Druid, questions regarding.

Oatu

Hi there.

I created a new character and it seems like Druid is full of RP, and it looks like it has a few tricks up it's sleeve. That's neat. I initially had a hard time picking a forestal class (I also was pretty interested in sentinel and Sylvan.)

I'm wondering if I could get some help. I have some retirement credits (about 2500) - - and would like to know where to assign them. The info for you to base that on is below along with other questions.

Goals: pvp. Be it 1v1 or group. Doesn't look like there's a ton of up to date druid fighting resources, but it also looks like there's people I can learn from in game. Yay!

- I've been told for combat I want to focus on intelligence. Why? In my quick research it looks like it's a physical class.
- Hunting. What do I use for a weapon? Does a weapon affect my damage output in morphs?
- http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/4248/hydra-prepping#latest -- seems to have good info. Is this still up to date more or less?

Thanks!

Rom

Oatu said:

Hi there.

I created a new character and it seems like Druid is full of RP, and it looks like it has a few tricks up it's sleeve. That's neat. I initially had a hard time picking a forestal class (I also was pretty interested in sentinel and Sylvan.)

I'm wondering if I could get some help. I have some retirement credits (about 2500) - - and would like to know where to assign them. The info for you to base that on is below along with other questions.

Goals: pvp. Be it 1v1 or group. Doesn't look like there's a ton of up to date druid fighting resources, but it also looks like there's people I can learn from in game. Yay!

- I've been told for combat I want to focus on intelligence. Why? In my quick research it looks like it's a physical class.
- Hunting. What do I use for a weapon? Does a weapon affect my damage output in morphs?
- http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/4248/hydra-prepping#latest -- seems to have good info. Is this still up to date more or less?

Thanks!

Yeah my post that you linked is mostly accurate still. However I would never pound for damage anymore unless the target is frozen from my hydra combos (bite nechamandra + snap + clamp usually). Also you can't reclaim while flying anymore, you no longer have to pause when you reclamation begin, and flame mauls are way better now since INFERNO no longer uses flame, and is faster, and the damage on the empowered mauls got buffed.

You will be wielding a quarterstaff as your weapon like 99% of the time, you don't use it for hunting though you use maul like those other people said.

STRENGTH and CONSTITUTION are the stats you want, con increases your health and your endurance, that's it. It's good, but I'd only recommend it for hunting, and I guess low level combat. Druids have an absurd amount of defensive utility so low health usually isn't a problem between bind, vigour, vitality, and whatever else. Strength however they scale with incredibly well, and with it they do absurd damage even without artefacts. Also make sure you get the NIMBLE trait for faster balance it is mandatory.

Druid is really cool because you can combine their third head abilities with almost ANYTHING IN THE GAME. You can use them on either side of balance, or you can use them BEFORE equilibrium. You can do stuff like throw a dustbomb at the ground and break their leg immediately alongside it, you can do stuff like break their leg and immediately throw a stun bomb at the ground before they can apply to cure it. You can use it alongside weaponry, you can use it alongside groves, it's just amazing with a ton of potential.

The easiest way to kill people right now is to prep both their legs using hydra combos (Bite prefarar + Roar + clamp). Prefarar strips deafness if they have it, roar prones people that are undeaf, and clamp is limb prep - people that are prone cannot parry. Prepping like this is very fast and bypasses parry 100% of the time against every class.

Anyway then you break their legs and use nechamandra bites, which give levels of freeze. You can fit in enough bites while they are prone to threaten them being frozen, if they are frozen when you get balance back from any of the combos then you'd use gorilla pound, which does like 75% max health or something against frozen targets. If they don't get frozen it's because they are curing with different priorities, and usually means that they will be proned for some amount of time longer. In this case you can sometimes mangle the limb you were hitting, assuming you were spamming hits on the right leg since it cures last.

Kinda weird typing out strategies like that, so I'll keep the next ones brief but I already typed that one so whatever.

Flame mauls you'd prep legs and then INFERNO, break and keep flame mauling for crazy damage. If they prioritize curing the flame then this is pretty much useless.

