Best Druid class/combos?

[freddfranca]

I played with all classes, and really liked the Druid. But I don’t know what I do from now, Druid/Monk was fun for melee, and  what would be good for a ranged dos? Druid combines well with Ranger? Any ideas?

A Ranger who can transform in an animal looks interesting...

Edited April 29, 2021 by freddfranca

[The Berathian]

I have a confession: I really love the druid / paladin. I know, I know, it sounds weird. But there are a lot of fire spells. Like, a whole lotta fire spells. And you can be like a druid purifier, who sets the world ablaze so new growth can take root in the ashes of what once was. Firebug is one of my favourite spells. Can't say why, I just like the theme of it. And there are so many variations of druidic orders and paladin orders to mix, each of which gives a totally different theme and feel to the character. 

But, if you lean into the fire angle heavily, you end up fairly powerful. Plus, you get utility, heals, status effects, and dots. A Kind Wayfarer / Lifegiver is one of the best healing tanks you can make, and you have tons of brute force. It's easy to play both ranged and melee, as you have skills available to you that allow for both. 

[dgray62]

Liberators are fun and sturdy; their high defenses compensate for the druid's weakness in this area. You get crazy healing too, and flames of devotion is a lot of fun when in animal form. Combined with wildstrike lashes you can get some really nice lashes going if you pick eternal devotion on the paladin side. While a Kindwayfarer/Lifegiver is a great healer, if you want a more offensive build you could go Steel Garrote/Fury. You lose the druid healing spells in exchange for greater firepower with your elemental spells. But you'll get a lot of self healing (and aura healing for your party) from Steel Garrote. It all depends on what role you want the character to have in the party.

[freddfranca]

Well, I admit never thought abou a paladin/Druid. Steel garrote/Fury looks fun, but the Kind Wayfarer/Lifegiver looks more different of everything I used so far.

[The Berathian]

I never got around to actually making it, but I had an idea for a Hylean liberator. A druid / paladin devoted to Hylea. Would use rods and staves, with Amira's Wing being the prize to seek out. Never did sort out which type of druid, but I figured the paladin half was obvious: Kind Wayfarer. With a rod, it'd be like chucking a fireball every time you used Flames of Devotion. Never did sort out the druid part, but I recall trying to figure out which one was most applicable to roleplaying, which was probably Lifegiver, but I didn't want to do a Lifegiver at the time because I had just done one on another build. 

Liberator is also a great build thematically, as the Deadfire is rife with slavery and people messing with nature. There's a lot of great roleplaying angles, if you sit down and think about it for a bit. 

[Griffonheart]

Would Liberator be a tank then, or a melee caster i.e. D&D Cleric who does Fire/Healing?

For pure caster, would Druid/Priest (Magran) be better?

[Boeroer]

Speaking about Druid:

Fun fact: the Fire Stag will die when you trigger its explosion. But if you cast Barring Death's Door on it (or use Lay on Hands from Shieldbearer) you can use its explosion over and over again as long as you like (until the BDD or summoning duration is over).

SC Fury has access to the incredible Great Maelstrom and can use it with lots of PEN. With Prestige, Otto Starcat, Stone of Power, Lord Darryn's Voulge (or Sun & Moon + Magran's Favor or Chromoprismatic Staff) and Deltro's Cage you can use it with 8+ Power Level bonus (13+ when empowered)...

A SC Druid can use Hand Mortar with Avenging Storm in order to deal tremendous shock dmg because Avenging Storm gets triggered by Blinding Smoke (although Blinding Smoke doesn't do damage).

Shifter + Helwalker: the Boar form of the Shifter does a tremendous amount of raw dmg which is amplified by the Healwalker's +10 MIG and INT.

Bear Form + Goldpact Knight gets very high AR with 0 recovery penalty. Also stack Eternal Endurance (which also works with spells) and Wildstrike for good melee dmg.   

[freddfranca]

I saw a build on YouTube shifter/streetfighter, looks interesting. 
I had one Helwalker, but my daughter deleted the save. 
Now I am between another monk, the rogue or a Paladin to multi with my Druid. 
Question: FoD works when you are shifted?

I know the monk and rogue abilities works.

And about a Cipher/Druid? shifted SA?

[Boeroer]

FoD does work while you are shifted.

[dgray62]

The Balance polishing mod also boosts wildstrike, giving you a +20% lash and +1 elemental PL for wildstrike and +40% lash and elemental +2 PL for greater wildstrike. A liberator with greater wildstrike burn would have a +40% fire lash and +2 PL for eternal flames, and then +50% fire lash the next time you use it (due to the eternal flame +10% lash). And if you pick boar form, you'll have the raw DoT on top of that. Would be OP if it weren't for the large number of fire immune foes.

[freddfranca]

I like the concept of a Paladin/Druid but couldn’t put it into the game.

I was thinking something like a support/tank, but like the good old druids from D&D I don’t want to use heavy armor or blades. 
Wayfarer/Lifegiver as a tank support? The Goldpact/Bear is good, but the duration of shift is too short to rely on this.  

[Not So Clever Hound]

Talking about building a tanky Druid in Spiritshift mode, Furrante's Breastplate can be a great armor.

The "First to the Fight" enchant gives +10 All Defenses at the beginning of the fight that stack with other passive + All Def effects and one active + All Def effect like Moonwell etc (and of course all other specific +Def buffs). It's triggered once at the beginning of the fight and is not removed if you remove the armor (i.e. if you Spiritshift). It can be great if you prolong the effect with SoT or WoD which will also prolong Spiritshift, Cat Flurry, Moonwell etc. I'm building something around this right now, if it amounts to something interesting I'll post about it.  

