[BUILD CONCEPT] Lord of the Flies (Universalist priest/druid)

[Braven]

The concept of this build is to use Damage over time spells to slowly (or not so slowly as explained later) widdle away enemy hp. This is designed for solo. Otherwise you might be better off just going pure druid to get your insects faster.

 

Now, of course, this wouldn’t be a Braven build without cheesy tactics and exploiting questionable game design. Some might call it exploiting bugs, but it wasn’t changed in 1.1 beta patch so I will assume this works as intended. Here is the cheese:

 

1). Boost alchemy as high as possible to super charge plague of insects. Each level of alchemy increases power level of that spell. With maxed out alchemy it does disgusting amounts of damage. Enough to kill every enemy (not immune to poison) in the game with one casting. Oh, and it doesn’t miss because those power levels also massively increase your accuracy. Further, it has a huge AOE radius so you hit everyone and it is foe only.

 

2) Become completely immune to everything while the plague of extremely poisonous insects eats everything down to the bone. This is where priest comes in. The level 2 withdraw spell heals you and makes you invisible for 20 base seconds. The downside of not being able to take actions does not matter since your insects do not require you to do anything but survive. In my testing, everything was dead before withdraw duration ran out, but you also have barring deaths door and salvation of time to also make you immune to death.

 

Class: priest of Wael / shifter druid

Race: moon godlike

 

Might: 19

Con: 9

Dex: 10

Per: 18

Int: 19

Res: 3

 

We pick moon godlike to make the early game easier. Priest of wael allows you to cast arcane veil at level 1 to protect you while casting plague of insects and withdraw. It provides concentration too so you don’t get interrupted. Mirror images can be used also to protect against firearms. These are nearly instant cast with no recovery so low dex is not a hinderance.

 

Until you get plague of insects, just use other similar spells at earlier levels; druid has AOE damage over time spells at every level I think For priest, just use arcane veil and withdraw. At level 3 take the “smart” inspiration buff and triumph of the crusaders at 4 and barring deaths door at 5.

 

UPDATE: I changed my recommendation to shifter druid and increased dex at the expense of some con. This helps the early game a lot. In a different druid build I found that made the early game very easy since you could just stay in animal form when you don't have very many spells to cast and animal form is very strong at the start of the game before you have good items. You also get 5 free healing spells (6 if you count the boar passive) in addition to the three from moon godlike. This doesn't matter later in the game but helps a ton in the beginning. I originally had life-giver with the idea that you would cast while shifted as a bear for some extra armor without recovery penalty for the initial wave of hits you take while casting. However, by the time you get a bunch of spells, that small advantage is simply not needed so it is better to help the early game be dramatically easier.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Braven

[Boeroer]

I see you put out some build posts recently. Which I like.

 

While they are all very well thought through (as always ) I would think that we wait with putting them into the build list until they are tested more and leave the stage of "first draft" and reach a "proof of concept" level, what do you think?

 

Since I might forget about this it would be great if you could remind me once you think the build is ready. Would be a shame if they drown in the current forum... current.    

[Lokithecat]

Not sure if this is a build, as much as a bug, and the idea that as of 1.1 beta all bugs in the game have been fixed is basically ridiculous.

[Braven]

Yeah, I would wait a couple more patches before risking adding any of mine to the build list. . The alchemy thing is almost certainly going to be patched away eventually. I just really wanted to use priest for something really broken, haha. I will change the Title to “build concept” to better show that it is not fully play tested out from start to finish. I did use the cheat console to test at different levels and locations and tried it out in a few battles. The build's strategy is immune to arcane dampener since enemies just completely ignore you when you withdraw and it doesn't use other buffs. I tried all the poison spells and some non-poison ones and found plague of insects to easily be the most powerful. The huge range, area of effect radius, and accuracy just makes it so reliable to cast and the really long duration means you never need to cast it twice or anything else for that matter.

I also just played till the capital normally to get a feel for the first few levels. The high health and arcane veil, along with shape-shift for faster speed and higher armor made this part easier than most builds I have tried out, though "shifter" subclass would be MUCH better early.  In fact, I will update the build to use it.  By mid-game, it won't matter what druid subclass you picked and you just won't shape shift.  Withdraw comes at level 2 and there are decent druid DOT early on.  The main problem is limited number of casts until you level up a bit.  I did run into situations where my spells would just miss and then I die because of the low dex and resolve meant I didn't get much done in melee.  That is a problem for all spell casters early that rely on accuracy rolls instead of just buffing themselves.  This gets better over time, but you really have to pick your battles carefully.  There is no reason to kill every enemy you see; most can simply be avoided and you can come back later in the game and clean them out after you have leveled up more.  Almost all EXP comes from completing quests and most of those can be resolved without any combat.

