LR My Helf Druid Questions

[Phaeton_Seraph]

When I rolled my Druid, I wasn't terribly clear on what to do with it. There weren't (and aren't) many builds posted, and there were no Druid guides out there, so I grabbed what information I could, and did my best to have fun with it (and I think I have had fun with it).

I would post the link to his character sheet, but all I get is a message:

http://my.ddo.com/ddoerror.html
Error!
The page you were looking for was not found.

I chose Helf, and took the Rogue dilly. Turns out this would have been better if I had been more of an animal shapeshifter. As is, it probably helped at lower levels when I meleed, as my dog, summons, hires and/or party member likely caused enough aggro for me to get sneak attack blows in.
I found the animal forms less than fun, perhaps due to a lack of animations at lower levels (I've since rolled a Druid that will be an animal guy, just to learn how the other half lives).

I took Augment Summoning. My other main is an Artie, so I'm a big believer in pets. And with a nearly constant summons, it seems indispensible for a Druid.

I took TWF.

I believe I maxed Wiz, put 16 into Con, 13 into Dex (for the TWF) and the rest into Str.

I preferred Elemental form. (I guess I would have been more of what the wiki called an elementalist.
With the elemental fortification and resistances, healing DOTs, offensive DoTs (which I tried to fight within the AoEs), enemy specific weapons and the personal valor to jump out of a fray as soon as I started to take damage, I found myself enjoying melee for the first time (other than a bit of monky play).

I took no metamagics, I chose evocation, greater evocation.

Crown of Summer is my favorite buff, and Sunbeam is my favorite spell, so I've chosen enhancements appropriately.

I have Nature's Warden IV, a Triple Pos Scimitar, and collection of disruptors. To go with my smiters, I chose constructs as a favored enemy in my ED.

It wasn't until around 17 someone suggested I might be a little squishy (running shrouds), and as I wasn't really dying as much as others (healing DoTs for teh win!), I dismissed it out of hand (well, after buying a +3 Con tome and a Minos Legens)

However, by level 20, I had to admit I was squishier than optimal. As I have avoided guilds for personal reasons for the last few months, and don't have a static party, I'm far too often subject to the play styles of others (zerg for teh lose! for me, a least).

So, I've become more of a pure caster Elementalist, and back-up healer. Now that I have Rejuvenating Cocoon, I do get to jump back into the melee, but not for long on EH and never on EE.


Anyway, now that I've rambled on, maybe you can see what I was trying to do, what I did, what I enjoyed and what I didn't.

When I can find that Kruz character, I plan on doing an LR.

I was thinking to change my dilletant.
Do I go:

• Barb? DR, amirite? (doesn't blow my socks off, is it even worth it, ever?)
• Cleric? Dilettante III would allow me to use Raise Dead scrolls, but is there anything else about it really worth it?
• Fighter? for the extra melee stuff and weapons proficencies

Without changing my play style too drastically, any suggestions as to what else I should look at while I'm under the hood?

[hermespan]

Let me preface this by saying I'm a wolf form melee druid through and through right down to my epic black dragonscale.

Helf is great for sneak attack but yea if you are a ele form twf caster druid you might benefit more from human or a different helf dilletante. Cleric dilly is nice but the extra feat from human might be better for TWF/caster types since druid is pretty feat starved and TWF is feat intensive.

You can rack up enough UMD to do RD (and teleport and DDoor, master's touch, etc etc etc) scrolls without helf. I have 65% on RD scrolls and I started UMD late in this life. I managed to squeeze in +7, +2 insight CHA into my gear using augments, and have a +3 UMD necklace I swap to when raising dead.

Not great for combat, but even on EE I can usually stay alive and finish off encounters when in the ED I use for EE PuGs (sentinel) and get everyone up afterwards. It might take a while but I usually get it done. I actually switch out most of my gear between all out dps (dreadnought) or survival mode(sentinel).

If I'm in over my head I'll switch out of wolf to water ele form, put on the necklace and scroll up the healer even in the middle of a fight. I just kite everything while doing it. In Sentinel my AC is 102 self buffed, 107 with buffs from a bard etc. and I have 36DR, and that's before I'm shield blocking.

My DPS goes down but whatever. When I'm last man standing and get everyone up, no one cares that I'm in the middle of the pack for kill count. Last EE cabal I did there were 2 people with 6 deaths, 3 with 2 deaths and I had 0, to give you some perspective on what sentinel does for wolf form S&B druid.

I've tried doing EEs in max dps mode. Simply not a great way to run them as a wolf druid. Some of the mobs are hitting for over 150 per swing. I've been hit for 300. When you have 572 HP, you are good for maybe 5 hits. I've found that 850HP is the minimum I need to go into EE (especially raids) with.

If I'm getting beat on or tanking, that gives me enough time to get off a heal, cool down, and get another heal/HoT off before I die. I've found that I can't rely on most PuG healers and I don't like relying on other people for healing as a matter of principle.

I'm still experimenting with ways to increase my DPS meaningfully when all tanked out but it's tough to do if you want to go into EE with any serious expectation of survival and more often than not, in a PuG, _someone_ needs to survive. Usually that's going to be the person with the best AC/DR/HP combination or UMD, and lately that's me, which is a little alarming when there are paladins and FvS in the group. They should be getting me up, not the other way around. I don't think that people understand EE is all about survival unless you have a good CC person. Without them, you need to sacrifice some DPS to stay alive.

In guild groups I go all out DPS. My guildies and I always have an EE capable competent crowd control character in the group. PuGs almost never do.

In these cases I'm usually only second to the barbarian in kill count.

In PuG EH CitW/or Truth raid groups, I set up like I'm going into EE. I just die a lot less.