[Boeroer]

Great catch with the armor's buff!

Combine with Bloodmage and Wall of Draining maybe (as you suggested)?

Add Mask of the Weyc (stacks with everything except Arcane Veil) and Magnificent Escape Cape (stacks with everything except Escape, but only castable when bloodied - combine with Llengrath's Safeguard?) and the usual wizard stuff as well as Zandethu's Draconic Fury and you should have stellar defenses, nonstop healing as well as good dmg output. And your Spiritshift won't end like you said.

Druid's healing easily counters Blood Sacrifice.

Bear form with Llengrath's Safeguard could be awesome AR with 9 recovery. 

Lots of buffing and micromanagement though. Regaining the tier-7 spell slot alone to be able to cast WoD and then Draconic Fury...

I like @thelee's idea of combining "spells" from Trickster with Shifter. Furrante's Breastplate could be cool there as well, stacking with Mirrored Images and all. Might carry you through the first phase of the encounter until you killed some enemies and things become less tense?

Edited May 1, 2021 by Boeroer

[Not So Clever Hound]

54 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Combine with Bloodmage and Wall of Draining maybe (as you suggested)

This is exactly what I'm trying  Lifegiver/Bloodmage with Cat Form. Trying to bring the PoE1 Thundercat build in PoE2 with a twist . It's more like a Blood Druid actually.

My objective in terms of synergy is that:

• WoD + Cat Form + Cat Flurry + DAoM + Captain Banquet (stacks if you save/reload like Luminous Potion) + DEX Items will bring crazy speed which will shake up typical action economy
• The crazy amount of spells that BM with Vaporous Grimoire + Druid can have becomes really great because you can non-stop cast like an arcane machine gun
• Stack Moon's Light + Moonwell + Nature's Balm in Lifegiver Spiritshift form with Dawnstar Blessing + Footprint of Ahu Taka etc gives you stellar permanent HoT = fuel for Blood Sacrifice

I've fool-proofed the initial concept with a hired toon but now I'm trying the solo playthrough on upscaled PotD. I will make sure to report my findings . Please let me know if you can think of something else that can help!

EDIT: of course I know that the +Action Speed from DAoM won't stack with the Flurry buff but I'm using DAoM for the DEX Inspiration.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Boeroer]

Too bad stuff like Nature's Terror, Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage and Relentless Storm etc. are not implemented as beneficial effects on the character.

[Not So Clever Hound]

40 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Too bad stuff like Nature's Terror, Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage and Relentless Storm etc. are not implemented as beneficial effects on the character.

That's fair but with high INT and Infuse with VE the Storm spells will have quite a decent duration. Actually you're making me think that while I'll want Nature's Terror Active for the DMG and the Frightened effect to shut down offensive abilities, I won't want to use Terrify effects (at least not in the beginning). In the beginning of the fight I want enemies to agglutinate on my WoD to supercharge the duration of all my beneficial effects, so I don't want them (yet) to run around in terror. But, of course I'll have all the storm spells active including Nature's Terror .

EDIT: also, since I'm using DaoM only for the DEX inspiration, I can just use Fleet Feet (slaps himself in the face).

Edited May 1, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[freddfranca]

 

The objective is be a tank with utility spells.

I am deciding between Goldpact/Lifegiver and Darcozzi/Fury (fire themed spells). The downside of the Fury is that I will lose the healing spells...

 

[Griffonheart]

19 hours ago, freddfranca said:

 

The objective is be a tank with utility spells.

I am deciding between Goldpact/Lifegiver and Darcozzi/Fury (fire themed spells). The downside of the Fury is that I will lose the healing spells...

 

Does Fury also prevent Paladin's healing abilities?

Also, my question from above: Would Druid/Priest combo be better for fire themed?

Edited May 2, 2021 by Griffonheart
Forgot something

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Griffonheart said:

Does Fury also prevent Paladin's healing abilities?

Nope

 

[dgray62]

Fury just prevents you from learning druid restoration spells. There is one healing spell you can cast as a fury druid, however: taste of the hunt, which gives you a moderate heal while doing some major damage to your foe. It doesn't block healing abilities from the other class if you multiclass.

[Griffonheart]

18 hours ago, dgray62 said:

Fury just prevents you from learning druid restoration spells. There is one healing spell you can cast as a fury druid, however: taste of the hunt, which gives you a moderate heal while doing some major damage to your foe. It doesn't block healing abilities from the other class if you multiclass.

Gotcha. I can already imagine a dual wielding Wayfarer/Fury who heals on attack. I don't suppose White Flame's heal is increased by fire PL?

[Boeroer]

White Flames healing will profit from fire Power Levels - it is tied to Flames of Devotion which scales with fire PLS - to White Flames scales with it. Sun & Moon + Magran's Favor for the win.

[Griffonheart]

42 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

White Flames healing will profit from fire Power Levels - it is tied to Flames of Devotion which scales with fire PLS - to White Flames scales with it. Sun & Moon + Magran's Favor for the win.

...Now I wonder if Holy Slayer with Riposte is better for that purpose. Nay, sticking with Druid.

[dgray62]

If you go with Kind Wayfarer/Fury, wield +PL fire gear, and use the druid fire spells, you'll be a very effective damage dealer for most foes, and you'll have other tools in your arsenal to deal with the fire-immune ones too.

[freddfranca]

I am playing with a Sharpshooter/Ancient and its a very fun combination.