Looking for Druid Advice

[Naesaki]

Whats the most ideal armour and weapon set-up to go for on Druid and what are the ideal talents to focus on?

[LastSoloer]

Well it deppends on what you want him to be. If you play a 6man party you would want him to have a medium armour so he can cast heals and spells faster. If he is to be your main Tank, maybe you want him 1h 1 shield with draining ench on his sword and hots.

I run him with a 2h, looks cooler and his role as offtank can be perform good with his HoTs and bear form.

for a 6man party I would have him focushed stats on might con and maybe more dex and resolve than int. He would be the offtank healing your main tank and getting  as much dps and aggro as posible. There is a Talent that improves the use of 1h and shield build I would consider it. The Wildstrike Burn damage maybe wouldnt be so necesary for 6 man so you could get the Talents that increases the number of the spells you can use per rest.

[Naesaki]

So far I'm mostly looking to keep him at medium-long range, and focusing on his spells

[RunningWolf]

Enchanted clothing, any good ranged weapon(guns ftw). +1 spell talents(20% more spells is too good to pass). Bear form if melee. This is how i do it.

[Paddy]

I've played for about 7 hours with a druid as my main character and I'm probably going to start over.

 

His spells are all AOE, which makes them pretty useless. Spellcasting is so slow that by the time the spell goes off, the monsters I was aiming at have moved clear across to the other side of the screen. If I wait for the monsters to stop moving, they are clumped around my tank and I can't use any AOEs without killing my fighter.

 

I'm going to try and find a more useful spellcaster class.

[Voss]

Whats the most ideal armour and weapon set-up to go for on Druid and what are the ideal talents to focus on?

Ideal?  Clothes (or naked) and some sort of ranged weapon (arbalest or arquebus by the numbers).  Talents.... secrets of rime, the corresponding one for electricity, then weapon focus: soldier, marksman and gunner (in whichever order seems more important).  

 

Wildstrike talents are traps- spiritshift is only useful for the first couple levels when you're still putting your band together.  

 

As an aside, don't even try to build a druid as a tank or offtank. You aren't going to overcome that miserable deflection and things will simple eat your face.   Let some other class tank well, and burn down the enemies piled up behind them. 

[LastSoloer]

Go for 2h  ( there is a talent that increases the accuracy of certain weapons, pick it eventually dont rush it tho) and dont go for plate armour ( fighter has bonus with them but druids dont as far as I know). Get instead medium armours such as leather arm etc. Maybe you can even have a staff, better roleplay for a druid right?!

And yes focus talents on getting more number of spells per rest. Have you created it already? Maybe you would want him to be a Godlike moon race. It's a good race for a offtank supportive druid on a 6man party. But anyway this is up to preference and I always recomend roleplay over build perfection.

 

 

 

Ideal?  Clothes (or naked) and some sort of ranged weapon (arbalest or arquebus by the numbers).  Talents.... secrets of rime, the corresponding one for electricity, then weapon focus: soldier, marksman and gunner (in whichever order seems more important).  

 

Wildstrike talents are traps- spiritshift is only useful for the first couple levels when you're still putting your band together.  

 

As an aside, don't even try to build a druid as a tank or offtank. You aren't going to overcome that miserable deflection and things will simple eat your face.   Let some other class tank well, and burn down the enemies piled up behind them. 

 

Wildstrike talent is good as long as you are the one main tanker, which in a 6man party wont be, but It helped me on my  build.

Edited March 30, 2015 by LastSoloer

[Voss]

 

 

 

Wildstrike talent is good as long as you are the one main tanker, which in a 6man party wont be, but It helped me on my  build.

 

Druids should never tank.  They're missing 20 points of deflection before class abilities and talents, and that difference is huge, and will let even crappy enemies tear through that paltry endurance number like it was paper. 

