A buffer druid with spear. What concept could I use?

[Slack83er]

Hey, I just tried to come of up with a "less ordinary" Druid

 

Yes, the Druids attacks often do also have some powerful CC effects, however, he also has a few dedicated CC spells.

You're right, I really AM difficult to please  

I've opened the "natural paladin" thread if you want to comment... because I have difficulty finding a "non-blaster" role for the druid. My fault, I didn't know the class well.

[rheingold]

Druids have awesome crowd control and dps. The only class who is arguably stronger overall is Wizard. Also pretty varied, can tank ok, not awesome but bring serious cc and dps. The shape shifter forms look cool as well. Personally I'm really happy about the pillars Druid. They have always been my favourite but most other RPGs gimped them. They also used come across as fairly bunny huggish, which irritated me. The Celtic Druids burnt people alive in wicker baskets, so it's really nice to be able to play an awesome force of nature as opposed to some new age hippie no offense to all hippies just like the options.

The stag form and nature godlike is very nice, kinda a Cerunnos/Horned God type figure straight out of Celtic mythology.

[Slack83er]

I find your description of the druid intriguing... how do you play it? cc? dps? shift?

[rheingold]

It's really more a roleplay thing, I've always been fascinated by Northern European myths, so Cerunnos/The horned God plays a fairly large part in Celtic mythology. I tend not to specialize either so he does everything except tank. I like pikes or staffs for the look but as I tend to have a melee heavy party I find the Druid works better with a ranged weapon like a scepter, otherwise he tends to get in the way, even with a pike. But a melee Druid has one huge advantage over ranged, he doesn't waste time positioning before casting his storm spells.

So staff or pike are good if you want to go melee.

He works mainly as a caster and shifts sometimes when he is engaged in melee or if he can quickly burst an opponent down, normally that would be another caster or rogue. Nice thing about Druid is a lot of their dps spells are their crowd control spells. So it's really not necessary to create a particular role, they end up doing dps and cc naturally If you want to do huge dps while shape shifting then you probably need to specialize i.e. Concentrate on certain stats and talents. Might, dex, Int, dual wield, weapon focus peasant etc. But I find that just going along choosing what ever suits me does fine.

It's really not necessary to min/max either in stats or talents/talents.

[Slack83er]

I like what you say about northern myth. So... what race did you pick? what stats? Is he the mouth of the party? Does he unlock things? 

[rheingold]

Nature godlike - male human or elf body. WTW  Mystic background. Might 16 Int 17 Resolve/Perception 15 rest 10. Yes he is the leader if I go with resolve which I normally do, though perception is better from a power gamer pov. He doesn't unlock things - that's not really part of his background. So concentrate on lore and survival though I never max them - I normally put in a few points 3-4 in all skills including mechanics - again it's a waste from a power point of view but I like it.