Wolf Form: weapon questions

[Sarnind]

Druid unarmed combat is broken, any monks die step items, feat, ability or monks level , change u damage in 1d6

[axlett]

yes, along with ki strikes and other monky stuff.

Thanks so much!
Guess I won't be going pure after all :P

[threefeetunder]

Druid unarmed combat is broken, any monks die step items, feat, ability or monks level , change u damage in 1d6

That's wai (partly).
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...32#post4548832
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=379874
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=380918
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=379915

[Sarnind]

That's wai (partly).
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...32#post4548832
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=379874
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=380918
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=379915

u not undestand, druid die step in winter wolf form is 1d10, not 1d6

[Dolphious]

u not undestand, druid die step in winter wolf form is 1d10, not 1d6

That is what the dev above suggested (though it was a bit vague, he said it works not how it works), of course that did sound a bit too good to be true. +1d6 is still pretty solid.

[Jhenissa]

It's really important Vesuvium that we get some official notes, a Let's Talk, a Dev blog, Compendium entry, something, which outlines what feats should and should not apply, which feats partially apply, and similarly for enhancements, weapons and equipment, when in animal form.

I haven't rolled up my druid yet - not only can I not figure out what role I want to try to build for and how to do that (which is my fault for indecisiveness but mostly your fault entirely for giving me such a wide open class as druid to try to spec up - curse you and your cunning designs!), but I've not been able to find any meaningful information on the animal forms except for smatterings of dev posts.

What I'd really like would be a write up of what the intentions/design philosophy is behind animal forms specifically - I can already build a nonshifting melee or caster no problem, but animal forms are new, we need data and it shouldn't be up to the communicty to figure it out as they go when you consider how hard/expensive it is to respec in DDO - a free feat swap is fine, but if someone has already invested in shield feats and two THF feats for their bear form and it turns out to have been pointless, that gets pricey really fast.

My placeholder, Bitey McBigpaws, has been patiently waiting for like 3 months for his reroll. I was just settling on making a bear tank build but now I have no idea how to put one together at all. He's getting bored on the character screen. Help a poor wannabe druid brother out?

+1

I have 2 multi-class builds in progress, druid/monk (the drunk build as my guildie calls it) and a druid/barb. Obviously, I am looking at exploring the melee opportunities of the druid. I am really not seeing any advantage to dropping into animal form. With both builds, dps drops off dramatically when I am in bear form. The higher I get in levels the more true this is.

[DukeP]

So all damage and tohit while in either bear/wolf form is always str?

What if You have got a weapon that gives you Finess? (dex based attacks - paws ought to be light weapons)?

And if Finess works, what about the wisdom based effect of Flameblade? Should it not also work then? Is that not a kind of "finess" effect, just based on wis?

~~DukeP~~

[threefeetunder]

So all damage and tohit while in either bear/wolf form is always str?

What if You have got a weapon that gives you Finess? (dex based attacks - paws ought to be light weapons)?

And if Finess works, what about the wisdom based effect of Flameblade? Should it not also work then? Is that not a kind of "finess" effect, just based on wis?

~~DukeP~~

Finesse works. It's a feat that changes your weapon, inclusing unarmed. Flameblade wisdom to hit/damage doesn't work as that inherent to the flameblade scimitars, and you use the unarmed claws/bite/etc as a weapon not the scimitars, therefore you don't get the change in to hit/damage.

[losian2]

They affect Druids in animal form!


Nope. It was originally going to, but some feedback from the beta testers changed our minds.



I'm not 100% sure off-hand, since I have not personally checked that, but I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't or shouldn't function. So, tentatively: yes!

When I equipped the garment of equilibrium as a winter wolf my damage went down, not up. It seems the increased damage die is affecting something other than the 1d10 winter wolves should be doing as damage.

[losian2]

Will a shield in animal form uncenter a monk though? I would assume so. Will have to weigh the benefits of monk stuff against shield stats. Hmm. Handwraps?

