Not A Guide: Druid Background (Pre EGC)

[Yalah]

This is not a guide or step by step planner. It's just some notes from leveling an alt character that I thought new players might find helpful. I'll go through my thoughts and goals so others can see what I think about and how I decide to progress and rank up. This will be lots of words and is not for everyone (it's not a guide after all). I will include a TLDR on all posts.

This, Not a Guide, will only focus on PvE content as that is what is required to hit rank 50. I'm only focusing on ranking up. If I say a skill is good/useful it's only in the PvE context or to rank up.

TLDR: Human, Druid, with 18 STR/CON/WIS. (You might want to read the reasons for the race in non TLDR.) Trying to stick to Mace Fighting, but we'll see. END TLDR

Introduction: I will not be using any help or items from my other characters so it is a fair representation of a new player starting the game. I will post updates as replies to this thread as I continue forward and go as long as I feel like I'm making progress or until I feel like the only thing left to hit rank 50 is pure grinding. For this Not a Guide, I will not have actual newbie protection, but I will simulate/comment as if I do. If any PvP occurs during the first 40 hours/80k occurs, I'll adjust times and numbers as if the PvP did not happen.

I wont refuse to party with people, but I will try to make sure that if I do, it's someone that is around the same level as I am, and not some uber character just powering me through.

I have just finished the Gladiator version of Not a Guide and I still feel like Mages have pretty good representation in terms of "general community knowledge." I intended my second Not a Guide to be Bowman, but the archery change patch got delayed so I've decided to do Druid. The reason for this is that I feel like it's a very difficult background for truly new people while experienced players can be successful with any of the backgrounds. (I totally didn't get guilted into it.) I'll be able to show people how I think about progression while also demonstrating on what I consider to be a difficult background for totally new players.

For weapons: I will do my very best to stick with Maces, but the only promise that I will give is that I will give them an earnest try before switching out of them, if I do switch. My issue with maces is that I feel like their damage is behind some of the other weapons, but this will be a chance for me to push them and find out.

For stats: Because I want to "stay true" to the initial feel of the Druid background (meaning, I do not want to start as one background and immediately switch to something I know works), there's not a lot of wiggle room on stats. Maces use STR and Druidcraft spells scale off WIS. I don't know how many Druidcraft spells I will actually use, but WIS has a lot of spell options and I will definitely use them.

• CON will help with Bandage healing, and health. That's about it. None of the CON skills are worth it for us when we have WIS. I feel like we're going to be lacking in terms of damage which makes me want CON even more.
• DEX would give attack speed and evasion. The latter being of lesser importance if we end up in Chainmail (which we might).
• INT is an option since we're already committing to having a spell channeling weapon, but I feel like that pushes us into just being a mage.
• PER as a stat, PER gives us crit chance and accuracy for our auto attacks. All of our spells will hit as long as we land them, but Accuracy will still dictate how long many of our debuffs last.

I listed out all of the options because I felt obligated to do so, but in my mind the only choice is CON. I feel like we're going to be low on damage and need the CON to help us hold out. I may try out other options to up my damage, but it's CON for now.

For race: I'm not sure there are clear top choice so I'll list them all out.

• Humans are good because it would allow me a +18 in the three stats that I want while having 8 in the rest. Luck is also a bonus for all combat related rolls. Humans also have two more total attribute points to spend over any of the Wildfolk races. In this specific build, the flexible 18 scores is nice because I may end up respecing at some point pending balancing changes.
• Iridra, at first glance, look like a weaker Human... And they kinda are. I would only be able to get 17 max in STR and CON and 18 in WIS while having 8 in the others. I would only get 50 luck, but I would gain 5 HP and 5 Mana regen as well as the use of Primal Form. Iridra's Primal Form gives +200 mana and health regen for about 10 seconds. They have 5 Primal Form charges which can only be charged on Terra.
• Chadra would allow me 18 in STR and CON, but only a 16 in WIS and also a 6 in INT. A lot of people downplay the "less stats" penalty of the Wildfolk when talking about how OP they are, but when your two less stats are both in mana, you can really feel it if you're doing anything that is mana intensive. I think this is the weakest option.
• Erwydra would get me an 18 WIS, but only a 16 in STR and CON. It would allow me a 10 in INT and the passives of Erwydra are focused on spell casting which is more useful if you wanted to make a more casting focused Druid, but WIS damage spells are more limited.

I don't think Chadra are a good option and I would not take Erwydra because the benefits are not really utilized by our character goal (mostly in that we're not going INT and will have limited spell damage opportunities). Comparing the two remaining: Human will give you 18 STR/CON and 150 Luck versus Iridra with 17 STR/CON, +5 mana/hp regen, 50 Luck, and the Primal Form.

The extra regen is nice, but lessened by Quick Rest. The Primal Form can definitely save your ass, if you remember you have it, but I think the base Human is probably the stronger option. I'm choosing Human.

That's about it for the introduction. From here on out, I'll probably make 1-2 posts a day talking about my general goals and what I actually managed to accomplish.

[Yalah]

Day 1 Plan:

TLDR: Make 2k while looking for house plots that might work well for metal with a good number of trees. Trying to 100% Goblins and both their POI. Not rage quitting Druid. End TLDR

I would usually decide if I wanted to just buy crafted gear or craft them myself, but I'm concerned that I wont be able to find enough wood options since they're in less of a demand, and thus less crafted/refined, than metal would be. (They might be even easier since there's less demand.) This makes me think that I might end up with a house sooner rather than later. So...

Looking for a house location: Because I want to use spells and I'm going to give Mace Fighting a serious attempt, my weapon options are limited. The only 2h option I have is Quarterstaff, and my 1h Option is a Mace/Club and a Round Shield. I think the quarterstaff is where I'll end up being because the damage is so much higher and it has better block chance than a 1h and shield. (Quarterstaff will provide less imbue slots compared to 1h/shield). This means wood. The best weapon wood for my build will be Ironwood which is on both planets and is kinda spread around. Meaning my house location, as far as wood goes, is not too important as long as there are a good number of trees around that I can use for Charcoal Pits (Wood Tar).

Since the availability of wood is not super important and I think I might end up in Chainmail, my house options might end up more focused on ore and coal availability. Ideally, I would not craft any Chainmail out of less than Steel or Bronze (everything less takes a hit in durability). Ideally, it would be Blood Iron (more physical resists) or even better Mithril (more magic resists, more durability, and less encumbrance).

I do have a location in mind, but I'll have to see what the open lots look like once I'm in game. Even with a house, buying my equipment is still an option.

Back to the plan: My first real milestone will be 2k for a house and deciding where I want to put it.

The next thing I think about is what abilities I want to focus on. Since WIS spell casting is on the table, I got options. Of note, collecting skills will likely be broken into three categories. Aerhen before Terra, Terra, and Aerhen post Terra. The WIS heavy schools are Abjuration, Illusionism, Necromancy, Restoration, Druidcraft, and Witchcraft. WIS/STR will be Leadership and STR will be Warfare and Mace Fighting.

