Thinking of buying druid, what should I know?

[Zachski]

At some point in the future, I plan to buy druid - probably when I get in a druid mood and have the money to drop on this class.

From what I understand, it isn't quite working as well as it should, but I don't really consider that as a barrier. It is only a problem if it actually makes the class unplayable, and it doesn't sound like it has.

What are some things to know? Do I have to focus on melee, or casting? Or is a hybrid style good, too?

What races have what pros and cons? I know that Warforged is supposed to be able to get fully healed by positive energy when in beast form. Do Half Orcs get any synergy with Druid?

How is the wolf compared to Arty's iron defender? Better? Worse? About the same? (I imagine its AI is no better)

Are there any other issues I haven't asked about that I should've?

[mwgarn]

So far I'm not to happy with my druid, I think my bastard sword using arti is much more powerfull does more physical dmg and has alot more surviveability then my Druid, my arti is a human, my Druid is a human as well..

My Druid had the monk active past life to increase unarmed dmg which is what Druid uses while in form and it seams like a waste.. The wolf is squishy and not as aggressive and does not seam to attack as fast as the iron defender. So far my Druids healing abilities are not enough to keep himself and the wolf up in battle without out side help, which means I have to either chug pots or bring a hireling in.. I don't like to do either one when I have a blue bar of my own..

I do believe human is probably the best race but I'm sure everyone has different oponions on that.. My goal is to make a wisdoms based Druid that will eventfully be a full caster and only switching to animal form when my sp are getting to low, but as it is if they don't fix monk past life, and I would imagin items with reinforced fist probably don't work right either,I havant tested this yet though, Druids won't do enough dmg in animal form to be worth dropping I to it unless you specificiy specialize in aninimal melee dmg..

As far as feats go, with the epic feats I'll be taking
Maximize
Quicken
Empower
Debating on extend
Natural fighting x 3
Toughness
Shield mastery
Shield prof

For me the attack animation in animal form, specificiy wolf, seams a bit off too, it still dosnt feel like I'm actuly hitting e mobs like I should and hitting breakables is even worst, I hardly even bother with breakables anymore on my Druid.

I'm sure 5 people have responded already :) edit: guess not!

[Khatzhas]

The class is by no means unplayable. About the worst issue at the moment is that damage in animal form does not work properly with Monk unarmed combat ability.

You can focus on melee or casting/healing, but not exclusively. It is much more of a hybrid than most other classes. If you focus on casting, you should still wade in with your flame blade sometimes to supplement your relatively low spell points. If you focus on melee, your damage will be lacking unless you use some spells.

In Animal and Elemental forms, warforged do get full healing effect. However many of the elemental immunities copy those of warforged, and you do not get all your warforged racial traits while in form.
Half-orcs are probably the most Druidic race in terms of flavour, but their racial abilities don't synergise that well with some Druid builds. They are still perfectly workable though. Melee druids can use the Strength bonus, but use shields when fighting in forms generally, and casters prefer the one-handed Flame blade because it uses Wisdom for attack and damage. Thus there isn't that much use of the 1/2-orc two-handed bonuses.

I've never sat down and compared artificer pet performance with wolf at level. As you say, the AI is equally bad. Wolf pets might be a little less tough, and a little more damaging, but that is just anecdotal.
Druids do get a lot more synergy from summons, hirelings and suchlike through their spells, so Augment summons is much more popular with them than artificers. That may skew the comparison.

[Lonnbeimnech]

I played through druid life as a heavily splashed monk in wolf form and air stance. So much of this will not be aplicable if you were going pure druid. Anyways...



One thing that I thought was cool, you can use stunning fist with a staff equiped, and touch of death too. The wolfs crit range is not effected by the weapons actual crit range, so I used dreamspitter and vampiric shadow staff quite a bit, the 20% chance to level drain is pretty sweet at later levels.

You can also use reaving roar in wolf form or human form even though its oviously designed as a bear ability (did not get to try with elemental). It does a surprising amount of damage, My stratagy was to gather up a bunch of mobs and use touch of death on one, causing reaving roar to go off, droping the rest to 10-30% of their hp, killing a second mob would finish off the rest. And this was at level 17/18 when I picked it up, can just imagine it at level 7 on a proper druid.

The damage output of your actual strikes is pretty meh however, though the attack speed makes up for it to a degree, it is still second rate damage.

[alemulet]

im rly not liking my druid either, lvl 12 1monk lvl rest druid, keeping the second monk lvl for.. err.. i dunno when... what i could see now is.. you arent a damage dealer, you arent a healer, you arent a tanker... you can do a bit of everything.. but the problem is, that bit isnt rly enough to shine.. even in solo play.. my art is 10 times better at solo than my druid... you have nice things in class tho... some good buffs, crazy enhancements that works even in human form... by now to me i see druid much a splash class than a pure class... you can splash some druid lvls to bring nice things in your build, but if you try to build a pure druid i cant see how it will shine without crazy gear/tomes and such
like 1 lvl of druid in a acrobat bring nice up to dmg, 7 lvls in a monk build bring some self healing, self buffing and fatal harrier/reaving roar.

its like said before, you cant only melee cuz melee is pufff... you cant cast serious cuz sp is small, you need to use both..

[Merlin-ator]

You can build it to do a lot of things. You could do bear for tanking (or at least you could have if the AC change hadn't gone through, now it's a pretty poor choice for form). You could build it to melee, though you will always be behind the barbarian in kills. You could build it to cast, but the sorc can always hurt things more than you. You could build it to heal, but you don't get mass cures/heals (though you do get mass vigors), and that really hurts later on.

I would suggest that you build a hybrid DPS/Caster druid. Your low spell points will hurt as pure caster and your damage isn't too good as pure DPS. 14 con is plenty for first life Druid as long as you can get as many toughness enhancements as possible.

