Tree Form: Personal Experiences, Tips, and Theory

[Deathlylife]

The basis of this guide is discussion about the Primal Avatar Epic Destiny, specifically Avatar of Nature Epic Moment. This is by no means an extensive attempt of the nuances of Tree Form but is a good place to start for those interested in starting a Tree build or looking for ways to improve a current Tree build. I have noticed some other posts of people curious about Tree Form and I have also had a few requests for my current build in game. Therefore I have decided to write up my current build as well as my previous incarnations as a Tree here.

Avatar of Nature Epic Moment: Active (2 AP) (35SP to activate) (5 sec cooldown)
You become an Avatar of Nature (Wood woad) Every 3 seconds, you gain +1 size, +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, a large bonus to damage based on size, and lose some movement speed and cannot jump or cast spells. These bonuses increase up to stacking up to size 4.

Size 1+: +50 size bonus to PRR?(Damage dice: 18.5[1d20])
Size 2+: When you attack enemies they become poisoned, taking 2d10 poison damage every 2 seconds for several seconds. This poison stacks up to 5 times. (Damage dice: 36.0[1d20])
Size 3+: Enemies attacking you have a chance to become diseased, dealing 1d4 Constitution damage every two seconds for 10 seconds. (Damage dice:53.5[1d20])
Size 4: The ground shakes when you put your foot down. Your third attack while standing still knocks down nearby enemies and deals extra bludgeoning damage in an area. (Damage dice:71.0[1d20])
This costs 1 Spirit every few seconds per size you've gained (Turns off if you run out of Spirit.)

This is the in game description with some note on damage dice for each size of Tree Form but it does lack some important information for those inexperienced with Tree Form. I shall break up the rest of this guide into sections relating to each relevant portion of learning about Tree Form

Spirit
The most difficult part of a Tree Build is maintaining it. Such that it requires 'Spirit' to remain in Tree Form. Spirit is gained whenever you hit with a melee attack, cast an offensive spell, and when you cast a spell on yourself or an ally. The description states you can gain 1 Spirit every 3 seconds for each of the available methods, making it possible to gain 3 Spirit every 3 seconds. You can have a maximum of 30 Spirit at a time and the Spirit will decay at a rate of 1 per 15 seconds. This makes it to ~36 seconds to get to maximum charges.
While this is the official description of Spirit it has some issues in game. Instead of 1 spirit for an offensive spell and 1 for an ally spell, it instead gives two charges for whichever was used first in the 3 second interval. Melee attacks are working as intended. While this is a bug, it is actually good news for those that use Tree form as it allows ease of building and maintaining Spirit charges. In terms of casting a damaging spell on an enemy, it does not count spells cast by an item effect, consecration, DoT spells beyond the first hit but it does count every tick of death aura and warlock aura in addition to normal spells and sla. In terms of casting a spell on an ally, it does not count consecration or potions but it does count scrolls, wands, and every tick of cleric aura in addition to normal spells and sla.


The main reason we are worried about the amount of Spirit charges we have is that it is the basis for activating Tree Form. Each size costs 1 additional spirit than the previous size of Tree Form and is depleted at the 3 seconds. To make it easier here is the breakdown of Spirit usage.

Maximum Spirit Gain: 3 Spirit per 3 seconds
Tree Form Activation: 1 Spirit (currently size 1)
3 seconds later, Size 2: 2 Spirit
3 seconds later, Size 3: 3 Spirit (Up to this point your Spirit can remain relatively unchanged as the cost per 3 seconds is equal to or less then the maximum Spirit you can gain per 3 seconds).
3 seconds later, Size 4: 4 spirit recurring every 3 seconds.

Once size 4, the cost of Spirit is greater then your maximum Spirit production, you will slowly lose spirit at the rate of 1 every 3 seconds as well as the passive 1 every 15 seconds making it possible to stay in tree form for a maximum of 84 seconds (including the smaller size forms). This may seem like a long time, but for long boss fights it can leave you dropping out of Tree form before the boss is killed making you recharge before going back into Tree Form to finish the beat down.

Now a trick I have learned is that you do not have to have 30 Spirit to enter Tree Form, you can enter Tree Form anytime you have 35sp and at least 1 Spirit charge. Therefore it is sometimes best if the fight is long to intentionally deactivate Tree Form before hitting 0 Spirit so as to start over at Size 1, build up a little Spirit while the decay is smaller then the and get more Tree Form time and more damage over the course of a long fight. You may be wondering why increase size at all and just stay at size 3 to maintain it for a very long time. Unfortunately, you have to increase in size every 3 seconds up to size 4 unless Tree Form is deactivated intentionally or by running out of Spirit.

