Druid Pros/Cons

[kjs86z2]

pros: can port and cast potg

cons: everything else

[bcbrown]

Toxigen I thought you enjoyed charming on all classes that can charm. Druids have a very fun charm toolkit, even if there's fewer places you can use it.

[Duik]

Yep. Snare that fucker. Magic debuf it if of a lvl to. Then charm. Hand it some of that cheap/easy -MR spikey armor from blackburrow.

Elephant vs Aviaks in SK.

Rhino vs anything in Overthere.

Dogs or apes in higher dungeons (that ive never done).

Kedge works too but its too hard for my tiny brain.

But i enjoy the simplicity/versatility of the druid so biased.

[Goregasmic]

How root rot stacks up against charming/quadding?

I've seen druids root rot entire indoor camps I assumed they couldn't break so it looks good. I've quadded/charmed a ton so if I made a druid I'd try something different.

[bcbrown]

Root rotting is the least efficient of the three methods by far, but it's also the most generally applicable and safest. Doing nothing but root rotting to 60 sounds like it would be a real slog. You don't kill very fast and you spend a lot of time sitting. The epic and getting a Drones of Doom clicky both help.

It's great for filling in those awkward levels without other good options, good for killing whatever random mob you need for a quest or when farming some item. Great for when you feel like logging in for a brief session. Probably half my xp from 40 to 50 was root rotting. The -100 modifier on the magic line of dots is really nice too.

[Goregasmic]

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

Root rotting is the least efficient of the three methods by far, but it's also the most generally applicable and safest. Doing nothing but root rotting to 60 sounds like it would be a real slog. You don't kill very fast and you spend a lot of time sitting. The epic and getting a Drones of Doom clicky both help.

It's great for filling in those awkward levels without other good options, good for killing whatever random mob you need for a quest or when farming some item. Great for when you feel like logging in for a brief session. Probably half my xp from 40 to 50 was root rotting. The -100 modifier on the magic line of dots is really nice too.

Alright, thanks. That's kind of what I assumed. Seems a much better option once you have epic which is not something available to most people leveling.

I know velious has a couple of quadding options 45+ that are too good to pass up but not super aware of what's available at lower levels.

Druid charm options seem rather limited, can you charm 14-60 or it is spotty at best? Pre velious it seems outside the karanas you pretty much have to wait until bear pits/chardok. Kedge if you're a masochist. Velious seem to open a lot more options 35+.

[Snaggles]

I root rotted 3 spawns from 56-60. 18 min repop, 3 at once, AFK and repeat. It was arguably faster than quadding suites since half of them are green at 59.

Grinding in this game isn’t always just percentage per kill. Hunting locations open up with dot rotting. It’s slow but there is no setup time to account for. Very little risk (I can’t recall a death in 4 levels). I expect a bear-pit Druid would breeze by the rotter but they would have times that the camp is taken or they spend some time doing a CR.

[Goregasmic]

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

Very little risk (I can’t recall a death in 4 levels). I expect a bear-pit Druid would breeze by the rotter but they would have times that the camp is taken or they spend some time doing a CR.

Yeah that's a very valid point and story of my life at 59 right now. The good spots are too often taken to bother and the other spots are either half green or so dangerous it is more a matter of not if but when you're going to die, with excruciating CRs. At least with druids you have a couple of different options and if the spots are taken you can just port around until you find one that isn't.

[bcbrown]

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

Druid charm options seem rather limited, can you charm 14-60 or it is spotty at best? Pre velious it seems outside the karanas you pretty much have to wait until bear pits/chardok. Kedge if you're a masochist. Velious seem to open a lot more options 35+.

The Karanas and Oasis are clearly good early charming options. Everfrost has mammoths that are good in the late 20s or early 30s, and you'll eventually need a corrupted mammoth for epic so it's got that incentive too. Cazic Thule has gators that can take you from 28 to 36, although you'll have to fight underwater till like 31-32. The Overthere and Emerald Jungle both have charming options that can probably take you from the 30s all the way up to close to 50, but I've never done that. SolB has "bats and bugs" that Toxigen kept talking about, but I was always too scared of navigating those tunnels and charming in such tight quarters.

Kedge entrance is great in the 30s or 40s, and you can stay there till 60 if you wish. Maybe it makes me a masochist but I really like the zone, and it's very satisfying to master. Chardok and the bear pits are also obvious places for charming. Iceclad, Eastern Wastes, and Great Divide all have plenty of charmable mobs. You can do some fun things with Bloodmaw, and one of my favorite (but least practical) charm targets is the enraged dread wolves in Kithicor at night. They're undercons with high health regen, and they can absolutely wreck the rest of the zone. They're also fairly magic resistant I think, and I never tried them out until most of the zone was xp green. Oh, and in LOIO, the bloodgills are a popular quadding spot but there's also tons of barracudas in the lake to charm, and you'll want the corrupted barracuda for the epic too.

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

Grinding in this game isn’t always just percentage per kill. Hunting locations open up with dot rotting. It’s slow but there is no setup time to account for. Very little risk (I can’t recall a death in 4 levels). I expect a bear-pit Druid would breeze by the rotter but they would have times that the camp is taken or they spend some time doing a CR.

Good perspective. Root rotting is safe, easy to set up, and especially with self ports opens up a lot of uncontested mobs. I would always make a detour to root rot Shiel Glimmerspindle whenever I found myself in North Karana while I was leveling.

[kjs86z2]

Bats n Bugs is just the loop. Don't go left towards LDCs / Guano, go right and do the loop. Its pretty much all bats. Nice buffer spot before bear pits and an occasional chance for duo. Its fun to bring a bat over to a LDC monk solo'er and team up.

Mastering Kedge is the druid right of passage.