What's your favourite Iconic Druid build?

[GrantAnderson]

For my next life I'm planning to go Druid, with an Iconic (though not splashing out for a LR+1, so stuck with one level of either Cleric, Fighter or Rogue - Bladeforged obviously out for alignment reasons). I'm nosing around for a fun solo (insofar as a Druid can solo) build. I did a bit of a forum search and the two suggestions I've seen so far are:
- Nuke-caster Morninglord Druid 19/Cleric 1, taking the Morninglord's Big Heal ability and the Blessing of Amaunator
- Melee Purple Dragon Knight Druid 18/Fighter 2, mainly for the extra feats (but apparently also because their animal forms look cool?)

In fact, I'd quite like to get three Druid lives to stack up the pet bonuses (as I tend to run with a hireling when I'm soloing), but I fear that if they play too similarly I may lose interest; are there three (or more!) substantially differently-playing Druid solo builds (Iconic if possible) out there, or does it boil down to melee or nuke?

[inspiredunease]

Just some ideas (some shamelessly stolen from elsewhere):

10 druid / 9 monk / 1 fighter PDK - Full TWF chain, Power attack/Cleave/Great Cleave/OC, PL: Monk, Natural Fighting x 3, Master of Forms + room for tailoring. Run it in Winter Wolf for 7[d10] 17 - 19 x 3, 19 - 20 x 6 crit profile (in primal avatar, see here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/425436-Fist-of-the-Forest-(Druid-Monk-Wolf-Form-MAX-Unarmed-damage)-Need-Help-with-build for reference). Grand Master of Flowers/Legendary Dreadnought/Primal Avatar.

17 Druid / 2 Monk / (1 Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Paladin depending on Iconic) - Earthquakey goodness, decent stunning fist DC, take Evocation feats, try and fit in some melee feats (mainly TWF line for more possible SF procs), plus metamagics/whatever. Any ED is good with this really. Either up your Evo DCs a bit if things aren't falling down enough, or increase melee goodness with GMoF.

13 druid / 6 rogue / (1 Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Paladin depending on Iconic) - Staff user. Get Sireth. Win :D But seriously, Full Thief-Acrobat Tree, run in fire elemental when you get it, mix up AoE Casts/elemental form damage with nice staff profile and lots of doublestrike.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Just some ideas (some shamelessly stolen from elsewhere):

10 druid / 9 monk / 1 fighter PDK - Full TWF chain, Power attack/Cleave/Great Cleave/OC, PL: Monk, Natural Fighting x 3, Master of Forms + room for tailoring. Run it in Winter Wolf for 5[d10] 17 - 19 x 3, 19 - 20 x 4 crit profile. Grand Master of Flowers/Legendary Dreadnought/Primal Avatar.

17 Druid / 2 Monk / (1 Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Paladin depending on Iconic) - Earthquakey goodness, decent stunning fist DC, take Evocation feats, try and fit in some melee feats (mainly TWF line for more possible SF procs), plus metamagics/whatever. Any ED is good with this really. Either up your Evo DCs a bit if things aren't falling down enough, or increase melee goodness with GMoF.

13 druid / 6 rogue / (1 Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Paladin depending on Iconic) - Staff user. Get Sireth. Win :D But seriously, Full Thief-Acrobat Tree, run in fire elemental when you get it, mix up AoE Casts/elemental form damage with nice staff profile and lots of doublestrike.

Agreed but for 2 things.

1. cant mix paladin and druid.

13 druid 6 monk 1 rogue, fire elemental henshin acrobat. Would mean going shadar kai.
15% melee speed from acrobat thief acrobatics, +25% melee speed from druid fatal harrier, +25% double strike from henshin quick strike +30% from druid double strike action boost. Aoe level drain attack from henshin, and you can actually give yourself deathward. and shadow fade. With 14 invested in int you can have full trapskills and a decent open lock too. and lots of immunities to this and that from fire elemental. Full thf line, cleave, great cleave, owc and master earth stance, Crit on a 13 with sireth, and +6 on 19-20. +dance of flowers and all that.

