Looking for Druid advice

[NatureWithoutMan]

Coming back to finally play through Deadfire and looking for advice on a Druid build. I loved how versatile and strong the Druid was in PE1 and would like to have a similar experience. I mainly used the "Thundercat" build, casting a few spells and then wading into melee with the spiritshift. (RTWP)

 

So I have a few questions:

1) Do you suggest a single class Druid? Or multiclass? I have played around with a druid/rogue which I liked especially for mobility, but what about a druid/monk? Other suggestions?

2) Now that the whole spell list isn't available, what spells are must-haves? Any spells to absolutely avoid?

3) Any small synergies I should know of? Thinking of passives that might help.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

[mjo2138]

Hello.   Ah yes I want to also try out Thundercat in my next build! So for your questions

1) Druid is really versatile and I don't think you can go wrong. I chose SC Druid w/ Ancient. I would recommend playing a class SC the first time around to really know what the class is capeable of, and then decide which multiclass is suits your goals. The other thing you can do is pick up Tekehu,  a companion who is  ca be a SC Druid. He, however, is a unique subclass that cannot use fire spells, so you will be missing out of a few of my favorite Druid Buffs, such as Form of the Delegman. 

 

2) The Lightening storm spells are nowhere near as powerful as they were in POE 1, but they are a worth casting in a battle.  I usually pick up the healing spells along the way, Insect Swarm, Embrace the Earth's Talon, Weather the Storm (+5 element AR is huge), Entropy (I like it for boss fights), and of course at Powerlevel 9, Greater Maelstrom, which is incredible. For a lot of the spells I mentioned, you will need to debuff Fortitide quite a bit, which tends to be high for most mobs in Deadfire as I recall. However, you will have other tools at your disposal to debuff Fortitude. Actually, Spreading Plague at PL 3 is a good one to begin with before casting the other ones.

 

3) As for sygnergies, there is a post on the forums now about building a chanter/druid to interrupt enemies. I would check that one out (it is on page 1) sorry I am lazy to go b

[Boeroer]

Single Class Druid has the advantage of getting all spells significantly earlier. Most players seem to forget that this has a noticable impact on most encounters. And then of course you get the spells of Power Level 8 and 9 - of which Great Maestrom is the most devastating one. On top of that you get potential +3 Power Level (if you pick the Prestige passive a PL 9) which scales all your abilites up.

You can do very weird but fun things with an SC Druid because of Avenging Storm. For example the Great Sword "Effort" has an enchantment named "Hemorrhaging" which applies an additional hit roll of either sicken or hobbling (iirc) to ALL crits you do (not just crits with the Great Sword itself), including spells such as Great Maelstrom or Avenging Storm (and all their procs). Those sicken/hobbling rolls are considered weapon attacks (sine they originate from the Great Sword) - and those hit rolls will proc Avenging Storm lightnings! Those lightings are considered spells - and when they crit they will again proc a sicken/hobble roll... and so on and so forth. Such a Druid is the ultimate minion wiper and it looks as if Darth Sidious is starting a blitz party again.
Or you simply cast Maelstrom on everything in sight which is also sufficient most of times, hehe. At the same time almost all Druids are great healers (except Fury) and have good CC capabilities of course.

Multiclass Druids have other advantages - mostly they are more interesting to play imo. Some of my favorite combos are:

- Livegiver(Bear)/Goldpact: A great healer and supporter but also a good melee character because you can stack a ton of armor without any recovery which makes you very hard to take down while being a fast attacker while shifted with great damage output (Eternal Flames + Wildstrike lashed do hurt, especially with those Full Attacks and very little recovery).

- Ancient(Cat)/Wizard: Sporelings shield you from enemies in the early game which is great. The Cat form provides aweseome casting speed and you will have loads of great spells to cast so you don't even need to use Bloodmage if you don't like it (but Blood Sacrifice + Druid heals is a good synergy actually). With Wall of Draining later you can keep up the spiritshift for a very long time - as well as the self buffs. This can also become a pretty tanky character.

