The Raging Wolf: 18 Druid 1 Barbarian 1 FvS

[Giorgakis]

This is basically an U38 winter wolf build who uses the ability to rage and be able to cast druid spells while raging. I m using light armor so wolf evasion works and wield two-handed weapons like a greatsword or a falchion for more dps rather than a one-handed weapon and a shield (or orb). Glancing blows don’t work in wolf form but you attack 30% faster in winter wolf form. The race I chose is Aasimar mostly because of healing hands. It can also be Aasimar Scourge if you use a lesser heart +1 to get rid of the ranger level. The t4 ascendant bond in aasimar tree won’t work with wild shape because it is considered a form. The barbarian level makes rage lasts longer, gives 10% fast movement, gives proficiency with martial weapons which is needed for falchion and greatswords and also it gives access to t1 enhancements. The FvS gives access to Divine Will which works like Know the Angles but its wisdom based. To top it off you get nightshield as an FvS spell and some extra spell points. At last 18 levels of druid give you access to all druid spells and animal form innate attacks. You get a decent pool of spellpoints for healing and innate attacks and all druid buffs.

The Raging Wolf
Aasimar
18 Druid, 1 Barbarian, 1 FvS
Neutral Good

Strength 18 + all 7 raises
Dexterity 15
Constitution 14
Intelligence 8
Wisdom 16
Charisma 8
No ability tomes are required for this build to work but the bigger the merrier.

For skills I recommend:
Heal
UMD: for out of combat scroll use mostly, can’t use scrolls or wands in wild shape or while being raged
Tumble: just 2 half points to unlock it
Search: so you can find high DC secret doors
Spot: it helps you bluff enemies using the bailing bite innate wolf attack and spot stealthy enemies

The Breakdown
1 Druid: Power Attack, Bond of the Fallen
2 Barbarian
3 Druid: Cleve
4 Druid
5 Druid
6 Druid: Great Cleave
7 Druid
8 Druid
9 Druid: Quicken
10 Druid
11 Druid
12 Druid: Improved Critical Slashing
13 Druid
14 Druid
15 Druid Natural Fighting
16 Druid
17 Druid
18 Druid Natural Fighting
19 FvS: **whatever deity you want, its just for flavor
20 Druid
**(i took the fvs at this level because i wanted to have snowslide at L18)

Epic Feats
21 Overwhelming Critical
24 Natural Fighting
26 Perfect Two Weapon Fighting (for 5% main hand doublestrike)
27 Blinding Speed
28 Tactician
29 Dire Charge
30 Scion of Arborea, Epic Reflex or Completionist

Enhancements
Extra racial action points can help make this build stronger but can do without
Aasimar: Stronger Bonds, Strength, Stronger Bond, Strength, Stronger Bonds, Aasimar Improved Recovery I
Nature’s Warrior: 5 cores till Howl of Winter, Extra Wild Empathy 2/3, Bestial Nature 2/2, Flight 3/3, Ghost Wolf, AB Doublestrike 3/3, Fight 3/3, Prey of the Weak 2/2, Ghost Wolf Pack, Essence of the Shrike 2/2, Fatal Harrier 3/3, Four Legs Good, Ferocity 3/3, Alpha Strike 3/3, Swift Hunter, Jaws of Ice, Go for the Kill
Nature’s Protector: first 3 cores, Rage of the Beast 2/2, Grizzled Defense 3/3, Animal Brutality 3/3, Primal Beast II 2/2, Enchanted Defense 3/3, Enduring Beast 2/2, Strength, Undying Beast, Beast Awakened
War Soul (FvS): Smite, Divine Will 3/3
Ravager (BrB): Furious Rage, Barbarian Power Attack 3/3

Note: If you want to use displacements clickies often you might want to get Extra Rage from Frenzied Berserker tree because you only get 5 uses of rage so far with this build. So those racial action points you get from racial TR’s might come in handy here.

Epic Destiny
Legendary Dreadnaught: Legendary Tactics 3/3, Extra Action Boost 3/3, Strength I, Improved Power Attack, AB Power 3/3, Strength II, AB Haste 3/3, Advancing Blows, Devastating Critical, Master’s Blitz Resistance
Twists: Sense Weakness, Primal Scream, Dragonhide, Impregnable Mind, a tier 3 twist from these: Blessed Blade (makes weapon good aligned), Grim Precision, Meld into Darkness

