Scratch Pad for Build-fu

[unbongwah]

Do bastard swords produce glancing blows in animal form?

Bear form naturally produces glancing blows; it doesn't matter which melee weapon you have equipped. Wolf form gets no glancing blows; it's all about the attack speed boost with them.

Thoughts on majority of points between nature warrior for all the wolf stuff and protector for raging and undying beast? Or should I ignore rage stuff and boost spells by spending in Season's herald?

For pure druids, I'm split between doing what's in this post: (A) all-in on melee, i.e., STR-based, everything spent on Nature's Warrior / Protector, possibly racial and/or Harper too; or (B) splitting my focus between melee (NW/NP) and caster (SH) for a hybrid.

However my ideas from Lama preview were from before SSG added Beast Awakened ("You can now cast druidic magic while raging.") to the NP tree. So now I'm on the fence again. Or rather, the STR wolf build seems obvious: something like 41 NW / 22-26 NP / rest into Harper or wherever. [For bear build just reverse APs on NW / NP.] The WIS/STR hybrid build becomes more complicated.

[Saekee]

Concept - just getting the idea out

Improved Feint
12 Rogue/8 Druid
Dex Based
Points in hide

1 Power Attack
1h Cleave
3 Great Cleave
6 Precision
9 Quicken
12 IC: Slash
15 Natural Fighting
18 Natural Fighting
21 Improved Sneak Attack
24 Overwhelming Crit
27 Epic Damage Reduction
30 Natural Fighting

Rogue: Opportunist (Or improved evasion)

26 Perfect Two Weapon Fighting
28 Elusive Target
29 Dire Charge
30 Scion of Etheral

Wolf T5s for your bajillion cleaves (+Fort bypass). Assassin T4 for killer (or vistani T4 for crit profile and vistani goodies). Nature defensive stance. Some slush left over.

Gather everything up. Quicken sleet storm for no save blind. Pop defensive cooldown. Cleave like crazy for tons of sneak attack.

Could also go 10 Rogue/8 Druid/2 Bard and trade 4 sneak attack dice for an extra cleave (en point).

Would need to use either QStaves or daggers.

quick note: Unbongwah is correct, it is I that emphasizes improved feint! No need for combat expertise but you need a high bluff score (via gear too). So improved feint THEN cleave them for sneak damage

[unbongwah]

quick note: Unbongwah is correct, it is I that emphasizes improved feint! No need for combat expertise but you need a high bluff score (via gear too). So improved feint THEN cleave them for sneak damage

Nice thing is that hypothetical build would have both Sleet Storm and Imp Feint, so twice the options for sneak atk goodness.

[elvesunited]

Does improved feint work?

I thought it was bugged for everything but handwraps.

[CPDK9]

For pure druids, I'm split between doing what's in this post: (A) all-in on melee, i.e., STR-based, everything spent on Nature's Warrior / Protector, possibly racial and/or Harper too; or (B) splitting my focus between melee (NW/NP) and caster (SH) for a hybrid.

Is the reason for the metas on the PDK melee/caster hybrid is to power up the wolf combat spells (Snowslide, Jaws of Winter, etc.)? Can Shrike keep up with that spell point expenditure? I think I'm leaning towards a wolf hybrid and leave the raging for a bear build.

[Tilomere]

Don't use an runearm or you're in for a bad time.

Been working on build, I think I can use a runearm for added damage and especially for lightning immune. Druid spell casting and shapeshifting will be disabled, but I'm just using passive benefits, which will all still work.

I might use bear form with a shield, for the lulz.

[Xera]

However my ideas from Lama preview were from before SSG added Beast Awakened ("You can now cast druidic magic while raging.") to the NP tree. So now I'm on the fence again. Or rather, the STR wolf build seems obvious: something like 41 NW / 22-26 NP / rest into Harper or wherever. [For bear build just reverse APs on NW / NP.] The WIS/STR hybrid build becomes more complicated.

Hi there, just wondering what do u mean the STR/WIS build becomes more complicated? I'm looking for a pure druid melee/caster hybrid build actually and as a quite recent player i most certainly don't understand everything about builds but that build u presented is actually the only post U38 build i found for a hybrid, or well, the only build that seems to fit the playstyle i'm looking for.

[unbongwah]

Hi there, just wondering what do u mean the STR/WIS build becomes more complicated?

Basically that you don't have enough feats, APs, etc. to go around. If you want a caster druid, you focus on WIS, take a bunch of metamagic fetas, and invest most of your APs into Season's Herald. If you want a melee druid, you focus on STR, take a bunch of melee DPS feats, and split most of your APs between Nature's Warrior and Nature's Protector (depending on whether you focus on wolf or bear form). If you want to do both on a single druid...yeah, good luck with that.

The new Falconry tree lets you make WIS both your caster and melee DPS stat; but it costs at least 12 APs to get WIS to dmg - 20+ APs if you want the tier-4 abilities like Deadly Instinct. And this is on top of the APs you already want to spend in the druid trees. So it eases one problem (stat consolidation) while worsening another (not enough APs for everything you want) and doesn't address the third (feat shortage).

As I mentioned elsewhere, all I really want is a bear druid with a viable Earthquake DC. I'm still working out how to do that without pigeon-holing myself into a gimped flavor build.

[Xera]

The new Falconry tree lets you make WIS both your caster and melee DPS stat; but it costs at least 12 APs to get WIS to dmg - 20+ APs if you want the tier-4 abilities like Deadly Instinct. And this is on top of the APs you already want to spend in the druid trees. So it eases one problem (stat consolidation) while worsening another (not enough APs for everything you want) and doesn't address the third (feat shortage).

Oh yeah i actually didn't take a good look at the falconry tree, that's a real shame they didn't do it like harper with 12AP spent hit and damage with INT mod... why the hell did they put that at 20 APs grr.

So well, it's basically just impossible to make a wolf melee/caster hybrid, i'm sooooo disapointed . Thanks for the informations anyway.

[unbongwah]

Oh it's still possible; it's just not a good idea. The closest I can come to a melee / caster hybrid is e.g. a STR-based Winter Wolf build which also uses ice spells like Creeping Cold and Ice Storm that have no save; it also seems to fit thematically with Cold Breath and Snowslide. And the only reason I seriously considered that approach is the Natural Fighting feats are relatively weaksauce compared to the other melee feat chains; giving up one or more of them for a metamagic or two doesn't seem to hurt wolf melee DPS the same way giving up the THF or TWF feats hurt their respective builds.

[LightBear]

Ok, my thought after doing a druid life.

I went full on wis hoping to be able to multiclass at level 12 for a firecasting Druid.
Getting to 12 was harder with the new changes as a bear.
Once there I noticed that 12 wasn't enough for the enhancement for anger of the noonday sun, major bummer.

Went falconer as a bear and could not get the bird tricks to work as they where way to slow.
The rest of that tree was more then welcome, wis to damage and extra damage to helpless is very nice to make up for the mistake as going full on wis.

Once level 17 I didn't bother anymore for dragging in some other classes, finally anger of the noonday sun kicked in.

The new changes to bear kinda force you into going sword and board, will try that next life.

Before the changes I did a multiclass bear monk and that was fine.
Might go back there once just to be able to compare the two, might go full on wis again and make use of the falconer tree again.