An ultimate caster druid build: awesome damage; DC; heal

[ChadB123]

Welcome to my nuker/dc/healer caster druid build post !

I'm glad you're enjoying Druid. It looks fun, and I'd like to give it a try.

Actually esoteric provides an hidden +10% crit chance to all spell schools. And Order’s Garb offers +15% vs Clouded Dreams +10%. So esoteric set wins.
The real issue is MRR capped at 70.

Whaaaaaat? This is valuable information. Thanks!

[Hobgoblin]

2) On dps test on a specific mob, I never did this type of test, but I could do it. I know there is a "special" mob to do that, but I don't know where to find him. I will do the test if I know where to go.

have u tried bruntsmash in cabal for one?

You go to cabal kill the trash and then trigger the fight.

not sure if its worth it anymore as his hp may be a little bit low

[Hobgoblin]

o and OP, I am not attacking your build at all. I especially like your gear layout and enthusiasm , and I am looking forward to playing it.

I think i will do it on an aas life or wait for 9 more racials and do it as a fun life.

how would you change it with more racial ap?

[tipav]

o and OP, I am not attacking your build at all. I especially like your gear layout and enthusiasm , and I am looking forward to playing it.

I think i will do it on an aas life or wait for 9 more racials and do it as a fun life.

how would you change it with more racial ap?

Oh, no problem hobgolin, I do not take it at all like an attack ! I am very happy to exchange with people on the build, it was the goal. And if people can help me to improve the build through exchanges, I will be very satisfied.

So, all your questions are welcome, but also your proposals. So, I repeat, no problem at all !

I am very happy to see that my post seems to generate a lot of enthusiasm for the build.

At the moment, I notice that the principal questions concern the DC. It's normal. I think that I will do more videos on r7/r8 to try to show, and to see (for me), if a 109 DC is really a good point of balance. I am thinking about the subject of do a boost on the DC, I know how to do it, I will give more indications. And I will try primal, as I told, even if I am not really satisfied with this epic destiny for the build.

If I could have 9 more racial AP, I would use them in the following priority order in season herald:

1) Crown of Summer (2 points)
2) Spring Resurgence (1 point) => at the moment, I have 2/3 here; spring resurgence is a fantastic healing tool, I put it always on all people of a group or a raid, I would be very happy to have a cooldown going from 4 to 2
3) salt ray 1=>2=>3 (2 points)
4) word of balance 1=>2=>3 (2 points)
5) 2 other points are free, I could put them in Efficient Maximize

[Hobgoblin]

if you dont mind would you break down that 109 dc? and what is that on?


thanks

[Pilgrim1]

At the moment, I notice that the principal questions concern the DC. It's normal. I think that I will do more videos on r7/r8 to try to show, and to see (for me), if a 109 DC is really a good point of balance. I am thinking about the subject of do a boost on the DC, I know how to do it, I will give more indications. And I will try primal, as I told, even if I am not really satisfied with this epic destiny for the build.

As someone who plays a DC druid in end game epics i can tell you that you will want to shoot for ~125 dc in r5+ sharn. You can manage with 115 for the rest of the content but you really need high dc to land spells vs mobs that have high saves.

Im glad to see such enthusiasm for caster druids but some of the information is misleading. In no way do druids have comparable dmg to sorcers. Not for aoe and not for single target. The arcane spell pass really blew this out of the water. Most arcane spells have twice the base damage that a comparable druid spell has. In addition the large destiny damage spells use int/charisma for dc, meaning in difficult content thoes spells will land for half damage.

In general caster druids face some significant issues in high end content which makes them more challenging to play.
1) druids kill things with damage. When damage scales way down due to mob hp blot and reaper scaling druids have very little recourse for killing things. Arcane casters have instant kills and there base spells do more damage, thus druids suffer by proxy.
2) druid CC tends not to induce helplessness. Sleetstorm, earthquake, howl of terror, sunburst all leave mobs taking normal damage. Burst of glacial wrath and salt ray are your only helpless effects. In addition earthquake has a duration of 30 seconds, in high reaper this scales down to 6 seconds. You will be in situations where you have to cast this on cooldown because you cant let them stand up for one tick.
3) druids healing, which is supper strong starts to fail to self heal sufficiently (this is the real reason to run assimar). Thankfully most people now have serious amounts of heal amp which means that mass regeneration has become the best healing spell in the game, again. Thanks sharn!


Druids have a few things going for them and i would encourage people to play to the strengths of the class.
1) they are increadbly focused on evocation which makes for a much more streamlined build.
2) they have the option to be a decent melee dps toon without investing to much into it.
3) vigor stacking is really strong, and mass regen is stupid good.
4) if set up right your pet can tank some bosses, r1-5.

