Wizard101 Renegade Druid
Strategy Guide and Speed Run

 

The Renegade Druid is located in the Avalon dungeon called Crannoc Darcha, at the end of the Lower Catacombs.  If you’re not familiar with the battle, check out Cody’s Wizard101 Renegade Druid Guide, which provides an excellent overview of the battle, a list of cheats, and a strategy summary. This article builds on that guide by providing:

1. Some specific strategy advice to help you survive and win the battle
2. For a well-coordinated team, a 3-6 round speed run that any school can use except balance (sorry balance)

Thanks to Cody for so thoroughly testing the resist and cheats, and to Frost for helping test a run with Snow Angel.

 

A. Strategy Tips

Strategy Overview

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The most efficient approach for this battle is to cast a Damage over Time (DoT) spell that attacks all enemies (also known as Area of Effect or AoE) and does at least 58,000 damage to each enemy.

Why is an AoE spell preferable?  Because when the damage to the minions is applied to the Renegade Druid (through the 100% intercept mechanic), it applies ALL of the AoE damage to the boss in the Druid in the first round (instead applying it over time, like it normally would).  It still leaves a tick mark on the minion that stays on forever, but the tick mark won’t do any damage.

So for offense, your main objective is to stack around 10 or more buffs on your hitter and have them hit.  Once the druid is gone, you just need a “cleanup Treasure Card tempest” (or some other AoE hit) to take out the minions, since they only have 1 health. For defense, your have four priorities:

1. The top priority is to Storm Dispel the Druid, since he can take away blades with Bugs and Sirens

If not doing a speed run:

2. Storm Dispel the Moon minion, since he can take away blades with Bugs too
3. Damage reduction and/or healing, since both the Druid and his minions can do a lot of damage

We suggest having 1 hitter and 3 support wizards on your team.

Best hitter school options?

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The most efficient school options for the hitter are Fire and Ice, since they have access to the AoE spells that do the most overall damage without a Shadow Pip:

• Fire can cast Rain of Fire (1100 total damage)
• Ice can cast Snow Angel (760 total damage)

Several other schools work just fine — they just need an extra blade or two (or a Shadow Pip) compared to Fire or Ice. You also could choose to cast an AoE for the following schools:

• Death can cast Deer Knight (570 total damage) or Call of Khrulhu (830 damage) if they get a Shadow Pip
• Life can cast Forest Lord (540 minimum damage)
• Myth can cast Humongofrog (265 total damage) or Mystic Colossus (850 damage) if they get a Shadow Pip

You also can use a Storm for the hitter.  Since the Druid has 50% Storm resist, and the Druid’s resist is applied to the intercept damage, you need to either:

• Cast an indemnity feint on the Druid, then a prism, and then hit with a single enemy attack like Storm Owl
• Cast Shrike (assuming you got a Shadow Pip) and then hit with an AoE attack, like Sirens

Once again, Balance isn’t a good option since there are fewer blade stacking options for it.

Best support school options?

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For the most part, the schools for the support wizards shouldn’t matter much.

If you’re doing a speed-run, you just need two wizards that have trained the Tri-Blade associated with the hitter’s school (e.g., Elemental Blade for a Fire or Ice hitter).

If you’re not doing a speed-run, let’s look at it by our support objectives:

 

Do I care about going first in the battle?

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It’s not so important for this battle. If you do decide to “shop for first” (i.e., flee if you are going second in the battle), remember to mark near the Druid, since it can take a while to run back to the battle.

Offensive strategy tip #1: Stack buffs on your hitter

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For Fire and Ice, you only need 9 buffs on the hitter.  If the Druid casts the Fortify cheat, note that they’ll either need 20%+ pierce or another buff.

For other schools you’ll need 10-11 buffs on the hitter.

Remember that there are plenty of options for buffs:

• School blades (regular, sharp, item, item sharp, pet, pet sharp, TC, TC sharp)
• Elemental or Spirit blades (regular, sharp, item, item sharp, pet, pet sharp, TC, TC sharp)
• Dark Pact (regular, sharp, item sharp, pet sharp, TC sharp if you have a Death wizard; otherwise item, pet, TC)
• Balanceblade (regular, sharp, item sharp, pet sharp, TC sharp if you have a Balance wizards; otherwise item, pet, TC)
• Bladestorm (regular, sharp, item sharp, pet sharp, TC sharp if you have a Balance wizards; otherwise item, pet, TC)
• Damage aura

What gear can help provide the item cards?

