The "Whirlwind Attack Works Well with Wolf" Thread

[Maelodic]

It does!
And it does well - it's just like alpha strike for the wolf, on a lower cooldown.

I'm thinking of builds that can take advantage of this. I have a clear winner in my head, but I'm curious as to what you guys think:
8 Druid gets you winter wolf
9 gets you death ward
11 gets you frostbite and greater creeping cold
13 regenerate and true seeing (not a big deal to some, but it is to me personally
17 gets you snowslide (abundant step)

13 Druid/5 Cleric/2 Fighter would be a compelling tree build, sorta
13 Druid/6 Monk/1 Fighter gets access to shadow fade, extra action boosts for haste boost and doublestrike boost, 30 extra melee power from henshin, and ocean stance for dodge and save
(exploity)10 Druid/6 Bard/4 Fighter gets stalwart HP bonuses, SWF/Shield Mastery stacking, access to bard T5's including the insta-kill and crit enhancement.
(exploity)10 Druid/8 Fighter/2 Ranger gives a ton of extra feats for SWF/TWF/Whirlwind and/or Natural Fighting.
20 Druid gets you very little by comparison, but you should be able to get WWA and Shield Mastery feats as a human.

EDIT: best dps I can think of with both Whirlwind and the exploit feats is a human 10 Druid 6 Ranger, 4 Fighter taking DWS T5 and using Exposing Strike to constantly activate SA. You get Whirlwind, all three NF feats, full twf and swf lines, improved crit, overwhelming crit, and can fit in quicken or precision, and eTWF with tons of positive SP. That amounts to 33-53% (83% boosted) doublestrike before equipment with 80% off hand and the fastest attack speed possible. Whirlwind should hit 3-4 times, and you can keep adding attack speed with harrier. As an added bonus, you can pick up four legs good and switch between that and harrier when you need knockdown invulnerability and can respect your enhancements to have the natural fighter T5 for a decent tree build that also has a ton of doublestrike.

Thoughts?

[Maelodic]

In all cases, T5 Nature's Warrior is viable for the extra AoE attack, and bluff should be invested into for baiting bite / excessive sneak attacks.

Example of a full damage exploiter build:
10D/6R/4F - Human
1R Dodge / SWF
2R
3D Mobility
4D
5D
6F CE / WWA
7D
8D
9D iSWF
10D
11D
12D NF
13F iCrit: Bludgeon
14R
15R gSWF
16R
17R
18F NF
19F gTWF
20D
21 Quicken
24 Precision
26 pTWF
27 NF
28 pSWF
29 Deific Warding
30 OC
30 Earth or Ethereal

T5 DWS or Natural Warrior
Exposing strike

Example of a build that doesn't use TWF exploit, and that you can easily switch into a pure druid should a pass happen. Gets snowslide.
If you don't care about snowslide, 10D/6M/4F is a compelling split for defensive and offensive goodies in henshin/ninja spy and you get some bonus feats (stances?.)
Otherwise, if you want regenerate, a 13D/4F/3M is also great for the feats and healing curse.
17D/1F/2M
1D Dodge (if human, add precision)
2M Mobility
3M Spring Attack / CE
4F SWF
5D
6D Whirlwind
9D iSWF
12D iCrit: Bludgeon
15D gSWF
18D NF
21 Quicken
24 NF
27 NF
30 OC

26 pSWF
28 pTWF
29 DW
30 Earth or Etheral

Halfling or Human enhancements augment this split a bit

Non-Exploitative (at all) pure build:
20 Druid (Human)
1 Dodge / Combat Expertise
3 Mobility
6 Spring Attack
9 Whirlwind Attack
12 iCrit Bludgeon
15 Natural Fighting
18 Natural Fighting
21 Shield Mastery
24 Natural Fighting
27 Overwhelming Critical
30 iShield Mastery

26 pTWF
28 Elusive Target
29 Deific Warding or Dire Charge
30 Earth / Ethereal

Human is required for the extra feat to (barely) fit in WWA and everything else needed. You can get away with another race by skipping out on iShield mastery, but you lose out on 10 PRR and 8% doublestrike (from the feat, and Legendary Shield Mastery twist)

SWF pure build would look essentially just like the first, except with SWF, iSWF, and gSWF taken before natural fighting, and then Shield Mastery and iShield Mastery being replaced by natural fighting. You're losing out on 6% (21% if counting shield mastery) doublestrike this way and heaps of PRR from the shield stuff, but you'll do much more solid DPS, and numbers will fly faster.

The first build is undeniably better at DPS than the rest, and probably better at single target than most builds in existence. If I build one, it'll probably be either the second or third, because I'm bad at this game.

[unbongwah]

13 Druid/5 Cleric/2 Fighter would be a compelling tree build, sorta

Why a tree build exactly? You can't cast spells in tree form and most druid / NW abilities (inc. Natural Fighting, IIRC) don't work either. [I don't think tree form counts as magical beast.]

(exploity)10 Druid/6 Bard/4 Fighter gets stalwart HP bonuses, SWF/Shield Mastery stacking, access to bard T5's including the insta-kill and crit enhancement.

Swashbuckling doesn't work in animal form, so Exploit Weakness and Thread the Needle don't work. CdG should, though I've never tested it, but you have to take a lot of filler to get there given that whole no-Swashbuckling thing.

