Forms?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Not sure what else to title this. And not sure exactly what I am asking either...

But, my Human Druid is lvl 14 now and I just don't feel like my forms, especially animal forms, are very advantageous.

So I guess I am asking, are the forms really very good? and how do I get the most out of them?

Maybe when to use them as well.

Or just a general discussion about the Druid forms, with an eye toward making the most of them.

I'll try to add some more of my thoughts in a second post here.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Wolf form seems totally replaced by Winter Wolf once you get it.
Bear by Dire Bear.

Is there any reason (other than looks) to ever use Wolf and Bear once you get Winter Wolf and Dire Bear?

Do animal forms do more DPS than being in human(elf, dwarf...etc) form?
How do you get more DPS out of the animal forms?

While not my style, it seems that Druids were designed so that the Bear Intimitank was a viable option.
Is this true?

I am less concerned with multi-classed builds than I am pure Druids, but I guess discussing multi-classed builds has merit too.

Elemental forms.
These seem kinda meh.. to me.

You get fort, but do not need it if you already have heavy fort. I guess additional fort is of use now against Roguish monsters, but I have not found the change to be that big of a deal.

You get a minor bonus to spells of fire or water, but I find I want to cast spells of the opposite element often enough that I am not seeing an advantage of the elemental forms.

And what I really want to cast is Call Lightning and Call Lightning Storm... I like these spells (although they really nerfed CLStorm. )

Elemental forms work against me for Lightning spells don't they?

(Sorry, I am going off of memory here and did not do my homework to research all of the specifics before writing this..... I'm sure people will love the chance to correct me anyway.. )

Am I right that Water Elemental is only really useful if all I cast is Cold spells?
and Fire Ellie if I only cast Fire spells?
Seems kinda boring...

At my lvl (14) I am only seeing two Elemental form only spells and neither seems to be doing much damage (the water one seems to be totally useless IMO)

How are other Druids using their Elemental forms to get the most out of them?



All I can think of at the moment... Thx

[moriedhel]

Wolf form seems totally replaced by Winter Wolf once you get it.
Bear by Dire Bear.

Is there any reason (other than looks) to ever use Wolf and Bear once you get Winter Wolf and Dire Bear?
Not that I can think off

Do animal forms do more DPS than being in human(elf, dwarf...etc) form?
How do you get more DPS out of the animal forms?
Animal forms will generally do more dps because of attack speed if you don't go for TWF or THF feats for human form, you can get more dps by: natural fighting and other doublestrike stuff, magic fang, form attacks, monk levels for unarmed damage dice, sneak attack bonuses, cast your spells

While not my style, it seems that Druids were designed so that the Bear Intimitank was a viable option.
Is this true?
Don't play tanks haven't tried it

I am less concerned with multi-classed builds than I am pure Druids, but I guess discussing multi-classed builds has merit too.

Elemental forms.
These seem kinda meh.. to me.

You get fort, but do not need it if you already have heavy fort. I guess additional fort is of use now against Roguish monsters, but I have not found the change to be that big of a deal.
Fort will be more important later on

You get a minor bonus to spells of fire or water, but I find I want to cast spells of the opposite element often enough that I am not seeing an advantage of the elemental forms.

And what I really want to cast is Call Lightning and Call Lightning Storm... I like these spells (although they really nerfed CLStorm. )

Elemental forms work against me for Lightning spells don't they?
Yes they do, at least until you hit the spell's max casting level +3, call lightning caps damage at level 15 I think

(Sorry, I am going off of memory here and did not do my homework to research all of the specifics before writing this..... I'm sure people will love the chance to correct me anyway.. )

Am I right that Water Elemental is only really useful if all I cast is Cold spells?
and Fire Ellie if I only cast Fire spells?
Seems kinda boring...
Well not really they are most useful for the passive buffs they give: 100% fort and racial immunities and access to the form spells, the +1 caster/max caster level is just another little advantage to balance out the pretty big negative of -3 to everything else

At my lvl (14) I am only seeing two Elemental form only spells and neither seems to be doing much damage (the water one seems to be totally useless IMO)

How are other Druids using their Elemental forms to get the most out of them?
I personally found fire useless so I haven't played it, in ice form it's pretty easy for me: elemental toughness on at lower levels, freezing spray + dots on bosses, mantle of the icy soul + ice storm + earthquake on trash mobs, finish off with ice flowers if I have to kill them fast


All I can think of at the moment... Thx

answers in blue

[JustMe_ca]

Body of sun in fire elemental form is great in areas were fire resistant mobs are not an issue, luckily drow, wood walds and warforge are generally rather flammable which makes fire elemental form very viable.