 

In truth, this would work fine without priest. You could certainly, like Boeroer suggested in another thread, just focus on high health regeneration.  I would go that route if playing with a party since most of the heals are AOE and you can have someone else tank for you.  Plague of Insects would still be great because it is FOE only, so it won't hurt your team mates.  With a party, I would go pure druid in order to get that spell faster.  The only reason to multi-class is to survive soloing since a ship full of bad guys will just kill you in under 10 seconds without immunity.  Instead of abusing priest immunity spells, you could go all-out max defenses.  I have done that with wizard/monk and it works as long as you carefully pick the order of your quests and avoid taking on higher level enemies too early.  But that is more trouble then I wanted to bother with and druid isn't really the ideal class for a super tank.

 

I don’t really expect all the imbalances to be fixed already (my comment alluding to this was done in jest). It is more to poke a bit of fun at the seemingly pointless balance changes like reducing a lash damage by 5 or 10% when there are clearly bigger fish to fry like the alchemy effect on power levels, never resting to retain one use powerful buffs forever, 150 second immunity combos, max defenses such that nothing can even graze you, or just escaping any battle you want with per-encounter invisibility abilities and trying again with all your powers recharged and half the enemies dead.

You could alternatively play this build "straight" and just get some normal healing spells instead of withdraw and use something like returning storm instead of plague, etc.  But I don't think anyone really needs a guide for that and it is not as interesting as... The Lord of the Flies!  Repent you heathens or be purified by the small bites of thousand killer insects.  I will pray to my god for the absolutions of your sins as his radiant glow keeps the blood splatters from staining my freshly laundered, priestly white robes.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Braven

[Maxzero]

I had a similiar idea and even tested it out but it didn't work out that great.

 

Why?

 

Because accuracy is an issue (as it always is with casters). Especially early on when you have poor accuracy and fewer spells.

 

When your big DoTs miss it feels...bad...real bad. It does not help that most DoT spells test versus Fortitude which is hard to debuff.

 

One idea I had is Wizard/Druid using things like Chill Fog and Miasma to help spells land other Wizard and Druid spells land.

 

It would be nice if active skills did buff some spells though perhaps with reduced effects (+1 PL every 3 or 4 skill levels).

 

It makes sense that Alchemy buffs Poison spells. Stealth could buff Illusion spells. Explosives AoE spells. Athletics could boost buff spells.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Maxzero

[Braven]

I have early game accuracy issues.

 

You can get around early game luck with cheesy tactics. First, pull enemies away from thier starting area in a zone. Then cast your DOT and then withdraw. They will immediately head back to where they started and leave you alone. If you missed with your accuracy roll, just head back and try again. Since the “encounter” ended after they left your field of view, you can try again with your spells restored.

 

Also, keep in mind you don’t have to kill everything you see early on. You can sneak past almost everything in this game and the vast majority of EXP and Gold is from quests and most of those can be completed without fighting. In fact, I wonder if you can just sneak past every enemy on the first island completely.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Braven

[Archaven]

they make accuracy into alchemy which require the use of drugs if you are caster. otherwise all your nukes are just there for decoration which not going to hit at all. this make caster extremely suxs compared to physical/melee/range. obsidian just hate caster might as well just remove it entirely from the game. to me the spell accuracy is very badly balanced. every character you make should be have max out PER (which also helps discovering traps). no story companion has high enough PER which in my opinion a very bad game design.

 

as for your stat allocation i like it very much as it's very thoughtful. but with 3 DEX will it be crawling slow? unless your point is to shapeshift before casting any spells?

[Enoch]

It makes sense that Alchemy buffs Poison spells. Stealth could buff Illusion spells. Explosives AoE spells. Athletics could boost buff spells.

The problem there is that you then have to balance the effects of Power Level scaling to 20+ ranks higher than previously.  Which I doubt that they have done.  (By comparison, Alchemy boosts Potions/Drugs in duration and intensity, but character Power Level (for the most part) only impacts Duration.) 

