Help me get to 60-75% melee dps

[Pilgrim1]

I really notice that my toon is lacking in the dps department. This is only really shows its head in 2 places (1) epic elite quests where I can not just get 10 mobs in a pile and kill them with earthquake - aoes, and (2) vs bosses that have resistances/immunities to cold or when in a party with a dotting arcane.

I have a human max wisdom build and I need some advice with with bringing up my dps in these situations. I have looked over the druid spell lists and I cant really see much that i could use to fill in this gap of needing sustained dps. So I have been thinking that I need to turn to melee. So my question to you smart formies is how do I get decent melee damage on a druid.

My current feet line up is:
maximize
empower
emp heal
quicken
toughness
SF: evo
GS: evo
IC: blunt

Epic wisdom
Epic evocation focus

I could free maybe 2 feets to move around if need be but this toon must remain primarily a caster toon. Furthermore I would hope that any changes would not require a specific destiny (but a twist or 2 is ok) because i switch destinies often.

Thank you in advance!

[Diyon]

If you want to really remain caster primarily, I'd stay in an elemental form, buff up your str, and grab scimitars or a good quarterstaff. IMO doing serious animal form melee requires heavy feat investment to get good benefit from it, I think a good staff will serve you well and you won't need to mess with your feats much if at all.

[moriedhel]

You need to choose between being evocation focused and doing CC/healing/AOE dps on trash or not... if you drop evo foci your CC will suffer but your main form of spell dps won't (CC and GCC have no save, Word of Balance only has SR, SoV is conjuration bla bla). Besides you can always twist a +2/+3 evo DC which will be more than enough for EH. I see you have emp healing too, so yeah you need to give up something, you can't be both CC, healer and DPS in EE Also don't forget about the gear you can't expect to be wearing those caster robes and a staff and do any kind of melee dps, you need to get yourself a good source of potency (challenge cape maybe) and get a real weapon in your hand and some sneak attack/exceptional sneak attack for wolf form, maybe put radiance on the pup

[wax_on_wax_off]

If you have a tier 2 twist available then improved shield mastery for 2 fears can get you 15% doublestrike and some PRR to go along with it. This is my plan for my Druid.

[Pilgrim1]

If you want to really remain caster primarily, I'd stay in an elemental form, buff up your str, and grab scimitars or a good quarterstaff. IMO doing serious animal form melee requires heavy feat investment to get good benefit from it, I think a good staff will serve you well and you won't need to mess with your feats much if at all.

How will a staff in elemental form give me more dps than using a staff in wolf form? Being a winter wolf gives such a good crit profile and gets 30% extra attacks. I just cant see much dps coming from anything other than winter wolf.

You need to choose between being evocation focused and doing CC/healing/AOE dps on trash or not... if you drop evo foci your CC will suffer but your main form of spell dps won't (CC and GCC have no save, Word of Balance only has SR, SoV is conjuration bla bla). Besides you can always twist a +2/+3 evo DC which will be more than enough for EH. I see you have emp healing too, so yeah you need to give up something, you can't be both CC, healer and DPS in EE Also don't forget about the gear you can't expect to be wearing those caster robes and a staff and do any kind of melee dps, you need to get yourself a good source of potency (challenge cape maybe) and get a real weapon in your hand and some sneak attack/exceptional sneak attack for wolf form, maybe put radiance on the pup

Some good points here. My first and foremost goal (and I think it should be that of any druid) is CC and healing in epic elite. Any caster druid can just crush any epic hard quest, its just a joke. CC, GCC, and balance are all great spells, I spam them every chance i can get, but they each have some serious limitations. CC/GCC are worthless in fights with arcanes and vs mobs that are very resistant to cold. Balance fails vs spell pen mobs.

My goals in this is not to become a good single target DPS, but rather to fill in the gap that occurs in these situations and potentially supplement my single target dps.

If you have a tier 2 twist available then improved shield mastery for 2 fears can get you 15% doublestrike and some PRR to go along with it. This is my plan for my Druid.

I have been thinking about going this rout - do you have any weapon or gearing suggestions? 15% double strike of bad dps is still bad dps =)

thanks for the feedback all!

