Druid / Enchanter / Ranger Guide

This guide covers the Druid, Enchanter, and Ranger loadout combination.

Overview

The DER build is a premier choice for playing a lethally charged ranged character with strong support and combat control capability. This loadout is great at:

Ranged Damage
Pulling with calms
Crowd control
Buffs and debuffs
Utility skills
Solo and group flexibility

High Level Roles by Class in Loadout

Class	Offense	Defense	Support
Druid	Dots, Nukes,	Snares, roots, buffs	Animal control, utility
Enchanter	Dots, pet, buffs	Stuns, pet, debuffs	Mesmerization, clarity, fear, charm
Ranger	Archery	Evasive stance	Track, forage, mobility

Core Strategies

Offense - at its core, DER gameplay revolves around stacking your dots and filling dead space with archery shots. You will excel at tearing down mobs one by one. Additionally, you'll have access to a pet or charmed companion but you will want to be mobile in the event agro control is weak.
Defense - DER loadouts provide you evasive stance, a pet, and stuns. These are your core tools for surviving inevitable damage.
Support - DER loadouts have access to snares, roots, mesmerization, charms, heals, and a slew of important buffs and debuffs. Learn which tools matter when to efficiently perform in group situations.

Considerations

This loadout does not tank. You have a healthy selection of escape tools and heals, but DER characters do not tank.
There are buffs between your kits that do not stack. Learn the interactions and what buffs are good for your group, but not for you.
Your optimal damaging attack rotation will depend on how good your bow is.
Your AoE tools can include you as a target. Learn their ranges and effect areas so you don't knock yourself out of a fight.

Leveling Guide by Jokon

Early Levels: 1-10

The first thing you need to prioritize is the acquisition of a bow - any bow in the 1-10 range, thankfully. A bow is a critical tool for the DER build because it represents both your filler and your backup damage. Your highest damaging tools are going to be spells until the high level game and so you're going to be encouraged to overuse them, draining your mana bar. A bow is what you use between spell casts, a bow is what you use when spell casting is not possible, and a bow will be your best tool at the high end game. Therefore, regardless of all other starting considerations you should be acquiring a bow and getting used to how it works.

With that said, bow itemization is pretty weak until you get to the end game. Your playstyle for the first 46 levels is super likely going to be relying on melee in offensive stance; itemization simply scales out of control until you can get planar loot. Ranged stance will only truly take over after 46 when you can get Bow of the Underfoot or Windstriker.

With your that sorted, start identifying which of your various spells are going to be your standards. For most level ranges, you're going to want to do dot, melee/bow, dot, melee/bow ad nauseum as a general rhythm. This may not be true for any given level; having said that, prior to level 10 you're going to want to get used to casting these spells, dropping an arrow, and then repeating the rhythm until it's natural. You'll also want to level in outdoor zones for this practice as you'll have much more room to use the other tools in your kit, like snares, roots, mesmerization, fear, and charm.

Another spell to keep track of is Chaotic Feedback at level 7, which does token damage and stuns enemies up to level 55. This will give you an interrupt that will be difficult to time at first, but as you get higher level other cast times start to slow down and it gets really easy to land a CF to stop a heal or nasty debuff you don't want to mess with. An absolutely lovely spell if you're playing on higher difficulties or against casters.

Start working with Divine Invocation as well; this loadout will give you 133% of the mana spent on a spell back as healing, whether the actual spells you cast are heals or not. This means you can have loads of passive healing - until you run out of mana. Get a feel for what you can get away with in a fight.

Emergent Levels: 11-25

Congratulations on reaching 11 and locking in the DER loadout! From here on, you'll be collecting the core tools that make you function as an arcane grove scout. Here you should have the basic tools of the loadout; a few druid dots, a few enchanter dots, and lots of melee/archery - nukes as mana allows, but do pay attention to cast times. Your play should focus on controlling a monster and then burning it down, preferably before it gets to you. You will have access to enchanter pets and charms to help hold monsters in place, however, count on these assistants not always being able to hold agro. This is a problem for DER loadouts because archery does double damage for you while mobs hold still. Group play will likely allow you to double your archery damage thanks to consistent threat management of a dedicated tank. Plan on your pet being a positionally disadvantaged damage over time effect. You have a huge number of calm effects as well; Pacify, Harmony, and others. This will make you a great puller, although your escape is costly (Lesser Succor).

