New Druid Advice from the experts

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Just spent ages trying to dig up an account with a ggr. Found one eventually!

After a really quick test I found that with the GGR if you break too early you have the time to recharm and then rebreak. This isn't something you can really do with just spell invis.

You can do the same with cast time invis. It's just prediction. In the case of Ring of Stealthy Travel, you are only clicking it one combat round sooner than Goblin Ring. It's less risky because you get the command to the server sooner. The later you wait to break, you have a higher risk of latency causing you to break after the next combat round, rather than before.

Worst case the mob misses, so the charmed mob has more HP when it breaks. You can duck and recast the invis too if you saw the miss. Hit rates are normally well above 50%, so next round will probably be a hit. If you can click Goblin Ring inbetween the two second combat rounds, you can click Ring of Stealthy Travel a combat round sooner.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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It's not impossible. If it was impossible, you couldn't run CH chains. Nobody truly knows if the CH will land in 10 seconds, but it usually does, and the raid continues.

Same with combat. Hit rates are normally between 60-90% from what I've seen, and the mob will do damage on an average. That's how you predict breaks in the first place, you watch the DPS and anticipate when the mob is low enough HP. This is basic stuff.

[bcbrown]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

People have mentioned that if you're gonna charm, may as well start as early as possible. At level 14 you can't easy remobilise to pick up PoTGs and C2s, and mobs don't last long. The mana spent on casting invis certainly adds up quickly.

Perhaps. I certainly agree that the mana-free IvA is most impactful at lower levels. If charm never broke early, and the pet and target always evenly matched, and you have space to chase down runners, you're only using Befriend Animal at 70 mana and IvA at 30 mana, so the ring would be saving you a huge 30%.

If you're trying to charm at the very earliest at 14, I've personally found there to be too many early charm breaks to be efficient. I've found 18-20 to be a reasonable starting point. But here's someone who found it effective:

Originally Posted by Wilshire [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

We're going to have to disagree on the use of Befriend Animal, though. I have been having a decent amount of success using it to charm a high green or blue mob and then use that as a pet to attack an even con. I usually have to assist my pet win, and it ends up at 25% to half health when the fight ends. Then I hit hide, break the charm, and root-rot my (former pet). Gets me two xp kills pretty easily.

I'm not sure if this way of killing two mobs at once would be more mana-efficient than just rooting both of them and dotting though. I have to test that still.

Two things I notice: first, if you're fighting alongside the pet, the instant invis part of the ring doesn't matter so much. You can wait until the pet's at whatever low % you want to aim for and jump into the fight at that point. Second, the free invis part of the ring also doesn't matter if you're either Halfling or Wood Elf, the two most popular druid classes. Hide only has a 50% success rate but you'll have a couple chances to hit it if you're not terribly concerned with the exact mob health when you break. Sounds like he's using hide after the first mob dies, so then there's no timing impact. Even if you do try to break before the fight ends you can use a macro that first hides and then /targets you, then casts IvA. So if hide succeeds, the /target fails and you can duck out of the IvA.

Another tactic that I've never used, but I bet would be pretty effective, is bring a mob over to the guard by the bridge, letting him beat it down, then charm, take it elsewhere, break charm, and kill. Here again the timing isn't very important so it would be fine to use hide. If you're Human or Half Elf without hide than the free invis part of the ring will be very efficient in this situation.

I like starting to charm around 18-20. A lot of your targets will be Dark Stalkers and Gorge Hounds, each of which are 15-17. At that similar of a level you're going to have a lot of charm breaks. If you get a charm break at like 80% you should probably to re-charm, but around 40% it's probably more efficient not to recharm. At that point I prefer to cast a Thistles and melee it out - this is predicated on having a decent weapon but I think even a Wraith Bone Hammer would be sufficient here.

One reason I like melee here is because of how efficient Treeform is. After somewhere between one and four of this style of fight you'll end up around 20-30% each on health and mana. Now you head back to the bridge, Treeform, bind wounds to 50%, meditate. You'll end up with full health and mana around the same time. Treeform plus a re-sow is 70 mana, which is either three Light Healing for 75 mana and 75-100 hp or a little over one Healing for 60 mana and 85-100 hp. Treeform is 5 hp/tick, so at 20 ticks or 100 hp worth of damage it'll be more efficient than heals.

