Regarding the Fury/Bleakwalker combo and lashes

[Lunateric]

Hey guys, got the game relatively recent and have been enjoying it tremendously. I am fairly advanced on a martial class run (streetfighter/berserker) that basically stomps everything I throw at it at veteran. Would like to try a different concept and up the difficulty. After doing some research I noticed I could get several different lashes for attacks on a Fury/Bleakwalker combo but I'm wondering if Fury's shapeshift has gotten any good over time. Most of the info I could search here is fairly outdated.

All this comes from me wanting to get the most out of Chromoprismatic Staff, it's probably one of my favorite weapons but its giant variety in bonuses is hard to min/max at least for me.

[dgray62]

I believe that this has been discussed in several threads before. Storm Fury attacks do lightning damage, and Bleakwalker FoD have fire and corrode lashes. If you get the Wildstrike freeze talents you'll do damage with all four elements when doing FoD while Spiritshifted. And if you get the scion of flame, spirit of decay and heart of the storm talents, each of those FoD full attacks while spirit shifted will have +3 pen, which means you'll do great damage. The one per encounter lightning attack in this form is also incredible; I got 100+ damage once on a crit with it while level one or two in the sea cave.

Edited April 13, 2020 by dgray62

[Boeroer]

Unfortunately the Storm Blight's weapons are not super good. At least they got changed from two handed to dual wielding which is good for FoD. And they have an auto-jump which is nice. I think it even jumps whem there's only one target (simply hits twice then). At least it used to.

Eternal Devotion works with all spells and abilities which deal damage, that's cool. 

With Ring of Focused Flame and Acina's Tricorn as well as Marksman Ring and Scion of Flame, Spirit of Decay and Heart of the Storm (like dgray62 said) you'll have +15 ACC and +4 PEN for your FoD attacks (on top of the +10 ACC which FoD already has). That's not bad at all. Plus the several lashes of course. If you wear Deltro's Cage Helmet and manage to somehow get hit by lightning (e.g. a Wizard in the party, shocking lash as high as the dmg you received) or wear Horns of the Aurochs (+10% freeze) and the Belt of Magran's Chosen (+3% burn) you can add even more lashes. 

Paladin/Fury doesn't have a lot of damage bonuses. Sworn Rival might help a bit. Also Improved Critical and maybe Killer's Gloves since one tends to crit quite often with the +20 ACC (or even +25 with the Tricorn) of FoD. 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Boeroer

[Lunateric]

1 hour ago, dgray62 said:

I believe that this has been discussed in several threads before.

Yeah, nothing recent and up to date, hence why I asked.

 

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Unfortunately the Storm Blight's weapons are not super good. At least they got changed from two handed to dual wielding which is good for FoD. And they have an auto-jump which is nice. I think it even jumps whem there's only one target (simply hits twice then). At least it used to.

Eternal Devotion works with all spells and abilities which deal damage, that's cool. 

With Ring of Focused Flame and Acina's Tricorn as well as Marksman Ring and Scion of Flame, Spirit of Decay and Heart of the Storm (like dgray62 said) you'll have +15 ACC and +4 PEN for your FoD attacks (on top of the +10 ACC which FoD already has). That's not bad at all. Plus the several lashes of course. If you wear Deltro's Cage Helmet and manage to somehow get hit by lightning (e.g. a Wizard in the party, shocking lash as high as the dmg you received) or wear Horns of the Aurochs (+10% freeze) and the Belt of Magran's Chosen (+3% burn) you can add even more lashes. 

Paladin/Fury doesn't have a lot of damage bonuses. Sworn Rival might help a bit. Also Improved Critical and maybe Killer's Gloves since one tends to crit quite often with the +20 ACC (or even +25 with the Tricorn) of FoD. 

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer. I am also considering a Blood Mage/Furyshaper project because of the really nice action speed bonuses and the ability to spam spells, so may instead go with that. Mostly looking for something a bit more micro intensive, martial classes except perhaps monk feel simpler to engage with.

[Saori]

I am by no means an experienced player - but Fury to me seems underwhelming. Sadly. It is such a cool concept.