 

In most fights after Chapter 1, if my tanks take more than a couple points of damage from MIN grazes from anything that isn't a spell, I'm profoundly disappointed in them.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Voss

[LastSoloer]

 

 

 

 

Wildstrike talent is good as long as you are the one main tanker, which in a 6man party wont be, but It helped me on my  build.

 

Druids should never tank.  They're missing 20 points of deflection before class abilities and talents, and that difference is huge, and will let even crappy enemies tear through that paltry endurance number like it was paper. 

 

In most fights after Chapter 1, if my tanks take more than a couple points of damage from MIN grazes from anything that isn't a spell, I'm profoundly disappointed in them.

 

They are offtanks so tanking a bit are part of their role. You are doing smt wrong with them then, maybe you chose the wrong spiritshift. With his HoTs and bear form I cant think on anything more tanky than a Druid. Ofc it really needs micromanagement, and the larger the party the less time you can afford on each character separately.

Edited March 30, 2015 by LastSoloer

[Enoch]

Shifting is... situational.  It's great early-on, and it's nice later as a finisher in low-threat fights, but the Druid's base Accuracy gets out-classed by opposing defenses quickly enough that it doesn't have much of a role in tough battles once you have full group.  I agree that investing Talents in improving it is not likely to be optimal over the long haul.  (Although that's a pretty low opportunity-cost mistake, as Druid isn't a class that has a whole lot of difference-making Talent options.) 

 

The appeal of the class is the spell list.  As such, I don't see much sense in using armor.  It could help get you out of a jam if you over-extend while trying to use a cone- or ray-type spell, but there are other ways to deal with that kind of situation that don't involve slowing down all your actions. 

[Shadenuat]

I also tried to build a tankodruid but dropped the idea. I had some success with sword&shield with that door-shield that gives free bash. Animal forms, at least bear, turned out to be poor for tanking but broken for DPS - 30-40 damage hits at level 1.

My second char was built in a lot more straightforward way:

Stats: Mig/Dex/Int = max, else even.

Perks: Lightning "claws" - both perks, Scion of Storms, WhateverItCalled Bonus Cold Damage (nice to have when you get per-encounter frozen wind spell), additional spells 3&4, the last perk was bonus to speed or something since there isn't anything useful

Equipment: 2-handed weapon with reach (Durance's staff works well for beginning) & Warbow (there are a few nice Warbows in game and one actually shocks enemies on hit); clothes (0% speed), later I found robe with DR9 & -15% in a bounty, looked nice so I'm wearing it now.

 

In the beginning you dominate by 2-shotting enemies in bear form, but as you get more levels you will have enough spells to carry party through any battle. Just keep lightning storm on and spam insect plague/venombloom/world's maw and whatever, everyone dies.

[gkathellar]

 

 

 

 

 

Wildstrike talent is good as long as you are the one main tanker, which in a 6man party wont be, but It helped me on my  build.

 

Druids should never tank.  They're missing 20 points of deflection before class abilities and talents, and that difference is huge, and will let even crappy enemies tear through that paltry endurance number like it was paper. 

 

In most fights after Chapter 1, if my tanks take more than a couple points of damage from MIN grazes from anything that isn't a spell, I'm profoundly disappointed in them.

 

They are offtanks so tanking a bit are part of their role. You are doing smt wrong with them then, maybe you chose the wrong spiritshift. With his HoTs and bear form I cant think on anything more tanky than a Druid. Ofc it really needs micromanagement, and the larger the party the less time you can afford on each character separately.

 

 

Emphasis mine. Monk, fighter, paladin, and chanter. One can make a case for battle priest, too (inorite).

 

Perhaps more importantly, even if druids were good tanks (they're not, I think I may have mentioned), opportunity cost rules the day - any time you're using your druid to attack is a time you're not using them to cast spells. Don't do th...don't be not doing tha...you get the idea.

[Voss]

 

 

 

 

 

Wildstrike talent is good as long as you are the one main tanker, which in a 6man party wont be, but It helped me on my  build.