Equipment
CC Goggles +15 wisdom, true seeing, +7 ins wisdom, +2 festive wisdom aug??
Legendary Executioner Helm, +250 power topaz
Neck: Slavers Chains +17 constitution, +4 quality constitution, +14 resistance, heal +22, draconic soul gem aug
CC Trinket 15% dodge, healing amplification 61, insightful deadly +5
Legendary Bracers of the Fallen Hero, +40 false life sapphire
Legendary Ring of Prowess, +8 cha diamond??
Feet: Slavers Sackles, +45 sheltering, armor piercing +28, quality strength +4, 1 missing property maybe +20 vertigo or +22 to a skill, golems heart aug??
CC Gloves 17% double strike, insightful combat mastery +6, insightful strength +7
Ring: Legendary Band of Insightful Commands (more attack also helps your cc to not graze and hence auto fail in legendry quests), for boss fights swap to something that has improved deception like Seal of House Avithoul or Ring of Lies or Ring of Deceit, can also use the Legendary Ring of Power from slavers for the extra armor piercing when that’s needed.
Legendary Silent Avenger Set
Legendary Mist-laden Vestment, deathblock topaz or fear immunity??
Legendary Shadowhail Cloak, good luck +2 aug
Legendary Braided Cutcord, globe of true imperial blood aug
Weapon
Legendary Tail of the Scorpion, devotion +138 ruby
Can also use Morninglord Falchion or Epic Sword of Shadows
I recommend falchions because they benefit more from the +1 critical multiplier you get from Nature’s Warrior 4th core.
Note: the 3 slavers items I’m using are part of the Slaver’s Might set

Notes
I don’t play in Lamania so i don’t know how to measure the dps of this build.
You can swap no auto-fail saves on rolls of 1 from feats and twists i choose for different if you don’t care.
Although Druid gets a lot of healing spells they have longer cooldowns in animal forms so 7 charges of healing hands from Aasimar always come in handy especially on reaper difficulty.
If you choose you can swap to normal form or elemental form and act as a healer if the need arise.
You can swap to bear form any time you want to use bear form cc like tremor or relentless onslaught although this build has plenty of cc as it is.
The prr and mrr you get is quite decent but dodge is not that high, the particular armor caps it at 20%. If you want more maybe you can twist Lithe from shadowdancer and put some points in dodge in the Nature’s Warrior tree. With Shadar Kai past lives it should get it to 26% and don’t forget to use Flight enhancement for an uncapped 20% extra for a period of time.

PS
Thank you for any suggestion you might make.

[elvesunited]

War Soul (FvS): Smite, Divine Will 3/3

CC Trinket 15% dodge, healing amplification 61, insightful deadly +5

CC Gloves 17% double strike, insightful combat mastery +6, insightful strength +7

Since the bonuses from War Soul are insightful i didn't think they stacked with insightful bonuses from items. You'd can achieve a higher insight deadly and insight combat mastery via war soul so you're probably better off picking other enchantments for your cannith crafting.

I m using light armor so wolf evasion works

I've always limited evasion to those character builds that go all in on dexterity/intelligence and reflex saves. And follow it up with epic reflexes at 27. Can this build get its reflexes high enough to be viable at epic levels?

[Hjarki]

For Epic Destiny, I'd give serious thought to Primal Avatar. You get +60 Melee Power from cores and the entire line of "only while dual wielding, unarmed or in wild shape" line is fairly strong. I'm not sure how effective Avatar of Nature is these days, but the fact that you get comparable offense to LD (given your general lack of Action Boosts, helpless effects and appropriate weapon) while also getting extra Druid casting levels is nice.

If not in Primal Avatar, Balanced Attacks is definitely a strong twist since your BAB will be a bit low for a melee-oriented character.

Spellcraft can come in handy for Frost Breath.

I don't believe you can use clickies while Raged.

Wisdom-based wild shape builds often choose to go with Heavy Armor rather than Evasion since the current best-in-slot for Druid wearable heavy armor has a +9 Insightful Wisdom bonus.

If you've got the racial AP, Warforged:

• Constitution gives slightly longer Rages (and hp/fort saves).
• The -3 Strength compared to Aasimar is counterbalanced by the +Tactics/+Power Attack in the tree.
• Memories of the Last War gives +15 Melee Power (and potentially other benefits if you go to the next tier).
• You get +1 with Great Swords (and could potentially improve this with FvS enhancements)
• It gives you the ability to drop Wild Shape to fight enemies like Beholders.

For the approach you're taking, Half-Orc will probably deliver more damage and preclude the need for spending AP in Barbarian. A pure 20 Druid (to get capstone) with Half-Orc would have virtually all of the features in your build, with only slightly worse DCs (but still very good ones).

Blinding Speed will almost certainly be irrelevant with epic gear.

Going with Charisma and conventional Divine Might means you also get +hit, 1.5x damage (rather than 1x) and the same amount of tactics. While it doesn't stack with Insight from gear, most +Strength insight gear is terrible. This would reduce you ability to land Druid Wisdom-based DC spells, but you're not likely to ever land those anyway. I don't think you can take both Divine Might from Cleric and Divine Presence from FvS (they lock each other out), but that would be a fairly abusive combo.