 

As Boeroer and others have pointed out already one can build a bit around the whole Lash/Wildstrike thing and stack some Pen to get the OverPen Bonus - considering though that a Fury druids biggest strength are its spells (pen for spells is really good) this feels a bit weird and suboptimal. The Fury druids shapeshifted attacks feel to me like a bonus thing that she has; which is cool - but not something incredible on its own.

(I might be wrong Boeroer, but the last time I played the Fury still used a twohanded weapon as her shifter weapon)

I think the most apt thing I could find for her is one of the Storm spells which strikes every enemy attacked by the druid (or attacking the druid) with a bolt of lightning. Since the Furys normal attacks hit two times or jump to a second target they get double the milage out of that mechanic while shifted. Sadly though that spell is a PL8 spell - unavailable for multiclassed Fury's. Which is a dang shame because going monk for bonus attack rolls and faster attacks would have been awesome and very thematic. (the fury stoking the, well, fury of the storm etc)

Alas: The IMO (mind, I don't know as much about this game as others!) best way to play a druid is going full caster - the healer version of the druid in particular. Spells get multiplicative bonuses to their effect from powerlevel (as opposed to additive affects by might, overpen, crits etc) - so the +2 PL from the healerdruid for healing spells does a lot. And there is a Pike in the game which gives +3 PL to Storm spells. Any non-shifted Druid (shift gets rid of weapon/armor bonuses) with that weapon will generally cast stronger, harder hitting storm spells then any Fury; while still having access to healing spells. (and in case of the healer druid those are boosted too).

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Saori said:

I might be wrong Boeroer, but the last time I played the Fury still used a twohanded weapon as her shifter weapon

This was changed with a patch some time ago (don't remember the version number) - maybe right after you stopped playing. I made a quick screenshot:

 

1 hour ago, Saori said:

I think the most apt thing I could find for her is one of the Storm spells which strikes every enemy attacked by the druid (or attacking the druid) with a bolt of lightning. Since the Furys normal attacks hit two times or jump to a second target they get double the milage out of that mechanic while shifted. Sadly though that spell is a PL8 spell - unavailable for multiclassed Fury's.

You can still use Avenging Storm with a Multiclass: with the unique helmet Heaven's Cacophony (works while shifted) and/or scrolls of Avenging Storm. Not quite the same of course, but possible.
In my opinion if you want to focus on Avenging Storm you should build a dual mortar Stormspeaker anyways.  

1 hour ago, Saori said:

Alas: The IMO (mind, I don't know as much about this game as others!) best way to play a druid is going full caster - the healer version of the druid in particular. Spells get multiplicative bonuses to their effect from powerlevel (as opposed to additive affects by might, overpen, crits etc) - so the +2 PL from the healerdruid for healing spells does a lot. And there is a Pike in the game which gives +3 PL to Storm spells. Any non-shifted Druid (shift gets rid of weapon/armor bonuses) with that weapon will generally cast stronger, harder hitting storm spells then any Fury; while still having access to healing spells. (and in case of the healer druid those are boosted too).

Nothing stops you from using a Fury with Lord Darryn's Voulge (and Deltro's Cage) and not shift while casting Relentless or Avenging Storm with +5 PL and the +1 PEN from the Fury's passive. It always applies. Of course: no Rejuvenation spells. Taste of the Hunt works though.
Livegivers with Spine of Thicket Green face the dilemma that they could get +2 PL from the staff but will get +5 PL while shifted (and nothing from the staff).  But it's a good thing to dampen the hefty -5 PL debuff after Spiritshift ends. 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Boeroer

[Lunateric]

1 hour ago, Saori said:

I am by no means an experienced player - but Fury to me seems underwhelming. Sadly. It is such a cool concept.

Oh, I was talking about the barbarian's subclass with totems, not about Fury (the druid one).

 

Maybe I got the name wrong, I will double check.

[dgray62]

Storm Fury's very helpful when you are lower level. It has the powerful 1/encounter lightning strike, as well as a 1/encounter (I think) escape if you get aggro. But I tended to ignore it once I reached higher levels.

[Boeroer]

Furyshaper I only do as single class recently since I discoverd that Blood Ward drains health even from DoT-ticks.