Celtic Heroes

At higher levels (like in ow), how useful is a dps druid really? We only have three damaging spells and not to mention thats when we are the best at being a huge asset in boss fights. So is it really useful?

As for support, the builds are amazing and thats what made me fall in love with the druid, but how often will I really be able to find someone to level up with? I know that some support druids still have points invested in lightning strike, but is it enough?

Another excuse for me to talk about myself Perhaps you can glean some useful information from this:

My main druid (Lightface, level 135) has always been heavily weighted toward dps, to the point where when leveling I was frequently stealing aggro from same and slightly higher level rogues and rangers, and warriors who didn’t taunt/warcry. All before I cast any heals or buffs.

Basics of the build, which I’ve kept since around level 105 are strong vines, nature touch, lightning, storm, and reasonable bark. Few of these skills was maxed at any given time, but I tended to prioritize in the order listed. Stats include enough focus to give spells some punch (around 300+), enough vitality that you can survive a boss AoE (around 180-210), and str and dex in a ratio of about 2:3 of the leftover points. My support druid doesn’t have any bark so I’ve recently dialed down the damage spells and maxed bark.

This build is decent for soloing, reasonable for boss fights, especially if you get invited to bosses in the areas pre-otherworld, and rocks for duo leveling. With a similar level partner, kills go fast because you can cast vines at the top of the fight while your partner is establishing aggro, follow it with lightning, then run in for storm touch and an auto attack or two all before your partner needs a heal. Then you heal your partner and your lightning should be ready to go again. If you pull aggro at any point just self-cast a one-point calm. Most of my training partners have told me that kills go 25% faster with this build compared to druids who just stand and heal.

The catch here, is that if you max your damage spells your energy costs are going to be extreme. I was rocking a 39 point storm touch (with rings) for awhile that took 600 energy to cast. With 325ish focus, that was a quarter of my energy. Without full in-combat regen (when training all I equip for in-combat regen is a golden trident) I only had enough energy for a single shot of vines, storm, and lightning, and maybe a re-cast of vines. The Str and Dex parts of the build make the auto attacks meaningful once I'm out of energy. I’ve had 300+ energy sigils since level 90 so my strategy has been to unload all my damage spells at the top of the fight and if the mob isn't dead by the time vines expires, auto attack and self heals should take care of the rest. Then I pause for the sigils to do their job and start over again. When soloing, one star mobs usually die as the first cast of vines expires (30 sec), two stars after 45 sec, and three stars after about a minute, if I didn’t get interrupted too many times on my natures touch midway through the fight.

The other catch is that for otherworld bosses, you’d better hope that some of the other druids you group with have dedicated some points to wards.

My support druid (Kaonashi, level 113) is full support: 200 vit, the rest in focus. With rings he has maxed (25 points) touch, embrace, wards of fire, soldiers and giants, and enough abundance to keep the health debuffs off.

I didn’t really talk about support druids because my support druid is specifically for dual boxing with other toons, and for boss fights. I made him first as a healing/buffing slave for Lightface, then developed into a good boss support druid, and now he duo levels with my rogue. I will occasionally play Kaonashi as a support druid leveling with friends but this is very rare. But from the number of requests I get, if you decide to go the full support route, once word gets out you shouldn’t have any problems finding training partners.

Aleph, when in OW groups (bossing, not training), do you actually go in as a DPS, with heals? or concentrate on healing (and save energy for it)?

Mariner91, it depends on the group.

Usually I put Kaonashi in the group because even though he's lower level and "weaker", his three wards are stronger than pretty much anyone else's on Lugh. Like I said, soldiers, fire and giants are all at least 25 depending on equipped rings.

If there are other druids in the group we only need one of my druids, or if the group is pretty full, or if someone needs a quest kill, Lightface will stay out of the group and heal the tank and add bark as long as I can target. Afaik with the right ring config, Lightface has the strongest bark on Lugh. [Side rant: if you multi box and your toons are necessary contributors to the fight, I see no reason not to keep both in the group and have a chance at the drops. The other day someone took issue with this while we were marshalling for the All Seeing Eye, where mine were the only druids at the fight. This same person didn't take issue with a level 80 rogue in the group so I left the group and wished them good luck.]

