SC Druid solo run

[freddfranca]

I will begin my solo attempt with a SC Druid this weekend. Still trying to decide between Shifter and Ancient.

About the stats, I am thinking in max PER and INT - I need hit and make my Dots last longer , high MIG and leave medium DEX, CON and RES

any other suggestions?

[Not So Clever Hound]

My idea (not fully pressure-tested yet) would be to pump DEX too and have CON and RES at minimum. I know it sounds somewhat suicidal for such character but my thinking is the following:

Solo SC Druid will not survive thanks to his high CON or RES or whatever. If he is focused down by enemies, he will die almost instantly in any situation. He will survive if he can fire off enough spells quickly to either end the fight instantly (Maelstrom glass cannon) or get some active protections going to not be destroyed on the spot (Ooze Summon distraction + Relentless Storm CC) and then go on with his casting routine, and basically drown the battlefield in Great Maelstroms while keeping uptime on Relentless Storm and Summons (he can do that because he will very often use Empower points to replenish spells or become Brilliant from Wit of Death Herald).

Edited September 3, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Not So Clever Hound]

By the way, I can't believe I slept (as Boeroer would say) on solo Assassin/Shifter for so long. There is so much potential and it is so much fun to play!

I cleared everything in Maje Island almost entirely by using Stealth > Insect Swarm > Smoke Veil > Touch of Rot > Flee and Smoke Veil. Once the weak have been culled by the AoE DoT-fest, shift to Boar form to get all those nasty Wildstrike Attack DoTs stack on the few survivors.

Feels also very thematically nice with the Shadow Druid vibe. Prowling in the dark alone, casting forbidden plague/decay incantations then shifting to a bloodthirsty beast. When I think that you can add to this routine things like Plague of Insect, Pernicious Cloud, Infestation of Maggots, Sunlance single target sniping... can't wait!

EDIT: it also made me fully aware of how insanely powerful Touch of Rot is for a PL1 spell! Right from the start, you can get the burst + DoT up to a total potential of 200+ DMG per target on a crit. In AoE. For a PL1 spell. And it scales amazingly with PL, INT and MIG to easily get to twice this potential later on. With the Assassin +25ACC, +4 PEN and +50% Crit DMG on the initial attack, this is just too good (when it lands).

Edited September 3, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[freddfranca]

16 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

By the way, I can't believe I slept (as Boeroer would say) on solo Assassin/Shifter for so long. There is so much potential and it is so much fun to play!

I cleared everything in Maje Island almost entirely by using Stealth > Insect Swarm > Smoke Veil > Touch of Rot > Flee and Smoke Veil. Once the weak have been culled by the AoE DoT-fest, shift to Boar form to get all those nasty Wildstrike Attack DoTs stack on the few survivors.

Feels also very thematically nice with the Shadow Druid vibe. Prowling in the dark, casting forbidden plague/decay incantations then shifting to a bloodthirsty beast. When I think that you can add to this routine Plague of Insect, Pernicious Cloud, Infestation of Maggots, Sunlance single target sniping... can't wait!

Looks fun, but I am not much a stealth guy, I rather a direct approach. If I MC the Druid, I would go with one these options, Stalker (plant / beast theme) or Chanter (could go with a decay Druid as well, like the Necromancer vibe, or elemental spells from Druid combined with invocations with elemental visual)

[thelee]

all i can say is best of luck! i was going to suggest ancient as the better choice, but i'm honestly not sure - the mushrooms are extremely good summons even in a party, but they don't have engagement, so in practice i don't know how useful they are in solo. either way, i'm eager to hear out it works out

Edited September 3, 2021 by thelee

[dgray62]

If you go the SC druid route, you probably will want to build up to Great Maelstrom, which is a monster of a spell. In fact, once you get it, you'll probably end up casting it every battle. If you want to focus on this spell, fury would be the way to go. And since it does cold, fire and lightning damage, it benefits from PL boosts to each element. You can stack crazy PLs when you cast this spell if you wear Deltro's cage armor and wield the chromoprismatic quarterstaff. I believe that it will benefit from the Ring of Focused Flame.

[Boeroer]

28 minutes ago, thelee said:

all i can say is best of luck! i was going to suggest ancient as the better choice, but i'm honestly not sure - the mushrooms are extremely good summons even in a party, but they don't have engagement, so in practice i don't know how useful they are in solo. either way, i'm eager to hear out it works out

If you use Wild Growth on them they can stay for over 100 secs at lvl 20 and won't go down easily because of endless Robust. They also grow their circles then which makes it easier to block whole paths with them. Maneuver them somewhere when they are still small (it's easier that way) and then let them grow which often blocks the path to you. It's not foolproof and not as reliable as engagement but it helps imo. 

