First Impressions From a Noob - Druid

[Niminae]

This is my journal of my Druid life, from the perspective of someone who has never played this class before.

I followed the Gingerspyce build, with the exception that I choose to run this life as a PDK. Voodu has an alternative build where he runs as a Deep Gnome, so this is close to but not equal to that option. I wanted to pick up a PDK past life for the PRR benefits, and this life and class choice seems compatible with that goal.

Advantages of PDK compared to Voodu's Human and Deep Gnome builds:
+1 Feat (for 1st level Fighter) [I took Quick Draw but didn't notice any improved speed when using clickies]
Free Heavy Armor (Straight up +1 Feat over the Voodu Human and DG builds)
Free Tower Shield Feat (Only an advantage if you use a tower shield, but options are nice)
Frees up an Epic Feat (I take Epic Toughness at 21st instead of Toughness, and Toughness at 1st so I get to enjoy those HP throughout. Deific Warding is the placeholder feat filling the spot right now. This could be a different feat but it is how I have planned things out for now. [I let this feat choice stand]

Disadvantages:
No Season’s Herald capstone (+2 Wisdom. Your Conjuration and Transmutation spells gain +2 DC, +2 caster level and +2 max caster level.) So in effect +1 DC and a few spell points, since the conjuration and transmutation benefits are not very useful.
Spells and Enhancement cores come 1 level later

It’s good to have goals. My goal for this life is to do two ERs before I ITR, which means I’ll need to reach cap three times: Once from 15 and twice from 20. To try to get the best XP rewards (without boring myself to tears by running "daily" quests) I am going to try to leverage slayer zones as much as possible, and I won’t run any quests in heroics which also have an epic version. So I won’t be able to raid much until I can run elite VON and GH and Trials of the Archons, etc. I’m also going to run at least Reaper 1 skull as much as is possible barring the level lock-out. If I don’t list the Reaper level I run a quest on assume that it was Reaper 1 skull unless otherwise mentioned, or unless I’m past the level lock-out in which case it was run on Elite. The one exception I will make to running epic chains on heroic is the Demon Sands chain, as I want to start racking up the ZR completions. I have a Torc but no shard or seal and would love to make it epic and also pick up a second heroic version. [I did my 20th completion on Epic and picked up the Torc shard. I still have no seal and did not see a second Torc drop. I completed this life fairly quickly after I got my 20th raid completion.]

Level 14 Gear:
Goggles – CC with Wisdom 7, Insightful Wisdom 3, Insightful Evocation Focus 2, Yellow slot w/Topaz of Deathblock
Blue Dragonplate Armor – Does nothing for me other than being heavy armor for purposes of PRR
Wrist – CC with Sheltering 18, Spellsight 15, Resistance 6, Colorless slot w/Diamond of Vitality 20, Yellow slot empty
Ring 1 – CC with Combustion 90, Constitution 7, Insightful Constitution 3, Green slot w/Sapphire of False Life 20
Ring Swap – Old CC with Master Craftsmanship, Feather Falling, Lightning Lore 15%
Boots – CC with Feather Falling, Insightful Balance 7, Insightful Spellsight 7, Green slot w/Sapphire of Natural Armor 4
Gloves – CC with Perform 15, Healing Amplification 29, Insightful Glaciation 45, Green slot w/Sapphire of Good Luck 1
Belt – Green Steel Ash with 45 HP, Dex Skills +6, Strength Skills +4, Enervation Guard
Cloak – Elite Jeweled Cloak slotted with Topaz of Deathblock and Diamond of Strength 4
Trinket – Voice of the Master
Neck – Mythic 1 Hypnotic Pendant slotted with Topaz of Fear Immunity
Helm – Pansophic Circlet slotted with Sapphire of Heavy Fortification
Weapon – CC Scimitar with Vampirism Effect 2, Ice Lore 13, Glaciation 90, Red slot w/Ruby Eye of Righteousness
Shield – Death’s Door slotted with Ruby of the Endless Night

Day 1 – Farmed up enough mats to buy the level 15 T1 Cloak of Flames. I also filled 9 inventory slots with min level 16 supply chests that for some silly reason can’t go into the bank.
Ran Reaper 1 skull Diplomatic Impunity, Frame Work, and attempted Invaders! twice. I died twice in Diplo Impunity, to the same reaper. Luckily both deaths were next to a shrine. Lesson learned - Spring’s Resurgence is not a healing spell but a buff spell. Invaders! drained my Beholder Optic Nerves, Jeweled Cloak, Mantle of the World Shaper, PLISS, and Death’s Door on both attempts and I still got piles (10+) of negative levels before being killed. I killed 6 or more beholders in both runs before wiping. I can’t say how many for sure because my character deeds did not reset when I did my ITR. This is the second time my character deeds have not been reset after a TR/ITR. I decided that playing in an antimagic field was best left for the ranged and melees. NOTE: I have since heard that choosing an Iconic race during a TR will mean that your MM character deeds do not reset. This has been reinforced by my latest ITR where my character deeds have again not reset.
Cleared Korthos for Coin Lords faction and picked up another backpack tab. Ran A Relic of a Sovereign Past.

