Druid grp spell set

Discussion in 'Priests' started by Miffin, Jan 13, 2021.

  1. Miffin New Member

    Hey all. My Druid just hit 103 (thanks to some guildies that PLd me a bit) and I just memmed my new spells and am configuring my spell set. It also seems that between 100-103 druids get a few new spell types and I’m wondering what is the best to use. I mostly 3 box shm/dru/mage with mercs and occasionally find myself in a higher level pl grp. In both situations I find my role to be dps.

    Here is my old lineup before these new spell lines:
    Adrenaline
    Intervention
    Grp heal
    Twin cast
    Mana bear
    Harmo ( I usually pull when boxing and swap this out situationally when not needed)
    30sec Fire dot
    Daybreak (to get the buff for a stronger nuke)
    Nature’s wrath
    Remote
    Wildfire (or whatever it is that casts two nukes in one)
    60sec Fire dot that also has the debuff

    I also use the blessing of ro/seasons wrath debuff aa on all mobs

    What would you swap out? I am thinking to swap daybreak for dicho and I’m wondering if the anabatic roar is frequently Used by druids..is the Nuke that casts fire & ice more preferred to the single line fire nuke?

    Also do most druids use the fire/ice auras? I find them to be a pain in the &$$ as it usually tells me I don’t have sufficient focus to use the ability. I have no clue what that means.

    I’m hoping to get back up into raiding and would also love to hear what spells sets raiding druids are using and the role of a Druid in end game raiding guilds. Thanks for any feedback.
  2. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    Get rid of Mana Bear, Harmony, Daybreak, and Sunray (60 second Fire DoT) from your lineup. Mana bear you can only cast every 5 minutes, it isn't worth a dedicated spell slot but is a valid pick for a spell set hotkey (more on this below). Harmony is very rarely used, I know you said you were level 103 but at this point in EQ it is usually easier to just pull a few and use your knockback roots between your Shaman/Druid to control pulls. Daybreak nuke has been awful for awhile, I seem to recall the bonus nuke portion of it having some issue stacking with worn arm-slot fire focus. Sunray isn't good enough debuff in a group to be worth a spell slot

    Personally as someone who boxes Druid/Warrior with 2 Healer Mercs I run this setup:

    Summer's Nuke
    Winter's Nuke
    Horde DoT
    Adrenaline Heal (1.8s)
    Invigoration Heal (0.5s)
    Group Luna Heal
    Survival Group Heal
    Dicho
    Remote Nuke
    Nature's DoT
    Sun DoT
    Growth
    Twincast

    This spell set lets me do some decent DPS against mobs, it offers 2 single target heals for when I need to cover spikes, a group heal to cover normal AE Damage and Survival to cover spike or AE spike damage.

    I favor Summer+Winter nuke combination over Roar x2 nukes because Roars get resisted more without Tash/Malo (perhaps not a factor for you due to shaman) and because Roars require 3 different spells to chain cast them without delay, whereas Summer+Winter can be chained indefinitely.

    The 3 DoTs when used with Twincast do a solid chunk without burning many longer reuse AAs. Growth is useful to have up for my warrior but if you have a shaman it may not be valuable for you.

    The constants in every spell set I have are Lunar Group Heal, Survival, Dicho and Twincast. Remote Nuke only gets swapped between the fire and cold resist one, with it being the fire one in 99% of cases.

    One thing I would personally suggest is having an entire hotbar dedicated to spell set hotkeys. This helps immensely when needing to swap out for single spells that you want to cast occasionally but don't need up full time, like the mana bear. This is what mind looks like.

    [IMG]

    It is important to note that the way that memorizing saved spell sets works in EQ is that the game will only swap out the spells on your bar when you saved the spell set. What this means is that if you empty your spell bar by removing all your spells, then load Mana Bear in slot 1, and Save spell set ManaBear. Next time you have a full spell bar with spells all over the place, if you were to /memspellset ManaBear, the game would only unmemorize the spell you have in slot 1 and memorize ManaBear, leaving your other 12 spell gems unchanged.

    So the way I have my spell sets set up I have some "full bar" spell sets that will swap out all 13 spell gems and I have some "single/double gem" spell sets that will only swap out a single slot. The DPS is a "full bar" hotkey in the image above is the spell set I outlined at the top. The Normal hotkey is a "full bar" hotkey similar to the spell set up top but it swaps out the Horde DoT for a Vida heal and the Sun DoT for Reptile, it assumes I will need to heal more heavily than normal. The "Full Burn" hotkey swaps out the first 3 gems for 2 Roars and a Winters Nuke, Adrenaline for Horde DoT, and Growth for Sunray, this assumes I will have almost no healing responsibilities other than group heal.

    On further pages of that hotbar I also have spell sets that swap in specific cure spells (group corruption, group disease+poison, single curse, Vinelash, Fire Proc aura if in ice immune areas, and different full spell sets for specific raid events).

