Looking to accumulate some info on augs and compile them.


Where to get them
obviously DoN has a nice collection of augs, however, some of the higher end ones are a little expensive (680 crystals). and for those who didn't know, there is a DoN Mechant list (http://plurpage.com/everquest/don.php).

LDoN - not so good. seems to have a poor bang-for-the-buck, when including the time necessary to accumulate all those points. also, the points are not tradeable.

I tried to look up some augs and they seem to be dropped in GoD zones, KT and higher, and all OoW zones; I even found a +15hp/mana aug that dropped off a rat in Dranik's Scar! Looking to acquire some mobs/zones that drop augs that can be done by 1-group or less.

When to stop HP augs and focus on mana
I've heard the opinion that there is a certain point where you, as a caster, will get diminished returns on hp. since we rely on mana, you probably don't need MAX hit points. what you do feel is a good threshold to stop putting in hp augs and focusing on mana augs? 7k hp? 8k hp?


HP/Mana Augs versus other augs like focus effects
Do you think that adding focus effects to your gear may, in the long run, hurt you? since some focus effects are innately built-in into some gear, you may run into the situation where you acquire a piece of gear that makes your aug obsolete. is this something you would ever consider avoiding? i.e. I won't buy that mana preservation 4/5 aug because I want to get kerasha's boots...

A link to your Magelo profile would be helpfull if you have one.

You mention that you want to get Ele-Boots therefore i guess you are not elemental geared.
Back to Topic: More HP are always good but I didn't believe you will reach 7kHP, without elegear only with augs. IMHO HP and Mana schould match for Druids at least when you are buffed with regular buffs.
when you give a hint what content you are dealing right now we could give a better answer :)

I'm not looking for help with just my gear, persay. I'm using alla's and a don merchant site to grab all augs that have say hp and or mana - and compile them into one place. I thought if I am going to go through all the work for myself, perhaps I could place this list somewhere would others could benefit from it. So when someone wants to look for info on augs, they could come to this thread.

PS - if you want magelo link, I can update that soon. My example about the MP aug and elemental boots, was a hypothetical situation and not my personal dilemma.

i keep a list for helping guild druids decide what to do with their dkp :)

feel free to take a look at:
All Druid Usable Augs (http://home.comcast.net/~aelfin/downloads/AugList.txt)

do it for select gear, too:
Druid Gear (http://home.comcast.net/~aelfin/downloads/GearList.txt)

please note the 'Score' is personal bias on weighted stats, it may not be how you'd score. also, i haven't worked effects into the score at this time. only gear with a score > 500 is listed on the gear list.

as time permits i fill in more locations.

i copy data down from EQItems (http://eqitems.13th-floor.org/) into a local sql server database every so often to refresh it.

Are you looking for augs to solo? duo? group?

Are you KT flagged? Where do you normally hunt? Much of GoD and OoW has named drops as well as trash drops with nice augs.

As a druid I tend to prefer mana augs, but I would use a "better" hp aug over a mana aug, ie if a 55hp dropped, I would happily replace a 20mana aug.

Vimidon in Natimbi drops a 20m aug thats easily soloable and tends to be more common than Tumia Lehio's hp counterpart. The Enraged Maternal Cragbeast in Tipt has a chance to drop one of 4 augs: 10atk 2 regen, 30hp 30m, 30hp 30 end, and ft2 regen 2. Ferubi has 2 different 25/25/25 augs off named that are one groupable, though might be safer to bring more than just a few friends to KT. KT has some great augs off nameds if you have access there, but they are all type 8 which you may not have room for if you are wearing elemental gear.

Draniks Scar has a 25hp off the Kyv event, and the 15/15/15 off trash. Draniks Hollows also has a few augs, the Murkglider Caves instance for example, drops a 25 hp aug off the rat named in pool room. Harbringers is a great place to group or duo, or solo if you're up for a rough challenge, and has ft1, regen2, 25hp, 25mana and even a minor improved healing 4 aug. RCoD has the Lambent Stone of Focus (detri extended range I believe) as well as a few augs off the more difficult named. MPG has the 55 hp off Odiumate, 55 mana off Strategist, a ft2 regen2, a 20atk 2 regen, a 75 lifetap proc, and a few others worth looking into as well if you don't mind rolling friends or your pickup group. And of course, RS has the ft3 aug, the 70mana, 70hp, 65hp, 65m, attack, and ac augs.

The Unrest instance isn't too hard, and drops a 65/65/65 as well.

Are you looking for a very comprehensive list? or more things in your reach and then later to aspire to?

OMG - if this is what I think it is...
I was looking to find a way to keep eqitems into a database!

Been copying+pasting searches on alla's into spreadsheets. Then instituting my own ranking system. THEN trying to filter out - what a group or our guild can handle. Meaning there's no point in listing gear from Anguish as a possible upgrade!