It's worth noting that I genuinely do not know what build I want by the end of this and I will very likely need to test out various things. In an effort from keep from listing out half the abilities in the game, in this one post, I'm just going to list things that might come up in Day 1 or are otherwise "Aerhen before Terra." You'll have to rely on future posts to see what I find is or is not working.

From Goblins: Bond of Agony, Protection from Poison, Cure Poison, Cure Wounds, Empower, Hunter's Mark.
From Bandits: Globe of Spell Protection, Protection from Fire/Cold/Electricity, Mind Strike, Shimmering Sphere, Relocate, Concussive Strike, Split Earth, Spine Breaker Blow.

Abjuration: Before we go to Terra, it would be good to get Protection from Poison, Goblin Death Shaman (40), and Protection from Acid, Skeletal Mage (40).
Illusionism: Fear is solid if I can kill Crawling Horror (20).
Necromancy: Life Drain, Vampiric Spider (60). Mana Drain, Black Widow/Hatchling (60). I really don't think these are good, but I just want to test them out.
Warfare: Battle Jump, Ghoul/Wolf Spider (40).
Druidcraft: Barbed Skin, Sproutling (40).

There's a fair amount of stuff that we want or might be good, but a huge chunk of it comes right from Goblins and Bandits (and more that I did not list). Both of these we will be getting to 100% on them all. (We might not 100% bandits until we hit Terra.)

[Yalah]

Day 1 Results:

TLDR: 4 hours of farming and 2 of house building for 6 total hours. 40k KP, rank 13, and 3k left in the bank. Felt slow, but comparable numbers to the Gladiator which felt "way better than expected." Picked up a Quarterstaff, some miscellaneous loot, and four skills that I swapped in. No loot worth mentioning. END TLDR

I'd really like to complain about how bad Day 1 went, but based on my Gladiator Not a Guide, it went just as well, but it felt suuuuuuuuuper slow. The Druid starts with Sprouting Pulse (root) and Crushing Roots (damage to rooted) and they feel terrible to use. The root is AoE in a line, which can be good, but as a new character, fighting multiple mobs at once is pretty rough. Crushing Root sounds good, but it's single target and you're very lucky if you can get two casts of it off per use of your root.

Verdant Regrowth is a very good regen skill that also makes you immune to bleeds. Heavy Blow is a toggle skill that is passive damage. Crushing Assault is your one mace ability. It's not bad if you're fighting groups of mobs, but it's kinda terrible against a single target. All this means that you're going to spend a whole lot of time doing nothing but auto attacks. My advice is find skills to replace basically all of the starting ones as soon as you can. Gripe over, back to the results...

Made a full Hide set in the tutorial. Post tutorial, I immediately checked the market in the starter town (I picked north) for buy orders that paid well. I also checked for the prices around Aerhen for a Quarterstaff (Using the Find / Buy Item tab). I went horse hunting east, but I ran into some Bandits almost immediately. I farmed them a quick 40g needed to buy a horse and returned to town. From here on out, I just kept everything I found in my inventory except for gold that I banked when I could.

Remember to collect every different resource at least once to get the knowledge (you don't have to finish, you just need to start it). That's a ton of free KP and it will come much faster than from monsters when you're first starting out.

After I bought my Horse, I rode over to Cactus Keep because it had the cheapest Quarterstaves on Aerhen at 500g. I killed and collected on the way, but was still short so I farmed some materials and goblin chest events in the area until I could buy my quarterstaff. I had about 200g in the bank after buying my staff.

I decided to ride/kill/collect my way over to Yggbrasil, which had crap buy orders. At this point I decided to actually do some research on buy orders before I just rode around. To make a long story short, I headed down towards the southern starter town where the nearby cities were actually paying worthwhile prices for items I was farming (read as, not 1g each).

Got down there and ended up with about 1500g. I was feeling pretty miserable with my Druid starting skills and did not feel like farming goblins until I had some better skills. I decided to pick up the southern Goblin POIs and farm Hunter's Mark from Goblin Trappers (80). It didn't make Druid more fun, but it did stop me from missing so many auto attacks. While I was there I also picked up Cure Wounds. I added both of these to my hotbar.

This put me up around 2500g and I decided to go farm some Bandits while heading for my home's potential location. I basically just killed random bandit spawns and bandit chest events on my way to the harbor. I picked up Mind Strike and Concussive Strike which allowed me to drop those roots and switch my skills to the following:

I am not happy with these skills, but I had 3k gold on me and no excuse not to take a boat and start my house. House building recap sounds about as fun to write as it would to read so lets just say the house it build with everything I need for metal and wood, plus a few extras.

My talents look like so:

I started with Mana Regen until I had enough points to get into the Two handed damage talents. I switched to damage and then went back into mana regen.

I'm still wearing the hide set I started with and my quarterstaff. I ended up at 40k KP, rank 13, and about 3k in gold (The buy orders on Aerhen, at least around the starter towns, were not very good.) I've done no prep for tomorrow!

[Yalah]

Day 2 Plans:

TLDR: Pick up a couple of handy/important skills from Aerhen before going to Terra for an extended stay. 100% Bandits and their POI then head to Groko's and try to clear as much as possible. Try to pickup a couple of Mace skills to see if it improves the feel of using maces. Make an alt and run it out to the my house on Aerhen so that it can cycle my charcoal pit while I am on Terra. END TLDR

I felt like Day 1 was slow, but for the time spent farming, it wasn't. I'd like to try to get some more of the Mace skills to see if they feel better and improve the gameplay for me. In terms of farming, I need to focus on bandits to get the mace skills from them (among other skills). If you have newbie protection, I would suggest you just stay on Aerhen and go through both bandit camps to get their POI and gain knowledge. For you, there's no reason to go to Terra yet. I'm going to go to Terra because I don't have the newbie protection and I'm highly confident that any red with a brain cell could kite this build out with absolutely nothing I could do to escape or kill them.

Whatever choice you make is fine and it wont matter too much in the long term. Either way, before moving on to Bandits, or to Terra, I would suggest you get Protection from Poison from the Goblin Death Shamans (40). If you don't want to do this, Bloodvein Tea (Aerhen) or Arnica Tea (Terra) will clear poisons.

One last thing, whenever you do choose to go to Terra, you should run an alt out to your house so that they can handle whatever is going on there while you're on the other world. For me that means cycling my Charcoal Pile so I can build up some Wood Tar without having to travel back and forth.

Mace Skills:

• Spine Breaker Blow can be gained from Bandit Ruffians or Elder Mountain Trolls at 80, but we'll just get it from the bandit because it's easier and will be done first anyway.
• Split Earth can most easily be gained from Bandit Leaders at 100.
• Resonating Blow is only available on Terra and Elder Mountain Troll is probably the best target since it give it as 20 and gives Aura of Oppression at 40.

I don't have high hopes given the long cooldowns on these abilities, but I'm going to give them a try. In addition to Mace skills, I would not mind getting Protection from Acid from Skeletal Mages (40) for Terra. I do want more skills than this (and what bandits give), but I highly doubt I will have enough time to get them today.

