Druid Wolf Form Build Help

[Chronotrip]

I would like a Druid Wolf form build that focuses on melee dps first and offensive casting/self healing 2nd.

The build I currently am working on is as follows.

Human 20 pure druid 32 pt build

str 18 (27) +2 enhancements <==== All lvl points
dex 8 (10)
con 14 (16)
int 8 (10)
wis 16 (20) +2 enhancements
cha 8 (10)

assume at least +2 tomes for all stats, probably +3's

Feats I am planning on are

Toughness
Power attack
Augment summoning
Improved Crit Blunt
Natural Fighting x3
Quicken
Empower Healing
Maximize

These are in no particular order, but will prolly take the Natural Fighting ones last as lvl 18 and epic feats.

The idea here is use Ice storm, Call Lightning Storm and Storm of Vengeance and then melee the mobs inside of these AoE DoTs while also being able to heal myself with quickened Empowered Heal. The build is hopefully a very good solo toon.

My main concerns here are as follows.

Is 16 starting Wis with out putting any lvl points into it going to be enough so that my CC earth quake is still effective, and will mobs constantly make the reflex save against my spells?

Are there any other feats I should consider? I was thinking about forgoing Maximize, Empower Healing and Augment Summoning in favor of taking Cleave, Great Cleave and then of course Overwhelming Crit, but I don't think its worth giving up all of those for the extra melee dps. I wont have enough Con for epic toughness so that's out.

Is this build going to be viable, or should I forgo Wis and Maximize and go for pure melee dps and self healing?
If that is the case then I will prolly just go Halfling as I guess I won't need as many feats and the bonus to flanking and SA would be nice.

Not really sure why so many people are going with the monk splash, could someone point out all of the Pro's of that, beside the obvious evasion.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome.

[redspecter23]

I've just recently finished a wolf form dps build. It's quite a bit different than what you have described, but focuses much more on melee and uses mostly just buff spells.

Druid 9/Monk 7/Fighter 4

It gave me 16 feats which allowed for power attack, cleave, great cleave, whirlwind and all prereqs, 3x natural fighting, toughness, dodge stunning fist and past life: monk.

Using end game wraps that's 6[1d10] x3 damage as a base

Is it worth losing the higher level spells like heal and earthquake? maybe, maybe not. I find that for epic hard and lower content, I can just cast twisted rejuvenation cocoon to keep myself topped off. For epic elite, I can use a combination of that, cure critical wounds and silver flame pots. Self healing without the heal spell hasn't been an issue yet and as a wolf 99% of the time I don't bother with scrolls.

Anyway, just wanted to give you an alternative that goes all in for dps at the cost of most casting ability to give an idea. For your build I'd probably drop augment summoning. I can't see it helping enough to be needed. Either grab empower in it's place to go with maximize or drop emp and max for the combat feats you mentioned. The damage from your spells at endgame can be reasonable, depending on what content you focus on (N, H or E). Multiple cleaves with overwhelming crit may just end up doing similar damage over time while eating no SP at all. If you happen to use Dreamspitter with multiple cleaves, the casters in your epic elite groups will love you. 1/5th of your hits end up draining levels.

[smeggy1384]

If you're meleeing and not planning to use wraps grab shield mastery and improved shield mastery for the phys resist as well as more double strike. Augment summon can go to make room for one. Maximize is probably the next one to drop, unless you have a ton of items to boost your SP so you can keep it on.

[AzB]

I agree to drop augment summoning. If you really think it's a good idea, consider a couple druid past lives. That'll give your summons a nice boost and not cost you a feat.

I don't have experience with a melee druid, as mine is all caster. But I'm thinking next life he's going to try melee. I can tell you from a caster perspective, that you really need to go all or nothing on the spells to make them work. The druid's spellpower is weak compared to other casters in the game, so giving up much of anything is going to make offensive spells pretty weak.

If you want to effectively cast, go pure. The capstone is very nice.

The capstone for pure melee gives you 2d6 additional sneak attack in wolf form, and 10prr in bear form. It also reduces the time to cast spells while in animal form.