 

Druids should never tank.  They're missing 20 points of deflection before class abilities and talents, and that difference is huge, and will let even crappy enemies tear through that paltry endurance number like it was paper. 

 

In most fights after Chapter 1, if my tanks take more than a couple points of damage from MIN grazes from anything that isn't a spell, I'm profoundly disappointed in them.

 

They are offtanks so tanking a bit are part of their role. You are doing smt wrong with them then, maybe you chose the wrong spiritshift. With his HoTs and bear form I cant think on anything more tanky than a Druid. Ofc it really needs micromanagement, and the larger the party the less time you can afford on each character separately.

 

What?  Tanking in this game does not involve having mediocre DR and attacks (which all that spiritshift provides).  Frankly any culture/class combination that gives you a brigadine is giving you the same or better DR. 

 

Tanking in this game involves high deflection (90+), which druids absolutely mathematically cannot get.  Well, i guess you could set resources on fire creating scrolls of defense, but that is a really inefficient way to try to do someone else's job.

 

The druid's role in no way involves tanking, or even offtanking. You should not be setting up opportunities for enemies to attack your druid.  The druids role is pure dps, with maybe a little support if you want to waste spell slots on garbage. If you aren't turning enemies into frozen, electrified chunks, there is zero reason to play a druid.   

[Bulshock]

Spiritshift doesn't scale at all?  Given that it doesn't get gear bonuses (at all from what I've noticed) that's pretty... lame.

[Enoch]

Spiritshift doesn't scale at all?  Given that it doesn't get gear bonuses (at all from what I've noticed) that's pretty... lame.

It benefits from the base +ACC and +DEF that you gain on level-up, and you can invest talents to improve it (WF: Peasant; the flavors of Wild Strike).  It also benefits from active buffs (e.g., Paladin auras) as other attacks do.  But as enemies scale to be a challenge to warrior classes using enchanted gear, that doesn't quite keep up. 

[Bulshock]

That... really is annoying.  I would of thought it would either scale on its own or at least get the benefits of enchanted gear with some benefits for it's unarmed attack, really gets rid of the idea of playing shifting focused druid.

 

 

Spiritshift doesn't scale at all?  Given that it doesn't get gear bonuses (at all from what I've noticed) that's pretty... lame.

It benefits from the base +ACC and +DEF that you gain on level-up, and you can invest talents to improve it (WF: Peasant; the flavors of Wild Strike).  It also benefits from active buffs (e.g., Paladin auras) as other attacks do.  But as enemies scale to be a challenge to warrior classes using enchanted gear, that doesn't quite keep up. 

 

That is annoying.  Gets rid of the idea of making a shifting focused druid.  Especially as how it's talked about in the druid description it makes it sound like a major bit of the class.

[Lasci]

Druids are a spellcasting class. but that doesn't mean they don't have their moments in melee combat. Max might and intelligence for damage, duration, and area of effect range. In the beginning, their shapeshift is incredibly powerful and will let you wade into melee for the first 60% of the game. Give your druid a sword and board and let her off tank in the beginning to help out Eder. Most fights, even on hard, won't last long enough for the duration of shapeshift to matter. Besides, early on you don't have enough spells to sit back and cast all day. However, as gear starts to distinguish other, tankier classes -- Chanter, Fighter, Paladin, Monk -- change roles and start focusing on staying in the back and casting spells. At this point, you should have a large enough pool of spells to be able to cast two or three every battle without having to worry about running out and needing to rest.

 

The wildstrike talents are indeed a waste of time, as are any weapon style or weapon focus talents. Buy more spells per rest or focus on other talents that interest you.

[Epsilon Rose]

Do wildstrike or Marksman effect spells?

[Oneiromancer]

Do wildstrike or Marksman effect spells?

