Evoker

[Michele]

OBSOLETE - build moved to this thread: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/454645-DeathTitan-Ice-Druid

Druid 20 - Human (lawful neutral)

Feats:
level 1: quicken spell
level 1: maximize spell
level 3: completionist
level 6: past life arcane initiate
level 9: empower spell
level 12: mental toughness
level 15: improved mental toughness
level 18: heavy armor proficiency
level 21: epic mental toughness
level 24: past life arcane prodigy
level 26: epic spell power cold
level 27: spell focus evocation
level 28: epic skill focus spellcraft

Attributes:
CON 16 base +2 completionist +2 ship +6 tome +2 litany +7 item +2 insightful +1 exc = 38
INT 16 base +2 completionist +2 ship +6 tome +1 litany +7 item +3 insightful +1 exc +4 enhancements = 42
WIS 18 base +2 completionist +2 ship +6 tome +1 litany +6 item +2 insightful +1 exc +2 enhancements +7 level +2 hierophant +5 shiradi champion +2 alchemical = 56

Skills: tumble x1, umd x1, concentration, heal, spellcraft, spot, balance, hide, jump, move silently, search

Earthquake DC = 18 +23 wis modifier +2 evocation augment +1 past life arcane initiate +1 spell focus evocation +6 thunder-forged weapon evocation focus +3 past lives sorcerer +1 archwizard ship buff +1 moment of clarity +4 mantle of the icy soul +5 solid fog greensteel clicky = 65

Energy Burst DC = 20 + 14 half character level + 16 int modifier +4 mantle of the icy soul +5 solid fog greensteel clicky = 59

Shiradi Champion: wis x5, wild shots x2, fey form x3, double rainbow, nerve venom x3

Twists of Fate: energy burst, white dragon heritage, endless faith, interrogation

Enhancements Harper: agent of good III, harper enchantment, traveler's toughness x3, magical endurance x3, versatile adept IV, highly skilled x3, intelligence x2, enchantment of magic, moment of clarity (38 AP spent)

Enhancements Season's Herald: hierophant, wand and scroll mastery x3, beguile x1, wax and wane x4, negotiator x3, efficient metamagic maximize x3, action boost spellpower x3, nature's warden x3, autumnal sussurs x3, wisdom x2 (42 AP spent)

PRR = +12 past lives +45 heavy armor +25 heavy armor proficiency +15 tower shield +15 improved shield mastery +30 legendary shield mastery +24 guardian's ring = 166

Spells:
Level 1: entangle, jump, magic fang, merfolk's blessing, ram's might, shillelagh
Level 2: creeping cold, gust of wind, lesser restoration, resist energy, splinterbolt
Level 3: call lightning, protection from energy, salt ray, sleet storm, spike growth
Level 4: cure serious wounds, dispel magic, flame strike, freedom of movement, ice storm
Level 5: call lightning storm, cure critical wounds, death ward, reincarnate, wall of fire
Level 6: fire shield, greater creeping cold, greater dispel magic, tenacious pack, word of balance
Level 7: body of the sun, creeping doom, freezing spray, sunbeam, fire storm
Level 8: earthquake, finger of death, fires of purity, heal, ice flowers

Equipment:

goggles level 20: epic goggles of time sensing with insightful wis +2, spell points +150 yellow slot, exc wis +1 colorless slot
goggles level 24: cannoneer's goggles with insightful wis +2 green slot

helm level 20: epic darkstorm helm with evocation focus I green slot
helm level 25: helm of the blue dragon with insightful int +3, evocation focus II yellow slot, draconic soul gem green slot

neck: vim and vigor with str +7, false life +30, greater heroism, natural armor +6, heavy fortification green slot
trinket: epic litany of the dead with wis +8 blue slot and dex +8 green slot
cloak: epic envenomed cloak with vitality +20 green slot
belt: green steel, concordant opposition, hit points +10, spell points +150, exc int skills +4, exc cha skills +6
gloves: epic charged gauntlets with master's gift yellow slot

boots level 20: epic kundarak boots with exc con +1 colorless slot
boots level 24: orcish privateer's boots with fire resistance +50, fire absorption 30%, insightful con +2 colorless slot

bracers: epic scorched bracers with good luck +2 green slot
armor: flawless blue dragonscale armor with globe of true imperial blood blue slot
ring left: guardian's ring with fear immunity yellow slot

ring right level 20: deathblock ring of ice lore +15% with int +6 yellow slot and spellcraft +11 colorless slot
ring right level 28: epic eye of the beholder with deathblock, int +11, wizardry X, spellcraft +15 blue slot, resistance +8 green slot

hand left: alchemical tower shield with combustion +90, alchemical wis +2, efficient metamagic maximize II, arcane augmentation IX, greater spell focus evocation

hand right level 20: midnight greetings with glaciation +90 red slot
hand right level 28: thunder-forged scimitar with glaciation +150, evocation focus +6, ice lore +22%, magnetism +138 orange slot, heal +15 colorless slot

Completionist with these past lives:
- All 39 Heroic;
- All 12 Iconic;
- 8x Epic -> 1x divine, 3x arcane, 3x primal, 1x martial

Epic elite quests made in solo with bravery:
- phiarlan carnival: the snitch, partycrashers
- sentinels of stormreach: all quests;
- the red fens: all quests;
- the druid's deep: the druid curse;
- menace of the underdark: all 16 quests (from "the lords of dust" to "in the belly of the beast");
- the vault of night: all quests;
- ruins of gianthold: all quests (except the crucible);
- three-barrel cove: all quests;
- shadow over wheloon: all quests

[SirValentine]

Nice Druid.



Base Evocation DC = 10 + 27 wisdom modifier +3 epic spell focus evocation +1 past life arcane initiate +3 magister evocation specialist +2 evocation augment +5 sage's locket +3 past lives sorcerer +1 strength of the solstice = 55


You know, I was wondering why this was so low, until I noticed that you didn't have spell level included. 64 sounds much better than 55. :-)



WIS = 18 base +2 completionist +2 ship +5 tome +1 litany +11 item +3 insightful +1 exceptional +1 human +5 shiradi +7 level +4 enhancements +2 hierophant +2 great ability wisdom = 64


Let's see...Yugo pots for 2 more. An Alchemical weapon can get you 2 more.



Shiradi: wis x5, wild shots x2, fey form x3, double rainbow, nerve venom x3

Twists of Fate: energy burst ice, magister evocation specialist, avenging light


How much do you need Avenging Light? I'd think between Druid SLAs, Shiradi procs, etc., you'd be good without it. If you drop Avenging Light, and, say, Fey Form, you can pick up 2 more Wisdom between Shiradi and a level 1 twist.

I'm assuming you're committed to Energy Burst, so Precise Evocation or Acute Instincts are out of reach, unless you rack up more Fate Points from Epic Reincarnation.

[Michele]

mmmhhh... yeah, I should really craft an alchemical weapon sooner or later.


Nice Druid.

Let's see...Yugo pots for 2 more. An Alchemical weapon can get you 2 more.

[Michele]

you are perfectly right, I will do as you say (remove avenging light, maximize wisdom, and rack up more fate points from epic reincarnations).
build updated.




How much do you need Avenging Light? I'd think between Druid SLAs, Shiradi procs, etc., you'd be good without it. If you drop Avenging Light, and, say, Fey Form, you can pick up 2 more Wisdom between Shiradi and a level 1 twist.

I'm assuming you're committed to Energy Burst, so Precise Evocation or Acute Instincts are out of reach, unless you rack up more Fate Points from Epic Reincarnation.

[Micron]

Base Evocation DC = 10 + 29 wis modifier +3 epic spell focus evocation +1 past life arcane initiate +3 magister evocation specialist +2 precise casting evocation +2 evocation augment +5 sage's locket +3 past lives sorcerer +1 strength of the solstice = 59
Does the spell focus on augments stack with spell focus items now? A guildie told me some time ago it was being considered but has it already been implemented?

Also I notice you list Mass Frog DC but don't take the feat?

[Michele]

Does the spell focus on augments stack with spell focus items now? A guildie told me some time ago it was being considered but has it already been implemented?

Also I notice you list Mass Frog DC but don't take the feat?

yes, augments stack with spell focus items: it has been implemented recently and I have tested it personally.

as far as mass frog, I still have to decide if it's better than +20 spell power fire (my current main tactic against trash is earthquake + body of the sun + firewall without metamagic; earthquake and body of the sun both proc shiradi on each tic).
I wrote mass frog DC just to show what numbers can reach that spell.

[Micron]

Thanks for confirming.
I play a caster druid on my secondary server who doesn't have much in the way of DCs but I've been meaning to start working on them. I don't have a lot of time to play her so I definitely won't be able to get 3 sorc lives, the alchemical Wis item or completionist, I'd say my final DCs will be 6 or 7 lower than the ones above (ie. low 60-ish with spell level included). I'm hoping that will still be semi-useful in EE groups (I have no soloing ambitions on her).