EMBRACE is an instakill in reclamation with a lot of contention. It requires your opponent to have 4 BROKEN limbs, not cripples or whatever, these are RESTORATION cures. Anyway the most basic way to do it is to have them prone usually using bind+swing staff. Then you throw axe to break, clamp, throw axe to break, clamp + embrace. Throwing a handaxe like this would require the knife thrower and nimble and transcendent weaponry, so you can do it other ways like using bash with a quarterstaff just have to be wary of rebounding. You can use stun bombs too to make it pretty easy, or use shatter in weaponry if your enemy hates tumbling. There's other ways too, and they all have varying amounts of viability and reliability.

In Groups you want to use hydra bind on cooldown, you want to use STAMPEDE a lot because it is insanely good (does a lot of damage, takes you into your targets room, you can use third head balance after it like bind, it cripples one of their limbs, it prones them and knocks them off balance). Use quarterstaff lightning for LoS, you can incinerate high priority targets, you can use reclamation to help bolster your team's LoS via healing, otherwise in melee you can just spam hydra combos they will almost always be good.

This is just a quick collection of thoughts with almost no order, feel free to ask specific questions and I will try to answer them. I can't really help ingame anymore since I quit Eleusis, but Miriew knows pretty much as much as me and is currently a Druid too.

Ankhareoutef

If you get an axe, you'll want level 2.  Level 1 cannot reliably pull off the instakill. The speed will work sometimes, but a level 2 will work every time.

Rom

I would suggest 0 offensive artefacts for a druid, they are a fantastic class without artefacts. I would invest in LESSONS and then I would invest in defensive artefacts.
For lessons I suggest at minimum tri-trans of course, weaponry to at least parrying, transcendent survival, trans avoidance, boar or starburst in tattoos is a good choice but not mandatory. Probably want vision at least until farsee, druids have no seek ability in their skills. You'll probably want to Trans FITNESS as well for endurance drain while bashing and doing combat, and will want to consider trans philosophy and antidotes for group combat later, since a lot of group combat upkeep abilities drain willpower, and antidotes defends against the ever prevalent venom damage type (envenomed arrows deal this type of damage).

After that, you don't really need a SoA as druid since you are dual wielding your staff usually. I'd go with the standard high value defensive artefacts: health sip, bracelet (health/mana %), +con belt, health regen ring.

There's lots of niche offensive things you can do as a druid that are maybe worth investing in later. For instance TRAMPLE in riding can be done against opponents you use hydra BIND against, and you can do both simultaneously which can be decent hinder in groups. You can also buy an artie handaxe but I'd save that for down the road, and embrace is liable to be changed any time now since like I said it's a point of contention. You can also buy an artie bow to shoot meteors with, secret technique you can shoot meteors WHILE PREPPING as a druid, by combining it with clamp. Stuff like that, sky is the limit, but I'd start with the fundamental defensives before anything else.

Mathilda

Intelligence, if I remember correctly, affects the damage of incinerate, which is one of your kill routes. It's a valid choice, although not one I personally prefer.

Druids often use their skill-provided quarterstaff, but there are some who also use an axe to prep/break limbs. For hunting, however, you'd want to use a morph (one with access to MAUL). 

Rom

Do not invest in a single point of intelligence it is NOT a valid choice. I can elaborate and answer your questions tomorrow, just saw this before going to sleep.

Sarathai

Don't put anything into Intelligence. And slap the person who told you to.

Ryzeth

Mathilda said:

Intelligence, if I remember correctly, affects the damage of incinerate, which is one of your kill routes. It's a valid choice, although not one I personally prefer.

This is false. Incinerate, while a route, will insta kill if you're below 50% health. Regardless of your intelligence. Intelligence only affects the damage of grove lightning (possible reclamation effects too, I dunno about those). As Sarathai said, whoever told you int was 'valid' needs to be slapped. With a chair.

@Oatu use Jaguar morph + maul to hunt with, until you get Wyvern, then use that + maul. PvP my advice would largely be theory, not actual advice. Ask @Rom or @Ankhareoutef about that.