On Gear:
I would like to get a Leather Set going, with Bear helm, and have a backup Quarterstaff. I also want to get some Mana regen imbues, a STR neck imbue, and a life or mana leech for the staves. I can do all of this at my house, before Terra, but it's going to depend on what is available in the Aerhen markets that are close enough to be worth going to. I might try out some more imbues, while still avoiding proficiency imbues since I think those will be nerfed and thus not useful for a long term, Not a Guide. If I can't find/buy stuff on Aerhen, I'll just buy it on Terra.

On Talents:
If the Mana Regen imbues feel good, I'm probably going to go down Armor Pen or Crit for more damage.

I really was not prepared to go to Terra so early so I don't have targeted skills planned out for there. I do know that I will be killing any Sproutling that I see to get Barbed Skin (40). In fact, I may specifically target them first thing. On not planning skills, I think I will be okay because Bandits will eat up enough time that I can plan for Terra skills later.

[Yalah]

Day 2 Results:

TLDR: It was a mess. 8 hours on Day 2, 85k KP, rank 21, ~9k in the bank. I basically spent a huge chunk of time running around to various locations due to poor planning. I did get a full new set of gear and imbues to match. I also picked up some good skills to help me in the future. END TLDR

Edit: In Hindsight, I probably should not have built my house on Day 1. The markets are good enough that I could have just bought everything and been fine going into day 2. Building the house on Day 1 took up time I could have used farming and caused me to spend a lot of time and gold (harbors) coming and going from the house on both days. I don't think it is wrong to build a house so early, but keep in mind that it's going to be a big chunk of time invested.

Today was a shitshow worthy of legend and it was all my poor planning. I'm going to cut most of that out and try to just stick with important stuff, but know that these 8 hours should have been 5-6 tops. This will be a long one, I've tried to cut it down without skipping events that matter.

I started the day by checking the cost of various items (leather sets, Ironwood, imbue materials, and so on) both on Aerhen and Terra. I decided that even though leather sets were dirt cheap on Terra, I would run a batch of 40 leather at my house to "save some money" and hunt down some final skills I wanted on Aerhen while that was happening (2 hours to process). From here until the end of the day, I basically used the same skills from the 2nd of Day 1. I put my talents into finishing the Mana Regen nodes and then got Armor Penetration.

At this point I still had my Hide Set, basic Quarterstaff, and talents from the end of Day 1. I set out to kill Moose and Polar Bears around my house for the hide and a bear head for a helmet and got my leather going. I also killed Vampiric Spiders to get Life Drain (60). Then I decided I wanted to try killing a Jotunn Cleric because they teach Physical Recovery (60) which isn't a great heal, but it does remove most physical debuffs which can be pretty handy. I think I probably could have killed them, but it would have been close and was slow. I gave up and on my way to the nearest Harbor spotted a couple Elder Mountain Trolls.

Elder Mountain Troll teach Resonating Blow (20) and Aura of Oppression (40). I knew I would want both of these eventually so I decided to give them a try. It was slow, but I managed to kill 2 of them. I really wanted to head to Terra once my Leather was ready so I decided to finish off the trolls once I get to Terra. My main goal, before going to Terra, was to get Protection from Poison from Goblin Death Shamans (40). This is where I started to go wrong.1

When I got to the Harbor, I decided to go to the southern Goblin POI, "because there might be less people." After the boat, instead of being focused on my goal, I was still in "Day 1 mode." I stopped to gather random stuff that sold well, stopped to kill random monsters, etc. That's fine, but I was trying to stick to a time limit so I should have skipped all of that. I did get Mana Drain (60) from Black Widows.

Southern Goblins POI was packed. I was getting KP, but not from what I wanted. I decided to collect the southern POI and go to the north camp where I knew of a good set of spawns for the Goblin Death Shamans. Again, I was in Day 1 mode. I went way out of my way to stop at cities to try and sell stuff, etc etc. It took forever to finally hit the northern POI. I got Protection from Poison (40) from the Death Shamans and I also got Cure Poison (60) and Empower (80) From Goblin Medics. I gathered the POI northern Goblin POI. At this point in time, I should have went directly from Northern Goblins to the Stargate, but instead I went back to my house for that f'ing 40 leather, "to save money."

Northern Goblins -> Harbor -> House (40 leather and a Bear head) -> Harbor -> Stargate. To save money on items that were being sold at or below cost on Terra. Poor Planning. At 3.5 hours I caught the Stargate to Terra (I barely had to wait so that was good). I had 60k KP at this point.

Terra:
My plan on getting to Terra was to buy 4 Ironwood boards (750 each) and the reagents I needed for imbues. Then find a place where I could craft my leather set, quarterstaff, and do my imbues. Because I needed all of the KP from plants and such, I decided to just ride to the city with the wood so I could get KP from resources and monsters. I did target Sproutlings to get Barbed Skin (40). This took a long time, but I don't think it was wasted. You need those KP and it helped me collect some reagents that I would not have to buy.

During this time I got Spine Breaker Blow from Bandit Ruffians (80) and Shimmering Sphere (60) from Archmage Outcasts. I then switched up my skills to the following and got Resonating Blow (20) and Aura of Oppression (40) from Elder Mountain Trolls and then Glass Barrier (80) from Obsidian Crabs.

(You'll notice a lack of Mace Fighting skills.)

I tried two different cities before I found someone present that would make me a (temporary) citizen so I could do the crafting (I'm not sure they knew it was temporary, heh). This is where I hit the first problem on Terra. I didn't have Primitive Quarterstaff up to 2/4 -> a bunch of time spent doing that. I knew they wouldn't give me Trusted Citizen status to use the imbuing table so I left the city (physically and as a citizen) Luckily I found someone on their nearby plot that gave me (knowingly temporary) access to their imbuing table for 1.8k (which is what I had on me).

This is the gear and reagents I used.

Armor:
T2 Mana Regen: Anthuruim, Anthurium, Bluth Sparks, Primordial Dust, Bitterleaf.
T2 Evasion: Beast Blood, Heavy Dust, Passion Flower Stems, Storm Essence, Mandrake Root
Weapon:
T2 Life Steal: Necrotic Bone, Boar Tusk, Living Wood, Troll Liver, Frog Tongue.
T2 Critical Chance: Angel's Trumpets, Animal Bone, Animal Bone, Termidian Bile, Wolfsbane
Necklace:
T2 Strength: Quicksilver, Mandrake, Troll Liver, Heavy Dust, Holy Water.
T2 Evasion: Beast Blood, Heavy Dust, Passion Flower Stems, Storm Essence, Mandrake Root

Mana Regen is so I can drop the talent points from there to something more damage related. Life Steal is for some sustain, STR is obvious. Crit Chance is for more damage. I chose Evasion (T2 gives 200) basically because I feel like my damage is lacking. What it will do is allow me to cut out some healing spells and add more damage/utility back onto my hotbar. In theory anyway.

I was getting very close to the end of the day, but I decided to put a build together and see what I could handle.

