Category:Druids

While Druids outwardly follow Roixa, their Order truly venerates a far more ancient Goddess, whom they credit with the creation of the natural world. Druids have a variety of healing and protective spells, common to clerics, but also learn much of the way of the wild, including bow use, and several archery skills. They also possess the unique ability to craft and use mystic arrows. Like all Prestige Classes, they retain the original class's Prime Requisite, in this case, Wisdom. Druids sometimes hang up their bows and become Priests, but this requires a higher level than it would for a cleric. Because they eschew melee weapons, Druids cannot become Paladins. Druid masters tend to favor serene glades for their havens.

Abbreviation: Dru.

Base Class: Cleric.

Prime Requisite: Wisdom.

Druids in General

Druids can be summarized as Clerics with bows and with cheaper heals, minus the Pantheon Spells. While they are not as powerful as Archers in combat, they are good at healing groups for a long time while still contributing to damage during runs.

Druid Creation

Requirements:

• level 50 Cleric
• No racial penalty to archery
• Unwavering worship of Roixa

Races that can potentially gain the druid prestige: Centaurs, Demonseeds, Drow, Elves, Half Elves, Half-Orcs, High Elves, Humans, Kzinti, Orcs, Sprites, and Tuataurs.

Unwavering worship to Roixa means a potential cleric cannot worship (or unworship) any other god prior to becoming a druid. Since Roixa will decrease melee damage, a new character will be better off remaining atheist until becoming a druid.

Druids at Hero Tier

Once a druid practices Druidic Oath, the bow (or crossbow) will become the only weapon he is allowed to wield, otherwise spell costs will double. Druids also have access to specialized ammo, but many will use regular archer ammo because it does better damage in most situations.

Training

Train stats as if any spellcaster class: wisdom and intelligence for practice points and mana, then constitution. Strength and dexterity can be trained later.

Practicing

Practicing for a druid should be same as for a cleric. Focus on party-beneficial spells like the divinity and mass divinity stack, curative spells, and utility spells like fly or water breathing. Once 101 little will change, as there are little important skills or spells after this point, until lord tier.

Druids can cast Barkskin, similar to archers, but they cannot Skin corpses. They will miss out on Dark Embrace which clerics otherwise get.

• Green Arrow, Faerie Arrow, Moonshard Arrow and Autumn Arrow are all special arrows that only druids can fletch and they behave similarly to standard piercing and splinter arrows in addition to each carrying one special affect. However, not all druids use these as they require mana to fletch, and the chance to affect a mob with the enchantments is rather low. Try using them and see if they suit your style.
  • In order to create these a druid will need a natural fletching kit. To get these (for free), simply go and Forage in any wood-terrain room.
• Longshot is useful when other archers aren't about - tie it to a trigger so group leader can use it effectively.
• Blood Trail means druids can scent, but they cannot Track without lag until hero when they obtain Bloodhound.
• Anoint is of marginal use, if you can remember that you have this skill.

Devoting

Roxia is only a prerequisite to become a druid and is not mandated by latter skills or spells. If you take into account that druids do (usually) mediocre damage, some other worship may suit the healing roles better.

Common choices are:

• Roixa - best archery damage, poor buffing spells, mediocre healing,
• Kra - halved archery damage (!), very good buffing spells, better healing,
• Tul-Sith - bad archery, better buffing spells (worse than Kra), best healing.

See the Worship and Devotion tables for more details.

Fighting

Soloing: Soloing a druid is easily possible, if slow. While using regular archer gear and healing self, it is possible to solo. Arrow Dodge will help, so find bow-wielding mobs.

Tanking: Druids can tank as well as any archer, and can heal self while at it. Keep in mind that unlike clerics they will not be able to use a shield not carry a held AC item, so their AC will be lower than usual. The rescue is out-of-class and slow.

Hitting: Druids (generally) do more damage than a regular cleric and run either in full HR gear, or use specialized HR/mana gear. While they hit they are also able to do:

Healing: while on the run. With cheap curatives they can sustain a group for a long period of time. Unfortunately, holding a brandish means removing ammo, so they won't be able to attack for that time.

Druids at Lord Tier

At Lord tier the role of a druid changes little. They have access to Wall Of Thorns so they will be responsible for keeping a group safe while regenerating, as well as healing the group akin to any healer. With their mana comparable to clerics, druids will be outhealed by priests.

If idle during a lord run (which is rare), they can also use scattershot or held shot with mixed results.

Druid Remort Options

Druids can remort into Priests.

Racial remorts that make good druids are ones that give a Racial Archery Modifier and/or good spellcasting. High Elves, Sprites and Tuataurs are good choices.