Debuffing from druid

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

So currently, I 4 box a Shm,mage,monk and Druid.

On druid I typically cast Skin to Flora, AAsnare, Withering Sunray, then just fire nuke from him whenever it refreshes and I look over at that box. He is also my backup and/or emergency healer so has a solid role in my box group.

Recently read some comments about folks still using Hand of Ro at 85, so I thought I'd inquire about what typically druids are debuffing?

I have limited myself to those 2 debuffs because I am fairly busy flicking from box to box and also want to get some nuking in from druid. But would it add value to change my line up or increase debuffs, losing say 1 nuke from druid? maybe 2 if I don't have time to get back to him quick.

So, what is your typical debuff line up on druid?

[Kumudil]

Out of memories from a dev on the sonyboards (no link to back up): the single best attack-debuff is supposed to reduce incoming damage as good as the shaman-slow in SOD upper Tiers (group-content), both should be around 15%. Better even, simplified it archieves this by reducing the likehood of max-hits and increasing the likehood of minhits (the mechanic itself is subject to other threads, its the balance - Attack/AC - thing). So the reduced incoming damage is also less spiky. Third it lands or not, but there is no mitigation mechanic. The worse the mobs the better it gets if you presume that the bigger mobs may have also bigger attack-values to counter your tanks AC.

If 136 attack from Blanchet Frost RKII is supposed to debuff 15% dps, 236 attack from Blanchet Frost + Hand of Ro should be 26% dps-reduction.

There are also Druids stating that even if this may be the goal, actually its not doing it, my personal believe is it seems to be there.

When playing Tase any mob gets Blanched Frost if its not to cold resistent. If its not very likely to land, Hand of Ro is first debuff on mob (resist-200).
When boxing Tase my first Hotkey contains both debuffs, blanchet frost will always land after my malis. Hand of Ro has also some AC and alot of FR-debuff included.
The 2 debuffs gives the tank also enought time to build aggro. Best dps for druids, as far as I know, contains also the use of Winters flare. Starting to early dpsing including WF Tase tend to pull aggro.

Skin to flora should be 9% dps-increase on fire-spells, I use it when I feel that the Tank would not have any probs. Sunray I don't use as the Groups where Tase is around are not meele-heavy. Have the same feeling, want Tase to contribute also in dps and not debuff til mob is dead.

My approach for most content is: first do your best to help the Tank to stay til end, than dps.

For Tase in non-trivial content that is: start with 1 or 2 attack-debuff, than dps.

When boxing Tase does most with 2 keys: Initial debuff (Usually only the assist and 2 debuffs, so I don't get blocked by running socials when I want to react on surprises. On easy content maybe the 2 best fastcasting dots also). Second key nuke sequence: depend on content 2-6 nukes.

[Bolodox]

Hand of Ro, is by far, the debuff I use the most in almost any situation, even at level 85. In a group situation, I would be ok using Withering Sunray instead of HoR unless there will be mezzing. In all honesty, most Druids will only cast 1 debuff in a group setting.

In your case where you are 4 boxing, I would just use Hand of Ro with Skin to Flora. I suppose you could use Withering Sunray in place of HoR, as either is good for landing fire nukes, but HoR also evens out the damage you take, meaning the mob will rarely hit for max.

I would bet that 99.9% of the Druids out there have this spell perma-memmed in their spell lineups.

[Khauruk]

*Hand of Ro, hands down, #1 debuff to land on mob (or fire versions where applicable). Start stacking atk debuffs for hard mobs/nameds (there's 3 that will stack).

*Skin to flora, depending on mana/time. If you can do more w/ that 300 mana than add 9% to a couple mage nukes, might be worth replacing w/ a nuke.

*Withering Sunray - if you're using it for the AC debuff component, that's a fairly minimal dps increase esp. against group mobs. I wouldn't bother. If you're looking for a DoT, use a real DoT.

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Tanom]

You will find that Hand of Ro will land on almost everything, so far I have only found few raid mobs that would make me cast it more than twice. (Tinkerson in MMM counts but only when he becomes untouchable by fire you can either land Hand of Ro before that or wait) It should always be memmed because what Kumudil stated is true, just that most don't do the math hehe. Skin of Mulch line, it has it's uses but if your gonna be spending time using Winter's Flare I wouldn't bother as you will be using both fire and cold so you can remove Skin of Mulch and replace with Coldwhisper Breath. Coldwhisper Breath and Blanched Frost should both be on your spell line up if you want to use Winter's Flare OR debuff a mob's attack. The reason for this is that Blanched Frost and its previous forms have a really difficult time sometimes landing, while Coldwhisper Breath and its previous forms reduces cold resist (makes it so that your Blanched Frost lands) and increase the amount of damage the mob takes from cold (I believe it is only cold I cannot remember exactly but it goes really well with Winter's Flare). So as a grouping druid using Winter's Flare go with Hand of Ro, Coldwhisper Breath and Blanched Frost, as a raiding one you would want the druids doing Skin of Flora/Mulch (if the raid mob won't take it switch out with Withering Sunray), Hand of Ro, Coldwhisper Breath and Blanched Frost. But I would also agree with Bolodox, most druids in grouping situations only use Hand of Ro because there isn't time really.

