2nd account character choice

[Longfanz]

Bst/cleric in SolRo killing protectors/sentries > Bst/druid with DC frog killing in PoV.

It really boils down to how difficult the mobs are you intend to duo truthfully.  If you are never going to see SolRo or the elementals, then yes, a druid would work just fine.  However, past that the druid healing doesn't keep up and they would spend most of their mana healing vs doing any damage at all.

[Boku]

Pretty much playing around in GoD atm and my normal group has the healing covered. I was going more for utility I guess.

[Zend]

At level 58 you'll see your druid really start to shine.  Level 58 is when you get a 400 mana, 2925 hp instant heal, 10 second cast time.  Toss IH4 focus from ornate arms into the mix and at 58 you have a 3510 hp, 10 second heal.

Just wanted to point out that Improved Healing focus does not effect Tunare's Renewl(druid's lvl 58 heal).  The only focus effects that do work on CH type spells(Complete Heal, Tunare's Renewal, Karana'a Renewal) are Extended Range focus.  Mana Preservation, Improved Healing, Spell haste etc.. do nothing for these spells.


OH... and Druid all the way.  I m a bit biased since my druid is my main tho.  :wink:

[Vidyne]

would think it would take a Beastlord MUCH too long to kill a protector in SolRo for it to be worth the exp gained/time and mana spent by the cleric, id imagine it would take QUITE a while to kill, and the cleric would be very oom at the end....  unless both were completely uber...  just my 2cp.

For a regular beast... id still say druid > cleric, youd have to have a very good beast and cleric to make that work I would think... just my opinion tho.

[Longfanz]

I am far from the most uber on my server let alone in the game, but I would average it takes around 2-2.5 minutes per kill on the protectors/sentries.  Just over a blue AA per kill, fully slowable, drop diamons/raw/blue, along with tradeskill crap like the ethereal bricks and strands, and of course random ornate molds/patterns.  They take a little longer than golems in PoV to kill, but give you probably twice the exp per kill.  With a cleric it becomes trivial with pax as most every one you come across till you get up to the pathways leading to the minis spawn with 2 in aggro range of each other.  Once the spawn is broken they are quick and easy kill.  Even on pax resists I can take 2 at once so long as I don't get too many slow resists.  Also, they don't run, and they are immune to snare/root, so those advantages are worthless here for a druid.  They consistantly con 65.

They hit for mid 600's, as I said fully slowable, semi-decent MR, but low CR, so I typically chain my 63 and GoD 65 cold nukes on them for extra damage(this is of course considering recast on these). 1400-1600 crits are nice, heh heh.  Fire nukes/procs/DoTs are worthless here as just about everything is almost totally immune.  On single pulls I will pop out the cleric pet and reverse DS on the mob, then swing away at the mob with her PoW proc hammer untill I get around 40-50 health and toss a cheal.

With decent AA's put towards your defensive and offensive abilities, they are fairly easy, and I don't think I can get the same exp return anywhere else over time with exception of a full group in PoE.

[Vorhees]

Yep.  One of the best duo exp spots in the game all things considered is IC camp in POV.  SolRo exp is awful compared to it (and yes I've 2 boxed a bst / dru in SolRo, and it just doesn't compare).  I think I was getting around an AA every 40-45 minutes when I used to hunt there, but I can't remember if that was with the druid grouped or not.  Either way, I haven't seen anywhere that comes close to that duo, and really the only groups I've been in that that can come close that are PoEarth exp, and probably GoD trials 5/6.  Only thing SolRo would be better for is the ornate that drops there, but exp-wise it's pretty so-so in my opinion (and that's being kind  :D).

And the druid cheal is good enough for most things.  At some point it becomes how good your bst is, not so much how good your druid can heal.  My bst/dru have duoed stuff in every EP zone but air, so I wouldn't say that combo only takes you thru tier 2.  Plus, when stuff becomes too hard to tank, you can turn that duo into a pretty nice kite group (ie, stuff in the second field in PoFire).

[Longfanz]

Heh, if I wanted to kite mobs I'd be at the tables.  Again, depending on your gear/DPS, PoV might possibly be a better exp return, but I've tried both and can do considerably better exp and lootwise in SolRo.  I can see it being more difficult and a lesser exp return if you have no means of pax and dealing with the higher healing costs of tanking 2 at a time with a druid healing, but as I said, with a cleric it's easily done.  PoFire field 1 is about the same level of mobs and exp return as PoV, however it's also one of the lowest in the elementals due to mob level and hps.

I used to 2 box in BoT as well, but the sheer amount of stupidity in /ooc and training all the way to the ZO rather than clicking a portal up to bees just became to stupid to deal with.  Hello KC 2.0.  However, I have successfully killed all but the earth wing boss just for S&G's as well as sellable drops.  Earth wing boss just is too much of a pain with the randomness of his 1500DD procs.  I could be wrong, but even with 350+ to all resists I have yet to resist them, so I'm not sure you can.

It really comes down to equipment and classes involved, along with potential flagging when deciding who can be the best duo partner for a bst.  I duo'd from about 50-62 with my wife's druid, but once I hit 65 and started advancing past the teir 2 planes(PoV) the efficiency of the bst/cleric combo just won out for me.  Besides, when my wife playes her druid with me, she'd rather be doing damage than spending horrible amounts of mana in comparision healing me, especially considering most raiding druids specialized in Evoc.

[Pussinbootz]

Alt is the way to go, and every druid in my Guild has gone that route.

Don't forget the GoD heal, with some AA and IH, SH etc etc is around 2700 hp heal in 2.8 seconds.

