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Druid
| Druid | |
|---|---|
| Class archetype | |
| Armor class | |
| Preferenced statistics | |
| Title at level 51 | Wanderer |
| Title at level 55 | Preserver |
| Title at level 60 | Hierophant |
| Title at level 65 | Earthshaper |
| Druid Links | |
The Druid is a nature based class, gleaning spells and abilities from the earth, trees, the air, and water. Very utilitarian in nature the Druid is quite a flexible class, being great healers, having resist lowering spells, movement speed buffs and debuffs, roots, damage shields, teleporting, direct damage, and damage over time spells. At high levels the Druid may even be accompanied by a bear or magical frog pet. In short, a Druid is a good quality multipurpose class with solid healing, excellent buffs, good damage and utility.
Early on ( before level 20 or so ) the Druid is a good melee and/or caster; this melee ability drops down severely as you gain higher levels ( dependent slightly on your equipment as well ). Despite their decline in melee effectivness later on (like all casters), they are the only caster to have the ability to use 1hs weapons.
The Druid is very proficient at soloing with the ability to take on creatures many levels above their own using DoTs and snare. Later ( post 34 ) the druid can multi kite creatures using spells like careless lightning. Their excellent hunting spells coupled with their array of flexible utility spells and the ability to keep themselves healed gives them a huge amount of survivability. They also receive port and succor spells, which can really help if it looks like your group is going to go down.
Starting Statistics
The druid class receives 30 starting points to distribute in the various stats. The stats you would usually want to put points into at creation are Charisma and Wisdom to lower your enemies resistance to your spells and increase your mana pool respectively.
| Race | STR | STA | AGI | DEX | WIS | INT | CHA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Half Elf | 70 | 80 | 90 | 85 | 70 | 75 | 75 |
| Halfling | 70 | 85 | 95 | 90 | 90 | 67 | 50 |
| Human | 75 | 85 | 75 | 75 | 85 | 75 | 75 |
| Wood Elf | 65 | 75 | 95 | 80 | 90 | 75 | 75 |
Skills
(*) Does not follow the 5(lvl+1) skill-up formula.
(**) Wood Elves start with 50 to Forage.
(+) Wood Elves and Halflings begin with Hide (50).
(++) Halflings begin with Sneak (50).
Combat Skills
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Class Skills
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Other Skills
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Tips From Experience
The Druid is very wisdom based, try to get as much wis gear as you can. In groups use your damage shield on primary tank and your heals are very good. Snare things only if your group is kiting or if soloing (since mobs do not wimpy here, it is otherwise unnecessary). Do not root mobs unless your group is aware that you will be doing it, and you all understand the mechanics of root/combat (i.e. the mob will start hitting whatever is physically closes regardless of aggro once rooted). Nuking too soon will cause things to aggro on you so be familiar with your tank and his/her ability to hold aggro. With a good tank, you can begin nuking long before 50% and DoT's can be placed on a mob way earlier. Since in-combat meditation is all but non-existent in SoD, feel free to take advantage of your 1hs and melee for the tiny bit of damage you can add.
Solo standard that I use. I always try to find yellows or low reds. Snare, DoT, DoT, ( how ever many you have..currently I use all 4, drones of doom, creeping crud, immolate, and stinging swarm ) I then attempt to root, then I sit and med till root breaks or till I have to recast the DoT. If root is resisted too many times I just run it around and still sit and med. As a wood elf, I can also hide while I am sitting to stop adds. Immolate and root can be resisted a lot, don't waste a full bar trying to cast them.
Another very good tactic is to double kite. I found that I could solo two blues with about 4 blue bars of mana. At 42 (in the heartlands), I simply snare a bear, panther, etc then root, I then quad DoT him and start looking for another immediately. I do the same process to a second then begin waiting for dooming drones and immolate to wear off. I recast those as needed. If the mob has very low HP, I use stinging swarm or immolate.
Charisma is pretty vital to solo druid as well, stock up on some charisma gear also to help with immolation and root resist.
Approach your spell lineup with an open mind, I have found that my tried and true spell lineup from live isn't what works best for me in SoD. As previously stated, snare isn't too helpful in groups since mobs don't run. Unless you are all kiting or you're soloing you probably don't need snare memmed. Save yourself the spell slot. Root's usefulness is pretty much the same; mobs don't run, but sometimes you need to keep them in one spot. I personally find that I use invisibility far too much not to have it memmed, at least currently (mid 30's). Protip for all druids: Get innate camo, just get it. A.S.A.P. It will change your life, and if you use camo a lot then it will free up a vital spell slot.
Druids in general are very well balanced as opposed to their live counterparts. Their main heals are pretty much equivalent to cleric's, but druids lack the ability to crit their heals until they get the aa for it (and you should). Druid single heals lag a few levels behind cleric's, but their group heals are received at the same level. Group heals are actually very mana efficient, as long as at least two people are healed for the full amount you are actually SAVING mana. Avoid using them unless it looks like it's really needed, and definitely steer away from using them if you're the MH unless you have tons of mana to spare. They gobble up mana and the last thing you need to happen is your tank to die because you wanted to heal up all the casters that got hit with a harmless aoe and then ran out of mana.
At the same time, druid dps is also fairly respectable. It's about the same as it always was, nothing special if you aren't trying but you can turn a few heads if you work at it. tip: try casting your rain spell and then follow up with your main nuke. You can stack up some serious damage really fast like this, just be careful not to grab agro and keep in mind that rains spells ARE aoe. Still, resist rates in SoD are charisma based, and if you find you get a lot of resists you should probably consider healing more. If you're on damage duty and you notice mobs are a bit slow to die, don't hesitate to throw a DoT or two on. DoT dmg helps mitigate a mob's melee damage, the more DoT dmg you do the more mana you save your healer in the long run.
I know damage dealing is more fun, but heals don't get resisted, period. Work on getting a lot of charisma if you don't want to be a healbot. SoD is pretty open ended and balanced, with the addition of new spells and specializations druids are only as limited as they make themselves.
The key to playing your druid well is finding out what combination of spells works for different situations and how to use each spell properly at the right time. There is a lot of versatility in druid spells and there are only so many spells you can have memmed at once. Choose wisely. You should also try to keep pretty much all your specializations up. Most of them will come naturally, except divination. You really only need divination up at all for a certain quest, but it's optional. Otherwise a low level in it will suffice for your camo needs. ALL your other spell skills are important though, don't let any of them get too far behind.