Hello all! So I have been getting back in the swing of EQ since spring and have been in group play only (with other live players). My Monk finally hit 105 and has all t2 gear (working on augs now). My Druid (lvl 91) has been sitting idle for years but there seems to be so many awesome changes to the class now: DPS, healing upgrades, tons of AA's I don't understand! I switched away from playing the druid long ago when the class was only a back-up healer while the cleric was at lunch (back with the LFG tool was actually used). Never made it to the raid scene. My questions are: 1. Is boxing with a Druid a good idea? 2. How is the best way to utilize a Druid box? The mechanics behind it? a. AA button combos - what should be used? b. Spell line ups - Only heals or dps mix? c. Charm still work? - Should I even bother in a dual box group? 3. What mercs should I have out if dual boxing? 4. How tough is boxing in general? - I've never really done it. I'm trying to catch up knowledge-wise but if the mechanics aren't there for boxing with a druid then I'd like to know. Thanks in advance for all of your help! I never thought it would be this hard to re-learn a class after being away from it for so many years.
I box a druid and their group dps seems pretty good. If I was you i would probably do healer merc, monk druid and wiz merc. I assume mobs would die pretty fast.
1. A real good idea, IMHO (Which is why I box with a Druid) 2. Druid is a fairly complex class, with a LOT of tools. Buffs, debuffs, ports, heals, rez, track, forage, evac, DoTs, snare, Nukes - you name it. a. I got like 6 full hot bars with AA hotkeys mostly and that is still not enough. Different situations = different tools. Way too broad a topic to discuss here b. Normally I got Survival, Dagger Rush and Remote for heals always loaded, but if my druid is main heals, will also load Luna and Panavida. Cures as needed. The rest is mostly DoTs/Nukes. c. I box with chanter, so if I charm, I charm with chanter. Don't really do druid charms. 3. My initial idea was chanter running tank merc and druid healing and running caster DPS merc. Now I can do that with a more hardy real tank, but merc tank is a bit fragile and needs a lot of attention. So when boxing with mercs, druid runs a healer merc and mostly does damage with backup heals as needed. Boxing is confusing at first, but you get the hang of it. I actually have a two-monitor setup rather than alt-tab. Probably the BIGGEST hurdle is navigating: Autofollow is a mess, especially in tight dungeons. I recently added a mage to my box set, and boy do I love CotH!
Thank you Scorrpio! Great information! Every bit of info helps here. It's been tough trying to get a rhythm going as I've used Alt Tab. Plus I've been trying to use the Monk as a tank as my AC is near 3400 now. I think maybe a merc tank may at least provide an extra speed bump? Basic mobs in Lecenium sure do hit hard! Any good Druid mash buttons or combo's for healing/nuking anyone can recommend?
You should block 3 spells the healer merc casts. they are slow and inefficient. they are: complete heal, promised recuperation and devout elixir. you have to block those on all your chars and pets for it to work.to block cheal /blockspell add me 13 to block promised recuperation /blockspell add me 18272 and to block devout elixir /blockspell add me 18254. I box druid and warrior. druid uses tank merc set to assist and war uses healer merc set to reactive. I pull with druid so I set group roles to druid as puller and war as main tank and main assist that way my tank merc stays with the war and doesnt follow me when I run out to pull. With the above spells blocked I rarely have to heal with druid but i keep 3 up just in case. I mainly use dots since druid dots are really good now. I try to upgrade the warrior as much as possible and before my druid since the druids life depends on the war surviving. The reason I like using the tank merc is that it picks up the mob as soon as I get it back to the group. It gives me time to tab over to the war and engage the mob. I added a third box that I use for a bard, to speed up dps. That's what I do and it works pretty well, I don't die often at least Oh, I don't have any button combos haven't really needed any on the druid.
One thing that you can do is assist the mob to acquire your healing target in situations where aggro is bouncing around (say, between your warrior and the tank merc or another player in your group) and you don't have time to switch targets before casting a heal. You can use the extended target window and have one of the slots (like #1) set to the main assist's target (the mob you're tanking). I'm not looking at mine right now, but a macro would be something like: /pause 4, /xtar 1 /pause 4, /assist /cast 1 /cast 2 /cast 3 With your 3 fastest healing spells loaded in spell gems 1-3 as an example this multibind will cast whichever of these spells is available first. You would put your fastest "oh crap" heal in the first gem, your next fastest heal in the second gem, and your bread and butter heal in the third.