[Zachski]

I'm sorry to hear that not everyone is happy with druid, though I do understand why :-/

Like I said, I'm not looking for an overpowered class (which, quite frankly, Artificer kinda is, though I love it despite that). I'm looking for a fun class. And I'm kinda happy to hear that it's an actual melee/casting hybrid, more than Cleric at least.

I still haven't bought druid yet, still contemplating it.

[Diyon]

For the most part, you need to play the druid as a druid. You can focus in a certain area, but always be a little bit hybrid or you will find it severely lacking.

Animal melee- double strike bonuses are what you need. Pick up the shield feats for more, and twist in the legendary shield mastery from Sentinel eventually. Another strength they have is incredible defense for picking up stuff for DPS purposes (shield feats give you dps, you don't lose any for using a shield, etc). Don't forget your spells. Even if you don't go for a high wisdom, pay attention to which offensive ones can still be useful.

Caster type- remember you can always pull off some decent melee no matter who you are set up build wise. Flame blade if wis based, or whatever. This goes for any druid with halfway decent wisdom: Earthquake rocks.

Elemental melee: basically built like other typical melee types, just remember you have spells to augment your damage. Fire elemental + body of the sun is fun.

In general: Those were just some notes for more focused types, you can always provide some healing/support no matter how you are set up. My wolf druid is fairly good at casting, I land earthquakes, can heal decently, drop sleet storms, ice storms, SoV, and creeping colds. My main focus is melee though, but I still do those things.

[Mubjon]

What the others have said is pretty spot on. As a druid you do not want to concentrate on just one thing it will not work as well as you are hoping.

It is best to make use of everything you have to offer. This means being a back up healer when needed with the vigors and cure critical that you get. Regenerate seems pretty decent as well. Plus greater creeping cold adds a lot to your dmg. Plus lighting, earthquake, ice storm, firewall, and even FOM with sleet storm is nice for melee. All of that put together with the melee you can do, no matter in animal or elemental form makes the druid a very fun class to play.

[Quetzacoala]

At some point in the future, I plan to buy druid - probably when I get in a druid mood and have the money to drop on this class.

From what I understand, it isn't quite working as well as it should, but I don't really consider that as a barrier. It is only a problem if it actually makes the class unplayable, and it doesn't sound like it has.

What are some things to know? Do I have to focus on melee, or casting? Or is a hybrid style good, too?

What races have what pros and cons? I know that Warforged is supposed to be able to get fully healed by positive energy when in beast form. Do Half Orcs get any synergy with Druid?

How is the wolf compared to Arty's iron defender? Better? Worse? About the same? (I imagine its AI is no better)

Are there any other issues I haven't asked about that I should've?

I think that the most important thing to know about playing a druid is that you should not try to play them like you would play another class.

[Zachski]

I think that the most important thing to know about playing a druid is that you should not try to play them like you would play another class.

In what way, specifically?

[Diyon]

In what way, specifically?

In that most of the different druid builds all have their own "druid" style to it. It does its own thing, if you try to play it like something else generally, it will fail to do so. You can't make a nuker like a sorc. You aren't going to be the king of CC. You won't out melee a fighter or barb, etc. It really does lend itself to hybridness more than any other class except maaaybe bard. But its much different than a bard. You can play it as a "healer" if set up right, but even that will still play different than a cleric or fvs would. And in what way depends on the style of druid you go with.

If you tried to analyze how I play on my wolf druid by classes it would something like: a self healing, off-party healing, healing rogue, that AoEs damage and CC over a sizable area and sometimes ends up tanking stuff because of high-ish AC and PRR. Tell me what else plays like that? You certainly aren't going to tell me anything that isn't multiclassed heavily.

For example, I recently was running in an Epic Hard ITD, I served as CC, some of the healing, and did some tanking. In the ambush water elemental room, I grabbed all the aggro went and sat in the center and SA'd stuff with it all trying to kill me. I jumped around every so often, but I was mostly in one spot, not kiting. Self healed what damage I took, but I really wasn't taking much at all. I also switched to bear form and spells and tanked the demon. I did die once because we were taking a little while on it, and there were tons of renders, and well, we didn't assign anyone to kite so my aoe's drew them in and eventually it was too much for the healy type that had joined us recently and myself to keep up with. However, we didn't leave, I got raised and we finished it up.
EDIT: that's not to say I was super awesome at all of that. But the group needed some stuff, and I brought what I could. There are certainly much better healing, CC, and tanks out there than I am, easily lots of them. And the rest of the group wasn't horrible, they were great, but the group as a whole was not a balanced perfect group, and me being there helped.

To sum it up, druid builds that work are different.

BTW: Sleet storm is awesome as long as people have FoM. Monsters (non red named or better) are blinded, which means free SA and 50% miss chance on stuff they attack (ie. you). A lot of people don't realize how powerful this spell can be, especially since party buffing displacement isn't possible anymore.

Hope this helps.

[Zachski]

It does. Thanks a lot :D

[UrbanPyro]

It's a fun class to play, but don't expect it to do anything amazing at the moment. There are a lot of bugs being worked out still.

It handles every difficulty well enough. Epic Elite as an animal isn't viable, but as a evoker with decent earthquake DC's, it is.

[Memnir]

Druids seem to be very much a love em or hate em kinda class. There really seems to be zero middle ground on it.



I'd wait for a free trial to give em a consequence-free test drive before committing points to Druid. Granted, even this is not going to give a clear indicator on how well you may like them, Druids are very front-loaded, but at least you won't be out points should you decide that you really don't like them.

That is honestly the best opinion free advice I have on Druid.

[Diyon]

It handles Heroic Hard fine for streaking. Heroic Elite gets sketchy without evasion, or a good team. Epic Normal, and Epic Hard as the same way. Epic Elite is a complete bust, don't even bother entering a group, and expecting to offer any meaningful support.

