Scratch Pad for Build-fu

[unbongwah]

HA! Get it? "Scratch pad?" Because they have claws? It's - I say - it's wordplay, son, bon mots, that is!

Anyway, just a thread for some build ideas based on druid changes. DISCLAIMER: I hate minmaxing so don't bother telling me these aren't max-DPS builds which can't solo R10 Strahd (so why bother) - yes, I know, I also don't care.

Concept: DEX- and WIS-based melee / caster hybrid
Issue: Evasion is a tier-5 Nature's Warrior enhancement, but DEX to-hit and damage isn't an inherent class or tree ability for druids. MCed builds will have a few different options, but if you want a pure druid, you only have two options for DEX to-hit & dmg:

• Use a named weapon which natively supports it. [For non-druid 2H weapons, you also need the proficiency if you want to avoid the to-hit penalty. For 1H weapons, you can invest in UMD and use Master's Touch scrolls.]
• Elf with Weapon Finesse + Aerenal Grace can get DEX to-hit & damage with rapiers in wolf form. [confirmed on Lama] The other racial melee weapons can get DEX to damage but not to-hit on pure druid. [looks like they already bugfixed the weirdness of using ranged / thrown weapons in animal form too]

This build is an example of the latter.

Race: elf
Class: druid 20
Stats (36 pt): WIS 18 (+lvl-ups) / DEX 18 / CON 14
Feats: Quicken (1), Precision (3), Weapon Finesse (6), ??? (9), IC:Pierce (12), ??? (15), Spell Focus:Evocation? (18), Overwhelming Crit (21), BoGW? (24), PTWF (26), ??? (27), ??? (28), Dire Charge? (29), Scion of Plane of Air? (30)

• Lotta blank feat slots because it depends on what you want to emphasize: Natural Fighting feats for more melee DPS; metamagics for higher caster DPS; maybe even the two Augment Summons feats for better dogs. For maximum elf flavor sauce, add Shadow Dragonmark.

Enhancements: 41 Nature's Warrior (tier-5s + capstone) / 19 elf (Aerenal Grace + Skill) / 6 Nature's Protector (+20 PRR/MRR) / 11 Season's Herald (three cores for caster bonuses) with 3 APs left to tweak (Call Lightning SLA maybe)

Mainhand: rapiers eventually, though for early heroic leveling I recommend Sky Pirate's Dagger of Tiefling Assassin's Blade. [EDIT: you can also use Flame Blade, as WIS to dmg is now applying in animal forms.] At level 12 your crit threat range with rapiers becomes 15-20/x3 from IC:Pierce + Nature's Hunter. [In epics, drow rapier and Mutineer's Blade are 13-20/x3, Balizarde is 15-20/x4.]
Offhand: either orb for caster bonuses or shield for passive / defensive bonuses. Once you have Nature's Swiftness (Evasion), you can only use bucklers or small shields.

Gameplay: like I said, it's a melee / caster hybrid. Every time the temp SPs from Essence of Nature procs, you use a spell or wolf ability with them. Winter spec (cold / lightning).

[unbongwah]

Concept: melee-focused bear which can Rage and cast Heal; loosely inspired by the Forest Master prestige class which uses mauls.
Issue: Rage of the Beast and barb Rage block druid spellcasting.
Solution: Destruction domain allows you to cast cleric spells (but JUST cleric spells) while Raged. Also bonuses to melee weapons carry over to animal forms; this should include Blessing of Silvanus.

Race: PDK

• Silvanus is only available to four Forgotten Realms races: PDK, SDK, Deep Gnome, and Scourge Aasimar. [Morninglords (sun elves) are restricted to Amauntor only.] PDK get bonus feat making them the obvious choice.

Class: druid 3 / barb 6 / cleric 11 (Silvanus / Destruction) - LR +1 required

• Druid 3 grants base bear form and access to the new Natural Fighting feats as well as tier-3 enhancements. Barb 6 for Rage plus enhancements (see below); also I think +10% run speed should carry over. Cleric 11 for Heal spell; Destruction domain so you can cast cleric spells while Raged; Silvanus for +2 crit range w/mauls.
• Leveling is tricky due to initial fighter level: start out as ftr 1 / druid 3 / cleric 11; then LR +1 to get rid of ftr and replace with barb. Last 5 levels are barb.