Damage
This is a pretty flexible topic as everyone has different preferences for damage. I shall therefore focus first on weapon compatibility with base damage and critical hits before going into the theory crafting of increasing Tree Form damage.

Tree Form is treated in much the same way that Druid animal form is in the way that weapons affect damage. While in Tree Form all damage is converted to unarmed bludgeon and as such is affected by Improved Critical Bludgeon no matter the weapon wielded. Therefore weapon choice matters mostly on the additional effects on your main hand weapon as well as the weapon damage dice multiplier (such as the 5 of 5[1d6]) as will be covered later. This makes Tree Form great for using little used weapon types as well as using whatever you have laying the bank. Now the main hand weapon effects all carry into Tree Form while only a select few effects carry over from the off-hand such as stat, skill, and tactic bonuses as well as deception. No damage effects from the off-hand carry over and as such dr breaking is reliant solely on the main hand weapon. I will later add a full list of off-hand weapon effects that carry over when time allows for finding my original list.

Tree Form is only affected by Strength for attack/damage rolls. Even if the weapon wielded is affected by another stat such as monk ninja spy core 1+2. The base weapon not in Tree Form works properly using the highest stat but in Tree Form only Strength can be used.

The description given in DDO Wiki lists the base damage as follows: Size 1- 18.5[1d20], Size 2- 36.0[1d20], Size 3- 53.5[1d20], Size 4- 71.0[1d20]. While this is correct damage dice increase, it is not your true damage dice you will experience in game. The damage dice in game is rather (Size Multiplier+Current Weapon Multiplier-1)*[1d20]. Therefore using a weapon such as a LGS Shortsword (5[1d6]+14) will yield Tree Form damage of 75.0[1d20]+14. This makes weapon choice important to get a good base damage.
Now these numbers start to get strange when you mix in monk levels. If you are not wearing handwraps, nothing changes unless you have GMoF Dance of Flowers which adds 1.5W to all weapons if centered, this acts as expected changing the previous LGS example to be 76.5[1d20]+14. When you are wearing handwraps, the damage will still follow the equation given but uses your total unarmed/handwrap dice multiplier not just the base multiplier listed on the unequipped handwraps, such that increased monk levels results in increased damage dice. It can be argued that a pure monk would have the highest damage output because of this but I do not suggest this as finding a source of spell damage in combat for a monk is difficult. This will make Tree Form up time very short and thus greatly decreased damage in boss battles.

Critical Multipliers in Tree Form is an obvious way of increasing damage output but has many issues. While in Tree Form the base critical multiplier is tested to be the same as unarmed fighting as 20x2. This can be increased with the feats Improved Critical Bludgeon and Overwhelming Critical as well as Nature's Fury from Primal Avatar to 19-20x3. Beyond this, enhancements are difficult to determine in increasing the critical profile. Tree Form counts as unarmed and falls under the same category as current animal form druids such that there are no known critical range increases working but a critical multiplier of +1 on 19-20 does work such that adding bard or barbarian to a build can give some benefits as well as a monk in Fire Stance.

Damage Theory beyond this point.
Tree Form while having very high base damage comes with the draw back of attacking really slow. Therefore maximum damage has to be achieved by finding ways to increase the rate of damage output or the base damage itself.

Two Weapon Fighting works in Tree Form, allowing for a single attack with 0% double strike to hit twice as well as a single attack to hit 4 times with high double strike. Unlike wolf builds that exploit using both single and two weapon fighting, Tree Form does not benefit from single weapon fighting and thus a wolf build cannot easily adapt to becoming a Tree. Tree form also does not allow for glancing blows no matter the weapon type equipped. Therefore only the two weapon fighting feats are recommended for a Tree Build.

Tree Form as previously stated uses only strength for the attack/damage rolls, therefore maximum strength could increase damage output. I advise against this reasoning as the strength bonus does not scale with the increasing damage dice but rather scales the same as with wielding any one handed weapon. Tree Form does not qualify for THF or SWF stat contribution multiplier and as such a strength modifier of 40 compared to 15 is only 25 damage and is negligible when the damage is on the scale of 1k-2.5k non critical depending on the current size. This 25 damage difference per hit would require ~100 hits as a size 4 Tree Form to equate to one additional attack. This makes investing an additional 50 points of strength to get the +25 modifier difference to be unreasonable.