I'd beg to differ on my experience here. I've as far as I can tell done fine in elites, whether heroic or epic. Provided, I have gotten myself fairly decent gear and have one past life behind me (not much gear at all from that life though, it pretty much allowed to get a GS part way done in the mid levels), and also provided I'm not lagging horribly (Most parts of Trial by Fury, and the end fight of Reclaiming the Rift are absolutely horrible on my computer). Me and friend on their fighter duo'd EE Deal with the Demon the other day. It was really rough, but we got through it, though mainly rough because I wasn't set up very well to keep them healed and tank the stuff at the same time, and my dps isn't extraordinary at least without larger SP expenditures we couldn't really afford with the amount of stuff we had to handle alone (a group would have the dps burden spread out better and the more SP use wouldn't have been a problem then). Also I tried bear form tanking most of the stuff which wasn't bad, but it cut my DPS down more.


Druids seem to be very much a love em or hate em kinda class. There really seems to be zero middle ground on it.



I'd wait for a free trial to give em a consequence-free test drive before committing points to Druid. Granted, even this is not going to give a clear indicator on how well you may like them, Druids are very front-loaded, but at least you won't be out points should you decide that you really don't like them.

That is honestly the best opinion free advice I have on Druid.

This is not bad advice. People do seem to be very split on them. I do agree with some of what people who don't like them say, there are many bugs still present, and some stuff just doesn't work very well (The on a kill stuff is either fairly useful or incredibly useless depending on the group situation; some spells aren't that great). Despite that I still believe if done right they are a useful and potentially strong (depending on how you look at it) class.

[UrbanPyro]

Deleted.

[Terminus-Est]

My experience with a Druid is that you have to be willing to radically change your play style from level to level.

Level 1 your in the same boat as a cleric, but your healing is worse.

Once you get Wolf form (which I highly recommend as your first form, btw) you become a melee monster, spamming takedown to assassinate enemy casters and deal mega damage to their bruisers.

Later, once you pick up Call Lightning, the ranged DPS options open up and you can power your way through most quests on back of your fairly small SP pool.

Once you hit level 7, getting up in close and personal becomes your best option again as you gain access to reaving roar, causing every fight to cascade into a win as soon as you can burst one target down.

This'll fade around 11-12 but still be worth having on, but good news... you get Firewall! You know how wizards breeze through a multitude of high-xp quests with this AOE damage machine of a spell while self-healing and generally being a boss? You can do it too. Only with less SP, but that is alright because soon you get...

Water Elemental! Djinn! Your summons come online as 'viable' much earlier than wizards and clerics, though your lower-level ones are pretty much the same.

Whats up next? Fire Elemental Form, Body of Sun and the return of melee DPS! Kinda; really you just need to stand in general proximity to the monsters with body of sun, reaving roar, firewall and call lightning storm on. Feel free to block if you've got Greensteel goggles.

What lesson is there to be learned from this?

Don't specialize beyond gear and enhancements. Seriously. Things that can be changed and replaced. Don't sink too many feats into melee, but power attack is probably good. Don't worry about having every single metamagic in the game, but maximize is probably what you want for bursting down red-names with elemental spells. Sometimes you'll be caster prestige for the awesome healing trigger that you can stack on the entire party at the same time FOR FREE. Sometimes you'll take the first tier of the shapeshifting prestige for reaving roar, or the second tier for MOAR dps.

Stay flexible, stay a druid, keep your HP up and your tactics frosty. Don't overinvest in one enhancement line, unless that enhancement line gives you HPs.

[Anihsod]

purely and simply .. caster druids are OP. my melee druid is still lowbie so can't comment on melee builds. Caster builds on the other hand the druid is hands down my favorite over my cleric, wizard, or bard.

Things you should know.

1.You aren't a healer like a cleric, not a dps caster like a sorc, and not a cc like a bard .. you are all of them at the same time.

2.Caster druids heal as good as FVS while doing far more dps and tons of cc's

3.Spell selection is very important and it's better ( imho ) to focus more on one elemental damage school isn't of trying to up several schools ( i run fire damage while my daughter's druid runs cold damage ).

4. Most forum posters concerning druids apparently have been "doing it wrong". There's tons of complaints about how lack luster druids are when I find my druid outperforms my palemaster at CC and damage while being able to heal incredibly well ( the lack of "harm" to heal palemasters in a pinch kinda blows tho ).

Running with 3 druids during lvling up to 16 ( me, daughter, and daughter's BF as bear tank ) was easier leveling than any other class so far.

[HatsuharuZ]

My concerns about the Druid:

the "form-only" spells are (the animal ones, anyways) more like combat feats than actual spells.

All of their enhancement lines are very expensive.

Their spell damage amplification lines are strangely divided, and they don't get a physical/force enhancement line.

[ddonoobgamer]

If you tried to analyze how I play on my wolf druid by classes it would something like: a self healing, off-party healing, healing rogue, that AoEs damage and CC over a sizable area and sometimes ends up tanking stuff because of high-ish AC and PRR.

Is your wolf druid STR-based or WIS-based? What are your starting stats and where are your level-up points going into?

[Diyon]

Is your wolf druid STR-based or WIS-based? What are your starting stats and where are your level-up points going into?

Wis based. Lvl ups in wis

Starting stats (34 pt)

STR 16
DEX 12
CON 16
INT 8
WIS 16
CHA 8

Stats self buffed (no potions or ship buffs)
STR 34
DEX 19
CON 32
INT 8
WIS 38
CHA 8

[Metathron]

purely and simply .. caster druids are OP. my melee druid is still lowbie so can't comment on melee builds. Caster builds on the other hand the druid is hands down my favorite over my cleric, wizard, or bard.

Things you should know.

1.You aren't a healer like a cleric, not a dps caster like a sorc, and not a cc like a bard .. you are all of them at the same time.