[inspiredunease]

1. cant mix paladin and druid.


Aww yeah, poobags. Plenty of other lovely bladeforged builds out there if OP wants to get BF lives at some point though. There's still plenty of other niceness to get the three other druid lives with. Personally I'd want to stack either the PDK or Shadar Kai lives anyway; + 3 dodge or +9 PRR is tasty.


13 druid 6 monk 1 rogue, fire elemental henshin acrobat. Would mean going shadar kai.
15% melee speed from acrobat thief acrobatics, +25% melee speed from druid fatal harrier, +25% double strike from henshin quick strike +30% from druid double strike action boost. Aoe level drain attack from henshin, and you can actually give yourself deathward. and shadow fade. With 14 invested in int you can have full trapskills and a decent open lock too. and lots of immunities to this and that from fire elemental. Full thf line, cleave, great cleave, owc and master earth stance, Crit on a 13 with sireth, and +6 on 19-20. +dance of flowers and all that.

Aww yissss. Much better than my version.

[GrantAnderson]

Thanks! Those look like really interesting builds to try out. The fiery trapping staffwielder looks particularly interesting - my adventures on Elite in my current Monk life ended (I dropped back to running on Hard) when I rolled a 1 on a Reflex save and got pasted by a trap, so if I can push those trapskills high enough I might be able to do Elite for longer next time.

[unbongwah]

SDK rog 5 / druid 13 / ??? 2 using staves or daggers.

[GrantAnderson]

My current life is at level 18, so the druid life is not far off, and I've started messing with it in the character planner. With the Druid 13/Monk 6/Rogue 1, obviously the rogue level has to be 1 because they're shadar-kai (and almost certainly would be anyway). After that, it's a matter of where I want to be at 15, and how I want to progress from there.

I reckon I want at least two Monk levels at 15 for evasion, but then where to split the remaining 12 levels between Monk and Druid? Is the path of light important enough to rush that? Or do I want access to particular monk form feats by a particular level? Or are there particular Druid spells that I want to get to ASAP?

[eecsman]

15 Druid / 3 Monk / 2 Fighter, max wisdom using handwraps.

Reflex saves are a bit low, but stunning fist works really well. Your self-healing will be so-so until you hit 15 druid, which I didn't until I capped. Make sure to use the character planner, feats might be tight if you don't LR+1 like I did.

And a PDK Winter Wolf is freaking huge! All other wolf-form druids look like puppies next to you.

[inspiredunease]

15 Druid / 3 Monk / 2 Fighter, max wisdom using handwraps.

Reflex saves are a bit low, but stunning fist works really well. Your self-healing will be so-so until you hit 15 druid, which I didn't until I capped. Make sure to use the character planner, feats might be tight if you don't LR+1 like I did.

And a PDK Winter Wolf is freaking huge! All other wolf-form druids look like puppies next to you.



What do you take from the PDK enhancements? Rallying cry seems pretty nice if that's a stacking speed boost for running through traps and general zerging, but it requires 10 points in the tree, as well as the fairly useless purple dragon focus. For Cormyr could also be nice as an emergency heal, but again, 19 points!. I'd be tempted to just treat it as human and ignore everything other than the initial damage boost and first tier of healing amp, but I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

[eecsman]

What do you take from the PDK enhancements? Rallying cry seems pretty nice if that's a stacking speed boost for running through traps and general zerging, but it requires 10 points in the tree, as well as the fairly useless purple dragon focus. For Cormyr could also be nice as an emergency heal, but again, 19 points!. I'd be tempted to just treat it as human and ignore everything other than the initial damage boost and first tier of healing amp, but I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

With 15 Druid you get Heal, Regenerate and Mass Vigor, I've never needed any more healing than that.

For enhancements, I put most points in Nature's Warrior, enough (13+) into 2 Monk trees for 2x +1 Wisdom, enough into Kensei for the Stunning Fist DC boost and Haste Boost, and the leftover in PDK enhancements. I had enough for +1 Wisdom, 10% healing amp, and damage boost. The Heroism/GH SLAs are tempting, but require way too many AP. Right now I just use a planar gird, and hope to hit the necessary UMD by level 28/30.