[jortann]

I would give you an answer on how to improve your melee DPS, but I am afraid that you would think my answer is ... Fruidonkulous

[Diyon]

How will a staff in elemental form give me more dps than using a staff in wolf form? Being a winter wolf gives such a good crit profile and gets 30% extra attacks. I just cant see much dps coming from anyt hing other than winter wolf.

Because going wolf will sacrifice your spell cooldowns and spell bonuses if you are mainly caster. Also if you want good winter wolf DPS, then cough up feats for 3x natural fighting, SM, ISM. Staff you automatically get your STR x1.5, have shillelagh, and don't have to sacrifice any feats for, as well not sacrificing cooldowns and bonuses. IMO this is a great way for a caster type druid to supplement their damage. Plus if you are fire specc'd you can go nuts with body of the sun at the same time. I was demonstrating way to get you melee dps without sacrificing hardly anything of you caster specs.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Your natural attacks do 1d10 damage, do both piercing and slashing damage, and critically hit for triple damage on a roll of 19 or 20.

That's not bad, it's just under what a greensteel khopesh does and with natural fighting x3 and shield mastery x2, you attack slightly slower than someone with twfx3. In other words you would be better off with twf and khops prof than animal form and have 1 feat left over.

but if, for example, you had a


You would be doing 1d10 instead of 2.5[1d10], and that's the real problem with animal form, it doesn't scale with epic weapons.

[Pilgrim1]

I will look into using a staff, decreased cool downs are certainly an issue that I would like to avoid if possible. I defiantly don't want to be burning 5+ feats on melee, that would just take to much away from the build's 2 main focus.

You would be doing 1d10 instead of 2.5[1d10], and that's the real problem with animal form, it doesn't scale with epic weapons.

This is actually not true. If you equip an epic weapon with 2[w] your wolf form attacks do [2]1d10. Monk levels also increase the base damage. I have tested both of these.

When comparing damage don't forget that wolf form also gets magic fang (+5/+5) which is like 10 more str as well as animal growth. If your doing just light healing (ie. just mass regrowth) then the cooldown's will not be as much of an issue. Man i wish they gave natural fighting a -0.5 to cooldowns as well, its just not tempting enough as is.

PS. that is a nice weapon, got any 1handers that work well?
PPS. I have seen Fruidonkulous and I may steal an idea or 2 from him but I don't want to lose this builds main goals: epic elite CC and healing.

[Diyon]

I will look into using a staff, decreased cool downs are certainly an issue that I would like to avoid if possible. I defiantly don't want to be burning 5+ feats on melee, that would just take to much away from the build's 2 main focus.



This is actually not true. If you equip an epic weapon with 2[w] your wolf form attacks do [2]1d10. Monk levels also increase the base damage. I have tested both of these.

That's why I recommended a staff in the first place. And while Sireth isn't easy to get, the Stout Oak Walking Stick is, and it's also a very good melee stick.

Unless something changed recently, I didn't find that to be true about the animal form damage when I tested it. I do know that monk levels are to supposed to up it, I'm just talking about with epic lvl weapons.

[Seamonkeysix]

Your natural attacks do 1d10 damage, do both piercing and slashing damage, and critically hit for triple damage on a roll of 19 or 20.

That's not bad, it's just under what a greensteel khopesh does and with natural fighting x3 and shield mastery x2, you attack slightly slower than someone with twfx3. In other words you would be better off with twf and khops prof than animal form and have 1 feat left over.

but if, for example, you had a


You would be doing 1d10 instead of 2.5[1d10], and that's the real problem with animal form, it doesn't scale with epic weapons.

And 32 UMD, of course.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I think for 2 feats worth the SM/ISM route is really nice DPS. The weapon to go for is the Swailing Blade from U15, the level 24 version of course. You end up with more PRR to survive big hits while in EE healing mode and get moderate melee DPS in wolf form. Comparison wise, you'll end up a little behind a character with ITWF and Khopeshes but not have offhand attack penalties, full strength to offhand and able to benefit from a shield - even a tower shield with masters touch scrolls.

Other items to consider are a 6% doublestrike shield, the icy sickle from U14 and ofc the Wall of Wood.