Feats: Power Atk / Cleave / GC chain; IC:Blunt + Overwhelming Crit; Quicken (must-have on any caster esp. melee builds IMO); Stunning Blow; Epic DR.

• That's six heroic and two epic feats, leaving room for all three Natural Fighting feats. Although you could trade one for Empower Heal.

Enhancements: 36 Ravager (Crit Rage + Blood Strength) / 14 Berserker (Supreme Cleave + Frenzy) / 13 Nature's Protector (+10 MP, +20 PRR/MRR, +25% HPs) / 12 Nature's Warrior (Prey on the Weak) / 4 Warpriest (Div Might) / 1 PDK (Dmg Boost)

• AFAICT, barb Rage and Rage of the Beast enhancements are "cross-compatible," so to speak, as long as you're in animal form.
• Final crit threat range with mauls should be 14-20/x3 with IC:Blunt, Crit Rage, Blessing of Silvanus, and Pulverizer (assuming it works in animal form).

Again: need a whole bunch of testing to confirm that everything fits together as intended.

EDIT: did some testing on Lama last night and everything appears to fit together as intended:

1. Blessing of Silvanus and Crit Rage stacking and applying to bear form with maul equipped? Check. [Forgot to test LD w/Pulverizer, though.]
2. Nature's Protector bonuses working in bear form with barb Rage? Check.
3. Able to cast cleric spells while Raged in bear form? Check.

The obvious question: how does it compare to other melee builds? The answer is I'M A GIANT ANGRY BEAR WITH A GIANT FREAKIN' HAMMER SO SHUT UP

EDIT: I've also considered druid 3 / cleric 6 (Strength domain) / barb 11 reversing the barb / cleric split. Basically you trade being able to cast cleric spells while Raged (bye-bye Heal) for Strength domain's bonus to Reflex saves and Greater Rage (+2 STR/CON and extra +10 MP).

[edrein]

After having ran an fallen Aasimar barbarian for the past few weeks in Reaper, I'd say look there for a bearbarian build. Although pure 20 bear was ok. Once/if they fix the melee power scaling I think they'll be viable as a tank-DPS hybrid similar to Vanguard.

[Caprice]

Note that the DEX to attack and damage bonuses for quarterstaves available in Thief Acrobat do work when using a staff in Wolf form (I haven't tested in Bear/WW/DB yet). However the attack speed passive from Thief Acrobatics does not apply. As expected from the developer notes Quick Strike is not available in animal form. So staff does not appear to be a viable choice for animal form, since none of the buffs that make it viable for melee affect animal form.

Also the Improved Shillelagh from the Nature's Herald cores does not seem to work on wooden staves at all (I have not tested non-staves yet). Hopefully that's a bug.

All the above is based on my testing on Lama today (14-Mar-2018).

[Hjarki]

Concept: Melee-Focused Rage Wolf aiming for solid balance of self-preservation and damage.

Race: Aasimar Scourge. You get Lay on Hands (and Strength) in the cores, +5% Doublestrike for 2 additional AP.

Classes: 13/6/1 Druid/Cleric/Barbarian. A single level in Barbarian gives +10% movement speed and access to Extend Rage, Power Rage, Improved Power Attack, etc. 6 levels of Cleric grants Strength Domain (Strength to Reflex), +2 threat range on Mauls, Divine Might (probably not useful until endgame where you can blunder your way into 40+ Charisma without much effort since Charisma is otherwise not a key feature of the build). Nature's Warrior to T5 (Evasion, Jaws of the Great White Wolf), Nature's Protector to T3 (+25% hit points, Rage), Season's Herald to T4 (Spring Resurgence). In theory, you could also take Radiant Servant to get Divine Healing but this strikes me as likely too many trees/enhancements to be workable.