[Longfanz]

/shrug, most every druid on my guild is Evoc as we prefer to use clerics to heal and druids for DPS.  Every once in a while we have druids in a heal rot or covering a ramp tank, but otherwise their job is DPS.  The amount of times this happens however doesn't support changing to atl spec though, as most laugh at the idea.  I suppose with an alt spec druid it might be a little better as a duo partner, but still not up to par with a cleric if all you need is a healer, and then doubling the problems as now it costs even more mana to deal damage.  

So, they end up being a lesser healer AND a lesser nuker.  To each their own I suppose.

[Vorhees]

Like I said, I've duoed tons of places, and rarely found a place where a druid couldn't heal me as well as a cleric would be able to.  And I don't see how anyone who's done POV IC, with a druid DC pet hasted, can say SolRo is better / faster exp with a 2 boxed cleric.  Because it's not.

And the first field in fire doesn't compare to it exp-wise either.  I just listed that since you said starting at SolRo, a druid just can't keep up healing.  And that's wrong.  My druid could cheal me all day long in POV, SolRo, Pofire 1st field, etc etc.  Mana isn't the issue.  The only time a druid will pale in comparison to a cle healing wise in this type of situation is when you are killing something where the 4770 or whatever it is dru cheal just ain't enough.  And those times are few and far between really.  In a couple of years, the only mob that I've tried with my dru (and failed) that I could beat with a cleric healing me instead was that Wayward Wyvern (hits for 900's, can only be slightly slowed, does a 1250 AE every 15-20 seconds I think).

[Longfanz]

I guess you keep missing the part where I mentioned this choice is a personal preference.

[Vorhees]

If it's your preference to play a cle alongside your bst, that's np.  I was disputing your comments about a druid not being able to handle healing past tier 2, which just isn't true.

[Tastian]

"The only time a druid will pale in comparison to a cle healing wise in this type of situation is when you are killing something where the 4770 or whatever it is dru cheal just ain't enough. "

It's not just a case where it's "not enough" it's a case where the cleric is just far more efficent.  It's very common for me to land CH's on my beastlord for ~6k in just normal exp sessions well messing around and parsing or whatever.  The druid simply has to do more healing and use more mana to keep the beastlord alive than what a cleric can.  It absolutely comes down to situation though.  A DC pet, indoors for paci verse outdoors where harmony works, HPs of the beastlord, etc.  Druids have the ports and snare that really helps.  I always thought about going back to a dru/bst combo over my clr/bst combo, but I just kept finding random situations where I'd rather have my cleric than my druid there.  That obviously won't be true for everyone, but it is true for some.  YAY for personal preferance again hehe.

[Vidyne]

Long, I can duo Valorian Guardians in HOH and even solo one or two provided I back off at the right times and heal(duoing with a 140aa cleric with FT10 or 11, not solro flagged yet tho or ele, shes a good friend, and we dont duo much, but used to group there).  We used to have 5 of us(all around 80-150aa) there, Pally, Clr, Chanty, Mage, Bst, and wed clear spawns fast at Human Halls in HoH.  The mage and chanter have left game for a while and will probably jump to EQ2, so a time or two ive duoed with the cleric there still, as the pally had his play time reduced due to RL.  We did ok, it was an aa every hr and 45min-2hr or so...  we could get an aa every 70min or so with our 5 person group.

I thought about duoing and have thought alot on it for higher planes... but changed my mind, when the Protectors really really took my life down fast(I either need higher AC or something...) when slowing for a group there.

I can tank Valorians very very very easily, and cleric never goes oom or even lom on them, and we clear about 7 pops in HoH together before repops.  At times ill get hit for max hard and doubled a time or two and it looks rough, but we manage.

My questions is just...  SolRo Protectors seem to hit more often for max, and the max is a decent bit higher(20%).  Seem to triple more, and have a bit more HP(or do they really?).  War had 50aa or so, wiz had 30aa, clr had 90aa, rogue had 50aa~, and the other I forget what class he was.  it took us quite a while to drop them, about as long as krigers in BoT, maybe not quite that long, but longer than millitis or valorian guards I think.

I get around 6500hp buffed, and have 1150AC or so i think, have LR5 and ID5.  Would we do ok in SolRo if we do ok in HoH, providing she gets flagged...

Not to derail this topic anymore..

For most Beastlords, I think Druid is a fine option as a second acct char, for upper end bstlords wanting to exp in solro, I could see advantages of a cleric.  A beastlord really... is his own group in himself, just a little weak in some areas, but can really go with anyone... he can buff like a shaman, slow, offtank, or tank, the only thing he really cant do is heal, he even has a mana regen buff, he is truely... a jack of all trades.  Ive duoed with rangers very nicely and we can kill stuff with pet tanking or me.  Ive duoed with clerics and druids with good results.  Ive kited with necros and was a decent dps boost to them(tho they still do most of the damage).  Magician is about like the ranger, cept nukes and a pet instead of snare and huge bow dps.  
We dont duo very well with tank classes I think, maybe Paladin.. .but generally we arent a good healer type.  Rogues ive never tried.
Shaman is kinda redundant but root is nice and healing... a druid would probably do just as good and offer more.  Wizard I wouldnt like as much as magician, but would do well too.  Enchanter can DC or Charm and do alot with us, but will probably prefer charm soloing.  Bards could kite well with us.  Another beastlord is also a good option(but for 2boxing will probably be boring i guess), but having 2x the power of your bst there would be nice.
I dont think there is a class that is bad for us duoing... unless its monk/rogue/warrior and maybe SK(could kite)/Paladin(can heal self pretty well)

[a_moss_snake_001]

My personal preference is BST/DRU and if you decide to 3-box I have never found a combo that offers as much versatility as BST/DRU/BRD (supreme utility) or BST/DRU/NEC (devastating, truly devastating).

BST/DRU is probably the most solid duo in the game, several other combos come close but don't quite manage to touch that level of dps, utility, cc and flexibility in ALL zones.