Also check out the circle of an Aspect of Galawain with Wild Growth, haha ("only" lasts a minute though). 

The durations are with high INT and with most convenient PL buffs (Wellspring, Spine of Thicket Green).

[freddfranca]

16 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

If you use Wild Growth on them they can stay for over 100 secs at lvl 20 and won't go down easily because of endless Robust. They also grow their circles then which makes it easier to block whole paths with them. Maneuver them somewhere when they are still small (it's easier that way) and then let them grow which often blocks the path to you. It's not foolproof and not as reliable as engagement but it helps imo. 

Also check out the circle of an Aspect of Galawain with Wild Growth, haha ("only" lasts a minute though). 

The durations are with high INT and with most convenient PL buffs (Wellspring, Spine of Thicket Green).

Now that ancient becomes more interesting … 

[Ouroboros226]

I'd just like to add that I also tried a shifter/assassin, and it was very fun and immensely strong. Due to the micromanagement required I'd only play it as my main character though. As with any stealth class.

 

If you don't like stealth you probably won't like it like this. But it doesn't NEED to be focused on stealth at all. You can play shifter + any rogue - and start the fight with stealth kill, then transition into melee damage dealer just fine. You can even build the character around no-stealth. By using escape to move around and spend your resources on gouging enemies and finishing off targets with mortal blow or what it's name is. Whether you focus on stealth or not, a shifter/rogue is very potent. It can expertly destroy anything in a 1v1.

The way I played it was to stealth kill a high priority target, then run around gouging striking everything - so that all enemies are on the doom clock. I enjoy the "outlast the enemy" style of play. Slowly dwindling them down. So I'm a big fan of gouging strike and burn brand of the paladin. There are many ways you can build a shifter/rogue. It will excel as stealth assassin, offtank, melee dps or any combination of that. 

[Not So Clever Hound]

4 hours ago, Ouroboros226 said:

There are many ways you can build a shifter/rogue. It will excel as stealth assassin, offtank, melee dps or any combination of that. 

Definitely. I'm playing solo which is different, but I've found that a nice perk of this Shifter/Assassin is that it's an Assassin/Caster that could for once play really well in a party: mostly because the Insect spells are Foe-only. This is really cool since you don't have to worry about hitting your frontline at all. At the same time, those spells are super powerful and scale extremely well but are balanced by targeting FORT (and for PoI, by being a poison effect ) which is where the +ACC from Assassin is amazing. 

[dgray62]

1 hour ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Definitely. I'm playing solo which is different, but I've found that a nice perk of this Shifter/Assassin is that it's an Assassin/Caster that could for once play really well in a party: mostly because the Insect spells are Foe-only. This is really cool since you don't have to worry about hitting your frontline at all. At the same time, those spells are super powerful and scale extremely well but are balanced by targeting FORT (and for PoI, by being a poison effect ) which is where the +ACC from Assassin is amazing. 

So assassinate helps you land the spells in the first place, right? But am I correct in recalling that it won't affect the DOT damage? Given how well this works in a party, I see that having a FORT debuffing barb on the team would be a big help.

[Not So Clever Hound]

56 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

So assassinate helps you land the spells in the first place, right? But am I correct in recalling that it won't affect the DOT damage? Given how well this works in a party, I see that having a FORT debuffing barb on the team would be a big help.

You are absolutely correct that it won't affect the pure DoT Damage values, but landing a Hit especially, or a Crit will give you a better duration (+25% on a crit), so more total damage. In the case of a burst +DoT spell like Touch of Rot you win on every possible front (Burst DMG, PEN, Duration...) which is why it scales so well.

Indeed, a Barb inflicting AoE Daze (-10 FORT) and/or or a Chanter with the -14 FORT Chant Debuff on top + an Assassin/Ancient or Assassin/Shifter to land those spells = enemies melting away while the party is safe from friendly fire. All these also help land the Relentless Storm CC (which should probably be last to not interfere with landing Insect spells from invis - since the pulsing attacks from the Storm will cancel invis).

With just Insect Swarm, Plague of Insects and Relentless Storm (maybe a refresh of the Insect Swarm Cast) we are talking about 1200+ Raw/Shock damage per target, plus refreshing Stun AoE, AoE Sicken, all of it in a giant radius. And then you can potentialize everything for even more Raw damage with Infestation of Maggots. This is just with this one dude's PL2-3-5 spells!

Edited September 4, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[dgray62]

Sounds great. Any party needs a bard and chanter (or a howler) IMO.

[freddfranca]

After some days away, I am starting my Shifter SC solo try.

MIG 15
CON 9
DEX  15
PER 21
INT 20 
RES 10

[dgray62]

Have fun! The stats look fine IMO.