I've always been an alteration druid. I did alteration back in the good ol days when no druid did alteration (pre velious).

With speculation of the new AA that allows specialization in a second casting skill, what is a good choice and why?

I bet 95% of druids will end up alteration & evocation, with the remainder having conjuration and one of those two.

Edit: On second thought, though, thinking about the mana savings that come with a higher specialization skill, abjuration might bear some consideration. While the spells aren't cast often, they are high cost. I should parse my logs and see what spells I cast the most...

What do you use to determine that, which parser?

EQ Log Analyzer (EQLA) or YALP both do a good job at that sort of thing.

The thing about buffs is that while they are mana intensive, you dont cast them often, and usually you have extra time to med after doing a big one (like MGB9) anyway.

Most druids will go with the evoc+alt route with secondary forte. Nukes and heals are our bread and butter spells. Saving mana on buffs has never been a priority considering our big mana buffs last over an hour.

Bread and Butter to me, 8 druids on raids, one of us will always have MGB for BoT9...

If not, we all buff one or two groups and move on.

That leaves us with evocation and alteration. I don't think any of our druids use dots due to the variety of spells we're required to keep memmed and a 1500 dmg nuke is a lot more dps than a 240 / tick dot when the average trash mob lives 15 seconds.

Hence, I'll be picking up Evocation.

LOL 8 druids on a raid? I consider myself lucky if I have someone to share Bot9 duties with (I try and save MGB for SoTW depending on encounter)....

LOL, u need druids? What times do you raid?

Tat

Haha no one *needs* druids on a raid. Well maybe one for 9 and seasons. Nowadays I mostly end up in the CH chain freeing up a bot cleric to spot heal or to get replaced by a bot [insert any class except druid here].

Being in a guild that has been farming time for almost 5 months we consistantly have 5 druids for time and 3 for the other stuff, which is pretty much what we need to have mgb sotw, add healing/dealing, and buffing covered. The next highest guild on the server I usually see with 6+ druids, which is a fair amount, but if they are able to coordinate their mgb sotw's can cover for lots of healing for the many ae encounters there.

Back on topic, I will be getting Alteration as my second spec. Evocation and Alteration cover 99% of the spells I cast during a raid encounter, and that is where I will need my mana the most. Downtime is used for buffing and so we dont need mana savings then, just enough time to med back the mana we use before the fight starts.

I will certainly be happy to pick evocation again and return to Teri's roots.

Our guild has about 4 active druids, with about 2 being average on any given raiding day. With buff extension AAs, there's not a lot of need to consider abjure for spec. The times when I am the only druid on, rebuffing the dead can become a strain, but I can usually find a necro willing to give me a couple twitches and then all is well.

currently evoc, will aquire alteration... again. i think i switched about 4 or 5 times total, depending on how my role was changing each year...

I currently have alteration, will be picking up evocation...right now, can't decide whether to get Forte before or after the new run speed...oh well, in there somewhere =)

But I drool at the thought of SCM effecting both alteration and evocation at the 200 level.../moan

Torn between Abjuration and Evocation, nuking really isnt an issue though, those huge drains from rebuffing during Time+ LDoN raids when youre pressed for time and mana really hurt a lot more. If youre a nonraider though, evocation for sure. DoTs are still very marginal compared to nukes unless you built your character around it (VoTime, VZ Ear, HoH, etc) I would doubt Conjuration would be in mind for many people.

Well, it's much easier to build your char around DoTing if you're a non-raider. AE4, BA4, and ET4 are all fairly easy to obtain. With just AE4, DoTs are still more efficient than even SF with the Ornate Gloves and ID4 belt (and SCF3).

Tat <- Currently Evoc, will likely choose Alteration, since it's the only way to save mana on my iCH's. But I still drool at the thought of Conjuration with my DoTs =)

I agree with most here, will be adding EVOC as my 2nd Specialty, Alteration has always been my primary!

Always been Evo. Looking forward to adding Alt. Even though I solo 50% of the time, the need for having Alt as a secondary specialization far outweighs the need for Con.

is there going to be a way just take your already spec'd spell type higher then 200 with this aa? i'd love to take my Evo spec up past the 200 cap so it saves me more mana when soloing. i don't recall a time when i've been oom on a raid healing