[Silverleafeon]

http://ddowiki.com/images/Spell_School_Augmentation.gif

[Spell School] Augmentation: Passive Bonus: Chosen school spells have [5/10/15]% chance to reduce target <save depending on school> by 10 for [10/20/30] seconds.
Conjuration/Evocation: Reflex. Enchantment/Illusion: Will. Necromancy: Transmutation: Fortitude. Abjuration: [5/10/15]% chance to increase target's Armor Class by 5 for [2/?/?] minutes.


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http://ddowiki.com/images/Icon_Mantle_of_the_Icy_Soul.png

Mantle of the Icy Soul

Evocation (Cold)
Valid Forms: Water Elemental. You are shrouded in the mantle of the icy soul. The targets of your cold spells take a 25% penalty to movement speed, a 10% penalty to attack speed, and a -4 penalty to reflex and fortitude saves.

++

http://ddowiki.com/images/IceStorm.png
Ice Storm

Evocation
(Cold)
Hail creates a lingering area of effect for 30 seconds that deals 2d6 of bludgeon damage and 1d6 of cold damage plus 1 per caster level (up to a maximum caster level of 15) every 2 seconds to each creature inside the area.


++

http://ddowiki.com/images/Icon_Earthquake.png

Earthquake

Evocation
Summons an earthquake beneath your enemies' feet. Enemies within the area of effect have an additional 30% spell failure chance, and every three seconds they are knocked down and take 2 to 16 points of damage. A successful reflex save vs. the damage halves the damage, and a reflex save vs. the knockdown negates it. Flying enemies are immune. D&D Dice: Deals 2d8 level bludgeoning damage.



Valid Forms: Water Elemental. You are shrouded in the mantle of the icy soul. The targets of your cold spells take a 25% penalty to movement speed, a 10% penalty to attack speed, and a -4 penalty to reflex and fortitude saves.

[unbongwah]

Don't forget Autumnal Susurrus: "Your acid, negative and electricity spells have [10/20/40]% chance of applying the shaken condition (-2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks) to their target." AFAIK, shaken stacks w/Mantle of the Icy Soul's debuff; so drop a Storm of Vengeance on top of your Ice Storms & Earthquakes.

[Silverleafeon]

FoM on allies and sleet storm is fun too.
Ice storm/sleet storm slows things down.
Maybe a wizard would be smart enough to dump a solid fog on top too.
Maybe an archer would be smart enough to kite things into your earthquake.
Maybe a melee would fight in the middle of it.

They are called Sleetquakers for a reason.

[Munkenmo]

You could splash 2 monk at 19/20

Spending the feats on doge and mobility as well as running in water stance would net you a total boost of 10dodge when in water stance.

You break even on your evo dc's, since the druid capstone only effects transmutation and conjuration.

[unbongwah]

You break even on your evo dc's, since the druid capstone only effects transmutation and conjuration.
For some reason Storm of Vengeance is Conjuration, even though the other lightning spells are Evo, so you're losing 2 DCs to that. There are a handful of offensive Transmutation spells - Ice Flowers, Spike Growth, Quench, Entangle - but I hardly ever use them in epics. Quench can be nice for the -20 cold & electric resistance, but Fort saves negate the debuff and I don't usually consider it worth the SPs to Heighten.

[Pilgrim1]

For some reason Storm of Vengeance is Conjuration, even though the other lightning spells are Evo, so you're losing 2 DCs to that. There are a handful of offensive Transmutation spells - Ice Flowers, Spike Growth, Quench, Entangle - but I hardly ever use them in epics. Quench can be nice for the -20 cold & electric resistance, but Fort saves negate the debuff and I don't usually consider it worth the SPs to Heighten.

I tend to use spike growth on earthquake piles when SoV is on cooldown, or sometimes just adding it in. I use entangle on orange named caster bosses. Mass frog is also a transmutation spell, and can be quite fun, if not super powerful.

I don't feel that the 2 monk splash is worth it on a druid, monks power comes really at lvl 6 where you get shadow fade and lots of dodge bonuses. The bonus feats are mediocre. Also if you are like me and end up with leaves of the forest that gives you 10 dodge bonus already and some PRR, you would lose that PRR if you switched to robes. Furthermore your reflex just does not cut it when it comes to high end EE quests and nothing you can do will really change that - so evasion is not very impressive. Basically what I'm saying is that the monk splash looks good to start but seamed lackluster to me in practice.

The other thing to consider is the nature of druid healing. The heal over time effects are truly an amazing way of healing, I strongly believe that mass Regen is the best healing spell in the game. However for it to be effective you need lots of heal amp and lots of HP. Heal amp you manage with human + gear. Hp i would strongly consider epic toughness. You could take normal toughness for an epic destiny feet at lvl 26 and epic toughness at lvl 27.

This is my feet list, quite similar to yours:
1 - maximize
1 - empower
3 - wiz PL
6 - highten
9 - quicken
12 - SF: evo
15 - GSF: evo
18 - Enlarge
21 - Emp healing
24 - ESF: evo
26 - toughness
27 - E. tough
28 - Mass frog


Surprisingly the thing i struggled most with was my lack of AoE damage, I felt that my single target and boss DPS was quite fine, but killing the hordes of mobs in my pile was tedious. I also tended to run in Primal Avatar.

[Michele]

http://ddowiki.com/images/Spell_School_Augmentation.gif

[Spell School] Augmentation: Passive Bonus: Chosen school spells have [5/10/15]% chance to reduce target <save depending on school> by 10 for [10/20/30] seconds.
Conjuration/Evocation: Reflex. Enchantment/Illusion: Will. Necromancy: Transmutation: Fortitude. Abjuration: [5/10/15]% chance to increase target's Armor Class by 5 for [2/?/?] minutes.


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http://ddowiki.com/images/Icon_Mantle_of_the_Icy_Soul.png

Mantle of the Icy Soul

Evocation (Cold)
Valid Forms: Water Elemental. You are shrouded in the mantle of the icy soul. The targets of your cold spells take a 25% penalty to movement speed, a 10% penalty to attack speed, and a -4 penalty to reflex and fortitude saves.

++

http://ddowiki.com/images/IceStorm.png
Ice Storm

Evocation
(Cold)
Hail creates a lingering area of effect for 30 seconds that deals 2d6 of bludgeon damage and 1d6 of cold damage plus 1 per caster level (up to a maximum caster level of 15) every 2 seconds to each creature inside the area.


++

http://ddowiki.com/images/Icon_Earthquake.png

Earthquake

Evocation
Summons an earthquake beneath your enemies' feet. Enemies within the area of effect have an additional 30% spell failure chance, and every three seconds they are knocked down and take 2 to 16 points of damage. A successful reflex save vs. the damage halves the damage, and a reflex save vs. the knockdown negates it. Flying enemies are immune. D&D Dice: Deals 2d8 level bludgeoning damage.



Valid Forms: Water Elemental. You are shrouded in the mantle of the icy soul. The targets of your cold spells take a 25% penalty to movement speed, a 10% penalty to attack speed, and a -4 penalty to reflex and fortitude saves.

yes, you could choose to go in water elemental form, BUT... you loose the benefit of using body of the sun that procs shiradi on every tic (together with earthquake), unless you simply want to be a crowd control machine, in that case it's handy to have the -4 malus to your enemies.
also a wall of fire without metamagic deals more damage than an ice storm with both empower and maximize: so consider well if you really want to go in water elemental form.

yes, by twisting magister evocation augmentation, you have a 15% to reduce target reflex of -10, but when you see an hangry epic elite minotaur charging on you, you really want to blind him with a sunbeam immediately, so you don't have time to debuff him.
if you see a pack of mobs far away, you want to blind them all with an enlarged sunburst sla, also you don't have time to debuff them.
so, I prefer twisting +1 wisdom over magister evocation augmentation if it makes my wisdom even.

I'm a fun of debuffs, but they cost spell points and druids don't have so many spell points.

If I have to choose between water elemental form and fire elemental form, I prefer fire for more dps against trash.

[Michele]

you can play a first life druid in epic elite effectively, but you have to compensate the missing sorcerer lives with the debuffs mentioned by "Silverleafeon" (mantle of icy soul + ice storm without metamagic).

you can equip your druid with easy to acquire equipment (belt of the sun soul, shadowsight goggles are cheap to buy in the auction house, a couple of scepters for spell power, an epic sage's locket with +5 evocation dc that you can get 100% of times as end reward of a single wheelon quest).


Thanks for confirming.
I play a caster druid on my secondary server who doesn't have much in the way of DCs but I've been meaning to start working on them. I don't have a lot of time to play her so I definitely won't be able to get 3 sorc lives, the alchemical Wis item or completionist, I'd say my final DCs will be 6 or 7 lower than the ones above (ie. low 60-ish with spell level included). I'm hoping that will still be semi-useful in EE groups (I have no soloing ambitions on her).

