How the heck do druid wild shapes work?

[Ausdoerrt]

So, I've tried rolling a druid to help get a new player through the paces, never played one, am mightily confused as to how wild shape works. Especially since apparently there've been changes sometime in the past.

So, do any combat feats other than Natural Fighting work with Wild Shape? Will I get extra glancing from THF? Speed from SWF? Extra hits from TWF / Bashing? Doublestrike from Shield Mastery? What about the melee power from any of the above feats? Does Shield Deflection apply? How about precision? PTWF / PSWF?

Wiki also says that dire bear unarmed attack is 1d12, 20x3. That looks better than, say, equipping scimitars at 1d6, 18-20x2. What IC would I take for unarmed in this case, and would it work?

Thanks for clearing this up for me.


TL;DR: what, if any, combat feats work with Druid Wild Shape?

[Grace_ana]

So, I've tried rolling a druid to help get a new player through the paces, never played one, am mightily confused as to how wild shape works. Especially since apparently there've been changes sometime in the past.

So, do any combat feats other than Natural Fighting work with Wild Shape? Will I get extra glancing from THF? Speed from SWF? Extra hits from TWF / Bashing? Doublestrike from Shield Mastery? What about the melee power from any of the above feats? Does Shield Deflection apply? How about precision? PTWF / PSWF?

Wiki also says that dire bear unarmed attack is 1d12, 20x3. That looks better than, say, equipping scimitars at 1d6, 18-20x2. What IC would I take for unarmed in this case, and would it work?

Thanks for clearing this up for me.


TL;DR: what, if any, combat feats work with Druid Wild Shape?

Natural Fighting works. THF, SWF, and TWF no longer work.

If you equip a weapon, that weapons regular stats and effects work normally even in wild shape now. IIRC, you now choose the IC feat that matches whatever weapon you are using, so unarmed would be bludgeoning. 2HW get 1.5 dmg from your stat, and a weapon in each hand or handwraps don't, so there is definitely more damage from a two-hander now in wild shape.

[Question2005]

Druid wildshape is mainly for wolf because you get 30% attack speed with 2H weapons (winter wolf shape) in addition to the most powerful combat style in the game : 3 levels of natural fighting gives you 12% double strike, 12 PRR and 12 MP. No other combat style comes close in terms of benefit per level. It doesnt even have any BAB requirements, unlike all other combat styles.

[Grailhawk]

Druid wildshape is mainly for wolf because you get 30% attack speed with 2H weapons (winter wolf shape) in addition to the most powerful combat style in the game : 3 levels of natural fighting gives you 12% double strike, 12 PRR and 12 MP. No other combat style comes close in terms of benefit per level. It doesnt even have any BAB requirements, unlike all other combat styles.

UMM 3 feat for 12% DS, 12 PRR, 12 MP vs 60% offhand proc rate vs 30% alacrity, 6 MP, and 1.5 Stat damage.

The innate wolf is good its -6 MP off Single Weapon Fighting (and IIRC is wolf has a faster animation) the Natural Fighting feat are just kind of the after thought...

[unbongwah]

So, do any combat feats other than Natural Fighting work with Wild Shape? Will I get extra glancing from THF? Speed from SWF? Extra hits from TWF / Bashing? Doublestrike from Shield Mastery? What about the melee power from any of the above feats? Does Shield Deflection apply?
In order: no, no, no, no / no, no, no, dunno but probably not.

How about precision? PTWF / PSWF?
Yes (same for Power Attack), partial (+5% doublestrike) / no. Dunno if PTHF applies to bear form (see below).

Wiki also says that dire bear unarmed attack is 1d12, 20x3.
You must be looking at an obsolete page, as animal forms no longer have an inherent base damage and critical threat range. Instead it's based on whatever weapon you have equipped. If it's a 2H weapon, you get the +1.5x damage mod from STR (or other stat if using e.g. Falconry) you would as a humanoid 2H weapon build. 1H weapons get only the regular 1x damage mod.

TL;DR: what, if any, combat feats work with Druid Wild Shape?
Natural Fighting, Power Attack / Precision / Combat Expertise, Improved Critical, Overwhelming Critical. Also Weapon Focus / Specialization feats if they match your equipped weapon and generic bonuses like Power Critical.