[Giorgakis]

Since the bonuses from War Soul are insightful i didn't think they stacked with insightful bonuses from items. You'd can achieve a higher insight deadly and insight combat mastery via war soul so you're probably better off picking other enchantments for your cannith crafting.


I've always limited evasion to those character builds that go all in on dexterity/intelligence and reflex saves. And follow it up with epic reflexes at 27. Can this build get its reflexes high enough to be viable at epic levels?

My tests on the dummy show that it stacks even if the desciption of Divine Will says insightfull bonuses. Much like KtA it won't show in the inventory screen but it works fine. Also your dire charge DC as it shows when you mouse over will increase by half the modifier of your wisdom (round down) when you activate Divine Will although I don't know how to really test it ingame. Think it stacks for every combat feat and innate animal attack you use.
The enhancments I choose provide +2 to reflex and +3 from nature stance. You get +1 from bond of the Fallen and you can get more from Aasimar tree. The gear and enhancments I use on this build provide a lot of reflex saves and dexterity. Of course you need Greater Heroism. If you combine this with brace epic past lives and rogue past lives (for extra saves against traps) and a dexterity tome +7 you reflex saves are gonna be quite high. For reaper i suggest increasing your reflex save with your reaper points since its gonna be the lowest save on this build. My alt witout any relevant past lives or reaper points and +3 dex tome has +70 +4(GH) reflex saves with the exact build i posted.

[Giorgakis]

For Epic Destiny, I'd give serious thought to Primal Avatar. You get +60 Melee Power from cores and the entire line of "only while dual wielding, unarmed or in wild shape" line is fairly strong. I'm not sure how effective Avatar of Nature is these days, but the fact that you get comparable offense to LD (given your general lack of Action Boosts, helpless effects and appropriate weapon) while also getting extra Druid casting levels is nice.

If not in Primal Avatar, Balanced Attacks is definitely a strong twist since your BAB will be a bit low for a melee-oriented character.

Spellcraft can come in handy for Frost Breath.

I don't believe you can use clickies while Raged.

Wisdom-based wild shape builds often choose to go with Heavy Armor rather than Evasion since the current best-in-slot for Druid wearable heavy armor has a +9 Insightful Wisdom bonus.

If you've got the racial AP, Warforged:

• Constitution gives slightly longer Rages (and hp/fort saves).
• The -3 Strength compared to Aasimar is counterbalanced by the +Tactics/+Power Attack in the tree.
• Memories of the Last War gives +15 Melee Power (and potentially other benefits if you go to the next tier).
• You get +1 with Great Swords (and could potentially improve this with FvS enhancements)
• It gives you the ability to drop Wild Shape to fight enemies like Beholders.

For the approach you're taking, Half-Orc will probably deliver more damage and preclude the need for spending AP in Barbarian. A pure 20 Druid (to get capstone) with Half-Orc would have virtually all of the features in your build, with only slightly worse DCs (but still very good ones).

Blinding Speed will almost certainly be irrelevant with epic gear.

Going with Charisma and conventional Divine Might means you also get +hit, 1.5x damage (rather than 1x) and the same amount of tactics. While it doesn't stack with Insight from gear, most +Strength insight gear is terrible. This would reduce you ability to land Druid Wisdom-based DC spells, but you're not likely to ever land those anyway. I don't think you can take both Divine Might from Cleric and Divine Presence from FvS (they lock each other out), but that would be a fairly abusive combo.

Not including possible twists from Primal Avatar was an oversight. You can twist Balanced Attacks (t3) for extra attack and the knockdown effect or Symetric Strikes for 5% more damage (t4). I wouldn't replace sense weakness for one of them though so i would use them maybe on my main who has all possible fate points.

Primal Avatar now provides 60 melee power, less than full Blitz and LD cores but a lot better when you can't Blitz. But overall I consider the LD Destiny superior because of helpless damage and constant running action boosts among other things it provides.

Never tried Frost Breath or any other offensive spells. All the builds choises are about melee dps and survivability.

You can't use clickies while raged but you can always dismiss rage to use one. Takes a few seconds to set the whole thing up though and i wouldn't do it while fighting.

My build is strength based so i only use wisdom for will saves, spellpoints, skills and the multiplier of healing hands. My cc goggles provide +7 insightfull wisdom. Also there are some difference from light armor to heavy armor like the ppr and maximum dodge bonus. Apart from that I really like evasion and would love to have it in my build if I can. Also my light armor is part of a DPS set, Silent Avenger from Borovia.

A Warforged build versus an Aasimar has some differences. You can get more dps from WF but that also mean you can't use any armor feat because they are both metallic so it gives less ~20 prr. Also mean no healing hands, which is a quite good and fast heal even when used on self on reaper1 or reaper2. Also you don't need the energy drain immunity because you get that while raging from the Protector's tree.