2.Caster druids heal as good as FVS while doing far more dps and tons of cc's

3.Spell selection is very important and it's better ( imho ) to focus more on one elemental damage school isn't of trying to up several schools ( i run fire damage while my daughter's druid runs cold damage ).

4. Most forum posters concerning druids apparently have been "doing it wrong". There's tons of complaints about how lack luster druids are when I find my druid outperforms my palemaster at CC and damage while being able to heal incredibly well ( the lack of "harm" to heal palemasters in a pinch kinda blows tho ).

Running with 3 druids during lvling up to 16 ( me, daughter, and daughter's BF as bear tank ) was easier leveling than any other class so far.

I'm curious about your point 2. How exactly do you heal as good as FvS? Your (burst) healing line is one level behind (at least, Heal...ugh), your enhancements are behind, you have no burst mass heals and you have 40% less spell points. I guess this problem will ease somewhat as you get Heal, but before that I found the druid healing really poor, being hard pressed to provide any kind of in-combat burst. Even a hireling or UMD user can provide occasional in-between battle healing so that isn't as important.

The bottom line I can melee, heal and nuke on my FvS too, and I don't even need to switch forms. This is what I think the real problem is. The druid simply is not more versatile. If the form abilities did not require spell lots it might have a case, but until then it's just a slightly weaker FvS (and cleric to lesser extent).

I'm curious about the cost/mechanics of some of the higher levels spells like Word of Balance though, they are still not on ddowiki.

[Anihsod]

I'm curious about your point 2. How exactly do you heal as good as FvS? Your (burst) healing line is one level behind (at least, Heal...ugh), your enhancements are behind, you have no burst mass heals and you have 40% less spell points. I guess this problem will ease somewhat as you get Heal, but before that I found the druid healing really poor, being hard pressed to provide any kind of in-combat burst. Even a hireling or UMD user can provide occasional in-between battle healing so that isn't as important.

The bottom line I can melee, heal and nuke on my FvS too, and I don't even need to switch forms. This is what I think the real problem is. The druid simply is not more versatile. If the form abilities did not require spell lots it might have a case, but until then it's just a slightly weaker FvS (and cleric to lesser extent).

I'm curious about the cost/mechanics of some of the higher levels spells like Word of Balance though, they are still not on ddowiki.

Mass regeneration ticks will top off melee in two seconds about the same as mass heal if you adjust for casting time .. and hits 4 times from one spell where it would require a second cast of mass heal. Mass regen isn't as "oh sh**" healing as mass heal is but it tops off the melee none the less. A druid healer has to change how/when he casts compared to a cleric/fvs. Fvs have more mana, druids cast less often. I also play a cleric. Druid solo healed CitW when the cleric accidently fell off the edge and had to run back to the end fight .... while being 3rd in overall kills.

And yes the druid is far more versatile, all the healing of a fvs with the cc and damage of a wizard

Word of balance non meta'd hits for 500 - 600 damage on chaotic evil / lawful evil / lawful good .. .. less damage on Lawful Neutral / Chaotic Neutral

Sunbeam crits for 2200 from time to time

Where a FVS kites thru BBs a druid stands in the middle of CC'd mobs and AEs them.

[moriedhel]

Word of Balance is a nice single target nuke but sadly i think it has a SR check and druids don't have many reasons to go for SR, Quench is also nice in certain situations, the two dots are amazing. Sunbeam is a nice single target CC for the blind effect and nuke against anything you find immune to the elements.

The two mass heal over time spells stack too so the sp drain isn't that bad as you can adjust depending on the party. They also extend duration with each cast so there's even less over healing, making them decently efficient from a sp point of view. I don't play healer much so I won't comment more on that.

I won't say damage is as good as a wizard because druids are lacking full spell power lines as well as efficient max/emp/heighten. It's basically just bits and pieces from all the caster classes and making it work usually comes down to knowing when to use what

[jsaving]

.the druid is far more versatile, all the healing of a fvs with the cc and damage of a wizard.
I've capped a couple of druids thus far and wish this were true, but it hasn't been my experience.

Druids can't heal as well as clerics or favored souls, can't cc/damage as well as wizards and sorcerers, and can't melee as well as fighters or barbarians. What they can do is combine decent melee DPS, decent spell cc/damage, and decent healing in a way that makes them solid contributors to a party.

[HatsuharuZ]

People mention "strength-based" druids. How is STR-based different/better than WIS-based?

[Diyon]

People mention "strength-based" druids. How is STR-based different/better than WIS-based?

STR based would be a melee focused druid (some of these are wis based too). What it essentially comes down to at least in most wolf builds, is 3-4 points of damage versus 3-4 points of DC, will save, and some SP.

Since some have asked here about what I've done with my wolf druid, I have a build post now: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=391379

[Kalanikila]

I've capped a couple of druids thus far and wish this were true, but it hasn't been my experience.

Druids can't heal as well as clerics or favored souls, can't cc/damage as well as wizards and sorcerers, and can't melee as well as fighters or barbarians. What they can do is combine decent melee DPS, decent spell cc/damage, and decent healing in a way that makes them solid contributors to a party.

My experience is that my druid cc's as well as my pm and does more damage. Healing with mass regeneration saves mana over healing with mass heal so healing on the druid is just as easy as healing on my cleric .. radiant aside.

[Irongutz2000]

My experience is that my druid cc's as well as my pm and does more damage. Healing with mass regeneration saves mana over healing with mass heal so healing on the druid is just as easy as healing on my cleric .. radiant aside.

^^ this

My druid is far more powerful than alot of my other toons. Is a wis based, draconic, fire/ ice caster.

soloish healed a CITW last night ( there was a bard helping) Mass vigor/ regenarate is win! its more mana effective as well, becuase it heals over time.

My druid has 2800 sp, earth quake, firewall/ icestorm combo is very, very effective.

The prob with druids is u can do so many things, thats why ppl have such a hard building a good one, an therefore hating onn them :P

I just wish they gave them more *Useful* spells, need more acid spells in there somewhere.