I would encourage you to give magister a try, especially for lower DC toons. Your CL will drop by 2 however your max CL will rise by 3. In addition you will gain 2 evocation DC (over primal avatar).

You said you have a 100% crit, can you break it down for me?
Also dont take the above as a discouragement, keep pushing your druid as far as you can!

[Pilgrim1]

If your curious about other druids take a look at:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ear?highlight=

Its a DC druid that uses wolf DPS to kill mobs instead of spell damage.

[tipav]

As someone who plays a DC druid in end game epics i can tell you that you will want to shoot for ~125 dc in r5+ sharn. You can manage with 115 for the rest of the content but you really need high dc to land spells vs mobs that have high saves.

Im glad to see such enthusiasm for caster druids but some of the information is misleading. In no way do druids have comparable dmg to sorcers. Not for aoe and not for single target. The arcane spell pass really blew this out of the water. Most arcane spells have twice the base damage that a comparable druid spell has. In addition the large destiny damage spells use int/charisma for dc, meaning in difficult content thoes spells will land for half damage.

In general caster druids face some significant issues in high end content which makes them more challenging to play.
1) druids kill things with damage. When damage scales way down due to mob hp blot and reaper scaling druids have very little recourse for killing things. Arcane casters have instant kills and there base spells do more damage, thus druids suffer by proxy.
2) druid CC tends not to induce helplessness. Sleetstorm, earthquake, howl of terror, sunburst all leave mobs taking normal damage. Burst of glacial wrath and salt ray are your only helpless effects. In addition earthquake has a duration of 30 seconds, in high reaper this scales down to 6 seconds. You will be in situations where you have to cast this on cooldown because you cant let them stand up for one tick.
3) druids healing, which is supper strong starts to fail to self heal sufficiently (this is the real reason to run assimar). Thankfully most people now have serious amounts of heal amp which means that mass regeneration has become the best healing spell in the game, again. Thanks sharn!


Druids have a few things going for them and i would encourage people to play to the strengths of the class.
1) they are increadbly focused on evocation which makes for a much more streamlined build.
2) they have the option to be a decent melee dps toon without investing to much into it.
3) vigor stacking is really strong, and mass regen is stupid good.
4) if set up right your pet can tank some bosses, r1-5.

I would encourage you to give magister a try, especially for lower DC toons. Your CL will drop by 2 however your max CL will rise by 3. In addition you will gain 2 evocation DC (over primal avatar).

You said you have a 100% crit, can you break it down for me?
Also dont take the above as a discouragement, keep pushing your druid as far as you can!

First, I would like to say "thank you" to you. I need to exchange to increase the build. So, each exchange is good for that.

I would like to respond to you on some topics:

1) When you say that you need a 125 DC in sharn r5+, I really do not agree. As you told, 115 should be enough for most of the mobs. On what I have seen, 109 is even enough. But I will really do more tests to see if I am not wrong on this topic, to eventually go to 115 minimum, I admit it. Having 125 for a druid costs too much, in my opinion, for the main goal of the build. As I tried to explain, the build has the goal do do huge aoe damages. So, the gear is oriented to max cold spell power, crit chance and crit multiplier. If you want to have the best DC possible for mobs having the higher saves, I totally understand that. But my thinking is to break this thought by trying to find a good balance between DC and cold spells statistics. For mobs who escape the DC spells, you "just" have to kill them fast. It's probably because I have the chance to always play in group that I don't really see this as a huge problem.

2) I have never said that a druid does more aoe damages than a sorcerer. I invite you to read again all the posts, you will see that I just say that a druid does enough damages to kill mobs very fast, not that a druid does better damages than a sorcerer. The goal of the build is not to be "superior" to the sorcerer, but to be different with the healing counterpart, and PRR and MRR as well. It's a different way to play an elementalist. I had 3 lives with the sorcerer, so I know it well.

3) About the insta kills, I agree with you. Sorcerer has the insta kills. Druid has the healing and earthquake. About the helpless debuff, the goal is not to put it on the mobs, just to avoid them to do damages.

4) I agree on regenerate. Druid has awesome healing spells, and as I have explained, I always cast greater vigor mass and regenerate mass before entering a new room.

5) About the dps melee part of the druid, I played the WIS wolf, it was really nice to play. But, as I have said it several times, the main goal of the game is to take pleasure, and I take more pleasure with a caster druid.

6) About magister, I agree with you, I could make a try. I am really not convinced by primal avatar.

I begin to think that I could probably play my druid in 2 ways:

1) as explained in this topic without changes when I go in raids with my guild.
2) with adjustements I have to think about when I go in r7+ in groups to increase DC.

I will think about that.

Thank you for the exchanges.

[tipav]

I will give the 109 DC and 100% cold spell critical chance details tonight.

