druid lights?

[Nothing]

I have noticed that if I shift while holding the will of the wisp, it goes away. I was under the impression that this light was shiftable. If its not then I don't see any light that a druid can use while shifted. Granted my knowledge of eq isn't that great yet, but none show in the eq list when I click on the "Shapeshift" toggle.

[Chainer]

darksight helps i think

[Nothing]

darksight is fine if you have NE in your class. but for those of us who didn't know that when we created the char?

[Avatar]

Thanks for bringing this up, I've asked informally a couple of times but noone has ever been able to resolve it. Could we get some item added or the spell fixed, or something?

Charles

[12345]

Maybe you can explain this one to me Avatar, cause I don't get it.

Druids pick up infravision at level 11, which works while shifted. The wisp thing, or any normal light will work when not shifted to loot corpses and such. That's exactly how most my characters fight in dark areas. Darksight is nice to have to avoid some mobs that hunt in the dark, but is not a requirement. It also gives you an AC advantage against some mobs that can't see in the dark.

Not that having a shiftable light wouldn't be nice... I just don't see the problem with using a normal light (or a wisp if on CR).

[Nothing]

The problem is that the wisp doesn't shift. So while you're shifted you cannot hold any light that I can tell. Yes, I can shift back and hold a light to loot the corpse and sac it but that takes a lot of mana to shift back and forth as opposed to being able to loot, sac, then move on to the next mob.

[12345]

Heh, don't shift back

Common tactic is to kill a series of mobs then go back and loot when it's safe. Just as examples, my lowbies use that tactic in sahags, duergars and catacombs where there's mobs that will will attack if they can see you. Tough to do if there's several people running the area, but how many mobs can you really kill before you run out of mana to hold form?

It would be cool to have a shiftable light, I just don't see the problem.

[Avatar]

That's not an easy solution on so many levels. I figured when I started trying druids that they are just broken in dark areas and don't run them. Sure, that's probably 60% of the mud, but the druid isn't my primary char anyway. Seriously, it's that much hassle.

Charles

[Toxis]

I tried to get druid lights, even if they didn't have a bonus held high. It is a MAJOR PAIN IN THE FUUGGIN ARSSE not to have a light. And I hate it when people's first responses are "live with it". That's just a big pile of BS dude! Every druid in the game will tell you, it's more of a pain than it's worth, one of the reasons why I wouldn't play a druid prime to solo.

-Toxis

[12345]

Relax Toxis, I'm not trying to tell you to live with it. Simply, the majority of my favorite areas on the mud are dark and I've run across hordes of players that just hold a light and run them like any other area. That may work while grouping, but is rarely the best idea solo. I have a few corpses decay on me, but nothing too serious. Also, if I remember correctly, Drakkan Forest is dark and Xandora used to pick up unreal amounts of xp there while shifted, even if she did die horribly a few times

Either way, I'll differ to Avatar.

[Nothing]

So.....

Kj, Splork? Is this the way it was intended? For druids not to be able to have a light while shifted? Just curious.

[Rynquald]

Actually, when I think about it, some of the shift forms seem like they should have perm darksight.
I mean, dog/wolf for obvious reasons, I seem to remember national geographics with crocodiles hunting at night (I suppose they could do it by smell or hearing though), asp/cobra would be quite realistic with perm infravision, and wyvern/wurm/naga/dragon could go either way depending how you look at them.

Rynquald.

PS: Roc form allready has perm darksight, so it's not like it hasn't been done before.

[PvtDeth]

I just assumed that certain shifts had perm infravision or darksight or something. I was quite surprised to find out this wasn't true. It makes perfect sense from a fantasy point of view and even realistically.

[Avatar]

Actually if darksight were added to the druid spell lists, that would alleviate the issue some also. Darksight is really kind of overpowered though, it's nice to leave it just applied to one class.

In my opinion, making Will o' Wisp shiftable would be a great solution. Actually, it could be just an enchantment that provides light without taking up an EQ slot. If it applied to a character just like "stone skin" for example, it wouldn't need to be shiftable.

As a little off-topic comment, I'd really like to see shifting be a little more dynamic. As it is, characters generally shift only to the highest level form that they can use for a fight. Some of the lesser forms are used in specific situations, but not for a fight. We could use some soft of skill that allows us to shift from form to form without requiring a shift to human in the middle. For example, it would be nice to shift to a Spider, start the combat with a web, shift to a hawk and gouge until the mob is blind, then switch to another form with higher damage output but lower ac. This would bring interesting tactical options to a currently often dull form of combat. (Try warrior-style hack & slash but without the kick, bash, critical hit, frenzy, berserk, etc. skills and without the other skills or spells that would be provided by the second, third, fourth classes.)

[12345]

[quote="Avatar":2coc6gtu]Some of the lesser forms are used in specific situations, but not for a fight. [/quote:2coc6gtu]
Not entirely unprecidented. For instance, players typically only use their best healing spell or best blasting spell. No one really uses armor after they've got stone or iron skin. Sanc becomes kinda useless after you have aegis. Necros typically only use their top couple summons or animates.

Personally, I was surprised more forms didn't have darksight, however, it really only solves the problem for some of the forms. The rest would still require a shift back to human, which they don't appear to like.