[Michele]

Don't forget Autumnal Susurrus: "Your acid, negative and electricity spells have [10/20/40]% chance of applying the shaken condition (-2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks) to their target." AFAIK, shaken stacks w/Mantle of the Icy Soul's debuff; so drop a Storm of Vengeance on top of your Ice Storms & Earthquakes.

a few months ago I tested that earthquake procs autumnal sussurs debuff: things should have not changed since then (so you can debuff with autumnal sussurs even without casting storm of vengeance, and simply by casting earthquake).

[Michele]

FoM on allies and sleet storm is fun too.
Ice storm/sleet storm slows things down.
Maybe a wizard would be smart enough to dump a solid fog on top too.
Maybe an archer would be smart enough to kite things into your earthquake.
Maybe a melee would fight in the middle of it.

They are called Sleetquakers for a reason.

eheheh, too many "maybe" :D

sleetstorm is nice, but... you have to spend spell points to buff everyone in the group and I have seen many situations when enemy spellcasters dispell freedom of movement.
also many players don't like the obscuring visual effect caused by sleetstorm and prefer a clear sight outside of it (this is my personal experience by playing with other players).

so my tactic against a lot of trash mobs is just dropping an earthquake + wall of fire without metamagic + sunburst sla + me in the middle of them with body of the sun + shiradi procs.
against a single target mob just call lightning sla + word of balance sla + word of balance spell (or creeping cold sla) + call lightning spell (or sunbeam if I simply want to disable him and let the melees take care of him).

[Michele]

druid capstone gives +2 wisdom, also monk ocean stance gives +2 wisdom, so the evocation dc is the same at the end.

I see a lot of builds using 2 monk levels together with druid levels, but... ok, you have better defense, but you loose a lot in the caster side...

1) you loose a lot of precious spell points, and druids don't have so many spell points;
2) if you use 2 scepters you become unbalanced and you loose the +2 wisdom coming from ocean stance;
3) regenerate mass with the druid capstone is cast at level 27, while with monk splash it is cast at max level 23;
4) sunbeam and sunburst cap at level 25 (I have the suspect that sunbeam has no level cap at all, but I still have to test it), so every caster level is precious if you want to use light spells (remember that sunbeam and sunburst deal very nice damage against undead, so don't underestimate these spells);
5) creeping doom has no level cap, and with the druid capstone it can be cast at level 27 (if you splash monk levels, it can be cast at level 21 because it deals damage every 3 levels...) ... I'm still not sure if using this spell or not;
6) word of balance (and mass frog) has a spell penetration check, so you loose 2 points of spell penetration;
7) if you are getting an epic past life different from a primal one, you have to reach level 28 using a "non primal" epic destiny (for example, exalted or magister or grandmaster of flowers), so your build with 2 monk levels will cast many common spells with less damage because they will not even reach the caster level of 20 (spells like greater creeping cold, word of balance, body of the sun, etcetera, will be cast at level 18).
8) as Pilgrim1 said, with monk splash you miss the prr that you would have by equipping medium armors.



You could splash 2 monk at 19/20

Spending the feats on doge and mobility as well as running in water stance would net you a total boost of 10dodge when in water stance.

You break even on your evo dc's, since the druid capstone only effects transmutation and conjuration.

[Michele]

Surprisingly the thing i struggled most with was my lack of AoE damage, I felt that my single target and boss DPS was quite fine, but killing the hordes of mobs in my pile was tedious. I also tended to run in Primal Avatar.

as I wrote above, use shiradi with earthquake + wall of fire without metamagic + body of the sun.

1) it will cost few spell points;
2) shiradi procs with earthquake and body of the sun (for nice damage);
3) wall of fire deals more than 100 damage without critical (and 200 when critical hits).

I used to raise a lot of intelligence in order to use energy burst, but I could not twist draconic precise casting evocation and many mobs were still evading it in epic elite content.

also I had to sacrifice some constitution because I started with const 16 instead of 18, and some augment slot were used to increase intelligence instead of const/hit points.

so at the end I decided to avoid energy burst (especially when I discovered the effectiveness of the combo earthquake + wall of fire + body of the sun + sunburst).

[Michele]

I decided to change my build in order to be more epic elite oriented, by removing maximize and empower spell and by increasing the amount of spell points.

my tactic consists in massing a lot of mobs and casting earthquake + body of the sun + firewall without metamagic.

against bosses creeping cold + greater creeping cold (without metamagic).

I used to apply maximize and empower on call lightning sla and on word of balance sla and on storm of vengeance sla, but I find their cooldown too long for my play style, so I'm now killing faster then before (when I had maximize and empower I used to wait the cooldown of those sla, and this slowed me down).

Just increase your spell power as much as possible and this build will be ok.

[unbongwah]

I used to apply maximize and empower on call lightning sla and on word of balance sla and on storm of vengeance sla, but I find their cooldown too long for my play style, so I'm now killing faster then before (when I had maximize and empower I used to wait the cooldown of those sla, and this slowed me down).
You do realize that just because you use the SLAs doesn't mean you lose access to the regular spells, yes? They have separate cooldowns too: my druid makes use of all of them; typically I'll use the SLAs to start a fight, then switch to the regular spells while they're on cooldown if I need the extra oomph. Plus IIUC the Shiradi procs are boosted by whatever metas you have applied to your spells / SLAs when you cast them; thus the "free" 225 Spellpower applied to one's SLAs & their Shiradi procs is more than worth it, IMHO.

[Michele]

You do realize that just because you use the SLAs doesn't mean you lose access to the regular spells, yes? They have separate cooldowns too: my druid makes use of all of them; typically I'll use the SLAs to start a fight, then switch to the regular spells while they're on cooldown if I need the extra oomph. Plus IIUC the Shiradi procs are boosted by whatever metas you have applied to your spells / SLAs when you cast them; thus the "free" 225 Spellpower applied to one's SLAs & their Shiradi procs is more than worth it, IMHO.

they are slow. I just finished all the gianthold walkups at epic elite at level 24 and I continue to prefer 400 more spell points over 3 metamaguc feats.
my spell power without metamagic feats is around 300 on all elements.
my main tactic is earthquake + body of the sun + wall of fire without metamagic.
body of the sun can't be empowered, earthquake does almost no damage, and wall of fire would cost too many spell points with metamagic feats.

ice storm damage is pathetic at epic elite even with metamagic feats.

storm of vengeance sla is nice with metamagic, but I would not invest 3 feats only for a 2 minutes cooldown spell.

call lightning and word of balance sla are nice with metamagic, but they have slow cooldowns, and when both cast on an epic elite mob they barely half the health of a SINGLE trash mob by dealing a total of 2500 damage... and by being single target the have low chance to proc shiradi.

I would rather prefer having 1000 more spell points and +3% critical chance by getting epic mental toughness and past life sorcerer active feat and endless faith.

I tested both druid versions, with and without metamagic feats, and I kill a lot more with the version without metamagic feats.

that's my personal experience when soloing epic elite content: remember that you will face bosses with 300k hit points and you need a lot of spell points. against melee bosses you barely have time to cast creeping cold and greater creeping cold while you run to avoid their deadly attacks... in that case, having or not having SLAs makes no difference because it's only a matter of time before the boss fall down with creeping cold spells.
if you are in group you also have only time to cast creeping cold spells on the boss, because the remaining time you will be busy to heal the melee players in your group (do you really think to deal more damage of a melee, or an archer, or a shiradi arcane caster? :D ).

[Michele]

You do realize that just because you use the SLAs doesn't mean you lose access to the regular spells, yes? They have separate cooldowns too: my druid makes use of all of them; typically I'll use the SLAs to start a fight, then switch to the regular spells while they're on cooldown if I need the extra oomph. Plus IIUC the Shiradi procs are boosted by whatever metas you have applied to your spells / SLAs when you cast them; thus the "free" 225 Spellpower applied to one's SLAs & their Shiradi procs is more than worth it, IMHO.

just to show you some numbers:
call lightning sla will deal about 450 damage instead of 350 damage with empower and maximize every 6 seconds.
word of balance sla will deal about 600 damage instead of 500 damage with empower and maximize every 15 seconds.

creeping cold and storm of vengeance sla with maximize and empower... meh... let's say that metamagic don't change your life with those spells.

so you are wasting hundreds of spell points and 3% spell critical chance, for how much more dps with SLAs? almost nothing.

[Sebastrd]

they are slow. I just finished all the gianthold walkups at epic elite at level 24 and I continue to prefer 400 more spell points over 3 metamaguc feats.
my spell power without metamagic feats is around 300 on all elements.
my main tactic is earthquake + body of the sun + wall of fire without metamagic.
body of the sun can't be empowered, earthquake does almost no damage, and wall of fire would cost too many spell points with metamagic feats.

ice storm damage is pathetic at epic elite even with metamagic feats.

storm of vengeance sla is nice with metamagic, but I would not invest 3 feats only for a 2 minutes cooldown spell.

call lightning and word of balance sla are nice with metamagic, but they have slow cooldowns, and when both cast on an epic elite mob they barely half the health of a SINGLE trash mob by dealing a total of 2500 damage... and by being single target the have low chance to proc shiradi.

