New druid epic feat worth it?

[Vooduspyce]

Here's Round 2!

I'll list the details here again so you don't have to scroll up:

In the experiment, for each of the 4 spells affected by the feat, I took 10 data points before and after taking Master of the Wilds.
For Creeping Cold and Produce Flame, I made sure to be in the same winter/summer season both before and after.
I also got rid of Empyrian Magic so that the damage I was doing with Produce Flame wouldn't scale unintentionally.
For Call Lightning and Produce Flame I used spiders in the Vale of Twilight as my test subjects. For Word of Balance I used Vale troglodytes. For Creeping Cold I needed a mob with greater hit points, so I used mudmen from EE Don't Drink the Water. The Creeping Cold data reflects the final damage ticked in each casting.
I did all experimenting in Round 1 and 2 in water elemental form.

Differences from original method:

• Before and after are in Primal Avatar, so benefiting from the added caster levels from the destiny
• Used only non-crits for data points.
• Curiously, the caster level, as indicated in the combat log, did not change, though the data shows a significant difference between the before and after data.

Here is the data I collected. In each column the data is ordered from highest to lowest.

w/o MW = without Master of the Wilds
w/MW = with Master of the Wilds
CL=caster level as indicated by the combat log, which did not indicate a caster level for WOB
% diff = "with Master" average as a percentage of "without Master" average.



As expected, there is a bigger difference between the before and after. For me, definitely still not worth it

[Vooduspyce]

I took the corresponding feat for my sorcerer, and saw a jump in damage of about 50%

The average increase in my new data is 48% so that fits with your experience with the sorc version.

And as for WoB, does it even have a MCL? The wiki doesn't list one and I have no high level druids I could check the in-game spell description on.

The spell description for WOB says up to level 20.

[Sunnie]

Here's Round 2!



As expected, there is a bigger difference between the before and after. For me, definitely still not worth it

Those numbers look a lot more like what shouhld be expected.
Call Lightning goes from MCL or 19 to 29, that's actually a tad less then the 59% increase in damage, but nothing outside what's expected.
Creeping Cold goes from MCL 22 to MCL 32, but you're (according to the log) only taking advantage of 8 of those levels, so a tad less than 39% increase fits.
Produce Flame is way overperforming, were you in water elemental form by chance? That would mean it went from MCL 13 to 23, and that would fit with the 72% increase you got. In fire form it would go from 19 to 29, and get about the same relative increase in damage as Call Lightning.
As for WoB... hmm. My guess is that it doesn't benefit from the +4 caster levels in Season's Herald since it's not a seasonal spell. That would mean you only get 5 or 6 additional levels on top of your regular 20 and can't make use of the full 10 your MCL gained. The increase of 21% in damage is a bit less than expected if you gain 6 levels, still within the limits if you cast it at CL 25. Could be a freak occurrence, but it does appear Druids can't get the full advantage of MoW for WoB.


In other words: Druids need more ways to buff their caster level.

[Vooduspyce]

were you in water elemental form by chance?

Did all testing in water elemental form.

[Sunnie]

Did all testing in water elemental form.

That explains Produce Flame being such an outlier then. The initial -3 to CL and MCL makes the following +10 a larger portion of the total.

With your testing you've certainly highlighted a weakness of caster druids: A lack of ways to increase their Caster Level. Could be something for that third tree they're supposedly getting I guess.

[unbongwah]

In other words: Casters need more ways to buff their caster level.

FTFY.

Is there any epic caster gear besides Greater Might of the Abishai set which boosts druid caster levels?

[Vooduspyce]

FTFY.

Is there any epic caster gear besides Greater Might of the Abishai set which boosts druid caster levels?

Arcane Augmentation works on druid spells that are also on the arcane list (Wall of Fire, Ice Storm, Fire Trap, Sunburst). WAI? prob not, lol.

[Vargouille]

I just got done running some tests and I took video, which I hope to post later tonight with data. But I saw the same issues as you with caster level changing minimally, if at all, according to the combat log. The numbers, for all 4 spells affected by Master of the Wilds were either basically the same, or only slightly better with produce flame which appeared to be casting 2 levels higher with Master of the Wilds.

The combat log is unfortunately not highly accurate for caster levels, because it doesn't respect maximum caster levels (I believe). It may report that you are casting at level 25, but if the spell has a maximum caster level of 15 then you are effectively casting at level 15. This is feedback we'd like to improve, but there are some problematic technical issues involved.