[Rawel_San]

From what I have been able to gather druids are currently actually the best cc'ers by a long way.
Earthquake is evocation.

[Diyon]

From what I have been able to gather druids are currently actually the best cc'ers by a long way.
Earthquake is evocation.

Well, they have one of the best CC spells. They aren't the best CC'ers because they don't have a lot of options beyond earthquake it.

[RavenStormclaw]

My take...i hated my wolf form fighting druid... retooled her a bit and now she is a blast.

what i had: natures warrior prestige and reaving roar...nice but it seemed lack luster..healing ability decent but not great.

what i did: retooled to seaons herald and took spring resurgence. Casting ability great, wolf fighting ability still good, healing good now bordering on great.

Reasons:
spring resurgence-- free and I mean free no spell point or hp cost healing...cast and forget if person drops below 50% health triggers a burst of positive healing that is 20d6 effects that person and all allies around them. castable on anything that is an ally...the wolf pet, your summons and summons in the party, cooldown is on the orders of seconds, and its quick to cast. Most undervalued feat in the game. In a large fight I've seen this alone keep the meelees up and going without needin any additional heals.

Natural fighting x 3 = not worth it, 1 maybe, 3 is just wasitng feats. The druid is not best played by being in constant form...espeically since elemental forms don't use natural fighting.

When I frist started i though being in form and fighting and casting would be the best. it's not the druid is best when you adjust your tactics based on the situation...you are not a one trick pony...the druid has a trick for every situation. Admittedly you are great at nothing; however, you are really good at a lot of things.

Short form: wolf/bear form isn't the only trick, seasons herald is better prestige since its needed for spring resurrgence which is a must by my standards. Natural fighting feat x 3 is a waste.

Hope this helps.


Edit: flame blade is a must have spell...I have confirmed that the intial damage portion of flame balde will damage even fire immune critters... the flaming and flaming blast effects will not. It also passes all DR as its magic. As an exmaple on the blackbone skeletons in Stormcleve (the fire imuune ones) I was getting full base damage no DR reductino. Not tested but reported to me was you can dual wield them without any twf feats and suffer no penalities...I have yet to test this though.

[Mubjon]

My take...i hated my wolf form fighting druid... retooled her a bit and now she is a blast.

what i had: natures warrior prestige and reaving roar...nice but it seemed lack luster..healing ability decent but not great.

what i did: retooled to seaons herald and took spring resurgence. Casting ability great, wolf fighting ability still good, healing good now bordering on great.

Reasons:
spring resurgence-- free and I mean free no spell point or hp cost healing...cast and forget if person drops below 50% health triggers a burst of positive healing that is 20d6 effects that person and all allies around them. castable on anything that is an ally...the wolf pet, your summons and summons in the party, cooldown is on the orders of seconds, and its quick to cast. Most undervalued feat in the game. In a large fight I've seen this alone keep the meelees up and going without needin any additional heals.

Natural fighting x 3 = not worth it, 1 maybe, 3 is just wasitng feats. The druid is not best played by being in constant form...espeically since elemental forms don't use natural fighting.

When I frist started i though being in form and fighting and casting would be the best. it's not the druid is best when you adjust your tactics based on the situation...you are not a one trick pony...the druid has a trick for every situation. Admittedly you are great at nothing; however, you are really good at a lot of things.

Short form: wolf/bear form isn't the only trick, seasons herald is better prestige since its needed for spring resurrgence which is a must by my standards. Natural fighting feat x 3 is a waste.

Hope this helps.


Edit: flame blade is a must have spell...I have confirmed that the intial damage portion of flame balde will damage even fire immune critters... the flaming and flaming blast effects will not. It also passes all DR as its magic. As an exmaple on the blackbone skeletons in Stormcleve (the fire imuune ones) I was getting full base damage no DR reductino. Not tested but reported to me was you can dual wield them without any twf feats and suffer no penalities...I have yet to test this though.

I retooled my druid and dropped the natural feating feats as well, they were not that great. I know for a fact that flameblades do not get a penalty to dual wield. I do have 2 twf right now and I love how the druid is playing now in Fire Elemental form and running through Necro IV.

[Diyon]

I retooled my druid and dropped the natural feating feats as well, they were not that great. I know for a fact that flameblades do not get a penalty to dual wield. I do have 2 twf right now and I love how the druid is playing now in Fire Elemental form and running through Necro IV.

However if you TWF and actually want to do better DPS, you want the TWF feats anyways. However, if you are a wisdom based primarily a caster type that wants to get in on the melee, this is good to keep in mind.

The Natural Fighting feats I only recommend taking if you are almost always in wolf or bear form and melee focused.

[Cennyan]

However if you TWF and actually want to do better DPS, you want the TWF feats anyways. However, if you are a wisdom based primarily a caster type that wants to get in on the melee, this is good to keep in mind.

The Natural Fighting feats I only recommend taking if you are almost always in wolf or bear form and melee focused.
I think natural fighting is almost a necessity until you get elemental forms. at that point I would drop it for some sort of meta effect like quicken

[Zachski]

Sorry for bumping, but I'm still considering this.

I have some other questions... what is each form useful for?

Wolf seems like it's part rogue, Bear seems more straightforward combat-wise...

What spells can be cast while shifted, and what spells can't?

In what ways are the wolf different from the iron defender?

[fco-karatekid]

Druids seem to be very much a love em or hate em kinda class. There really seems to be zero middle ground on it.



I'd wait for a free trial to give em a consequence-free test drive before committing points to Druid. Granted, even this is not going to give a clear indicator on how well you may like them, Druids are very front-loaded, but at least you won't be out points should you decide that you really don't like them.

That is honestly the best opinion free advice I have on Druid.

This is the best advice in the thread so far.