But I'm not an expert by any means, and enhancements are cheap to reset, so just try things out and go with what works for you.

APs are pretty tight with everything I'm trying to do, but it's been a fun build so far. Use the Vampiric Stonedust handwraps in Heroic, switch to Grave Wrappings at 20. Even with lootgen / crafted / Sora Kell set, he's pretty fun & durable. I plan to play him in Grandmaster of Flowers, and shore up his reflex save by twisting Unearthly Reactions.

[inspiredunease]

Ah, I'm playing a human wolf druid/fighter/monk at the moment, so I'm clear on the playstyle, just wondered whether you'd found any extra benefit in any of the unique pdk enhancements. Might add a bit of spice to the heroic PL grind I'm currently going through (with the added benefit that I could grab some EPLs and IPLs at the same time).

[Cardtrick]

My current life is at level 18, so the druid life is not far off, and I've started messing with it in the character planner. With the Druid 13/Monk 6/Rogue 1, obviously the rogue level has to be 1 because they're shadar-kai (and almost certainly would be anyway). After that, it's a matter of where I want to be at 15, and how I want to progress from there.

I reckon I want at least two Monk levels at 15 for evasion, but then where to split the remaining 12 levels between Monk and Druid? Is the path of light important enough to rush that? Or do I want access to particular monk form feats by a particular level? Or are there particular Druid spells that I want to get to ASAP?

No one's really answered this yet. It's largely personal preference on how you want it to play, but that 13/6/1 build is designed for staff-wielding. Most staffs are pretty bad until you have Staff Specialization, which requires 5 monk. So I would say the minimum I'd want by 15 is 1 rogue (and at least 4 APs into Acrobat to max out the staff speed) and 5 monk (and enough into Henshin to get Staff Specialization). Then, if you're already at 5 monk, I'd say you might as well take the 6th, too, since it gives a lot -- free Adept of Forms, a free feat, additional movement speed, +1 to all saves, +1 BAB. So you'd be starting your iconic with 1 rogue, 6 monk, 8 druid, and you'd be an extremely capable staff wielder right from the beginning. All further level ups would go into Druid. (Ideally, you'd already have a Theurgic Stave ready to go -- the key with staff builds is to look for named staffs with better critical profiles and damage dice; they'll typically out-DPS greensteel staffs with an appropriate build.)

Note that you wouldn't actually get the Fire Elemental form until level 20. I don't think that's a problem -- in fact, you probably wouldn't want to use it much before then anyway, given all the fire resistances in the upper heroic levels and the fact that even without being caster-focused, you'll probably want to use Greater Creeping Cold as a boss DOT starting at level 18.

[kuro_zero]

No one's really answered this yet. It's largely personal preference on how you want it to play, but that 13/6/1 build is designed for staff-wielding. Most staffs are pretty bad until you have Staff Specialization, which requires 5 monk. So I would say the minimum I'd want by 15 is 1 rogue (and at least 4 APs into Acrobat to max out the staff speed) and 5 monk (and enough into Henshin to get Staff Specialization). Then, if you're already at 5 monk, I'd say you might as well take the 6th, too, since it gives a lot -- free Adept of Forms, a free feat, additional movement speed, +1 to all saves, +1 BAB. So you'd be starting your iconic with 1 rogue, 6 monk, 8 druid, and you'd be an extremely capable staff wielder right from the beginning. All further level ups would go into Druid. (Ideally, you'd already have a Theurgic Stave ready to go -- the key with staff builds is to look for named staffs with better critical profiles and damage dice; they'll typically out-DPS greensteel staffs with an appropriate build.)

Note that you wouldn't actually get the Fire Elemental form until level 20. I don't think that's a problem -- in fact, you probably wouldn't want to use it much before then anyway, given all the fire resistances in the upper heroic levels and the fact that even without being caster-focused, you'll probably want to use Greater Creeping Cold as a boss DOT starting at level 18.