Right now we're at Time/Ikkinz. The server merge has been unkind to us and a lot of people either /movelogged or switched guilds, so our numbers are relatively low atm. Some wanted to stay with friends while others didn't want to go through another rebuilding phase (i.e. MORE time farming).

With me being relatively new to this phase of the game, I don't want to skip any of it and want to slog thru it - however frustrating it can be at times.

which leads me to why I made this post. Gear is relatively simple to look up. I know what slots I'm lacking in and try to save enough dkp to make the appropriate upgrade. (tangent) I don't enough cashflow to support xev/dro bazaar prices. pristine jeweled gloves are tens of thousands. and chest peices are relatively difficult to upgrade (droppable items) for leather classes. and then there's the new DoN armor and the greenvale quests... so much to do!! (/tangent)

so I thought I'd turn my attention to augs. What does DoN offer? MPG/RSS/Ikky/etc? can they be farmable? etc. I don't know about you but most of my augs are from LDoNs - either +4 to +6 stat/resist augs. Kinda weak at level 66+. So I thought I'd do some research on augs and share )

magelo (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=1207002)

Sorry Tuppet i Missed your intention totaly i thought it was just an other "need some advice in gear" posting.
(No disrespekt to those that ask anyway ;) )

So for Time Gear + Augs 7k HP is a nice goal (for Druids of course)

To help with your task, in RSS drop 70mana/endurance or 70hp Augs at Queen Camp and 65 mana/endurance or 65 hp Augs at Stairs Camp they are not lore so you can wear up to four of them. They are all slot 8 augs, and can be farmed with a well balanced group.

Augs that will fit into the slot 4, in your primary, but not combat proc augs. I limited the search to any augs that give AT LEAST 10hp and/or 10mana.

GoD - Breakdown in Communication Augs.

LDoN - Adventurer's Stone, Wayfarers Brotherhood Emblem.

LDoN raid (Halusant the Nightblood) - Bloodied Gravestone Fragment, Scion's Shard of Death Chants. both +50. mana equivalent = Translucent Orb of Trapped Mana.

Tipt - Sparkling Gem of Protection, Gem of Bolstered Power. both +30hp/mana.

Skyfire - Cipher of Veeshan - the new key is +15hp/mana/end opposed to the old where the bonus was +30.

LDoN random drops - Perfect Garnet of Constitution (+12hp), Imperfect Garnet of Constitution (+10hp). both have mana equivalents, ... of Insight.DoN vendor - Warded Dragon Egg Fragment (115 crystals).
+8 vsMg +8 vsFire +8 vsCold +8 vsPos +8 vsDis +10 HP

Taken from the Thread How do people get such a high mana pool? (http://eq.forums.thedruidsgrove.org/showthread.php?t=11872)

Aldier:
Another big source of hp/mana boosts not mentioned as much as possible are augments. In RSS the Statue/Res Sum/room outside Queen camp drops an augment from the named mobs that is 70mana/end and fits in 4 slots so can get a couple of those eventually as you are able to get groups in RSS more and more. There are several other good mana augs out there if you look for them.

I personally felt that mana augs were the best thing for me to go after. If you have another suggestion as to something more valuable to me than my mana please let me know. Yes I would take a 60hp/mana over a 90mana but I am not sure what you are refering to. My class mentors have asked me to try and continue focusing on my mana first and hp second. This is also the way I had focused my gear as best I could until I got to the higher end content in which my resists begin to have a bigger effect.


Intensity:
ana does no good from bind. I still don't understand why people would want mana augs over hp augs, or even resist augs if they need the resists. You might have a 10k mana pool, but if you are only hitting 10k hp raid buffed with some of these fights, you are using more mana to heal yourself anyway. That or you are just getting sloppy with how you use mana. Then again I've been told I don't play a druid in any type of conventional way whatsoever. HP>resists>mana, IMO.


Nimchip:
It's all about augments really. My old leader in E`ci made us priests focus on mana augments a lot so i had a few before coming over to maelin and joining assent. DoN augments are really worth it... and remember, augments can be up to 40% of your "gear set", they really are important.


Kaimon:
IMO, its realtive to where you raid and where you gear is.

For example, if you raid time+ and your resists are under 200 unbuffed, i'ld focus on them. But for basically anyone anywhere, I wouldn't advise having a single non-bic resists aug if your resists are over 300 unbuffed. If your raiding tacvi or anguish and have under 7k (8k for anguish) hp unbuffed, I would focus on that.