Mathilda

Ryzeth said:

Mathilda said:

Intelligence, if I remember correctly, affects the damage of incinerate, which is one of your kill routes. It's a valid choice, although not one I personally prefer.

This is false. Incinerate, while a route, will insta kill if you're below 50% health. Regardless of your intelligence. Intelligence only affects the damage of grove lightning (possible reclamation effects too, I dunno about those). As Sarathai said, whoever told you int was 'valid' needs to be slapped. With a chair.

@Oatu use Jaguar morph + maul to hunt with, until you get Wyvern, then use that + maul. PvP my advice would largely be theory, not actual advice. Ask @Rom or @Ankhareoutef about that.

Incinerate still does damage if done with the target above 50% -- this is what I was referring to. Granted, though, I only fought as a Druid for a short time, and I was very new to Achaea, as well. In any case, Intelligence does pale in comparison to Constitution or Strength (by a vast, galaxy-sized amount).

(Grove lightning is the bomb, though. Dat Eleusian LoS )

Ankhareoutef

Rom can give you a better run down than I can. It's been a while. You do have a few solid kill paths, but to do anything other than the reclamation kill, you'll need to be strength spec.

Another great Druid to talk to in game would be Miriew. Great guy and he knows a bunch.

Ankhareoutef

Mathilda said:

Ryzeth said:

Mathilda said:

Intelligence, if I remember correctly, affects the damage of incinerate, which is one of your kill routes. It's a valid choice, although not one I personally prefer.

This is false. Incinerate, while a route, will insta kill if you're below 50% health. Regardless of your intelligence. Intelligence only affects the damage of grove lightning (possible reclamation effects too, I dunno about those). As Sarathai said, whoever told you int was 'valid' needs to be slapped. With a chair.

@Oatu use Jaguar morph + maul to hunt with, until you get Wyvern, then use that + maul. PvP my advice would largely be theory, not actual advice. Ask @Rom or @Ankhareoutef about that.

Incinerate still does damage if done with the target above 50% -- this is what I was referring to. Granted, though, I only fought as a Druid for a short time, and I was very new to Achaea, as well. In any case, Intelligence does pale in comparison to Constitution or Strength (by a vast, galaxy-sized amount).

(Grove lightning is the bomb, though. Dat Eleusian LoS )

Incinerate shouldn't be used for damage. It should be used for a kill. It takes too long to summon your flame and the recovery time on it is too long for the damage to stack.

Krypton

Oatu said:

- I've been told for combat I want to focus on intelligence.

Maybe they meant player intelligence.

Sarathai

Mathilda said:

Ryzeth said:

Mathilda said:

Intelligence, if I remember correctly, affects the damage of incinerate, which is one of your kill routes. It's a valid choice, although not one I personally prefer.

This is false. Incinerate, while a route, will insta kill if you're below 50% health. Regardless of your intelligence. Intelligence only affects the damage of grove lightning (possible reclamation effects too, I dunno about those). As Sarathai said, whoever told you int was 'valid' needs to be slapped. With a chair.

@Oatu use Jaguar morph + maul to hunt with, until you get Wyvern, then use that + maul. PvP my advice would largely be theory, not actual advice. Ask @Rom or @Ankhareoutef about that.

(Grove lightning is the bomb, though. Dat Eleusian LoS )

Youre probably dealing with Sylvans more than Druids there, owing to Viridian and easier stacking of Intelligence boosts.

Oatu

Krypton said:

Oatu said:

- I've been told for combat I want to focus on intelligence.

Maybe they meant player intelligence.

Perhaps. Though I did ask which specific stat to focus on for combat. I was indeed told str and con for hunting.

I'd be lying if I said I never made a mistake, and can easily reincarnate. Life goes on. Not that worried about it!

Oatu

Rom said:

Oatu said:

Hi there.

I created a new character and it seems like Druid is full of RP, and it looks like it has a few tricks up it's sleeve. That's neat. I initially had a hard time picking a forestal class (I also was pretty interested in sentinel and Sylvan.)

I'm wondering if I could get some help. I have some retirement credits (about 2500) - - and would like to know where to assign them. The info for you to base that on is below along with other questions.

