Pure Melee Druid Viable?

[AylinIsAwesome]

I've been away from the game for about a year, and I'm thinking I want to TR my (extremely) old KotC Drow Paladin into a melee Druid. I'm planning on doing Wolf Form with Half Elf as my race for the extra 3d6 Sneak Attack damage.

I do have several questions on Druids though. I haven't seen many pure Druid builds (I found one, though the poster claimed that Quicken was unneeded for casting spells in EE when you have aggro, so I was skeptical of the build); are pure melee druids not viable? Additionally, why is it that many melee druids seem to start with 16 WIS?

Also, what ED do people normally take? I'm thinking that Shadowdancer might be a good choice for the extra Sneak Attack, Evasion at level 6, bonuses to Reflex save, and bypassing mob fort/dodge. For twists I think I might want to take Legendary Shield Mastery, Haste Boost, and Rejuvenation Cocoon.

For feats I'm thinking 3x Natural Fighting, Shield Mastery, Improved Shield Mastery, IC: Bludgeon, Empower Healing, Quicken, PA, and Toughness.

Advice would be appreciated.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Personally i'd ditch power attack & go with precision for the fortification bypass to help those sneak attack dice stick.

Destiny-wise, a lot of them have some good use... rejuvenation cocoon is a no-brainer twist though, it's just that good

Primal avatar is IMO the natural choice since it has a great selection of useful abilities -balanced attacks maxed out gives no-save knockdown on vorpal hits, tsunami is a nice anti-caster ability, stormrage is a useful dps boost, chill of winter (it's been fixed now) is a very nice guard effect & at top tier you can also get access to either evasion or the +1 crit multiplier. Also, don't overlook primal travel - +50% dodge for 12 seconds usable once every minute can be a HUGE boost to survivability, just get used to jumping backwards in a circle & dont use it near, say, the edge of a platform in the demonweb

Draconic is another great choice, to add some handy periodic elemental damage from within the middle of the fight & the daunting roar gives some handy crowd control as well as its prereq. boosting howl of terror making it occasionally useful in some easier epics.

Fatesinger is one i've found to be surprisingly good too with some nice ways to boost your capabilities, masked ball in particular is easier than casting FoM on every party member individually before casting your sleetstorm & with the wolf form attack speed plus your high doublestrike, turn the tide can dish out some serious hurt.

Unyielding sentinel is a great defensive choice, and taking healing hands plus light the dark can give some handy AoE instant healing instead of relying only on HoTs so can be a great boost if youre in a healing/battlecleric role.

Shadowdancer has a nice blend of offensive & defensive capabilities & the level drain immunity especially can & will be a massive lifesaver in many places.

[Munkenmo]

are pure melee druids not viable? Additionally, why is it that many melee druids seem to start with 16 WIS?

It's viable, but a 17/2/1 (mix of fighter/monk/wiz) are all better, especially for melee animal form.

regarding wisdom, personally i go that high, because i've opted for a centered build that uses stunning fist and snowslide.

for a S&B melee wolf druid, it's a bit overkill.

[AylinIsAwesome]

It's viable, but a 17/2/1 (mix of fighter/monk/wiz) are all better, especially for melee animal form.

I assume that is for the three extra feats. I imagine it is Overwhelming Critical and the prerequisites? I'm not sure giving up 3d6 Sneak Attack (once the enhancement pass hits anyway) would be worth it. Assuming I hit on a 2 (is this still a valid assumption?) 3d6 sneak attack will give me 199.5(1-x) damage on average (x is the fortification of the enemy in decimal form) and Overwhelming Critical would give me 2y(1-x) where y is my average base damage. Assuming x is not 1 Overwhelming Critical is better if my base damage is 99.75 or greater (though burst weapons would lower that slightly, perhaps to 90?). Is that feasible on a Druid?

regarding wisdom, personally i go that high, because i've opted for a centered build that uses stunning fist and snowslide.

for a S&B melee wolf druid, it's a bit overkill.

Makes sense.

[Charononus]

I assume that is for the three extra feats. I imagine it is Overwhelming Critical and the prerequisites? I'm not sure giving up 3d6 Sneak Attack (once the enhancement pass hits anyway) would be worth it. Assuming I hit on a 2 (is this still a valid assumption?) 3d6 sneak attack will give me 199.5(1-x) damage on average (x is the fortification of the enemy in decimal form) and Overwhelming Critical would give me 2y(1-x) where y is my average base damage. Assuming x is not 1 Overwhelming Critical is better if my base damage is 99.75 or greater (though burst weapons would lower that slightly, perhaps to 90?). Is that feasible on a Druid?




Makes sense.

I've played a pure druid wolf build to cap. You can do it, but it is much less powerful than a splash with monk ext. You pretty much need to splash to get all the feats needed to be effective melee.

[Irongutz2000]

I assume that is for the three extra feats. I imagine it is Overwhelming Critical and the prerequisites? .

The monk lvls r for hand wrap use, hand wraps allow u to use things like reinforced fists, monk past life feat, and dancing with flowers to increase or die steps. So with 2 monk lvls some gear and a twist u can go from 1d10 17-20 X3 to 4.5 or even up to 6+d10 17-20 X 3. The only ways I know to increase a full druids base damage is imp power attack.... By going monk u also gain evasion and stunning fist

[AylinIsAwesome]

The monk lvls r for hand wrap use, hand wraps allow u to use things like reinforced fists, monk past life feat, and dancing with flowers to increase or die steps. So with 2 monk lvls some gear and a twist u can go from 1d10 17-20 X3 to 4.5 or even up to 6+d10 17-20 X 3. The only ways I know to increase a full druids base damage is imp power attack.... By going monk u also gain evasion and stunning fist

I thought the idea with a melee druid was to maximize doublestrike? Is it worth using handwraps instead of a shield and one-hander (and giving up 8% doublestrike and 10 PRR)?

For Evasion I was planning on Shadowdancer. No Stunning Fist that way though.

[unbongwah]

First off, +1 to FuzzyDuck for his ED suggestions. My pure druid just hit lvl 20; I started with Primal Avatar as the obvious choice, but didn't know what to consider checking out after I max it out.

Second, I would say that any pure or mostly pure wolf druid who focuses only on melee DPS is Doing It Wrong(tm). You have buffs, heals, and no-save DPS spells like Ice Storm & Creeping Cold; if you go WIS-based (my preference), you have lots of goodies to call on (Earthquake FTW!); and best of all, once you have Essence of Shrike II and IC:Blunt @ lvl 12, you'll be generating 20 temp SPs on 20% of your attacks to power all those spells. Sadly, those temp SPs don't stack, which means you might as well use `em to help spam your spells.

Pure vs MC is the toughest choice: the capstone is really nice (as much if not more for the reduced spell cooldown as the extra SA); but the feat shortage sucks. [Sidebar: I wish you could only take the Natural Fighting feat once, but you boosted its doublestrike via Nature's Warrior enhs. Being able to squeeze in two more metamgics would mean a lot.]