Hi everyone! I was hoping I could get some feedback about the AAs I had spent and the ones I'm tenatively planning to get next. I'm the only active druid in my guild, and none of my other friends currently play druids either, so I don't have a lot of people that I can bounce ideas and off of and ask questions.

These are the AAs I currently already have:

General Tab:

Innate Wisdom: 4/5
Innate Run Speed: 3/3
Innate Metabolism: 3/3
New Tanaan Crafting Mastery: 1/6
Innate Magic Resist: 5/5
Innate Lung Capacity: 3/3

Archetype:

Mental Clarity: 2/3
Spell Casting Fury: 3/3
Spell Casting Mastery: 3/3
Spell Casting Reinforcement: 3/3
Natural Durability: 3/3
Healing Adept: 3/3
Healing Gift: 3/3

Class:

Mass Group Buff: 1/1
Spell Casting Reinf. Mastery: 1/1
Exodus: 1/1
Innate Camouflage: 1/1
Quick Evacuation: 1/3
Dire Charm: 1/1

PoP Adv:

Planar Power 5/5
Innate Enlightenment 5/5

PoP Abilities:

Advanced Healing Adept: 3/3
Advanced Healing Gift: 3/3
Fury of Magic: 3/3
Hastened Exodus: 3/3
Radiant Cure 3/3
Spirit of the Wood: 3/3

GoD:

Spell Casting Subtlety: 3/3
Advanced Tracking: 5/5
Critical Affliction: 3/3
Fury of Magic Mastery: 3/3

Omens:

Mystical Attuning: 5/5
Mnemonic Retention: 1/1
Expansive Mind: 5/5
Chaotic Potential: 2/5
Healing Adept Mastery: 3/3
Healing Gift Mastery: 3/3
Spirit of the Grove: 3/3
Call of the Wild: 1/1
Secondary Recall: 1/1
Nature's Bounty: 3/3
Destructive Fury: 3/3
Resplendent Cure: 3/3

DoD:

Gift of Mana: 3/3
Shared Camouflage: 1/1
Convergence of Spirits: 3/3
Nature's Guardian: 3/3
Silent Casting: 2/5

I recently upgraded a piece of equipment which made me lose Faerune, so I've decided to get Eternal Breath, which is what I'm working on now. After I get that, I'll work on finishing off Silent Casting. Then I am thinking of working on the melee avoidance AAs, which hopefully might help keep me alive longer, and then I believe I may go ahead and finish of the critical DoT line, since I do use dots fairly often just not as often as my blasting spells.

I almost never solo, and am almost always grouping. I do occasionally raid. I'm main healer fairly often but not always.

I'd love hear feedback about AAs you've gotten that I haven't invested in yet. The one I'm most uncertain about is damage mitigation. I'm sure it is not useless, but it seems to me that druids wouldn't have that good mitigation to begin with, so I'm unclear if there's actually a noticeable difference with those AAs or not. I'd really love to hear feedback about it. I'm also skeptical about Abundant Healing. A shaman I know got all the levels on it, but he's not too impressed.

Thanks :)

Starlene Antares (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=74290)
Sigil of the Twilight Sky (http://www.sigilsguild.com)

Avoidance and mitigation AAs would be good next.

After those, really can pick and choose whatever looks most useful since you'll have almost all the really good ones I could tell at a glance. Finishing the stat cap and resist cap increases and then resist AAs might be beneficial to you if you're dealing with raid AEs as well.

Avoidance AAs help more than you think. Much better to avoid that 2k hit than to slightly mitigate it
When I got LR5 I noticed a substantial increase in my survivability.:texla:
AH is ok. I'm not that impressed with it really.
Avoidance and damage mitigation would be next on my list if it was me.
Then I'd go for the critical dot line. I find when I'm MH, I can dot, offering a mana efficient way to add dps while still being available to heal. The increased dps for this line of AAs was well worth it IMO.

If you have to pick, I'd go with avoidance AA first before mitigation, if something comes up that you want to buy in between. Reason being that you can cast through evading an attack entirely, but hits, even mitigated ones, can interrupt you.

You may want to consider holding off on any AA expenditures until you see what AAs the new expansion will bring. I think you can have up to 30 AAs banked maximum.

I'm lucky if I can save 12 at a time :shuffle:
Then I go shopping!

Can consider Quick Evacuation to 2nd level, if your casting time for egress is currently longer than 3 sec. (Don't buy the 3rd level, it's a waste since 2.5 sec is the lowest possible).

With a shorter evacuation time, you can be a puller in your group using the snare - evac tactic. It may some day become handy.

I haven't been using Silent Casting too much, so based on everyone's advice, I think I'll put off finishing it, and go for the Avoidance AAs next after I get Eternal Breath. I was reluctant to train further in quick evacation, since from what I understand, you can only get your casting time down to a certain point, and once you do with focus effects, the AAs won't be too effective.

Also, if exodus is down, I usually prefer to use my Di'Zok escape staff which I have on bandolier, so Succor doesn't take a valuable spell slot. Unfortunately focus or AAs don't effect that clickie. However, if I am in a particularly dangerous situation, I do mem Succor or Egress occasionally, so I might consider getting another level of the quick evac AA at some point. That's also worth considering in my case since I'm not able to easily get the high end foci. Egress has a casting time of 3.4 for me I think, so quick evac would lower it for me.

