Celtic Heroes

Hm, I especially like the group heal one and the rez one. Thanks for the guide!

Thanks a lot, Tea.

I've re-read your guide, and I understand it all a bit better. There are actually two concepts of "warding." One is the defensive ability that everyone can train, and should be able to acquire easily (possibly visiting the shrine or whatever). The second is a Druid skill/spell, which may be acquired through quest or some other mysterious method, which we can then cast on our group. Am I correct in this?

So, once update is live, we should be able to find the trainer, pay or pray, and then start levelling our 0/650 dodge or whatnot. We can train these abilities up by training on ... well, anything, actually. Fighting unicorns will increase our rogue based defense, fighing Druids and Connacht Mages will increase those defenses yadda yadda yadda.

It seems, then, another way to increase these is to acquire the ability, and have some sparring partners. Continuously duelling a certain class should be effective, no?

Teaweasel thanks a lot, this is an awesome guide and helps a lot with thinking about how I wanna play after de update.

Thanks a lot, Tea.

I've re-read your guide, and I understand it all a bit better. There are actually two concepts of "warding." One is the defensive ability that everyone can train, and should be able to acquire easily (possibly visiting the shrine or whatever). The second is a Druid skill/spell, which may be acquired through quest or some other mysterious method, which we can then cast on our group. Am I correct in this?

So, once update is live, we should be able to find the trainer, pay or pray, and then start levelling our 0/650 dodge or whatnot. We can train these abilities up by training on ... well, anything, actually. Fighting unicorns will increase our rogue based defense, fighing Druids and Connacht Mages will increase those defenses yadda yadda yadda.

It seems, then, another way to increase these is to acquire the ability, and have some sparring partners. Continuously duelling a certain class should be effective, no?

Sorry for confusing you, I understand what happened, there are similar words, but different things... but no to the first part, yes to the second.

There is ONE Warding ability. It's the defensive ability to deflect/dodge direct DMG spells. As previously stated there are 5 such abilities (Warding, Fortitude, Vigour, Evasion and Willpower). The reason I keep bringing up Warding is because it's Druid oriented, in that it's what blocks your Storm's Touch, and Lightning.

The Spell you are talking about is a Ward, or multiple Wards, they are actual group based spells that raise resistances. Similar words, but different things. Sorry for the confusion.

But everything else you said is correct. The Admin thru beta testing set up a good system in where you can Duel and duel repeatedly to train your abilities. But the PvP XP is diminished quickly each subsequent time you PvP the same person, so you supposedly won't be able to farm the same person repeatedly for your PvP Lvls. Also if you are a Rainmaker (Fourth lvl Druid PvP lvl) you get really almost no PvP XP from repeatedly killing an acolyte (first lvl Druid PvP lvl). But nevertheless, yes, you can fight the Acolyte to train your warding. And he/she will train theirs.

After some thinking I have a questions!

Is howling wind working after update? Is it a good help?


And I was wondering about dex, why you say its a no no for druids? Isn't it good for less interuptions? Or wont we get as much interupted in update 3 as we do now?

After some thinking I have a questions!

Is howling wind working after update? Is it a good help?


And I was wondering about dex, why you say its a no no for druids? Isn't it good for less interuptions? Or wont we get as much interupted in update 3 as we do now?

I have mixed feelings on Howling Wind. It works, but to me, I don't see any reason to put skill points into it. For this reason: it also runs on focus, so if you have 270+ focus, it will be powerhouse and there is no relative difference between lowering someone attack like 250 to lowering it 350 or something. It's still only relative to auto attacks, so relative to maybe rogues in PvP, but rogue's attack is already so freaking high, that come on, lowering it by 250 is a pittance.

DEX honestly is up to you, I can't say its useless, it definately isn't at times, but I will say that adding either DEX or STR to your Druid dilutes the HP or the Power of your spells, that's just the fact.

Will you figure that you can spare a good 50 points in DEX? Especially after you have hit the diminishing rate of focus and have found HP that work for you? Maybe you will find that a good solution, no idea... It's personally like anything..your choice.

I just relative to many things, PvP especially will probably think that 50 points would rather go to vit and around 300 HP than a chance to dodge a few auto attacks...but this is fully open for you to explore and prove me wrong.

Thanks a lot for the understanding and clarification, Tea. I think this lake of ours is getting less muddied.

To further the understanding, let me run an example by you. This has nothing do do with the Druid Ward spells, but rather the abilities that anyone can get. It assumes a level 65 character:

Update goes live, and I go visit the shrine or shrines (I use the shrine example only for simplification and understand that it may be different). I meet with, say, 5 monks. I now have Warding 0/650, Vigour 0/650, Evasion 0/650, Fortitude 0/650, and Willpower 0/650.