Tree Form allows the use of all types of cleaves at normal speed. It is therefore the focus of many builds to have the maximum number of cleaves to spam when they are off cooldown. To Be Continued...

[Deathlylife]

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[Deathlylife]

Also Reserved

[Pilgrim1]

stuff

Great post thank you so much. I got some questions and you seam the person to ask... lots of questions.

(1) Paladin: The tear 5 ability in KotC enhancements called Holy retribution does 3 cleave attacks, acording to the wiki. Do you know if these work in tree form, can they double strike and off-hand strike, and do they hit mobs around you?

(2) Monk: Do you know how many hits Wirlwind does both centered and not centered? Is there any viability in using a 18/20 monk with cauldron of flame for spirit generation? It seams like that would only work for boss fights but you could get something like 90[d20] weapon with mostly monk.

(3) Barb and cleaves: I have heard that supreme cleave (and the pally cleaves) use the base weapon crit profile and base dmg rather than the modified tree damage. However they still get the bonus dice from form. My question is, if this is true, does IC: blunt still apply, or can you use splits that give great weapon profiles while in tree form?

(4) Shields: When in tree form using a shield is it possible to get shield bash attacks? If so is this a viable rout to go along with TWF?

(5) Aasimar: I have been told mixed things about accedent bond (the 10% hp bonus enhancement) working in tree form. Do you know if this enhancment works?

(6) Races: Do diffrent races have different attack animations while cleaving, does PDK grow into a larger tree and have a greater reach than halfling?


Thank you!

PS: It seams for damage double strike and melee power are king, along with cleaves. So build that can push up to 300 MP and 100 double strike are the top contenders for damage. Unless crit profile can overcome that.

[Enerdhil]

, does PDK grow into a larger tree and have a greater reach than halfling?

They do, but i'm not sure if it's affecting dmg, or only look. Anyway yeah, great post, i was a fan of tree when i was staying at cap lvl, probably will do the same after farming racials. I always wondered about base dmg, so i find this post really helpful, especially part about extra W from weapon.

[Maelodic]

Does alpha strike work in tree form?

Do the ticks of regnerate or vigor increment the spirit counter?

[xTethx]

Great post thank you so much. I got some questions and you seam the person to ask... lots of questions.

(1) Paladin: The tear 5 ability in KotC enhancements called Holy retribution does 3 cleave attacks, acording to the wiki. Do you know if these work in tree form, can they double strike and off-hand strike, and do they hit mobs around you?

(2) Monk: Do you know how many hits Wirlwind does both centered and not centered? Is there any viability in using a 18/20 monk with cauldron of flame for spirit generation? It seams like that would only work for boss fights but you could get something like 90[d20] weapon with mostly monk.

(3) Barb and cleaves: I have heard that supreme cleave (and the pally cleaves) use the base weapon crit profile and base dmg rather than the modified tree damage. However they still get the bonus dice from form. My question is, if this is true, does IC: blunt still apply, or can you use splits that give great weapon profiles while in tree form?

(4) Shields: When in tree form using a shield is it possible to get shield bash attacks? If so is this a viable rout to go along with TWF?

(5) Aasimar: I have been told mixed things about accedent bond (the 10% hp bonus enhancement) working in tree form. Do you know if this enhancment works?

(6) Races: Do diffrent races have different attack animations while cleaving, does PDK grow into a larger tree and have a greater reach than halfling?


Thank you!

PS: It seams for damage double strike and melee power are king, along with cleaves. So build that can push up to 300 MP and 100 double strike are the top contenders for damage. Unless crit profile can overcome that.

Monk whirlwind can hit up to 5 times centered (pending doublestrike ofc) as opposed to uncentered gets only 3 hits. It uses the base tree damage d20 20 x2. Great cleave and cleave use the exact same profile, however great cleave can only proc 3 times (pending doublestrike) and cleave only once.

Barbarian and paladin cleaves in their enhancement trees uses the base weapon for terms of damage. You still get the massive die number from tree (18.5,36,53.5,71 plus any added die from your weapon/enhancements/spells etc). However, instead of using d20 as base damage they use the weapon. IE if you use a bastard sword you get d10. You also get that critical profile. So anything that enhances your critical profile for that weapon will carry over into tree form. So a paladin using holy sword with a bastard sword will get d10 base damage with a critical profile of 18-20x3. Now, when using these cleaves you want to take improved critical that assoiciates with that weapon. So in the previous example you would want improved critical slashing, to make your cleaves do d10 16-20x3. The cleave damage also ends up doing your base weapons profile damage, so slashing for swords, piercing for rapiers, bludgeon for mauls etc etc.