Day 2 – Ran Delera’s and Threnal chains. I wanted to do these while I could still hit the higher level runs in both on Reaper mode. The rest I ran on HE. I lost Escort the Expedition on the first attempt despite having left Coyle and his two guards at the entrance while I cleared ahead. A wandering group, maybe? The second attempt I went back for him after the two clay golems and managed to get him to the parking point at the entrance to the library. I did lose both guards despite having buffed Coyle and them with a huge pile of buffs.

Day 3 – Collected a bunch of Sands exploration points and ran Maraud the Mines, Spawn of Vulkoor, Purge the Fallen Shrine, and Desert Caravan. Took my first Reaper tree point in Core 1 Dire Thaumaturge.

Day 4 – I was at the level 16 cap so I took 15th. Equipped my T1 Cloak of Flames. Grouped with two friends at the same level and ran Eyes of Stone, Assault on Summerfield, Blockade Buster, and Undermine all on Reaper 2. There were a couple deaths in Assault and Blockade, but Undermine almost wiped us at the mines. I tried using the charges to clear the mines but after three uses impatience and poor results pushed us into the mine field. The combination of mines and the pack of casters killed us all (we had no trapping skills, it was a Cleric and a Warlock in addition to my Druid). And we were about 2 seconds from the resurrection shrine on the far side of the mines. Luckily one of us had a Jibbers and was able to self-rez past the minefield and casters and rez the other two.

Day 5 – Ran Offering of Blood and Chains of Flame. I had one death in Chains. I had just killed some archers on a ledge and was at about half health. I cast Spring’s Resurgence and a reaper came around the corner and blasted me in what seemed to be a one-shot. The combat log looked like he hit me with about 4 spells at once, some with DOT effects, one was Firewall. I had to use a cake to continue. I’d normally just re-run but this is a long and tedious quest, both in just getting there and then the quest itself. At about 2/3 done I was not in the mood to re-run it. Otherwise there were no problems in either quest. In Chains I was able to ignore the first shrine and was only at about 25% mana when I used the second shrine, but I had run through my GH and a few other clickies, so it was a welcome refresh. I had a phylactery in the res cache so I flagged for ADQ and can save Wiz King for epic levels.

Day 6 - Ran ADQ and ZR. Both went very smoothly. Ran OOB as a repeat but did it on 1 skull to see how the repeat RXP goes. I got 38 RXP, so it looks like it’s just not worth repeating quests on reaper. Acid Wit went smoothly even 2 levels below the effective level (to avoid the counter-intuitive reaper “over level” penalty for not running quests two levels under-level). I died in the vengeance seekers optional but that comes after completion. Too many shaman passing heals around, and I hadn’t used the final shrine and was low on mana. If I had remembered the event and used the shrine things might have gone differently.

Day 7 – Took 16th due to running up against the cap again. Ran the Disciples of Shadow chain. I died on the first encounter in the cave on my first attempt at Disciples of Shar. There were 4 champions in the group and I just went down fast. Otherwise smooth runs. The mountain lions in Disciples of Shar were huge sacks of hit points. Escape was a romp with the huge numbers of mobs. I failed the “Don’t lose more than 3 prisoners” optional. I triggered the event and the narrator couldn’t even finish saying “A prisoner is escaping” before repeating it a second and third time. Laying down Earthquakes prior to starting the event might have helped there. My Torc was MVP and I decided to make it my primary neck piece. The 162 Wizardry from the Hypnotic Pendant is nice, but Torc gives 75 and the constant mana regeneration from the Torc overcomes the difference. I was sitting near full mana throughout. Sunburst was very effective in Shadow of a Doubt. Just over 1000 Reaper XP for the chain at 1 level over base (This is pre-patch 2).

Day 8 – Ran Mired in Kobolds. Sinvala was not really a threat but I did have to drink about 5 Concentrated Elixirs of Mnemonic Enhancement in order to keep casting. There were from a stack I’ve been collecting forever so no great loss, but it shows what a huge pile of hit points monsters in Reaper mode can be. Ran ADQ with a couple guildies on R1 since they hadn’t done that yet, will run ZR with them tomorrow. Ran the first three quests in the Harbinger of Madness chain. I died once in Fear Factory to the kobold swarm. There were 3 champs and a reaper and they just blasted me down fast. I reset and ran it again with no issues.