- Ancient/Helwalker: the raw DoT spells suc as Plague of Insects and Insect Swarm etc. profit a lot from bonus MIG and also bonus INT - both will add significant damage to those spells through damage per tick as well as adding more ticks. Also the Monk side ives you access to a good ACC buff (Endurng Dacne of Death) which is something the Druid sometimes struggles with (I mean accuracy). So this is a great combination for casting fewer spells but with a lot more impact. Also healing spells that work over time profit a lot from the added MIG and INT. 

- Shifter/Helwalker: the Boar form of the Shifter has a little quirk - the raw "wounding" DoT which the Boar Tusks deliver don't last as long (or short) as with the other subclasses' boar forms but instead the wounding DoT has the base duration of your Spiritshift(!). If you combine that with Helwalker's MIG and INT bonuses you will apply a wounding DoT effect to enemies you hit in melee that will melt almost enything quickly. If you combine that with the spell Taste of the Hunt it even bevomes pretty dangerous for most bosses. And then you have 3 otehr forms you can shift to if that one expires to finish it up...  Spiritshift/Monk has a lot of good synergies anyway so it's a fun combo in the first place.

---

There's a lot more Druid combos that are fun and powerful like Druid/Chanter as @mjo2138mentioned - but those above are the ones that I thought of immediately and had a fun experience with. 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Boeroer

[thelee]

late reply, but just wanted to chime in on some other thoughts -

1. by itself, druid is pretty jack of all trades. that means that w/ multicalss you can angle it pretty effectively towards either a martial or caster bent, but there are occasionally some gotchas (for example, devoted + spiritshift is a trap, monk + spiritshift can be awkward b.c. spiritshift claws don't count as unarmed).

2. there's some great cheese opportunities (esp w/ single-class druid thanks to avenging storm, as boeroer mentions, but also pollen patch), if you're into that.

3. requires a bit of metagame knowledge, but druid has some good item-based interactions that can sometimes be a focus for builds. i actually had a martial-oriented wizard/druid centered on the second-tier flaming sword spell, strange as that might sound in that summary. it's because ring of focused flame (ez to buy or steal) gives +10 acc to fire-keyworded spells (a lot of druid spells), but also the flaming sword (normally summoned weapons don't interact much with keywords). combined with the high base damage of a great sword, the dual damage nature of the sword, the lash, and near-instant-cast wizard buffs (especially deleterious alacrity of motion), was extremely effective. other items  incl helm of hte white wind (+10 acc to tons of druid spells), unstable coil (several ways for druid to generate lots of tier 3 inspirations), lord darryn's voulge (huge bonus to storm-keyworded spells, which is basically just druid-only), lance of hte midwood stag (good power level bonus, if you have a plant or beasts effect, of which the druid has several ways).

4. a neat all-purpose trick is that for non-furies, spiritshift cat comes with a buff that you can use to give a huge +33% action speed bonus for a little bit. importantly, it's not just limited to cat attacks, or even cat form. so for whatever build you do, you can make yourself extremely effective by picking up cat form, and then spiritshifting into cat and activating the +33% buff. (shifters have to do a little more effort to shift out of cat form to cast spells.) it's so easily effective that i deliberately no longer do this just to change things up.

 

boeroer has good suggestions, to add on, i recommend giving a psion/lifegiver a try if you want to be a very capable support caster. you get insane healing capability, and the psion is busy generating focus while you're protecting/healing your allies, so when you're done with that you have focus ready to dump on enemy-affecting spells.

i don't know how much you care about summons, but druid summons are... eh. there's a community mod that improves the blights a bit, but nothign compares to how good a chanter can be at summons, but summons won't really be much more than a damage soak until you get to tier 7 spells and up (lashing vine, fire stag, oozes).

Edited October 19, 2023 by thelee

[Boeroer]

19 hours ago, thelee said:

li don't know how much you care about summons, but druid summons are... eh. 