Now, these cleaves all work exactly like uncentered whirlwind/great cleave for terms of procs. You get your intitial strike, off-hand strike, and doublestrike. So the pally cleaves/barb cleave can get 3 strikes maximum, but using the weapons critical profile/base damage. Keep in mind both paladin cleaves use the same cd as cleave and great cleave, but unlike cleave where it can only strike once, the paladin one can strike 3 times (and uses weapon base damage). Also note, the barb and pally splits can take whirlwind/great cleave and use them, but will be 3 strikes max and use tree base damage just like monk.

The interesting part where these paladin/barbarian cleaves come in handy is with the new ravenloft weapons. They have an inherent increased base damage resulting in a higher die damage than d20 along with a much better crit profile. For example, a paladin with improved crit slashing and holy sword can use the raid greatsword for 2d6+6 base damage and critical 16-20x3. So in actuality for average sake they do about 13 base damage as opposed to the base tree build which has only 10.5. They also can crit 16-20 x3 instead of 19-20x2. For simplicity sake, the best weapon is probably going to be the great crossbow, which is a tad lower than the thf builds at 2d8+3 (only 12 base damage), but it crits from 15-20x2 and can be further enhanced if needed.

Of course, personal playstyle will determine if you want to use a one handed weapon and a shield (less damage, but more survivability (keep in mind you can shield block while cleaving)), or full tilt damage with a thf or great crossbow. The monk variant doesnt need to worry about any of this, as they simply keep centered weapons and rely on tree base damages.

No shield bashing in tree form, but you will keep the melee power and doublestrike if you take shield mastery/pally destiny twist.

[xTethx]

Does alpha strike work in tree form?

Do the ticks of regnerate or vigor increment the spirit counter?

Ticks of vigor do count towards spirit.

Alpha strike as of a long time ago did not work in tree form, but they reworked unarmed a while back and I have not since tried to use in tree form.

[Maelodic]

Ticks of vigor do count towards spirit.

Alpha strike as of a long time ago did not work in tree form, but they reworked unarmed a while back and I have not since tried to use in tree form.

Well, that's sad news for alpha strike - but the vigor gives me an interesting build idea. Thank you!

[Deathlylife]

I am sorry but some of the information you stated has some errors.

Monk whirlwind can hit up to 5 times centered (pending doublestrike ofc) as opposed to uncentered gets only 3 hits. It uses the base tree damage d20 20 x2. Great cleave and cleave use the exact same profile, however great cleave can only proc 3 times (pending doublestrike) and cleave only once.

All tests in tree form resulted in tree form base damage no matter what weapon type equipped or state of centered

Whirlwind Attack Uncentered:
Not in Tree Form: doublestrike(1 Hit).............................................. ............................... 2 hits possible
Tree Form: doublestrike(1 Hit+TWF Off-Hand Strike)........................................... .............4 hits possible

Whirlwind Attack Centered:
Not Handwraps Not Tree: doublestrike(1 Hit).............................................. ...................... 2 hits possible
Handwraps/Unarmed Not Tree: doublestrike*(3 Hits+TWF Off-Hand Strike x1)..................... 8 hits possible
Tree Form Handwraps or Not Handwraps: doublestrike*(3 Hits+TWF Off-Hand Strike x1)....... 8 hits possible

Great Cleave Uncentered:
Not in Tree Form: doublestrike(1 Hit+glancing blow (if applicable)).................................... 4 hits possible (2 are glancing)
Tree Form: doublestrike(1 Hit+TWF Off-Hand Strike)........................................... .............4 hits possible

Great Cleave Centered:
Not Handwraps Not Tree: doublestrike(1 Hit+glancing blow(if applicaple)............................ 4 hits possible (2 glancing)
Handwraps/Unarmed Not Tree: doublestrike*(1 Hit+TWF Off-Hand Strike)........................... 4 hits possible
Tree Form Handwraps or Not Handwraps: doublestrike*(1 Hit+TWF Off-Hand Strike)............. 4 hits possible

Cleave Uncentered:
Not in Tree Form: doublestrike(1 Hit+glancing blow (if applicable))..................................... 4 hits possible
Tree Form: doublestrike(1 Hit).............................................. ..........................................2 hits possible

Cleave Centered:
Not Handwraps Not Tree: doublestrike(1 Hit+glancing blow(if applicable))........................... 4 hits possible (2 glancing)
Handwraps/Unarmed Not Tree: doublestrike*(1 Hit).............................................. ............ 2 hits possible
Tree Form Handwraps or Not Handwraps: doublestrike*(1 Hit)............................................ 2 hits possible

I cannot comment on the pally/barbarian cleaves at this time.

