Druid vs Wizard

[dgray62]

I really like Theurge builds, and if you do it makes sense to focus on electric attacks, given the powerful options on both the druid and chanter side. You could, for example start a fight with an empowered Her Revenge while wielding Sasha's, which is even better if you're also wearing the Least Unstable Coil and Weyc's Wand in your offhand. Once you're empowered with bonus PLs and inspirations, you could then switch to the Voulge and cast a relentless storm or two. I really like Sasha's because I rarely ever otherwise empower attacks, for the same reason that I rarely use per rest abilities. In other words, I don't like having to rest all the time.

[mjo2138]

 

 

3 hours ago, Lampros said:

Not precisely on topic but sort of related:

I am struggling in terms of whether I give my Druid/Chanter the full Relentless Storm gear (the Cage and the sounbound poleaxe you mention) or have her use a nice shield and the Sasha's scimitar. I guess this decision was forced by the decision to combine Druid and Chanter (which I am not regretting); and I did not think about end-game gear. So what do you guys think? Does the 5 PL from the full Relentless Storm set-up justify giving up the Sasha's scimitar and the benefits to Chanter the latter provides? Or vice versa?

Edit: I am also wondering whether the Cage will be worth the extreme loss of casting speed - or does the 2 PL justify it?

For Tekehu (or any char with shock keyword skills) If you use both Deltros Cage and Lord Darryon's Volgue, you get +5 Power level to storm.  I forget the exact math, but +5 PL comes down to about +2 PEN for lightening spells, which is very useful. Furthermore, many enemies in Deadfire have low Shock armor rating, meaning you will be doing Overpenetraion on lightening attacks. That makes AOE lightenign spells (Relenteless storm, greater maelstrom) absolutely killer.  

The downside of using Lord Darryons Volgue  as a stat stick means a melee character won't have access to shock dmg melee  weapon(which again is great for bypassing enemies with low AR to shock) . Thankfully, you can come across other weapons that do elemental damage (Animancer's blade, lategame aquistion), essence interrupter (sold early game at Port town) . Another option is using Firebrand (druid spell) for a mulitclass character; otherwise u can use scrolls (but that is not cost efficent) 

 

[dgray62]

5 hours ago, mjo2138 said:

The downside of using Lord Darryons Volgue  as a stat stick means a melee character won't have access to shock dmg melee  weapon(which again is great for bypassing enemies with low AR to shock) . Thankfully, you can come across other weapons that do elemental damage (Animancer's blade, lategame aquistion), essence interrupter (sold early game at Port town) . Another option is using Firebrand (druid spell) for a mulitclass character; otherwise u can use scrolls (but that is not cost efficent) 

I agree completely. For a theurge I think Sasha's and shield is the way to go early game; later you can replace the shield with another stat stick. While +2 PEN  for the storm spells is nice, as Boeroer has explained elsewhere, the storm spells don't seem to scale as well with power levels as some other spells do. I suppose that this is due to the relatively low base damage of spells like relentless storm. The Voulge is best used by a more melee oriented character IMO. You can really wreak havoc with it in the hands of a brute or ravager.

[Boeroer]

There are other storm spells that have better base damage (like Blizzard and Hail Storm) but they are not shock based, so you'll "only" get +3 PL. 

+3 Storm PL from the Voulge equals +0.75 PEN, not 2. If you want shock damage you can still use Deltro's Cage and the Singing Scimitar because the shocking lash from the scimitar will get applied to your (shock) spells as well, boosting their shock damage equally well than +3 PL would do (14% lash vs. 15% base dmg) and at the same time work with ALL spells, not only storms BUT only works best if you have a full phrase count. St the same time it speeds you up with every held phrase. So if you hold your phrases and cast Druid spells you'll have equal dmg for all of them but you'll have 3 less ACC and as I said -0.75 PEN.

So stat-wise it's not an easy choice. Depends what spells and invocations you use most often I guess. 