 

Also, this would pair certain skills with certain classes such that any other skillpoint allocation would be a noob trap. 

[Maxzero]

 

It makes sense that Alchemy buffs Poison spells. Stealth could buff Illusion spells. Explosives AoE spells. Athletics could boost buff spells.

The problem there is that you then have to balance the effects of Power Level scaling to 20+ ranks higher than previously.  Which I doubt that they have done.  (By comparison, Alchemy boosts Potions/Drugs in duration and intensity, but character Power Level (for the most part) only impacts Duration.) 

 

Also, this would pair certain skills with certain classes such that any other skillpoint allocation would be a noob trap. 

 

 

Would they?

 

Missile spells excessively benefit from power level. Yet Wizards still use plenty of different spells.

 

Assuming 1 PL per 4 skill level (or 0.25 per 1) would give +5 PL at level 20. I think that is perfectly reasonable and far from overpowered. Would Insect spells suddenly become amazing with a couple of extra PLs?

 

As for noob trap why would noobs care? They are playing the game fine now with no scaling. An advanced synergy won't affect them at all.

[Braven]

I updated the build to use the shifter druid subclass and changed the stats to lower might/con a bit and increase DEX.  This will help out the early game performance a lot and not harm the mid-late game.

 

I am okay with skills helping out certain powers, but I don't think it should be a 1:1 ratio and there should be some kind of cap to discourage dumping all your skills in a single thing, which is currently the best min/max strategy.  I guess it would add more confusion to the system though, but would at least help associate skills more strongly with class archetypes.  Like rogues being good at slight of hand, wizards being good at arcana, druids being good at alchemy, etc.

 

For alchemy, it could boost poison spells every 3 skill points and cap off at a max of Power Level 4 and maybe have a lesser effect on healing spells (max 2 power levels).  There are not that many poison spells, so it wouldn't really create imbalances.  Stealth could do the same for illusion spells.  Arcana can boost all spells, but at a lower rate like 1 every 6 skill points for a max of 2 power levels.  Athletics could increase martial ability power levels at the same rate as Arcana.  Slight-of-hand can help rogue ability power levels.  Explosives could help some special abilities like smoke bomb and certain AOE effects like blunderbuss modal ability.  I am hesitant to give it magical AOEs since arcana is already boosting that.  I am not sure why explosives is separate from mechanics.. I would be fine with them being merged into one skill.

 

Mechanics and Explosives could boost firearm damage (maybe greater of the two).  Athletics and Mechanics could help crossbows.  Arcana could increase the damage of magical implements.  Athletics could increase two-handed melee weapons, large one-handers, and bows.  Slight of hand could increase the fast one-handers like dagger, rapiers, etc.

 

I don't expect the developers to ever do this since it would add a lot of confusion to the game, but maybe someone will create a mod some day.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Braven

[Braven]

I had a similiar idea and even tested it out but it didn't work out that great.

 

Why?

 

Because accuracy is an issue (as it always is with casters). Especially early on when you have poor accuracy and fewer spells.

 

When your big DoTs miss it feels...bad...real bad. It does not help that most DoT spells test versus Fortitude which is hard to debuff.

 

One idea I had is Wizard/Druid using things like Chill Fog and Miasma to help spells land other Wizard and Druid spells land.

 

It would be nice if active skills did buff some spells though perhaps with reduced effects (+1 PL every 3 or 4 skill levels).

 

It makes sense that Alchemy buffs Poison spells. Stealth could buff Illusion spells. Explosives AoE spells. Athletics could boost buff spells.

 

 I tried using the de-buff illusion spells of wizard before, but found they had the same problem basically that you have with the druid spells;  you could miss and then they do nothing and wasted a bunch of casting time and a power resource.  Also, they have too small of an AOE area.  If you can only hit one or two enemies, you might as well just use a club/flail/morning-star weapon proficiency modal to de-buff your enemies since weapons generally have higher accuracy, take less time, and cost no resources.  The only good de-buff spell wizard has early is chill fog because it is a ground hazard that is able to attack repeatedly.  That means accuracy is much less important because if you miss one on the first tick, you will likely hit on the next one.  Eventually everyone will have the affliction.

 

Note with Druid:  You can also debuff enemies, though not as well as chill fog.  The best spell is Tanglefoot which reduces reflex at tier 1.  That said... it is only -10 reflex, so I don't know how much of an impact it would have.  Tanglefoot has:

 

1) A huge radius.  Same as Plague of Insects, so it will hit everything.

