Druid Newbie Guide

[Nierth]

(Originally by Solan)

Intro

As a druid, it's important to not get engaged in a pitched long battle, unless it's obvious that you clearly outpower your foe.  In general though, guerrilla combat such as Master describes is your best option.  Fight in the forest if it's remotely possible, you have considerable advantage there, such as increased hp and mp regeneration, ability to treeform and maybe other moves depending on your kinship, and some handy spells like entangle.  Remember, you're a child of the forests and of nature.  Work with it towards victory.

Blindness

Blindness works well to your advantage, earlier so that the foe can't chase you properly, and later to allow your treant to rescue you so you can just damage.  Dirt kick is the early way to inflict it, somewhat reliable but short-lasting.  At mid-ranks you gain sunray, which not only does great damage, but can also blind.  Pick which to use based on your opponents saves, as high saves will stop the blinding effect of sunray.

Regarding weapons and the like

If you're looking to damage with your normal attacks, staffs are the only weapons that druids gain third attack or enhanced damage with.  In addition to these, we have pugil, which provides nice consistent damage without costing mana.  However, defense is somewhat lacking while wielding a staff, our only blocker (excluding select cases) being parry, and parry with a staff is only roughly average.  On the other hand, the alternate possibility is to use a weapon and a shield.  This leaves us without a skill like pugil, without enhanced damage, and with only second attack, but it adds an additional blocker (shield block) and you can use a weapon better suited to parrying than a staff.  The most popular and probably most effective combination here is axe/shield.
It's also possible to use some combination of weapon/shield/hold item, but this isn't recommended, leaving you with poor defense for insufficient benefits (though again there are a few select possible exceptions)

In general, if you're training out of form, use a staff for much more useful support damage (or a staff in-form if you have one with mana regen).  This works best when someone else in your group is tanking (taking primary hits).  When you're in a PK battle, most of the time you'll want the added defense of an axe/shield (or other weapon/shield) combination.  When fighting mobs not for training, judge according to how badly they hurt you.

Important Spells

There are a few important spells that druids have.  In fact, just about all of their spells have use in one situation or another, but I'll just cover a few here.
One thing that holds true for all classes, and of course for the Druidic ones as well, is that you should master all spells you'll be using

Sunray - This is an awesome damaging spell, if you're able to use it.  It can only be cast during the daytime, and only outdoors.  It does considerable amounts of damage (I believe divine damtype, not certain) and can blind your target if they don't save.  This is especially powerful against undead, as it frequently partially vapourizes them, causing a considerable increase in the already large damage.

Moonwell - This is a useful spell if it's used correctly.  As long as both you and the target are in a forested room (non-cursed), it creates a portal from where you are to where they are.  Anyone can enter the portal, including yourself, charmed creatures, group members, and anyone else who happens to be there.  This can sometimes be used for PK purposes to make surprise strikes, and can also be used effectively for simple travel from one far-away spot to another.

Entangle - This is somewhat of limited use when you're alone, unless you considerably overpower your foe.  When in a hunting group, it becomes considerably more useful, able to hold your target with consistency roughly equal to bash.

Geyser and Leaf Blades - Leaf blades is the earlier spell, and geyser is gained 11 levels later (I think).  Leaf blades does piercing damage, and geyser does drowning (Again, I think this is the case).  Geyser is your most reliable source of damage, you can use it in an axe/shield combo, few mobs and almost no players resist drowning well, and it does considerable base damage already at 1 round cooldowns.  Leaf blades is backup for those who happen to be immune.  It's also excellent for avoiding assassinate and cleave.

Wildhome - Druid version of word of recall, only to yourself, and not in combat.  Choices are western trade route forests, the emerald forest, and Estwilde.  Personally, I recommend making your hometown and wildhome far apart, in case you need to keep moving back and forth.  Estwilde is an excellent wildhome for aspiring Warders, just a few steps away from the Ironwood.

Curing - From the various curing spells available, we druids have access to, primarily, Cure Critical, Cure poison, Cure disease and Cure blindness.  Lamentably, we have no remove curse.  These spells are very useful, though, so master them *wink*  Cure blindness is especially nice if your treant is blinded later, making him unable to rescue you.

Treeform - Treeform allows you to convert yourself into a tree when in a forested room.  This makes you completely undetectable, save by invokers with magical wizard's eyes watching, and those who have read the manual of seeing mind.  It takes one round delay to cast, and you can move to break it with small delay as well.  Very useful for hiding, such as right after a wildhome spell and a bit of walking.

