I started a druid at release and he reached lvl 57. Since than I've raised two characters to 70. I'm planning on playing my druid to 70. He currently has a full set of vermiculated and a full suit of elysian that I can mix and match. He also has ornate boots and the pair of solstice earrings. He is one kill from his epic. I don't have access to a group or guild because I've been out of the game for about 8 months and I've lost touch with my server's community. I have about 250k that I've raised over the months and I'm planning to re-equip my druid. I'm looking for equipment suggestions; especially gear that will last me until I reach 70, find a guild and start raiding. I'm willing to camp gear as well, but it needs to be soloable. Thanks for the help everyone. (Sorry for not having a magelo, but I can't access the webpage right now for some reason, I will post one later)

Get Ornate legs, that's probably the single most useful item you can buy in the bazaar. Then possibly FT augs from DoN. I don't know, hard to say what else without seeing your Magelo.

Click on mine, I think my kit is completely bazaar-able, with the exception of the epic.

Good luck and welcome back!

Tat

PS - did a quick check. Shawl and wrists are not buyable, all the rest is, and probably for close to being within your budget.

He is wearing full elysian, wanderer sylvan's boots and both of the solstice earrings. The rest of his slots are empty. As I start to equip gear I'll make a magelo.

Ah ok, empty slots are easy to plan upgrades for ;)

y recommendations are, basically, what I am wearing, LOL!

Also, since you are starting from square one, get a festive doll in Thurgadin. It's free (LORE) and +15 to all 7 main stats. Enter Thurg, then go right at the T intersection. Vendor is right in the main "corridor" just past the "smithing" building.

Tat

I'd recommend a full suit of master level cultural armor with master level augs. Can buy some effects and hp/mana/stats/resists into it from DoN vendors. When you get to 65, you can just swap out the master augments for grandmaster's and get some new augments. Imo that's the best way to go.. but that's just me.

edit: checked out tatankawd (http://eq.forums.thedruidsgrove.org/member.php?u=46) equipment and you can see he got master's chest piece with GM aug. That's what i'm talking about :) <SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_197670", true); </SCRIPT>

While the DoN cultural is certainly nice, you really need to evaluate it on a piece by piece basis.

any of the augs have extras like regen, DS, and +ATK, which frankly are pretty much useless to a casual druid (I'm talking Tunare here, no idea about Karana). Some do have mana regen, and that is always handy.

For the pants, I still say Ornate blows away the DoN cultural. I've probably saved millions of mana by casting free 3 minute roots.

For the boots, if I would get DoN, I'd lose FT3, so that is a consideration when making those choices. And Boots of flowing slime probably cost less than you can get a master/GM combo for. My hat has more HP/mana than the master/GM combo, and costs far less.

True, you can put more augs on the cultural, so that is a consideration. It really depends on what prices you can get the DoN cultural for on your server, and what other pieces are available to you at the time.

Since I've been out of EQ for quite a while...mind explaining DoN armor sets and augments? Where to buy them, how they are bought etc...

Each race, class and religion has a set of armor or augments that corresponds to it. They were introduced with the DoN expansion. Your race/class combo has a particular type of armor, and your religion has a particular type of augments, with a different one for each slot. For example, WE druids have Brambleborn armor, and Tunare worshippers have "of Growth" augments. The augments are type 11, and so only fit in the cultural armor. Do a search in the bazaar, and you're sure to find some there. Unless you're a serious tradeskiller, you're unlikely to be able to make your own at the master or GM level. EQTraders has a good deal of info regarding them.

Tat

If you're on maelin, you can try to contact me to make DoN armors. I'll be glad to combine it for you (300 skill + tailoring AA + PoR trophy + max salvage) if you bring me the required components.