2) Works like a ground hazard so it fires off every tick.  This helps the accuracy a lot since there are multiple opportunities for it to hit, as explained above.

3) Long enough duration

4) If you have resistance to dexterity afflictions, you should be able to stand in the middle of the AOE.  This makes a wood elf an interesting racial option.

5) Autumn's decay targets reflex at level 2 (has a large AOE area so I like it better than insect swarm at that level, plus reflex > fortitude) and the storm spells all target reflex.

 

You can lower both fortitude and reflex with Spreading Plague at level 3.  That has the poison keyword so it will benefit from your alchemy which should increase accuracy, number of jumps, and duration, though I haven't tested it.  It cannot be combined with tanglefoot since they both cause hobbled.  I like Tanglefoot better because there are good other spells at level 3 while level 1 is kind of lack-luster anyway.

 

-- Soap Box --

 

I think debuff spells should have the same casting/recovery time as the priest single target buff spells, or otherwise improved, like adding a large accuracy bonus.  As they stand, with the full casting time, they just aren't worth using because you could just miss with them and the effect is not that powerful.  In fact, I don't think it would be over powered if they had the same cast time as the wizard self-buff spells (near instant).  My guess is that the developers were using the following logic for determining cast time:

 

1) self-buff should be the lowest because it is the least flexible (can only target one specific character)

2) single target buffs should be the next lowest cast time, but higher than the self buff because it can target any player.

3) AOE buffs should take the longest time because they can target multiple characters

 

De-buffs are treated like the third category, but that is not taking into consideration that you need an accuracy roll while a buff does not and both have a similar effect, power-wise.  Accuracy is really hard to increase in POE2 and it is much easier to miss, so this is a big deal.  It also doesn't take into consideration that your party can clump up to all be in the AOE area while you can't force your enemies to clump up so easily.  De-buffs typically have a lower duration than buffs and some of that might be wasted if you kill them before it expires.  Many buffs have 30, 45, or 60 second base durations... The longest de-buff I can think of is 20 seconds.

 

 

Wizard is very powerful for a solo character because the first, second, and third categories above are the same so you are better off with self-buffs instead of targeted buffs and should avoid AOE buffs because they probably are not worth it.  Of course, I don't expect them to balance around solo play, so that is fine.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Braven

[Braven]

as for your stat allocation i like it very much as it's very thoughtful. but with 3 DEX will it be crawling slow? unless your point is to shapeshift before casting any spells?

Yes, the idea was to shape shift right away. Since you are spending so much time just sitting in withdraw spell waiting, dex seemed like a waste.

 

I have since updated the build to use 8 dex and shifter subclass. This should help the early game when you do need to attack more.

 

I would love to make it higher, but the other stats are more important. Like you said, you absolutely can’t lower perception with casters.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Braven

[Braven]

I forgot to mention. There is also the level 1 Natures Mark that has a good size foe-only AOE that reduces deflection and reflex by 10. This can be stacked with Tanglefoot or Spreading Plague for a total -20 penalty to enemy reflex. Priest also has a blessing to increase your accuracy by 5 at level 1, but I would rather cast arcane viels. I will test with these, but hopefully it will help the issues of accuracy in early levels.

 

You certainly want to use Natures Mark early with this build. Because the AOE is so large, it hits every enemy and lasts around 45 seconds. It targets will, and the early enemies are all low in that defense. It effectively increases your melee accuracy by 10 which is great for attacking in animal form. I recommend casting it from stealth and then shifting immediately after... that way it takes no casting time to use. it has a long range, so you don't need to get close to the enemy before using it. I like the cat form best since it naturally has faster attack speed and has an ability to further increase attack speed. It is basically like having monk's swift strikes. The boar passive healing is also quite powerful with the healing multipliers particularly early on. It is basically like fighter constant recovery. The animal abilities are considered tier zero, so they start right off with a 10% increase from power level. With the dawnstar blessing, boar form was healing for over 8 hp a tick from the start of the game.

 

After I restarted with Shifter and moon godlike it was way easier. Between moon godlike and the animal forms, that is eight additional passive heals. Nine counting the boar passive. I think I will actually pump might back up to max because of this and lower CON in the build.