I thought they already implemented the changes to the way caster level was calculated, but apparently not. They are supposed to be changing it so that epic levels are added to caster level (thus not ED based). I couldn't find it in a quick read of the release notes, so looks like this hasn't happened yet. Not sure when this change will happen but I think it's supposed to happen soon and it should have a big impact on the performance of the "Master of" feats.

As others have noted, this is something we have publicly discussed and gathered feedback from players. We do not have any current plans to change this, though it is something we could potentially (re)consider in the future.

There were certainly a wide variety of opinions on that discussion from the player base.

[unbongwah]

Arcane Augmentation works on druid spells that are also on the arcane list (Wall of Fire, Ice Storm, Fire Trap, Sunburst). WAI? prob not, lol.

I was mostly wondering about the SLAs, ofc, but that's good to know. Maybe Twilight is less useless to divine casters than I thought!

[Caprice]

To the best of my knowledge CL increases are fully multiplicative with spellpower. So based on those numbers of the damage benefit being about +20% damage outside of Primal sphere and +50% in Primal sphere, my napkin math is that for a Druid with a moderate 300 standing spellpower, using Maximize, Empower, and Intensify for +300 more, MotW should contribute about as much damage as another +140 spellpower outside Primal (=20% x (1.0 base + 6.0 spellpower multiplier)), or as +350 spellpower in Primal.

That's more effective than Empower or Intensify, with the significant downside that it only affects just the 4 spells & their SLAs, and the minor upside of being SP free. If you are one of the power casters who are pushing 600+ standing spellpower, MotW is equivalent to adding +200/+500 spellpower to those 4 spells, making it superior to Maximize within that narrow scope.

I agree that it would be better if we could make full use of the MCL bonus, but since those spells represent the majority of the casting I did on my caster druid, I'd call the feat worth consideration. I'd probably take Intensify at 24 and MotW at 27, although if I was building for Greater Ruin for raids then MotW is the feat I'd drop first.

[HastyPudding]

So if the druid feat really doesn't make a major improvement, would this be the same for the other caster classes? As far as I can tell, all of the (major) spellcasting classes have an epic feat of this type. I was skeptical about these feats, before, and now I'm even more so now that we have data coming in.

[unbongwah]

So if the druid feat really doesn't make a major improvement, would this be the same for the other caster classes?

Bear in mind druids are a little unusual, insofar as their SLAs have higher inherent MCL than other casters: Produce Flame and Call Lightning are MCL:15; Creeping Cold is MCL:18; WoB is MCL:20. What we're seeing here is that with Master of Wilds, druids have a hard time hitting that MCL+10 threshold with some of these spells, particularly if they don't use a Primal ED.

Compare that to, say, Earth Savant: Acid Spray is MCL:5; Acid Arrow and Acid Blast are MCL:10. The same is true of the other Savant SLAs; they're mostly in the MCL:5 or MCL:10 range. So they not only benefit more from the +10 MCL (relative to their base MCL), but it's also easier to hit that new cap, even on a MCed Savant or one which is another ED (i.e., Shiradi or EA usually). Particularly since wizs & sorcs benefit from Arcane Augmentation gear but divines don't (apart from the cross-caster spells Ginger cited). Similar issue with arties; their SLAs are all MCL:10.

I don't know if these feats are enough to keep these spells relevant in current endgame; but I believe arcanes will have an easier time maximizing their gains from them due to the lower MCL threshold.

[Silverleafeon]

I did this in Unyielding Sentinel ED.

Granting your base Caster Level as 20, yet the same tests done in the more oblivious Shridai would have granted a base Caster Level of 25.
This alone skews the final figures greatly.

For example:

Produce Flame max caster level is normal 15, with MotW it increases to 25.
In Shirdai this does 25d2 + 30 base fire damage before spell power modifiers, or an increase of 25/15 power.
In Unyielding SEntinel the base increase would only be 20/15 power.


Creeping Cold is more difficult to calculate, due to seasonal changes along with changes in elemental form.
However one must consider that that Max Caster level before applying MotW is 18, and would be increased to 28 with the feat.
Therefore, having a base caster level of 20 from Unyielding Sentinel would produce far less impressive results than having a base caster level of 25 from Shirdai (I am do not consider Fury of the Wild a caster ED, nor do I see any advantages of Primal over Shirdai for a druid bent on mainly casting spells, and not interested in tree form.)

