so great!
  4. Always use group buffs: It will save you mana and will help your dps output (regrowth of the grove, circles, pack spirit, etc ..).
  5. Always ask your melees if they want Share Wolf Form. It will increase their ATK by 30. If you can afford it, it's nice to have a Elder Spiritist's Bracer to save keeping the spell memorized.
  6. The Drones of Doom effect of Elder Spiritist's Vambraces stacks with your higuer level magic-based DoT Winged Death and also with Breath of Ro Use it to your advantage.
  7. If you having trouble landing Direct Damage spells in a certain MoB you can try to first cast your Ice spell (lowers by 50 the fire resist of it) and then use your higuer level fire based Direct Damage spell.
  8. Always Have your evac memorized in groups. You dont know when a fight could turn into a cinch and you could need it.
  9. Dont understimate the power of Egress and Succor when travelling. It could save you a lot of time. Check the appendix 1 for the Egress/Succor locations.
  10. Don't use Tunare's Request, Call of Karana is your best friend when charming. Tunare's Request is a fixed duration charm spell (2 hours) for only 35 and less level MoBs. My advise is to never use it, even on those > 35 level MoBs. The reason is simple, is not working as intended here in P1999, it won't last two hours. From my experience, Call of Karana always kept the MoB charmed more time.

Using your Nature Walkers Scimitar

If you're one of the few fortunate owners of a Nature Walkers Scimitar you can do some additional tricks, however it's use is limited until 3 months passes into Velious, since right now Root + Snare doesn't stack.

First of all, it could be good if you level your 1 Hand Slashing Skill to 175. I know this can be difficult, because normally you obtain your epic at level 60 or near, and you need blue con and higuer MoBs to train the skill. Try to get some help of your guildmates/friends and melee MoBs in groups. I found that on the easy efreeti camp you can level it easy and with little disturbance to the group. Try to get a Speed of the Shissar too and an Enlightenment buff, it will help you get those skill point. As druids we have the one of the higuest melee skill cap of caster classes (only shamans are above us), so use it to your advantage, you never know when a pair of slashes might come handy!

However, the real use of the epic comes with the Wrath of Nature effect the item has. The effect does the following:

Grips your target in the wrath of nature, causing 55 damage every 6 seconds for up to 6 secs (1 ticks @L1 to 3.0 mins @L60).

So, at level 60 your epic has a click effect that does 55 * 30 = 1650 damage plus a snare component. Not bad! However, it's of little use right now, because (as said above) snare and root don't stack yet, so the only use of this click right now is to finish fleeing MoBs and to snare in raids / groups, while also doing some damage.

Also the snare component on the sword is really unlike to be resisted, because it has a modificator of -100 MR, so use it to land your snare on those magic resistant MoBs (Thanks Daldaen for this contribution)

Charming in Raids

Introduction

Charming is the best way to maximize damage output of a druid in raids. If you can charm properly and with some reliability, your guildmates will for sure thank you. Some times, specially when the raid is small, having a hasted pet that hits for 120 can be a real help. Let's get into it.

Preparing for charm

The charisma issue

Check the preparing for charm section, point 4.1.4.1 in the guide.

Charmable MoBs in raids

There are 5 Mobs you can charm on raids so far in P1999:

  • A revultant rat. Basic charmable MoB in Plane of Hate.
  • A shiverback. Basic charmable MoB in Plane of Fear
  • Spite Golem Pet (Plane of Hate). My advise is to use this pet if you can't charm rats properly.
  • A Soul Harvester. This is probably the best charmable MoB in game without using the enchanter Dictate spell. It hits like a truck and it's very resistant. Take care when it breaks tho, because it's inmune to Ensnare
  • Chokidai Lacerator in Chardok. I have found that these are very good pets and very reliable ones.

Buffs & useful items

Before charming in raids, it's a good idea to buff up to the teeth, because you will need those extra hitpoints when the pet breaks. At the very least you should have Natureskin, Spirit of Wolf, Regrowth and Bladecoat. It's advisable to get a symbol line spell for a cleric too.

If you want to add a few additional swings to your pet and the posibility of some added DPS, you can try handing him some 1h weapon. Beware when it breaks tho, because it will hit really hard.