Day 9 – Ran ZR on 1 skull with two guildies. Wiped once, went back and beat it easily. A first time reaper win but 4 levels over the base level and it was only worth ~75 reaper XP. But I got the reaper win out of my system and can just run for completions on N until my 20th. I was running up against the XP cap so I took 17th level.

Day 10 – Ran Friends in Low Places, A Lesson in Deception, and Army of Shadow in a group of 3 (Cleric and Warlock), the last two on 2 skulls. All very smooth despite all three of us being very low/out of mana for the boss fight. Attempted Running with the Devils with the cleric from the prior group. Our progress was ok but we simply did not have enough mana to complete. Wiped in the fight to open the drawbridge due to lack of resources. Upgraded Cloak of Flames to T3. Ran Ritual Sacrifice and Coalescence Chamber with the Cleric. Capped again so took 18th.

Day 11 – Flagged two more guildies for In the Flesh, ran the flagging quests on R2. Bought L15 Bracers of Wind and upgraded to T3.

Day 12 – Ran Prey on the Hunter with 4 guildies. Of particular note was that not a single reaper spawned in the entire run to the maze. The guy who spoke to the dragons selected the deal rather than the fight we had agreed we were going to do. Claimed tiredness caused confusion. So we missed the chance to fight two dragons on reaper 1. Completed In the Flesh at last!

Day 13 – Attempted Enter the Kobold with a guildie. Wiped in the final fight. Ran Monastery of the Scorpion with two gulidies. Wiped in the final fight. They wanted to re-try on HE, so we did. Completed it. Pegged L20 XP so took 20th.

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No more logs, this is getting to be too long and probably boring to anyone besides myself.

In my runs to cap and ETRs I only completed all of the Sagas once. Running repeat quests on Hard for the first time Hard XP, raiding, slayers, and just grouping with people who needed any particular run or to flag or whatever kept the XP flowing, and while the Saga XP is nice it can be counterproductive to run the Saga series again rather than hitting new quests.

Post-life notes:

The Voodu build is really very strong for reaper play. It has piles of healing amp and that goes a long way to make up for the self-healing penalty. It is not a high DPS build, and I had to learn to pace myself by being patient and using SLAs in order to keep my mana from running out in a lot of quests. But the build is durable and so being patient and using SLAs does not mean that you will be pounded on too much while waiting for the mobs to die.

At some point I swapped all my (few) reaper Enhancement Tree points into Grim Barricade. Durability is better than DPS.

My goal of running a lot of reapers up to the level lock out ran into the harsh realities of the mechanics reaper XP. There is simply no point in running any quests in reaper mode where you are 3 or more levels "over level." And to avoid a harsh 50% reaper XP penalty the player base needs to get used to running quests in reaper mode while they are at the base quest level, and not the base plus 2 which is how most people are used to elite streaking quests. I put "over level" in quotes because when you enter a quest in reaper mode the quest level is reported to the player as being base level plus 2, just like running a quest on elite. But for purposes of reaper XP you are considered to be "over level" when compared to the base level of the quest alone, not the actual level of the quest. From the Dev forum posts I have seen on this subject it really appears to be the case that the Devs made a mistake, had it pointed out to them by the players, and then decided to let their mistake stand and call it "working as intended" rather than correcting their error. This is really quite clear when you see their early posts where they incorrectly described how reaper XP worked.

I learned to love Word of Balance. It was a star performer that I had not liked much in my Cleric life. Reapers are Lawful Evil and do not appear to have any spell resistance, so it hits them like a hammer.

The requirement to pull up the examine window in order to keep from overwriting your own Creeping Cold and GCC spells taught me a lot about mobs that I had not known before. This is something I'm going to try to continue to do as I work through the Heroic Past Lives.

I had previously been crafting at the 5 level break points. Level 20, 25, etc. I've changed that to factors of 4 since that matches augment levels. It's more expensive in terms of mats but it is annoying to me to craft a level 15 item and then make it a ML16 item because I drop an augment into a slot.

The Wolf is almost useless. Even when I spent all of the Wolf enhancement points on defense, aggro avoidance, and durability it would die often. Druids have no equivalent of the Artificer Enhancement Uncaring Master, and so every death of the Wolf costs the Druid mana and hit points. I used it when running Heroic level Challenges, but even there it would die occasionally. In Challenges where I wanted something to guard the base I just used a Hireling instead. When they die I do not lose mana or hit points. This is a real shame since the Wolf is a Druid class feature, and yet you will almost never see a Druid in any content other than Normal with their Wolf out. When and if there is ever a Divine class pass some form of Uncaring Master needs to be added to the Druid third Enhancement tree. As it stands now the Wolf is only of use as a lever puller, and it is a real shame for such a unique class feature to be almost useless simply due to the game mechanics making it a drawback rather than a benefit.