Feats: Power Attack, Quicken, Extend. Natural Fighting seems uninspiring, but there's plenty of room for it. Cleave/Great Cleave might well be superfluous but, again, plenty of room. In Epic levels, Epic Reflexes would let you effectively ignore one entire category of saves given your Rage-fueled Strength. I'm not sure exactly how Heighten or spell DC improvements in general affect the Wolf form spells.

With such a build, you could completely ignore Dexterity (although this would make your AC rather unimpressive) and rely on a combination of easy self-healing/control effects to back up your offense.

General thoughts:
1. I'm not sure what's up with Heavy Armor proficiency. This would be really nice - if all the decent heavy armors didn't break Druidic Oath.

2. Druidic Rage seems good, but it almost demands a single level of Barbarian (for Extend/Extra Rage if nothing else). Note that the loss of spellcasting isn't that big a deal, since you can cast Extended buffs beforehand and Druids have a host of options for healing while Raged (temporary hit point buffs, Spring Resurgence, etc.).

3. Non-Strength melee doesn't seem to make much sense. In theory, Wisdom-based melee might make some sense - except the only way to pull that off is 10+ levels of Favored Soul (at which point you've also thrown away most of the rationale for going Wisdom-based) or Flame Blade (at which point you're committing yourself to weak melee). Since all of the special attacks are Wisdom/Strength, picking something like Dexterity makes little sense. Even if you theorize about a Wisdom-based Flame Blade build, you're just gimping your ability to use those special attacks since Strength is far easier to buff than Wisdom.

4. Natural Fighting seems really poor. I find glancing blows generally uninspiring, and Natural Fighting doesn't deliver all that much on that front. The whole line seems a lot weaker than conventional feat lines.

5. T5 Wolf strikes me as a lot better than T5 Bear. T5 Wolf gives the ability to pile on temporary hit points, evasion and a nice boost to melee power. T5 Bear just gives the melee power.

6. Snowslide seems nice, but getting to level 9 spells is really difficult without making significant compromises.

[unbongwah]

Race: Aasimar Scourge. You get Lay on Hands (and Strength) in the cores, +5% Doublestrike for 2 additional AP.

Random aside: I had considered a Scourge wolf druid using Cranium Cracker. That should be 18-20/x5 with Destroyer of the Dead, IC Blunt, and Nature's Hunter; and it gets +1[W] from Shillelagh+Nature's Wellspring, if/when that works right. The AP cost is kinda prohibitive though: 17 Scourge + 21 NW + 11 SH = 49 APs and you don't even have tier-4/5 NW yet, which effectively gobbles up most if not all the rest of your APs.

Nature's Protector to T3 (+25% hit points, Rage)

The Ursa Protector bonuses (inc. +25% HPs) only work in bear form.

1. I'm not sure what's up with Heavy Armor proficiency. This would be really nice - if all the decent heavy armors didn't break Druidic Oath.

Anything dragonscale is druid-compatible. Is Scales of Avarice still "decent?"

4. Natural Fighting seems really poor. I find glancing blows generally uninspiring, and Natural Fighting doesn't deliver all that much on that front. The whole line seems a lot weaker than conventional feat lines.

Agreed. The silver lining to devs making NF even worse than it already is: I now consider them entirely optional. Maybe not the intended effect, though...

[Tilomere]

del

Notes:
Cleave's don't generally double strike, and cleaves are how melee generally clear out the game, so we will dump NF feats. Also there is no epic Master of Shapeshifted spells, so we know in advance they won't scale into epics, so we don't take metamagics to develop them in the first place. Our one free feat swap we could have used to do so is already used up by Enchant > Evo.
Snowslide has a hidden move speed boost of 50% for use with stealth. Just don't hit anyone with it. Dragon plate armor has very low armor check penalties for stealth.

[unbongwah]

Cleave's don't generally double strike, and cleaves are how melee generally clear out the game, so we will dump NF feats.

Note that Natural Fighting no longer grants doublestrike; instead it grants Melee Power and (in bear form) glancing blow bonuses.

You're uhh not wrong about dumping those feats though.

