Druid Specializations!?

[Hippycheez]

Hey new to P99! I am having a freakin blast playing!! I come from EQOA(Rip CLW) and EQ2. I am level 17 and I am torn on the 3 specializations to choose from. A part of me just wants to go evocation and nuke stuff like my Fury on EQ2. Then i hear that most group arent big fans of druids so we have to solo a lot, so Conjur sounds about right?! and Alteration is just the safe mode and is a easy choice...

I was just wanting to get other peoples perspective / opinion on what they have done or should of done =P

Appreciate the info!

~Hippycheez~

[Daldaen]

Alteration is the only choice.

Healings, roots, snares, ports, charms, etc.

Conjuration is DoTs only. In this era, root rotting is an extremely inefficient means of soloing, regardless of your mana expenditure.

Evocation is nukes only. While druid nukes are actually rather underappreciated on this server, there's rarely situations where you will be firing them off one after another. In the situations where you are (burning out a named or a raid mob generally), your mana isn't the limiting factor. It's usually not pulling Aggro or the tank/raid not dying before the mob does. So the only benefit of specialization is moot in this case.

Alteration is the only choice for a soloing druid because charm killing it reduces the only spells you're casting (charm, root, heals). Grouping is the only choice because it fills your primary and utility roles best (backup heals and ports/root CC). Raiding is the only choice because it fills your role as group healer (heals).

[Danth]

Alteration is the safe bet and the best long-term. Pick it unless you have some specific reason not to. Evocation can give good service if you like quadding. Most the time you'll switch to Alteration once your quadding days are finished. Conjuration sees mention in some very old guides, but it isn't a great choice. It only benefits one of the damage over time lines, and the more efficient one at that.

Danth

[Wrench]

Evocation can give good service if you like quadding. Most the time you'll switch to Alteration once your quadding days are finished.

^this

dont be afraid to pick evoc if this fits your play style for soloing

quading may be lower xp per hour than charming, but is better xp per min, allowing you to afk med if you wanna do other stuff inbetween

it also allows you to pick from a wider range of solo spots since they dont have to be animals

your never locked forever on a spec, you can do the quest and respec after done quading like danth says

[GreldorEQ]

With the speed that I went from 34-46, I wouldn't bother with evocation. At 46, you can save your pennies for a Lumi staff and evocation becomes less helpful.

Alteration fits into all scenarios as Daldaen stated. There really doesn't seem to be much argument for anything else.

[webrunner5]

Alteration is the safe bet and the best long-term. Pick it unless you have some specific reason not to. Evocation can give good service if you like quadding. Most the time you'll switch to Alteration once your quadding days are finished. Conjuration sees mention in some very old guides, but it isn't a great choice. It only benefits one of the damage over time lines, and the more efficient one at that.

Danth

I agree completely. Not really worth the effort Evo wise. Quad Kiting sucks long term. :(

[Cecily]

I never regretted Evoc spec.

[Daldaen]

I never regretted Evoc spec.
Cause you don't druid with maximum efficiency.

The only times your evocation mana expenditure outweighs your alteration:

1. Raids, nuking a mob dead.
2. Quadding
3. Weird groups where your nukes outweigh your casts of heals, regens, roots, snares, ports

In case #1 this is how many Kunark dragons are, but in many you need to stop to heal yourself and others from damage. And generally mana preservation is irrelevant. Even with full resist gear and a mana pool of around 2500, the mob should be dead before you're oom.

In case #2, quadding is only a good idea if you need to AFK for long periods inbetween your play to do RL things. Otherwise charming is more fun and better exp for an active playing person.

In case #3, even with a cleric in group you will end up backup healing. Roots are very helpful CC. Group regen helps save mana on healing random over aggroing monks and rogues. Etc.

Alteration is the overlord of druid Specializations. Will be even more so in Velious when druids get better heals.

Basically all priests, Necro's and Ench should go Alteration. Magicians should go Conjuration. Wizards should go Evocation.

Very few situations should anyone deviate from these Specialization choices by class.

[williestargell]

There are very few choices in EQ that are as clear cut as a druid choosing alteration as their specialization.