Bottom line is you can't maximize your DPS and survive unless you have a competent guild or get into the quality grouping channels, which unfortunately are invite only. Make sure you grind out the EDs you need to enable you to handle EE content with the worst groups and you'll be ok.

For TWF survival mode this might be shadowdancer , since you get free DDoor with that one, and can sneak back to where the fight was and grab stones while invis'd. You also get evasion and a +3(W) attack (shrouding strike) with shadowdancer, among other things. Twist in melee haste boost from dreadnought and as a TWF I'm not sure it gets much better for DPS and survival rolled into one.

Your all out DPS mode ED is probably Shiradi with double rainbow. If you haven't tried it, I strongly suggest you do as a TWF caster type unless you do more TWF than offensive casting. If you are mostly TWF, look at dreadnought for all out dps, especially the tier 4 attacks and melee haste boost. Legendary power attack + shillelagh + haste boost + (appropriate T4 attack here) + epic crit enhancements = pwnage.

As TWF you aren't going to get your AC and DR high enough for EE so you need to look at being an escape artist when pugging EEs. As a S&B wolf druid it's a lot easier to tank up.

[Chobo]

Hey Phaeton
I'm working on LRing into my two-weapon-fighter druid build as well so I'll paste my findings hope it will help you.

If you want to melee youll want at least a +3 dex tome and start with 14 dex in order to get greater TWF for another +40% hits. For this build you definitely have to multi-class because you don't have enough feats to be effective at both melee and caster. If you are going the TWF route, you will definitely want Lily Petal and Orchid Blossom, even if you have to twist them in. These are a Huge boost to your damage. Nothing else compares. Which means you need to be centered, which means you must have at least ONE level of monk for the AC or else you're asking to die. So 20 pure druid is ruled out for this build. Pure druids will help your group much more by staying back and casting earthquake and sleetstorm and heals and not try to melee hit things for pebbles.

There are several options for class combinations, these are the best ones I can think of:
1) 19druid/1monk (higher SP, lvl19 wolf, strong healers build, 1 monk martial feat) <--strong option

2) 18druid/2monk (low SP, lvl18 wolf, 2 monk martial feats, evasion) <--for 1 extra feat and +1 wisdom from monk enhancement, no finishing moves.

3) 17druid/3monk (-25% spell pt cost, useless wolf, 2monk martial feat, evasion) <--only for -25% sp cost from one of the finishing moves and walk of the sun

4) 17druid/2monk/1fighter (useless SP, useless wolf, 3 martial feats, evasion) <--only for 1 extra fighter feat but sacrifice too much SP

5) 18druid/1monk/1wizard (higher SP, lvl18 wolf, 1monk feat, 1wiz feat) <--only for the slightly higher SP

You can't have less than 17 druids because you will lose out on lvl9 spells if you did. Which means you lose 4 DC from Mantle. The less druid levels you have, the smaller your mana bar. See this chart http://ddowiki.com/page/Spell_point


This is a sample build for a 19druid/1monk:
FEATS.
1 Toughness, cleric helf-d (for divine power & rez scrolls)
3 Spell Focus: Evoc
6 G Spell Focus: Evoc
9 Empower Heal
12 Heighten
15 Maximize
18 Improved Two Weapon Fighting
21 Greater Two Weapon Fighting
24 Epic Spell Focus: Evoc
Monk Martial Bonus Feats: Two Weapon Fighting,

Grandmaster final ED, twists are always:
1) Evocation Augmentation (-10 reflex on enemies)
2) Evocation Specialist (+3 Evoc DC)
3) Evocation from DI (+2 Evoc DC)


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Here is another sample build for a 17druid/3monk

FEATS.
1 Heighten, Arti helf-d (for +2 UMD)
3 Spell Focus: Evoc
6 G Spell Focus: Evoc
9 Empower Heal
12 Maximize
15 Skill focus: umd
18 Improved Two Weapon Fighting
21 Greater Two Weapon Fighting
24 Epic Spell Focus: Evoc
Monk Martial Bonus Feats: Toughness, Two Weapon Fighting
monk levels: 1, 8, 11

UMD is for Displacement (need 28UMD), Divine Power, and Raise Dead
For this build always have Aligning the Heavens, Walk of the sun casted. Always keep displacement on.

Grandmaster final ED, twists are always:
1) Evocation Augmentation (-10 reflex on enemies)
2) Evocation Specialist (+3 Evoc DC)
3) Evocation from DI (+2 Evoc DC)

Description: The general strategy is to lay down Sleet Storm and Earthquake (make sure every1 is buffed with FoM) then an ice storm for -4reflex debuff. Keep up Displacement (if u have it) and Divine Power then melee things as safely as you can to build Ki. By the way sleetstorm doesnt stack with displacement but sleetstorm does not work on Red mobs while displacement does.

By the way, it is actually possible to turn long swords into Ki weapons with this build, http://ddowiki.com/page/Whirling_Steel_Strike although not really recommended because Kama is good enough and you sacrifice a feat
^ for this you will need to either take 1 fighter level or take Helf Fighter or Helf Favored Soul

[Phaeton_Seraph]

Thanks for the replies guys.


Unfortunately, changing race or class won't be possible with this LR. I've already reached 21.
These are great things to keep in mind though.

Mostly this LR is just to optimise what I can while I farm and cap before I TR.


As for the Dilly feat, I'm still not sure.

If I do go the GTWF route, then the Fighter Dilly makes sense, I have some interesting weapons I might epic that could work for TWF (envenomed blade, cuthroat's blade...)


Cleric Dilly: I like the idea of being able to use Raise Dead scrolls with almost no failure, whereas the UMD route is likely to be more failure prone. But it does take up a fair bit of AP investment to get to that point, is there any other clear advantage to the Cleric Dilly?

Barb Dilly: No one has mentioned whether or not it's worth it, in any way.