Mostly true unfortunatly.

But if you use an Ancient you'll get the very good Sporelings - they become even better in combination with "Wild Growth" which gives them potent health regenration besides of making them bigger (good to block enemies). Wild Growth has no duration so it lasts as long as the summon it was put on. 

And then later you can get the Oozes which are very good, too. The bog one for example has unlimited(!) casts of Plague of Insects.

Aspect of Galawain is bad unfortunately. That is uncool because it could have been great (look at the Chanter's Dragon for unfair comparison). Wild Growth works with Aspect of Galawain and makes it very big and tough - but its duration is short compared to Sporelings and it's so much more "expensive" (being a tier 9 spell instead of tier 1). Too bad. 

But tl;dr: when Druid + summons -> use Ancient imo.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Boeroer

[NatureWithoutMan]

Thanks everyone. 

A few follow-ups:

1) If I go single class, do you suggest the base druid or a subclass. I really enjoyed shifting to clean up mobs in POE 1, so I think I'd avoid the subclass that turns into an elemental, but I'd be open to all the others. 

2) Can you suggest a few spells from the early levels (1-3) that you all like? I have a problem of re-rolling lol. 

Thanks again. These games have such awesome communities.

 

[mjo2138]

1) I would go with Animist or Ancient. The former has no penalty while the latter has one that is not big deal.  I haven't made druid for a few years, but I think you cannot play no subclass, or am I mistaken. 

2) Power Level 1-2 Sunbeam is great (Blind is such a good debuff),  Hold Beasts will make battles against beasts much easier (especially early game), Dancing Bolts (shock dmg), and Nature's Mark is always useful, esp. for boss fights or tough mobs. Talons' Reach is unique in that it targets Deflection, while most other druid spells target Fortitude (which is often a defense that is quite strong on some enemies) Really, there are so many good choices it is hard to go wrong.  Try to decide your role as a Druid first: do you want to focus on damage first , then heal, or heal, buff, and then use damage? really, you can and should do both in most fights. 

Also the ancient subclass is fun to make your summons grow BIG!

 

[thelee]

On 11/7/2023 at 7:04 PM, mjo2138 said:

I think you cannot play no subclass, or am I mistaken. 

"Animist" is the no-subclass option. It gets bonus spells like other subclasses, but has no special class features.

If you like shapeshifting, Shifter is stupid-good. You can't cast spells while shifted, but it's a pretty minor drawback for the sheer boost in power you get (and the free healing). Shifter boar form is insanely good because it's bugged where the damage-over-time effect it has lasts a really long time compared to other druids' spiritshift.

 

Do you play Path of the Damned? If so, I highly recommend Hold Beasts and/or Charm Beasts, will make the digsite fight waaaaay easier. (don't pick it as your character creation spell so you can respec out of it later if you don't need it... though they are still handy against some dangerous beasts)

I second Sunbeam. Super-solid all-around performer. Damage is low, but the Penetration is high (very useful on path of the damned), and blind is really really a good debuff. It ain't hard CC so it might seem less obviously powerful compared to other tier3 afflictions, but it so terribly punishes recovery, accuracy, deflection (on top of the normal reflex defense debuff) that it is a huge survivability buff.

other spells i like tier 1-3:

• the moons's light (solid heal over time spell)
• firebrand (couple with ring of focused flame from the dark cupboard [steal or buy]) to be a powerful melee-er
• woodskin - basically instant cast, if you cast it from stealth it's basically instant cast and instant recovery. bonus piercing armor can be a life saver (basically makes you harder to punish with ranged damage), and burn and shock are pretty common enemy damage types esp early on (especially early drakes). as a bonus, it's a plant effect that activates the +2 PL bonus for lord of the forest upgrade on lance of the midwood
• spreading plague - i'm very bullish on this. lasts a super long time, bounces a lot (if slowly), and making the entire enemy battlefield hobbled and weakened is very effective, both in terms of making it easier for your various spells to land, but also making it easier for your squishies to escape danger and to make life a nightmare for enemy healers