I'd LOVE to be able to bank some AAs for spending on the expansion, but I don't think I have the self restraint to do it.

Thanks for the feedback guys! :)

—Star

I would max out avoidance aa before even starting the first mitigation aa. A long time back on the Steelwarrior site they did a set of parses that showed that even for plate classes avoidance aa were slightly better than mitigation. And for nonplate classes avoidance was considerably better than mitigation.

Saving a few aa for the new expansion is probably a good idea...but if you work on avoidance you will definitely see a lot more mob misses.



Sliggoth, druid/ tradeskiller of 7th Hammer

I came into EQ late, so I have all of the AA's to figure out how to spend. This is an overview of the plan I am using, for a 69 druid, Alteration Specialist, grouping for XP, in a family guild that raids, with 50 AA's so far.

Right now I am done with Phase One, Flowing Thought, minus the last level of Expanded Mind and Spell Casting Subtlety-2. I've got items boosting my Heals and Nukes, so I will be working defensive AA's next.

You start off with Run-3 and Regen-3 to get access to everything of course. I took Mnemonic Retention as my only miscellaneous AA expense.

1. Flowing Thought AA's first. Doesn't matter if your mana pool is tiny if you drain it with a garden hose and fill it with a fire hose. Realistically, if I am draining it with a fire hose, I want the garden hose refilling it to be as big as I can get it.

2. Spell Casting Subtlety, and Silent Casting next. The best healer or nuker in the game, Heals and Nukes ZERO from the Guild Hall Lobby.

3. Defensive AA's, Avoidance is key. First Rule of Hand to Hand Combat: Don't Get Hit. Best case: Punch at me and miss. (Avoidance) Next Best: Connect but not as hard as you could have. (Mitigation) Last best: Discover that I can take a decent punch. (Durability)

4. Casting Efficiencies. The fire hose again. Lower mana costs and higher hp outputs. If you are an Alteration Specialist then work on Healing efficiency AA's; Evocation Specialist, work on DPS efficiency AA's. Leave Crits and specials for later. They're nice to have, and very impressive, but I don't want to depend on luck to save the group.

5. Back to Defensive AA's: Mitigation, then Durability.

6. Secondary specialty efficiencies, Nukes for Alteration Specialist or Heals for Evocation Specialist.

7. Healing Special Abilities will be my focus after working up my DPS efficiency.

8. Buffing efficiencies and abilities. Extention AA's and MGB, etc.

9. Miscellaneous AA's. Things like Dire Charm, Exodus, faster Evac, etc are on the back burner. Faster Evac is good, but my groups tend to either win or wipe. I have found that if the group is going to get overcome, we know early enough to make the call for an Evac, or it happens so fast that evac isn't an option. If I start soloing more, I might want faster evacs, one of the druids in my guild recommends it, he said he never felt so brave before he got them.

Now I am a new to this, so maybe I am out of the box, but a man's got to start somewhere.:)

Your plan looks good Riverwinter. :) I would only suggest you move Exodus to a higher priority; I don't think it should be on the backburner. Exodus has saved my life and my group mates' life so many times that I consider it an invaluable tool in my arsenal. You can't asked for a better evacuation that's instant cast (the refresh time is the only down side but still well worth it in my opinion). Having Exodus means you don't need succor memed all the time, and things CAN go wrong very fast, and when they do if you're quick enough to perceive it, you can be a hero and save everyone's life with it. There have been a number of times that I saved my group with Exodus in which I know I would not have gotten the spell off in time.

Just to let you know, I did pick up Exodus, and it did come in handy already once. I am back to my original plan, although now, with the new Mental Clarity AA's I am thinking I might have to change the plan long enough to once again max my FT.

Get druid rez too if you haven't.

Chuckles. Okay, I admit that I picked up Call of the Wild before I finished Spell Casting Subtlety. Accidentally took some Healing Adept, (I thought I was on Combat Agility) and picked up Radiant Cure-1.

Adjusting the plan as I go, somewhere I learned that you have have a plan so you have someplace to deviate from. :)

Just thought I would post a little progress here:

I got Avoidance and Mitigation finished in Archtypes, then Healing Adept and Improved Healing Adept stuff, then all my Spell Casting Mastery stuff to extend buffs out. I finished up Radiant Cure. I am currently working on the TSS FT AA's, then back for Lightning Reflexes and Innate Defense. Then I will work on Healing Gifts and Spell Casting Fury.

Miscellaneous AA's spend on Innate Camo and Group Camo, which I really didn't want to spend the AA's on, but I can't believe how much I use them. Really comes in handy. I picked up MGB to be able to throw a group heal on the Raid.

I am amazed on how well I heal now with my Healing Adept and Improved Healing Adept AA's. I am hitting 3700+ fast heals with Sylvan Infusion, which is proving to be more mana efficient than Chlorotrope or Pure Life Rk. II with my current AA's and focuses.

All in all, these AA things are pretty cool. I got to get more of them. :)