Looking to make my group-geared druid box as efficient as possible, I thought I would ask the EQ braintrust what works best for them. I'm interested to know the debuffs you cast and why, the nukes you cast and why, and the heals you cast and why. I use my druid box primarily as a means to A) have a third merc slot, and B) have the means to drop a campfire (the convenience of this cannot be overstated). She also provides aDPS with her aura and Black Wolf, and a small amount of DPS through nukes and dots (which I definitely have not optimized). Since my main is my raid-geared mage with pet tank, secondary is enchanter with some raid gear, and as I'm extremely comfortable with and experienced in playing this duo, the druid gets the least attention but I still want her to be viable. For these and other reasons, I don't rely on her whatsoever for healing. I use her for debuffs and some nukes. Her mana pool is not stellar and probably never will be but, again, I want to make her the best third-bot possible. Would love to know hotkey setups and any tips for trying to integrate some healing in the easiest way possible. For example, I have a hotkey set up for her to buff the pet with Guard of the Reptile and Savage Growth in between pulls. Is that worth it? I also have Survival of the Auspicious for the times that I'm able to alt-tab-tab over to her in time to cast it and save someone. (I'm not a good healer.) Is she better used to just focus on healing the pet and just use a DPS merc as the third merc option? (Please, please say no.) Should I forget heals altogether? (fingers crossed) If I do use heals for, say, a named fight, what's the best order to use to keep the pet alive? (And keep in mind that I'm usually ultra-busy nuking on the other two and really, really can only use a macro for this regardless.) Appreciate very much some feedback on this.
Generally you can probably avoid healing on your Druid if you’re running a couple healer mercs. I’d still keep some heals memmed, survival and then adrenaline and resurgence. Those are the two fastest single target heals, which will give your pet a little help if needed. You can bind the three heals to one key with the order being resurgence, adrenaline, survival and then you won’t really have to think much when you want to throw a heal, other than targeting your pet (which you could include in your macro). Keep in mind that survival is really only useful when someone is low health, so if you wanted you could put lunasoothe in there instead to guarantee that the heal will be beneficial no matter when it’s cast. The downside to this healing lineup is that all three of those have varying refresh timers, none of which are super fast, so there is a possibility that you could be waiting for a refresh. But, if you say you don’t really want to heal on the druid and it’s just for emergency then that should be fine. The druid should be able to out dps a dps merc even with minimal effort. NFW is your best dps spell, though mana consuming. You can alternate group black wolf and single black wolf indefinitely so that will help save a bit and increase dps. Sunflame is my other go to dot because it is high damage and much lower mana cost than horde. Depending on how fast you’re killing mobs you probably don’t want to worry about other dots and just throw some nukes as needed (highest damage are dicho and cyclonic roar, though they have slow recast timers). On a namer I’d say NFW, Sunflame, horde should be on for the whole fight. If you’re in TBL you can also use the remote nukes since most mobs are summoned in TBL zones. As far as debuffs, again it depends on how quickly you’re killing mobs. The AA debuff is worth casting because it’s fast and easy since it doesn’t take up a spell slot. The others are helpful but probably not worth casting on most trash mobs, possibly namers but even then not more than skin to sumac and glistening Frost (highest attack debuff). It really all comes down to spell slots and priorities. Reptile and savage growth are worthwhile, as is bosquetenders for namers. I’ve been trying out Ethereal Ways lately and it seems like it’s worth using, though it wears off quickly and again uses a spell slot that could be allocated for something else. It basically just counteracts some of the damage output that your pet will be taking. I haven’t been able to parse it yet to see if the benefit is worth the slot. All of this stuff can be put into macros to make it easy for you to cast when swapping between toons, I’d probably make a separate dot key and nuke key, then an emergency heal key. The reptile and growth spells should last for more than a few mobs, I’d just refresh every 10 minutes or so, or give your self a GINA trigger for when they wear off. Hope that helps, druids are fun!
"The druid should be able to out dps a dps merc even with minimal effort" You should be able to out-DPS a DPS merc, even while healing. DPS merc output is fairly terrible (well, up to level 105, I haven't used one since then). Don't forget to keep using Storm Strike/Fire Storm. It's a free, decent sized nuke, every 16 seconds. Also, the Blessing of Ro debuff also has a reflected heal, which is just about as mana efficient as our other heals, and it's an AA, so works during spell cooldowns. When targeting the mob, you can use that and a remote spell to heal the tank. Finally, don't neglect Wrath of the Wild. They made some changes to it in August, and it's now gone from a "who cares" to a "must use whenever it's up" AA. At top rank, it's 10 hits at 60K a pop, so that's 600K damage every time you use it, and it generates no agro (it's a DS). Just using WotW and SS/FS (two free AAs), you'll spend no mana at all, and do about 11,500 DPS!** Now add nukes and DoTs, and your regular DS, and it all adds up pretty quickly. Oh yeah, one more. There's a combo spell which includes the Adrenaline heal, along with the 8-hit big DS spell. That's the version I keep loaded, so every time I use that heal on the tank, he's also getting some extra DS damage in. "Reptile and savage growth are worthwhile" Yep, I keep those up constantly on my tank merc. Savage adds 20K HPs, and Reptile gives him the occasional small heal, and attack debuff on the mob. One other item I'd mention is GINA. It's an app which monitors your log file, and can be set up to give you audio triggers. I have it set up for wear offs of many of my buffs (like Savage Growth and Reptile) and wear offs on DoTs, so you know to reapply them (for names, trash dies in one round of DoT(s)). Oh yeah, another one... Protection of Direwood. Puts a rune on you, absorbs melee damage, and procs a hate reducer when you do get hit. At higher ranks, you can keep it on you almost full time, and again, no mana cost, it's an AA. ** - Note, if you're into parsing using GamParse, the DS damage you contribute shows up under the tank, as "environmental" damage. So, the druid's DPS won't show that base level, but the group's will, and DPS is DPS. The faster the mob dies, the better.
Helped a bunch, thank you so much! Excited to study it all in detail. I do use Storm Strike every time I alt-tab over to the druid, but I don't have WotW so I will look into that and make a hotkey for it... heck probably a hotkey for Blessing of Ro, Storm Strike, and WotW, come to think of it. I realize the downside of this is no pre-debuffing a mob, but, honestly, as a third box I never bother doing that anyway. Thanks, guys, very helpful stuff. I appreciate the time you took to reply.
So for a heal burn hotkey, such as for a named (which is generally when I really need the extra healing power), which AAs would you recommend casting? Obviously I'll cast Black Wolf for the aDPS for mage and chanter, but with so many healing AA options, I'm particularly interested in which I should use for a protracted fight, i.e. not just an Oh $hit heal, but prolonged healing benefits for the duration of killing the named. I'd also love to know a hotkey for Oh $hit emergency heals in general, if there are good AAs to pop for that. TL;DR 1. What healing AAs should I use for a long fight (to fit on a macro)? 2. What healing AAs should I use for an emergency Hail Mary save (to fit on a macro)?