I then go and fight a Stonevale Druid. He casts Storm's Touch on me, and my Warding may go to 1/650. He casts Vines on me, and my Vigour may go to 1/650. He casts Lightning on me, and my Warding may go to 2/650. He casts Roots on me, and my Evasion may go to 1/650. He casts Lightning again, and my Warding may go to 3/650.

I then fight a Unicorn. It casts Rend on me, and my Vigour may go to 2/650.

I fight a Feyblade. It casts Mighty Blow on me, and my Fortitude may go to 1/650.

So on and so forth.

How's that?

Now, the reason that Warding, Vigour and Evasion are such concerns for us Druids, is that a Warrior could train on Stonevale Druids, increase his Warding, Vigour and Evasion abilities and then if I fight that particular Warrior in PvP, my spells may be useless against him. Likewise, to be effective against Warriors in PvP, I should spend some time training on Feyblades, and Connacht Shieldmasters (or whatever).

Thanks again, and I look forward to your response to see if I'm closer to nailing this.

Yup that's exactly it.

It's just an issue for Druids, because of how so many of the things that people will always end up leveling up on even after the update will be Stonevale Druids, so even in later months people will have much more naturally higher ability scores vs Druids and Mages than Druids and Mages have against other classes. Now through a bunch of duels and a bunch of leveling will this all even out? I suspect so, but for a bit it's easier to train up against Druids because of the Druid Grove, and all Druid abilities, including Evasion.

Now in Beta right now it looks like these ability shrines may be more expansive quests than I first thought. Perhaps getting these abilities may be more of an ordeal, but it's being tested now and what One Thumb decides will be what it is, so no exact idea...it's kinda up in the air.

Even if the quests are expansive I would recommend everyone dive into them first, because all mobs will be using them and deflecting your spells and if you can't do the same, in pvp or in pve, it will leave you deficient. But the mess of a new castle, new tavern, new Lirs, new otherworld quests and a slew of new content will make this entire update a mess of new things to check out, so we can only hope that the savvy players jump on the ability quests first(scattered over 5 spots in Lirs) and the others rush the otherworld preventing a bottleneck.

Thank you, kind sir.

I'm glad to see that I have a basic grasp of it now. The main reason I've been picking your brain so much on this issue is exactly because I want to get these as soon as possible (ie. I'm not really interested in the Otherworld at this point) and want to start leveling them.

Actually, I am looking more forward to it now that you mention that it may be quest based, rather than just visiting a trainer. I don't know if I'm savvy (though I do love the word) but yes, I will be focussing my attention on these ability quests. I'm not really so interested in PvP, but I suspect that having these abilities increased a bit, will make the Otherworld a little less frustrating once I decide to go there... and, yes, may give me a leg up in early PvP against players who fail to acquire these defenses.

Thanks again, Tea.

Ah, and feel free to mention in Beta, or the Beta boards, that at least one player likes the idea of these new abilities being quest based.

Yours,
Dersu Uzala

DEX honestly is up to you, I can't say its useless, it definately isn't at times, but I will say that adding either DEX or STR to your Druid dilutes the HP or the Power of your spells, that's just the fact.

Will you figure that you can spare a good 50 points in DEX? Especially after you have hit the diminishing rate of focus and have found HP that work for you? Maybe you will find that a good solution, no idea... It's personally like anything..your choice.

I'm a fan of Dex to a certain degree. I've tinkered with my numbers, and have found that (at my level, at least) 30 points in Dex is very effective. Below 30, it is next to impossible to cast Bark or Embrace mid-fight. Once I got over 30, however, I noticed a drastic reduction in the amount of interuptions.

Now, I don't know if this will continue as I level, or if I will find a time when I need more Dex, but for now (I am level 67, usually soloing level 75 mobs) it is something that I am happy with.

One thing I think important to note is that when you re-skill or re-stat, you don't need to use all the points right away. I assume this will be the same in the update. When I redid my stats, I left STR and DEX at 5 a piece, and put a bunch into Focus and HP. I kept 90 stat point free. I then slowly added points to DEX, fought some battles, added more points, fought some battles etc. When I hit my (seemingly) magic number of 32 DEX, I dumped the left over point into HP.

So, you should be able to slowly add points until you find something that you like. That being said, and I think Tea has said this before, keep your current set up for a few fights in the update and take note of where you are lacking.