The above is not optimal in any way. Do not copy it. I was tired and throwing shit at the wall, there are obvious mistakes/improvements. That being said, I was able to solo kill Colossal Huskworms, Wild Behemuts, Arboreal Dragonlings, Treants, and every treehugger Ogre besides Witch (need more magic defense) and Archdruid (did not try). Killing was very slow. Do not copy. It will not be fun. I am only including it because it did work.

I ended Day 2 after 8 hours (14 total), with 85k KP, rank 21, and about 9k in the bank. My first real gear upgrade is complete and I'm in a good spot to really bang out some KP gains.

[Yalah]

Day 3 Plans:

TLDR: 100% Groko and both of their POI. If time remains head towards Bandits for the same. I will experiment with a couple of different builds to see if Mace Fighting is worth it. END TLDR

The description for today is pretty basic. Start at the bottom level POIs and work my way up. Both Groko camps into Bandits if I have time.

While I am not a huge fan of Mace Fighting, so far, the skills, and even the Quarterstaff, do lend themselves towards AOE farming. Powering through these camps of low level monsters might be the place where they shine. I plan to start out with a Mace Fighting heavy build and see how it goes.

I think this is what I will start out with for the low level farming and I will make adjustments from there.

Glass Barrier is not a WIS based skill and it is not a lot of damage, but it is an AOE and this build is specifically for farming weaker monsters. Any of the various Cloak of <element> spells would have the same basic purpose (but will no offer the synergy talked about in the next paragraph). Verdant Regrowth covers bleeds and Protection from Poison will cover those. Both are very common effects on Terra. When you don't need Protection from Poison, toggle it off.

The only known change I will try is swapping Bloodlust in for Concussive Strike. I will get this either from Groko Warriors (60) or Sproutlings (80). The reason we can try this is because Glass Barrier and Barbed Skin both apply bleeds. It should work, but I don't know that it will actually be good. Bandit Leaders will teach Split Earth (100). I'll also test this out.

Additional skills I'm looking for, but probably not seeking out, yet. (From monsters I could fight today):
From Bandits: Globe of Spell Protection, Protection from Fire/Cold/Electricity.
Grokoton Sage: Mass Cure Wounds (40), Shatter Wards (60), Globe of Spell Protection (80)
Battle Jump: Giant Bullfrog (50) and Forest Troll (80) (I probably should have gotten this from Wolf Spiders on Aerhen).
Challenge: Groko Chieftan (80)

I'm starting the day with the following talents. Based on testing, I am planning on keeping the first 1-4 mana regen nodes and then I will probably move into crit.

One final note: The conditions today is where I expect Mace Fighting to excel. If it does not do so today, then I'm probably going to look at dropping it. I may drop it anyway. If I do drop it, I'd end up going Sword, Fencing, or Daggers. And then with or without a shield. I have not thought about it in great detail yet.

[Yalah]

Day 3 Results:

TLDR: We found what Mace Fighting is good at. A little under 6 hours, 190k KP, Rank 32, 36k in the bank. Both Groko areas, Bandits, and finished up with Termidians. All POI and all monsters to 100%. Warlock Glove and Mace recipes. Pyromancy and Venomancy Orbs. (Not counted in the gold total.) END TLDR

I said in the plan for today that Mace Fighting seemed to be targeted towards AOE farming and that proved true as you'll see from the numbers from today. I started with with a Forest Troll test for the new build. I could handle 3 with little issue and at that point I knew I was going to blast the lower level areas.

I Started with and finished the southern Groko area and my limit was basically whatever I could pull to my location. I kept Protection From Poison off until I needed it. It probably would have been easier to just use Cure Poison since I had that skill anyway. Either of the Poison removal teas would have worked too. (I was too lazy to change it.) After I finished southern Groko, I swapped Concussive Strike out for Bloodlust. I found that 3 points into Mana Regen was a good balance and started putting the rest into Crit Chance/Damage.

Bandits were up next and my limit was still just about whatever I could pull to me. I was still smart about pulling where I'd focus mages and archers first and position so that my AOE was hitting everything. I did die once when I got a lag spike right as I jumped a fire mage pack. I then went to the northern Groko area where I mostly rode through for the POI, only stopping to 100% a few things I needed. At this stage I was only 4 hours in and decided to head to Termidians.

On my way, I finished off the small island Bandit POI (that I totally didn't forget existed) and went to Termidians. I would have used Protection from Acid instead of Poison, if I'd gotten it on Aerhen before coming to Terra. It would have been a nice quality of life improvement and saved me from my one death when I got a little over zealous with a Termidian Matron and about 5 larva all at once. Other than the Matrons, my limit was basically everything I could pull to me.

Bloodlust with Glass Barrier and Barbed Skin worked well, but I'm not certain I needed it with the 1000 Evasion on a Leather set (and 11 encumbrance). Dropping any of those for one solid healing spell and I think I would have been just fine. I did not use Split Earth at all, even to test. Everything was going very smoothly and I didn't feel like stopping to test it. The 24 second cooldown does concern me though.

I plan to use this build for all the AoE farming that I can think of. I will test Split Earth as well. I do not think this build will hold up against tougher monsters that I need to kill one at a time, but we'll see.

I ended the day using these skills:

And I finished with these talents:

I ended Day 3 after 6 hours (20 total), with 190k KP, Rank 32, and 36k in the bank. Plus Warlock Glove and Mace recipes. Pyromancy and Venomancy Orbs. (Not counted in the gold total.)

[Yalah]

Day 3 BONUS EDITION:

No TLDR cause this will be short. I was feeling good from earlier and decided to get naked... And kill some Greater Woodland Wisps for Healing Wave (20) and Absorb Elements (40). I rotated between 3 camps with the Greater Wisps and it took about 20 minutes. (It would take you longer to find the camps. I already knew where a bunch were.) Healing Wave is a nice mid range heal while I got Absorb Elements basically just because I thought I might try it somewhere.

I made a Primitive Staff and got otherwise naked. I went with these skills:

I used Mind Strike to pull the wisps out of their packs. Shimmering Sphere was just extra damage (be careful of it's bounce). Life Steal was also just damage. You can ignore all of the other skills. Some just weren't used (like healing) and the others were for testing something else.

These were the talents I went with for this:

The entire WIS tree was just for WIS. You can Ignore Cantrip Expert and Cantrip Master. I was hoping I would get a bump to Lifesteal Damage, I did not.

If you have Death Circle is can also be nice cause it will block healing and you will kill the Greaters a little faster. (I would cast it somewhere around the first time you hit 50%.) Crawling Horror/Ogre Witch (80).

[Yalah]

Day 4 Plan:

TLDR: Headed Back to Aerhen and taking materials and reagents to make a couple more Leather Sets that should carry me to the end of this Not a Guide. I still need to 100% Goblins, but they might be packed. Bandit POI and or Elementals are next up. KP farming day after I get everything to the house. END TLDR

At the end of the Day 3 BONUS EDITION, I popped over to Ogre to see if I could clear them. I could, but it was slower than I was hoping for (but still better than that Life Drain thing I did before). If I stay on Terra, my options are some combination riding around getting POI, fighting stuff that is still kind of slow for me to kill, or getting knowledge on stuff that isn't always concentrated (read as, easy to farm up knowledge). I feel very strongly that Mace Fighting excels at AoE farming and I'm just not able to do that with the strongest monsters (at least with my current gear). I do want to kill Colossal Huskworms to get Magic Reflection (80), but that is mostly to test the skill, not because I need it for a plan.