[Kumudil]

Coldwhisper Breath is not needed for the ice-debuff with AA-malos (still improves ice-damage). Blanchet frost RKII itself has a -30 mod, and that ontop of the shaman debuff warrants alomst 100% of hits. The AA-malos is also sufficent to land the cold-nuke from Winters flare.

The 3 stacking Attack debuffs for the big nameds would be: Hand of Ro, Blanched Frost, Fixation of Ro. Fixation of Ro is still good for an additional 72 attack debuff roghtly 8% dps debuff.

small derail:
@BigCat: did you parse the RS-pet from your mage and made some DPM-calcs? You may will come out that its more DPM than your usual sequence; depends on the pet-focus.
When pulling out RS you have Rathe strength (also researchable now, POR-Aura) on your regular pet, don't you? It does nothing for your regolar pet when burnout-buffed but improves all others around. Rathe strength will overwrite mammuth but its better and improves all pets and swarmpets on the mob; the shaman pack inclusive.

Apart from DPS RS will pull aggro from the Main-pet when tanking/offtanking (when no merc/pc-tank is closeby) and make it last much longer.
My Mage starts always with pet attack and RS and nukes what the manabars allows. When boxing I have no other tank but the magepet, so for me its more important to keep it alive.

Saw today an update on the sonyboard: Some named from FOS upwards are now flagged stun-imune () on Test, maybe will go life next full patch. That means that Earth-pet may be the better tank now.

Edit: found and insterted link of the thread on the sonyboard about the flags changed on the Named: "Added some of the special resistances, like mez and stun, on the rare/named NPCs in Korafax, Field of Scale and Old Bloodfield".

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

no to parsing. I suck and am too lazy to dload and run a good parser. It was more to do with overall balance that I noted my mage could nuke pretty steady without being the 'bottleneck' on stopping the team to regen mana vs. when I used RS pet he was almost always the weak link for low mana break.

As to Rathe strength, yes I always have that up, and specifically did the actual quest sequence to get it. Good to know that it is researchable now though, as I never got the aura on my druid and IIRC that is a bit of mana regen that might be nice. I also didn't know that it was useless on the mage pet when burnout buffed. That is good info too. thanks for that.

I switched last night to Blanched and HOR. I only noted that my normal clear seemed to go pretty smoothly (been working on 4th floor kurns to complete head/feet SOD on my char), but that might have just been luck and experience at breaking it so many times. Until I get off my duff and parse this stuff, I shall just continue to trust you folks based on analysis of your input.

Peace.

[Cromagnon]

Big Cat,

In response to "Good to know that it is researchable now though, as I never got the aura on my druid and IIRC that is a bit of mana regen that might be nice." Just wanted to let you know that it is HP Regen, not mana on the druid auras. The two differ as well in their curative properties.

Level 70 Aura of LIfe (Druid):
Game Description - Increases your companions' health regeneration and also removes their disease effects, as long as they stay inside the area of the aura.
1: Increase Hitpoints by 30 per tick
2: Decrease Disease Counter by 4 (Lifeshard effect 100%)

Level 55 Aura of the Grove (Druid):
Game Description - Increases your companions' health regeneration and also removes their disease effects, as long as they stay inside the area of the aura.
1: Increase Hitpoints by 10 per tick
2: Decrease Disease Counter by 2 (Lifeshard effect 100%)

<NOTE> Pretty sure last time I looked at the level 55 aura in game, its description read "This will remove some poison effects" but the above was copied and confirmed from Allakhazam/Lucy so I'm not sure. Will be double checking when I get home from work.

Hope that helps, and fyi for any trying for their 70 aura, if you have someone that can request NRo/Takish task 3, you do not have to complete missions 1&2 (2 being the hardest of the three) in order to get your aura reward.

[Cromagnon]

Follow up:

So I went in game and checked, went to the 55 aura "Aura of the Grove" and memmed it, right clicked and found the description already posted about disease effects... So I cast it, and went to short duration buffs bar and right clicked the actual effect, which did indeed read "...will remove most POISON effects,...". So then I memmed the 70 aura, and the description of the spell game matches the one previously listed regarding disease effects, but when right clicking the icon in the short duration buffs window the description field is blank.

So either the 55 aura cures some poison effects, and the 70 aura cures diease counters, or the Devs just made an oopsey.

Still think though that a 55 aura which cures poison effects and a 70 aura that cures disease is the way it should be, but whether or not intended and actual or not is up for discussion.

G'luck,
Crom

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

Good to know. Thanks Cro.

I haven't bothered getting the aura, and it of course does make more sense for Druids to be a hp regen vs. mana. Don't know why I had it stuck in my head that it was mana regen... In any case 30 hp/tic isn't worth the potential lag, but in a disease casting environment might be handy to have so I wil probably get my local researchers to make a copy for me.

Thanks for the follow up!