Wolves get higher attack speed: +15% from base wolf, another +15% from Winter Wolf. Bears get glancing blows (regardless of weapon type); there's also a line of Enhancements (Ursa's Protector) exclusively for S&B bears with CON/HP/MRR bonuses.

We have several threads about shifter builds in the druid forums:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/495478-Post-U38-Wolf-Builds
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/503185-Pure-Wisdom-Doggo
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/504023-Smarter-than-the-average-bear-A-Wisdom-Bear-Build
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/504965-Bark-with-Bite-R10-Pure-Druid-Wolf-Build

[Ausdoerrt]

Thanks, that sort of clears it up. Yeah, the wiki page on wild shape is a mess. It's not marked "historic", but has a bunch of conflicting information.

And especially thanks for the build links - I did look in the class forums, but didn't find what I needed. Strimtom's bear build looks like exactly what I needed!

One last question: if I as a druid wield a QStaff and cast Shillelagh on it, will that bonus carry over to wild shape? Or should I invest into some better THF proficiency?

[cru121]

You must be looking at an obsolete page, as animal forms no longer have an inherent base damage and critical threat range.

what if they don't equip a weapon?

[AbyssalMage]

Wolves get higher attack speed: +15% from base wolf, another +15% from Winter Wolf. Bears get glancing blows (regardless of weapon type); there's also a line of Enhancements (Ursa's Protector) exclusively for S&B bears with CON/HP/MRR bonuses.
Ok, confused. This is all coming from after the Druid pass so someone may have actually did some more testing once it went live and I missed the conversation.

I thought the Capstone in Natures Protector + abilities/Spells negated the innate speed of (Winter) Wolf Builds (Especially as you approached BAB 30)? Or was I understanding this conversation wrong? On paper you are supposed to be 15% faster in Winter Wolf but mechanically (i.e. in actual play) it is negligible. At least this is what I remember in conversation.

[Cantor]

UMM 3 feat for 12% DS, 12 PRR, 12 MP vs 60% offhand proc rate vs 30% alacrity, 6 MP, and 1.5 Stat damage.

The innate wolf is good its -6 MP off Single Weapon Fighting (and IIRC is wolf has a faster animation) the Natural Fighting feat are just kind of the after thought...

I was going to say basically the same thing... 12% DS vs 60% off hand lol.



One last question: if I as a druid wield a QStaff and cast Shillelagh on it, will that bonus carry over to wild shape? Or should I invest into some better THF proficiency?

Yes, animal form is basically cosmetic now, your weapon is still your weapon. But, you should probably still use a better weapon.

[Question2005]

UMM 3 feat for 12% DS, 12 PRR, 12 MP vs 60% offhand proc rate vs 30% alacrity, 6 MP, and 1.5 Stat damage.

The innate wolf is good its -6 MP off Single Weapon Fighting (and IIRC is wolf has a faster animation) the Natural Fighting feat are just kind of the after thought...

SWF is significantly inferior to wolf 2H and its harder to level. The same applies for 2WF although the gap is smaller (if we assume 20 ranger tempest).

Having 3 levels of natural fighting + 30% attack speed at level 9 is a massive, massive differece compared to what you can do with 2WF or SWF at level 9.

[Question2005]

Ok, confused. This is all coming from after the Druid pass so someone may have actually did some more testing once it went live and I missed the conversation.

I thought the Capstone in Natures Protector + abilities/Spells negated the innate speed of (Winter) Wolf Builds (Especially as you approached BAB 30)? Or was I understanding this conversation wrong? On paper you are supposed to be 15% faster in Winter Wolf but mechanically (i.e. in actual play) it is negligible. At least this is what I remember in conversation.

Winter wolf gives you 30% attack speed and it stacks with enhancement bonuses, so you usually end up with 45% base attack speed at cap. Its definately much faster than having just 15% attack speed at cap.

[Grailhawk]

SWF is significantly inferior to wolf 2H and its harder to level. The same applies for 2WF although the gap is smaller (if we assume 20 ranger tempest).

Having 3 levels of natural fighting + 30% attack speed at level 9 is a massive, massive differece compared to what you can do with 2WF or SWF at level 9.

1) the game doesn't stop at level 9.

2) they "fixed" wolf to not let them use TWF, SWF, or THF because it would much more powerful then natural fighting.

3) if natural fighting was so superior to every thing else why aren't Bear druid talked about as uber DPS?

Again its not natural fighting that's good its Winter Wolf that's good.