Druid questions

[Ryan220]

Hello all.

Ive been thinking about doing a Druid life on my main – for no other reason than perhaps Id like to give it a try as the PL is not very inspiring.

I couldnt find an idiots guide so I have a couple of questions if I may.

These questions relate to a life that would TR straight away at L20.

Here goes..

What are caster Druids like to level? I have no idea having never run one. Is it run like a Wiz or Sorc?

What are the challenges?

Are they easy to solo Heroic Elites on?(I ask as I like to solo Elites first time through)

If I do a Druid life he will have plenty of PLs to back him up – 3xSorc, 3xWiz, 1xFvS and 1xCleric so Im guessing that would have a very positive impact.

If anyone can offer some advice, thoughts, recommendations, insight etc on Druid Heroic levelling it would be appreciated.

Many thanks

[Shaatan]

Hello all.

Ive been thinking about doing a Druid life on my main – for no other reason than perhaps Id like to give it a try as the PL is not very inspiring.

I couldnt find an idiots guide so I have a couple of questions if I may.

These questions relate to a life that would TR straight away at L20.

Here goes..

What are caster Druids like to level? I have no idea having never run one. Is it run like a Wiz or Sorc?

What are the challenges?

Are they easy to solo Heroic Elites on?(I ask as I like to solo Elites first time through)

If I do a Druid life he will have plenty of PLs to back him up – 3xSorc, 3xWiz, 1xFvS and 1xCleric so Im guessing that would have a very positive impact.

If anyone can offer some advice, thoughts, recommendations, insight etc on Druid Heroic levelling it would be appreciated.

Many thanks

I've never actually played a toon with more than 2 Druid levels, but I heard that they are awesome at heroic levels. You have solid melee for very early levels, AoE spells for nuking at later levels and decent self healing in one.

[Michele]

playing heroic levels with a druid is very easy (it's second only to the sorcerer).

thanks to sla and call lightning and word of balance is able to one shot everything in heroic elite content (if you keep your spell power high).

this is my druid build:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/434207-Evoker

[Munkenmo]

Melee druids are absolutely amazing to level in heroics, so much so that I ended up basing my whole tr template around a 9druid/2monk format. Google pastlifenmo.

The for an actual druid pastlife, you should kind of decide whtehr you prefer casting or melee.

If your mostly interested in a cleaving wolf form build, youll find something like 9druid/3monk/8fighter will be very powerful and easy to level. Backloading the fighter levels from 13 onwards.

A good casting build would be a human 17druid/2monk/1wiz, with decent monk melee, but a lot of druid spells tomback it up.

[Adelair]

Pure caster druid is very* good in heroic elites.

Your SLA's will be destroying everything on the cheap, you'll be a strong healer, and your wolf is surprisingly effective. You'll also have some very strong DoT through the creeping cold spell line.

Also keep in mind that you're a Divine. All your spells are Divine. No arcane spell failure. Go around in Dire Bear form with a Wall of Wood shield and some Medium White Dragonscale armor and you're an effective tank. You sacrifice nothing to achieve tank status. You're still a strong offensive caster that's 1-shotting mostly everything and a powerful healer. So you're a tank that can actually keep aggro on yourself.


Those SLA's you'll mostly be using aren't affected by the increased spell cooldown time of animal forms.

If you like the idea of playing in Bear form like that, try taking 1 level of Wizard. You get a free metamagic feat, and Eldritch Knight's Improved Shield SLA increases total AC by 10%, which stack's with Dire Bear's +15% for a total of +25%. If you take and activate the Combat Expertise feat then you've got a +35% bonus to AC. Also 1 level of Wizard gets you the option of getting +45 HP from tier 1 enhancements, a free SLA like invisibility from Archmage, and a little bonus to spellpower just from spending the AP.

[bennyson]

1 level of Wizard. You get a free metamagic feat, and Eldritch Knight's Improved Shield.

Wrong

You need two levels of Wizard to access the Improved Shield SLA.

The first is Improved Mage Armor. Which is also +10% bonus to AC.

[Adelair]

Wrong

You need two levels of Wizard to access the Improved Shield SLA.

The first is Improved Mage Armor. Which is also +10% bonus to AC.

My bad, I meant Improved Mage Armor. That gets you +10% AC bonus, but 2 levels of Wizard can get you Improved Shield, which would give you +10 PRR.


I did the Dire Bear tank thing last life and I could tank the Spinner of Shadows for ages, I really liked it. That was as a pure Druid caster, though. This life I'm taking 1 Wizard. Maybe 2 Wizard.