Nature's Warden Based Druid Advice

[Daemakon]

Excuse the name, I got warden confused with warrior.

I am coming back after a semi-long hiatus and all the U19 stuff has me really excited. What is the current state or Bear and Wolf druids after the patch? I have always wanted to play a Bear/Wolf ever since the druid class came out, but I remember Bear especially was bad back then. It seemed like casting was the only way to go. Is there a way to make a viable Nature's Warrior in the current era? After a bit of pouring over all of the new enhancements for all the classes I found some initial synergy between NW Druid, Shin Monk, and TA rogue. I thought that stacking Dex/Wis/Con, might be an easy thing to accomplish and the staff bonuses from all three classes sort of meld together decently well. I gain some decent bonus sneak attack from rogue + wolf, dex counts for AC and damage thanks to TA, wis stack to AC from monk combos with druid casting, and hopefully decent self heals with healing amp from monk druid and human. Thinking maybe 14/3/3? Has anyone tried something like this? I am sure there are a who slew of things I need to know about druid, and the new patch in general, but my first impression of this combo seemed good. Any tips and advice are welcome, thank you in advance.

[Violith]

Excuse the name, I got warden confused with warrior.

I am coming back after a semi-long hiatus and all the U19 stuff has me really excited. What is the current state or Bear and Wolf druids after the patch? I have always wanted to play a Bear/Wolf ever since the druid class came out, but I remember Bear especially was bad back then. It seemed like casting was the only way to go. Is there a way to make a viable Nature's Warrior in the current era? After a bit of pouring over all of the new enhancements for all the classes I found some initial synergy between NW Druid, Shin Monk, and TA rogue. I thought that stacking Dex/Wis/Con, might be an easy thing to accomplish and the staff bonuses from all three classes sort of meld together decently well. I gain some decent bonus sneak attack from rogue + wolf, dex counts for AC and damage thanks to TA, wis stack to AC from monk combos with druid casting, and hopefully decent self heals with healing amp from monk druid and human. Thinking maybe 14/3/3? Has anyone tried something like this? I am sure there are a who slew of things I need to know about druid, and the new patch in general, but my first impression of this combo seemed good. Any tips and advice are welcome, thank you in advance.

unfortunately Stat to damage doesnt apply to wolves, so wolf form only gets str to damage no matter what enhancements or weapons you got. I played a wolf form druid since the class came out, started as a pure up to 18, with shield feats and such to double strike. at 18 I switched out a few feats and went monk2 for stunning fist/evasion for epics, he's my main (3rd life, so a few more pts to spend) and it has been great. the enhancement pass only made it better. I went pure wis build for stunning fist DC, and he uses handwraps for the W on the wolf form (other weapons dont give W bonuses to wolf, atleast that I know of, tehy might've changed it)

monks elemental attacks (the t2(?) in each of the enhancement trees for monks) are decent, unbalancing strike is nice for characters with sneak attack since it bluffs and makes mobs susceptible to sneak attacks.

[angrysn1per]

8 druid/12 monk or 9 druid/9 monk/2 whatever (I used fighter) using handwraps works nicely since you get the 1d10 base damage from winter wolf form which is modified by the monk's increased unarmed damage.