This is exactly how I did my 13Dru/6Mnk/1Rog except not iconic. Human for the extra skill point to keep trap skills up and extra feat never hurts. Water Elemental form for Freezing Spray for the cold vulnerability against bosses. I focused on STR so wisdom wasn't high enough to have a meaningful save for Body of the Sun. Incredibly self sufficient - just takes some getting used to the timing as lacks the panic-button nature of a Quickened Heal.

[GrantAnderson]

No one's really answered this yet. It's largely personal preference on how you want it to play, but that 13/6/1 build is designed for staff-wielding. Most staffs are pretty bad until you have Staff Specialization, which requires 5 monk. So I would say the minimum I'd want by 15 is 1 rogue (and at least 4 APs into Acrobat to max out the staff speed) and 5 monk (and enough into Henshin to get Staff Specialization). Then, if you're already at 5 monk, I'd say you might as well take the 6th, too, since it gives a lot -- free Adept of Forms, a free feat, additional movement speed, +1 to all saves, +1 BAB. So you'd be starting your iconic with 1 rogue, 6 monk, 8 druid, and you'd be an extremely capable staff wielder right from the beginning. All further level ups would go into Druid. (Ideally, you'd already have a Theurgic Stave ready to go -- the key with staff builds is to look for named staffs with better critical profiles and damage dice; they'll typically out-DPS greensteel staffs with an appropriate build.)

Note that you wouldn't actually get the Fire Elemental form until level 20. I don't think that's a problem -- in fact, you probably wouldn't want to use it much before then anyway, given all the fire resistances in the upper heroic levels and the fact that even without being caster-focused, you'll probably want to use Greater Creeping Cold as a boss DOT starting at level 18.
Thanks, that's something I was interested to know.

What would you take for that third Monk feat? Power Attack and Two-Handed Fighting seemed obvious, but a third didn't jump out at me. In the plan where I took Monk6 at 20, I had Mobility, but I wish Improved THF or Cleave were options :)

[Propane]

I have been toying with a druid staff build - dark monk air stance druid

1-3 rogue - DEX to hit / to dmg - attack speed increase
4-5 druid - go get wolf form - attach speed
6-12 - dark monk - all the staff stuff - air stance for attack speed
12-20 druid - besure to pick up the extra monk stances at 15 & 18-

Level up in DEX -

[Failedlegend]

Iconic Druid in DnD/Pathfinder: The BarBearian aka Bear Shaman...different level spread based on personal preference/back story but basically the concept is mixing the Barbarians rage feature with the druids wild shape ability...great for "Barbarian Tribe" parties as the clan shaman...just for example.

DDO: Honestly I haven't found anything I really like here I love the wild-shaping (wolf at least) but the class is just very underwhleming especially since alot of thing sodn't seem to work right (ie. Raging blocks the ability to roar) or is a bit of the PITA (ie. The Summer/Winter Phases) not to mention there's no way to go lightning spec despite Druids getting some wicked elec spells.

The only one that came close was My Drunk (Druid/Monk) Dex/Wis based wolf-form...it was great until I started getting a bunch of misses only to find out that my Ninja Training abilties didn't affect my Wolves Claws despite the fact that they are both piercing and slashing and I was centered

So in short Druids in PnP...AWESOME!!...Druids in DDO...bugs and design choices have limited the class way to much basically neutering it.

[Cardtrick]

Thanks, that's something I was interested to know.

What would you take for that third Monk feat? Power Attack and Two-Handed Fighting seemed obvious, but a third didn't jump out at me. In the plan where I took Monk6 at 20, I had Mobility, but I wish Improved THF or Cleave were options :)

You're right, the feats are really tough for this class split. Honestly, even taking Power Attack with a monk bonus feat is pretty much impossible, because you're locked in to taking Rogue at Level 1, and I can't think of anything better to take there than Power Attack.

