Druid/monk melee/caster hybrid

[ArcaneArcher52689]

Hey, I was planning on starting a Druid, already leveled one to 10 pure, but wanted to start one on my main server do I could gear them out, make his first life less painful. Starting at 7, 32 pts, I was planning on going the first nine levels pure, adding monk at 10 and 11, when evasion gets important/ I have enough wisdom to make up for no shield/armor. Probably also using free lr at that point to readjust feats.
My main questions are, is monk worth splashing? And if so, do I go for two or three?

Monk pros: wis to ac, 4%dodge, two feats, stances,
Cons: no shield, one less slot, fewer armor choices(like u15 gear), no prr,
I'm sure i missing some on both, but I'd appreciate some advice.

[jsaving]

I've capped two monk-splashed druids thus far and see this kind of build as a mixed bag. The extra feats from a monk splash give you much-needed flexibility, evasion is quite helpful at the beginning of the game and remains moderately useful on normal difficulty even at cap, and water stance gives you a slightly higher DC than pure druids can achieve. Stunning fist on a wisdom-based druid is helpful as well, although the presence of another low-cost tactical move (takedown) combined with the temporary spell points you'll frequently gain through essence of the shrike make SF less of a must-have than it is on a cleric.

But there are some negatives as well. The monk's wisdom bonus to AC isn't enough to offset the defensive benefits he'd gain from wearing armor. You lose a slot (off-hand), as you mentioned. Your animal-form damage will be set to 1d6 even in dire/winter form, reducing your melee DPS. You forever surrender the big reduction in cooldown times you would have received with the capstone. And you run a real risk of "buyer's remorse" down the road as the devs release more 9th level spells than you're able to feasibly memorize.

One option you didn't mention is to splash monk but wear armor (and use a shield) anyway. You lose SF and your stances, but gain your off-hand slot and decent damage mitigation. Contrary to what some believe, you also retain access to evasion as long as you don't go beyond light armor. This wouldn't generally be worth doing on a clonk because SF is such a key component of that kind of build, but because you have other low-cost wisdom-based tactics options like takedown, it can be a viable and even desirable approach on a monk-splashed druid.

As to how many monk levels to splash, I think the "healing curse" isn't especially useful on a class that frequently gains temporary SP (essence of the shrike), so you'd only want to consider a 3-level splash if you expect to be the only party member capable of doing finishing moves, and find them necessary for your playstyle under those circumstances.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

I've capped two monk-splashed druids thus far and see this kind of build as a mixed bag. The extra feats from a monk splash give you much-needed flexibility, evasion is quite helpful at the beginning of the game and remains moderately useful on normal difficulty even at cap, and water stance gives you a slightly higher DC than pure druids can achieve. Stunning fist on a wisdom-based druid is helpful as well, although the presence of another low-cost tactical move (takedown) combined with the temporary spell points you'll frequently gain through essence of the shrike make SF less of a must-have than it is on a cleric.

But there are some negatives as well. The monk's wisdom bonus to AC isn't enough to offset the defensive benefits he'd gain from wearing armor. You lose a slot (off-hand), as you mentioned. Your animal-form damage will be set to 1d6 even in dire/winter form, reducing your melee DPS. You forever surrender the big reduction in cooldown times you would have received with the capstone. And you run a real risk of "buyer's remorse" down the road as the devs release more 9th level spells than you're able to feasibly memorize.

One option you didn't mention is to splash monk but wear armor (and use a shield) anyway. You lose SF and your stances, but gain your off-hand slot and decent damage mitigation. Contrary to what some believe, you also retain access to evasion as long as you don't go beyond light armor. This wouldn't generally be worth doing on a clonk because SF is such a key component of that kind of build, but because you have other low-cost wisdom-based tactics options like takedown, it can be a viable and even desirable approach on a monk-splashed druid.

