Druid wolf mechanics assistance requested

[TheBlueFox]

Alright, so there's some new druid stuff I need to figure out. Could use your help.

1. With the wolf, I'm getting the error message "Cannot use evasion while wearing a heavy or tower shield". Currently my wolf does use a heavy wooden shield with some bonuses like wizardy and healing lore on it. Should I change to an orb? A scepter? Is there anything that will negate my wolf's natural fighting style? Or is there another style that I can use with it?

2. I picked up a leather armor of Combat mastery 5, Insightful combat mastery 3. However, it doesn't seem to boost the listed DC of my takedown. Is it doing it in the background and not showing up, or does ONLY Vertigo give me a benefit?

3. Power attack and Precision are mutually exclusive. Is either one better than the other? Wolves still use strength, but do they have the attack bonus to hit reliably at the higher levels?

[HastyPudding]

Alright, so there's some new druid stuff I need to figure out. Could use your help.

1. With the wolf, I'm getting the error message "Cannot use evasion while wearing a heavy or tower shield". Currently my wolf does use a heavy wooden shield with some bonuses like wizardy and healing lore on it. Should I change to an orb? A scepter? Is there anything that will negate my wolf's natural fighting style? Or is there another style that I can use with it?

2. I picked up a leather armor of Combat mastery 5, Insightful combat mastery 3. However, it doesn't seem to boost the listed DC of my takedown. Is it doing it in the background and not showing up, or does ONLY Vertigo give me a benefit?

3. Power attack and Precision are mutually exclusive. Is either one better than the other? Wolves still use strength, but do they have the attack bonus to hit reliably at the higher levels?

1. Evasion requires that you not be equipped with: heavy armor, medium armor, tower shields, heavy shields. You can equip light armor and outfits/robes and bucklers, orbs, and small shields and still have evasion. Weapons are irrelevant to evasion. Nothing negates the 'fighting style' of a wolf or bear, as it's unique to the forms: you use your weapon for everything except attack animation (and some weapon-specific attacks, which druid would only have access to via epic destinies or multiclassing).

2. Takedown is bugged, from what I can see, but it's just a display error. I'm level 21 and it still says '23 reflex save' which is clearly incorrect, as it worked rather fine in reaper mode in epics. Combat mastery and insightful combat mastery stack with each other, but combat mastery is overridden by specific tactics bonuses that are higher (like stunning, vertigo, sunder, etc). Insightful combat mastery will stack with everything else (except other insightful).

3. I'd say go with power attack. You get more out of it as the majority of enemies don't have any real fortification. Only undead, elementals, golems, and a handful of random mobs (like some bosses, heavily armored mobs, etc) have fortification.

[SerPounce]

To add to HP's spot on answers:

If you're proficient, a two-hander with an improved crit range is the best weapon choice for most wolves.

If you use rage of the beast from the bear tree (works in wolf form also) then you can't use precision so PA is definitely the way to go. If you don't then PA is best in heroic, they're about equal in epic, and precision is better in legendary (IMO).