I would rather prefer having 1000 more spell points and +3% critical chance by getting epic mental toughness and past life sorcerer active feat and endless faith.

I tested both druid versions, with and without metamagic feats, and I kill a lot more with the version without metamagic feats.

that's my personal experience when soloing epic elite content: remember that you will face bosses with 300k hit points and you need a lot of spell points. against melee bosses you barely have time to cast creeping cold and greater creeping cold while you run to avoid their deadly attacks... in that case, having or not having SLAs makes no difference because it's only a matter of time before the boss fall down with creeping cold spells.
if you are in group you also have only time to cast creeping cold spells on the boss, because the remaining time you will be busy to heal the melee players in your group (do you really think to deal more damage of a melee, or an archer, or a shiradi arcane caster? :D ).

Nice. I love outside the box thinking like this. I will so be back to this thread when I get around to my druid life.

[thomhas_of_mabar]

just to show you some numbers:
call lightning sla will deal about 450 damage instead of 350 damage with empower and maximize every 6 seconds.
word of balance sla will deal about 600 damage instead of 500 damage with empower and maximize every 15 seconds.

creeping cold and storm of vengeance sla with maximize and empower... meh... let's say that metamagic don't change your life with those spells.

so you are wasting hundreds of spell points and 3% spell critical chance, for how much more dps with SLAs? almost nothing.


I just tr'd into a druid. I'm new to this class. Currently at level 13. Seems everyone is talking about wolf builds.
Glad there are a few posts talking about casters.

Very nice analysis. So empower is a waste. I'm gonna drop it.

I too hate the fact that Druids don't have enough spell points so I took Mental Toughness. So you think the entire chain is worth it.
Good to know.

I don't like the cool down time on the SLAs. Have you tried quicken? Does it have any effect on the SLAs?
What's your view on the Spell Penetration/chain feat?

[SirValentine]

What's your view on the Spell Penetration/chain feat?

There's only a couple of Druid spells that need it, and fairly few mobs with Spell Resistance in a range where having it would matter, as most mobs have none, and some (e.g., Drow) have sky-high.

I might buy the argument if someone said 1 Spell Pen feat was useful, to unlock the ability to twist in 6 more from Magister & Draconic, but even that seem iffy. (I'd consider it a given on a Wizard, but they get all those bonus feats plus have far more spells for which it's relevant.) More than 1 Spell Pen feat really seems too costly in feats for a Druid (or Sorc/Clr/FvS) to me.

[Michele]

I just tr'd into a druid. I'm new to this class. Currently at level 13. Seems everyone is talking about wolf builds.
Glad there are a few posts talking about casters.

Very nice analysis. So empower is a waste. I'm gonna drop it.

I too hate the fact that Druids don't have enough spell points so I took Mental Toughness. So you think the entire chain is worth it.
Good to know.

I don't like the cool down time on the SLAs. Have you tried quicken? Does it have any effect on the SLAs?
What's your view on the Spell Penetration/chain feat?

quicken is a must have. in epic elite they hit hard, and failing a concentration check while casting an heal spell could be deadly.
also I need to cast quickly a sequence of spells that have the same timer of 30 seconds: earhquake + body of the sun + wall of fire + sunburst sla; I would waste a lot of seconds if I don't cast them with quicken feat; I used to cast earthquake without quicken spell, but failing the concentration check could have caused my death.
you can choose efficient quicken from the season's herald tree to make the quicken feat cost only 6 more spell points.
I don't use quicken on the single target spells (greater creeping cold, word of balance, creeping doom, sunbeam) because they are just bonus damage, it's not important if I fail the concentration check while I cast them, and they have a pretty quick casting animation.

Spell penetration is not so important for a druid: it's used for word of balance and mass frog;
I have +3 spell penetration from the season's herald tree, +5 from shiradi epic destiny, +20 from having all 20 druid levels, and +9 from having 3 pl wiz and 3 pl fvs, and I rarely have spell penetration issues.

I'm not a lover of mass frog... a DC of 59 in fortitude in epic elite, I have to switch equipment (nether orb and scepter with +2 transmutation augment slot), too many clicks, 1 minute cooldown, affects up to 5 mobs only, 75 + 6 spell points cost, spell penetration check... mmmhhh... maybe yes, maybe not... maybe it's better +20 fire spell power for my body of the sun and wall of fire.

I'm hitting 3500 spell points in shiradi epic destiny.

[Sokól]

just to show you some numbers:
call lightning sla will deal about 450 damage instead of 350 damage with empower and maximize every 6 seconds.
word of balance sla will deal about 600 damage instead of 500 damage with empower and maximize every 15 seconds.

creeping cold and storm of vengeance sla with maximize and empower... meh... let's say that metamagic don't change your life with those spells.

so you are wasting hundreds of spell points and 3% spell critical chance, for how much more dps with SLAs? almost nothing.

I agree, was just doing a couple of past lives then coming back to druid and took no metas and was surprised how well it worked out, no potting very similar dmg. Biggest surprise though was body of the sun, really love that spell now :D

[Lanhelin]

Nature's Warrior Enhancements: instinctive fighting x2, bestial nature x3, extra wild empaty x3, athletic x3, flight x3, reaving roar x3, wisdom x2

I have a question regarding Reaving Roar. Why do you take it three times? Because the sonic damage is not increased but applied at a 100% rate when killing an enemy. The increasing chance only affects the insight bonus to threat generation for 10 seconds. I currently play a melee Druid and more than one point into RR seems not worth it.

[Michele]

I have a question regarding Reaving Roar. Why do you take it three times? Because the sonic damage is not increased but applied at a 100% rate when killing an enemy. The increasing chance only affects the insight bonus to threat generation for 10 seconds. I currently play a melee Druid and more than one point into RR seems not worth it.

I use bestial nature for +3 reflex and fortitude, so I never use reaving roar.
I just need to spend 20 action points in nature's warrior tree to have access to +2 wisdom, so I could spend them anywhere in that tree, without changing the build effectiveness.

[Jasparion]

I agree, was just doing a couple of past lives then coming back to druid and took no metas and was surprised how well it worked out, no potting very similar dmg. Biggest surprise though was body of the sun, really love that spell now :D

Ive had Shiradi procs do nearly 2k damage with Maximise and Empower turned on. I am guessing they will drop down significantly if I go for a build which ignore these 2 feats.

It seems counter to everything we've ever been told... so this thread is VERY interesting to follow !

[Michele]

Ive had Shiradi procs do nearly 2k damage with Maximise and Empower turned on. I am guessing they will drop down significantly if I go for a build which ignore these 2 feats.

It seems counter to everything we've ever been told... so this thread is VERY interesting to follow !

true, on a shiradi critical, where the critical chance on a shiradi build is often determined by the arcane lore of a blue dragonscale armor (you can't be master of critical in all elements).

the only 2 spells I find worth of shiradi are earthquake and body of the sun which proc at every tick:
1) maximizing and empowering earthquake is a waste of spell points because it will deal no more significant damage;
2) body of the sun can't be used with maximize and empower.

all the other spells proc shiradi once for every cast (you don't have archmage magic missile sla that has 5 times the chance to proc shiradi).

yes, you can say: I kite mobs in and out of my wall of fire to proc shiradi...
but you really want them to stay on the ground, still in the midde of an earthquake with your body of the sun.
kiting mobs means being damaged by them and spending lots of spell points to heal you.

I still find maximize and empower too expensive for a druid in epic elite content, where you need tons of spell points due to the huge amount of mobs hit points (especially bosses).

Instead, in epic hard content maximize and empower is useful because mobs have few hit points, so you have enough spell points to finish the quest even with the additional cost of metamagic feats (and you finish the quest faster because you bring down the mobs faster... well... only a few minutes faster :P ).

However you can still replace completionist feat and past life sorcerer active feat for maximize and empower, as I wrote in the build, if you don't have access to completionist feat and you don't care having 145 more spell points.

My problem is that I don't find maximize and empower worth enough to spend 2 feats on a druid: let's see what the new divine epic destiny will bring in the next update, maybe they will introduce a very good new sla to empower with those feats.

energy burst can't be maximized, holy wrath is not handy to manage with a druid, avenging light is nice to use with metamagic but it's only single target and does the same damage of a call lightning without metamagic (so I would not even take it if I run exalted angel epic destiny).

[Sokól]

I was wondering Michele how much Heighten boosts your earthquake dc´s, do mind checking for me?

[Wipey]

9-8=1. :)
For caster able to cast lvl 9 spells, Heighten would boost lvl 8 spell by 1.
Lvl 1 spell by 8.