Would love to get a definite answer on the shield uncentering or not WHILE in animal form, makes a big difference for my build and possibilities.

[threefeetunder]

Would love to get a definite answer on the shield uncentering or not WHILE in animal form, makes a big difference for my build and possibilities.

Shield uncenters you while in animal form.

[jsaving]

Yes it does. So as a monk splash, your weapon options in animal form are:

* handwraps, losing the usual 10% handwrap attack speed bonus and forgoing off-hand passive weapon properties like devotion or potency

* dual kamas, suffering the full dual-wielding penalty with no way to reduce it since TWF feats don't apply in form

* kama-and-shield, losing the ability to enter monk stances or use stunning fist because you are uncentered

There are definite benefits to the monk splash, but it's a tougher call than it might initially appear.

[Terminus-Est]

Yes it does. So as a monk splash, your weapon options in animal form are:

* handwraps, losing the usual 10% handwrap attack speed bonus and forgoing off-hand passive weapon properties like devotion or potency

* dual kamas, suffering the full dual-wielding penalty with no way to reduce it since TWF feats don't apply in form

* kama-and-shield, losing the ability to enter monk stances or use stunning fist because you are uncentered

There are definite benefits to the monk splash, but it's a tougher call than it might initially appear.

Quarterstaffs also work fine, but you don't get any THF bonuses.... so you might as well be using (generally) better handwraps.

[LupusVai]

That is what the dev above suggested (though it was a bit vague, he said it works not how it works), of course that did sound a bit too good to be true. +1d6 is still pretty solid.

Except its not +1d6 it changes your base damage when in winter wolf form from 1d10 to 1d6 and dire bear 1d12 to 1d6. A monk splash does not make it 1d10 +1d6 (which is what i think you have gotten from the dev post?). It reduces your damage. I have tested it and its definitely borked.

To put it another way lets imagine your dwarf fighter's axe does 1d10 base damage , you take a level of another class and from that point on your axe now only does 1d6. Meaning you loose pre existing damage/ability.

[threefeetunder]

Yes it does. So as a monk splash, your weapon options in animal form are:

* handwraps, losing the usual 10% handwrap attack speed bonus and forgoing off-hand passive weapon properties like devotion or potency

* dual kamas, suffering the full dual-wielding penalty with no way to reduce it since TWF feats don't apply in form

* kama-and-shield, losing the ability to enter monk stances or use stunning fist because you are uncentered

There are definite benefits to the monk splash, but it's a tougher call than it might initially appear.

If using a shield, why bother going kama only? you can use any weapon as long as you're proficient or it's martial (masters touch scrolls ftw), you'd be uncentered anyways.
Main benefit of monk splash would be evasion and 2 feats. Still decent.

[Spoonwelder]

Maybe I have built my druid poorly but I am finding my DPS better in form than out - the wolf 30% attack speed bonus makes all the difference - that said i haven't added any TWF/THF feats (as I saw these as redundant to form attacks which I planned to be in for fighting). In addition the knockdown blow is awesome at taking out casters.

Bear form wasn't as strong for sure - the 10 or 15% AC bonus just wasn't enough to make up for the lost DPS - 30% maybe but at 15% at 40AC the diff is 6 which just doesn't get you missed enough for taking 30% longer to kill stuff. That said I mainly solo so being an agro magnet isn't an issue- in a group I could see this being a helpful option in the right situation. Mainly just use bear form for skellies where the DR breaking of bludgeon makes up for the speed difference.

For my weapons I have gone with a basic scream of bleed scimitar for applicable trash and a holy of undead bane qstaff (in case I wanted to go out of form). I am using a combo of shields depending on the situation as well (high AC, guard based, lesser ac+Invuln, or casting boost).

I just got to L10 and have been handling elite content fine so far - mostly 2 below but occasionally at level as a quest chain demands (CO6, Tangleroot). Even did Prison of the mind (though I duo'd that with a guildie) and we handled it all fine - though the Cha damage spiders made me helpless very fast (only 4 Cha in form). So far druid has been easier to solo/level than anything other than a WF caster or Arti for me.