You will also start to see the core challenge of the DER loadout; you are your own enemy when controlling mobs. Archery arrows shot carelessly will break all your various forms of control. You will need to focus on swapping targets quickly. Thankfully, this gets MUCH easier at level 16 with Mesmerize; unlike original Everquest, Mesmerize in Everquest Legends can't hit the caster by accident. Have fun storming the castle!

Mid Levels: 26-45

In this level range you will continue to gain access to new tools and more powerful spells. You will also start to understand the various dynamics that play out in your loadout. In particular, you'll be moving through level bands where certain spells make sense to use for yourself, but not others. These synergies will be indicated down below, but as a general strategy you should be very capable of fear kiting, dot rotting, and mob control by the time you ascend into the end game. Played well, the DER loadout can take on monsters 10+ levels above them.

It is also in this level range that you should start to appreciate the benefits of archery over your direct damage spells. Even at their best your direct damage spells will cap out around 500 damage without focus items or invocations, while your melee and archery will passively hit for far more. If your weapons do not keep pace with your level this may not be strictly true; as you approach the end game and improve your equipment it will become clear that spells like Ice and Discordant Mind are not good to chain cast over the Arrow nuke line from your Ranger Kit. Your archery will not outscale your melee in this level band, but as you invest into AA you'll see it ramp up substantially.

You might be tempted to use the Spellblade Invocation; however, it does not function well in solo play for this loadout. If you get a group that can afford you to use DPS and not utility kits, you'll probably want to slot a druid nuke; it hits harder and the stuns from enchanter nukes you'd rather have more control over. Speaking of solo play, if you get a hang of your utility and heals you can start soloing the Hole around level 32.

High Levels: 46+

You've done it! Here, the true power of the DER loadout can come to bear. You can start soloing Hate and Fear as soon as you qualify to zone in. Your best damage will come from maintaining as many different DoTs as possible while using ranger weapons to fill the gaps between spell casts. Your druid nukes will fill some gaps, but likely you'll be using your gem slots for heals and utility. Each target will wither before your very eyes, and there will be little that you can't annihilate - or stupefy with a Mesmerize.

In group play, you will provide extremely powerful ranged damage and crowd controlling utility. Split your kit between dots, de/buffs, and mez/charm. All that time you spent earlier learning to switch between targets will help you greatly, as your core challenge will likely be switching between targets.

Specific Strategies

While leveling you will find that the flexibility of the DER kit lends itself to different solo and group strategies. This section will detail what strategies work best in what zones. With that said, the DER loadout will function in any situation that doesn't require intense tanking, so do have fun with it! Also, don't forget your pet! It is a PAL/WAR double class pet; this means it should be tanky... for its level. You'll find that it is fairly low level for the level you need to be to summon it, which means it won't hold agro. Instead, take advantage of the dual classing to give it a really nice dual wield setup - you will have 6 slots to work with.

Solo Strategy: Fear Kiting

Preferred Stance: Ranged
Preferred Invocation: Recovery or Spellblade

Starting at level 2, you'll gain access to Fear. You'll already have Snare, which will keep the enemy from running quickly. You gain access to Chase the Moon at 16 and finally Invoke Fear at 35 which provide longer durations. None of the other fears in your kit will surpass these; don't bother with Panic Animal.

While feared, all mobs will present their backside to you for imminent kicking. Use your damage over time effects and then archery or melee depending on your available gear. At most levels of play you will likely only ever use archery in ranged stance to fill gaps during fear kiting; not only are your hands are better used holding caster weapons that have inefficient melee ratios, your chosen pet companion will likely be able to better use the melee weapons you do have. This is especially true on higher difficulties where mobs gain innate run speed; you'll be stopping to cast too much to stay on top of melee. This strategy generally works best up until level 35 or so when you start running out of good outdoor content, but you can use this strategy up to 50. It technically can function in dungeons provided you have broken the surrounding camps, but forget about it at higher difficulties in dungeons where the mobs are so fast that you will inevitably lose them around some corner.