They are possibly the most schizophrenic class in the game - they specialize in nothing. I had fun getting mine to 16 and stopped because I couldn't figure out which way I wanted to take it.

They are fun in that they can do a lot of things - but that's also what makes them frustrating. I played mine when I wanted to be a character that everyone in a PUG looked at situationally as "wow that was handy to have" when the specialist required wasn't around or was otherwise unable to meet the task.

I still argue that the best potential jack of all trades is the Ranger, but the Druid might be right behind it. I actually don't LIKE te fact most MMO force users into the archetypes (tank, healer, etc); but in a game where those archetypes are required, Druids have issues finding an identity.

tl;dr - Druids are the Saturday night 2 am booty call of DDO.

[Rapthorn]

Sorry for bumping, but I'm still considering this.

I have some other questions... what is each form useful for?

Wolf seems like it's part rogue, Bear seems more straightforward combat-wise...

What spells can be cast while shifted, and what spells can't?

In what ways are the wolf different from the iron defender?

I don't want to comment too much on my thoughts of the druid overall because I haven't gotten all the way to level 20 yet. With that being said, quite simply I think that those who feel their Druid is mediocre, did not build it right. When I see people posting caster builds that have all three natural fighting feats, or melee builds that use three or more meta magic feats, it makes me understand why they think Druids are good at most things but not great at any...

I can, however, help with a couple of your questions.

Aside from the various "form" spells, you can cast any spell from your book regardless of being in a form or not. Not sure about the ele forms, but casting in bear or wolf form comes with a more lengthy cooldown on the spell (x3 cooldown iirc).

Comparing the wolf to the iron defender. It is hard for me to compare the two because my iron defender had a lot of bugs when I played through my arti life. I can offer some tips on how to make your wolf be more than just a lever puller, and actually go as far as make him a valued member of a group.

First thing I learned was that my wolf was a beast in the early levels. He would run in and attack like mad. Suffice to say, I was pleased. Something changed in the level 5-8 range though and it took my wife saying "What's he doing?" in reference to my wolf pausing while attacking the training dummy. I was like, "He's trying to bluff and hamstring the dummy... /facepalm". I then started to watch him in combat more closely and he would pause for around 5 seconds while doing these skills. It would start with the skill getting within a second of being off timer, he would stop, wait, use the skill, pause for a sec more, then resume the attack.

In short, remove those skills from his enhancement line immediately if you wish to see your wolf perform better. Once I removed those skills, he went right back to being a killing machine.

Now I also help to beef him up as much as I can. I have the augment summon feat for starters and he is well geared. In my previous life, I crafted him up some DT leather with con +6, heavy fort, and earthen grab guard (would have prefered melodic guard but didn't really have a better sovereign rune saved). For a weapon I gave him a set of stone dust vampiric handwraps.

Don't leave him without a few buffs too! The pack spells, bulls/bears, barkskin/spiderskin, stoneskin, situationly true seeing, death ward to name but a few.

Currently I'm at level 18 and he is still a very self sufficient killing machine (on elite). There are some situations where he will be overwhelmed very quickly, like being surrounded by renders, devils, or orthons for example. Try to keep him out of those types of encounters.

A couple other things. I would try to help his HPs as much as possible (more HPs are always good right). And give him the enhancements that unlock evasion. It's a life saver for him.

Currently my Druid is the most fun class I have played.

That's all I got for now. Hope it helps :)

[Kaeper]

In short, remove those skills from his enhancement line immediately if you wish to see your wolf perform better. Once I removed those skills, he went right back to being a killing machine.


I'll have to give that a try.

I'm pretty sure my pets AI stands for Artificial Idiocy. When he joins in he's a solid addition to my DPS but all too often he just stands about.

I've bugged the behaviour and I'm sure the devs will get right on that....

Pet aside I'm enjoying the druid thus far.

[hermespan]

They're not uber, like sorc or fvs. There are better pure melee classes.
Druid is fun as hell.

[testing1234]

could not stand how it visually looked as a melee druid in wolf/bear shape its the reverse of monk that is pure awesome sauce visually. not tried the class out enough to offer more then that opinion.

[hermespan]

I've capped a couple of druids thus far and wish this were true, but it hasn't been my experience.

Druids can't heal as well as clerics or favored souls, can't cc/damage as well as wizards and sorcerers, and can't melee as well as fighters or barbarians. What they can do is combine decent melee DPS, decent spell cc/damage, and decent healing in a way that makes them solid contributors to a party.

Non TR. No greensteel

There are a few mistakes I made:
Helf with fighter dilletant
sheild bash early (was going for 3% doublestrike and there's not much choice at that level, will pick something better)

what can I say, it's a new class and I'm not the worlds greatest get-it-right-the-first-time guy. I'd rather finish it then TR than waste xp.

at level 13:
feats
toughness
sheild bash and natural fighting (9% doublestrike)
winter wolf/dire bear
water elemental
power attack

If IC feat works I'm taking it next. If not, another natural fighting.
Neither impact nor keen work in animal form. Crit range is still 19/20 whether either is on a sheild (impact) or weapon (impact/keen).
WAI?

enhancements
shrike II
blood moon frenzy II
2x druid toughness
2x helf toughness
vengeful hunter II
nature's warrior 2

pets
max out bluff on pet, remove intimidate
max out hate reduction on pet
pets bluff/paralyze (+2 paralyzing collar)/stone prisons (stonedust collar) for undead
djinni for kd, often at the same time
maxed out trip dc

Druid
maxed out trip dc
1d10 base damage 19-20/X4 crit for weapon effects, full time +30% faster attack speed, 2d6 sneak attack (winter wolf form)
+3 to hit natural weapon bonus(magic fang). I have better dps luck with it than frostbite /shrug
+2 insight to hit item
+6 seeker item
devotion 52 item
sneak attack hits for better than 75-80% of time with pets aggroing, bluffing and kd and paralyzing/stone prisoning everything.