If you have a bored enchanter in your group/raid, it's also a good idea to have Bedlam on.

Charming

Procedure

First of all, tell your raid leader that you are going to charm. After that proceed as following.

  1. Target your MoB and cast Ensnare on it. After that, or before if you don't have enough room to kite, tell an enchanter to mezz it.
  2. Make a hotkey to ask the following magic resistance decrease buffs:
    1. Shamans: cast Malosini on the MoB.
    2. Enchanters: cast Tashania on the MoB.
  3. Cast Glamour of Tunare on the MoB.
  4. Cast Call of Karana on the MoB.
  5. Cast Savage Spirit on the pet.
  6. Tell an epic enchanter in your guild to give Speed of the Shissar to your pet. If you have none, any kind of enchanter or shaman haste will work.
  7. Give the pet an offhand weapon (not required).
  8. Make the pet guard a zone a little away from you. Also introduce the command /pet who leader in the chatbar, so everyone can see you have a pet.
  9. Send your pet to slaughter your enemies.

Pet breaks

Upon pet breaks you will have to recharm it. However it can be difficult some times, mostly because we don't have a mezz spell avaliable. You can basically have two situations here:

  1. You're charming in Plane of Fear: In this case it's easy, just outrun the MoB (it will have Ensnare on, so it will be easy]] and then recast Call of Karana
  2. You're charming in Plane of Hate or Chardok: This can be tricky, three possible ways to recharm:
    1. Root the pet and recharm it. However you will need to wait some time before it can attack again because of the Root.
    2. Have an enchanter or bard ready to cast mezz on your pet so you can recharm it.
    3. Tank your pet for a few and hope for a successful channel of your Call of Karana spell.
  3. You're charming in Plane of Sky: You need to have an enchanter or a bard ready to mezz the pet at all times. This pet hit's very hard and has a stun proc, so you won't last much tanking it. Probably 3 seconds.

Considerations

Charming in raids is by far the best way for a druid to DPS in the game. It's roughly one of the few situations were druids are really useful and no match with any other class, with the possible exception of necromancers.

The ability to have a pet, heal, nuke and DoT at the same time is only ours. Enjoy and use it at will.

Velious expansion and druids

Velious Spells

These are the new spells that druids get in the Velious expansion.

Druid Velious timeline

  • Root and Snare stack now -- 1 Month after Velious
  • Chloroblast + Nature's Touch spells added -- 2 Months after Velious
  • Track Skill Cap Increased from 50 -> 125 -- 3 Months After Velious
  • Faydedar + Venril Sathir made triggerable for Epic Quest -- 3 Months after Velious
  • Venril Sathir made 3 day respawn, Venril Sathir Remains faster respawn -- 4 Months after Velious
  • Foraging when hungry/thirsty makes you automatically get food/water -- 4 Months after Velious
  • Wind of the North/South can be cast from anywhere + Egress works indoors -- 6 Months after Velious

(Thanks Daldaen for your heavy contribution to this section of the guide)

Appendix A - Egress and Succor locations

See the Travel Guide for Egress/Succor evacuation locations.

Final Considerations

Making this guide required much more effort than I thought in the start. My initial intention was to point out the strenghts and positive points of the druid class in the overall, but it ended as the guide you have in your hands right now.

I made this guide for all those druids that are struggling to find a reason to play the class. Druids will never fit in a max/min situation or group, but played correctly, they can be a great addition to any given situation in the game. They are a very fun and interesting class to play, and very underplayed at higuer levels. Our solo capacities and somewhat tank ability brought a smile to my face in a lot of situations.

I hope you have the same fun reading the guide as I had making it. And above all, I hope this guide can be useful for new druids and older ones alike.

If you have any questions or comments, you can find me in game as Gaviilan or Bokeron. You can also send me a private message in P1999 boards, my forum handle is Rafaone. You can access my Magelo here --> Magelo Blue:Gaviilan

'Stay strong, druid!!'

Disclaimer: The opinions in this guide are entirely personal. Feel free to distribute the guide, as long as you keep it with the same format and text given here. Also make a link to this page and send me a PM in P1999 forums so I can keep track of it.

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