Sadly Tree Form works terribly with druid levels
As stated, alpha strike does not work in tree form.
Vigor does not work in tree form. If cast right before entering tree form, the initial tick will give spirit but every further tick does not and the spell must be recast while outside tree form to get more spirit. It is best to think of it as spells only generate spirit when they target an ally or monster. After the initial targeting of vigor it does not check for a target every tick but rather is like a dot. The reason that cleric aura, death aura, and warlock aura work is that it checks for targets each tick.

(2) Monk: Do you know how many hits Wirlwind does both centered and not centered? Is there any viability in using a 18/20 monk with cauldron of flame for spirit generation? It seams like that would only work for boss fights but you could get something like 90[d20] weapon with mostly monk.

18/2 monk in cauldron is interesting. The issue with it is for long boss fights. Cauldron of Flame does generate spirit every few ticks (timing of 2 second tick for cauldron and 3 seconds for spirit) but the issue is that cauldron is stationary and that it cannot be cast while in Tree Form as it is an SLA (tested). It also only lasts for 30 seconds therefore after that time frame you will have no way of generating spell based spirit while in tree form for the 30 additional seconds it is on cooldown (60 sec total cooldown) leaving you to drop out of tree form faster than another build. If running EE this may be fine, when running reaper this will be a big issue and will result in a dps loss compared to a build able to maintain spirit generation.

Shield bashes do not work but still apply doublestrike, ac, and melee power as previously stated by xTethx.

Aasimar accedent bond (the 10% hp bonus enhancement) doe snot work in Tree Form as both Tree and Aasimar counts as a Form (have to update other thread)

Race does affect the physical size of the Tree. A gnome will grow to be about the same height as a half-orc, a human will stand head and shoulders above half-orcs, while a half-orc or PDK will tower above everyone with their waist at the height of a human. While the overall size visibly changes, I have not had any noticeable difference in cleave/WW range. I would have noticed as I prefer to cleave while running at/between archers and always time it to hit them right on the edge of the range every time.

I will continue updating the original post with this and other information as time permits. Hope this helps!

[Tilomere]

Edit: was wrong about cleaves with ranged weapon equipped. Apparently they work now.

No activated or passive shield attacks (except if an ability is bugged, but the shield attack goes off as another unarmed attack), and some other special animation attacks are also disabled in tree forms. You can't use animal form to test, as some attacks work in animal form but not tree form.

Probably should also know that some aura ticks radiate out from the caster, so in a mobile combat scenario may hit sooner or later than the time increment between ticks. A 3 second tick can hit 2.9 seconds later if you move closer to a target on the second pulse, for example.

Oh, and the displayed time increments for many abilities are rounded. Displayed 3 seconds might be 2.6 seconds or 3.2 seconds, for example.

[xTethx]

You cannot activate melee attacks with a ranged weapon equipped. No great crossbow for you. That's my HeM weapon. No activated or passive shield attacks (except if an ability is bugged, but the shield attack goes off as another unarmed attack), and some other special animation attacks are also disabled in tree forms. You can't use animal form to test, as some attacks work in animal form but not tree form.

Probably should also know that some aura ticks radiate out from the caster, so in a mobile combat scenario may hit sooner or later than the time increment between ticks. A 3 second tick can hit 2.9 seconds later if you move closer to a target on the second pulse, for example.

Oh, and the displayed time increments for many abilities are rounded. Displayed 3 seconds might be 2.6 seconds or 3.2 seconds, for example.

Give it a try, you can supreme cleave with a great crossbow. As well as any of the others. You just have to be in tree form.

[Tilomere]

Give it a try, you can supreme cleave with a great crossbow. As well as any of the others. You just have to be in tree form.

Hmm, well that is a change from years ago.

[Tilomere]

I am sorry but some of the information you stated has some errors.

Handwraps were recoded as a special two handed exotic weapon (see +6 Duality reflecting its coding). Their are no offhand attacks or double strike applied to two handed weapons on cleaves. One has to shapeshift to unarmed to get these. Whirlwind Attack alone was recoded specifically for handwraps after the change, but isn't that great with handwraps either.