If you try to do a hybrid, be careful. From playing around with mine while leveling, it was very easy to screw up the build by trying to be good at both things. What inevitably happens is that you don't do anything well at all. You spells won't hit and your dps won't be much to speak of either. Some spells like buffs will still be fine, and with a little healing amp your heal spells will be ok. And conversely, even a spell caster druid can still go into elemental or animal form and melee with some degree of effectiveness. Even a caster can have some ac and hp, even if the dps is not that great. What works great for me is earthquake, storm of vengeance, and then wade in with scimitar or staff and polish off the ones that aren't dying fast enough. The wolfpup or summons are great for this too, they can mop up the knocked down mobs that aren't killed by the spells while you watch and smile.

I have seen a druid build that took the three past lives and built the wolfpup up as a tank. I was pretty amazed at how well it worked. The pup went in and got aggro, then the druid could stand back and cast to her heart's content. The pup was very, very tough and even going one on one with red names, very rarely died as long as it's master was tossing dots and aoes. I'm not sure I'd be willing to grind the lives and gear for it, but she had it working really well.

You could also conceivably take the wiz, fvs, cleric, and sorc past lives to get some bonus DCs for your spells, and +9 spell pen. For a melee oriented druid, that might help with some of your offensive spells getting through. But that's a lot of grinding, and having not tried it myself, I can't guarantee it would be enough.

[bigolbear]

Op: in my experience casting stats are basicly all or nothing, theres little middle ground with them. You can afford to be 1 or 2 dc down from a pure caster spec but its not just the wis score.

a pure caster will have the spell focus feats, the foci gear, a caster focused ED etc etc.

This leads to a big difference in spell DC's.

My advice is take wis down to 12 or 14, and pump up STR/CON if your going for mele.

The only spell casting feat id recomend would be quicken - for self healing.

Thankfuly one thing I have noticed is that many druid spells dont have a save. meanign you can still effectively cast some spells when specing for mele.

[smeggy1384]

My advice is take wis down to 12 or 14, and pump up STR/CON if your going for mele.

The only spell casting feat id recomend would be quicken - for self healing.

Several of the wolf or bear form spell type attacks use Wisdom to boost the DC, going so low you'd be failing those a lot. My druid started with 18 wisdom, at level 19 with a total of 30 its about 50% for most of the attacks to land in inspired quarter quests.

Quicken is nice, but when you have the jump spell on you its easy to just jump over the monsters to get a heal in.

[Daine]

Druid wolf form is all about the sneak attack, you should be getting it on the vast majority of attacks even if soloing.

'Takedown' DC is 11 + wis mod

with 2 monk levels you get an impressive stunning fist as well: DC is 10 + half Character level + Wisdom modifier + Stunning item bonus.

For me as a half-elf rogue dilettante I also get: +3d6 SA

Natures Warrior: +1d6 SA in wolf form, +2d6 SA if enemy is below 50% health

The capstone will give you +2d6 SA

Winter wolf form gives +5 attack while flank +2d6 SA

there are also a few buffs/abilities and spells that add to your companion pet/summons flanking attacks.

Your pets can also have knockdown effects

The Seal of house Avithoul (a ring) gives +8 attack, +13 damage to an attack that qualifies as a sneak attack.

The earthquake spell, stunning fist, takedown are all dependant on wisdom, as a monk you also get a wisdom bonus to armour class. Add in some vampiric stunning handwraps for starters and each hit gives you back hitpoints while the enemy is helpless

On top of that there is a nice +6[W] wolf form attack Jaws of winter which when also a sneak attack will often turn them to a nice ice sculpture for you to smash to smithereens!

With more wisdom than strength, using takedown/stunning fist/jaws, they dont stand a chance.

The druid is a versatile class with loads of valid builds but if you want wolf form only (I did and have had loads of fun) then do not use wis as a dump stat, I put more into wis than str and its worked fine, if I didn't I'd just be a gimped figther with some self heals.

I think you can see the monk synergies now as well, you also get a dodge bonus and meditation and a stance which can give you +2 wis if need the edge for stunning or +2 str or a nice 2.5% double strike chance to add to your eventual +18% doublestrike for natural fighting.