Solo Strategy: Face Tanking

Preferred Stance: Ranged or Offensive
Preferred Invocation: Divine or Inversion

One of the unique things that the ranger adds to the DER loadout is the ability to deal lots of archery damage to targets that are free to move but are choosing not to. You can convince monsters to not roam around by standing still yourself and letting them hit you. This strategy gives you the highest possible single target DPS from archery; however, if your bow sucks you will probably want to melee instead. Your Mileage May Vary.

This strategy is also noteworthy in that your buffs and debuffs are going to have a different priority; all three of the classes in the DER loadout can apply a damage shield, and between druid/enchanter you'll be nearly covered on buffs. You'll also want to have healing, either directly with Druid spells or indirectly through the Divine Stance which will give you a lifetap like effect. This focus on survivability will hamper your outgoing damage, if for no other reason than you'll have to pay attention to your health more closely than the fear-kiting strategy.

Having said all that, it is very straightforward; lead with your highest level slow (possibly using Inversion Invocation or Evasion Stance), load up the dots, melee to death. Swap to divine when casting your spells in batches to maximize your healing, then swap to recovery or another appropriate one while you're not casting. Use whichever stance is appropriate for your gear; good bow = ranged, good melee = offense.

Group Strategy: Dot Rotting

Preferred Stance: Ranged
Preferred Invocation: Recovery or Empowering

At around level 11 you'll have enough spells to really start putting the hurt on things and consequently you'll find a spot in groups that need more dead monsters. Your most efficient contribution in these groups is to A) lock down extra mobs with your enchanter kit and B) annihilate mobs with your ranger and druid kits. You also bring buffs and AoE to the group; try to setup responsibilities here with other players in your group to avoid duplication of efforts and non-stacking buffs.

When damaging, focus on loading up your damage over time effects after any necessary debuffs like Tash, then fill the air with arrows. You may need to swap targets situationally for mesmerization, root, charm, and/or stuns; carefully monitor your archery use so that you do not accidentally and/or automatically shoot a monster you just blanked.

Synergies

The DER kit is notable in that you have access to many stances and invocations. Here's a quick overview:


Name	Description	Classes	Reuse Time
Balanced Stance	While this stance is active, all incoming damage is reduced by 10% and your chance to hit is increased by 10%. Endurance regen excluding out of combat bonus regen is doubled. There is no endurance cost to upkeep this stance.	RNG	6 seconds
Offensive Stance	Outgoing melee damage is increased by 100% and your chance to hit is increased by 25%. Every point of bonus damage dealt consumes an equal amount of endurance, with a reduction based on your strategy skill. When below 25% endurance, the chance to hit bonus is reduced based on the remaining percent of endurance. Bonus damage from critical hits and similar effects do not cost endurance.	RNG	6 seconds
Evasive Stance	You have a 95% chance to evade all incoming attacks. Every point of damage evaded consumes 2 endurance, with a reduction based on your strategy skill. Evasion will fail if you have insufficient endurance, or while playing dead.	RNG	6 seconds
Ranged Stance	Your range attack has no minimum distance, gains a 25% accuracy bonus, and can double and triple attack. Every point of damage consumes endurance, with a reduction based on your strategy skill.	RNG	6 seconds

And here's your invocations:


Name	Description	Classes	Reuse Time
Recovery Invocation	You regenerate mana (excluding out of combat bonus) at twice the rate, and spells have a 5% reduced mana cost.	RNG DRU ENC	6 seconds
Inversion Invocation	Shifts two-thirds of spell cast time into the global recovery time at a cost of 10% more mana and endurance.	RNG DRU ENC	6 seconds
Overchannel Invocation	Cast spells have a -100 resist adjust plus another -15 for every non-hybrid caster class at a cost of 33% more mana and 10% of the total mana cost from endurance.	RNG DRU ENC	6 seconds
Spellblade Invocation	Treats the first spell gem slot as a proc that consumes both mana and endurance (33% of the normal spell mana cost). Must be a spell with a reuse time <= the cast time.	RNG	6 seconds
Divine Invocation	All spell casts with mana cost will heal the group member with the lowest HP percentage by that cost. For every additional wisdom class, this will repeat with a heal for 33% of the mana cost.	RNG DRU	6 seconds
Empowering Invocation	Adds 25% plus 10% per additional non-hybrid casting class to HP spell effects at the cost of 50% more mana.	DRU ENC	6 seconds

The DER kit is noteworthy in that you have the Spellblade Invocation, Divine Invocation (with boost!), Ranged Stance, and Evasive Stance. These are your signatures of the loadout and bring unique benefits.

