Gingerspyce's caster/healer/quasi-tank build

[unbongwah]

I know druids were made a long time after black one skeles, but it's almost as if they were designed specificly to thwart druids, who's primary attacks are ice, fire, slash, and pierce damage. It's almost more effective to drop out of wolf and melee with a ghostbane club.

Druids don't get a lot of non-elemental DPS spells, unfortunately. Ice Storm does bludgeoning dmg as well as cold, so it's semi-useful against blackbones; likewise Flame Strike is half-fire half-divine dmg. Splinterbolt & Spike Growth do piercing dmg: not helpful against skellies, but they can occasionally be useful. Salt Ray is Force dmg; the stun does nothing against undead, ofc. Word of Balance is great against CE/LE foes, but you won't get it until druid lvl 11; Sunburst SLA at lvl 12 is great against undead (and not much else).

[cru121]

cru121, are you sure that the Darkleaf Banded is still dropping?

I did get one in April 2014.

Sunburst SLA at lvl 12 is great against undead (and not much else).

For DPS yes. For the blinding effect, Sunburst remains useful until end game.

[Vooduspyce]

Druids don't get a lot of non-elemental DPS spells, unfortunately. Ice Storm does bludgeoning dmg as well as cold, so it's semi-useful against blackbones; likewise Flame Strike is half-fire half-divine dmg. Splinterbolt & Spike Growth do piercing dmg: not helpful against skellies, but they can occasionally be useful. Salt Ray is Force dmg; the stun does nothing against undead, ofc. Word of Balance is great against CE/LE foes, but you won't get it until druid lvl 11; Sunburst SLA at lvl 12 is great against undead (and not much else).

Not that it's a very good spell or applicable to Blackbones, but worth mentioning that Ice Flowers also does 1/2 cold and 1/2 piercing damage. I only use it when I know I've got mana to burn.

[Tuffgar]

Level 13 currently. I finally broke down my Elite streak and switched over to full speed zergs in hard instead. I have no doubt that I could have continued to knock out elite runs, but it was starting to get really slow and tedious, and I didn't have the patience for it.

I think it's important to note that body of the sun doesn't work exactly like Firewall. When a creature stands in a firewall with evasion, they might evade the first tick, but afterwords they don't get a save. Body of the sun appears to allow a reflex save every tick. I might be misinterpreting the evade message from monsters, but I THINK this is what's happening. It's still a pretty useful spell to have, even so.

Strangely enough I used wolf form all the way up until I got access to elemental form. I don't hardly melee anything anymore, and instead rely on SLAs, creeping cold dots, and firewall/icestorm for a majority of my damage. The wolf pet also seems to be losing it's effectiveness, and it's dying a lot more often, despite having augmented summoning and ship buffs.

With my preferred style of play, at this level it doesn't really isn't performing too much differently than a wizard using a shield. Instead of having defensive spells such as blur and displace, there's the heal over time spells. And lacking evasion hasn't been as much of a detriment as I expected, which is a pleasant surprise.

[cru121]

I think it's important to note that body of the sun doesn't work exactly like Firewall. When a creature stands in a firewall with evasion, they might evade the first tick, but afterwords they don't get a save. Body of the sun appears to allow a reflex save every tick. I might be misinterpreting the evade message from monsters

Two issues:
* Body of the Sun is Fortitude half.
* Game is bugged and displays Evade where it shouldn't.

[Vooduspyce]

I think it's important to note that body of the sun doesn't work exactly like Firewall. When a creature stands in a firewall with evasion, they might evade the first tick, but afterwords they don't get a save. Body of the sun appears to allow a reflex save every tick. I might be misinterpreting the evade message from monsters, but I THINK this is what's happening. It's still a pretty useful spell to have, even so.

I have always found BotS to be exceptionally powerful at L13 and for several levels thereafter. Everything that's not immune to fire just melts away if it gets close to me. Love it!

The wolf pet also seems to be losing it's effectiveness, and it's dying a lot more often, despite having augmented summoning and ship buffs.

Yep that's about right. Time to swap out Augment Summoning for something more useful.

[Caprice]

As of today's update, Evasion is even less important for this build. The Medium armor + Large shield combo is going to mitigate a nice chunk of most magic damage - one third right off the top, basically (or more like 40% off for Heavy & Large Shield).

I'm at 14 now and I too find that the Wolf has lost most of its value. I renamed mine over the weekend to something unflattering since it is now just good for pulling levers, and in real fight it's little more than a SP drain. At least with its high Reflex saves and Evasion (plus Spring's Resurgence) I can comfortably send it after trapped levers without too much worry about losing SP.

