Anyone have druid gear for a newb?

[Zeemastah]

Hello all! I just playing P99 a couple weeks ago and am sorta having a blast. Something I seem to be running into often, which is kinda frustrating, is that anytime I seem to get a group, I am grouped with someone or a couple people who are all twinked either fully or halfway. And although that's nice to have for faster kills, I'm being treated kinda crappy cuz I'm wearing cloth armor and have hardly anything so I go OOM pretty quick and healing these twinked out people is not working too well. I've already been dropped from two groups cuz I couldn't keep up and have been told by a group who clearly only had 4 people in it that they were full(I was pulling close to them, and they ended up inviting a twinked druid and a enchanter who went LFG within the hour). I don't like to ask, but if anyone has any extra gear for a druid laying around they wouldn't mind donating so I can keep up with some of these people or solo a little better if I can't get a group, it would be greatly appreciated! I have the same name in game as on here (Zeemastah) if anyone feels like being uberly nice to someone who wants to already be raiding!(god i miss old EQ raiding so bad), I'm in Oasis just plucking away.

I promise when I become of level, if you donate, I will be porting people for free and handing out buffs for free and giving back. I love helping people out more than I do actually leveling and trying to do something for myself so I will do what I can to help back and be an asset on this server!

[Swish]

Get some patchwork (ruined wolf pelts or cat pelts depending on race + patterns) and get some nice person in the tunnel to put them together if you dont want to tradeskill it yourself...you'll get that leather look in no time ;)

Do that, hit 29, start porting people...and rake it in :)

[Wenuven]

I'm doubtful the treatment you are receiving has much to do with your gear. More likely, it's that druids are not very desired in groups. Sure, you may be MORE desirable if you are twinked out, but it shouldn't make much of a difference. The beauty of a druid is that they are not very gear dependent.

My advice is, just ignore it and keep leveling. You WILL run into a few pretentious jerks on this server, but they are the exception (at least before end game :P ). For the most part you will be leveling with people who are in your same boat and are completely understanding. My druid was mostly naked until I spent some time at the Sisters camp in the late teens and it never once affected my playing experience.

[Glenzig]

Look for a newbie friendly guild and put your best foot forward. If they are a halfway decent guild, they will be more than willing to donate said gear to you. People are generally generous on this server, but outright begging tends to put a lid on generosity.

[Shodo]

Sadly, your gear isn't going to make much difference in being able to keep up with heals - the rate at which you regen mana is based solely on your meditate skill, level, and any buffs you may have (with the exception of flowing thought gear that comes later). Having a larger mana pool will help you immensely in "oh shit" situations when you have to burn everything you have just to keep the tank alive; however, if the group has steady pulls that are under control with c/c and not facemelting your tank, you can heal just as well as any other druid 90% of the time - no matter how much gear they have.

[Zeemastah]

Ya, I didn't want to beg as I know how it looks. I just asked as if anyone had any kind of newb gear laying around getting dust, I'd put it to great use :D. But I'll take Swish's advice instead as I don't mind working for my own stuff, it just seems like I started here 4 years late and I'm trying to play catch up with everyone around me. Just need to get into port levels and I'm sure things will pick up then.

[iruinedyourday]

This will definitly get you moving in the direction that you seek

http://wiki.project1999.com/Ultimate_Leveling_While_Making_Money_Guide

hope it helps! :D

[Zeemastah]

I know gear isn't going to make a HUGE difference, but when I go OOM after casting a few heals vs maybe another 5-10 if I had any WIS gear, I guess I could I could keep up a bit better since groups do take breaks and the "oh shit" situations for sure. And Wenuvan, I did take a SS of someone having to "leave" after I asked them if they wanted to duo, and I didn't have the greatest of gear about 10 seconds after they said "15 druid LFG" in ooc just a couple hours ago :/...I can edit out the name etc and post it but it doesn't matter much at this point I don't think. I just need to tough it out and not ask for handouts...just hard when I work 80 hours a week so when I get on I don't normally have much time to play before I'm passing out lol.