The Spellblade invocation allows the first spell in your gem bar to be a proc'd additional effect in melee or ranged combat; thus, make sure you don't accidently put something silly into that slot (like Mesmerize). The restriction is that the cooldown can't be longer than the cast time; this means the specialty Ranger nukes do not qualify for Spellblade (because they have longer recast times). The most common option will be a Druid nuke, but there's many options to choose from here (like Snare or Invoke Fear).
The Divine invocation causes all spells cast to heal the weakest member of your party (yourself when solo) for the amount of mana spent. This lets you have a life-tap style game play in solo and good support healing while in a group. Keep in mind the effect will be boosted because both Ranger and Druid contribute to this stance's effect.
Evasive Stance lets you turn off damage for a bit. This is fantastic if you want to get spells like Mesmerize off without any second opinions.
Ranged Stance allows your ranged weapon to function in melee, double, and triple attack (once you have unlocked those skills). It does not improve base damage any like Offensive Stance, and consequently will underperform unless your bow is REALLY good and you have all your archery AA.

Important Notes

The majority of your damaging spells will be from your Druid kit. There are some important offensive spells in the Enchanter and Ranger kits (namely the Arrow line), but they are situational or inferior to your damaging Druid spells.
You have less overlap in your druid and ranger kits than you'd think, particularly at high level when the Ranger starts getting Call spells that stack with your druid buffs. Most of the overlap will be in the early-mid game. Also noteworthy is that rangers get a unique DoT that stacks with all druid dots.
Enchanter baseline gets lots of extra mana regen, druid gets spell crit, and rangers bring ATK power and archery crits as baseline AA. This is a rather solid set of passives.
Druids get access to Feral Spirit and Savage Spirit, which are insanely good pet buffs. Don't forget to use them if you bring a pet/charm!
One of the amazing things you can do with the ranger kit is map tracking. If you haven't yet, right click on your map and have it show NPCs. As long as your tracking skill can see them, it will show them on your map. This means you don't ever have to be surprised by pathers! You know exactly where all the mobs are around you, up to the limit of your tracking skill.

Important Gaps

Your only real active defensive tool is Evasive stance; everything else you can make choices about revolve around about avoiding combat entirely. Mesmerize will be your friend.

AA Priorities

Extra spell gems, all of them
Quick Buff
Archery damage

Gear Priorities

As mentioned above, your first and most important piece of equipment is going to be your bow. You can and should review the list below to see what bows are available, but as a general theme you'll find that unless you are pursuing fletching your best bet is to get a Runed Oak Bow from South Karana with an objective of getting the Windstriker from Plane of Sky. Fletching should still be considered for arrow improvements even if you don't want the fletched bows. Until you get the Windstriker a +10 (Mithril/Steel) Champion Arrow will double your bow's damage output.

Having said that, if you want to skip Fletching and are self-found, you'll need to farm Gloomwater Arrow or Shardwing Arrow. Hope you like swimming!

Chart of Bows

With a bow solved for, your general statistic priority is going to be Wisdom, Dexterity, and then Strength. This statistic priority focuses on improving your mana pool, spell casting, archery accuracy, and archery damage. Any gear that improves those statistics will be your preference. Attack power bonuses will also help your archery damage.

Quests and Items of Interest to DER Loadouts

Rather than duplicate the list of quests on the Druid, Enchanter, and Ranger pages, here we will discuss items that benefit the DER loadout but aren't specifically tied to one of the three constituent kits. As most of your best items will be from the three above lists, the following is more oriented towards leveling targets and not end-game goals.

Item / Quest	Loadout Focus	Why It Matters	Source	Level
Poacher's Head	Archery	Early way to get bow through quests	Surefall Glade Quest	5+
Heretic Heads	Archery/Melee	Early and easy way to get haste belt	Quest in Stonebrunt Mountains	20+
Runed Oak Bow	Archery	Easiest good bow pre-planar	Drop in South Karana	25+

Tips

Although most of your attention will be consumed by spell management, don't neglect your archery. It scales far better than your spell casting, especially in the end game.
You have access to evasive stance AND memory blur AND Inverstion-Succor if things get nasty!
Try to get more spell gems ASAP.

Druid-Enchanter-Ranger