Evoker

[Michele]

Panzermeyer, all the responses to your questions are detailed in the build in the first post of this thread.

Basically you have to decide if you want to go fire elemental and shiradi, or go water elemental and draconic.

I choosed water elemental and draconic because the bosses in epic elite have tons of hit points and I need to deal as much damage as possible with creeping cold and greater creeping cold.

Nothing prevents you from transforming in fire elemental while using draconic destiny and cast wall of fire and body of the sun,
or nothing prevents you from transforming in water elemental and cast creeping cold dots while using shiradi destiny.

Against trash mobs I do about the same damage when in shiradi (fire) or draconic (ice), but draconic shines against bosses when I use creeping cold spells (I'm usually busy to run while fighting a boss, so I don't have the time to cast spells other than creeping cold dots. creeping cold is not famous for proccing shiradi a lot ).

[Panzermeyer]

Season's Herald Enhancements: creeping cold x2, call lightning x2, word of balance x1, spring resurgence x1, everything else

Human Enhancements: human versatility spell power boost, human adaptability wisdom, human versatility skill boost, human greater adaptability intelligence, fighting style traditionalist caster x3

So you have switching things to not use Nature's Warrior at all to get the additional Wisdom?

Thanks for the responses and sharing all this work.

Like others have said, most druid build topics out there are about animal form builds.

Though I am sure it is viable and excellent, I really did not like running around in animal form. I much prefer being a caster and I have so far really enjoyed my druid casting and the new selection of spells.

[Michele]

I see your first post has been updated with your new build specs. Water Ellie form dealing direct damage then? Is this mainly predicated on gear?

Being new, I don't have the greatest caster gear. So wondering if the fire ellie shiradi proc route would be better.

Going that route from your previous posts it sounds like I should not take Maximize and I don't have the completionist feat. What would you recommend in their stead? It sounded like in your fire ellie/shiradi build you have both the wizard and sorc active past life feats. Both of which I can get.

water elemental is easier to build because you inflict -4 saves with mantle of icy soul and your creeping cold spells will benefit a lot.
fire elemental + shiradi is ok, but I unleash more damage in ice draconic (I tested both and I do more damage in ice draconic).

I listed in the build (first post in the thread) and as you can see it's very easy to acquire: you can be good with just a silver ingot arcanum (get it cheap from auction) and a sage's locket (get it 100% as end reward of a quest).

About maximize and empower feats: I played all epic elite content and I don't miss them at all. But I updated the build including maximize spell because past life arcane prodigy gives only 145 spell points, and because maximize feat applied to creeping cold sla and storm of vengeance sla is nice to have.
As I wrote in the build, you can get empower spell instead of completionist feat if you are not a completionist yet.
And if you don't have access to past life arcane initiate then choose a feat between empower healing, heighten or enlarge (I would take enlarge if you want to use all the season's herald SLAs).

How have you changed the build since you originally posted it?

You originally had this listed. So it sounds like you dropped maximize and empower, what did you put in it's place since you already had MT and IMT?

the build is not changed too much from the original one: I only changed shiradi with draconic, and past life arcane prodigy with maximize spell (many players will like more this new updated build because it can include maximize and empower easily).



Also what twists are you using if you are running in Shiradi and no longer using Energy Burst?

the twists are listed in the build I post in the first post of the thread.

Out of curiosity, it would seem you are mainly in Fire Ellie form. And using body of the sun and firewall, why choose ice for the Draconic Incarnation then?

No, I'm currently in water elemental form using draconic. my old build was fire elemental in shiradi.

So you have switching things to not use Nature's Warrior at all to get the additional Wisdom?

I decided to sacrifice the +2 wisdom from nature's warrior for the +22 universal spell power got by spending more in the season's herald tree: the epic elite bosses are the druid weakness, and against them you only need spell power

[Panzermeyer]

I decided to sacrifice the +2 wisdom from nature's warrior for the +22 universal spell power got by spending more in the season's herald tree: the epic elite bosses are the druid weakness, and against them you only need spell power

Yea I think I might do a LR on my current guy even though I still have one more Druid Heroic life to get out of the way. I am playing up to 28 to get a ETR and finish off my primal ETR's. I was just checking on gear cause I did not want to farm out too much, after all he intends on ending up as an Arti.

But the more and more I play this build and enjoy the druid, the more I am thinking of taking my other project which was a TR caster project planning on eventually being a Pale Master, and I think I might make him a druid.

[Mandelia]

I am currently running a druid in Draconic and it is a blast. I started out with cold as my focus and I agree the numbers are extremely satisfying but I ended up switching to electric however to utilize the reflex debuff along with the magister twist that does the same since they stack and work on red names. After that -20 starts to settle in, no more evades or saves and everything melts since this also helps the rest of the casters in the party get their 2 cents in better. I like to run to engagements in non elemental forms to max the initial electric damage but with shiradis around I find myself staying in elemental form even in non engagements just to keep myself from dying in random poison traps.