I agree though that I like the Vougle much better on characters that go into melee, preferably Barbarians/something. I did an electric-storm Barb/Fury with it (binding it to the Fury side for the +3 PL to storms because you still keep Static Charge with Carnage - just without the Disorienting effect) and that was nice because you get the best of both worlds (melee and storm casting).
I would use it as a pure stat stick on a SC Druid who aims at getting Greater Maelstrom - because there it's really great (freeing up Magran's Favor + Sun & Moon and Chromoprismatic Staff which can also be used by other classes). But in that case you don't have to decide between Scimitar and Voulge in the first place. 

[Lampros]

On 10/29/2020 at 3:58 PM, dgray62 said:

I really like Theurge builds, and if you do it makes sense to focus on electric attacks, given the powerful options on both the druid and chanter side. You could, for example start a fight with an empowered Her Revenge while wielding Sasha's, which is even better if you're also wearing the Least Unstable Coil and Weyc's Wand in your offhand. Once you're empowered with bonus PLs and inspirations, you could then switch to the Voulge and cast a relentless storm or two. I really like Sasha's because I rarely ever otherwise empower attacks, for the same reason that I rarely use per rest abilities. In other words, I don't like having to rest all the time.

Is Her Revenge viable late-game, too? I never chose it, because the paper damage seems too low to work come late-game. But I see a lot of people recommending it? The problem with Chanter is that you have so many good choices; perhaps the answer is to run two!

[Boeroer]

It is always very viable. The description is a bit misleading. The damage you see there will get applied thrice! Also the upgrade is very good.

The best part is that will will trigger a lot of individual attack rolls that all count as separate casts/usages. This is important because in the late game you can have the Least Unstable Coil. It will give you one random tier-3 inspiration if you empower an ability usage. A Chanter can empower in every encounter with Sasha's Singing Scimitar. So you empower Her Revenge which will count as countless individual casts - giving you ALL tier-3 inspirations almost guaranteed. 

But even besides that the invocation is viable in the endgame because not only does it get casts thrice as I said at the beginning but it also scales with Power Level of course. 

[Lampros]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

It is always very viable. The description is a bit misleading. The damage you see there will get applied thrice! Also the upgrade is very good.

The best part is that will will trigger a lot of individual attack rolls that all count as separate casts/usages. This is important because in the late game you can have the Least Unstable Coil. It will give you one random tier-3 inspiration if you empower an ability usage. A Chanter can empower in every encounter with Sasha's Singing Scimitar. So you empower Her Revenge which will count as countless individual casts - giving you ALL tier-3 inspirations almost guaranteed. 

But even besides that the invocation is viable in the endgame because not only does it get casts thrice as I said at the beginning but it also scales with Power Level of course. 

Ah, thanks. I will try it out next run then. I really ought to run two Chanters from now on, because I don't have enough level-up choices!

[dgray62]

Her Revenge is one of my favorite chanter abilities. You can easily explode mobs with one empowered cast of it (which you can do once per encounter with Sasha's Singing Scimitar, and then cast it immediately again with the phrases you get back, to finish off any survivors. It does significant damage to tougher foes as well, except for the few that are immune to lightning damage. Fortunately chanters have good alternatives for those foes. Currently, skald is my favorite subclass since it reduces the cost for this abilities to 2 phrases. This actually makes the game ridiculously easy, in an overpowered fun way, even on PotD, once you get the Her Revenge upgrade and the Scimitar, which for me is usually around level 7.

[Lampros]

Are there useful Druid spells at PL 6 or 7? I had no problem picking spells until then, but nothing attracts me at this juncture.

[Boeroer]

6 minutes ago, Lampros said:

Are there useful Druid spells at PL 6 or 7? I had no problem picking spells until then, but nothing attracts me at this juncture.

Venombloom is quite powerful (unless poison immune foes). It's like Chillfog but with raw dmg and weaken + frighten instead of blinded. 

Garden of Life is an excellent healing spell BUT there have to be corpses on the ground. You want to deactivate gibs in the game option menue though - because gibbed enemies don't leave corpses. If there are corpses it's great really. 