Treant! - Ah, the beloved treant, a druid's best friend.  Included in this are both call treant, and at later levels imbue treant with spell.  If you aren't training, keep your treant around always, unless hiding in treeform.  He can rescue, he can damage, and he can take a lot of damage too.  Not to mention that later you can imbue him with your choice of healing spell (almost all situations, cure critical is best).  Yes indeed, treants are good.

Kinship
As a druid, you spend your life in Nature, amongst the creatures of nature.  Different druids will dedicate their time to different creatures, though.  Some choose the powerful orangoutang, and others choose the fierce, silent wolf.  Some prefer the tough survivalist boar, while many dedicate their lives to all equally.  Depending on what your kinship is towards, you will gain different types of forms you can take.

Other druids, input here is nice, as I haven't personally been each form.

Every form is able to dodge, to some degree.

Important

Greater wolf, Greater boar, and Orangoutang kinships provide several advantages.  The druid is able to maintain that form without draining mana (though they won't recover either), and are also able to channel various healing empowerments while still in form.  They also have more abilities to use.

Greater Wolf - The greater wolf can dodge better than most of the other forms, but still not enough to provide good blocking for a long battle, just to avoid a few hits.  The wolf can camoflauge itself in the forest, and has an ambush that does reasonable damage, though not equal to that of a full ranger.  It can also hunt enemies with about 50% degree of success, mostly useful in finding which direction they went.  Finally, the wolf can bite at their enemies to inflict additional unblockable damage.

Greater Boar - The greater boar dodges with reasonable success as well.  The boar is not as offensively strong as the others, but has both high degrees of resistances and access to the toughness skill.  They can also forage about to find various muds and herbs to cure their wounds, and can dig to hide themselves.  In addition, they can gore their opponents, as a slow but powerful unblockable attack.

Orangoutang - The orangoutang makes good use of his powerful arms in various ways.  He (or she Wink) can climb into trees to hide, and can leap out of them flailing madly to cause damage and perhaps stun their foes.  They can crush their opponents to the ground might like a fighter.  And finally, they can loot the pockets of others.

General kinship - Druids who take kinship with all animals gain 4 forms at various levels.  The first two, I believe, can vary between wolf, boar, deer, and perhaps more.  They also gain owlform which allows flight (when flight area is returned Grin) and bearform at high levels, which has damroll second only to the orangoutang, but comes with the awesome tear skill.

Overall, general kinship allows for earlier forms, and higher raw damage by bearform, but specific kinships provide useful skills and ability to cast while in form.

General Tactics

Basically, as said above, don't stand and fight them (your foes) if you can.  Move around, make them target your treant via rescue or mistakes first, then blast them.  Usually fighting in form is not advisable in PK fights due to low defensive skills.  It can be useful in cases like that though if you're looking to damage only, such as when travelling with another who has rescue.  Basically, use your judgement.  Geyser, or sunray if it's daytime,  are very handy here with a shield/axe combo.

Finally, remember that these are to help you learn how to play as a young new Druid.  By the time you develop tactics of your own, and probably know more than I do, you won't need this guide anyways, but it's a good place to start.

[eleazar]

I suppose eleazar(Thorgrim) can, he plays just excellent.

Well, thanks .
Concerning feats, no druid will make a mistake by choosing all 3 toughen feats.
That will improve health for some 400 hp, and that is just nice improvement for starting 800 hp (As you can notice it is equivalent to 50% more damage you can take). With some math, i can show it is the same thing as if you have 800 hp and 33% resistances to all .
Personally i have first feat bloodline frost, because i wanted to be immune to frost.
That is not so good choice if you want to be in Warders because it is more res that you need.
My second and third feats are toughen.
Most of enemies prefer to attack druids with acidic and divine damage, so instead for the first feat i think bloodline divine would be reasonable choice (if you intend to join warders).

Btw. druids have good resistances to elements (fire, frost, lightning), phisical and negative damage (if warder). So in my opinion feats should improve resistances to acid and divine. If you want to be sure, take 3 toughen feats.

