Druid/Wizard MC Idea (BPM + CP)

[patronkus]

I have just finished my second all SC only run and feel like messing with some MC combos. In my SC runs I used most classes and found my tastes for which high PL abilities were desirable and which weren't. I valued a lot more high PL Barbarian, Monk and Priest spells over say Wizard or Druid. While spells like Great Maelstrom and Meteor Storm are amazing they aren't very party friendly and can be somewhat hazardous to use (Meteor Storms low range making it hard to fire off safely, Maelstroms massive AOE making it easy for party members to wander into it if you aren't being attentive). There are other spells too like Wall of Many Colors which is hazardous or Entropy which is niche that make the high PL Wizard and Druid features some that get uncast most fights.

For me, most of the sauce in Wizard and Druid comes from the spells earlier in the progression. Gaze of the Adragan, Plague of Insects, Infestation of Maggots, Combusting Wounds, Ryngrims Enervating Terror, Natures Balm (I think, the 3rd level druid spell that gives Robust), Confusion etc. Tons of party friendly, damage and CC features which can be super impactful. 

These 2 lists have a bunch of great spells and IMO don't lose much from their top end features. To me, the painful losses are stuff like Caedebald Blackbow (great with Essential Phantom for a little terrify attack drone), Great Maelstrom (IMO those spell is a bit boring since its just a bit of an "I Win" button), Wilting Wind and Grimoire Imprint (this is for cheese but it is a loss to not have it). Thus I think you could ditch those top end features in favour of a wider breadth of lower end features that are still powerful.

By MC Wizard and Druid you get 2 spell lists which don't share resources giving extended longevity at the cost of PL (since we ruled out the usefulness of the PL 8/9 Wiz Druid features above). The PL hit is unfortunate (especially for Plague of Insects) but not the end of the world. Moreover, since Wizard can largely be carried by it's Grimoires and Druid and Wizard share many features for spellcasting (i.e the PEN stuff, Spell Shaping, Rapid Casting etc) we have many talent points to use. Most of these will go to Druid because we actually need to get spells there.

IMO the key spells are Natures Mark (nice Debuff), Infestation of Maggots (extra damage is good), Plague of Insects (the winner spell, this will clear out the chaff and deal tons of damage) and Nature Tonic (the PL 7 one that gives a potion, in BPM it just applies the potions effect as an AOE immediately). The idea is buff with Wizard spells, lay down Plague of Insects and Infestation of Maggots and then start CCing stuff with your Wizard spells to allow the Plague to tick. Spells like Gaze of the Adragan, Ryngrims Terror and Combusting Wounds will help not only you but your party as well. Can still bring stuff like Fireball to blast away what remains from the Plagues or Spiritshift with Wall of Draining to clear it out in melee.

Just a general idea bouncing around in my head rn, IDK if it would actually work well since the reduced PL and itemisation difficulties (want PL for Wiz and Druid spells but hard to get both).

[dgray62]

Sorcerers work very well, and are a lot of fun to play IMO. You lose out on the PL 8 and 9 spells, of course, but you get a lot of great spells that work together fantastically, such as Combusting Wounds and the various pulsing and DoT spells from both classes. Druid brings great healing, which is especially good if you go with the bloodmage subclass, and you can spirit shift and prolong it indefinitely with Wall of Draining. Wizard, on the other hand, brings great buffs to the table. You can also steal both wizard and druid spells using the grimoire switching trick, allowing you to take select passives rather that spells at level up, at least for the first 9 levels of the game. For more information on a possible build see @Not So Clever HoundThundercat 2.0 build.

[Elric Galad]

Since you will be starving for PL and you will naturally have a very wide spell repertoire, you might be interested by picking some more specialized subclasses.

The most obvious is Lifegiver since you can rely on WIzard Summons anyway. Lifegiver's Healing on Time requires a lot of Might and Int, which are the same stats as required by DoT such as insect swarm.

BPM tweaked a lot Wiz subclasses. Transmuter has poor synergy with druids, but the others are fine. You might have a look at them. Conjurer is nice to compensate for missing PL through Familiar +1 Passive PL bonus. Enchanter and Illusionist have cool passive too.

Fast casting wiz spells (generally selef-buffs) are really great for this multiclass since you have so many spell slots that you will be more interested in action economy than saving your ressources. Druid will adore the +5 Int from Infuse Vital Essence or Swift/Action speed from DAoM. And a Shifted druid under Llengrath Safeguard will have a crazy Armor (19 Armor vs all damage types for a Bear Shift). 

Edited October 2, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Okkes]

This is the perfect weapon for a Sorcerer imo.

Edited October 2, 2022 by Okkes

[Okkes]

https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Lance_of_the_Midwood_Stag

[thelee]

i did a sorcerer (enchanter/animist) and played it more like a martial. used ring of focused flames and flamebrand as a main weapon, with lots of fast cast wizard buffs (per Elric, helps the action economy alot that emerges around mid-game), and then filling things out with random (generally fire-based) offensive spells.

it was a fair build (e.g. minimal cheese), but for a fair build I found it to be very effective. like you suggest, all the wizard skill points went to the druid side or to universal passives, relying on grimoires instead. the only exception was Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, so that it's always available. Those spell reflection wizard spells become a lot more useful when you're actually up-close and personal and actually likely to be targeted by enemy wizards. Being close makes it easier to target Druid spells like Returning Storm, Relentless Storm, Nature's Terror. You might think you're squishy by being two casters, but Deleterious Alacrity of Motion means you can almost never be caught by melee, and Form of the Delemgan even gives you dex immunity (help keep your Swift buff) and pierce AR, and of course druid has plenty of good heals to pick up if you need extra sustain.

as a bonus, this was when I discovered that pure DoTs do not wake up foes put to sleep by Verschlummern, and between wizard and druid you have plenty of pure dots to use (note: touch of rot/autumn's decay don't count because of a separate instant damage at start, unless you cast it first and then put enemies to sleep). against fire resist/absorb/immune foes i'd use one of the wizard summoned weapons and taste of the hunt.

[NotDumbEnough]

For higher tier Wizard/Druid spells the trick is not to cast them in the middle of combat. It is indeed hard to micro your party to not wander into a Meteor Shower. Instead what you should do for Meteor Shower and Great Maelstrom is drop them on the ground while you're still in stealth. Casting the spell itself does not break stealth -- the enemy has to actually walk into it and have a hit rolled against them for your stealth to break. If you position the AoE at proper distances from enemies, the enemies will walk into the AoE while it is still ongoing, but enough time has passed that you get your spell cast restored. Effectively, you get half a cast of these abilities for free. These spells hit extremely hard, so if you make sure to be the only one visible you can bait the enemies into the AoE and watch them get vaporized. The remaining duration of your first cast should be sufficient enough to cover you while you cast the second instance of the spell which should end the fight by itself.

The other way to handle this is to chain high tier spell casts from stealth. If you synchronize Call of Rymrgand, Wall of Many Colors and Great Maelstrom to drop at the same time, most fights should end instantly.