Newbie questions! Be warned!

Faithful · 02-23-2008, 08:19 AM

Ok I really tried reading through the forums before I post but being totally new to EQ2 I don't seem to understand 70% of it! So if you are willing to spend some time answering my questions (soemthing Im sure most of you have doen before for somone else) it willl be greatly appreciated...also directing me to a thread that is similar to mine would be nice as forum searching no matter how much time you spend on it is sometimes not good enough. I started playing EQ2 two days ago so Im a total noob - before I played wow if it makes it easier to explain some things :P

So, I decided that I want to play a warden! (yay) Most people I know (aslo not so much experts at EQ2) tell me a Fury might be better - so I rolled one too. My Fury being 16 and my Warden being 11 (my Fury got to lvl in TD - and yeah its way faster, better etc - but my Warden is good so go figure) - anyway I think (although the Fury is aslo fun) I want to stick to warden (and just play around with Fury from time to time :P).

Thing is now its all fun and games but I want this char to get somewhere in the end - and my goal is Raiding (I loveeeeeee PvE in all forms) ... I know its a long long time away but in order to learn your class Im a strojng beliver you need ot be aware of whats what from the beginning. I dont read up on spells because I love the elment of surprise when you ding btw (so makes things harder to understand I guess).

Also when I raid I want to heal - I love healing and if I could lvl by healing alone Id do it :P I dont want to roll a Cleric for now because this is my first character and I dont want to be too demotivated plus I really like the way wardens are :D (rp wise too ya know:D).

Anyway, my questions are *drums*

Is it really that hard to get into raids as Warden? (read around the forums and it seems we are not appreciated enough due to our lack of decent buffs - compared to other classes - evil!)

AA'S : This has me loosing sleep .. as Im only lvl 11 I really dont understand 80 % of my AAs. So far I put one point into Shapeshift for the forms (imba fun :P) and further on Im lost.

Should I start my spec with the Warden or the Druid tree? How many points do I put into them (does it even matter or in the end Ill just have enough to full out teh 50 in both ?)

The way I see it its (in the Warden tree) four routes -
Renewal - healing (not sure tbh?)
Movemnet - I mean is it really just about rooting and movement speed and nothing else?
Wardens - melee dps and
remedies - erm... wai is that there? :O R

reading the forums melee does sound like the best way to lvl BUT:
do I loose out on some casting skill progress when I lvl as that and in the end when I decide to change back to nuke Ill be in some way worse / needing to skill up?
Is there a route to go caster (The only oen I see is Renewal but Im really not sure what that route does) - I like casting its cute!

As for the Druid tree Im totally lost - some people say str - but would that work with a caster - then agillity is apparently the healing one...right? Why not wisdom? (there has been a lot of discussions about this on the server and people seem to think int is better - but maybe I just misunderstood and they meant for caster nuking not for healing) - stamina is also good ... Im not gona go into it as you can see I dont really understand a lot!

Basically I want to be a healer! I can lvl as dps I really dont mind as long as I dont loose anything healer wise in the end when I respec.

Im not even sure what I should be : provisioner, tailor or scribe (sage? you know the spell making one :P) - not to keen on tailor now that I think of it but I thought provisioner is useless since I can summon food - turns out teh summoning is useless so Im concidering it again - sounds fun :D

Anyway I think thats it! I now its all individual and its hard to tell somone how to spec but I really have no idea what to do and I dont want to leave it haning to long because you do benefit form AAs after all :P

<3 and thanks in advance (sorry if I annoyed anyone with this thread ) Faithful!

Zarina · 02-23-2008, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faithful

Anyway, my questions are *drums*

Is it really that hard to get into raids as Warden? (read around the forums and it seems we are not appreciated enough due to our lack of decent buffs - compared to other classes - evil!)

If your final goal with this character is to raid, yes. Choose something, anything, other than a warden.

Should I start my spec with the Warden or the Druid tree? How many points do I put into them (does it even matter or in the end Ill just have enough to full out teh 50 in both ?)

You can have up to 70 points in both trees.