Ultimately, I think my best bet is to load up with loot and go back to my house on Aerhen. There is still some easy KP to get there from Goblins, Bandit POI, miscellaneous POI, and the Elementals and their POI. What I would like to bring back is some Reptile and Mountain Dragon Skin to make a couple of Leather sets that will hopefully push me through to the end of this Not a Guide. I also want to be sure to bring back enough reagents to imbue the sets and new weapon (see Day 3 for the reagents). I have the reptile skin and reagents just from hunting/gathering. I bought 50 (ignore that the image says 40) Mountain Dragon Skins (35 each) and 10 Vitriol (100 each). I had the reagents for the extracts already so I will bring them too.

I am planning to make normal Leather sets, but I might make a Ranger or Rogue set with the Mountain Dragon Leather just to double up on the defenses. A Ranger set has more physical defenses, which I kind of want, while the Rogue set has more magical defenses and a set bonus that is actually useful to me. I'm undecided on what I will do, but I might go with Rogue just to see if I can work the set bonus into a build. Either way, I'll need to get my Leather mastery up before I could craft them and since I did not plan on making T2 leather sets with this character, I don't have any hides saved.

Between last paragraph and here, I guess I've decided to try a T2 set (probably Rogue). After I get home, I need to put some leather on and grind hides while I gather a batch of metal to make an Extractor and Distiller. Then continue to grind hides while bringing home a batch of crystals. (All in that order.) Today might not be a KP heavy day, but I will be making progress on various fronts. I could just buy the hides and the oils, but then I'd still need the extractor and I need KP on everything that drops hides anyway. I also need to bring in some Ironwood for new staves.

So... I think the plan is, move a bunch of stuff home, start running batches of leather and farming more hides when I gather ore for extractor/distiller and get crystals for oil. Then once I have enough hides to run some loads with my alt, I can run out and do the KP stuff mentioned earlier.

Edit: When making long wagon runs, I will often take 8 cloth with me to the location, create a wagon there, and ride back with a wagon full of loot. Depending on the distance, it can be a lot quicker than hauling a wagon with you to the spot.

[Yalah]

Day 4 Results:

TLDR: Spend a massive amount of time completely rebuilding house and getting my crafting going. Managed to 100% Goblins. Finished at 244k KP, rank 37, and an additional 8k in the bank. END TLDR

Played this for about 8 hours today. A little over 6 of it was all of the crafting I described in the plans and also rebuilding my house from scratch because I needed more indoor room and could manage with less outdoor. Really trying to think of anything that came up during this process, but it was all what I planned (except the whole house thing).

For the last 2 hours I boated over to Goblins and then got them, and their four legged friends, all to 100%. There weren't a lot of people there and I continued with my, "everything you can pull" strategy. There are some bad combinations in there and I did die once on a 6-7 pull that involved a fire shaman, several enforcers (knock you around) and several cutthroats (who fear and tank my mana with the passives I had up). Not many people around so it wasn't bad at all.

I ran the following skills. I dropped Crushing Assault because the movement is just a pain in the ass given how hard it can be to get positioned. Battle Jump was included as a PvP choice to at least give me a shot.

These were my talents by the end of the night. I dropped mana regen nodes to get carry weight because I was packing very nearly 300kg of weight with all the warg hides that I picked up.

I ended Day 4 after 8 hours (28 total with 8-10 spent on the house/crafting), with 244k KP, Rank 37, and 40k+ in the bank (I forgot to write it down). Plus 2x Ranger Armor and one Battle Mage (something) recipes, and a Witchcraft Orb. (Not counted in the gold total.)

[Yalah]

Day 5 Plan:

TLDR: Make a plain leather and likely do the standard enchants that I listed on Day 3. Snag all of the Bandit POI then either hit the Undead areas or the various elemental areas for POI and kill knowledge. (The order is not super important.) I may also try to snipe Jotunn Clerics quickly at the start for Physical Recover (60). END TLDR

Nothing fancy today. I need to make a new set of gear so I will do that first, with Day 3 imbues. If I had more talent points I might drop some of the Evasion for additional Accuracy, but I don't think I will do that with this basic set. (I probably will in the future.)

Once that set is done the plan is Bandit POI (which are already 100% on kills) then head to Undead areas and or the various elemental areas. All of them will get hit on this Not a Guide, so the order isn't too important.

Because we have Spell Channeling, we can skip special armors or elemental imbues. Instead, we'll use Protection from <element> in combination with Globe of Spell Protection. The reason for the latter is that the elementals will use Shatter Wards and Pierce Magic which cancels our protection spells without the Globe of Spell Protection.

When doing undead, I would suggest Protection from Acid, but you can drop the Globe of Spell Protection. Dispel Magic from the Skeletal Priests should bypass it since it targets an area and not you as a target. (I've never actually tested.)

I'm not positive yet, but this will probably be close to my skills for the elementals:

Edit: This has been updated since the first post. I realized that two skills conflicted and that had a slight domino effect.

My talents for them will look similar to:

I may drop some crit for more mana regen.

[Yalah]

Day 5 Results:

TLDR: Everything went to plan. Finished at 302k KP, rank 41, and added about 30k to the bank. I did use two different builds, outlined below, for fighting elementals, and everything else. Both worked well. New set of gear and imbue shuffle. END TLDR:

Time played today is a little rough because I broke it up into several different chunks as I was working on other stuff. Lets call it 5 hours to be on the safe (upper limit) side. The first thing I did, with my old gear that was literally falling off my body, was hop over to Jotunn Clerics to get Physical Recovery (60). I targeted the chest events for them (which are good farming spots for KP or otherwise). As I said way up in Day 2, Physical Recovery clears a lot of the physical debuffs and is pretty handy when you start to stuff your hotbar with stuff. (I also did some hide farming to get my leather up to 2/4. Not quiet there yet, but I just need to do more processing.)

After that I made a new set of gear and started throwing imbues on it. I hinted about some imbue switching for my "final" set of gear, but decided to go ahead and do it now. The end result was 980 evasion and 630 base accuracy/1k with Feint up (which is often). I'll post all the build images and specifics down below.

In addition to the places I'll list after this, I spent a fair amount of time killing random monsters in the wild for their KP. Nothing specific or targeted, just whatever I came across and needed. First two stops were the bandit POI. Because I already had max knowledge on them, I spent more time here killing than I needed to. Between the two areas, I walked out with about 10k gold, an orb, and a recipe. Oh and a PvP kill.