FWIW I solo'd heroic elite ADQ with my less well-equipped first life Druid much like Nacho did in the video series. My twist is that I tried picking up Heavy Armor Proficiency in heroics to get higher AC so I could compare misses from Lailat with what Scary saw in the videos. While I believe that there were noticeably more misses it was not enough of a difference that I could comfortably stay mano-a-mano against her, and I ended up kiting her with SLAs most of the time. Prior to that run I had some vague thought in my mind that maybe I would see if I could tackle the raid too, but I wasn't doing well enough in the quest to feel like that was going to work out, and then I realized that when she enrages at 20% HP she becomes immune to every Druid SLA that she wasn't already immune to. I didn't really feel like kiting her around for an hour with just GCC doing damage was going to make my day.

I'm still quite happy with the build though!

[Zachski]

Yep that's about right. Time to swap out Augment Summoning for something more useful.

Then turns around and releases a video of a wolf soloing an epic miniboss XD

[Elucidus]

I have been using a variant of this with Sun Elf to include the 1 level of cleric. I have to say it is working out remarkably well. The damage output is pretty good and the survival aspect especially with update 23. I am wearing White Dragonplate Armor and have a Wall of Wood. I am only in the high teens right now and my healing output is significant as well. Cure serious (only quickened) heal around 140 HPs.

[Vooduspyce]

I have been using a variant of this with Sun Elf to include the 1 level of cleric. I have to say it is working out remarkably well. The damage output is pretty good and the survival aspect especially with update 23. I am wearing White Dragonplate Armor and have a Wall of Wood. I am only in the high teens right now and my healing output is significant as well. Cure serious (only quickened) heal around 140 HPs.

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the build!

[Caprice]

I finally realized that since Body of the Sun is a buff rather than an AoE, it can be Extended. I now like it better than Wall of Fire - it's better damage, mobile, and more cost effective, although note that enemy casters can dispel it easily since they cheat on the DCs. They aren't using Gust and Cacophony spells as often for clearing AoEs now so it's more noticeable.

[Vooduspyce]

I finally realized that since Body of the Sun is a buff rather than an AoE, it can be Extended. I now like it better than Wall of Fire - it's better damage, mobile, and more cost effective, although note that enemy casters can dispel it easily since they cheat on the DCs. They aren't using Gust and Cacophony spells as often for clearing AoEs now so it's more noticeable.

Body of the Sun is superior to Firewall in so many ways!

1. Can be extended
2. Moves with you!
3. Can't be blown out by Gust of Wind, Ice Storm, etc.
4. Costs less to cast

The one disadvantage vs. Firewall, as you point out, is that it can be dispelled. It also cannot be used in any form except fire elemental, so that can be a disadvantage too.

[unbongwah]

What annoys me about BotS is it can't be Heightened, Maximized, nor Empowered. Still, Max firewall + BotS makes short work of most mobs, esp. trolls.

[Vooduspyce]

What annoys me about BotS is it can't be Heightened, Maximized, nor Empowered. Still, Max firewall + BotS makes short work of most mobs, esp. trolls.

BotS scales better on its own compared to Firewall, so even unmaximized and unempowered, the dps of BotS keeps up with max+emp Firewall. Heighten would be nice tho.

[Caprice]

Technically BotS costs more per cast than FW: 30 sp vs 25 sp. It's more efficient in terms of damage/cost, and with Extend added it costs less per unit time (40 sp for 1 minute vs 25 SP for 30 seconds), but the base cost per cast is higher. Yes, I'm pedantic.

I don't mind not being able to Max-Emp BotS. I feel that there are very few times when I want to Max-Emp any spell I have to pay full SP cost for (i.e. non-SLA), since IMO very few mobs are worth that big a chunk of my blue bar and with good base spellpower the value of the metas is somewhat diminished.

A further plus to BotS is that it cheerfully coexists with other AoEs, unlike for instance Wall of Fire and Ice Storm which overwrite each other. I am finding it rather convenient to buff with BotS then drop an Ice Storm on top of myself and turtle up; this lets me do multiple damage types (Fire, Cold, and untyped) for those moderately common situations where enemies resist or are immune to one or two. Maximizing BotS would be more cost efficient were it possible, but really the only time when I really find BotS not to be overkill is when some of the enemies are immune to fire and paying the same SP cost to add more damage types is working well for me personally.