On main OW bosses - the six star ones that are part of the Test or Regulus quest - both of my druids just heal. Otherwise it's too difficult to constantly retarget, given that I am pretty much spam casting buffs from kaonashi (embrace, usually two wards, and natures touch, and if we're doing dragons, then also abundance) and alternating heals and bark on lightface. Both druids have enough sigils to basically have unlimited energy as long as they stay out of combat. Also, heals and buffs take a lot less energy than damage spells. [Side rant: if your group needs the druid to "go dps", you're doing something wrong.]

On the 5-star OW bosses from the Retaking Fairyland quest, if there's another decent druid in the group, and not a lot of dps Lightface will go dps, and not bother with heals.This kind of fight is less common (see above about doing it wrong if you need druid dps) but I've done it in 4-person groups with Lightface, Kaonashi, another druid, and a tank on Rockalanche, where two druids can keep the tank alive easily enough but the tank is low dps so the fight would otherwise take forever. In those cases I have switch gear in the middle of the fight: trident instead of grimoire, dmg spell rings instead of heal/buff rings. My auto attack damage is sufficient that I don't worry about energy regen or healing the tank. The other rare situations is where we have the same 4-person core, with low level group members who won't really have any effect on the fight but need a quest kill.

Thanks, as always!

i have been dps, level dps, dps/support and full support.

as dps all i do is max focus and strangling vines, lighting strike and storm touch. ur armor should be for the high lvls diamond, grimoire book and wizardry helm. as dps it costs a lot of energy, certainly with some good rings (i have royal and grand for all 3 so yeah) so u will need either pots, sigils or lots of energy regain for the rest to make any difference. i have 200 energy sigils, that didnt cut it so full dps is very expensive and hard. energy problems will stay. however if u do it right u can have a huge advantage out of it by having a mage max magic lure with 2 or 3 full dps druids with plenty energy regain. even strong rogues will then have trouble outdmging. i have taken kills from many dps classes in that time myself, including outdpsing a lvl 130 rogue as lvl 128 druid at a lvl 100 boss.

as level dps u max 2 out of the 3 dps skills, and rest goes on bark embrace and nature touch. as the name suggest u have some dps and are able to solo lvl this way. any armor can be used, i did not notice much difference myself. some energy sigils to help regain after killing a mob is usefull, not required, regain will take a long time tho thats why i dont suggest level dps. stats in lvl dps where for me 200-250 vit and rest on focus. i have been doing less but thats not working very well. again, i do not like this setup as u kill slow, are not very helpfull in bosses and dont go well if the regain is not good.

as dps/support u do what most druids do as i heard. stat points differ in some that want to survive boss attacks like quacke, they put 100-150 points in vit mostly and rest in focus. i prefer focus only since i have idols to cover myself and prefer moer powerfull spells. the skills u max in this case are either 1 of the 3 or 2 of the 3 dps skills of a druid and rest goes on nature touch and mostly embrace and bark. this looks a lot like the level dps but it is different as u focus more on group lvling with this setup then solo as u do with level dps. most also choose 1 dps skill for that reason. i tried this two times but did not like it due to the fact u can barely do dmg and have to watch ur heals closely too, while u wanna do either heals or dps, not both at the same time. this setup requires plenty energy regain, not necesarily sigils, but sigils would help a lot since u do dps skill too wich interrupts meditate, tho if u lvl on lava meditate has no use at all anyways. armor differs but diamond with grimoire book and energisation crown is preferred here.