<either>
"nights grasp scimitar of lacerating" (2d6 negative energy spike per hit, 1d8 bleed, 1d4 lacerating all per hit)
<or>
whatever floats your boat
<or>
disruptors for undead (4-24 per hit/ 150 on natural 20)
<or>
smiting
<or>
banishing

+2d6 smite damage when mob's health below 50%

the dps is ridonculous at level 13

I'm excited to get to Meridia and see how disappointed I get.

for now omgbbqpwning menectarun with this setup at level 13 solo on normal. will need to adjust for elite and end game.

[hermespan]

I've capped a couple of druids thus far and wish this were true, but it hasn't been my experience.

Druids can't heal as well as clerics or favored souls, can't cc/damage as well as wizards and sorcerers, and can't melee as well as fighters or barbarians. What they can do is combine decent melee DPS, decent spell cc/damage, and decent healing in a way that makes them solid contributors to a party.

Non TR. No greensteel

There are a few mistakes I made:
Helf with fighter dilletant
sheild bash early (was going for 3% doublestrike and there's not much choice at that level, will pick something better)

what can I say, it's a new class and I'm not the worlds greatest get-it-right-the-first-time guy. I'd rather finish it then TR than waste xp.

at level 13:
feats
sheild bash and natural fighting (9% doublestrike)
winter wolf/dire bear
water elemental
power attack

If IC feat works I'm taking it next. If not, another natural fighting.
Neither impact nor keen work in animal form. Crit range is 19/20 whether either is on a sheild (impact) or weapon (impact/keen).

pets
max out bluff on pet, remove intimidate
max out hate reduction on pet
pets bluff/paralyze (+2 paralyzing collar)/stone prisons (stonedust collar) for undead
djinni for kd, often at the same time
maxed out trip dc

Druid
maxed out trip dc
1d10 base damage 19-20/X4 crit for weapon effects, full time +30% faster attack speed, 2d6 sneak attack (winter wolf form)
if mobs are close enough (to kill within 16 seconds of each other)
+85% attack speed from enhancements, haste and feats.
59% doublestrike (feats and celerity(next enhancement) 15 seconds, one minute cooldown)

+3 to hit natural weapon bonus(magic fang). I have better dps luck with it than frostbite /shrug
+2 insight to hit item
+6 seeker items(+12 crit damage)
+4 crit damage (enhancement bonuses)
sneak attack hits for better than 75-80% of time with pets aggroing, bluffing and kd and paralyzing/stone prisoning everything.
devotion 52 item/shrike/echoes of power and spell storing ring gets me to next shrine

Healing amp is on short list after celerity

<either>
"nights grasp scimitar of lacerating" (2d6 negative energy spike per hit, 1d8 bleed, 1d4 lacerating all per hit)
<or>
whatever floats your boat
<or>
disruptors for undead (4-24 per hit/ 150 on natural 20)
<or>
smiting
<or>
banishing

+2d6 smite damage when mob's health below 50% (according to game, description says sneak attack)

the dps is ridonculous at level 13

I'm excited to get to Meridia and see how disappointed I get.

for now omgbbqpwning menectarun with this setup at level 13 solo on normal. will need to adjust for elite and end game, probably changing whole approach. maybe not. I think I can get through meridia with this setup, (with higher level gear and advanced training of course). no pets will be interesting in sleeping dust and raids.

[Uska]

I tried druid and it just wasnt much fun for me although others seem to enjoy it was in a party with my artie a monk and 4 druids the druids died a lot.

[Rapthorn]

I'll have to give that a try.

I'm pretty sure my pets AI stands for Artificial Idiocy. When he joins in he's a solid addition to my DPS but all too often he just stands about.

I've bugged the behaviour and I'm sure the devs will get right on that....

Pet aside I'm enjoying the druid thus far.

This happens to me occasionally as well (wolf just standing around). I am not sure what causes this behavior but I have found that telling him to attack something always snaps him out of it.

[sirdanile]

Leveled a wolf to level 18, Loved it, though the attack animation doesn't feel right, and breaking breakables is just... bleh.

The wolf was amazing in damage until they nerfed that, now he's only alright, has a lot of hp and with evasion line and some buffs he'll survive aight.

Very survivable, quicken spell turned out to be necessary for me as the hitbox when a wolf is kinda wonky.

Spells help a lot more, wisdom based is the way to go.

Reaving roar and the fang of siberys make for a potent combo til you pick up actual greensteel or raid loot.

Been a bit confuzzled by gear set up because of the need for spell power I went with the sora katra set and recently ground out eveningstar challenges for the dragon cloak.

Started leveling a caster druid - They have no good nuke spells at lower level sans ice storm and call lightning.... seasons herald is kinda strange and the ice spells tend to be way more dps than fire, so much that the disparity between fire and water made me want to sit still until I was back in water.

Springs somethingorother heal of awesomeness is, amazing.

Also leveling a twf fire ele melee orc druid/monk/fighter thing.

Level 7 druid is AMAZING! BEST LEVELS EVER!

Fatal harrier or reaving roar both decimate entire encounters and create a spiral effect, I really wish druids had more "snowball" effects in the nature's warrior prestige.

Only level 9 atm, evasion helps a lot on this one... slotting heavy fort and then removing it when I get fire ele form is gonna be strange, bit more quishy than i'd like but it seems my ac is, no matter how high, capped at 60% miss chance against me.

[Archangel666]

slotting heavy fort and then removing it when I get fire ele form is gonna be strange, bit more quishy than i'd like but it seems my ac is, no matter how high, capped at 60% miss chance against me.

Why on earth would you do that?

Heavy Fort stacks with the Heavy Fort granted by the elemental forms so you would have 200% Fort.

Also bear in mind that you won't always want to be in forms, there are occasions where its better to be in no form at all (though rare).