The PvP encounter came as I was, on foot, training out of the last bandit POI towards the exit. A red saw me "in distress" with lots of aggro and attempted to take advantage of it. They initiated on me, but I was able to maintain distance because of Battle Jump, my Aura of Oppression, and them being more encumbered. My plan was to continue to chain aggro until I made it to the exit and use my speed advantage to dump all of the bandits onto the red.

I was relatively safe running out and they actually fled around and ahead of me to escape monster aggro, so I think the plan worked pretty well. Unfortunately, in the excitement, I forgot to swap my PvP toggle on after I also exited. I took a chunk of damage from them before remembering to turn it on and then we battled it out. I think they realized I was not what they signed on for and they tried to escape, but weren't able to get enough distance. It was a close fight, but I was victorious and sent em to jail (thanks for the 5k).

At the time I was rank 39 with the below gear/imbues and Physical Defense/Damage build. They are a fairly high placed pvper, rank 50, had a 2h axe with bear helm and chainmail. Fully imbued, but the only imbues that I remember is that they were 10/10 Axe Fighting. I have been worried about this build's pvp survivability, which is why I am keeping Battle Jump handy, but, at least in this case, it performed well despite my blunders. I felt much better when I realized they were 10/10 Axe Fighting.

Back to PvE. After Bandits, I swapped to the Magical Defense build and 100% the Ice Elementals and their POI and then went and gathered the Fire Elemental POI. The only monsters I bothered getting to 100% were Fire Primelings. All of the other monsters in this area can be finished on Terra.

I finished out the day at"5 hours" (33 total with 8-10 of that on house/crafting), with 302k KP, Rank 41, and I added about 30k to the bank (including the PvP money). Plus a Knife, Mace, and Cryo orb and, a Rogue Armor and Scholar boot recipe. (Value not added to gold totals.)

Current Gear: Reptile Hide for the leather just to get some more durability out of it. Quarterstaff is Ironwood.

Imbues (mats listed above unless listed below):
Armor: T2 mana regen and T2 evasion.
Weapon: T2 Lifesteal and T2 Accuracy Holy Water, Infused Embers, Moonbeam Flowers, Sneezeweed Pollen, Termidian Bile.
Necklace: T2 STR and T2 Accuracy

My skills and talents are split between, "Physical Defense with more damage," and, "Magic Defense." The latter is the build I use specifically for handling elementals.

Physical with Damage:


Physical with Damage notes:
Battle Jump is not needed for PvE, but it is pretty mandatory to have some kind of solid movement skill if you get attacked by another player. Protection from Poison was mostly when I was clearing Bandits and some spiders en route. I swapped it out for Healing Wave later on. (More healing was not needed, but it's a nice backup.)

STR tree is the same as standard (without the carry weight this time). Thick Skinned and Natural Shield to help even more with physical defenses. I drop some points out of Crit Damage to Push for Feint and The One. This setup gives me, with the new imbues, the 980 evasion and 630/1k Accuracy.

Magic Defense:


Magic Defense notes:
Battle Jump for the same reason as the Physical version. Protection from Fire is swapped out to the element needed. Globe of Spell Protections keeps those pesky elementals from nuking your Protection. Concussive Strikes because we have no source of bleed for Bloodlust (Glass Barrier cannot be used with Spell Protection).

The primary difference between the Physical Tree and this one is that I go all the way with magic resistance nodes. The very heavy reserved mana cost of this build caused me to pop some points into flat mana. I dropped points from Thick Skinned and Crit Damage.

[Yalah]

Day 6 Plan:

TLDR: Finish out Aerhen KP (Elementals, undead, and a poke at Jotunn). Then make my "final" equipment set for the return to Terra. It's looking like the imbues will be the same as the Day 5 set, but with Mountain Dragon Leather used for a Rogue Armor set. END TLDR

Day 6 plan is basically the Day 5 plan with different targets. I will definitely finish Storm Elementals to 100%. I'm not sure if I will do Crystals or not since they need some extra effort as a melee build. Skipping them will not heavily impact our goal of rank 50. I will hit all of the Undead POI, mostly out of a sense of completion, and get most of the undead to 100%.

The last area to hit will be Jotunn. I will snag all of their POI for sure, but I may get picky about which I try to 100%. Stormborn are almost certainly off the table, but I think my Day 5 set can handle all of the rest. If I have time I'll do all the prep for a return to Terra. Thinking ahead to my "final build" set, I'm leaning towards using the Mountain Dragon Leather for a Rogue Set, mostly because the rogue bonus is actually useful for me whereas the Ranger set bonus is completely unusable for me. There are two concerns that I have with this choice.

First, the Rogue Set will need much improved mana sustain to truly make it worthwhile. I already have T2 mana imbues so this means sinking points into the INT tree for Mana Regen. That is possible and I might not even need to sacrifice too much to make it happen. I also might need to reassess my skills to take better advantage of the lowered cooldowns. Second, the whole point of the Dragon Leather it to maximize my physical defenses to help me push the limit on soloing. The Ranger set has 100 more slashing, and 50 more piercing/crushing defenses.

Realistically, there's not much of a choice here. The way physical resistances scale, mean that the 100/50/50 defense loss wont be that large of as % damage taken increase and the potential of much quicker cooldowns might make some things valid that I've not even considered up until this point. It'll likely be Rogue and if it was the wrong choice, oh well.

[Yalah]

Day 6 Results:

TLDR: Aehren more or less finished. Elementals, undead, and Jotunn mostly complete. 357k kp, rank 47, added 30k to the bank. New Jotunn friendly build below. 5x orbs END TLDR

Started with Storm Elementals and had my second PvP encounter. This time a duo initiated on me while I was finishing a normal Storm Elemental. They came from above me so I had better vision than them. I looted my kill and then proceeded to immediately kite them into packs of monsters. Once again, my build made me basically safe from the monsters while the duo was getting beaten up. When they turned back out of the monsters, I took the opportunity to run like a bitch through more monsters.

I was never really in any danger, but my elemental killer build is not really what I want to PvP in and I had 12k and two orbs on me. After hitting a bank I went back out to 100% Storm and their POI. Then I took a few boats around to snag the remaining Undead POI and 100% everything but the ghouls and horrors (they're not common enough for me to want to farm and I don't need the KP).

After that I decided to give Crystal Elementals a try with my magic defense talents and these for skills:

I didn't really need Globe of Spell Protection (since I wasn't using anything they could dispell, but it gives flat magic resistance so I kept it. The important bit is Dispel Magic. This can remove the Crystal Skin buff from the elemental and allow a melee to kill them without the mana drain. It's not a 100% chance to dispel so I just cast it until it went off and then attacked. The elementals will recast skin, but it has a channel time and you can use Shockwave to stun them and keep it off. (Shockwave has the same cooldown as skin.)

I tried the Greater Crystals and they shit on me pretty hard. After the second try I just bailed because I didn't really need the KP. After getting back to the house I decided to take my Day 5 equipment out and see what I could do with Jotunns.

I used the following skills:

Fear is nice in that it has great uptime. I wanted to use Barbed Skin, but if you dodge there's no thorns damage. (I probably should have mentioned this is why I dropped Barbed Skin a while ago.)

