On Emarr, a kind Druid by the name of speedi tried to show me how he solos farmers in valley. He was using Heliacial flare to AoE 5 mobs at a time. I tried to replicate this on my own, but I keep getting smeared. Has anyone else done this that can help me figure this out. I put AA's in to reducing mana cost of spells, into spirit of the black wolf, in to my crit aa's but I feel like I am still missing something. Any helpful comments would be appreciated.
Does the farmers con light blue to you? Are you using the same spells? I don't play druid, but does level make a difference? Speedi is level 100, and you are level 93. That may be part of the reason.
Are you snaring them? Running far enough ahead with ext range on detrimental to get your cast off without getting hit? Are you bunching them up to allow your AE to hit them all? Without describing what you are doing, we cannot assist.
I'm on EMarr but my druid is too low level to help on that. May be a strange question but you said you "keep getting smeared". Does that mean you're dying cause they hit you or something else? Smeared to me means you need the mitigation AA's like combat stability, combat agility shield block and so on ... but you may mean something different entirely. What exactly is the issue you're facing - you mention two very different type of AA's - - mana pres AA's, crit AA's (are these dots or straight nukes; there are multiple AA lines covering both types of crits) - - so it's hard to say exactly what is happening to you.
Speedi said he was doing this at 91. I can get them down to 50 percent and have 30pct mana left. My mana is going down faster than his health. I snare, use spirit of the black wolf, and kite it with heliacial blaze. I have aa's in black wolf form, and all my dd crits.
I haven't been getting a mana buff from an enchie. I have been using shoulder of fearful reverie for mana preservation on detrimental spells. and I have spell casting mastery 4.
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/quinting-vs-charming-when-to-switch.204671/ https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/quad-kiting-in-cotf.204169/ Both those threads are about druid kiting. Without more info, it's hard to give specific advice, but there is a lot of good into in those two threads. Get mana buffs, get any weapon or augs that proc mana return on nukes, use your discs like twincast and if you need to, try it out in a lower tier zone like lower house of thule or the grounds.
I am still new to the kiting scene since I have come back. What are the best AA's to invest in. The black wolf AA's I have maxed out for my level. The critical hit AA's I have maxed out. The spell casting AA's are all maxed out. Are there any others I need to be effective. Also, what is the best mana preservation gear to have for 93. Right now, I am working on one farmer to practice in valley. I snare it and cast the level 92 and level 93 AoE DD's. After I ensare it, I use my black wolf form to get the most of my DD spells. Everything goes pretty well now until the wolf form wears off, then my nukes stop doing so much damage, and I can't finish it. Last night I got a farmer down to 12pct and went OOM. Thank you again for all the help.
Wolf form and group wolf form are different timers. Get hastened Lucan soul to speed both of them up. Then if you can find a VoA BP, the focus is more haste on those AAs. With all of that you can have either self or group black wolf up almost permanently. Get the Entrap AAs, it saves a bunch of time over Ensnare. Spell Casting Mastery AAs should be maxed too. Secondary Forte and spec in evocation -- I'm assuming all Druids went alteration for their primary... That gets you more mana pres. Then quick damage maxed for faster casting nukes.
Hello friend, sorry for the late reply. This is the first time I ever posted on these boards. You say your getting them down to low HP but running OOM. I am guessing this is happening after your wolf forms I told you about wear off? Also do you have both group and self wolf forms max for your level? I am assuming after we talked you bought Haste Lycan Soul, Spell Casting Mastery, Gift of Mana, and spell casting reinforcement? (Reinforcement makes your buffs have longer duration, thus you will have wolf form buff longer) To be honest though, at lvl 91 I did not have alot of that. Remember I just started playing again 5 months ago, was gone for 9 years. I had terrible gear + only like 2500 AA's at the MOST. I do remember using my wolves though. One thing I can say that made a big difference was debuffing them so I get less resists on them. Make sure you bought the Entrap AA to snare them. Also try using Wildfire/Wildspark aura. Every little bit helps. Stick to farmers till level 95, then move to the rats. Best camp for druids is the first rat hole on the right. Roughly 40+ rats there. Wide open kite area (minus a couple small LoS issues) More rats if you get the roamers. I leveled from 95-100 + around 6,000 AA on rats alone. Once you get level 100 and around 5K well spent AA in RoF group gear you would be able to kite 40-50 rats with burns up, and 25 or so with only using self/group wolf. You should be able to kill both within 3-5 minutes. Three minutes for the 40-50 rat kite (Burns up) and 5 min for 25 rats. When I was trying to get AA. With a lesson going, I would get around 100 AA on those rats. So just be patient friend. AA's will come. Also could you post your magelo so I could look at it? Thanks in advance! At level 100 your AoE kite lineup should look like this. 1) Hel Flare (91) 2) Lunar Chill (92) 3) Hel Fire (96) 4) Frosthowl Chill (97) -Speedi
I will post my magelo when I get home tonight. One thing I have learned so far that has made a difference is to use entrap instead of serpent vines or ensnare. I tried it with serpent vines initially, but that only lasts for 3 minutes, so I switched to ensnare because that lasts for 15 minutes, but entrap is so much better. The other thing that has helped alot is the group wolf form. That made a huge difference. I started with one farmer at a time last night, and I moved up to two and got pretty comfortable with that, so I will escalate to 3 tonight. I have been keeping my cleric merc up just in case I get tagged by a farmer and need a heal, but otherwise it is working alot better. Thank you so far for all your advice. I am already starting to get alot better. Thank you for your help as well Speedi.