[Rennie]

Hmm, as Rennie I took 3 toughness feats and spent pracs/trains wisely

Without equipment I had this:

You are toughened against bashing (18%)
You are highly resistant against piercing (38%)
You are extremely resistant against slashing (43%)
You are nearly impervious to fire attacks (80%)
You are nearly untouched by cold attacks (97%)
You are extremely resistant against electrical attacks (47%)
You are slightly toughened against acidic attacks (8%)
You are slightly toughened against poison (8%)
You are exceptionally resistant against negative energy (50%)
You are slightly toughened against holy attacks (8%)
You are slightly toughened against pure energy attacks (8%)
You are slightly toughened against mental attacks (8%)
You are slightly toughened against diseases (8%)
You are slightly toughened against drowning (8%)
You are slightly toughened against sound (8%)
You are slightly toughened against air/gas attacks (8%)
You are slightly toughened against earth-based attacks (8%)

Hitroll: 16  Damroll: 12.
Reflex save: 11  Will save: 18  Fortitude save: 8

[1846/1846hp 676/676mana 372/372mv 749424tnl] >

With equipment, it was something like 2300-2400hp, 35-45 saves and a lot of resistances (good physical resistances; fire, cold = immune; electricity, negative, acid > 60%)

[eleazar]

Alright, i will show mine resistances so it can be compared with Rennie's.

These resistances are if you with mino druid WITH  equipment:

You are nearly impervious to bashing (81%)
You are exceptionally resistant against piercing (57%)
You are nearly impervious to slashing (70%)
You are almost invulnerable to fire attacks (89%)
You are immune to cold attacks (100%)
You are exceptionally resistant against electrical attacks (59%)
You are resistant against acidic attacks (24%)
You are toughened against poison (19%)
You are divinely resistant against negative energy (67%)
You are slightly toughened against holy attacks (9%)
You are slightly toughened against pure energy attacks (9%)
You are toughened against mental attacks (14%)
You are slightly toughened against diseases (9%)
You are slightly toughened against drowning (9%)
You are slightly toughened against sound (9%)
You are slightly toughened against air and gas attacks (9%)
You are slightly toughened against earth-based attacks (9%)

This is WITHOUT eq:

You are exceptionally resistant against bashing (52%)
You are extremely resistant against piercing (47%)
You are exceptionally resistant against slashing (58%)
You are divinely resistant against fire attacks (60%)
You are immune to cold attacks (117%)
You are extremely resistant against electrical attacks (42%)
You are slightly toughened against acidic attacks (7%)
You are slightly toughened against poison (2%)
You are extremely resistant against negative energy (40%)
You are slightly toughened against holy attacks (2%)
You are slightly toughened against pure energy attacks (2%)
You are slightly toughened against mental attacks (2%)
You are slightly toughened against diseases (2%)
You are slightly toughened against drowning (2%)
You are slightly toughened against sound (2%)
You are slightly toughened against air and gas attacks (2%)
You are slightly toughened against earth-based attacks (2%)

I have only 1% hero resistance, so 35+20 hero would have +9 res more to all.
With 3 toughnes it is 1500hp without eq ( in FOREST,with clan empower) , so gnome can make 350 hp more and master empowers , and mino has better hpisical res. THat is the tradeoff.
So, when Thorgrim joins to forest spirits, i think i am going to try gnome druid too

[eleazar]

Thank you.
Seems the only one good choice is toughness.

Actually, knowing that gnome druid can have 2400 hps, maybe not necesarilly to take all 3 toughness.
If you take first bloodline divine, the tradeoff will be 100 hps for 15% resistance to divine. 100 hps for gnome druid is equivalent to some 4.3% resistances to all.
So, tradeoff is 4.3% resistances to all or 15% resistances to divine. Perhaps the second is better choice for gnome warden. 4.3 resistances to all is lot, but in fight you use only specific 4.3%, while against divine you use 15%. (and lot of them atack druid with divine)

PS. Sorry for these numbers here are totally against rp. 
[And calculated very bad. - Maerryji]

[xafelar]

A friend of mine wants to play a druid.
1) Any advice on race/kinship with new changes in races and feats?
2) Advice on feats?
Thanks.

[Genocide]

Race - human
Feats - just 'help feat' and think a bit.

Do not forget about kinship

[xafelar]

mino druids outdated ?

[Genocide]

Seems so. Though you can try

[bluesky]

half-elf, wild elf?
human is good choice - good wisdom 23 (affects damage from geyser and sunray), no vulns
elves - max dam from geysir and sunray, less hps than humans, negative vuln (warder empower removes it), faster mastering, nobody immune to drowning damage
minotaur - only if you want to be turtle-like tanker for phisical damage, without making lot of damage (pugil screwed and geysir sucks low wisdom, staff damage decent with high damroll but it can be blocked on high ranks)
feats - nothing special than other classes, but do not take forester (ranger, druids) because it is not useful for druid at all, only ranger. Druid can not camouflage treant with this feat.