An example would be third phase base before spell power would increase from 3d4+36 (42.5 ave) to 3d4+48 while in Shirdai ED, yet in Unyielding it would not increase unless elemental form/seaons gave it at least +1 caster level.



Call Lightning has been for my Druid main as source of pleasure, 15d6+(15*5) w/o MotW increasing to 25d6+(15*5) base damage before spell power.



Word of Balance starts at caster level 20, so expecting to gain any benefit from increasing your max caster level while failing to increase your true caster levels is total folly. In Unyielding Sentinal there is zero increase in power.

However, use a proper casting ED such as Shirdai against a chaotic (or lawful) evil foe then suddenly you gain from ((10*(9~16))*2) to ((12*(9~16))*2), and while this might seem a mild increase of 6/5 power the spell itself hit very hard against such foes.



Overall, the change from U28 to U29 for Druids and Sorcerer has been very promising in my experiences.



Master of Earth while in Earth Savant along with being in Draconic ED based upon earth has these results:
Very nice numbers even with terrible DCs.

Even in Shirdai (which drops base values down to 20 before modifiers), numbers are very nice.


Black Dragon Bolt spell w/o metas, Acid Arrow SLA with metas, Acid Blast SLA with metas along with Acid Blast spell w/o metas is a strong combination even in shridai.

The lowly Acid Spray is actually good when augmented by Master of Earth feat.


Master of Cold does not preform as well as Master Earth, so taking it as an extra Master feat has not worked out well.




Adding the option of Greater Ruin, the choice of




For reference:

Produce Flames: Flames as bright as a torch appear in your open hand and launch towards your foes. They deal 1d2+2 fire damage per caster level, up to 15d2 + 30 at caster level 15.


Creeping Cold: Description:
Deals on-going cold damage to the target every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. The damage starts small, and grows larger as the spell continues. Each phase lasts 4 seconds.
First phase: 1d4 Cold damage +2 per 3 caster levels (max +12 at caster level 18).
Second phase: 2d4 Cold damage +4 per 3 caster levels (max +24 at caster level 18).
Third phase: 3d4 Cold damage +6 per 3 caster levels (max +36 at caster level 18).


Calls forth a bolt of lightning, which strikes your chosen target for 1d5+5 damage for every caster level up to 15. A successful reflex save reduces this damage by half.


You utter elder words of balance, judging those who stray too far from the path of neutrality. Targets with an alignment one step away from True Neutral, such as Chaotic Neutral, take 9-16 bane damage for every two caster levels up to level 20. Targets who are two steps away, such as Chaotic Evil, take that damage twice. True Neutral targets are immune to this spells.




Acid Blast: Description:
Creates a gout of acid that explodes on impact, dealing 1d3+3 acid damage per caster level. Maximum damage 10d3+30 at caster level 10.

Affected area is the standard circular AOE area size - the same as fireball.



Acid Arrow: Description:
Deals 2d4, plus 1 acid damage per 2 caster levels (max 2d4+10), to a target with a magical arrow of acid. The damage repeats itself every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. The arrow has double spell range.


Acid Spray: Description:
A cone of burning acid shoots forth, damaging targets in the area of the spray for 1d2+2 acid damage per caster level (up to a maximum of 5d2+10 damage at caster level 5). A successful Reflex save reduces the damage by half.

[Seikojin]

I feel ya. I am hoping that the druid pass (whenever that comes) will do more for summoning. The direction they are going in leads me to think it will. I'd love to make one of my druids a summoner.

I hope a pass on druids allows a more summoner path as well. PETPARTY!

[Silverleafeon]

Here's Round 2!

As expected, there is a bigger difference between the before and after. For me, definitely still not worth it

Nicely done, going back and retesting in a caster type destiny.

The lowest increase was 121% by your numbers.

Compare to +1 DC from Epic Spell Focus Evocation which would yield a theoretical gain of (+50%/20)= 02.5% damage increase without considering evasion (which raises the overall increase to 5%), if and only if the saving throw vs DC ranges are within 20 numbers of each other.

Which means that the Devs were correct to raise min level to 24 and not 21.

In other words: Druids need more ways to buff their caster level.

If both are you are trying to say this point, yes I agree with both of you.