[Sebastrd]

true, on a shiradi critical, where the critical chance on a shiradi build is often determined by the arcane lore of a blue dragonscale armor (you can't be master of critical in all elements).

the only 2 spells I find worth of shiradi are earthquake and body of the sun which proc at every tick:
1) maximizing and empowering earthquake is a waste of spell points because it will deal no more significant damage;
2) body of the sun can't be used with maximize and empower.

all the other spells proc shiradi once for every cast (you don't have archmage magic missile sla that has 5 times the chance to proc shiradi).

yes, you can say: I kite mobs in and out of my wall of fire to proc shiradi...
but you really want them to stay on the ground, still in the midde of an earthquake with your body of the sun.
kiting mobs means being damaged by them and spending lots of spell points to heal you.

I still find maximize and empower too expensive for a druid in epic elite content, where you need tons of spell points due to the huge amount of mobs hit points (especially bosses).

Instead, in epic hard content maximize and empower is useful because mobs have few hit points, so you have enough spell points to finish the quest even with the additional cost of metamagic feats (and you finish the quest faster because you bring down the mobs faster... well... only a few minutes faster :P ).

However you can still replace completionist feat and past life sorcerer active feat for maximize and empower, as I wrote in the build, if you don't have access to completionist feat and you don't care having 145 more spell points.

My problem is that I don't find maximize and empower worth enough to spend 2 feats on a druid: let's see what the new divine epic destiny will bring in the next update, maybe they will introduce a very good new sla to empower with those feats.

energy burst can't be maximized, holy wrath is not handy to manage with a druid, avenging light is nice to use with metamagic but it's only single target and does the same damage of a call lightning without metamagic (so I would not even take it if I run exalted angel epic destiny).

I think what he's referring to is that Maximize and Empower will affect your Shiradi procs. While the feats may not be worth it for your fishing spells, they may be worth it for the extra damage on the procs. It's an interesting question.

[Sokól]

I think what he's referring to is that Maximize and Empower will affect your Shiradi procs. While the feats may not be worth it for your fishing spells, they may be worth it for the extra damage on the procs. It's an interesting question.

I have a shiradi sorc and have special meta and unmeta bar for normal spells and imo it is not worth it unless you have endless pot supply and note that druids are really feat starved.

[Sokól]

9-8=1. :)
For caster able to cast lvl 9 spells, Heighten would boost lvl 8 spell by 1.
Lvl 1 spell by 8.

ty

[Michele]

I think what he's referring to is that Maximize and Empower will affect your Shiradi procs. While the feats may not be worth it for your fishing spells, they may be worth it for the extra damage on the procs. It's an interesting question.

with maximize and empower shiradi procs have +225 spell power, so yes, shiradi procs will benefit a lot from those feats.

but if I go around in epic elite quests with less than 3500 spell points and if I use maximize and empower, I would surely finish my spell points before reaching a shrine or I would not have enough spell points to bring down a boss.

think to shiradi sorcerers: they spam magic missiles without applying maximize and empower on them, otherwise they would burn too many spell points.
the same thing is for a druid.

[Michele]

I have a shiradi sorc and have special meta and unmeta bar for normal spells and imo it is not worth it unless you have endless pot supply and note that druids are really feat starved.

I 100% agree with you.

druids are also spel points starved unless they invest in mental toughness fears, in green steel, they buy a good +250 spell points augment, and maximize wisdom.

[thomhas_of_mabar]

yes, augments stack with spell focus items: it has been implemented recently and I have tested it personally.

as far as mass frog, I still have to decide if it's better than +20 spell power fire (my current main tactic against trash is earthquake + body of the sun + firewall without metamagic; earthquake and body of the sun both proc shiradi on each tic).
I wrote mass frog DC just to show what numbers can reach that spell.



So the (Greater) Spell Focus augments stack with spell focus items. What is a spell focus item?
Are you referring to spell penetration items?

What about the (Greater) Spell Focus feats? Do they stack with the augments or spell penetration items?
I just want to confirm whether or not there are any redundancies.

For end game and EE content, what would you say is the best area to concentrate on (Ice, Fire, Lightning, etc ...)
What weapons do you usually equip at end game?

BTW, even though I'm currently only at level 16, I picked up a +250 spell point augment from yesterday's sale because of your suggestion


Thanks for the feedback.

[SirValentine]

So the (Greater) Spell Focus augments stack with spell focus items. What is a spell focus item?
Are you referring to spell penetration items?

What about the (Greater) Spell Focus feats? Do they stack with the augments or spell penetration items?


Spell Penetration is caster level check to overcome Spell Resistance. It only applies to certain spells (does NOT apply to most damaging spells; only a few Druid spells need Spell Penetration), and only to certain mobs (those with Spell Resistance). It is totally separate from your spell Difficulty Class ("DC") which determines how hard it is for enemies to "save" against your spell. Spell Penetration does not "stack" with Spell Focus because they are two different things.

Spell Focus, be it from items, augments, or feats, increase your DC. The items, feats, and augments all stack with each other. Currently, you can get up to 3 from feats (Epic Spell Focus), 2 from an augment, and 5 from an item. Those are all only for a single specific school of magic, such as Evocation. Examples of spell focus items would be The Nether Orb or the Sage's Locket, though there are many such items, and it also drops on random loot.

[Michele]

So the (Greater) Spell Focus augments stack with spell focus items. What is a spell focus item?
Are you referring to spell penetration items?

What about the (Greater) Spell Focus feats? Do they stack with the augments or spell penetration items?
I just want to confirm whether or not there are any redundancies.

For end game and EE content, what would you say is the best area to concentrate on (Ice, Fire, Lightning, etc ...)
What weapons do you usually equip at end game?

BTW, even though I'm currently only at level 16, I picked up a +250 spell point augment from yesterday's sale because of your suggestion


Thanks for the feedback.

spell focus items are not spell penetration items: a spell focus item could be "sage's locket", a necklace that you can get as end reward by doing "Friends in Low Places" quest.

spell focus feats stack with spell focus items and spell focus augments.

a druid should increase ice (creeping cold), fire (body of the sun and wall of fire), electricity (call lightning) and untyped (word of balance).
I tipically equip silver ingot arcanum for ice, epic cloak of flames for fire, epic bracers of wind for electricity, flawless blue dragonhide armor for everything else (scoring critical hits is important).

[Rhaphael]

a druid should increase ice (creeping cold), fire (body of the sun and wall of fire), electricity (call lightning) and untyped (word of balance).
Doesn't Word of Balance fall under Light & Alignment i.e. Radiance type?

[Michele]

Doesn't Word of Balance fall under Light & Alignment i.e. Radiance type?

it would be nice because I have 3 sun elf past lives... but... NO.

it's untyped damage so it's affected by impulse and kinetic lore items.

[Rhaphael]

it would be nice because I have 3 sun elf past lives... but... NO.

it's untyped damage so it's affected by impulse and kinetic lore items.

That shows that you can never trust spell descriptions :(.

[thomhas_of_mabar]

spell focus items are not spell penetration items: a spell focus item could be "sage's locket", a necklace that you can get as end reward by doing "Friends in Low Places" quest.

spell focus feats stack with spell focus items and spell focus augments.

a druid should increase ice (creeping cold), fire (body of the sun and wall of fire), electricity (call lightning) and untyped (word of balance).
I tipically equip silver ingot arcanum for ice, epic cloak of flames for fire, epic bracers of wind for electricity, flawless blue dragonhide armor for everything else (scoring critical hits is important).


Thanks for clearing that up for me (thank-you Sir Valentine as well).

Both Word of Balance and Finger of Death are subject to Spell Resistance. I love WoB but have not used FoD. Are these 2 viable for end game without Spell Pen?
Is it worth taking just the first of the Spell Penetration feat chain?

[Feralthyrtiaq]

Word of Balance is affected by Impulse and Kinetic Lore

You will severely hamstring your DPS w/o Maximise and Empower for SLAs.

Word of Balance hits about 80-90% of mobs in game for 2 ticks. A large majority of these mobs also have SR.

FoD is useful but expensive to cast even without metas versus many other Druid spells that can kill just as quickly.

After 3 Druid Caster lives I cannot undervalue the usefullness of Word of Balance. So much so that it is worth an investment in Spell Pen because I hate seeing Blue.

With Mantle of Icy Soul, Solid Fog Clicky and a situational Vertigo Item you can Debuff mob reflex saves by -14.

That more than offsets the potential loss of a couple DCs investing in Spell Pen, Greater Spell Pen, Epic Spell Pen Feats.

10 Character Feats on a Helf Wiz Dille 2 Monk/18 Druid Specced Just for Casting it is easy to fit...

-Empower, Maximise, Quicken
-Spell Pen, Greater Spell Pen, Epic Spell Pen
-Evocation Focus, Greater Evocation Focus
-Insightful Reflexes
-One of Enlarge/Heighten/Epic Evocation Focus/Empower Heal Spell Based on personal playstyle.

2 Monk Feats: Lightning Reflexes/Deflect Arrows

2 ED Feats: Spell Power Force, Spell Power Cold

36 Point Build: Wis 18+ Level Ups, Int 16, Con 16 rest are at 8
Skills: Max Ranks in: Concentration, Balance, Heal, Spell Craft, UMD, some Jump etc etc.