Sunlance is one of the highest dmg single target spells in the game. It has a huge, huge range (20 m). It also comes with high PEN. I like it a lot on Furies where the range and PEN are even higher. Funnily enough the spell works with Instruments of Pain (Monk) and thus gets a range of 120(!) meters. You can basically cast it across the whole map (in theory). Fun with a Helwalker/Fury. I somewhere had a thread where I tested everything that works with Insturments of Pain, maybe I cvan find it again. IIRC there were more druid spells that did.  

Rusted Armor can be very good against high AR foes. -4 AR for 15 secs base can make a huge difference. 

Some players really like Rot Skulls. I'm not a huge fan but it's certainly not bad at all. 

Call to the Primordials calls some pretty powerful oozes. I think it's a top summoning spell. Way better than the other stuff a Druid can summon. 

[Lampros]

3 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Venombloom is quite powerful (unless poison immune foes). It's like Chillfog but with raw dmg and weaken + frighten instead of blinded. 

Garden of Life is an excellent healing spell BUT there have to be corpses on the ground. You want to deactivate gibs in the game option menue though - because gibbed enemies don't leave corpses. If there are corpses it's great really. 

Sunlance is one of the highest dmg single target spells in the game. It has a huge, huge range (20 m). It also comes with high PEN. I like it a lot on Furies where the range and PEN are even higher. Funnily enough the spell works with Instruments of Pain (Monk) and thus gets a range of 120(!) meters. You can basically cast it across the whole map (in theory). Fun with a Helwalker/Fury. I somewhere had a thread where I tested everything that works with Insturments of Pain, maybe I cvan find it again. IIRC there were more druid spells that did.  

Rusted Armor can be very good against high AR foes. -4 AR for 15 secs base can make a huge difference. 

Some players really like Rot Skulls. I'm not a huge fan but it's certainly not bad at all. 

Call to the Primordials calls some pretty powerful oozes. I think it's a top summoning spell. Way better than the other stuff a Druid can summon. 

Thanks. I am a bit wary of Venombloom, because I am so inept at casting AoEs that can potentially inflict friendly fire damage. But I guess I shouldn't be worried as much in turn-based. Yet old habits die hard, and I seem to automatically avoid any non-foe-only AoEs!

I am using Garden of Life, and I am satisfied. I am getting it automatically on my subclass, so I forgot to mention I had it.

I was thinking of picking either Rusted Armor or Sunlance, so I guess I will do so now - I cannot take both, because I only have 1 level to go.

Finally, I am not a fan of summoning spells (micro-management wary), so Call to the Primordials is probably something I wouldn't want to take.

[Boeroer]

I'm also not a huge fan of summons (except Essential Phantom and Watery Double) - but Call to the Primordials is so good because some of the Oozes have special abilites, several of them with unlimited uses. For example the Bog Ooze can cast Plague of Insects once and something like Overbearing Wave unlimited times. And the Greater Black Ooze has Divide and Conquer so if it gets "killed" it splits into two smaller oozes which can merge back again, giving enemies a really hard time. It also can do a corrosive AoE attack unlimited times. And besides that they always come as three and each has resonably high health. So those are the reasons I think that Call to the Primordials is a top spell. But I almost never use it.

Edited November 27, 2020 by Boeroer

[Lampros]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I'm also not a huge fan of summons (except Essential Phantom and Watery Double) - but Call to the Primordials is so good because some of the Oozes have special abilites, several of them with unlimited uses. For example the Bog Ooze can cast Plague of Insects once and something like Overbearing Wave unlimited times. And the Greater Black Ooze has Divide and Conquer so if it gets "killed" it splits into two smaller oozes which can merge back again, giving enemies a really hard time. It also can do a corrosive AoE attack unlimited times. And besides that they always come as three and each has resonably high health. So those are the reasons I think that Call to the Primordials is a top spell. But I almost never use it.

Thanks; in that case I may experiment then.