then we come to my favorite build. full support is very easy. i consider full support only focus in stats, armor would be diamond armor, grimoire book and wizardry crown. any item that adds to focus will be weared, including wyrm bracelets. some do a little different, wich is alright cuz not all have sigils to cover for energy, therefor u might wanna add energisation items instead of the wyrm bracelets and perhaps energisation crown instead of wizardry. if u do have sigils i suggest u do as much on focus armor and items as possible. full support is mostly decided by skills and (very important) rings. the skills i prefer are nature touch, nature embrace, shield of bark, ward of fire (for ppl who lvl on lava) and either natures breath or abundance. you could choose to skip the fire ward and lvl on drag cave with higher lvls. this would leave points for maxing abundance or natures breath. choosing the right rings is also important as full support druid. i use a grand shield of bark, grand natures embrace, grand natures touch and fabled natures touch. as u see i focussed my rings on natures touch because it is by far the best spell for druids. so to give natures touch a preference over other rings is better. ward of fire, abundance and natures breath rings are most likely to be not used in this build, as they are not primary skills. bark embrace and natures touch is a hell of a combo if i may say so.

i hope this helps a little bit, this all is written from my own experience and others might have different setups or different styles or ways to do things. also the deviding in 4 types of druids is from my own experience, u could say there is a fifth wich is lots of strength, altho i know only one druid in this game who has done that. i say strength and dextirety are a huge waste and no druid should put points on it at all.

with my kind regards and hope to have helped,
yrck3
druid
lvl 135
world rosmerta
clan awakening
proud owner of full frozen, a conn skirt, full diamond, 200 energy sigils and many other things.

P.S. may any rosmerta people have a royal nature touch im buying for 100k

Another excuse for me to talk about myself Perhaps you can glean some useful information from this:

My main druid (Lightface, level 135) has always been heavily weighted toward dps, to the point where when leveling I was frequently stealing aggro from same and slightly higher level rogues and rangers, and warriors who didn’t taunt/warcry. All before I cast any heals or buffs.

Basics of the build, which I’ve kept since around level 105 are strong vines, nature touch, lightning, storm, and reasonable bark. Few of these skills was maxed at any given time, but I tended to prioritize in the order listed. Stats include enough focus to give spells some punch (around 300+), enough vitality that you can survive a boss AoE (around 180-210), and str and dex in a ratio of about 2:3 of the leftover points. My support druid doesn’t have any bark so I’ve recently dialed down the damage spells and maxed bark.

This build is decent for soloing, reasonable for boss fights, especially if you get invited to bosses in the areas pre-otherworld, and rocks for duo leveling. With a similar level partner, kills go fast because you can cast vines at the top of the fight while your partner is establishing aggro, follow it with lightning, then run in for storm touch and an auto attack or two all before your partner needs a heal. Then you heal your partner and your lightning should be ready to go again. If you pull aggro at any point just self-cast a one-point calm. Most of my training partners have told me that kills go 25% faster with this build compared to druids who just stand and heal.

The catch here, is that if you max your damage spells your energy costs are going to be extreme. I was rocking a 39 point storm touch (with rings) for awhile that took 600 energy to cast. With 325ish focus, that was a quarter of my energy. Without full in-combat regen (when training all I equip for in-combat regen is a golden trident) I only had enough energy for a single shot of vines, storm, and lightning, and maybe a re-cast of vines. The Str and Dex parts of the build make the auto attacks meaningful once I'm out of energy. I’ve had 300+ energy sigils since level 90 so my strategy has been to unload all my damage spells at the top of the fight and if the mob isn't dead by the time vines expires, auto attack and self heals should take care of the rest. Then I pause for the sigils to do their job and start over again. When soloing, one star mobs usually die as the first cast of vines expires (30 sec), two stars after 45 sec, and three stars after about a minute, if I didn’t get interrupted too many times on my natures touch midway through the fight.

The other catch is that for otherworld bosses, you’d better hope that some of the other druids you group with have dedicated some points to wards.

My support druid (Kaonashi, level 113) is full support: 200 vit, the rest in focus. With rings he has maxed (25 points) touch, embrace, wards of fire, soldiers and giants, and enough abundance to keep the health debuffs off.

How exactly is nature's breath, nature touch, and embrace on your dps druid? I guess what I'm asking is it effective in a large group taking on agg for example?