Season's Herald First 4 Cores
Tier 1
W&S 3
Seasons Greetings Cold 3
Beguile 3
Wax & Wane 1

Tier 2
Produce Flame 3
Spell Pen 3
Spell Power Boost 2
Wax & Wane 2

Tier 3
Wisdom
Creeping Cold 3
Wax & Wane 3

Tier 4
Springs Resurgence 3
Call Lightening 3
Wisdom
Wax and Wane 4
Tier 5
Crown of Summer
Winter's Heart
WoB 3
Time and Tide
Strength of Solstice

Henshin Mystic 1st Core

Helf
Core 2 Human Adaptability Wis
Core 3 SP Boost
Core 4 Human Adaptability Con
Tier 1
Improved Dilletante Wizard
Tier 2
Arcanum 3
Improved Dilletante Wis
Improved Recovery
Tier 3
Wiz Dille +1 Int
Action Surge Wisdom 3
Improved Dilletante Wis=>95% use of level 6 Arcane scrolls

Those are the "Basics" for me give or take a point or 2 here and there goin from memory.

[SirValentine]

Both Word of Balance and Finger of Death are subject to Spell Resistance. I love WoB but have not used FoD. Are these 2 viable for end game without Spell Pen?


Since most mobs don't have sky-high Spell Resistance, or, indeed, in many cases, any Spell Resistance at all, sure, they're viable. Just don't try to use them on Drow, for instance, which DO have sky-high Spell Resistance.



Is it worth taking just the first of the Spell Penetration feat chain?


Doing so gives you the flexibility to Twist in +6 more Spell Pen from Magister & Draconic if needed.

[unbongwah]

Doing so gives you the flexibility to Twist in +6 more Spell Pen from Magister & Draconic if needed.
Piercing Spellcraft is tier 3 in both; are you really gonna spend 21 Fate pts (min. to unlock two tier-3 Twist slots) for +6 Spell Pen? Whereas the DC twists are tier 2s, which can be had for 11 Fate pts.

[SirValentine]

Piercing Spellcraft is tier 3 in both; are you really gonna spend 21 Fate pts (min. to unlock two tier-3 Twist slots) for +6 Spell Pen? Whereas the DC twists are tier 2s, which can be had for 11 Fate pts.

2 Tier-3 Twists are 15 fate points, not 21, BTW. 18 Fate Points gets you, for example, 3-3-1.

You pick your twists to fit the quests you're going to run. You can change them for free between every quest if you want.

I don't NORMALLY use either Piercing twist, but I have in the past and plan to again when I know I'm doing a Drow-heavy quest.

My point was having that flexibility, not saying you should run with both Piercings Twisted in at all times.

(I normally use School Specialist, Precise Casting, and Acute Instincts, if you care.)

[unbongwah]

2 Tier-3 Twists are 15 fate points, not 21, BTW. 18 Fate Points gets you, for example, 3-3-1.
Ah, I see, I misread the ED Twist (http://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_Destinies) spreadsheet on the wiki.

That said, I still don't consider Spell Pen to be worth the investment on a caster druid, just to buff two spells (FoD & WoB). But that's why we have Fred... :)

[Michele]

Feralthyrtiaq, you should try to solo epic elite gianthold tor with this build just to realize that you will burn all your spell points without even finishing the first ambush part... I have 3500+ spell points and I have to pay attention to how I spend my spell points... how many spell points has your druid? I guess less than 2000 (especially since you wasted 2 levels with monk levels).

hamstring dps without metamagic? so, how much damage per second (dps) do you do with your empowered and maximized 15 seconds cooldown word of balance and 8 seconds cooldown call lightning single target SLAs?
I wrote in a previous post the difference of damage between spells with and without metamagic, and doesn't make the difference when playing in epic elite content.

Word of Balance DOESN'T hit 80-90% of mobs in game for 2 ticks: I say 31% of them are hit twice because many of them are lawful evil, neutral evil, pure neutral, etcetera, and those are hit once or are not damaged at all.
Read "http://ddowiki.com/page/Category:Monsters_by_alignment" if you want to be more accurate:
Chaotic Evil monsters? (595)
Lawful Evil monsters? (602)
Neutral Evil monsters? (256)
Chaotic Good monsters? (11)
Lawful Good monsters? (7)
Neutral Good monsters? (4)
Chaotic Neutral monsters? (47)
Lawful Neutral monsters? (25)
True Neutral monsters?? (388)

1935 : 602 = 100 : x
x = 31%

Sunbeam deals about the same damage if you have all 20 druid levels and a primal epic destiny (sunbeam and WoB deal about 500 damage without metamagic and without critical when cast at level 25), and against undeads it deals double damage (1000+ damage without critical and without metamagic, but usually WoB hits twice against undead).

Finger of death is absolutely useless in epic elite content because mobs will save 80-90% of times with or without considering spell penetration check, and in epic hard content is useless because mobs usually go down with 1 WoB + 1 call lightning + 1 sunbeam without metamagic.

Also, if you need an epic past life different from a primal one, your spells will deal less damage because you have only 18 druid levels and you are running an epic destiny that doesn't give you additional druid caster levels.

Spell penetration line is absolutely useless for a druid because finger of death is useless (for the reasons I mentioned above) and word of balance can be replaced by other spells (sunbeam, call lightning, creeping cold spells, body of the sun, wall of fire, etcetera).

Druid shine when a lot of mobs are packed together in an earthquake with body of the sun and shiradi that procs a lot with these 2 spells, otherwise epic elite mobs will laugh on your single target damage with huge cooldown SLAs.
Try "Breaking the Ranks" epic elite and tell me how many kills you do with your single target SLAs, and how many kills you would do with my build when using earthquake and body of the sun, in a group with melee and arcane shiradi casters.
say goodbye to mantle of icy soul if you want body of the sun, and just focus on evocation DC: my crowd control dominated in every epic elite stormhorns content when I was in fire elemental form (even against epic elite shadar-kai assassins)... I don't need icy mantle debuff or any other debuffs to crowd control with earthquake (of course you need to heavily invest in evocation DC, and you didn't).

Your feat selection doesn't include past life wizard feat, nor completionist feat, nor great ability wisdom, "maybe" epic spell focus evocation...
Tell me, what's your base evocation DC without debuffs? because many mobs don't wait that you debuff them, or they don't stand still in your "very slow to cast solid fog clicky", your earthquake have to crowd control RIGHT NOW or you and your group are dead.

you didn't mentioned your epic destiny twists choice: I hope at least magister evocation specialist + draconic precise casting evocation + magister evocation augmentation, otherwise I really don't know how useful you are in epic elite stormhorns quests.

There are many reasons for not splashing monk levels in a caster druid: unbalanced when wearing scepters, unbalanced if you wear armors because you want prr, hundreds less spell points, less caster levels for sunbeam/regenerate mass/creeping doom etcetera...

You said: Those are the "Basics" for me.
I say: these are the "Basics" to make a "gimp druid".



Word of Balance is affected by Impulse and Kinetic Lore

You will severely hamstring your DPS w/o Maximise and Empower for SLAs.

Word of Balance hits about 80-90% of mobs in game for 2 ticks. A large majority of these mobs also have SR.

FoD is useful but expensive to cast even without metas versus many other Druid spells that can kill just as quickly.

After 3 Druid Caster lives I cannot undervalue the usefullness of Word of Balance. So much so that it is worth an investment in Spell Pen because I hate seeing Blue.

With Mantle of Icy Soul, Solid Fog Clicky and a situational Vertigo Item you can Debuff mob reflex saves by -14.

That more than offsets the potential loss of a couple DCs investing in Spell Pen, Greater Spell Pen, Epic Spell Pen Feats.

10 Character Feats on a Helf Wiz Dille 2 Monk/18 Druid Specced Just for Casting it is easy to fit...

-Empower, Maximise, Quicken
-Spell Pen, Greater Spell Pen, Epic Spell Pen
-Evocation Focus, Greater Evocation Focus
-Insightful Reflexes
-One of Enlarge/Heighten/Epic Evocation Focus/Empower Heal Spell Based on personal playstyle.

2 Monk Feats: Lightning Reflexes/Deflect Arrows


Those are the "Basics" for me give or take a point or 2 here and there goin from memory.

[Rhaphael]

@Michele

How do you feel about a Druid 18 FvS 2 split instead of pure Druid? Taking Just Reward should solve your SP problems, but do you feel the loss in caster level and lower evocation DC is worth it?

[Feralthyrtiaq]

Feralthyrtiaq, you should try to solo epic elite gianthold tor with this build just to realize that you will burn all your spell points without even finishing the first ambush part... I have 3500+ spell points and I have to pay attention to how I spend my spell points... how many spell points has your druid? I guess less than 2000 (especially since you wasted 2 levels with monk levels).

hamstring dps without metamagic? so, how much damage per second (dps) do you do with your empowered and maximized 15 seconds cooldown word of balance and 8 seconds cooldown call lightning single target SLAs?
I wrote in a previous post the difference of damage between spells with and without metamagic, and doesn't make the difference when playing in epic elite content.