    The bottom 4 hotkeys on either side of the hotabar are a bunch of my "single/double gem" spell set hotkeys. The Ice Aura one, only has the Frostreave proc aura in spell gem 3. So when I click that button, it unmemorizes my Horde DoT (or whatever is in slot 3 at the time), memorizes the Frostreave aura, I will cast it and then I will click on my DPS spell set hotkey and it will reload Horde back into its normal spot. Same situation with the Reptile/Alliance/Skin/Skin MGB/Mana Bear spell sets. They are all single slot spell sets that allow me to swap out just a single slot spell for a spell I may only need to cast every 5-10 minutes or when someone dies and needs a rebuff.

    Mana Bear is a good example for something that shouldn't stay in your bar permanently and can easily be shifted out to a hotkey that you can press every 5minutes and cast and press another hotkey to get back to your base spell setup.
    Waitwhat, Rolaque, Barton and 2 others like this.
  3. Gr8fuldave Augur

    Do you guys ever use the Summer/winter combo nuke?
  4. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    In the group game I think Winters is our best non-Dicho/Remote nuke. Roar nukes tend to get resisted a decent bit unless you have a shaman/enchanter debuffing magic resist.

    Winter's primary strength in my opinion is the fact that it triggers multiple detrimental nukes. The base nuke and each of the prongs of the nuke are elligible to trigger Sympathetics, our Frost aura (each Winters cast consumes 3 of the 6 Frost aura proc chances) Enchanter Mana Reiterate Auras, Bard Aria procs, etc.

    What I am not fully sure of is whether it is better to chain Summer + Winter or Winter + past expansion Winter for your two spam nukes when Remote isn't up or when DoTs aren't worn off. I sort of suspect double winters may pull ahead due to all the ADPS if you have several Sympathetic procs.
    Szilent likes this.
  5. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    Ran overnight parses on 109 Summer + 108 Winter vs 108 Winter + 103 Winter against guild hall dummies.

    I left druid Spire, Black Wolf, Focus of Aracnum and Dragonmagic Focus (proc potion) on during entire parse. Parses were 8-10 hours long.

    Summer + Winter combination = 74k DPS
    • Winter 108 =20k DPS
    • Summer 109 = 17.8k DPS
    • 2hander HoHV Sympathetic (RoS Raid 2hander) =15.1k DPS
    • Dragonmagic Proc (RoS tradeskill potion) = 11.7k DPS
    • Burst of Flames V (TBL Type 18 Sympathetic Aug) = 2.7k DPS
    • Burst of Ice X (Bone Shards of Frozen Marrow-TDS Sympathetic Aug) = 2.3k DPS
    • Force of Corruption X (Boremas Belt Sympathetic) = 2k DPS
    • Force of Magic IX (Ancient Diamond Spellcharm-TDS Sympathetic Aug) = 2k DPS
    Winter + Winter combination = 86k DPS
    • 2hander HoHV Sympathetic (RoS Raid 2hander) = 21.4k DPS
    • Dragonmagic Proc (RoS tradeskill potion) = 16.1k DPS
    • Winter 108 = 20k DPS
    • Winter 103 = 17.3k DPS
    • Burst of Ice X (Bone Shards of Frozen Marrow-TDS Sympathetic Aug) = 3.1k DPS
    • Force of Corruption X (Boremas Belt Sympathetic) = 2.9k DPS
    • Force of Magic IX (Ancient Diamond Spellcharm-TDS Sympathetic Aug) = 2.8k DPS
    • Burst of Flames V (TBL Type 18 Sympathetic Aug) = 2.2k DPS
    Some take aways:

    The Winter + Winter combination makes all of the sympathetics pull ahead (especially the 2hander) with exception of the Burst of Flames from the TBL type 18 aug. I suspect this is because this aug only procs on fire spells so it isn't proccing off everything like the rest. Currently playing on Phinigel I don't have access to the ToV/CoV augs and I still haven't finished TBL Challenger to unlock another good sympathetic aug or evolved one of my TBL Chase items to the 5th tier so I can equip a Type 19 sympathetic. Whenever I get around to doing either of those, I think double Winter will pull ahead even more.

    Also I think in a spam nuke casting situation, I would be much better served with a Threads of Potential +5000 DD focus belt than the Boremas belt. Especially since it would apply 20k damage every 2 Winters casts.