I dont know about you guys but i am pure support. One day, got bored, used alt book (since my vitality is sufficient enough to not need rebirth book) and went bossing. One boss, redbane in particular i was called. A mage in my clan was 137'ish and i was 103-107 or something. Anyways, something to take note upon it, i was last to arrive and dps. Everyone else started before me. I killed redbane as the chat box said. Which was ridiculous. I didnt realize that mage was nerfed that bad. I mean, i think OTM should still fix mages to a point that they can compete with other classes without the help of sigils but just luxury items etc.

Bottomline is, a pure support stat like mine, can become dps in a snap of a finger with the use of an alt book. It does massive damage as i did 300-400 vines and 500+ stormtouch and having around 400 lightning at max and rings involved. Just a neat little story i wanted to share. I think it is sort of efficient at bossing, and leveling, but what is needed the most for both is the healing or support aspect of the class since it only excels the best at it. Druids are supposed to have the best buffs and heals, not dps. They are not built for dps, just a little self defense maybe, or some leveling or two. But if you solo level past level 90, it becomes irrelevant to hae a solo build. It will be counter-productive unless you have a hybrid build which does super dps and massive headings as well in a group leveling scenario as i started at 73 with clanmates and other people from other clans in the cave, or wyvern area by aggragoth spawn. I had sufficient heal and buffs to a point where i could keep a bunch of people alive even some with adds. Having to level with a druid with dps or hybrid stats (idk why you would go full dps with low heal when group leveling at wyverns) is just a plus and not recommended unless you also heal the specific amount that your level is supposed to have, meaning, highest potential.

Regards, RoyalSeraphim of Taranis

I have been a DPS druid my entire CH life. The only skills I used are Vines, Lighting, Storm, N.Touch, Embrace and Bark. The only good thing about DPS is I can kill mobs myself, having some glory being able to kill Starspell (Instant 20k gold) and helping out in group levelling.

Druids are meant to be support. I fully agree and hence I am thankful for Admin for allowing DPS built to be secondary for those who choose to go to the dark path.
In terms of Entity’s query, I guess it depends on how you want to look at it. I have two opinions on this.

1) I am from Taranis and I know 95% of existing druids on this world are support built such as Royal. So I can safely choose to remain as a DPS built. Support druids are like mages. You usually only need one to cast the wards or buffs / Cloak or lures. Because I know they are support built, I need only maintain a high level of Bark, Nature’s Touch and Embrace which contributes the fight. So it is a good balance.
2) While wards and buffs are extremely helpful, I generally find a full 8 person team can take on all of the existing bosses without any buffs or wards as long as there are 2 – 3 druids with good amount of heal. (Lava Lord & Stone Lord are tough yes but still manageable with a high bark and sufficient heals) The only existing boss that is a must on wards and buffs is only Aggragoth, being ward of fire, abundance and perhaps ward of solder.

Hence, even if you choose to go DPS, as long as you have good amount of heal. You can always squeeze in the fight as chances are other druids are support. So all in all, having wards and buffs are great to have in a boss fight. It is a convenience but not a necessity as our primarily skills – Bark, N.T & Embrace are usually sufficient enough for the kill. This obviously also applies to DPS druids. Killing faster is an added bonus but we don’t need it.

My nature touch is currently 1400, nature embrace being 147 and a very high lv bark. So I am always called to boss fights as well along with the support druids. It’s good to have a mixture as it brings more benefit to the boss fight. I really love druids. We are so Versatile with 20 odd skills to choose from.

So yea, Entity, it also depends on whether you are in a clan. Say you know for a fact, no one has invested in ward/buff *X* and its really useful for a certain boss type. You may choose to do it for your clan. Its about having a good mixture again. There is no right answer on this.

PS: Quoting Royal - Bottomline is, a pure DPS stat like mine, can become support in a snap of a finger with the use of an alt book. It does Massive heals. 1400 Heal, 170 nature embrace, 450 natures breath, 350 armour bark and a very high lv ward or abundance for the last slot.