Word of Balance DOESN'T hit 80-90% of mobs in game for 2 ticks: I say 31% of them are hit twice because many of them are lawful evil, neutral evil, pure neutral, etcetera, and those are hit once or are not damaged at all.
Read "http://ddowiki.com/page/Category:Monsters_by_alignment" if you want to be more accurate:
Chaotic Evil monsters? (595)
Lawful Evil monsters? (602)
Neutral Evil monsters? (256)
Chaotic Good monsters? (11)
Lawful Good monsters? (7)
Neutral Good monsters? (4)
Chaotic Neutral monsters? (47)
Lawful Neutral monsters? (25)
True Neutral monsters?? (388)

1935 : 602 = 100 : x
x = 31%

Sunbeam deals about the same damage if you have all 20 druid levels and a primal epic destiny (sunbeam and WoB deal about 500 damage without metamagic and without critical when cast at level 25), and against undeads it deals double damage (1000+ damage without critical and without metamagic, but usually WoB hits twice against undead).

Finger of death is absolutely useless in epic elite content because mobs will save 80-90% of times with or without considering spell penetration check, and in epic hard content is useless because mobs usually go down with 1 WoB + 1 call lightning + 1 sunbeam without metamagic.

Also, if you need an epic past life different from a primal one, your spells will deal less damage because you have only 18 druid levels and you are running an epic destiny that doesn't give you additional druid caster levels.

Spell penetration line is absolutely useless for a druid because finger of death is useless (for the reasons I mentioned above) and word of balance can be replaced by other spells (sunbeam, call lightning, creeping cold spells, body of the sun, wall of fire, etcetera).

Druid shine when a lot of mobs are packed together in an earthquake with body of the sun and shiradi that procs a lot with these 2 spells, otherwise epic elite mobs will laugh on your single target damage with huge cooldown SLAs.
Try "Breaking the Ranks" epic elite and tell me how many kills you do with your single target SLAs, and how many kills you would do with my build when using earthquake and body of the sun, in a group with melee and arcane shiradi casters.
say goodbye to mantle of icy soul if you want body of the sun, and just focus on evocation DC: my crowd control dominated in every epic elite stormhorns content when I was in fire elemental form (even against epic elite shadar-kai assassins)... I don't need icy mantle debuff or any other debuffs to crowd control with earthquake (of course you need to heavily invest in evocation DC, and you didn't).

Your feat selection doesn't include past life wizard feat, nor completionist feat, nor great ability wisdom, "maybe" epic spell focus evocation...
Tell me, what's your base evocation DC without debuffs? because many mobs don't wait that you debuff them, or they don't stand still in your "very slow to cast solid fog clicky", your earthquake have to crowd control RIGHT NOW or you and your group are dead.

you didn't mentioned your epic destiny twists choice: I hope at least magister evocation specialist + draconic precise casting evocation + magister evocation augmentation, otherwise I really don't know how useful you are in epic elite stormhorns quests.

There are many reasons for not splashing monk levels in a caster druid: unbalanced when wearing scepters, unbalanced if you wear armors because you want prr, hundreds less spell points, less caster levels for sunbeam/regenerate mass/creeping doom etcetera...

You said: Those are the "Basics" for me.
I say: these are the "Basics" to make a "gimp druid".

YMMV for sure....Thanks for stating your opinion :)

I did not post an EE solo anything Druid build....but I'm happy you saw it as enough of a challenge to get aggressive....

/golf clap

That build and the others I've done have been viable valuable assets to the many EE Full and Shortman groups...

But see it however you like....to know and see gimp you must be the gimp....

[Michele]

I solved my spell points problem with mental toughness feats, and I also got +3% spell critical chance.
I heal myself and the others with regenerate mass: without druid capstone that spell suffers too much.

I also make heavy use of sunbeam.
I would loose 2 spell penetration, the capstone...
too much, sorry :P


@Michele

How do you feel about a Druid 18 FvS 2 split instead of pure Druid? Taking Just Reward should solve your SP problems, but do you feel the loss in caster level and lower evocation DC is worth it?

[Michele]

completely changed the build in the initial post to go with draconic epic destiny.

I extremized the cold spellpower (400+), reduced the evocation DC (earthquake is still no fail even in stormhorns epic elite quests).
I make large use of creeping cold dots, energy burst and energy vortex (3 pieces of abishai set give +3 levels to energy burst and energy vortex; 3 pieces of abishai set give about 500 more damage "non critical").

replaced past life arcane prodigy with maximize spell because it's useful to give +150 spell power to creeping cold sla against bosses, while it's not a big difference having 145 more spell points (and no +1% spell critical chance like mental toughness feats).

[Panzermeyer]

as far as mass frog, I still have to decide if it's better than +20 spell power fire (my current main tactic against trash is earthquake + body of the sun + firewall without metamagic; earthquake and body of the sun both proc shiradi on each tic).

Out of curiosity, it would seem you are mainly in Fire Ellie form. And using body of the sun and firewall, why choose ice for the Draconic Incarnation then?

[Panzermeyer]

I decided to change my build in order to be more epic elite oriented, by removing maximize and empower spell and by increasing the amount of spell points.

my tactic consists in massing a lot of mobs and casting earthquake + body of the sun + firewall without metamagic.

against bosses creeping cold + greater creeping cold (without metamagic).

I used to apply maximize and empower on call lightning sla and on word of balance sla and on storm of vengeance sla, but I find their cooldown too long for my play style, so I'm now killing faster then before (when I had maximize and empower I used to wait the cooldown of those sla, and this slowed me down).

Just increase your spell power as much as possible and this build will be ok.

How have you changed the build since you originally posted it?

You originally had this listed. So it sounds like you dropped maximize and empower, what did you put in it's place since you already had MT and IMT?


1) maximize spell
1) quicken spell
3) completionist (or empower spell)
6) mental toughness
9) improved mental toughness
12) past life arcane initiate
15) spell focus evocation
18) greater spell focus evocation
21) epic mental toughness
24) epic spell focus evocation
26) epic spell power ice
27) great ability wisdom
28) epic skill focus spellcraft

Also what twists are you using if you are running in Shiradi and no longer using Energy Burst?

[Panzermeyer]

I don't like the cool down time on the SLAs. Have you tried quicken? Does it have any effect on the SLAs?
What's your view on the Spell Penetration/chain feat?

Quicken definitely works on the SLA's however it does not change the time of the cooldowns.

[Panzermeyer]

completely changed the build in the initial post to go with draconic epic destiny.

I extremized the cold spellpower (400+), reduced the evocation DC (earthquake is still no fail even in stormhorns epic elite quests).
I make large use of creeping cold dots, energy burst and energy vortex (3 pieces of abishai set give +3 levels to energy burst and energy vortex; 3 pieces of abishai set give about 500 more damage "non critical").

replaced past life arcane prodigy with maximize spell because it's useful to give +150 spell power to creeping cold sla against bosses, while it's not a big difference having 145 more spell points (and no +1% spell critical chance like mental toughness feats).

I am a bit late to the game reading this thread. Awesome thread though. Particularly since I am new to druid, but loving it.

I see your first post has been updated with your new build specs. Water Ellie form dealing direct damage then? Is this mainly predicated on gear?

Being new, I don't have the greatest caster gear. So wondering if the fire ellie shiradi proc route would be better.

Going that route from your previous posts it sounds like I should not take Maximize and I don't have the completionist feat. What would you recommend in their stead? It sounded like in your fire ellie/shiradi build you have both the wizard and sorc active past life feats. Both of which I can get.

[Michele]

Panzermeyer, all the responses to your questions are detailed in the build in the first post of this thread.

Basically you have to decide if you want to go fire elemental and shiradi, or go water elemental and draconic.

I choosed water elemental and draconic because the bosses in epic elite have tons of hit points and I need to deal as much damage as possible with creeping cold and greater creeping cold.

Nothing prevents you from transforming in fire elemental while using draconic destiny and cast wall of fire and body of the sun,
or nothing prevents you from transforming in water elemental and cast creeping cold dots while using shiradi destiny.

Against trash mobs I do about the same damage when in shiradi (fire) or draconic (ice), but draconic shines against bosses when I use creeping cold spells (I'm usually busy to run while fighting a boss, so I don't have the time to cast spells other than creeping cold dots. creeping cold is not famous for proccing shiradi a lot ;) ).

[Panzermeyer]

Season's Herald Enhancements: creeping cold x2, call lightning x2, word of balance x1, spring resurgence x1, everything else

Human Enhancements: human versatility spell power boost, human adaptability wisdom, human versatility skill boost, human greater adaptability intelligence, fighting style traditionalist caster x3

So you have switching things to not use Nature's Warrior at all to get the additional Wisdom?

Thanks for the responses and sharing all this work.