But at a certain point, if you have the hp / survivibility tools to where you can live through anything that its posible for you to live through depending if heals get off on you in time, i'ld go with mana. To elaborate, I have ~10k hp unbuffed atm. I could switch out my mana augs and gain a few 100. But it virtually wouldn't help me live through any situation that I can't now, because I'ld still be dependant on someone else getting heals off on me. But on the otherhand, I can drain all 12500 of my mana on just about any fight, if I want to. On ture, if I'm healing and curing my group while doing 300+ dps on ture, that will drain me quite a bit. Too many people get locked into the "I'm a healer" or the "I'm a nuker" mindset to see the benefit of larger mana pools, but if you have under 10kish mana in anguish and say you don't need more, it means your not going all out.

Also, I'm surprised no one mentioned mods. I would recommend to many to replace a 50 hp or mana aug with the 2% spell shield aug from primals. I'll admit I'm a mods freak, but considering one of the most dangerous thing to a druid in tacvi is tavas's golem ae's, mitigating 60 hp per ae will do a lot more for you than having 50 more total hp or mana.

Also keep in mind you don't need to focus on mana augs if you desire a slight edge in mana. If the gear your getting isn't from qvic (or a few other locations), you'll most likely be getting more mana from your pre-auged gear than hp.

continued...

atren:
I went resist happy with DoN augs, I personally prefer resists to hp. Id much rather resist something than have to heal myself, HP are second to resists and I wont even touch mana augments.

edit: I have 9k~ hp and / 10200~ mana unbuffed, and my resist average is 464 (I think) not including quarm ring, I wont replace my resist augs till I get some more anguish augs.


Aldier:
Also, mana is useless if at bind, agreed, however, me being OOM and alive is even more useless, imo. Absolutely I would take an anguish aug with hp and mana over just a mana aug but I am in a guild that is still relatively new to anguish, about 1.5-2 months now and augs are still trickling down through the ranks. We differ thats fine, and everyone plays their druid differently.

Stratofortress:
I go HPs over mana also. More HP DoT AEs out there that are real pains and you dont want to heal yourself to oom status if your needed in keeping others up.

At some point I said I would switch to mana augs maybe, but never did. I guess I am HP junky.

We run CoA aug dropper randomed raids often and get anywhere from 20-30 people most times. My random luck stinks though - lol.

If you have the force to loot one of the clicky mana pool increasers, such as the doll from Hulcor, the MPG trials belt (one groupable), the Tacvi face, etc then I would say go HP augs even more.

Gusinator:
When mana augments dropped, sometimes priests woud be slow to bid on them, and our raid leader would make sure priests went after them because, when GoD came out, all of our priests werent outfitted with the best augments. We never had to spend too much dkp on the augs though because other classes didnt want them. It helped, and GoD was crushed beneath our feet with much help from our Druid healers.

Fourchette:
I've gotten into the mana vs hps discussion many times with folks in my guild or on my server. We all know how flexible druids are, so it leaves us a lot of room to play around with mana/hps. I've come to the conclussion that both are good, but the one that is BEST for YOU depends on your playing style.

Let me start out by saying that I'm 9.1k+ hps and 11.1k+ mana unbuffed. About 90% of my augs have mana on them, whether pure mana or combined with hps. But *I* always go for mana over hps, and I have the largest mana pool in my guild. Now if I look at my guild leader, also a druid, he's 9.6k+ hps and 10.3k+ mana. His philosophy is exactly the opposite of mine, and about 90% of his augs have hps on them. Hps are his primary driver.

Both of us have our reasons for going the way we have. For him, he's also our raid leader. He's sticking his neck out there often on raids, scouting around, checking things out, and sometimes even pulling. Likewise, as raid leader, he stands right up front with the tanks on pulls to keep control of the situation. And since he is the first druid in range of mobs, he's usually one of the very first people to land a debuff on a mob. Even outside of raids in normal groups, he's prone to pulling and occasionally tanking. All this equates to LOTS of aggro and lots of hits that he takes, and he dies fairly often on raids because of it.

Now look at me. I never pull, and since I'm back in the main body of the raid my debuffs usually land on a mob after a tank has aggroed it. I virtually never die on raids unless it's a complete wipe, and while I play EQ every day, I usually don't die more than twice a week outside of raids. On the other hand, I'm one of 2 main buffing druids (wouldn't want the raid leader to have to fool with that), and we often raid with 5-6 clerics (including mobs in Anguish like Jelvan), which means I'm often a primary healer for various tanks. I run oom about 10 times more often than I run out of hps.

So my guild leader gets hit, a LOT. HPs are what save him. He rarely goes oom. But I only need enough hps to live through the various AEs and a few hits, and I have plenty of hps off gear alone; mana is what I'm always running out of.

Our playing style dictates our needs.

Wyndfoot
y philosophy is running out of mana won't kill me, running out of hps definately will. I also often when soloing will go toe to toe with mobs. The extra hps allow me to take a few extra hits and a better chance to get a snare or root off.