Oakmiser · 02-23-2008, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faithful

Ok I really tried reading through the forums before I post but being totally new to EQ2 I don't seem to understand 70% of it! So if you are willing to spend some time answering my questions (soemthing Im sure most of you have doen before for somone else) it willl be greatly appreciated...also directing me to a thread that is similar to mine would be nice as forum searching no matter how much time you spend on it is sometimes not good enough. I started playing EQ2 two days ago so Im a total noob - before I played wow if it makes it easier to explain some things :P

So, I decided that I want to play a warden! (yay) Most people I know (aslo not so much experts at EQ2) tell me a Fury might be better - so I rolled one too. My Fury being 16 and my Warden being 11 (my Fury got to lvl in TD - and yeah its way faster, better etc - but my Warden is good so go figure) - anyway I think (although the Fury is aslo fun) I want to stick to warden (and just play around with Fury from time to time :P).

Thing is now its all fun and games but I want this char to get somewhere in the end - and my goal is Raiding (I loveeeeeee PvE in all forms) ... I know its a long long time away but in order to learn your class Im a strojng beliver you need ot be aware of whats what from the beginning. I dont read up on spells because I love the elment of surprise when you ding btw (so makes things harder to understand I guess).

Also when I raid I want to heal - I love healing and if I could lvl by healing alone Id do it :P I dont want to roll a Cleric for now because this is my first character and I dont want to be too demotivated plus I really like the way wardens are :D (rp wise too ya know:D). When you raid, no matter what class you play you will NEED to do some debuffing and dps. It's considered lazy to only heal on a raid.

Anyway, my questions are *drums*

Is it really that hard to get into raids as Warden? (read around the forums and it seems we are not appreciated enough due to our lack of decent buffs - compared to other classes - evil!) Yes, I'd suggest playing your fury if you really want to raid, or level upto 80 and pray and /feedback all the time while leveling to get things changed to a point where wardens are needed in a raid.

AA'S : This has me loosing sleep .. as Im only lvl 11 I really dont understand 80 % of my AAs. So far I put one point into Shapeshift for the forms (imba fun :P) and further on Im lost.

Should I start my spec with the Warden or the Druid tree? How many points do I put into them (does it even matter or in the end Ill just have enough to full out teh 50 in both ?) 70 in both trees, druid tree I'd suggest STA/AGI as a must and INT or STR for DPS, if your playing it safe 100% then go with WIS.

The way I see it its (in the Warden tree) four routes -
Renewal - healing (not sure tbh?)
Movemnet - I mean is it really just about rooting and movement speed and nothing else?
Wardens - melee dps and
remedies - erm... wai is that there? :O R Yeah remedies sucks, would be better if the mitigation triggers were trippled or the end line ability actually triggered. Anyway, I went with Renewal and Remedies, but you will prolly want to go with Renewal & Movement until you hit 70+ and check with others or make up your own mind. In any case, maxing out Renewal tree is a good thing.

reading the forums melee does sound like the best way to lvl BUT:
do I loose out on some casting skill progress when I lvl as that and in the end when I decide to change back to nuke Ill be in some way worse / needing to skill up?
Is there a route to go caster (The only oen I see is Renewal but Im really not sure what that route does) - I like casting its cute! If you do either you loose out on the other skills wise. Though wardens get a single target buff to melee skills so that make it easier to catch up in the long run.

As for the Druid tree Im totally lost - some people say str - but would that work with a caster - then agillity is apparently the healing one...right? Why not wisdom? (there has been a lot of discussions about this on the server and people seem to think int is better - but maybe I just misunderstood and they meant for caster nuking not for healing) - stamina is also good ... Im not gona go into it as you can see I dont really understand a lot! I don't have time to explain everything that is there, the best idea is to read carefully and then ask specifically what the words mean on the newbie forums here on eq2flames or on eq2players(flames you will prolly get more direct answers).

Basically I want to be a healer! I can lvl as dps I really dont mind as long as I dont loose anything healer wise in the end when I respec. Movement + Int lines make for a good root nuking leveling team.