As long as greater creeping cold eats the arcane's cold dot... I don't find water elemental that great when grouping with arcanes - in fact it can really **** some off...

[Dunklerlindwurm]

I have some Questions too.

Does the improved critical Feat help in Wolf/Bear form? And which one of them helps?

The TWF and THF feats do not effect Wolf/Bear form at all right?


I read that if you have Monk levels your Animal base damage is = your monk unarmed damage dice.

Does this mean that items that increase your unarmed damage dice increase animal form base damage too?

[Khatzhas]

Improved Critical: Bludgeoning improves Unarmed combat, Wolf, and Bear forms regardless of the damage type.
THF, TWF do not have any effect in animal forms.
Monk damage dice used to overwrite animal form damage dice. Now I'm not sure what happens if the monk damage gets higher than the form damage. Neither do I know whether effects that change unarmed damage dice affect animal form damage dice.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

answers in blue

Thx.

Yeah, I could see Water Elemental form very useful on raid bosses. Need to get my guy flagged for raids.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Body of sun in fire elemental form is great in areas were fire resistant mobs are not an issue, luckily drow, wood walds and warforge are generally rather flammable which makes fire elemental form very viable.

As long as greater creeping cold eats the arcane's cold dot... I don't find water elemental that great when grouping with arcanes - in fact it can really **** some off...

.. and than I read yours and get reminded of that bug.... doh.

That's a horrible bug actually.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I'm confused with the Monk damage dice and how it effects animal form damage as well... But I have no plans to take monk lvls on my current Druid.

I did try the (man I hate when I am typing something on the forums and can't remember the name... ) uhmm... that monk outfit that is suppose to increase the damage dice up one lvl...... and it seemed to ruin my animal form damage dice instead of increase it. (people have already mentioned that it is bugged for Druids, but I tried it out for myself anyway)



On another note, what are some easier to come by, lower lvl doublestrike items?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I do like Takedown a lot, but have found the other animal form attacks to be disappointing.

They do increase damage but it seems to me to be only for one attack, and I find them cumbersome to use in fastpaced combats where things die quickly.

[moriedhel]

Body of sun in fire elemental form is great in areas were fire resistant mobs are not an issue, luckily drow, wood walds and warforge are generally rather flammable which makes fire elemental form very viable.

As long as greater creeping cold eats the arcane's cold dot... I don't find water elemental that great when grouping with arcanes - in fact it can really **** some off...

Yeah body of the sun is good (no save) if you stay close enough to the mobs to use it, most likely in melee, since I haven't played melee just caster I tend to not get close enough, everything else from fire elemental is underwhelming though.

Also I saw a post on the forum a while ago where someone compared a stack of CC and GCC with niac's and CC+GCC was more efficient and more dps as far as I remember, arcanes have 2 other dot's & SLA's they can use Unless of course you have 2-3 water savants in your group But then freezing spray would really start to shine too. Gameplay wise it's not really that bad, of course it's absolutely needed to get the bug fixed though

[wax_on_wax_off]

Wolf has a base attack animation of 130% of the normal so you get 1.3x the benefit of effects like doublestrike. Shield Mastery works really nice with animal forms as you get PRR, more doublestrike and still have exactly the same attack power (well, more when including the additional doublestrike).

I picked up dire bear form at level 8 and then joined in a guild elite BB Chrono run, managed to hold aggro by slamming the special attacks and creeping cold which was pretty fun, think I managed about 270 HP at level 8 with a full stack of Rising Fury, basically Shroud ready!

After the raid I swapped it out for winter wolf form though, it's hilarious fun buffing with FoM, equipping blindness immunity and owning everything with sleet storm/reaving roar.

[Daine]

For a 4th life on my main TR I wanted to sample Druid, after reading all the specialised builds, I figured for me he'd play best as designed, a jack of all trades. I'm sure it will come, but there's really not enough players out there yet that have played every variant of the Druid so I took advantage of the temporary void of ignorance and ignored the minimal advice

...So I decided to take advantage of their main feature, animal forms and built around the wolf with its sneak attack advantages; I chose half-elf/rogue for the dillentente (up to +3d6 sneak attack) and freebie bluff, and 2 levels of monk for the stuns and evasion.

For a tough fight I open with a bluff/elemental DoT/takedown then if not prone, a monk stun and then my wolf 4(W) attack then try to keep them down. I'm always running a fang spell/ram's might/barkskin/etc. Basically give 'em a snarl, a low growling rumble, remember you're a person and not a wolf, cast a spell, then let the inner wolf take over!