And of course after I made these posts, I did find a group that took me on with no problems and we're doing fine even with my shitty heals and me not being able to keep up :)

[Ravager]

Dunno what level you are, but Druids are easy to gear at low levels, since they can solo and do some good cash mobs. At level 10 you can solo Willowisps. Lightstones vendor for near a plat and Greater Lightstones can be turned into a gyspy in NK for a book that's sold back to the same gypsy for about 10 plat. You'll make a bunch of exp and plat and you can buy some nice cheap HP/Mana gear that will make you more effective.

Suggestions:
Golden Jaded Bracelet x2 = 15hp/15 Mana Costs about 60 plat
Silver Jaded Rings x2 = 5hp/5 mana Probably 10 plat
Chipped Bone Collar = 10hp/10 mana 10 plat
Skull of Jhen T'ra = 20 mana probably 10-20 plat.
Lizardscale Belt = 10hp/10 mana 25ish plat
Testament of Vaneer - No Drop, Questable at 15, 10wis/10 mana
Polished Bone Hoop x2 = 10 mana each, 40 plat for a pair.

Otherwise, people should understand a druid should never be the primary healer. They're a support class. Your job is to patch heal, ds, buff, snare, root and dd in a group, depending on what the situation calls for.

And never underestimate the dps of your damage shield, it's one of the most mana efficient forms of damage there is. When in a group, make sure it is always on the tank. Likewise, when you're grouping, you should never cast a damage over time spell, the mob is dead before you get the damage efficiency out of it.

[Aveenia]

I have been primary healer as a druid in quite a few groups at all levels here. You can do that, but it helps if you have experience healing in general. Mostly healing is about timing & knowing what to expect from the mobs you will encounter in the area your group is pulling from. Report mana regularly if below 40%.

Also if pullers ignore your low mana warnings, it is in no way your fault if things go pear shaped.


NOTE: I have only been on this server a month but I played a druid as my main for years on live, and I also play clerics in EQ, & I play healers in pretty much every MMO I have ever played -- my advice comes from that.

[Daywolf]

Get some patchwork (ruined wolf pelts or cat pelts depending on race + patterns) and get some nice person in the tunnel to put them together if you dont want to tradeskill it yourself...you'll get that leather look in no time ;)

Do that, hit 29, start porting people...and rake it in :)
Yeah agreed. Actually druid is a really good class to work some tailoring skill. It's pretty easy to work up to studded leather, a little tailoring and metalwork. But to start, you can whip up some leather armor pretty quickly. More or less, all you'll need until lvl30, mixing in a few wisdom items along the way.

Weapons don't matter much. By 20 you are pretty much a pure caster anyway. Only recommendation for carrying a weapon past 20 is to keep a treant staff (http://wiki.project1999.com/Treant_Staff) handy, if you plan to root-rot often or hunting lower level animals for pelts to do tailoring. Otherwise you are usually carrying 1h's just for their stat mods. About the easiest class to gear really, and little need for gear to start.

[Stormlight]

You shouldn't be going OOM "after casting a few heals". Low to mid level druids shouldn't be that much worse at healing than either of the other priests. Someone already mentioned that even twinked character's mana regen is the same as yours, so that's not an issue. Something that helps, though, is knowing how that regen works. If you're not worried about taking aggro from a heal/sit, then try to heal immediately after your mana has ticked up, then sit back down so you're meditating for the next tick as well. This will optimize your mana regen, and is useful in many situations, even running somewhere.

[Fiyero]

A little bit of wisdom gear isn't really going to help you much. The issue is Druid heals are just not very good. You get everything up to Greater Heal 5 levels later than clerics, and then after Greater Heal at 29, you don't get Superior Heal until 53 (clerics get it at 34). Thus your heals often aren't able to keep up with the group. If you have twinked, high hp people in your group, it's even worse since your heals will barely seem to move their HP bar.

I was having major mana issues with healing even on my cleric until I got Greater Heal.

[Jimjam]

Something I've noticed a couple of people do in their excitement whilst grinding xp is forgetting to train meditate. Now I imagine you haven't forgotten to do this, but if you have go put a couple points in at your class trainer!

[Daywolf]

Anyway regarding being "twinked", as has been said watching the ticks can help in a pinch, keep those ticks going as best you can, easy to do in wolf form hehe j/k. Also as you progress in levels the heal spells become more efficient; to do a little more healing with less mana.