[AzB]

At some point in the future, I plan to buy druid - probably when I get in a druid mood and have the money to drop on this class.

From what I understand, it isn't quite working as well as it should, but I don't really consider that as a barrier. It is only a problem if it actually makes the class unplayable, and it doesn't sound like it has.

What are some things to know? Do I have to focus on melee, or casting? Or is a hybrid style good, too?

What races have what pros and cons? I know that Warforged is supposed to be able to get fully healed by positive energy when in beast form. Do Half Orcs get any synergy with Druid?

How is the wolf compared to Arty's iron defender? Better? Worse? About the same? (I imagine its AI is no better)

Are there any other issues I haven't asked about that I should've?

I have a druid at lvl 16. It's a great class to play... lots of fun. It's not quite a caster, not quite a melee, and the animal and elemental forms are fun, if not useful most of the time. You can go for balance, or you can build for melee dps or casting. Although neither build will excel, you won't really nerf the other aspect too much either, so your melee will still have a good deal of casting ability, and your caster will still be able to join the brawl.

Personally, I went for balance, as it seemed appropriate for a druid.

The pet was awesome at low levels, especially before they nerfed it. He was always clearing the majority of the kills in any party in levels 1-5. The pet training is quite excellent, and I've seen people turn the little guy into a tank and others turn him into a little sneak attack/tripping machine that is an incredible distraction and awesome force multiplier in any situation. Combine this with a summoned creature and the several spells available for creating pack presence with you, your pet, your summons, and even your hires, and you've got a solo toon that is unparalleled by any in DDO. In a large party, you can still use your pet to great advantage, but in elite mode with dungeon scaling up, he is more likely to be killed. You have to watch him, and many find this distracting. There is a hit to your toon when the wolf dies, and this is appropriate for a druid, as well as keeping the owners from treating it like a disposable kamikaze. Which would not be at all druid like.

It's the one toon I have that can handle almost any content on his own. Most other classes are better at some things, but have major weaknesses when you get into undead, or casters, or whatever. The druid always seems to have something adequate, if not very effective for any situation.

My druid rolls with a couple rogues on occasion, and we have great fun. There's a synergy there that one would not expect. I think a druid/rogue might be interesting.

[Gulain]

I currently play my pure 20druid/1epic primarily as a Natures Warrior 2 Wolf form druid but leverage my spells heavily. Your spells are a HUGE part of your damage and at the very least you will want to heavily consider a glaciation item and enhancements for the build. Greater Creeping Cold is AMAZING and conveniently 20sp non-meta'd cost makes it free with the wolf temp-sp on crit. I went with wis-based build for spell and tactics DC and have not regretted it. Magic fang and ram's might add a static +6hit/+8damage to melee at level 20 so it really covers well for non-maxxed strength.

As others have stated there are a few keys that make druid really shine: aoe damage, self healing + good group support healing, moderate melee damage, great crit profile on some good effect but low physical weapon profile items (see: handwraps critting on 17-20/x3 instead of 19-20/x2; etc).

For aoe damage reaving roar is insane. From level 7 until about 11 it's guaranteed 1 shot on any mob around you. After that it starts getting more insane because it weakens the other mobs enough for a few hits to drop them and domino. The beautiful thing of this ability is that it works in ANY form and from any killing blow you make regardless of whether it is spell or physical damage. Combine it with aoes like earthquake (great!! cc with mediocre damage) and icestorm and you can watch whole packs explode even into epics.

Self healing: you will want to focus on healing amp as much as possible. While druid does get life enhancement lines their spell lines are weaker than most and are very costly. Healing amp goes a LONG way into making regen/vigor into very potent tools. Mass regen is AMAZING because it's near instant cast without quicken even and can heal quite a bit. Mine is ticking over 120 on non-amped targets pre-crit for 5 ticks.

Melee damage: As others have said you will not be meleeing nearly as hard as a FB3 or Kensai. That being said some of your special attacks add quite large values of +w damage in. As soon as I hit winter wolf form I was critting for over 400 damage on a jaws of winter attack which is not bad for a melee attack in the teens. While it doesn't scale up super high after that.... things like overwhelming critical and adrenaline from fury of the wild stack really well with this and you can see crits easily in the 2k+ range.

Others have stated to stay away from Natural fighting but I find it to be very beneficial... at least if you stay wolf. Double-strike values of around 42% are feasibly attainable when you hit epic destinies and paired with the innate 30% attack speed increase in wolf form you start hitting at near GTWF attack rate. Pure wolf druid with the melee capstone gets 6d6 sneak attack which is fairly reasonable and can be increased further based on your race selection. There is definately a noticeable difference with it up.

I do wish I had better tactics. I have found it hard to keep a vertigo item slotted but will eventually be able to hit 47ish DC trip in wolf form. 10 base + 15 wis mod + 10 vertigo + 6 legendary tactics + 6 exc combat mastery. I wish I could get stunning fist but am still working on a druid/monk based aoe melee build (see: Sireth w/ cloudburst, Great Cleave, GMoF aoe attacks).

Most importantly I can say is have fun and play around. The class is so versatile that you should be able to find a playstyle you like. Take your generic feats early enough that you have the leeway to mess around and see what works best for you.

[Lyria]

I've been having a blast on my druid. I'm primarily a caster, and spend most of my time in water elemental form, since it enables freezing spray (makes the two creeping cold spells so crazy deadly) as well as ice flowers (decent aoe spamable damage against non-evading mobs) and mantle of the icy soul (free snare, as well as making your own and everyone else's spells more effective, yay!).

With freezing spray on a boss, the two dots are capable of dealing about 2500-4000 damage (if the last few ticks crit especially, which happens a lot with a 20% crit rate). Pretty awesome for 46 mana. If I maximize it, the damage just goes crazy. :)

The thing I like the most about the class is that there are so many options. Caster, meleer, healer, hybrid. We're not the best at anything, but we do a lot of things really well.