View Full Forums : Advice for a 2nd Box Druid?


Thyr
03-01-2004, 09:25 AM
Hail and well met all!!

My main toon is a 65 shaman. A few months ago I picked up a EQ account to allow me to 2-box. I've tried a number of different toons down through my EQ career, and I've leveled up a number of different toons on my 2nd account into the low 50's while trying to decide what type of toon would provide the greatest benefit to me in 2-box duo.

My first thoughts were to try melee toons, since Shaman's generally suffer from abysmally low dps when soloing. I had some success with this, but nothing to really write home about. I wasn't really killing faster and outside of combat the melees I tried (BL, Paladin, monk, and rogue) weren't really providing me any REAL benefit. So I decided to try a wizzie as my 2nd box toon, since I had solo leveled one up to 46 before and was comfortable with it. Unfortunately, while a shaman can PL a melee toon fairly easy, they are ill-equipped to PL casters of any sort, so I borrowed a friend's 65 druid bot (he uses it as a pet healer and taxi for his 65 necro main) to work on my wizard.

After a couple of hours PLing a wizard, it dawned on me that a druid would be far more versatile then a wizard. Significant damage shields for when my shaman is in a mob's face, a long duration snare, nukes that rival a wizard's, and far more impressive instant healing then my shaman was capable of all combined with a mobility that few can match.

Unfortunately, I've hit a snag with leveling my druid. I've gotten to 45 through quadding in EW, but the xp there has pretty well dried up. In the past I've taken toons to level on the goblins in Veksar at 45, but with it being an indoor zone with limited room for kiting, I doubt that would be a good place for a druid and I absolutely dispise the dreadlands. So I'm at a loss for what next. I could take my druid with my shaman to droga..but at 45 nothing he casts will stick to the mobs even after I debuff them heavily with the shaman. It would ultimately be a matter of the druid just having to sit there and soak up xp from the shaman, which is actually not an overly appealing idea to me. I'd prefer to continue to level the druid under his own power so to speak, so that when the time comes, I'm perfectly comfortable with its abilities and limitations. ( I refuse to play a character strictly as a bot. )

I tried searching the forums without much luck for the type of information I'm looking for. Either I was phrasing my search poorly or I'm just not good enough at filtering through data.

So any advice on good places for xp would be much appreciated. I'm still working to perfect my quadding technique, as there seem to be some significant differences between druid quadding and wizard quadding (which I'm far more accustomed to). I'm not necessarily looking for quadding spots..just any solo spot where I can consistently get good xp to help me cover the last few levels into my 50's where my druid will be better able to group with the shaman for mutual benefit.

Kulothar
03-01-2004, 10:44 AM
Ok, look in the exp section for several suggestions on PL zones. Usually after EW the next quading area I would suggest would be CS. As for two boxing Sha/Dru, that is a great combo BUT not for quading. Try either agro-kiting with the pet buffed up and a charmed animal or try tanking with the pet buffed and thorned.

If you do pet tanking then set a bank of hotkeys specifically to buff and heal pet with snare and evac as two keys. With the druids best skin, regen and shaman buffs a pet can be pretty nasty if they druid snares or roots the mob and then heals the pet. In case the pet gets dangerously low on HP, If snaring the mob the shaman just needs to get agro and agro kite a second while druid heals pet. If mob is rooted then just call him off a sec while druid heals. Dots from both the dru/sha should stack and make any mob wimpy.

If you agro kite, druid snares (weak snare so it wears off after charmed) and charms an animal, then pulls. as long as druid keeps agro (no taunting by pets) you can get faster exp than quading. Be ready to recharm pet and dont heal it so when it is low health you can kill it off for more exp. Read the charming guides here since I use it occasionally so an not an expert.

Logilitie
03-01-2004, 11:54 AM
oh man .. you're in for a treat.
Giants were my favorite in EW.
Then on to CS for awhile birds first.. then othmirs ( if you don't mind the faction hit, and it's easily fixed back in EW killing some Ulthorks ).
Raptors in TD are nice too for mid to upper 50s ( but i loved poj for that xp )

Oonce you get charm you can hit up PoN with a stalker or blood raven pet and clean house.
Also in PoJ the high guards were awesome from about 57-58 to 60-61.
HG are level 60, the do NOT summon and they are easily snarable, even root holds them pretty good.

I never liked this part and only tried it twice, but PoS next stop to charm frogs.. YUCK.. but lots like it.. ( IMHO it sucked.. HOH better at 62 ).

HoH can take you thru 65..
i still go back there, but now to quad the hero shrines. when i can't get picnic tables in poFire.