Druid life

[MaximusParthas]

My first on live servers of 3 druid lives.
Life 1. Wolf melee. Pure druid.
So far:

levels 1-11 high survivability and lots of fun. Traps can be frustrating. Summons are cool.

Levels 12-14 Surprising melee abilities but traps & AOE spells on elite become a liability. Summons/hires become a very useful asset. Can easily solo most quests on hard. Some on elite. beholders are best avoided.

Levels 15-17 Great DPS and reasonable crowd control.
Lack of comparable melee HP, lack of any evasion and low reflex due to necessary stat distributions is a big weakness. Then add a slower casting time in wolf form limiting self healing and your at a glass ceiling for above level or elite runs. High dependency on buffs become a useful but timely chore. Feats are few and always chosen at a loss.
Flame blade becomes a big disappointment. Most creatures/bosses at 17+ quests/raids are immune to fire.
Reaving roar rocks.

Levels 18-20 No evasion breaks the wolf melee build. Elite traps and AOE's are almost certain death. If unprepared, high level named monsters have the potential to wipe you out in one round. 500HP+ is not enough. With the evasive lack 700 HP @ lvl 18 would likely add 50% more survivability. With a high DPS output, agro management becomes a problem.
Although they are great assets and unique attacks, dependency on high sp mana powered feat like spells becomes a burden. No one is interested in donating pots when all your sp goes to using your own abilities. Once your mana and pots are gone you've lost most of your extraordinary melee contributions.
It is possible to get temp SP when striking crits, but nearly impossible to accurately time your attacks to exploit the boon.
Snowslide rocks.

20-25 TBD. I'll let you know when I get there. At the moment I'm holding 19 and seriously considering discarding the idea of a pure build in exchange for a multi/w evasion.

[SemiraLynn]

I was excited about Druids before they came out but when they did...meh.

My completionist-in-training character is on her Druid life. All of her previous lives were pure of various classes but when it came to Druid I just had no burning desire to go pure. Just to get past this life I settled on 10 Druid/9 Monk/1 Rogue. I'm sure it's not optimal and kind of clunky but it's working well enough to get me past Druid.

I treat the character like a Monk while playing her. I went Dark Monk for Touch of Death and Shadow Fading. I have that one Rogue level that is enough to take care of any traps I run across. Then the Druid levels are just kind of a bonus that provides healing which makes the character pretty self sufficient. DPS, Healing, Traps, and Improved Evasion.

Good luck on your next 2 Druid lives.

[psteen1]

I'm interested to know what your plans are for the next two lives. I am playing a level 2 monk/druid 10 currently, as a wisdom based caster, with flame blade melee as backups because my SP isn't enough to get me through quests. So far I would call it a very powerful build, but I'm sure the power level will drop off soon.

[MaximusParthas]

The first life was exploratory. That's why I originally wanted to go pure. just to see for myself it's full potential. Wolf melee seemed to appeal to me the most.
Actually all 3 lives are an experiment. By the 3rd life I'll know for sure what works and what doesn't.

[Veriden]

I hope you enjoy the druid lives..I personally am just going to rush through my druid life. I'm not a big fan of them myself. Never have been in Pnp either. Splashing 2 monk to keep 90% of my gear relevant. (Can't seem to pull anything new worth while so I make due with what I have.)

[eclipse668]

I enjoyed my druid life _alot_. I rolled a 1 monk 19 druid caster and its by far the most fun (and effective) class I leveled so far. yes it does beat the (dull) bladebarrier hopping fvs (in my books).
I liked the synergy of unarmed combat, buff/debuff along with significant passive damage (aura&dots), CC and selfheal.
only drawback I see ist the first ~7 to 9 lvls if you decide to go 'pure' casster. those might be arduous if you can't melee at all..

[cru121]

first ~7 to 9 lvls if you decide to go 'pure' casster. those might be arduous if you can't melee at all..

8 str + 2 rams + 4 bulls +2 ship = 16 str
anything of lacerating + wolf = ok damage
add summon, pet, and creeping cold...

[JustMe_ca]

So far i'm really enjoying my druid lives (2 done so far)

The first life I went pure caster - max wisdom, high con, rest in strength. I found it very powerful, even in elemental form, the casting was fun - earthquake , and the hamster ball (body of sun) made for a great combination on most eveningstar stuff and its dps with the caster sticks were actually reasonable - certainly a lot better than a wizard hitting stuff.

The biggest failing on the pure build is that I missed the one feature that toon had - hitting stuff with your fists (90% of her lives included monk)

For her completionist life - I went to 18druid/2monk(5epic). This time, i almost maxed wisdom, good con, and remainder was between str and dex (to have a reasonable evasion score) Without the completionist feat, I think this build would not be very great but it works very well for my use. She has great healing ability, respectable dps with handwraps (though not out of this world), good casting and fantastic stunning fist.
Her stunning fist is quite frankly stunning - it works well even in epic elite.

The only real weakness in this build is that her casting is not quite where I would like her to be for epic elite - her earthquake is less effective than i want (though I still am experimenting with what twists work best) at the highest settings. For epic hard quests and less she is absolutely wonderful... I still haven't decided which epic destiny is best for her - grandmaster of flowers is my current favorite but both shiradi and fury work a bit better in they give more caster levels to her.

I am currently considering a move back to pure druid to improve her performance in epic elite - I found evasion while nice wasn't as game breaking as I thought it would be. Going grandmaster would still open up the handwrap collection she has amassed. I am also considering a few more caster lives but not sure if time really permits that.

The other possibility is to drop more of the caster abilities and go for a more monk splashed build. Either way, druid and monk are my two favorite classes. Both are so versatile and allow you to go many different ways.