It's a quick (by my slow standards) TR life meant as a sampler of druid but I'm having a blast running about as a wolf. I'm not the Barbarian slaughter-house I was in my previous life but that ended up being quite a grind. I have to pay attention to combat and always make choices to reflect the situation but's that's a nice change from my melee's and sorc character who just slash and blast mindlessly through everything.

As I solo a lot and wanted to play to the druid's abilities I chose augment summon and generally get a hireling that can summon as well, sure the summons die fast, but sometimes they use takedowns (as does my pet). It's fun to be the pack leader, soloing and look about to see multiple opponents on the ground and a pack frenzy occurring, especially with the current bug where some foes just run around in circles (in fear of my pack!). With multiple summons though, the real strength comes in with sneak attack, flanking bonuses and blood frenzy. When the summons die I'll sometimes tell the pet (and hireling) to stay behind and just go and stalk (sneak) a foe. Sure it's not max xp/min and I don't do it often, but I figure you gotta be the wolf, not just play a wolf

It's not the most min-maxed class (or build) by a long-shot but so far I'm being effective soloing elite at level in animal form and more importantly getting a feel for the druid and having a blast in wolf form. Arwooooooh!

[donfilibuster]

Hoping they expand forms a bit in the future, tiger and raptor were good choices in PnP, same for companion.
That could be the twf and cc modes just like bear/wolf are tank and stealth.
Granted bear/wolf do well but lead to having these threads about them feeling weak.

[jsaving]

Is there any reason (other than looks) to ever use Wolf and Bear once you get Winter Wolf and Dire Bear?

The only reason for this would be in situations where you consciously want to dish out less damage, such as a splashed druid putting the monk's healing curse on a foe and then using that foe to "refuel."

Do animal forms do more DPS than being in human(elf, dwarf...etc) form?

If you take spells out of the equation, natural fighting-specced wolf form druids dish out about as much damage as TWF-specced human form druids, but can dump-stat DEX and equip a shield while so doing. Animal forms also change your type away from human, which effectively gives you immunity to certain spells that can be quite annoying at low levels.

How do you get more DPS out of the animal forms?

The key is to leverage all the assets that animal-form druids bring to the table. Memorize and use your innate attacks often, especially takedown (if going wolf). Memorize and cast personal combat buffs, like magic fang and ram's might. Liberally cast AoE spells that impede or damage foes, like spike grown and ice storm, and take advantage of the fact that you can fight inside those spells without taking damage. Take the "essence of the shrike" enhancement and be sure to fire off a spell every time you receive temporary SP.

One more thing -- grab celerity or spring's resurgence as quickly as you can. A surprising number of druids aren't even aware these enhancements exist, and they're really helpful in combat. Really.

[wax_on_wax_off]

Reaving Roar is the best thing since firewall, or sliced bread. Elite streaking at level 9 and it's as simple as kite a large mob, kill 1, watch the shock waves go off until everything is dead.

Sleet Storm is the next best thing. Blindness immunity + FoM and you can enjoy everything slip sliding around blinded while you sneak attack it to oblivion.

I can see myself eventually swapping Reaving Roar for Fatal Harrier at later levels but I'm pretty sure that these 2 tools will see me comfortably through to level 20.

[hermespan]

I chose half-elf/rogue for the dillentente (up to +3d6 sneak attack) .

...this... there is no other race for wolf form melee druid. combine with NW PRR, bluff specialized pet (buffed with summons mass cha buff, and eagle's splendor, which _do_ stack) and capstone, you get SA dps just about 85% of the time whether or not you have aggro. Havent done calculation but with harrier, celerity and max doublestrike...

I'm just wincing/waiting for the nerf hammer to strike at this point. I'm sure it's coming.

[Coyopa]

Add in a weapon or item with Improved Deception and you improve your SA chances, as well. My L25 wolf form druid has Seal of House Avithoul (7wis, Sneak Attack Bonus +5, Exceptional Sneak Attack Bonus +3, Improved Deception) and she cranks out the SA damage.

[Mubjon]

I have a level 15 almost 16 pure druid right now. I am using the fire elemental form mostly because I about to go into Necro IV.

Last night I was able to tank mama dragon in mired in Kobold and keep her attention while the party whacked away on her. I need to get some evasion on the toon as I think that would help with tanking. The acid breath was hard to keep up with, as we just had a hire to help with healing.

I think with some more healing amp and evasion I could possible tank her on elite with no issues just as I did junior. And I am not built for tanking But, it is a bit easier to do when you have a maximized GCC, Body of the sun, and firewall going.

I have yet to attempt to use other weapons than scimitars on this build. I am thinking of doing my next life as a splash with monk levels to use Kopeshes in elemental form and dual wield instead.