If a Developer wanted to make a new cloak: Druid Caster ~ gain +X to your druid/divine caster levels {where X=2~4} this is something that would certainly support and benefit those classes.

Also, a 3rd tree with some +1/+2+3 caster level stuff would be nice.



If both are you are trying to say, Casters in general still need more love, yes I agree with both of you.

u29 did a lot for Earth Sorcerers and Druids, they are in a lot better shape than in u28



If you are trying to say that Master of the Wild is not as good to have as Greater Ruin and Intensify, that is a matter of playstyle, big burst vs spell conservation. One will have to choose only two between MotW, Intensify, Greater Ruin, Burst of Glacial Wrath as your base focus, just as a druid's legendary is likely to have to choose between fire or air.

Throw epic greensteel into the mix, and suddenly things are even more complex, for example do we do Conco Opp for spell conservation, triple earth (once its fix and hopefully not nerfed into the dirt) with lava for dps, or salt for crowd control?

There is also the Druid summoner path which although survivable, is still definitely not overpowerful by any means yet.
Those wishing a boost in that direction, is something I certainly could support.

[Vooduspyce]

Compare to +1 DC from Epic Spell Focus Evocation which would yield a theoretical gain of (+50%/20)= 02.5% damage increase without considering evasion (which raises the overall increase to 5%), if and only if the saving throw vs DC ranges are within 20 numbers of each other.

This is an important part of the equation for druids to weigh their feat options. One more consideration to the above is that Evocation Focus would apply to more spells than Master of the Wilds. I personally only use 5 DC-based evocations spells routinely at cap (Earthquake, Sunbeam, Sunburst, Call Lightning and Flame Strike... with Sunbeam and Flame Strike being used by me far less than the other 3), however I know there are other druids out there that like to use a greater variety of evocation spells.

I'm really glad this post has brought about such great conversation. I appreciate e1's input, I know there are a lot of people out there that are curious about the "Master of" feats and hopefully this is helpful for folks to decide whether or not they want to invest in it

[Jiirix]

I TRed my main with all the caster past-lives (3 each) into what I thought would be the best Druid-Caster-Nuker Build on Lamannia. Wish I did some documentation, but there was not enough time for that as Lamaland was only up for a few days. But I remember that I tried different combination of EDs and gear and the new feats but was underwhelmed every time. I understand that those mastery feats should better start weak to be improved with the next updates instead of one more "this new thing beats everything else" pass. Nevertheless a huge buff is needed to make a caster druid something everyday players can use at cap.

[slarden]

However, use a proper casting ED such as Shirdai against a chaotic (or lawful) evil foe then suddenly you gain from ((10*(9~16))*2) to ((12*(9~16))*2), and while this might seem a mild increase of 6/5 power the spell itself hit very hard against such foes.

Overall, the change from U28 to U29 for Druids and Sorcerer has been very promising in my experiences.

Master of Earth while in Earth Savant along with being in Draconic ED based upon earth has these results:
Very nice numbers even with terrible DCs.

Even in Shirdai (which drops base values down to 20 before modifiers), numbers are very nice.

Black Dragon Bolt spell w/o metas, Acid Arrow SLA with metas, Acid Blast SLA with metas along with Acid Blast spell w/o metas is a strong combination even in shridai.

The lowly Acid Spray is actually good when augmented by Master of Earth feat.

You utter elder words of balance, judging those who stray too far from the path of neutrality. Targets with an alignment one step away from True Neutral, such as Chaotic Neutral, take 9-16 bane damage for every two caster levels up to level 20. Targets who are two steps away, such as Chaotic Evil, take that damage twice. True Neutral targets are immune to this spells.

I've always played in EA on my caster druid due to the extra DC and light SLAs esp divine wrath. Even with big boosts to light spellpower divine wrath doesn't pack the punch it used to for the 50 spell point cost.

Master of the Wild prompted me to give a primal destiny a try to make use of those extra caster levels. I really liked running in Shradi for the extra procs more than even the caster levels. If am primary cc for a party, it's nice to get some extra dps from my earthquake and ice storm procs. The paralyzing procs were also quite nice on things that didn't fall.

While the damage from word of balance, produce flame, call lightning and creeping cold don't match the output from ruin or greater ruin - those slas only cost 3-6 sp so you get way more damage per sp over the long run with the SLAs.