[hermespan]

Expalphalog is correct. Let me go into a bit more detail:



Yes to both. Your equipped weapons is basically ignored, as far as base damage, damage type, crit range, and crit damage are concerned. Those values are overwritten by the animal form's innate attack stats. All that really matters is what effects (flaming, keen, etc) are on the weapon. Those should all still work.




Animal form combat benefits from feats that benefit Unarmed. So Weapon Focus: Unarmed will give you bonuses to your animal form attacks. Improved Critical: Unarmed is what you want. The confusing part here is that "Unarmed" is usually grouped under the "Bludgeoning" feats. We should probably do something to make this clearer.

I'd like to add that impact (either on sheild or weapon) does _not_ affect crit range in wolf form.

I tested this personally. I swatted the dummy for around an hour and checked every crit. No crits landed on anything lower than a roll of 19 with an impact item equipped. I also tried keen just for good measure.

Tested with impact on a club, impact on a sheild and keen on a scimitar.

Is this wai?

[hermespan]

Maybe I have built my druid poorly but I am finding my DPS better in form than out - the wolf 30% attack speed bonus makes all the difference - that said i haven't added any TWF/THF feats (as I saw these as redundant to form attacks which I planned to be in for fighting). In addition the knockdown blow is awesome at taking out casters.

Bear form wasn't as strong for sure - the 10 or 15% AC bonus just wasn't enough to make up for the lost DPS - 30% maybe but at 15% at 40AC the diff is 6 which just doesn't get you missed enough for taking 30% longer to kill stuff. That said I mainly solo so being an agro magnet isn't an issue- in a group I could see this being a helpful option in the right situation. Mainly just use bear form for skellies where the DR breaking of bludgeon makes up for the speed difference.

For my weapons I have gone with a basic scream of bleed scimitar for applicable trash and a holy of undead bane qstaff (in case I wanted to go out of form). I am using a combo of shields depending on the situation as well (high AC, guard based, lesser ac+Invuln, or casting boost).

I just got to L10 and have been handling elite content fine so far - mostly 2 below but occasionally at level as a quest chain demands (CO6, Tangleroot). Even did Prison of the mind (though I duo'd that with a guildie) and we handled it all fine - though the Cha damage spiders made me helpless very fast (only 4 Cha in form). So far druid has been easier to solo/level than anything other than a WF caster or Arti for me.

you also get sneak attack damage in wolf form. The dps is radically higher than bear form or no form. to handle the spiders simply attack and keep tossing lesser restore on yourself.

THF and TWF have _no_ effect on anything when in form. Waste of valuable feat slots for druid.

I'm at level 14 now. Wolf has simply annihilated all content I've been in so far solo when at-level. 2 levels above, just about everything dies one-shot. At one level above, chains of flame/wiz king was as easy as waterworks on normal. I think wiz king took 15 minutes, if that, for all of the optionals and quest completion.

The only issues I have soloing are elite traps and int runes. I typically pop a hireling for this when needed.

I've found it handy to carry heal scrolls(mostly for others), curse pots, blindness pots.

Really the only time you want to be out of form as a melee druid is when buffing, for faster spell cool-downs, or when you are using scrolls or wands.

[Expalphalog]

Is this wai?

No. They've specifically listed Keen as one of the prefixes that work in animal form. Sounds like an easy fix though - they probably just have Keen applying to the weapon before animal form overwrites the crit profile instead of after.

[Aithon]

Please excuse me for asking here, in case this was posted somewhere else and I just couldn't find it, but
let me add two more questions to the list:
1. As I understand it, weapon materials like adamantine/cold iron etc. don't get applied to
wolf/bear attacks. What about the metalline prefix? I hope it's working, there seems to
be no other way to bypass DR of certain mobs otherwise. There's align fang in spells,
but no "metalline fang".
2. Earlier in this thread it was confirmed that enhancement bonus from weapon gets
applied. Does this stack with the magic fang spell?

Thanks a lot in advance.