Advice for lowbie Druid on gear/grouping

[moklianne]

Hello all,
I'm a lvl 18 Druid. I've been leveling slowly but surely, mostly soloing, occasionally getting a group. The problem I've found is that for a non-twink, its kinda hard to heal decently, lol. I don't remember such an emphasis being put on Druids to heal when I originally played in 2001. It appears that its almost automatic that Druids and Shamans are to heal and many believe they are viable replacements for Clerics. It reminds me of live currently actually, where shamans, druids, and clerics are the healers and have been balanced to be so. However, it doesn't work that way on P1999. At least at these low levels.

Anyway, does anyone have any recommendations on cheap gear that'll help? I'm talking under 200pp.

Or perhaps a recommendation on places at this level where healing isn't as critical and needed constantly. Such as an area with long pulls, so you have more time to med.

[baalzy]

Healers are almost always in short supply, unfortunately. I always figured a group could either have 1 cleric or a shaman & a druid to get roughly the same amount of healing.

Unfortunately gear really won't help you heal better. You can boost your maximum mana which will allow you to heal longer initially, but unless you're constantly experiencing periods of time where your group is doing nothing so you can med to full, having a larger mana pool doesn't do you much good.

Still, you can pick up some decent low power jewelery for under 200pp. 2ac 15hp/mana bracelets run about 40p a pair and then a pair of +2 wis rings for fairly cheap. (I wanna say 10-15p). Those'll give you a little more initial boost. It'll get a bit better at 19 when you get 'healing'.

Your other alternative, as a druid, is to skip the group and just solo.

[Rasah]

I posted this on a previous thread:

1) Results may vary, but I didn't start kiting until I got Creeping Crud (level 24). Then you can live in South Karana until you are sick of the zone.
2) You don't need a snare, but it is certainly helpful for recasts.
3) Druids do crap for melee damage. Don't waste the time and money on the screaming mace. Get a Darkwood Staff. (get someone to sell you a Lambent stone cheap, and turn in to Sol Ro temple for staff) It does magical damage, and isn't that much worse than the screaming mace.

This strategy worked well for me:
Cast your AC/HP buff
Cast damage shield
Pull blue con mob with nuke
Beat on mob.
Watch his health and your health. If you are losing health faster than you'd like, cast another nuke. Or 2.
After fight, cast tree form.
Sit and med.
Your mana and health will regen together.
If your health gets to max first, consider using one less nuke.
If your mana gets to max first, consider using one more nuke.

Benefit to this is you get to keep your Offense, Defense and 1HB maxed out at the early levels, and it kills as fast, if not faster than root rotting with Stinging Swarm and Flame Lick.

As far as cheap gear, you can get jewelcraft WIS earrings for cheap, and you can find someone to help you kill the level 20 treant in East Karana to do the Kerran quest for +2 WIS tunic.

[Rimson]

Healers are almost always in short supply, unfortunately. I always figured a group could either have 1 cleric or a shaman & a druid to get roughly the same amount of healing.

Unfortunately gear really won't help you heal better. You can boost your maximum mana which will allow you to heal longer initially, but unless you're constantly experiencing periods of time where your group is doing nothing so you can med to full, having a larger mana pool doesn't do you much good.

Still, you can pick up some decent low power jewelery for under 200pp. 2ac 15hp/mana bracelets run about 40p a pair and then a pair of +2 wis rings for fairly cheap. (I wanna say 10-15p). Those'll give you a little more initial boost. It'll get a bit better at 19 when you get 'healing'.

Your other alternative, as a druid, is to skip the group and just solo.

Soloing as a druid after the nerfs is pretty much impossible.

[Daldaen]

Soloing as a druid after the nerfs is pretty much impossible.

Not with charm. Druids are quite solid if they know how to work with charm

[Rimson]

Not with charm. Druids are quite solid if they know how to work with charm

Yea as I'm learning. Its not too bad. I still think its much harder than before, but at least its possible.