 

Note: Shifter healing was nerfed a bit in 1.1. It now does (15 + 5/PL base) * might * healing multipliers. That is actually good scaling because adding a literal value to the base amount is much better than another percentage based multiplier. It will be quite powerful when combined with the +50% blessing and +15% talent and +15% pet, +15% belt etc. it starts off with 1PL since it is consider tier zero, so you get the first PL for free making it actually base 20 hp.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Braven

[QuiteGoneJin]

I was pretty shocked reading this.. Alchemy increases insect spell accuracy and damage? Just the one spell? Or  Which other spells. I've been wanting to make a single class druid work.

Edited June 7, 2018 by QuiteGoneJin

[Clever_Wanderer]

Class: priest of weal / shifter druid

*Priest of Wael, not "weal", it's strange that nobody noticed. Don't mind me, just little friendly correction. After all it's a name of god.

[QuiteGoneJin]

PS wouldnt pure druid and using that beetle shell be better? As it does the same thing that withdrawl does and youd be a stronger earlier blooming (pardon the pun) druid? 

[Braven]

I was pretty shocked reading this.. Alchemy increases insect spell accuracy and damage? Just the one spell? Or Which other spells. I've been wanting to make a single class druid work.

All the ones with poison effects. This includes 4 druid spells and 2 wizard spells that I know of. You can tell if a spell has poison because it will either have the poison keyword or have “countered by antidote” in the tooltip. The Druid spells (with spell tier) are:

 

1) Vile Thorns

3) Spreading Plague

5) Plague of Insects

6) Venom Bloom

 

I don’t know if it increases accuracy for all spells. I only looked at the combat log of Plague of Insects. I think that one gains one extra accuracy per PL, but I didn’t actually do the math; just noticed the big number. Grazes and Crits also matter much less with Damage over time spells since it just changes the duration a bit. The per tick damage is unchanged by hit quality. PL effects various depending on the type of spell and effects it has. There is a thread in this forum that explains the mechanics discovered about how it works exactly. It is kind of complicated.

 

The extra power levels are so strong that you might want to consider just playing a pure druid. Druid/Wizard is also a fine option in order to have eventual access to all of the poison spells.

 

In my opinion Plague of Insects is by far away the best of the bunch, but wizard/druid is better for a bit more total variety.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Braven

[Braven]

PS wouldnt pure druid and using that beetle shell be better? As it does the same thing that withdrawl does and youd be a stronger earlier blooming (pardon the pun) druid?

Honesty, pure druid could be considered better overall simply because you get plague of insects so much sooner and the priest survivability is probably way over-kill... but it does technically have a stronger potential in the end game. Particular starting off as moon godlike and shifter, I suspect it would be super strong all game going pure druid and you avoid the awkward level 8-12 phase where you are not really powerful enough yet to take on large battle challenges and still need to grind through easy quests for EXP. Feel free to test it and report back.

 

Beetle shell is a 200 hp damage shield instead of purely duration based, so it could “break” sooner if soloing on highest difficulty and under intense enemy fire. You are also not “untargetable” so it is possible that something bad could happen like getting de-buffed to death or maybe hit with something that dispels it like arcane dampener (I don’t know if an enemy would actually try to do this or not).

 

In POE1, damage shields were worse than they seemed because it ignored some things like armor damage reduction (the shield was hit before armor was checked). I don’t know how it works in POE2 since there is no longer DR.

 

Finally, Beetle shield is not nearly as good because the duration is base 10 seconds instead of 20 seconds with withdraw. Add in Int bonuses and the difference is even greater. Also doesn’t provide the full heal like withdraw. It is nice to be topped off so you have some buffer room if you need to cast more spells after.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Braven

[Porcelyn]

Could this work with Berath/Shifter? It just seems like a better combo rp wise.

[Braven]

Could this work with Berath/Shifter? It just seems like a better combo rp wise.

Sure, you really only lose out on being able to learn arcane veil which is useful to avoid getting interrupted. interruption means you completely lose the “power source” along with the spell so it is quite painful to a spell casters. This can be compensated with certain inspirations, items, or the combat focus passive ability. The +50 deflection is quite powerful sometimes, but honestly the biggest threat is getting snipered by gun enemies and arcane veil is useless against that so maybe a different spell would be better anyway. Generally you will have completed your initial DOT spell before melee even reach you making arcane veil maybe not so useful as I originally thought. I mainly liked it since it is really fast to cast and all the normal priest spells are pretty terrible for a solo character at level 1.