[Caprice]

Last night as a level 16 I solo'd Sinvala in heroic elite "Mired In Kobolds". I was overlevel (my 16 vs quest's 15) so it is less of an accomplishment, although she is a CR30 so I don't feel too bad about it, but nothing about my setup required the extra level so I am sure that others could do the same if they wanted to do it at level. Most of the ~20 minute fight was me circling her and using my SLAs on cooldown (or after the last tick for CC). I ran out of SP when she was down to ~30% HP; I could keep up with her damage under Echoes and I could have finished the fight that way, but instead I used my first ever pot on this character to speed up the fight. The key for me was keeping in motion in a pattern that avoided most of her breath attacks, and making sure to refresh Spring Resurgence every time it triggered (which was fairly often). I had one bad moment where she knocked me down but Resurgence carried me through that too. I'm not sure I'd call it fun but I'm pleased to have pulled it off without too much trouble, and I consider it another feather in the cap of the build.

[Vooduspyce]

Last night as a level 16 I solo'd Sinvala in heroic elite "Mired In Kobolds". I was overlevel (my 16 vs quest's 15) so it is less of an accomplishment, although she is a CR30 so I don't feel too bad about it, but nothing about my setup required the extra level so I am sure that others could do the same if they wanted to do it at level. Most of the ~20 minute fight was me circling her and using my SLAs on cooldown (or after the last tick for CC). I ran out of SP when she was down to ~30% HP; I could keep up with her damage under Echoes and I could have finished the fight that way, but instead I used my first ever pot on this character to speed up the fight. The key for me was keeping in motion in a pattern that avoided most of her breath attacks, and making sure to refresh Spring Resurgence every time it triggered (which was fairly often). I had one bad moment where she knocked me down but Resurgence carried me through that too. I'm not sure I'd call it fun but I'm pleased to have pulled it off without too much trouble, and I consider it another feather in the cap of the build.

I bet that woulda been funny to watch. Nice work! Spring's Resurgence ftw!!

[unbongwah]

I feel that there are very few times when I want to Max-Emp any spell I have to pay full SP cost for (i.e. non-SLA), since IMO very few mobs are worth that big a chunk of my blue bar and with good base spellpower the value of the metas is somewhat diminished.

For me the tipping point is when a Max'd spell costs fewer SPs than two casts of the same spell and mobs have enough HPs that a single un-meta'ed spell isn't enough (or at least too slow). Max is +25 SPs - 9 SPs for Efficient Maximize enhs - 2 SPs from Gtr Cunning Trinket = +14 SPs, so that starts becoming cost-effective with Firewall and Ice Storm (25 SPs vs 39 SPs).

It's still a situational thing, though; do the extra SPs you spend on Maximize end the fight quicker so you spend a lot fewer SPs on healing? If the answer is "yes," then Max those spells!

[Caprice]

I bet that woulda been funny to watch. Nice work! Spring's Resurgence ftw!!

If they let me buy a bunny suit & ears from the DDO Store maybe I'll repeat the experience, record it, speed it up 5 times, and set it to Yakety Sax. OTOH I capped my XP again last night and took another level so maybe it won't be quite as "impressive".

[Caprice]

For me the tipping point is when a Max'd spell costs fewer SPs than two casts of the same spell and mobs have enough HPs that a single un-meta'ed spell isn't enough (or at least too slow). Max is +25 SPs - 9 SPs for Efficient Maximize enhs - 2 SPs from Gtr Cunning Trinket = +14 SPs, so that starts becoming cost-effective with Firewall and Ice Storm (25 SPs vs 39 SPs).

It's still a situational thing, though; do the extra SPs you spend on Maximize end the fight quicker so you spend a lot fewer SPs on healing? If the answer is "yes," then Max those spells!

I more or less agree with your reasoning/math but I've only taken 1/3 on Efficient Maximize and my trinket slot is otherwise occupied at the moment*. I'm not sure of my exact spellpower but let's say its ~150 right now. So for me the current math is casting Maximize for +22 SP and doing +1.5x damage, or casting another spell for 25 SP and doing +2.5x damage. Generally I am going to prefer the latter if I can stack spells (e.g. BotS & anything else), and at least so far I've had more issues with enemy elemental immunities than with enemies outlasting a BotS cast significantly, although I am usually also using my other SLAs and meleeing to whittle down the highest HP enemies. When I get to the point of having +14 SP Maximizes (or +9 SP, with a Meridian Fragment) then those are "worth" more than the extra spell (1.5x / 14 * 25 ~= 2.68x damage/SP equivalent, or 9 SP ~= 4.17x). And of course in this case the base damage of BotS is much higher than any of the other Druid AoEs so Maximizing it would be really effective.

I like Extend mostly because I can get at least 2 fights out of a BotS with it on even considering time running between them, for only a third more cost.

* Yes, I could swap it in and out as needed. However not having to do so is a major QoL issue for me considering how short most fights are. YMMV.