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Druids as Pullers


Written by:
Vovin








Suprising enough druids can make excellent pullers. Especially outdoors where we can use our Harmony line of spells to break a camp. The following is a list of tips on how a druid should pull.

Harmony of Nature is a single target mez spell that reduces the aggro radius of a creature to 15 feet. This spell is very rarely resisted. It is a great spell for breaking up a camp, but it is outdoors only.

Snare is a very useful spell to use for pulling with the exception of a long pull. If there is a chance of wandering mobs or 're-pops' then snare may not be your best bet. The longer it takes you to pull the mob back to camp the more chance you have of getting a add. If you are pulling over a short distance. Snare will ensure that the mob does not catch up to you (if it isn't resisted) and makes it much safer to pull.

Summoning Mobs:

Summoning mobs can be very difficult to pull. Druids can pull a summoning mob effectively by casting a no damage or very low damage spell on the creature. Generally summoning mobs will not summon you until their health has gone below 98%. So using snare, a debuff or a low level damage spell to aggro the creature is the best tactic. Never use a high damage nuke spell to pull a summoning mob. There is a very good chance that you will not make it back to camp with your pull alive.

Adds and Ghetto Mez:

If you did use snare to pull a creature and you do get a add you can often root one of the creatures before getting back to camp. This is commonly known as Ghetto Mezzing. Pull the un-snared creature back to camp and let the main tank get aggro. Then head back and root the snared mob before it reaches camp. Keep an eye on the rooted mob to make sure that it does not break root. If it does run away from the camp and re root. Never root the creature in your camp because it will aggro on the nearest Player and can easily get somone killed. If you cannot get a root to 'stick' on a creature you can kite the creature around the group until they have finished off the first mob. Usually when you have aggro the creature will ignore the rest of the group ( provided you don't path it over somone that is sitting ) and continue to chase you.

Indoor camp splitting:

It is possible for a druid to split a camp provided he has enough room indoors. Our harmony spells don't work indoors but we can still use our root and snare spells to break the camp up. This is especially useful in LDoN type dungeons where the creatures do not respawn. In the following scenario we will consider a room with 4 mobs as the target. The goal will be to bring back a single creature to the group.

Have your group stand back a long way's from the room or area to be pulled. They need to stay out of aggro range. Root 1 creature and run. This will cause the other 3 to aggro on you.

Creatures do not path as well as you can run through a dungeon. So you should have no problem getting some distance on them, especially if you have Spirit of Wolf on. Once you get a good bit of distance on the creatures ( be careful not to run out of aggro range ) find a nice straight hall or room and target one of the mobs and root. Run and repeat as often as needed. If there are no resists you should have all but one creature rooted provided you haven't run out of room. Pull this creature back to your group and head back and snare the remaning mobs. It is important that you get back and snare them beacuse when root breaks these mobs will be running for you at full force. Once they are snared you can head back to your group and assist them. If any of the creatures break root you can step past the group and wait for the creature to show up and re root.

If you run out of room on your pull try to zone quickly this will reset aggro and the creatures will head back to their normal camp. The rooted creatures will still be where you rooted them so you can have a group member break root with a nuke once the creatures have pathed back and you can repeat this until you have broken the room.

This tactic can be used very often but it takes a fair bit of skill and a group that will listen to you.

Invis and non social creatures.

In a place where most creatures will not assist other creatures. It is possible to pull a creature with snare and then camo up and run it back to camp with no worries of adds. This is situational and you need to know well what mobs see invis in this zone and know for sure that creatures will not 'assist' other creatures. This can be a great tactic in zones where it can be used.

Summary:

Your main goals in pulling is to get a single creature back to camp and not to build up so much aggro that the main tank cannot take the aggro from you. Don't nuke the mob continuously while pulling. This will make it very hard for the main tank to get aggro and will result in you having to root over and over and for the group tanks to have to chase the mob.

Alway's keep a eye behind you. You never know when a mob might re-pop or a wandering mob will become a add. Try your best to deal with adds before you get back to camp. If you do get too many adds and cannot deal with them it is wise to pull the creatures away from the group and try to get enough distance to gate or zone out. Be careful not to train others though this will make it much harder for you to get a group at a later time.

Additional Tip:

This is not excatly a pulling trick but it is very useful in a group. If you have a creature that does a great deal of damage, it may be difficult or outright impossible for your group to kill him.

First this creature cannot be a summoning creature. If it is you will die. Basically what you can do is pull the creature and on the way back to the camp, Debuff and snare the creature repeatedley. This will result in the creature becommning very mad at you and you will keep the aggro.

As you kite the mob in a circle. the tanks and casters can attack from behind. This will usually result in very little and possibly no damage to the group because the mob is chasing you nad not hitting anyone. It may be very difficult to keep aggro on the mob so it is suggested that you debuff, snare and stun the mobs a much as possible. We have several spells that have a stun component. These spell are good in 2 way's one it causes alot of aggro and two the mob is not beating on the other players while stunned so it can help reduce the amount of damage your group is taking.



 

 

 

 
 
     
 
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