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The following amulets are readily available at the bazaar:

• Jewel of the Apiary
  • Sharpen Blade item card
  • Balanceblade item card
• Amulet of the Mouse Scout
  • Elemental Blade item card
• Charm of the Fierce Mantis
  • Spirit Blade item card
• Charm of the Blade Pearl
  • Dark Pact item card

What pets provide helpful cards?

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• Pet Sharpen Blade
  • Enchanted Armament
• Pet Dragonblade
  • Provided by several pets
• Pet school blade of the hitter
  • Provided by several pets — most hitters can bring their own!
• Pet  Elemental Blade
  • Bolt Demon, Frostfang, GobblerBall
• Pet Spirit Blade
  • Poised Medusa
• Pet Dark Pact
  • Bunny Mallow, Charred Fossil, Deathdactyl, Regal Skeleton

Defensive tip #1: Resist with your gear!

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The Druid and the minions can do a lot of damage. So if you want to be a helpful teammate make sure you use gear with decent global resist (sorry, you’ll need to put your Paradox hat away for once) and a pet with some resist too (you realize you’ve had 130 levels to work on a pet, right?).

Defensive tip #2: Consider Virulent Plague and Fortify/Brace

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Even with decent resist you may want to use some spells to reduce damage you take, especially if you only have one healer.

Since all of the minions can hit pretty hard, there are two spells we’d suggest considering:

• Virulent Plague (great option if you have a Death wizard; combines well with Shadow Trickster too, since it will steal a pip every time Virulent Plague is cast)
• Brace (or TC Fortify)

B. Speed Run

If nothing goes wrong, this speed run only takes 4 rounds.

But something usually goes wrong (stun, fizzle from an accuracy debuff, or have to cleanse a weakness, need to cast another Storm Dispel), so in practice it usually takes 5-6 rounds.

Just remember to always keep a Storm Dispel on the Druid and the Moon minion when they can cast Bugs or Sirens.

If you are using a different school to hit, remember that you’ll need to add a couple more buffs.

 

Sample turn-by-turn spells for a team with a Fire Hitter

 

Support Wizard #1	Support Wizard #2	Support Wizard #3	Hitter (Wizard #4)
TC Storm Dispel (Druid)	TC Storm Dispel (Druid)	Item Sharp Elemental Blade	Sharp Fireblade
TC Fireblade	Regular Elemental Blade	Item Balanceblade	Item Fireblade
TC Balanceblade	Sharp Elemental Blade	TC Elemental Blade	Epic Rain of Fire
Pass	Pass	Pass	TC Tempest
Backup Cards
TC Storm Dispel	TC Storm Dispel	TC Storm Dispel	Pet Fireblade
TC Pierce	TC Cleanse Charm	TC Cleanse Charm	Regular Fireblade
Healing	TC Wyldfire	TC Dark Pact

 

Sample turn-by-turn spells for a team with an Ice Hitter

Note: one of the support wizards will need an Enchanted Armament pet

Support Wizard #1	Support Wizard #2	Support Wizard #3	Hitter (Wizard #4)
TC Storm Dispel (Druid)	TC Storm Dispel (Druid)	Item Sharp Elemental Blade	Sharp Iceblade
TC Iceblade	Regular Elemental Blade	Pet Sharp Elemental Blade	Item Iceblade
TC Balefrost	Sharp Elemental Blade	TC Elemental Blade	Epic Snow Angel
Pass	Pass	Pass	TC Tempest
Backup Cards
TC Storm Dispel	TC Storm Dispel	TC Storm Dispel	Pet Iceblade
TC Pierce	TC Cleanse Charm	TC Cleanse Charm	Regular Iceblade
Healing	TC Balanceblade	Item Balanceblade	Pet Fireblade

If you find anything we missed, identify any mistakes,
or come up with any other strategies,
please let us know in the comments!

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