[Michele]

updated equipment and DC due to the new update 21 wyrm-wrought weapons:

Base Evocation DC = 10 + 23 wis modifier +3 epic spell focus evocation +1 past life arcane initiate +3 magister evocation specialist +2 draconic precise evocation +2 evocation augment +6 wyrm-wrought orb +3 past lives sorcerer +1 strength of the solstice = 54

right hand level 20: alchemical scimitar with devotion +90, healing lore VI, combustion +90, ice lore VI, efficient metamagic maximize II, evocation focus II, arcane augmentation IX
left hand level 20: madstone skull with glaciation +90 purple slot and exc int +1 yellow slot
left hand level 24: wyrm-wrought orb with glaciation +150
left hand level 26: wyrm-wrought orb with glaciation +150, wyrmic evocation focus +6

[Mandelia]

The wyrm-wrought orb breaks druidic oath.

[Michele]

The wyrm-wrought orb breaks druidic oath.

oh no, this sucks!
I need that +10 spell power from human traditionalist caster...

have you already tested it on lamannia?

[Mandelia]

I tested this on live. It is made of metal and is considered a shield.

[Fhauvial]

Why would they consider an orb a shield? This makes no sense.

[unbongwah]

I tested this on live. It is made of metal and is considered a shield.

That's so dumb, esp. since all other orbs are gem, inc. the new one in U21.

[Michele]

I tested this on live. It is made of metal and is considered a shield.

thank you very much for the information

[Panzermeyer]

It would seem to me with the new update at least the Thunderhold area that going ice specced would be very difficult. SO much stuff seem to to be immune to the cold dots. The Fire Ellie Sharadi seemed to handle itself very very well even under level.

[Michele]

It would seem to me with the new update at least the Thunderhold area that going ice specced would be very difficult. SO much stuff seem to to be immune to the cold dots. The Fire Ellie Sharadi seemed to handle itself very very well even under level.

being ice specced doesn't mean that you can't transform in fire elemental Form and cast Wall of fire + body of the sun and earthquake and equip a combustion weapon of fire lore.

I killed the madstone crater giant skeleton boss at epic elite: it's only a matter of time.

But I agree that for a druid is difficult to kill a boss without using creeping cold spells

[CThruTheEgo]

Thanks for this build and thread. There is a lot of good info and perspectives here on variations for caster druids. It has certainly given me a lot to consider for my own build. My druid is still in heroics atm, so I'm lacking the experience to contribute much to the discussion, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this build/thread.

Word of Balance DOESN'T hit 80-90% of mobs in game for 2 ticks: I say 31% of them are hit twice because many of them are lawful evil, neutral evil, pure neutral, etcetera, and those are hit once or are not damaged at all.
Read "http://ddowiki.com/page/Category:Monsters_by_alignment" if you want to be more accurate:
Chaotic Evil monsters? (595)
Lawful Evil monsters? (602)
Neutral Evil monsters? (256)
Chaotic Good monsters? (11)
Lawful Good monsters? (7)
Neutral Good monsters? (4)
Chaotic Neutral monsters? (47)
Lawful Neutral monsters? (25)
True Neutral monsters?? (388)

1935 : 602 = 100 : x
x = 31%

And just for the sake of clarity and accuracy, based on the numbers you provide here, word of balance hits 1215 mob types twice (63%), 332 mob types once (17%), and 388 mob types are immune (20%). This does not take into account spell pen, however, so these numbers will be lower in practice. Also, this is only looking at types of mobs based on alignment. In the actual game you will encounter larger or smaller numbers of the same types of mobs and so it will affect a larger or smaller percentage of mobs encountered based on that, and this will change based on the content you are running, of course.

[Michele]

build updated for the incoming update 23 (filled the new harper enhancement tree).

[Michele]

inspired by the Gingerspyce build, I changed my build to use the shield.

I noticed that twisting "legendary shield mastery" gives +30 prr instead of only +15 with the following result:

PRR = +12 past lives +45 heavy armor +25 heavy armor proficiency +15 tower shield +15 improved shield mastery +30 (bug: should be +15) legendary shield mastery +24 guardian's ring +10 epic damage reduction = 176

With this PRR, in "Brothers of the Forge" epic elite, each iron defender still deals to me 100 damage per hit.

[Vanhooger]

inspired by the Gingerspyce build, I changed my build to use the shield.

I noticed that twisting "legendary shield mastery" gives +30 prr instead of only +15 with the following result:

PRR = +12 past lives +45 heavy armor +25 heavy armor proficiency +15 tower shield +15 improved shield mastery +30 (bug: should be +15) legendary shield mastery +24 guardian's ring +10 epic damage reduction = 176

With this PRR, in "Brothers of the Forge" epic elite, each iron defender still deals to me 100 damage per hit.

What about before?

[Michele]

What about before?

In my old build I had evasion with 55 reflex saves (not enough to survive in necro 4 epic elites), low prr (less than 40) and 20 more dodge than now.
having 130 more prr (and 85 magical resistance rating) is better than having 20 more points of dodge.

[Vanhooger]

In my old build I had evasion with 55 reflex saves (not enough to survive in necro 4 epic elites), low prr (less than 40) and 20 more dodge than now.
having 130 more prr (and 85 magical resistance rating) is better than having 20 more points of dodge.

Way better!