 

Berath gets touch of rot at level 1 which is actually a very good single target damage spell. Also gets spreading plague so you don’t have to waste your level 3 druid spells to cast this, if you want to use it in order to increase your spell accuracy. Spell accuracy is a big issue with this build, so Berath is actually not that bad.

 

As a shifter, staying in animal form is really better than casting spells early on, so your early priest spells can probably just be ignored if you want. The priest side is really only needed for big battles where you are heavily out gunned, like ship battles, where no amount of healing will save you and you must “withdraw” in order to survive.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Braven

[QuiteGoneJin]

 

1) Vile Thorns

3) Spreading Plague

5) Plague of Insects

6) Venom Bloom

Cool ty, I suspect insect swarm doesn't scale, doesn't have the antidote counter tag. How do you feel about top lvl druid spells, im so in the dark about druids, love them thematically but I see ONE druid build in the forums and almost no one coming up with synergistic multi-classes. 

[Braven]

 

1) Vile Thorns

3) Spreading Plague

5) Plague of Insects

6) Venom Bloom

Cool ty, I suspect insect swarm doesn't scale, doesn't have the antidote counter tag. How do you feel about top lvl druid spells, im so in the dark about druids, love them thematically but I see ONE druid build in the forums and almost no one coming up with synergistic multi-classes.

.

 

Insect swarm (level 2 spell) is kind of lousy. In theory it can do a lot of damage, but it target fortitude and has a small AOE. I find Autumn of decay to be better because of the larger AOE and reflex defense. Both have a big problem: if you miss, nothing happens. Because of this you either need to ramp up accuracy somehow or just skip them and go for a healing power instead. My favorite level 2 power is “Taste of the Hunt” For the following reasons:

 

1) Massive single target raw damage. Great for assassinating enemy wizards or gunners who shoot through your arcane veil.

2) Also heals you for a good burst amount

3) Essentially no cast time since it has a normal attack as part of it.

 

At third level, the lightning storm is good since it has multiple attack rolls so it is less prone to luck (a bad dice roll). Attacks reflex that you lowered with nature’s mark.

 

First level, I just used nature’s mark that you get for free and then shift to animal form. I would also pick Vile Thorns since it will get decent later in the game after alchemy is skilled up. Tanglefoot is good if you plan to go heavy with the reflex-based AOE spells later, but I personally never bothered since I would rather get to animal form faster. It does have multiple attack rolls being a gound hazard to help hit reliability and a large AOE radius.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Braven

[Braven]

Not sure if this is a build, as much as a bug.

Well, the alchemy power level thing may very well be a bug, but the build works perfectly fine even without it; just helps hurry along battles. For more challenge, just use Returning Storm, Nature’s Wrath, etc. They are still powerful enough and have a large enough AOE to eventually kill all enemies over the full duration.

 

I don’t think any of the priest tricks are bugs; they do exactly what the tool tips say. You can argue bad design or balance, but that doesn’t qualify as a bug or exploit in my book. And I don’t see people clammering to play priest and complaining about the class being over powered. For that matter a lot of people think druid is weak because of the shifter claw nerfs and losing items while shifted.

 

— Soap Box —

 

I personally disagree with druid being a weak option now in patch 1.1, as suggested by some players. Animal forms are just an extra perk to provide a few more optional abilities (prone, constant recovery, swift strikes, and AOE frighten) and help the early game be a lot easier for a smoother difficulty curve. In comparison, Wizards just get the spellbook instead of a free spell each tier and, if you subclass, can’t even cast most of the spells in them. The only class perk priest gets is radiance and it doesn’t even scale very well and is easy to forget it even exists. Priest get that and a free learned spell per level and druids get 5 animal forms with unique powers, 5 more potential heals that cost no power source, and also a free learned spell per level. Druids have it better than priest and wizard even if you only use the animal forms for emergency healing and Cat’s flurry ability to speed up your spell casting, then shift back. No need to actually fight in animal form or stay shapeshifted all the time. Lifegiver is good just for the passive +2 power levels, even if they never ever used shapeshift. Just look at what wizards have to give up for a measly 1 power level in a single school of magic: Slower recovery on 40% of their spells. Lost access to another 40% of spells. Able to shapeshift into a worthless orge that is far weaker than any animal form in every way possible and doesn’t scale at all... yeah, druid has it pretty well off relative to it’s peers I think.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Braven