New Druid Advice from the experts
 

Title says it. Looking for advice on starting a new Druid, have a few questions. I've searched around the forums and have most of my answers.

I will be playing very casually, almost exclusively solo due to unreliable consistent play in a session (lots of afking).

I'm pretty dead set on Human at this point for various reasons so I don't need help there. I've got most of my gear purchased already too for when I start.

I will be doing as much charm killing as I can, not super interested in quadding or root rott/nuke playstyle as I have a wizard for that already.

So my question is, where to put my starting stats? 25wis 5sta? Does it really matter?

When I eventually get to 30, what school should I specialize in?

Finally, should I focus on mainly +WIS gear? Maybe throw in some +hp and +mana?

Thanks in advance.

HP and AC are very important when charming

whats your budget for this char?

make sure you do CT gators as early as you can, and stay there til alley is greened out

https://wiki.project1999.com/Cazic_T...r_Pit#Level_32

there are some level ranges where its kinda slim pickins for premium charm spots

overall expect this to be a less-capable-but-safer version of enchanter solo

I just rolled a new druid with the same intent of charming as much as possible. Wisdom/mana isn't going to be as important as hp/ac, at least until the upper 30s. I went with guard captain's mallet, sarnak battle shield, bronze statue of bathezid, barbed dragonscale boots, 5/55 rings, 25/35 earrings. I think I went 25 wis/5 sta, (also went human), but I'm not exactly sure.

I did Blackburrow into WK bandits till 17, then EK charming to 26. Did two levels in Mistmoore and now I'm heading to CT. It's worth it to get an EB item for the CT gator pit, and it's worth it to deal with the hassle of learning underwater charming. You'll use those skills when you head to Kedge Keep.

Some advice on charm tactics:

Although you should attempt to break charm so you get full xp on both mobs, sometimes that's hard, like when you get an add right after recovering from a charm break. Don't be afraid to let the pet take 50% occasionally.

You can bring a mob to the guard by the bridge, let him knock it down to low hp, then charm, pull away, break and kill. Also good with griffenes/griffons and the guards in NK.

If your dps (and ac) is good enough, you can also keep a long-lived high green or low blue charm pet while face tanking. I'm using a Silvery Belt of Contention for haste. Keep DS up and use Stinging Swarm to help ensure you outdamage your pet. I started doing this when I was closer to leveling out of EK animals, around 20-22, and then used that against the crag spiders till 26.

At lower levels, snare doesn't always last long enough, but as you get higher, make sure to always keep both your pet and the target snared and the target rooted. That will give you more breathing room on charm breaks.

Use treeform whenever you can. It's a super efficient way to regen health. Treeform + recasting sow is 70 mana, and Healing is 100 health for 60 mana. So whenever you're low on both health and mana and will need to med for more than 20 ticks, swap over to treeform.

Charming in EK (or oasis) shouldn't be too hard to get the hang of, but charming in CT can be trickier to get the hang of. I'm happy to come along ingame and give some advice and support when you're trying to learn the zone.

General rule of thumb is if you're playing casual you should allocate stats in line with the wiki class page recommendation. If you're min maxing for full BIS gear then max stamina is almost always the answer for starting stats.

and sure enough after typing the above I went to the druid page and found it covered the question spot on:
"Wisdom is the best attribute for Druids and recommended for new players. With end-game gear it is possible to cap Wisdom at 255 with any race. At that point starting points invested into Wisdom are useless outside of corpse runs. This is why 25 Stamina is a better choice for minmax end-game play. The last 5 points are inconsequential."

Pretty similar answer applies to specializations. If you're playing casually then you can let you're specializations handle themselves, you'll naturally max specialize in the thing you cast the most. If you're on the path to be a min/max BIS raider than the wiki also covers this, but spoiler alert its alteration which covers your ports and buffs. It looks like in your case you're already going to be heading down the alteration path as your charms also fit in that category.

Very much appreciate the responses. Budget is 5k.

Appreciate the tips guys! Very excited to start this new character. I tend to level more on the slow side. I prefer not to rush.

Looking forward to seeing you all in game!

You might find https://wiki.project1999.com/Equipping_a_Druid helpful, but for that budget I'd just save up a k or 2 more and drop it all on the Goblin Ghazughi ring. It won't help for the first 20 or so levels, but after that you can charm for great XP ... and the XP is even greater with the ring.

id much rather have a bigger hp pool and more az than gobby ring

not hard to break w/ invis

I completely disagree.

More maxes won't help you kill anything faster: they just give the illusion of safety. In contrast, the ring lets you break charm instantly. That means when the mob is at much lower health (vs. invis) ... and that does help you kill (noticably) faster.

The key to breaking without an instant click is to root the other mob and back your pet out of the fight. You can back it out at very low % reliably this way.
If you start reverse charming,like works well in the bear pits the ring becomes more useful..
One of the best parts for druids is that in places like gator alley it works as a free invis clicky. Very handy for that

Root takes time and mana, and also Druid root can accidentally kill the mob before charm breaks. Ring is instant, mana-free, and will never kill anything.

There is a reason everyone does that same miserable camp for hours on end, or else pays thousands of plat (pre-60, when plat is much harder to obtain): it's because the ring is really good.