A Half-Orc variant would be intresting because they get a lot of dps goodies like power attack, racial action boost, extra attack and damage with all melee weapons especially two handed, extra action boosts, damage vs helpless etc and it's a strength bonus race. If you can do without healing hands you can try it. Pure build also means you wont have auto granted martial proficiency which includes two handed weapons like greatswords and falchions I propose. I 'd rather have it so it means 1 less feat you have to cut form the build in order to get falchion or greatsword proficiency. Of course that mean you cant get extra rage uses from Berserker tree if you need that and you will be limited to 5 rage uses per rest. The whole duration is enough but if you need to dismiss it often or die often you might run out of uses. A plus about a pure build is the Nature's Warrior capstone I don't have in my build. It gives 10% doubelstrike +2 str +2 wis and 10 prr and further reduces the cooldown penalty of spells down to 1.5 times. It increases the bonus from magic fang by +1 since you are now a L20 caster. You also get +1 attack and damage +1 SA dice like all other cores in the tree.

Blinding Speed is needed for this build because the equipment i propose has no attack speed or movement speed bonus. If you dont want to take it as a feat you can tweak with the CC gloves and CC trinket I propose, drop insightfull combat mastery and get melee alacrity 15% instead. If you do that you 'll need a striding topaz 30% or an upgraded quiver of alacrity.

In my CC gloves I have +7 insightful str so if i use the classic divine might I wouldn't get much more and i would need a high charisma item to get it high enough. Divine Will gives a damage bonus and combat feat DC based on the wisdom modifier when I'm always wearing a wisdom item and my build have spent points in wisdom from character creation. CC goggles with +15 wis +7 insightfull +2 festive augment. To get it even higher you can equip a Legendary Chieftain ring which give +18 wisdom +4 quality wisdom before you hit Divine Will. Also worthy of note is that Divine Will or Divine presence or Divine Might are Antirequisite with Know the Angles from Harper tree. You can get KtA in a pure Druid build though but you need an intelligence item to get it high.


Last I would like to thank you for your thoughts on my build.

[unbongwah]

Warforged:

• It gives you the ability to drop Wild Shape to fight enemies like Beholders.

Why would you do that? Undying Beast grants energy drain immunity / deathblock; and you need that to take Beast Awakened anyway. So you've already got protection from the worst of what beholders throw at you. And the big drawback to WF druids is still you can't take a body feat, so if not going the monk / druid route you're at a disadvantage armor-wise vs fleshy druids.

[SerPounce]

This is a good build. I was thinking along these lines after doing a 18/1 ftr/1clr life.

I would dump dex and use heavy armor though. I don’t think you’re going to be passing enough reflex saves to make the PRR hit and MRR cap worth it.

[J-mann]

This is a good build. I was thinking along these lines after doing a 18/1 ftr/1clr life.

I would dump dex and use heavy armor though. I don’t think you’re going to be passing enough reflex saves to make the PRR hit and MRR cap worth it.

This is certainly true in epics, but in heroics you certainly can. So if hes just going 1 to 20 evasion would work just fine. In epics respec for medium or heavy armor (i usually take medium for the larger mdb for more dodge as druids dont get a large bab to woory too much about the slight prr hit)

[PepperShirtGuy]

Been looking at this build for a few days now and was wondering if anyone could recommend the ap distribution with the falconry tree added.

Also was thinking of lowering Str to 13 and maxing Wis. Thoughts?

Would lowering Dex and bumping up Con be helpful?

This would be for a second lifer (changing from wiz) so no real gear at first.

[Discpsycho]

Been looking at this build for a few days now and was wondering if anyone could recommend the ap distribution with the falconry tree added.

Also was thinking of lowering Str to 13 and maxing Wis. Thoughts?

Would lowering Dex and bumping up Con be helpful?

This would be for a second lifer (changing from wiz) so no real gear at first.

Strimtom tried out a Wis wolf for Hardcore (link). I haven't watched the video, but as a one-stat wonder he had an easier time staying alive, especially with Aasimar Healing Hands.

IMO, I'd stick with the Str-based variant. The more gear you have, the more your enhancement-based features suffer from diminishing returns. This build gets a lot of Str and MP from raging, which would take a hit if you made a major dip into Falconry. If you've got a lot of top-tier gear, this Str and MP is a smaller fraction of your total Str and MP than if you've got very little gear.

Dex only really helps this build's Reflex, which isn't too shabby because it picks up Evasion from T5. However, those few points pale in comparison to your final gear loadout, and it's entirely possible this build won't be able to hit high enough reflex values at endgame to be worth it. On the flip side, Con only gives 30HP and +1 Fort per point, and depending on the difficulty at which you run quests this may be less valuable than 5% less AOE damage. Personally, I'd stop at 14 if you're not going all-in on rages.