Im not even sure what I should be : provisioner, tailor or scribe (sage? you know the spell making one :P) - not to keen on tailor now that I think of it but I thought provisioner is useless since I can summon food - turns out teh summoning is useless so Im concidering it again - sounds fun :D If your just starting out and it's hard to make friends /or you don't want to pay for spells/ then go scribe. I had a friend who was a scribe all the way up until I stopped playing 1 month before RoK, so I did Woodworker to 70.

Anyway I think thats it! I now its all individual and its hard to tell somone how to spec but I really have no idea what to do and I dont want to leave it haning to long because you do benefit form AAs after all :P Atleast spend your first point on the animal shapeshifting ability on the top of the druid tree for the extra crit(Healing and spell)/proc.

<3 and thanks in advance (sorry if I annoyed anyone with this thread ) Faithful! No problem and welcome to the druid community, no matter if you go with warden or fury.

Faeth · 02-27-2008, 07:54 AM

The only comment I will make regarding raiding and getting a spot as a Warden - yes it is true that Wardens are not generally desired by the top top end raiding guilds who already know how to take down all the raid zones - however - in my experience at least, there is still a raiding place for a warden or two in some of the less hardcore guilds, and even some top guilds have been known to use the 3 healer MT group setup for while they are learning a new encounter.

The reason that Wardens end up unloved for top end raiding, is that with a really experienced raid force, most raid encounters become all about DPS, and lots of it - so it becomes a high priority to keep the mob's agro on the MT, so the 3rd healer in the MT group gets kicked out in favour of a class that can further enhance the agro generation of the MT, and unfortunately, the rest of the groups in a raid are better suited to other healer classes, because of the buffs they give, which is why wardens often end up out on their ear.

I don't know if things changed much with RoK coming out, but I did witness the odd top end raiding guild adding Warden as a class they were looking for in their recruitment posts - but not having many contacts in those types of guilds, I am not sure why suddenly they wanted one, where previously they did not.

I'm sure someone will come along and correct me if I'm totally off base here, but this is what I have observed personally at least :-)

Aerofae · 02-28-2008, 04:45 AM

I might be totally off, but at least as far as i saw on guild rosters wardens are still more popular than inqs, and at least 90% of the guilds got at least 1 warden, but alot less inqs than that number.

(what i'm trying to say is that we are still wanted class)

Zarina · 02-28-2008, 11:05 AM

I think you're deluding yourself if you think wardens are a needed class for raiding.

Faithful · 02-29-2008, 08:27 AM

He everyone ! Thanks for the posts

Took me a long time to come back but Ive been playing and had some rl issues - general lack of time :P

Anyway I ended up putting 4 points into INT then when my roots kept breaking I went for teh warden tree and decided to start there first. So I maxed out my root the took 3 points in SoW and went for bramble (I love it but the cooldown is sooo long - tihng is its basically a life saver when i fight multiple moobs that arent gren:P).

It aint easy - I see people solo a lot better t han me but its doable. Dinged 25 last night and Im almost 26. Thanks for the info I was really useful.

I think Ill take my chances with a raiding warden - I dont have time for hardcore and Im sure if I go casual I can get a spot :P

Im puzzled by the dps in raids tbh but thats coz it seems like healing power (as in mana) loss. Debuffing or curing I get:P I also went tailor - as theres lots of Scribe's in my guild

Anyway just wanted to let uyou know how its goign and thank you once again. <3 and have fun :D

Faithful

Faeth · 02-29-2008, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zarina

I think you're deluding yourself if you think wardens are a needed class for raiding.

We may not be *essential* - but that doesn't mean we can't get slots on raids. There aren't many classes, if you think about it, whose absence would make beating a raid zone an impossibility.....

The OP wanted to know if it was as hard as she'd heard to get a slot on a raid as a Warden, and I believe the answer to that question is no. It's certainly a long way from impossible - and with all but the top end guilds, I would say it's almost guaranteed.

Yes I believe we have a valid "beef" with the design of our class that means we are replaceable with another haling class that brings more benefit, and we're not the desired class for top end game content at the highest levels, and I'm not suggesting we should be perfectly happy with our lot in life and stop pushing for change. But on the flip side - if you play a Warden, you aren't going to be spending you life totally unwanted and never getting a group or raid.