I have changed up my line up to Hand of Ro, and Blanched Frost for debuffs and although I don't have parses to back this up (I really do need to do that. would make this kind of discussion so more worthwhile...) I have noticed an improvement in the merc clerics ability to heal. I think it is an improvement.

[Unmei]

Potential lag? o.o As an enchanter, who now routinely runs around with two auras up and often several more from the group, uh... what potential lag is this?

Also, both auras cure disease. It would be extremely strange for the level 55 aura to be more useful than the 70 one in any circumstances. All the 70 auras are direct upgrades to their level 55 counterparts. Ah... also, where are you getting the poison thing from? As far as I can tell from looking at Kumbaja's, both Aura of the Grove and Aura of Life say:

"Increases your companions' health regeneration and also removes their disease effects, as long as they stay inside the area of the aura."

[Brohg]

[Tanom]

The most important thing I find for the druid aura is to cure Death Mark from AMV in Citadel of Anguish, other than that I really don't use it as I do not find it extremely necessary and I prefer using my heal boost aura clicky.

[Unmei]

[Brohg]

If you right click Show Spell Information on the effect, sure it shows.

[Cromagnon]

Unmei,

Read my posts again, More than likely it is just an oopsey by the devs when they wrote in the descriptions, but the actual 55 aura in game description states POISON (not the spell gem description, but going to the short duration buffs window and right clicking there shows poison for the 55 aura, and no description for the 70).

[Unmei]

[Shiine]

I have a similar question. I've searched a few places, but I can't seem to find the answer. I have six druids being set up in a debuff line. We're using Withering Sunray, Blanched Frost, Hand of Ro, Coldwhisper Breath, Skin to Flora. What else stacks with those 5 that will maximize our efforts?

Any suggestions are more than welcome at this point. (We're also re-implementing the 2.0 clicks).

[Tanom]

6 druids .......... I wish we had that many .....

I say go with Hand of Ro, Coldwhisper Breath, Blanched Frost, Fixation of Ro, Skin to Flora, and Withering Sunray in that order of importance. I however am not a fan of Withering Sunray line due to the DoT making unnecessary aggro when healing and when I go DPS mode the only DoT if any I have up is the Nature's Burning Wrath line.

Hand of Ro - Decrease Fire Resist by 72, Decrease ATK by 100, Decrease AC by 15
Coldwhisper Breath Rk. II - Increase Incoming Spell Damage by 9%, Decrease Cold Resist by 72, Decrease AC by 51
Blanched Frost Rk. II - Decrease ATK by 136, Decrease AC by 36 (Reason I want this one done third is because it has a high resist chance unless Coldwhisper Breath is on the mob, Focus of Arcanum AA however helps in landing it)
Fixation of Ro -Decrease ATK by 51 (L42) to 72 (L85), Decrease AC by 15 (L42) to 21 (L85)
Skin to Flora Rk. II - Increase Incoming Spell Damage by 9% (Fire spells)
Withering Sunray Rk. II - Decrease Hitpoints by 379 (L81) to 387 (L85) per tick, Decrease Fire Resist by 53, Decrease AC by 66

They all stack.

[Shiine]

Thank you, I appreciate the quick response. We'll go with Fixation of Ro and see how that pans out. Now, I wish I could get all 6 online at the same time!

[Fanra]

As for the Auras, I think they both cure disease, the poison thing seems like a typo.

On the Debuff front:

I always hit every mob with Hand of Ro, this allows my fire nukes to land for full effect. Far too many mobs will resist (either fully or partly) my fire nukes otherwise.

If I have the spell gem and time (many mobs die too quickly to matter), I will then use Blanched Frost. Beyond that, I only use other debuffs on boss raid mobs.

For Boss raid mobs, I use Hand of Ro, Coldwhisper Breath, Blanched Frost and Fixation of Ro, in that order.

I never bother with anything else.

A partial chart (I need to add to it) of Druid Debuff Spells can be found here: http://everquest.yourwiki.net/wiki/Druid

[Amarillis]

On group content if we are burning through things fast there's no point in bothering cause it will be dead before I get anything off and then I have wasted my time. If it's something more difficult that stays alive a little longer I will HoR cause it lands easier usually - and if I'm nuking (or have a caster using fire nukes/dots in the group) and have time to justify it, I'll hit it with Skin to Flora to beef the nukes up. If its something really challenging and have time to blow (which is rare cause I have other things to do) I will use other debuffs as I can, but I can't really think of much that would qualify for that these days.
In raids, I have necros or necro/wizards in the group. They like to know I am taking care of them so they are dpsing to their max. I'm not the only druid around, but until they were confident it was taken care of all the time they would ask if it was debuffed. So I took to taking care of my group and doing the debuffs they really could use. As soon as the mob is inc I do HoR followed by Skin to Flora, and if there is time and I'm not healing too fast I'll hit Withering Sunray. Other people can do the other stuff as they can, but I consider those debuffs just part of helping my group out in addition to keeping them alive. And of course others benefit from it too.
Just my personal thing.