 

Wildstrike only affects your melee damage while spiritshifted. Marksman should technically only affect ranged weapons but after a bit of testing I'm kinda baffled. I did the testing on a 4th level wood elf cypher: his accuracy was 34 and his ranged hits correctly showed a 44 (+5 from distant advantage and +5 from marksman), but for some reason his spells showed 53 (+10 from the spell innate accuracy, +5 from distant advantage and +4 from ???). I'm probably missing something. 

[Korgull]

 

Do wildstrike or Marksman effect spells?

 

Wildstrike only affects your melee damage while spiritshifted.

 

Are you sure? I think it should affect spells as well. I think I also tested this but I'm not sure anymore, as I've mostly used spiritshift to tear enemies apart in melee. Works pretty well as far as level 7 by the way.

 

As for the op, I've used my druid mostly to cast spells in the beginning of battle, and then let him join Eder and Pallegina in melee with a two handed weapon. He's been wearing anything from hide to breastplate. What armor you want to use depends on how much you're getting hit in battles. If he's not targeted much, use a lighter armor but if you want to use him as some kind of semi-tank (which he really isn't optimal for as has been already stated in this thread) you'll probably need to put him in a plate. The good thing about this game is that you don't really need to plan your weapon or armor choices that much early in the game, and can just switch things around depending on what you feel suits your playstyle. Even the weapon focus talents will benefit you for at least one two-handed, one handed and ranged weapon.

 

As for talents, wildstrike will make you a melee powerhouse early on in the game, so I suggest taking it on level one. In addition to that, the elemental damage talents are good, although the druid doesn't have corrode spells at least in the first four levels so avoid that one. Taking a weapon focus talent is also a pretty safe bet.

[Parsong]

Wildstrike is a waste of talent, the form scales very badly and only lasts 12 seconds.

 

I'd put the first talent in one of the elemental dmg, ranged, or melee talents depending on what you're going to be doing in between spells. (Probably ranged weapons, safest bet.)  BTW some projectile spells do benefit from penetrating shots.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Parsong

[Epsilon Rose]

Does your armor effect your defense once you shift? Also, are shifts supposed to last for the whole battle or until dismissed?

[gkathellar]

For talents, grab the electricity and frost damage enhancers. They will serve you well.

[Reticently]

Long term, it is probably best to stick to Spiritshift forms that have some utility beyond auto-attack.  Of those, I would think Wolf is the best (speed/knockdown), or possibly Boar for the regen.

 

Thinking about it, I wonder if the Wildstrike talents apply to any spell damage if cast while Spiritshifted?  I probably won't get to check til this weekend though.  If there are any spells it does apply to, that might keep Spiritshifting at least slightly relevent in the late game.

 

Might also be interesting to build a melee Druid as a two-handed weapon user, looking to lean on Firebrand which has some interesting properties (primarily of which is that it apparently targets Reflex instead of Deflection, and Druids have several convenient ways to debuff Reflex).  For talents:  Soldier weapon group, Two-handed style, bonus to Fire damage, bonus level 2 spell...  am I missing any others?

[Lasci]

For talents, grab the electricity and frost damage enhancers. They will serve you well.

 

I think burn is the best. The only worthwhile Frost spell is Blizzard. Dancing Bolts at level 1 is outdone by Sunbeam, and the storm-based spells don't do enough damage per hit to benefit greatly from another 20%.

 

 

Might also be interesting to build a melee Druid as a two-handed weapon user, looking to lean on Firebrand which has some interesting properties (primarily of which is that it apparently targets Reflex instead of Deflection, and Druids have several convenient ways to debuff Reflex).  For talents:  Soldier weapon group, Two-handed style, bonus to Fire damage, bonus level 2 spell...  am I missing any others?

 

 

Two-hander melee druid is a bit gimmicky but also surprisingly satisfying. Fire Brand attacks deflection, not reflex, but it's further enhanced by Taste of the Hunt and the increased burn damage talent. Druids also have ways to increase accuracy against deflection, too.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Lasci