In theory, you can do bard / rgr / druid to get TWF+SWF+NF+Shield Mastery stacking. In practice, you run out of regular feat slots before you get everything, I think...

[Maelodic]

Why a tree build exactly? You can't cast spells in tree form and most druid / NW abilities (inc. Natural Fighting, IIRC) don't work either. [I don't think tree form counts as magical beast.]

Swashbuckling doesn't work in animal form, so Exploit Weakness and Thread the Needle don't work. CdG should, though I've never tested it, but you have to take a lot of filler to get there given that whole no-Swashbuckling thing.

In theory, you can do bard / rgr / druid to get TWF+SWF+NF+Shield Mastery stacking. In practice, you run out of regular feat slots before you get everything, I think...

I thought you could alpha strike in tree form...

I think it's not horribly different than the framework we have now, and on most builds you basically trade your single target for multi-target. The only exploiter build that can fit everything in is the 10/6/4 split.

I honestly just got excited, because it looked like you could have some good aoe power. Was just spit balling. Trying to flesh out decent builds now, eventually I may scrap the idea or put something simple together.

[Maelodic]

In theory, you can do bard / rgr / druid to get TWF+SWF+NF+Shield Mastery stacking. In practice, you run out of regular feat slots before you get everything, I think...

Rgr 6 / Bard 3 / Druid 11

1 Shield Mastery
1 SWF
3 Precision
6 iSWF (Pure ranger up to this point)
9 Quicken
12 iCrit: Bludgeon
15 gSWF
18 gTWF
21 iShield Mastery
24 Natural Fighting
27 Natural Fighting
30 Natural Fighting

26 pTWF
28 pSWF
29 Dire Charge
30 Scion of Earth

I mean, you miss out on overwhelming critical, but that's everything. Precision/Quicken is semi-optional but with human there's actually an extra low level feat and you can't really swing it.

33% doublestrike, +30% attack speed, +90% offhand chance.

I mean, PROBABLY the best single target in the game. You get what, like another 20-30% doublestrike from items, so 63% and then 20% from killer, so 83% without boosting. Fatal Harrier is even more attack speed, and if the ranger tempest thing gives you more offhand, you'll hit 100% offhand with 83 doublestrike, and over 100% boosted or with celerity.

Not to mention all the PRR from shield stuff.

[unbongwah]

I thought you could alpha strike in tree form...

You ought to be able, but according to NW wiki page it's still bugged. Same problem with Celerity.

6 iSWF (Pure ranger up to this point)
9 Quicken

There's not really any advantage to leveling pure rgr first, though, since you can just swap ISWF & Quicken. A different leveling order might help with skill pt distribution.

28 pSWF

PSWF does nothing in animal or tree forms.

33% doublestrike, +30% attack speed, +90% offhand chance.

Where are you getting the extra +10% offhand? I'm pretty sure Tempest cores do nothing in animal form.

Not to mention all the PRR from shield stuff.

Just remember that to get Skirmisher to work on this build, you have to use non-metal bucklers, so the PRR caps out at +23 w/LSM Twist.

[SeveredSteel]

PSWF does nothing in animal or tree forms.

Where are you getting the extra +10% offhand? I'm pretty sure Tempest cores do nothing in animal form.

None of the extra offhand attacks enhancements works for wolf form. Not Shintao tiers, nor the tempest cores. However, TWF still works.

[unbongwah]

GTWF provides 80% offhand proc. I'm curious where the OP thinks he's getting an extra +10% (90% listed), since AFAIK none of the other offhand proc chance increases apply to wolf form (i.e., Deft Strikes, Tempest cores). [PTWF boosts doublestrike and offhand doublestrike, not base offhand proc.]

[Maelodic]

GTWF provides 80% offhand proc. I'm curious where the OP thinks he's getting an extra +10% (90% listed), since AFAIK none of the other offhand proc chance increases apply to wolf form (i.e., Deft Strikes, Tempest cores). [PTWF boosts doublestrike and offhand doublestrike, not base offhand proc.]

I was counting it from pTWF. That gives an extra 10% offhand. Thought it was the same bonus as the other feats- logically it should work...

[unbongwah]

Perfect Two Weapon Fighting provides +5% Doublestrike and +10% Offhand Doublestrike. It does NOT boost your base offhand proc chance as well. The distinction is important because just as mainhand doublestrikes only have a chance to proc when you hit w/your mainhand, offhand doublestrikes only have a chance to proc when your offhand procs first. So while a pure Tempest with 100% offhand proc chance and 35% offhand doublestrike (capstone + PTWF) should see an offhand doublestrike on 35% of normal hits (1.0 * .35), a wolf build with 80% offhand 10% offhand DS only sees an offhand DS on 8% of regular hits (0.8 * 0.1).

[Maelodic]

Perfect Two Weapon Fighting provides +5% Doublestrike and +10% Offhand Doublestrike. It does NOT boost your base offhand proc chance as well. The distinction is important because just as mainhand doublestrikes only have a chance to proc when you hit w/your mainhand, offhand doublestrikes only have a chance to proc when your offhand procs first. So while a pure Tempest with 100% offhand proc chance and 35% offhand doublestrike (capstone + PTWF) should see an offhand doublestrike on 35% of normal hits (1.0 * .35), a wolf build with 80% offhand 10% offhand DS only sees an offhand DS on 8% of regular hits (0.8 * 0.1).

Thank you for making the distinction