Goals: pvp. Be it 1v1 or group. Doesn't look like there's a ton of up to date druid fighting resources, but it also looks like there's people I can learn from in game. Yay!

- I've been told for combat I want to focus on intelligence. Why? In my quick research it looks like it's a physical class.
- Hunting. What do I use for a weapon? Does a weapon affect my damage output in morphs?
- http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/4248/hydra-prepping#latest -- seems to have good info. Is this still up to date more or less?

Thanks!

Yeah my post that you linked is mostly accurate still. However I would never pound for damage anymore unless the target is frozen from my hydra combos (bite nechamandra + snap + clamp usually). Also you can't reclaim while flying anymore, you no longer have to pause when you reclamation begin, and flame mauls are way better now since INFERNO no longer uses flame, and is faster, and the damage on the empowered mauls got buffed.

You will be wielding a quarterstaff as your weapon like 99% of the time, you don't use it for hunting though you use maul like those other people said.

STRENGTH and CONSTITUTION are the stats you want, con increases your health and your endurance, that's it. It's good, but I'd only recommend it for hunting, and I guess low level combat. Druids have an absurd amount of defensive utility so low health usually isn't a problem between bind, vigour, vitality, and whatever else. Strength however they scale with incredibly well, and with it they do absurd damage even without artefacts. Also make sure you get the NIMBLE trait for faster balance it is mandatory.

Druid is really cool because you can combine their third head abilities with almost ANYTHING IN THE GAME. You can use them on either side of balance, or you can use them BEFORE equilibrium. You can do stuff like throw a dustbomb at the ground and break their leg immediately alongside it, you can do stuff like break their leg and immediately throw a stun bomb at the ground before they can apply to cure it. You can use it alongside weaponry, you can use it alongside groves, it's just amazing with a ton of potential.

The easiest way to kill people right now is to prep both their legs using hydra combos (Bite prefarar + Roar + clamp). Prefarar strips deafness if they have it, roar prones people that are undeaf, and clamp is limb prep - people that are prone cannot parry. Prepping like this is very fast and bypasses parry 100% of the time against every class.

Anyway then you break their legs and use nechamandra bites, which give levels of freeze. You can fit in enough bites while they are prone to threaten them being frozen, if they are frozen when you get balance back from any of the combos then you'd use gorilla pound, which does like 75% max health or something against frozen targets. If they don't get frozen it's because they are curing with different priorities, and usually means that they will be proned for some amount of time longer. In this case you can sometimes mangle the limb you were hitting, assuming you were spamming hits on the right leg since it cures last.

Kinda weird typing out strategies like that, so I'll keep the next ones brief but I already typed that one so whatever.

Flame mauls you'd prep legs and then INFERNO, break and keep flame mauling for crazy damage. If they prioritize curing the flame then this is pretty much useless.

EMBRACE is an instakill in reclamation with a lot of contention. It requires your opponent to have 4 BROKEN limbs, not cripples or whatever, these are RESTORATION cures. Anyway the most basic way to do it is to have them prone usually using bind+swing staff. Then you throw axe to break, clamp, throw axe to break, clamp + embrace. Throwing a handaxe like this would require the knife thrower and nimble and transcendent weaponry, so you can do it other ways like using bash with a quarterstaff just have to be wary of rebounding. You can use stun bombs too to make it pretty easy, or use shatter in weaponry if your enemy hates tumbling. There's other ways too, and they all have varying amounts of viability and reliability.

In Groups you want to use hydra bind on cooldown, you want to use STAMPEDE a lot because it is insanely good (does a lot of damage, takes you into your targets room, you can use third head balance after it like bind, it cripples one of their limbs, it prones them and knocks them off balance). Use quarterstaff lightning for LoS, you can incinerate high priority targets, you can use reclamation to help bolster your team's LoS via healing, otherwise in melee you can just spam hydra combos they will almost always be good.

This is just a quick collection of thoughts with almost no order, feel free to ask specific questions and I will try to answer them. I can't really help ingame anymore since I quit Eleusis, but Miriew knows pretty much as much as me and is currently a Druid too.

Thank you very much. What artifacts would you all recommend? Staff and axe?