for doing damage, do not sleep on Touch of Rot and Autumn's Decay. They do insane damage, just over time. But compared to other classes, pound for pound you get way more damage efficiency from these little guys. Unlike same-rank Insect Swarm, Autumn's Decay does instantaneous damage as well, has a huge area, and casts faster; it also targets reflex instead of fort, which tends to be a lot easier for the typical druid-inclusive party to debuff, especially early on (on PotD fortitude is a really tough enemy defense in the early-mid game). Insect Swarm is still a good spell, too, just that I think Autumn's Decay might get slept because no subclass gets it for free, and it doesn't do raw damage or remove concentration.

[Boeroer]

On 11/9/2023 at 6:12 PM, thelee said:

Shifter boar form is insanely good because it's bugged where the damage-over-time effect it has lasts a really long time compared to other druids' spiritshift.

I haven't checked the code, but I guess that the duration for the wounding DoT wasn't actually set. So the DoT ability may inherit its duration from the parent ability - which is Boar Spiritshift of the Shifter subclass (it's a different ability than the "normal" Boar Spiritshift which is shared among the other subclasses - except Fury of course).

But again: I'm just taking a guess here. The hint is that the base duration of the DoT is the same as the base duration of the Spiritshift.

Anyway - it's brutal, especially with a Helwalker (+MIG, +INT) who boosts the already huge damage-over-time like nothing else. Also prolongs the Spiritshift duration of course - as another bonus. 

On 11/9/2023 at 6:12 PM, thelee said:

Unlike same-rank Insect Swarm, Autumn's Decay does instantaneous damage as well, has a huge area, and casts faster; it also targets reflex instead of fort, which tends to be a lot easier for the typical druid-inclusive party to debuff, especially early on (on PotD fortitude is a really tough enemy defense in the early-mid game). Insect Swarm is still a good spell, too, just that I think Autumn's Decay might get slept because no subclass gets it for free, and it doesn't do raw damage or remove concentration.

What I like about Insect Swarm (besides the raw damage and that it's not tagged as poison) is the complete removal of Concentration on the targets. What I like about Autumn's Decay is that its AoE scales better and that it does target Reflex instead of Fortitude. Most Druid DoTs target Fortitude and it's great to have some alternative.   

 

  

[NotDumbEnough]

The Moon's Light and Nature's Balm, much like all other healing over time abilities, scale very powerfully as you gain power levels, as you get both additional ticks and additional heal per tick with power level scaling. A high level Lifegiver can heal someone back to full HP, sometimes several times over, with a single cast of The Moon's Light.

[thelee]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

What I like about Insect Swarm (besides the raw damage and that it's not tagged as poison)

i might be misinterpreting this, but want to clarify that Autumn's Decay isn't tagged as poison. (though many other druid spells are surprisingly affected by poison immunity, like the very-similar-but-definitely-affected-by-poison-immunity plague of insects)

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

i might be misinterpreting this, but want to clarify that Autumn's Decay isn't tagged as poison. (though many other druid spells are surprisingly affected by poison immunity, like the very-similar-but-definitely-affected-by-poison-immunity plague of insects)

I wasn't clear, sorry. I meant that one of the things I like about Insect Swarm in general is that it's not tagged with poison - compared to some other DoT spells that have this drawback, like Plague of Insects (not Autumn's Decay).

Another thing I forgot when comparing Insect Swarm vs. Autum's Decay directly is that Insect Swarm is foe-only - while Autumn's Decay might also hit your allies.   

[dgray62]

If you play on PotD, SC Fury druids are very powerful, since all the added PEN really helps at harder difficulties. I played it wielding effort top take advantage of the avenging storm trick Boeroer mentioned. No need to worry about the lack of healing, as you can get Taste of the Hunt, to use whenever a bit of healing is needed.