Like others have said, most druid build topics out there are about animal form builds.

Though I am sure it is viable and excellent, I really did not like running around in animal form. I much prefer being a caster and I have so far really enjoyed my druid casting and the new selection of spells.

[Michele]

I see your first post has been updated with your new build specs. Water Ellie form dealing direct damage then? Is this mainly predicated on gear?

Being new, I don't have the greatest caster gear. So wondering if the fire ellie shiradi proc route would be better.

Going that route from your previous posts it sounds like I should not take Maximize and I don't have the completionist feat. What would you recommend in their stead? It sounded like in your fire ellie/shiradi build you have both the wizard and sorc active past life feats. Both of which I can get.

water elemental is easier to build because you inflict -4 saves with mantle of icy soul and your creeping cold spells will benefit a lot.
fire elemental + shiradi is ok, but I unleash more damage in ice draconic (I tested both and I do more damage in ice draconic).

I listed in the build (first post in the thread) and as you can see it's very easy to acquire: you can be good with just a silver ingot arcanum (get it cheap from auction) and a sage's locket (get it 100% as end reward of a quest).

About maximize and empower feats: I played all epic elite content and I don't miss them at all. But I updated the build including maximize spell because past life arcane prodigy gives only 145 spell points, and because maximize feat applied to creeping cold sla and storm of vengeance sla is nice to have.
As I wrote in the build, you can get empower spell instead of completionist feat if you are not a completionist yet.
And if you don't have access to past life arcane initiate then choose a feat between empower healing, heighten or enlarge (I would take enlarge if you want to use all the season's herald SLAs).




How have you changed the build since you originally posted it?

You originally had this listed. So it sounds like you dropped maximize and empower, what did you put in it's place since you already had MT and IMT?

the build is not changed too much from the original one: I only changed shiradi with draconic, and past life arcane prodigy with maximize spell (many players will like more this new updated build because it can include maximize and empower easily).



Also what twists are you using if you are running in Shiradi and no longer using Energy Burst?

the twists are listed in the build I post in the first post of the thread.




Out of curiosity, it would seem you are mainly in Fire Ellie form. And using body of the sun and firewall, why choose ice for the Draconic Incarnation then?

No, I'm currently in water elemental form using draconic. my old build was fire elemental in shiradi.




So you have switching things to not use Nature's Warrior at all to get the additional Wisdom?


I decided to sacrifice the +2 wisdom from nature's warrior for the +22 universal spell power got by spending more in the season's herald tree: the epic elite bosses are the druid weakness, and against them you only need spell power ;)

[Panzermeyer]

I decided to sacrifice the +2 wisdom from nature's warrior for the +22 universal spell power got by spending more in the season's herald tree: the epic elite bosses are the druid weakness, and against them you only need spell power ;)

Yea I think I might do a LR on my current guy even though I still have one more Druid Heroic life to get out of the way. I am playing up to 28 to get a ETR and finish off my primal ETR's. I was just checking on gear cause I did not want to farm out too much, after all he intends on ending up as an Arti.

But the more and more I play this build and enjoy the druid, the more I am thinking of taking my other project which was a TR caster project planning on eventually being a Pale Master, and I think I might make him a druid.

[Mandelia]

I am currently running a druid in Draconic and it is a blast. I started out with cold as my focus and I agree the numbers are extremely satisfying but I ended up switching to electric however to utilize the reflex debuff along with the magister twist that does the same since they stack and work on red names. After that -20 starts to settle in, no more evades or saves and everything melts since this also helps the rest of the casters in the party get their 2 cents in better. I like to run to engagements in non elemental forms to max the initial electric damage but with shiradis around I find myself staying in elemental form even in non engagements just to keep myself from dying in random poison traps.

[Michele]

updated equipment and DC due to the new update 21 wyrm-wrought weapons:

Base Evocation DC = 10 + 23 wis modifier +3 epic spell focus evocation +1 past life arcane initiate +3 magister evocation specialist +2 draconic precise evocation +2 evocation augment +6 wyrm-wrought orb +3 past lives sorcerer +1 strength of the solstice = 54

right hand level 20: alchemical scimitar with devotion +90, healing lore VI, combustion +90, ice lore VI, efficient metamagic maximize II, evocation focus II, arcane augmentation IX
left hand level 20: madstone skull with glaciation +90 purple slot and exc int +1 yellow slot
left hand level 24: wyrm-wrought orb with glaciation +150
left hand level 26: wyrm-wrought orb with glaciation +150, wyrmic evocation focus +6

[Mandelia]

The wyrm-wrought orb breaks druidic oath.

[Michele]

The wyrm-wrought orb breaks druidic oath.

oh no, this sucks! :(
I need that +10 spell power from human traditionalist caster...

have you already tested it on lamannia?

[Mandelia]

I tested this on live. It is made of metal and is considered a shield.

[Fhauvial]

Why would they consider an orb a shield? This makes no sense. :(

[unbongwah]

I tested this on live. It is made of metal and is considered a shield.
That's so dumb, esp. since all other orbs are gem, inc. the new one in U21 (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Libram_of_Silver_Magic).

[Michele]

I tested this on live. It is made of metal and is considered a shield.

thank you very much for the information

[Panzermeyer]

It would seem to me with the new update at least the Thunderhold area that going ice specced would be very difficult. SO much stuff seem to to be immune to the cold dots. The Fire Ellie Sharadi seemed to handle itself very very well even under level.

[Michele]

It would seem to me with the new update at least the Thunderhold area that going ice specced would be very difficult. SO much stuff seem to to be immune to the cold dots. The Fire Ellie Sharadi seemed to handle itself very very well even under level.

being ice specced doesn't mean that you can't transform in fire elemental Form and cast Wall of fire + body of the sun and earthquake and equip a combustion weapon of fire lore.

I killed the madstone crater giant skeleton boss at epic elite: it's only a matter of time.

But I agree that for a druid is difficult to kill a boss without using creeping cold spells :(

[CThruTheEgo]

Thanks for this build and thread. There is a lot of good info and perspectives here on variations for caster druids. It has certainly given me a lot to consider for my own build. My druid is still in heroics atm, so I'm lacking the experience to contribute much to the discussion, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this build/thread.


Word of Balance DOESN'T hit 80-90% of mobs in game for 2 ticks: I say 31% of them are hit twice because many of them are lawful evil, neutral evil, pure neutral, etcetera, and those are hit once or are not damaged at all.
Read "http://ddowiki.com/page/Category:Monsters_by_alignment" if you want to be more accurate:
Chaotic Evil monsters? (595)
Lawful Evil monsters? (602)
Neutral Evil monsters? (256)
Chaotic Good monsters? (11)
Lawful Good monsters? (7)
Neutral Good monsters? (4)
Chaotic Neutral monsters? (47)
Lawful Neutral monsters? (25)
True Neutral monsters?? (388)

1935 : 602 = 100 : x
x = 31%

And just for the sake of clarity and accuracy, based on the numbers you provide here, word of balance hits 1215 mob types twice (63%), 332 mob types once (17%), and 388 mob types are immune (20%). This does not take into account spell pen, however, so these numbers will be lower in practice. Also, this is only looking at types of mobs based on alignment. In the actual game you will encounter larger or smaller numbers of the same types of mobs and so it will affect a larger or smaller percentage of mobs encountered based on that, and this will change based on the content you are running, of course.

[Michele]

build updated for the incoming update 23 (filled the new harper enhancement tree).

[Michele]

inspired by the Gingerspyce build, I changed my build to use the shield.

I noticed that twisting "legendary shield mastery" gives +30 prr instead of only +15 with the following result:

PRR = +12 past lives +45 heavy armor +25 heavy armor proficiency +15 tower shield +15 improved shield mastery +30 (bug: should be +15) legendary shield mastery +24 guardian's ring +10 epic damage reduction = 176

With this PRR, in "Brothers of the Forge" epic elite, each iron defender still deals to me 100 damage per hit.

[Vanhooger]

inspired by the Gingerspyce build, I changed my build to use the shield.

I noticed that twisting "legendary shield mastery" gives +30 prr instead of only +15 with the following result:

PRR = +12 past lives +45 heavy armor +25 heavy armor proficiency +15 tower shield +15 improved shield mastery +30 (bug: should be +15) legendary shield mastery +24 guardian's ring +10 epic damage reduction = 176

With this PRR, in "Brothers of the Forge" epic elite, each iron defender still deals to me 100 damage per hit.

What about before? :)

[Michele]

What about before? :)

In my old build I had evasion with 55 reflex saves (not enough to survive in necro 4 epic elites), low prr (less than 40) and 20 more dodge than now.
having 130 more prr (and 85 magical resistance rating) is better than having 20 more points of dodge.

[Vanhooger]

In my old build I had evasion with 55 reflex saves (not enough to survive in necro 4 epic elites), low prr (less than 40) and 20 more dodge than now.
having 130 more prr (and 85 magical resistance rating) is better than having 20 more points of dodge.

Way better!