Even if you don't worry about charm breaking early, it's rare that the two mobs will be perfectly matched. Frequently you'll end up with one mob at 5-10% and the other at 40%. Lets say you root-rot the 40% while chasing the 5-10% down with melee. A gorge hound will have about 450 health, so 40% is around 180 damage. That'll be one or two Grasping Roots and one or two Stinging Swarms, or 100-200 mana. Add in the initial Befriend Animals and you're at 170-270 mana, so now the free IvA would only be 12-15% of the total mana expenditure instead of the ideal-case 30%.

[loramin]

Again, I posted that for like two seconds, thought it wasn't worth having to read another reply from you, and deleted it. I don't know how you managed to see it during those two seconds, but you seriously need to touch grass.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Again, I posted that for like two seconds, thought it wasn't worth having to read another reply from you, and deleted it. I don't know how you managed to see it during those two seconds, but you seriously need to touch grass.

I can predict your future silly posts before they happen!

Glad to see you agree with me that you can do prediction for charm breaks.

[loramin]

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Glad to see you agree with me that you can do prediction for charm breaks.

I didn't specifically respond to everything you wrote, so I agree with you? By that (childish) logic, you just conceded that:

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

you seriously need to touch grass.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I didn't specifically respond to everything you wrote, so I agree with you?

By removing your post suggesting prediction was impossible, that indicates you don't actually believe prediction is impossible. It is a good step in the right direction.

[bcbrown]

Geez you guys. I thought we're here to discuss gear priorities for a charming druid. We've talked a lot about the goblin ring and how and why it's good. But no matter whether you're able to break at 1%, at 5%, or at 10%, you're frequently going to have the other mob somewhere around 10-30% higher - most charm locations have level ranges, so it's rare to have exactly even matched fights. At lower levels there's nothing you can do about this, so I'm going to focus this comment on higher levels; the gear you should start thinking about in your early 40s and have a plan to acquire by your mid 50s.

In cases where your pet is the one at higher health there's nothing you can really do about it. ES arms dot and epic both help, but usually you'll need to add another dot or nuke for a reasonable kill time - a Chokidai Whelp for example has 4k hp, so 30% is 1200, so that would be 4 minute-long durations of the clicky Drones of Doom. I like adding a Winged Death if the mob's high enough, but others prefer nukes and I think that's just personal preference.

The more interesting case is when it's your pet that's the weaker mob, and it's here that the Gloves of Earthcrafting shine. If you're a Tunare druid this should be your priority. The quest isn't hard; the Vindi head rots all the time and I got mine just by asking when I stumbled across a kill. The other three heads are straightforward kills for even a casual guild; if you're unguilded on Green and want help with this, send me a PM and I'll do what I can.

When you notice the fight's at like 50%-70% or 70%-95% or whatever and your pet is losing, this is what will even it up. When you need to stretch one whelp across two sarnaks this is what lets you. Being able to finish a fight at 10% vs 15% is way better than being able to finish a fight at 2-3% vs 30% instead of 10% vs 30% like the ring would let you do.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Based on OP's requirements, they want the normal cheap Druid items:
1. Spells
2. Basic HP/MP Gear
3. Tunare Snare Neck
4. Goblin Ring/Ring of Stealthy Travel
5. ES Arms and Gloves (get these as soon as you can at 45 since they are cheap)
6. Lumi Staff
7. GCD item like Shrunken Goblin Earring

That can take you to 60.

Anything after that really depends on how strictly OP adheres to the following:

Originally Posted by Faywind [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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

Items like Tuna Gloves, Velious BP, and Epic are all good long term goals, but they will be tough to get for OP if OP remains almost exclusively solo. Tuna Gloves will need OP to get a group of high level friends to kill the non-vindi giants. That can be tough for people to do when they have to frequently AFK. Velious BP and Epic can be purchased, it will just take a lot of grinding.

[kjs86z2]

Originally Posted by bcbrown [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In cases where your pet is the one at higher health there's nothing you can really do about it.

sure there is, spam sit

but you don't have to be perfect every time...theres nothing wrong with letting a pet eat 50% on a kill every now and then, and in some situations it can actually save you a ton of mana / downtime / headache (think imminent pop timers in tight spaces, etc)

tuna gloves and velious wrist are absolute BiS for charming leveling druid id take them over a gobby ring all day every day....even if you're a lazy solo player...you need to take the time to get people to help you get these