I switched to the following talents for Jotunn:

This is basically my physical defense build with points dropped out of Crit Damage and put into Mana Regen. The extra mana regen was needed to help me keep Fear up and spam heals/skills.

It went well. Full clear of POI and 100% on all Jotunn (including Stormborn). When you first engage Stormborn and Warriors you should kite them out until their buff wears off (about 8 seconds on each). Then you can engage. Stormborn still hit like a truck even with Fear. And because they also fear (Intimidate), I don't have 1k evasion. Slow and steady on them was enough. I usually only used Shockwave as my offensive then spammed heals and Fear.

The only other Jotunn that put up a fight worth mentioning is the Sorcerers and it was mostly because I dropped magic defense skills and wasn't running an aura for them. Never got close to dying, but they were #2 after the Stormborn.

After the show at Jotunns, I am very confident that Rank 50 is attainable at this level of gear and abilities, which is the point where I decided to stop the Gladiator Background Not a Guide. I will continue this one for at least one more day because I'm going to hit rank 50 and do some "extra" testing of other things so there's no reason not to catalog Ogres tomorrow.

I ended Day 6 after 7 or so hours (40 hours total with 8-10 of that house/crafting. I have 357k KP, rank 47, and I added about 30k to the bank. Plus orbs for Pyromancy, Archery, Restoration, Necromancy, and Illusion.

[Yalah]

Day 7 Plan:

I came here looking for my Day 7 plan so I wouldn't forget to take anything to Terra with me. I discovered that I forgot to make the Day 7 plan. (I was actually too tired, but I forgot that so it still counts as forgetting)

TLDR: Make and take Mountain Dragon Rogue Set to Terra with me along with my current leather set. CRUSH OGRE and get their POI (both kinds). Hit rank 50. END TLDR

Today is basically return to Terra and kill Ogre, which should be very doable. If I don't hit rank 50 off of them, then I will go for Huskworms/lizards in the tree hugger Ogre area. They have good concentrations of both lizards and Huskworms so it will go quickly. I'm pretty confident that will get me to 50. After that I will try some of the harder things such as Ogre Lord, and the big dragons.

I'm going to start out on my basic Leather set because I'm cheap and I don't want to wear down the better stuff if I don't need to. I will almost certainly use it for the Ogre Lord and Dragons.

As a reminder my imbues are (mats used can be seen in previous posts):
Armor: T2 mana regen and T2 evasion.
Weapon: T2 Lifesteal and T2 Accuracy
Necklace: T2 STR and T2 Accuracy

My Mountain Dragon Rogue set materials look like this:


(That is Shadium Oil btw.)

In the Mountain Rogue set, I might try something like this for talents:

That will put be just under 1k fort (on top of 1k evasion and 1k accuracy). I don't think that much fort will be needed when I'll likely use protection spells for ailments, but I've never tried fort that high so we'll see.

If I decide to drop the fort, I'll probably put those points into magic defenses or mana regen.

For the Skills, I'm not actually sure. Assume Jotunn for now. (I will for sure drop battle jump for something else.)

[Yalah]

Day 7 Results:

TLDR: About 4.5 hours of farming to reach rank 50. 20k-ish in gold and an Orb of Hunting. Mountain Dragon Rogue set was a smashing success. END TLDR

There is not much to talk about today, but there hasn't been too much to talk about since Day 5. As with the Gladiator Not a Guide, at some point all that you have left is the grinding.

I headed for Terra as soon as my Mountain Rogue set was finished. I did take my basic Leather set as well. Upon arrival in Terra, I went strait for the Industrial Ogres. I started with just my Leather set, but I also used the talents seen in the Day 7 plan, "In the Mountain Rogue set, I might try," and the Day 6 Jotunn skills. I had no problems killing anything except the Ogre Lord. I tried the Ogre Lord three different times in my Leather Set, with slightly different skills, and I got him to about ~30% on my final try.

At this point, I decided I was more lazy than cheap so I whipped out the Mountain Rogue set (I never went back to the Leather set after this point) and went with the following skills:

He went down almost with bandage heals alone. I found about 4 of them and did a little rotation until Ogre Lord was at 100%.

After that I switched to these skills to 100% all of the rest of the Ogre.

And I used these talents:

I needed all the mana regen I could handle because of the Rogue Set Bonus. As a general Rule, when I was at full mana, I used Concussive Strike (which also gets the bonus) because that was the highest DPS option I had, but when I got low on Mana, I shut it off to use the shouts which are more mana efficient.

With my Fortitude at 1k, I didn't even bother with Protection from Fire for the Ogre Masters. Ogre Mages were the only problem child because they would dispel Glass Barrier and break my Bloodlust synergy. I did group pulls of up to 4 ogre at once as long as I didn't have more than 1 Master and I only did solo/duo pulls if a Mage was present.

Once I 100% all of those, I went up to the tree hugger Ogre and basically only targeted the Druid and Archdruid. Both had skills I wanted and I did not need to 100% the others to hit rank 50.

And that makes the Not a Guide for the Druid Background officially concluded. It looks nothing like a Druid anymore, but it is over none the less. I will write up the official conclusion and my thoughts tomorrow for me, but later today for most of you. There will also be a Postscript for this Not a Guide where I attempt to make an "endgame" Druid build that actually resembles a Druid, kinda.

[Yalah]

Not a Guide: Druid Background - Conclusion:

TLDR: I do not recommend anyone start as the Druid background. Druidcraft has few options for damage until you can hill the hardest PvE monsters and the Mace Fighting options, which also have Spell Channeling, are very limited and subpar when compared to just being a pure melee build. I have shown that you can hit rank 50 by starting with this background, but it is slower than several other options. If you wanted to try making a Druid build at endgame, I would suggest you pick a different background, grind ranks, and then try making a Druid build after rank 50. END TLDR

When I picked this background I did so with the opinion that it was the worst background currently available. At the time, several new players were complaining about starting with it and struggling to maintain the "feel of being a Druid," while still trying to rank up. My goal was to stay as true to the "Druid feel" as I could while still progressing to rank 50. Getting to rank 50 was achieved, but there is basically no Druid left.

I'm going to break this Conclusion into three parts, "Why you should avoid," "Suggestions to make it work," and, "Endgame Druid Possibilities."

Why Druid you should avoid the Druid background:

I guess to start, in my mind a Druid is a tanky melee/casting hybrid. The combo of Mace Fighting and Druidcraft (and spell channeling in general) do achieve this feel, but the reality of Fractured is that the game does not truly support a capable melee that can also cast spells. The reason for this is that many weapon skills scale partially based on weapon damage. For example Crushing Assault, a Druid starter skill, is, Weapon Damage plus 8x STR. This means that the optimal weapon for this skill is the weapon with the highest base damage. In Fractured that means a 2h weapon with a slow attack speed.

(The one exception to the above statement would be a Knife Fighting build that stacks on hit effects (poison, Strike Wounds, ect) and then casts spells. If and when Martial Arts becomes a thing, Unarmed might also achieve the same status. All other melee/casting hybrids, that I can think of, are not really utilizing melee weapon skills. They do exist, but they do not fit "the feel of a Druid.")