Also, to make it worse, there's no possible combination of these 3 classes (given that you must start with Rogue at level 1), which has BAB 4 by level 6. That means you can't take Great Cleave as the 6th level feat, which is unfortunate.

There are several feats that it would be extremely nice to take, but which unfortunately we have to choose from; you're going to have to make that choice, and it will depend on how you want to play. Among the list of extremely desirable feats:

Metas (for healing and/or Greater Creeping Cold): Quicken, Maximize, Empower, Empower Healing
Stances (for either rock or wind stance): Master of Forms, Grandmaster of Forms
Damage: Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, the full THF line

The Monk feats don't help much.

Here's one possible feat order:

1: R1 - Power Attack
2: M1 - Two Handed Fighting
3: D1 - Cleave
4: M2 - Monk Bonus: Dodge
5: M3
6: M4 - Empower Healing (you might prefer Maximize -- depends on what spells you're using more of)
7: D2
8: D3
9: D4 - Great Cleave
10: D5
11: D6
12: D7 - IC: Bludgeoning
13: M5
14: M6 - Monk Bonus: Mobility
15: D8 - Master of Forms (essential if you're planning on Rock stance, optional if you're planning on Wind or something else)
16: D9
17: D10
18: D11 - Quicken (you won't get Heal, so this isn't essential, it's a playstyle choice; alternatives include Maximize, iTHF, Grandmaster of Forms)
19: D12
20: D13

For the Monk feats, THF is a lock. Power Attack would be a lock, but it's the only one of your useful feats that's available at L1, so you might as well take it then instead. So that leaves 2 Monk bonus feats, and I think there are basically three options:

1. Dodge and Mobility (better defense, my personal choice)
2. Combat Expertise and either Improved Trip or Improved Sunder (useful, but you're going to be pretty click-heavy already and I don't think you'll reach a high enough strength on this build to get good DCs)
3. Zen Archery and 10000 Stars (ranged option, but I don't think you'll have enough WIS to get very much out of it)

[GrantAnderson]

Thanks for the breakdown, it's appreciated!

I was indeed planning to Earth Stance and focus on the staff.

I haven't fully planned out the build where I start with R1 M6 D8. In the build I did look at, I took the feats below. Pretty similar to what you suggested, but (not realising its essentialness) taking gTHF over Master of Forms, which I had pegged for L24. I think I prefer your build with Dodge and Mobility.
R1 Dodge
M1 THF (monk)
M2 Cleave, Power Attack (monk)
M3
D1
D2 Extend (thinking Druid buffs would be handy to Extend, possibly could swap for another meta)
D3
D4
D5 Great Cleave
D6
D7
D8 IC Bludgeoning
D9
D10
D11 iTHF
D12
D13
M4 gTHF
M5
M6 Mobility

[Cardtrick]

I was indeed planning to Earth Stance and focus on the staff.

I haven't fully planned out the build where I start with R1 M6 D8. In the build I did look at, I took the feats below. Pretty similar to what you suggested, but (not realising its essentialness) taking gTHF over Master of Forms, which I had pegged for L24. I think I prefer your build with Dodge and Mobility.


I definitely feel strongly that having the 6 monk levels (and Staff Specialization) before level 15 will make this a lot more pleasant to play. But that aside, that feat selection is totally reasonable -- gTHF is really good, too. It's tough. It was recently pointed out to me that gTHF is still required in order to get an glancing blows on 3/4 of attacks in the standard attack chain (without gTHF, you only get them on half, making THF and iTHF less useful).

On the other hand, Master of Forms is pretty much necessary if you're going with mountain stance; it's required to get the increased critical multiplier. One option might be to go for gTHF and just use Air Stance for the doublestrike chance in the heroic levels.

It's really killer not having high enough BAB to get iTHF or Great Cleave at level 6; that would solve a lot of problems. This build would be much easier as Human, or if Shadar-Kai didn't lose the bonus human feat; one feat would make a world of difference.

(Also, I still prefer Empower Healing or Maximize to Extend; Extend is just convenience, but getting a boost to your self healing power can save your life in harder content.)