    In the end I think I will scrap Summer from my standard spell lineup in favor of double winter nukes. This also saves me a Type 3 augment slot which is nice!
    Sancus, Szilent and Barton like this.
  6. Szilent Augur

    TBL challenger is fersure the right thing, but if there's some actual barrier to getting it, other proc augs are available to fill out your staff:

    Exotic Gem from gribbles
    Ancient Diamond Spellcharm from TDS HAs
    Heart of Narikor from PoWar

    also Sodkee's Sympathetic Stone ought to be in range slot, presuming you have a type8 slot there. ToV's Striking aug from the next expansion won't require type8

    just trades the current Summers type 3 for the previous Winters type 3? or you won't wear the type3 for the older spell?
  7. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    I have all of those proc augs. However the staff only has 2 type 8 slots. Which are currently filled by Ancient Diamond Spellcharm and Bone Shards of Frozen Marrows. These are my best available until I camp the 2h from Empyr and complete the Challenger achievement.

    The Sodkee aug is only 225 DD, it feels like it isn't really worth the slot in range. However that Velium Empowered Gem of Freezing looks amazing next expansion for us. Looking at my augs, excluding the coldain shawl, the lowest spell damage on one of my augs is 32. I wouldn't be surprised if that 32 SD beats out a 225DD sympathetic aug.

    The type 3 situation I am finding tough now that TBL chase items consumed 2 more type3 slots since the ring/shoulders don't have those slots. Currently that leaves me with 10 slots available. Eye of Life/Decay + Tears of Alaris consume 2 of them leaving 8 more. Currently I have 3 for DoTs (Nature/Sun/Horde) 3 for heals (Vida/Adren/Luna). I guess the last 2 I could do the 2 Winters. I probably should also swap Vida for Revitalization type 3s. But on TLP servers where you are doing gear resets every 2-3 months, the platinum cost on Type 3s is real and it is tough to justify keeping them fully filled out. Really that comment was more that I don't really need to burn 40k every time I upgrade that slot now.
    Szilent likes this.
  8. Rolaque Ancient

    Druid auras proc off spell hits, nukes and dots, but not off dot tics. You should always run your aura, they proc for everyone in your group. That message about not having sufficient focus to use the ability means you already have an aura running in the aura window, and you can't recast it until it fades.
  9. Cindane Journeyman

    Druids are only able to run one aura at a time. Unlike enchanters or clerics, we can't stack them - Druids have to chose one. The highest level fire aura we have is the level 97 one Wildspark Aura, and it only procs off spells up to level 105 max. So while it may work for you now, come Ring of Scale 106+, it's fairly useless (unless you're still using older spells.) Best to use the highest level ice aura you have (and yes, it will get resisted in newer expansions like certain places in CoV, but at least it will not be limited to yours and your groupmates' spells only level 105 and below.)
  10. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    I really wish they would revive our fire aura line.
  11. Szilent Augur

    hits just under 3.5k for me

    Spell Damage worn modifier isn't ... good

    Spike of Ice from Striking aug is considerably stronger, up around 22k instead. but meantime!~
  12. Szilent Augur

    this may mean that you're using the terrible hp regen aura instead?
    Tatanka likes this.
  13. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    Maybe he is back from the era when each pulse would remove infinite disease counter? During that time the druid regen aura was useful!
  14. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    Ran this again tonight swapping out the TBM Boremas belt for a TBL group belt with Threaded Potential. Also this swap moved me from 19 Luck to 24 Luck so it was a luck bin jump as well. Surprisingly, things stayed almost the same.

    Winter + Winter combination (TBL Threaded Belt) = 86k DPS
    • 2hander HoHV Sympathetic (RoS Raid 2hander) = 21.4k DPS
    • Dragonmagic Proc (RoS tradeskill potion) = 16.3k DPS
    • Winter 108 = 21.5k DPS
    • Winter 103 = 18.4k DPS
    • Burst of Ice X (Bone Shards of Frozen Marrow-TDS Sympathetic Aug) = 3.1k DPS
    • Force of Corruption X (Boremas Belt Sympathetic) = 2.9k DPS
    • Force of Magic IX (Ancient Diamond Spellcharm-TDS Sympathetic Aug) = 2.9k DPS
    • Burst of Flames V (TBL Type 18 Sympathetic Aug) = 2.2k DPS
    In the end Dragonmagic proc increased 200~ DPS (RNG), Winter 108 increased 1.5k, Winter 103 increased 1.1k and Force of Magic IX increased 100~ DPS (RNG). Basically the two spells impacted, increased 2.6k which is close enough to the Force of Corruption X 2.9k from the previous parse.

    I think for regular day-to-day grouping, the new belt probably wins out just due to extra mana/stats from the upgrade. But on raids I suspect additional ADPS will cause the Boremas to pull ahead slightly, whereas Threaded Potential provides the same additional damage regardless of the ADPS you have present if you are still casting the same spells.
  15. Wulfhere Augur

    I used this to advantage a few years ago when doing the Anniversary task Big Gnomes, Big Problems. The Mystery buff in that mission boosts nuke damage enormously and the druid spells that use SPA 374 to cast 2 nukes per attempt (e.g. Winter's Wildfire at the time) acted like twin casting boosted nukes every key press.