Master of the Wilds is a way to extend your sp pool and nothing more. It's a way to make low-cost SLAs a little better, but I doubt it's worth it if you don't run in a primal destiny. If you want fast expensive dps greater ruin, ruin and arcane pulse are that for single target.

For arcane pulse the metamagic seems to go off the last cast so I usually cast 4 quick unmeta'd dots followed by a fully meta'd dot and I notice no difference vs. casting 5 fully meta'd quickly.

Caster druid is still a great build, but they do best with company. They can solo, but it's not their strength. Their strength is making the quest easier/faster for a party. They still do that very well and my strategy for U29 is too take master of the wilds and use Shiradi as my main destiny so I can use most of my sp on cc and healing while getting some very effecient persistent dps from shiradi procs and low cost slas. In my case I take 2 fvs for just reward and get alot of sp returned back to me over time. Arcane pulse for bosses is a must in my opinion.

I never tried a tanking druid so I can't comment on that.

[HastyPudding]

I think, out of all spellcasting classes, druid has the second worst time with epic destinies (wizards being the first, and arcanotech artificers are so rare they're not even on the radar). Primal Avatar just isn't very good for a spellcaster, as it offers little in the way of spellpower, no DC increases (for a pretty heavily DC-focused caster like druid), and half the tree is of no use to a spellcasting druid. Not to mention the clunky spirit mechanic. Shiradi is the only other destiny a druid would run in for caster levels (what caster druid would run in fury?), and I hardly find that palatable. Shiradi Champion should never have been usable with spells, as it's now a crutch for lazy people who don't know how to build a proper DC caster and now it hampers the problem all DC casters currently have.

Casters gain caster levels from epic destinies, and with the druid's innate destiny being sub-par, they're stuck going to exalted angel, in which they lose 6 caster levels right off the bat in exchange for an easy +3 to DC's. Draconic is another option, but it has no synergy with wisdom whatsoever and you lose 3 DC's from exalted angel; magister is only slightly better for a DC caster. Divine crusader isn't a bad option, but you still lose those 3 universal DC's. It might seem like I'm talking about those +3 DC's a lot, and it's because druid is pretty much judged by their earthquake, call lightning, and other evocation spells, making them a DC caster just as much as a wizard, scholar warlock, or spellsinger bard; a druid without sufficient evocation DC's is just a weak sorcerer with some healing spells.

Point-in-case: druids suffer from caster level problems in epics, and their lack of usable destinies with even decent synergy only makes it worse. Thus, this feat isn't a good option for druids unless they gain a nice overhaul in their enhancement pass or the primal avatar is made suitable for spellcasting.

[Silverleafeon]

For arcane pulse the metamagic seems to go off the last cast so I usually cast 4 quick unmeta'd dots followed by a fully meta'd dot and I notice no difference vs. casting 5 fully meta'd quickly.

Thanks for the tip.

I usually use Spirit Blades (for Shirdai procures), but I am a big fan of arcane pluse.
I wish we could have both.

Caster druid is still a great build, but they do best with company.

This is so true, there is nothing so sweet as having a pack of melee minions killing your prey.

Their strength is making the quest easier/faster for a party.

Potentially the best healers and crowd control in the game.
Main weakness, not having mass deathward and needing to scroll resurrection.

They still do that very well and my strategy for U29 is too take master of the wilds and use Shiradi as my main destiny so I can use most of my sp on cc and healing while getting some very effecient persistent dps from shiradi procs and low cost slas. In my case I take 2 fvs for just reward and get alot of sp returned back to me over time. Arcane pulse for bosses is a must in my opinion.

Two tricks I ought to try, Favored Soul splash and returning to arcane pluse, I run a pure with spirit blades but find the same is true (with an occasional sp pot drunk to finish that shroud portal run).

Primal Avatar just isn't very good for a spellcaster, as it offers little in the way of spellpower, no DC increases (for a pretty heavily DC-focused caster like druid), and half the tree is of no use to a spellcasting druid. Not to mention the clunky spirit mechanic.

I heartily agree, Primal Avatar is only good for tree builds which might be undergoing a nerf/fix/whatever someday. Only some hybrid mostly melee toon would use it.

Shiradi is the only other destiny a druid would run in for caster levels (what caster druid would run in fury?),

I quite agree.
I sometimes worry that Magic Missile fears will continue to nerf Druid's best destiny even further.