I've never been outcast from a group over healing, but I've done it for years so it's second nature. On live I had basically two mains, a ranger and a cleric, so just got used to it. On PEQ: the grand creation, I have two druids, one specialized in alteration to heal and works really well. Here, I really try to avoid being the main healer (specialized in Conj) in groups with my druid, but generally it works out really well depending on the group makeup. A lot can be said for that, and sometimes group formulas are just really bad for a druid healer, and so isn't really the druids fault.

Firstly, twinking doesn't matter regarding wisdom, not all that much. In group healing, twinked or not, you will hardly ever reach FM, sometimes if ever. Wisdom only increases mana pool, not mana regen. Above lvl30 it'll help more due to longer med breaks requested by other casters, but below lvl30 not at all.

In any case, you are going to need to pick and choose who gets the buffs and who gets the heals. It's just not going to happen for the entire group. Often, your primary concern is going to be just the MT, the MT is your pet. Everyone else, well you just want to keep alive, even if you run them at low health 90% of the time, speaking of melees anyway. If you have an enc, that's your second concern, and keep their health full as best you can since they usually drop HP quickly. Then you just keep reminding the group to do their best to keep aggro on the MT.

Rangers are not MT's btw ;) I speak from experience. They should be up behind the mob that the MT is hitting, using sneak to keep their aggro low (yes it works). Rogue and monk are not really ideal for MT either, but they can usually survive better as assist and can run them fairly low on health, at least for the monk.

At this level, during breaks, if melees are not using bandaids, then they are fail anyway. They are not efficient past 25 or 30, but before then they are useful after a fight to keep them at 50% health. Unfortunately, it's a hard fact that many players seem to reject here, taking heal mana in groups for granted, draining you and slowing the pace of the group. Be it as it may, run them at minimum health if that is the case (30-40%), I consider it their own fault. If they are using bandaids, you can usually get them healed up pretty well. I don't carry bandaids on my druid, but I do on my cleric and will sometimes assist the MT for a moment to get to 50% during a break. But later levels, the bandaids become too slow (usually caps at 100 ntel lvl50) compared to just keeping med going.

MT you just want to keep up to 75% health during fights, more if you can. I consider below 50% on the MT becoming a situation, maybe need for a change in group tactics. Use DS to help the aggro on MT, only on the MT. Watch your heal aggro, even if you need to keep a lesser heal on mem so not to take aggro during a fight (bigger heal = bigger aggro). Less efficient but better than pulling aggro then all your melee assists not bothering to pull the mobs off of you and then wondering why the MT is starting to fail. If that starts happening, ask one of the assists to keep an eye on you, keep the mobs off you, you are not a heavy armored cleric, and they are fail if they don't. I always love doing that with my ranger, CC and those high aggro fire spells do the trick, makes healing them back up worth it.

Just takes practice, and helps if it's not always a pug where it takes time to be able to assess your strategies including buff and heal priorities.

Oh I'll add this, what I consider minimum buff pre-30's:
MT: Skin - DS - Str
Puller: SoW - Skin
Enc: Skin - Sow - Str if they start getting too encumbered as usual (keep them above 75 Agi)

The rest, skins if you can manage, but often not. Often they will all beg for SoW, but I don't consider it a requirement at all. It's not a mana hungry spell though, but if they are training a lot you'll need to work it in.

Then once you get buffs prioritized/adjusted compared to your mana demand in the situation (heals always priority for mana), you try to keep buffs on your timer. So generally I will skin the group all at once and skin myself. This way when I see it flashing, I know it's time to rebuff them, or the ones you have skin on anyway. Only exception is SoW if you are into the wolf form thing hehe, but you can time it with other buffs. But generally it goes a long way for you if they aren't asking for refresh after they loose the buff. Of course sometimes mobs take them down, especially on the puller or the MT, so you just need to stay aware of what mobs are casting etc. Your puller gets rooted, so obviously time to recast SoW on him etc. And learn how to use tracking, in case your puller gets rooted out some ways and need to get a rescue heal in, and heals work through walls, so just start clicking if you cant see them. It's not a time to be watching TV ;)

[Wycked Goodbrew]

This will definitly get you moving in the direction that you seek

http://wiki.project1999.com/Ultimate_Leveling_While_Making_Money_Guide

hope it helps! :D

Thanks for this :p