Dont do just one, you can easily do 5 at 93 load your 91 and 92 AoE up, after using both you will have a short time before they up again, load up Karana's Rage (Level 59 I think) to cast till your high lvl AoE back up. Thats what I did till I had 4 AoE's (lvl 97). Also another suggestion. Make sure you have a stone tear in your ammo slot. I did not get this item till level 100. If I would of had it when I was killing farmers to level. The thing might be max by now. If you need any help, just let me know friend. Take care -Speedi
If you can do one, grab 5. That's how many your AEs will hit. If your proof of concept works, dive on in. And don't bother loading up a level 59 spell, use your highest level rain (Cascading Hail/91) to fill in spell gaps. It will hit 4 targets just like rage, but for a lot more. One thing that's hard to learn is that if you think a nuke *might* not quite finish in time before your mobs catch up to you. Run. Don't risk it. Don't bother with a clr merc. For most of my kites, if I get clipped by the pile, I'm dead. (unless Preincarnation triggers) There's no maybe I'll live at 10%, I'm going to get stunned and rounded by the 15-30 things chasing me. Don't be greedy on your nukes or that 2s spell will cost you 10+ minutes in medding, rebuffing and lost damage. For the occasional round from mobs while you're rounding up the pile, regen and your .5s heals work great. With cheetah, running for the duration of gem downtime after casting a spell works out about perfectly to keep you about the same distance from the pile. Cast, boom, run, stop, spin, <spell gems come back> cast, repeat.
Have you worked on getting your key focii over to level 95 caps yet? Pants - I see your detrimental spell haste is only level 90 Earrings - Both are lvl 90 Arms - good, fire is level 100 Face - good, detrimental extended range is level 95 Hands - cold is level 90 Head - magic is level 90 Shoulders - detrimental mana preservation is level 90 I'd listen to a druid but at the very least if you're using dots, I would think you want to upgrade 1 ear to lvl 95 focus, and any nukes make sure your shoulders and pants are level 95 as well (along with whatever resist type your nukes are).
Oh boy yes, those pants and shoulders are a big deal. Damage focus effects are nice, but haste and mana preservation are necessary- they make a far bigger impact on your damage, in how fast it lands, how many spells you can land in X amount of time, and how long you can do it for. Also, if you are able to, try to get a Rustic Tunic of the Tender. The drop for it is buyable in the bazaar- look for a Rustic Stole of Argath. That BP will give you two more ticks in duration (12 seconds) on all of your wolf forms, both individual and group. This is the first VoA BP, which is when druids got that particular focus that Daldaen mentioned.
I have a hard time selecting just when 1 when they are all stacked up. One of the pieces of advice posted here was to select the one with the lowest help, but I get mine stacked right on top of each other and that is tough to do. I can do 5 at a time right now, when can I do 30 or so at a time. That looks crazy fun.
Hmm, do you have access to the extended target window? You don't need to target the mob itself (anything you have on aggro appears here, and you can even add other targets like yourself if it's easier to see your health on this window as well as the mobs).
That really comes down to a personal choice, your gear, and AAs. If you are doing 5 at a time easily, try pulling 10. As you nuke your 5 look around for 5 more to Entrap. Having a next 5 ready to go will end up saving you time. After you can AE down 10, pull till you have about 15. I just typically pull everything I see until I am oom, then fade. Often they will stay there in the stack ( not running away due to being snared ) while I med then when I am FM they are all bunched up and ready to go. Usually I target the one at the top of my list. I will be using storm strike on this one. I typically want the one at the top of my extended target to die first, as it has the oldest Entrap.