[Cecily]

1. Raids, nuking a mob dead.
2. Quadding
3. Weird groups where your nukes outweigh your casts of heals, regens, roots, snares, ports

That's exactly what I play my druid for. Raiding, quadding, agro kiting. All of which involve nuking. There isn't any charm content in the game worth my time atm, and you seriously don't need mana efficiency with charming. It's the most mana efficient method of hunting a druid has at their disposal. Druid heals are horrendously inefficient in Kunark, and I don't consider druids a healing class with their current spells. Once Velious drops, I'll reevaluate. Remember, evoc is for quads, direct nukes, and fire DoTs. I use Breath of Ro quite often. Quadding is my preferred method of hunting.

Considering abjuration for PoTG, honestly. I'll agree that Alt is more appealing in Velious, but Evoc is a good spec for now.

[Daldaen]

You have multiple level 60 characters that are VP keyed with bis gear.

What the deuce are you quadding for?

Also nuking a raid mob dead, in no scenario are you ever burning all your mana and the mob is still alive unless you're fighting Gore and she CHs (in which case you've already lost unless you have a huge number of zerglings).

Yes charm killing is the most efficient means of killing. Making it even more efficient increases your speed of leveling by cutting down breaks required.

Heals are inefficient, but it makes it a little bit better if you're in a situation where you can't land nukes and you need to spam heal. Or a situation where it's more mana efficient to keep alive someone allowing them to DPS than it is to continue DPSing yourself.

Breath of Ro, for purposes of soloing or grouping, is horribly inefficient. 1. It does less damage and for less efficiency than Winged Death. 2. Winged Death has a -100 MR check while Breath resists a fair bit. In soloing, Breath's resist Debuff is hardly a benefit.

Abjuration I thought about for a fleeting moment. 1200 mana means you would save 120 as opposed to 30 as a non-spec. So it's a 90 mana difference per cost. Useful only if the toon is being used to buff and that's it. Any main or alt druid being used in any group or fight it is a bad choice, as buffing you will likely be the focus of Necro twitches and after that you won't be cast Abjuration spells.

[Cecily]

Winged Death does about 1k for 300 mana. Ro does about 1k for 200 mana (for me). How is that less efficient?

[Daldaen]

Winged Death does about 1k for 300 mana. Ro does about 1k for 200 mana (for me). How is that less efficient?
Ro is 92/tick for 10 ticks for 250 mana
Winged is 143/tick for 9 ticks for 350 mana

They should each have 1 more tick if classic. But the main point was winged never resists unless magic immune. Breath resists a fair amount on any content that's meaningful.

[Itap]

If Cecily prefers to quad/nuke instead of heals/dots/charm, I can see how specing evocation is more advantageous than alteration

[Itap]

If you strictly solo 1-60, is it better to spec evocation? If you are sticking to quading post 34, that is

[Cecily]

34 to 53, I quadded. Charmed 53 to 60, with a bit of quadding at TD raptors after I got Fist of Karana. I used Breath of Ro extensively during my time charming, though. It's an excellent finisher for mobs with ~20% hp (too much to arm DoT).

[Daldaen]

The benefit of Specializations is mana preservation. It allows you to extend your mana pool or decrease the number of stops/med breaks you take.

The benefit of Quadding as a soloing method over charming is that you can take larger breaks inbetween quads. You burn all your mana quadding then AFk for 10min watching TV or whatever before you go again.

Whether you finish the quad with 10% or 30%, you're still going to have to take that long AFK where you are likely doing something else IRL. The only time it would factor in is if you have a few bad resists, you are under geared or you're trying to quad things like hill Giants or Seafuries with lots of HP and mediocre gear.

Depending on the level and the camp, generally you can get 1-2 quads done before you run OOM. At which point you usually will just med to full and go again. Specialization may save you a minute or two inbetween med breaks, but many people who go the quadding route and AFKing more time than it takes them to med to full anyways so they won't notice the difference. They won't be sitting at the monitor watching to see when they hit full mana and then immediately start. They'll probably AFK 10min and come back after they've been FM for a few min.

[Man0warr]

It's probably fine to spec evo from levels 34-53, but that's the only time you can justify it.

[Daldaen]

34 to 53, I quadded. Charmed 53 to 60, with a bit of quadding at TD raptors after I got Fist of Karana. I used Breath of Ro extensively during my time charming, though. It's an excellent finisher for mobs with ~20% hp (too much to arm DoT).

Yes so did I. But that was back several years ago when Breath had the unclassic values (was 103/tick for like 200-225 mana). Back then, Winged Death sucked. But that's since been patched and fixed.

Now they are near the same efficiency except Winged Death works faster, resists far less, and does more.