Have fun with wolf form, I have

[Kochab]

When soloing I find that casting sleet storm (while buffed with FoM of course) is very helpful. It no save blinds the enemies in it allowing sneak attacks and giving them a 50% miss chance. Excellent for groups of enemies, although I would recommend using quicken with it as the casting time is rather long. Of course this does not really work on named. Generally I stay away from it in groups as it can be annoying if not everyone is buffed with FoM.

Gear-wise, I would definitely recommend the epic Ring of Elemental Essence from the Carnival pack. It gives 90 spellpower for your fire, ice, lightning and acid spell, and being in a body slot you don't have to switch from your DPS weapons to cast. Additionally it has archmagi and a yellow slot.

Maximise and empower are nice for making your AoEs and DoTs more damaging, but I could see the appeal in getting Overwhelming Critical.

I took the shield mastery feats, as I do not have monk. The extra doublestrike is fun, and they also allow you to unlock the higher tiers of the shield mastery stuff in Unyielding Sentinel, which give more even more PR and AC. Don't forget magic fang also buffs your shield, making it more effective.

I would say many people would go monk because stunning fist and such work with the wolf form attacks. Plus you get the stances, evasion, and their is definite synergy in the wisdom bonus to AC and being a druid.

[Daemoneyes]

If you want to go melee


Human 32pt Lawful Neutral
9 Monk / 9 Druid / 2 Fighter

Str 16 / Dex 14 / Con 14 / Int 8 / Wis 16 / Cha 8
ups in Str
Tomes: +2 Str needed for Overwhelming Critical, Wis/Con/Dex/Int/Cha are optional but would improve the build.
Concentration max, Balance (10 should be enough), Bluff (hopefull someday Wolfattack also uses bluff..), UMD (for Weapon/Armor restricts but not needed)

lvl class / Feats
1 Druid / normal - Human / Power Attack- free
2 Monk / Monk / Stunning Fist
3 Druid / normal - Wildshape / Cleave - Wolf
4 Druid / /
5 Druid / /
6 Monk / normal - Monk / Maximize - Toughness
7 Fighter / Fighter / Great Cleave
8 Druid / Wildshape / Bear
9 Druid / normal / Quicken
10 Druid / /
11 Druid / Wildshape / Winter Wolf
12 Druid / normal / Natural Fighting
13 Fighter / Fighter / Improved Critical Bludgeon
14 Monk / Path / Inevitable Dominion: Fists of Darkness
15 Monk / normal / Natural Fighting
16 Monk / /
17 Monk / Monk / Dodge
18 Monk / normal / Natural Fighting
19 Monk / /
20 Monk / /

Epic Feats Overwhelming Critical and Precision (atm optional, i planned it for boss dps in epics/raids dunno if it is worth)



from
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...33#post4824333

[Vornado]

I have a question about wolf form that someone might know the answer to( this is a bit strange yes but a thought). Seeing as wolf form is a feat and pale master vampire form is a enhancement, can you be in vamp form and wolf form?

For those that want to get lore on me before answering i know ive encountered a vamp boss somewhere that turns into bats once you get him down so many hp then turns into a pack of wolves when you get him down further i just dont remember where he was.

Reason i was asking was i noticed that ranged becomes natural melee when in wolf form, and a repeater x-bow even though the animation doesnt keep up still pops fast. Not sure if the 30% increase to weapon speed applies to ranged weapons or not when in wolf form.

So where i am going is this 12 wiz(pm)/6 rogue(mech)/2 druid for wolf form. Use a epic doublecross with rogue mec then int is applied to attack and damage, in wolf form the x-bow turns into natural weapon damage which should qualify as melee as far as vamp healing 1 pt per successful hit. I know at lvl 13= 12wiz/1monk in vamp form ua i could solo vale extremely easy with just focus wraps and never casting a spell other than vamp form/displacement and haste. Not even using the aura for healing.

Not sure if it would work or works this way but was asking if anyone might have tried this and their results.

[Pilgrim1]

You can not have 2 forms up at a time. No exceptions. Some dev posted that they are working on making a zombie bear in angel form work, but that's down the pipe a ways.