As to how many monk levels to splash, I think the "healing curse" isn't especially useful on a class that frequently gains temporary SP (essence of the shrike), so you'd only want to consider a 3-level splash if you expect to be the only party member capable of doing finishing moves, and find them necessary for your playstyle under those circumstances.

Thanks, +1

I think i'm going to try staying pure for now. If my lack of evasion becomes unbearable (which it might, my main is a monk) I'll either LR+3 or take next lvls as monk and free LR

[Khatzhas]

How would you be playing the character? Would you actually be in animal form most of the time and take Natural warrior as assumed?
One option would be to stay in caster form until you get access to the elemental forms. Pick up the two-weapon fighting feats and dual-wield flame blades. You would likely lose access to Stunning Fist, but with the right feats and enhancements, you could have a rather fast Ki gain rate.

It would mean putting some ability points into Dex, depending on how far you want to take that. Using rings, hats or set bonuses for spellpower. You would not suffer the spell cooldown increase, and would probably want to consider the Season's Herald PrE.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

How would you be playing the character? Would you actually be in animal form most of the time and take Natural warrior as assumed?
One option would be to stay in caster form until you get access to the elemental forms. Pick up the two-weapon fighting feats and dual-wield flame blades. You would likely lose access to Stunning Fist, but with the right feats and enhancements, you could have a rather fast Ki gain rate.

It would mean putting some ability points into Dex, depending on how far you want to take that. Using rings, hats or set bonuses for spellpower. You would not suffer the spell cooldown increase, and would probably want to consider the Season's Herald PrE.

For at least mid levels, 7-10, taking natures warrior, using the reaving roar stance. Most likely switching to seasons herald once I get forms. Then would primarily winterwolf/fire elemental form.

I did consider dual wielding flameblade , but it just really loses out against fire immune/resistant mobs. If I do go monk, I'd probably be using quarterstaff's as my main weapon, have a luminous truth set aside for when i hit 16. radiance, combustion, flaming, incandescence, fire lore.

The more I think about it, the more likely I am to add monk at levels 10/11 (have supreme ability +3 tome I've been saving,
LR stats to 15/12/14/8/17/8, make monk feats s:fist+toughness, and add in 1 natural fighting feat. If i go season's herald PRE, i'll probably use winterwolf when winter is up, use wolf fighting, fire ele when summer is up (water elemental just sucks in my opinion), smashing people with a shileighla'd qstaff..

[jandhaer]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=381780

Not only the build but a level by level guide of what items he was using, quests done at each level, and videos of how that build soloed them. Enjoy.

[jsaving]

How would you be playing the character? Would you actually be in animal form most of the time and take Natural warrior as assumed?
One option would be to stay in caster form until you get access to the elemental forms. Pick up the two-weapon fighting feats and dual-wield flame blades. You would likely lose access to Stunning Fist, but with the right feats and enhancements, you could have a rather fast Ki gain rate.

The benefits from nature's warrior aren't huge, but it is a prerequisite for fatal harrier and reaver's roar, which you'd generally want to have on a melee druid.

Elemental forms sound useful at first, and are OK for certain playstyles, but there are issues to be aware of before you go down this route. Perhaps the largest obstacle is that you'll want to be throwing out cold and fire on a regular basis, and face almost punitive penalties from doing so while in elemental form due to the -3s imposed on you for using an "opposing" element. You can get around this by constantly switching from fire form to water form (and vice versa), but because you don't have enough spell slots to memorize fire-form and water-form abilities at the same time, you'll find yourself gimped half the time, not to mention the DPS you lose while you're actually doing the wildshaping.

To be sure, you can give up on all that and just dual-wield flameblades in elemental form. This sounds good at first because you're able to use WIS rather than STR as your melee stat. But the flameblades aren't generally better than random loot you might find, and fire immunity becomes so common at high levels that you'll find yourself floundering in tough content just as your pet reaches irrelevancy himself. Worse, correcting your melee inadequacy will require a LR because you'd have the TWF chain instead of natural fighting, and an overly high DEX to boot.