[Hjarki]

Random aside: I had considered a Scourge wolf druid using Cranium Cracker. That should be 18-20/x5 with Destroyer of the Dead, IC Blunt, and Nature's Hunter; and it gets +1[W] from Shillelagh+Nature's Wellspring, if/when that works right. The AP cost is kinda prohibitive though: 17 Scourge + 21 NW + 11 SH = 49 APs and you don't even have tier-4/5 NW yet, which effectively gobbles up most if not all the rest of your APs.

I've been trying to come up with a decent justification for one-handed weapons and I just can't do it - the loss of 0.5xstat is just too huge when you can't compensate with combat feat lines. Unless you're trying for a purely defensive build, you're going to lose a lot of damage. I'm also very wary of tying a build to a specific, probably-won't-be-replicated weapon.

The Ursa Protector bonuses (inc. +25% HPs) only work in bear form.

Ah - missed that part. Oh well. You know what they say: "hit points are for people who don't know how to accept the Res". The downgrade in damage from Wolf -> Bear is fairly steep.

Anything dragonscale is druid-compatible. Is Scales of Avarice still "decent?"

This is another "tie your build to one specific piece of equipment" problem. In the absence of Druidic Oath, it's unlikely you'd choose Scales of Avarice. It's not quite as massive a downgrade as the Club over Ravenloft gear, but it's still a downgrade. You're also relying on them making non-metal heavy armor going forward - which isn't necessarily a good bet. I'll admit there's more to the world that Heavy Armor vs. Evasion, but Druidic Oath really tilts me in the direction of Evasion.

21 Natures Warrior +1 Crit Multiplier

Currently, A True Hunter (NW/Core 4) gives +1 to hit, not +1 critical multiplier.

[Tilomere]

Currently, A True Hunter (NW/Core 4) gives +1 to hit, not +1 critical multiplier.

So a bug? Or is it an unlisted change post release notes?

Nature's Warrior:
Cores:
Nature's Warrior: each Core grants 8 Hit Points, +1 Sneak Attack dice in Wolf form and +1 damage in Wolf and Bear form.
Natural Senses: Your attacks penetrate 10% of your enemies Fortification, +3 to Listen, Spot and Search.
Nature's Bounty: While in Animal form, the cooldown penalty for non-animal form spells is reduced from 2.5 times the usual length to 2.0. Does not stack with Nature's Protector Cores. Wolf Form movement speeds are increased by an additional 1% for every two Druid levels.
Nature's Hunter: In Wolf or bear form you gain a +1 Competency bonus to your Critical Damage Multiplier on your weapon. Requires a weapon to be equipped.
Howling Frost: Casting Howl of Terror now grants you "Winter Hunt" for 10 seconds which grants +10 Melee Power and 25% bonus to Spell Critical damage (50% to Spell Critical Damage for Cold damage spells.) This only occurs once every 30 seconds.
Avatar of the Hunter: You hae mastered the art of wielding Divine magic in animal form, and using it to empower your body in physical combat. While in animal form, the cooldown penalty for non-animal form spells is reduced from 2.5 times the usual length to 1.5. Does not stack with Nature's Protector cores. Passive: +2 Strength and Wisdom and +10 to Doublestrike and Physical Resistance Rating.

[unbongwah]

I've been trying to come up with a decent justification for one-handed weapons and I just can't do it - the loss of 0.5xstat is just too huge when you can't compensate with combat feat lines. Unless you're trying for a purely defensive build, you're going to lose a lot of damage.

If you're playing pure druid, you don't have any useful 2H proficiencies besides staves. So that's an issue if you're not MCing. I'm waiting to see how the shield feats shake out; apparently the doublestrike bonuses are still applying from Shield Mastery but that's...probably not WAI?

You're also relying on them making non-metal heavy armor going forward - which isn't necessarily a good bet. I'll admit there's more to the world that Heavy Armor vs. Evasion, but Druidic Oath really tilts me in the direction of Evasion.

Then stick to non-metal medium armor: lose a little PRR, gain higher MDB / Dodge bonus. Free heavy armor prof is a perk, not a build requirement, after all.

Basically my build efforts are split between pure druids which are built the way I think SSG intends them to be played; and MCed builds designed to exploit synergies for the way DDO is actually played. Then I'll figure out which I actually want to play.