Melee Skills:

If we take a look at 2H weapons with the Slow speed, to take advantage of melee skills, and also Spell Channeling, because we want that Druid feel, we find exactly zero options. Quarterstaff and the Shortbow are the only 2h weapons that even have spell channeling. Both are medium speed, the Shortbow doesn't feel very Druid to me, and Quarterstaff is the highest damage option of any of the rest melee options. To give you an idea of the melee damage difference between the Quarterstaff and a "true" 2h melee weapon..

At 22 STR:
Quarterstaff damage: 143
Warhammer damage: 238

That means, even staying in the same weapon school, each and every Mace Fighting ability that you use, the Warhammer is flat out 95 more damage. That's 60% less base damage on every single Mace Skill. If you followed the guide, you'll notice that I was choosing to use Shouts for damage over Mace Fighting abilities. The reason for this is that Shouts scale purely off of STR and, with similar cooldowns, they were actually more DPS than using Mace Fighting.

This information applies to 2/5 of the Druid starter skills and 5/6 Mace skills (two of which are passives and cannot be used at the same time).

Druidcraft (and casting):

On the magic front, Druid starts with Verdant Regrowth, Sprouting Pulse, and Crushing Roots.

Verdant Regrowth is a solid spell for a couple of reasons. First, it clears bleed stacks and provides immunity during it's effect. Second, its "heal" is not actually a heal. It's a bonus to your heath regeneration. This means that talents that give a bonus to healing will not work on this ability, but it also means that debuffs that block healing, won't effect this skill. On any Spell Channeling character I play, I get this early.

Sprouting Pulse does crushing and applies a root (snare) effect. Crushing Roots does crushing damage, has stacks, but only to a target that is rooted. This means that Crushing Roots is totally unusable on anything that is not currently rooted or that cannot be rooted at all (Ogre come to mind right away). In practice you hit a monster or monsters with Sprouting Pulse and then spam Crushing Roots. If Sprouting Pulse only hits one monster you only get one use of Sprouting Pulse. If several monsters get hit by Sprouting pulse, you usually only have time to hit two different monsters with Crushing Roots before the root ability wears off.

As individual spells, I don't actually have a problem with them and I think the synergy of Crushing Roots is kinda cool. The problem I have is that as a new Druid these are the only two spells that you have, One has a 12 second cooldown, and the other is only castable immediately after the first. Other casters can pop one spell, run around, pop another, and repeat. Druids slam two spells as fast as humanly possible and stand there for 12 seconds. It's not fun to play. (Additionally, when half your skills are melee, the root doesn't actually do anything because you want to be right next to the monsters anyway.)

Looking at the other Druidcraft spells:

• Barbed Skin is great for a melee that doesn't use evasion. It's attainable early on Arboreus.
• Cobweb and Entangling Web are non damaging snares. Both are attainable early on Syndesia.
• Bramble Wall is a non damaging root/wall that would offer synergy with Crushing Roots. Attainable only from high CR Ogre Druids.
• Entangling Roots is a damaging roots spell with a fairly large AOE. Attainable only from high CR Treants and Arboreal Dragons
• Insect Swarm is a non damaging area effect that confuses and gives poison stacks. Attainable only from high CR Ogre Archdruids.
• Arboreal Dragon Breath is a channeled damaging spell that also gives poison stacks. Attainable only from high CR Arboreal Dragons.

Of the 7 additional Druidcraft spells, 4 do no damage (one does apply poison stacks), one is a good, early, passive option, and two are only attainable from the toughest monsters.

Like I said at the start, you can start with the Druid background and make it work, but it's going to be slower than other options and much slower if you don't branch out into other ability schools.

Suggestions to make starting with the Druid background easier:

1. Don't start it. That's my number one advice. Start with a different background and try to switch over to "Druid" once you have many more skills to pick from.

2. Starting as a Druid, and focusing melee: Start with DEX instead of STR. Immediately focus on getting Strike Wounds and switch to a dagger after. Use poisons. From there, go for any other Strike skill from Knife Fighting. Bleeding strike has many low level options and would synergize with Bloodlust if you wanted to do that. If not, many of the other strike abilities are good. Daggers, with poisons and Strike Wounds will do a lot of work for you. You can supplement those with whatever spells you want.

3. Starting as a Druid, and focusing casting: INT/WIS/CON to start. Get any magic that is not Druidcraft and be a mage.

Endgame Druid Possibilities:

If you wanted to use melee weapon skills or rely on melee damage, I think the only option is daggers. Poisons and Strike Wounds are on hit effects that do solid damage, if a little slow in ramping up. Scimitar and a Shield are an option, but they are defensive options.

I think the more realistic option is as a pure caster that has WIS and INT. In this build, your roots will help you keep distance and the two strongest Druidcraft spells offer Poison synergy. Your INT will let you more effectively use Venomancy skills, specifically Infectious Burst, to ramp your poison damage even higher. From here, the world is your oyster. You can fill in your other slots with supports, heals, or other damage types. If you wanted to avoid INT, you do have other damage options, but you're mostly going to be limited to Energy damage.

Concluding the Conclusion:

While I don't recommend starting as a Druid background, this, Not a Guide, proves you can start with basically any background and make it to rank 50. I tried to lay out the weaknesses of this background and the "feeling of playing a Druid" as it is presented in Fractured, but you all have to make your own choices.

As said in an earlier post, I will be doing another Postscript for this Not a Guide where I explore the Endgame Druid I described just before this. Maybe not immediately, but in the next couple of days for sure.

If you have any questions about this specific build, I'll watch and can try to answer them. You can also post them in the thread for this Not a Guide, over in the share-your-builds channel of the Discord.

For other questions about the game, #player-help on the Discord is a good place for general questions.

[Yalah]

I'm only posting this because I said more was coming and it's not.

The issue is that subsequent patches and comments have made it obvious, to me anyway, that a real effort is being made to push WIS out of a damage modifier roll. I don't disagree with this move because it's easier to balance the different stats if they stick to more specific things, but it does mean that I don't think a WIS/CON/STR caster "Druid" build is going to be viable.

Maybe Druid will remain the exception to the rule and maintain WIS for damage, but even if it does, I don't think that alone is enough to carry a build.. Could you still make one, yes, but I think that it would, generally, be inferior to other options. At least with how things are looking right now.

[ccj]

@Yalah I completely agree to your conclusions! With rank 17 i can bring down a Wolf with 4 cast/hits. All fights take long. very long and boring. Still not met any monster that gives me a selfheal. Gameplay is like playing a tank and not druid. I wish i had chosen another background. But now i'm too tired to start again. In the meantime i reset base values and abilities to be more melee and mace. But with the staff it is a joke. And as you wrote i had the idea to knife with bleeds and poisons, but i only created the talent set and did not realy play it.
For sure, your advice is correct: do not druid your first char, maybe do it as a challenge when you have other chars ranked 50 and you have fun with more suffer than the game brings by design