[tipav]

The 109 DC for evocation spell is reached like this:

Base 10
Level 9
Wisdom 39
Sorcerer past lives 3
Spell focus 1
Greater spell focus 1
Embolden 2
Guild 1

66

True power dragonborn 3
Strength of the solstice season's herald 1
Hierophant season's herald 1

71

Draconic incarnation core 3
Draconic incarnation precise evocation 2
Magister evocation specialist 3

79

Spell focus 7
Insightfull spell focus 4
Artifact spell focus 3
Quality spell focus 2
Profane spell focus 2
Greater evocation 2
Otto filigree bonus 2

101

Reaper focus 4

105

Mantle of the icy soul debuff 4

109

Possible 112 with the reaper memento potency for 30 seconds (5 charges per rest)

[tipav]

The 100% cold spell critical chance is reached like this:

Magical training 5% + Elemental toughness 1% + Wax and wane *4 season's herald 8% + Energy critical epic stance 9% = 23%
23 % + staff (ice lore 30% + Exceptionnal cold spell lore +20% and Frozen wanderer 2 pieces +5%) = 78% (there is a strange thing here, character sheet gives 79%)
79% + necklace ice lore 31% = 80% (31%-30%=+1% from the necklace)
80% + hruit's influence bonus 10% = 90%
90% + clouded dreams 10% exceptionnal universal spell lore = 100%

So, there is a "strange" +1% on the sheet with the staff, and 10% exceptionnal universal spell lore from clouded dreams cumulates with 20% exceptionnal cold crit chance from reflection of wave on the sheet.

[Pilgrim1]

Actually esoteric provides an hidden +10% crit chance to all spell schools. And Order’s Garb offers +15% vs Clouded Dreams +10%. So esoteric set wins.
The real issue is MRR capped at 70.

clouded dreams does not stack with the hidden crit chance, but it does with the order's Garb. I would guess the garb is typed as artifact and the set bonus is typed as exceptional.

[Hobgoblin]

The 109 DC for evocation spell is reached like this:

Base 10
Level 9
Wisdom 39
Sorcerer past lives 3
Spell focus 1
Greater spell focus 1
Embolden 2
Guild 1

66

True power dragonborn 3
Strength of the solstice season's herald 1
Hierophant season's herald 1

71

Draconic incarnation core 3
Draconic incarnation precise evocation 2
Magister evocation specialist 3

79

Spell focus 7
Insightfull spell focus 4
Artifact spell focus 3
Quality spell focus 2
Profane spell focus 2
Greater evocation 2
Otto filigree bonus 2

101

Reaper focus 4

105

Mantle of the icy soul debuff 4

109

Possible 112 with the reaper memento potency for 30 seconds (5 charges per rest)

ok that answers my question on dc. that will work

[tipav]

ok that answers my question on dc. that will work

It seems you have an idea.

Good ideas have been posted, I look at a gearset based on the esoteric set, to see what final statistics it could give. I could change my mind on this point if the result is good. I will let you know what it could give.

[tipav]

I have made tests with the gear, and I have discovered a bug: the Reflection of wave 5 cold caster levels are sometimes lost ! When you equip the 'pendant of the azure sea' necklace, it gives you one caster level on cold spells. If you equip it after reflection, reflection will not give 5 caster levels on cold spells. Reflection must be equipped after the necklace.

After tries, I have concluded that the 'pendant of the azure sky' could be better than the 'pendant of the azure sea'. In fact, when you equip Reflection, pendant of the azure sea only gives 1% critical chance to cold spell. Pendant of the azure sky will boost fire spell power and fire spell critical chance, even if fire is not so important in the build. But, doing that, you are sure to have no conflict between reflection and pendant of the azure sea.

I also discovered that cold spells are not cast at level 43, but at level 47 without the bug. I tried to calculate it.

I removed all the gear and looked at 'burst of glacial wrath':

* initial level is 30.
* +3 levels with epic destiny power 'white dragon spell knowledge'.
* +1 level with dragonborn power 'white dragon knowledge'.
* +1 level with season herald power 'time and tide'
* +1 level with season herald power 'hierophant' capstone

36

* +3 levels in water elemental form
* +3 levels with season herald power 'elder of winter' core enhancements

42

* +5 levels with 'reflection of wave' equiped

47

So, it's level 47, not 43 when bug is bypassed. It works for 'burst of glacial wrath', 'energy burst', the 2 dragon breaths (one from the epic destiny, one from the dragonborn) and energy vortex. 'Tsunami' is cast at level 39.

[tipav]

Yesterday, I have looted the hallowed trail cloak.

So, to increase the DC, these modifications in the gear could be done:

* Cloak: https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legendary_Hallowed_Trail instead of LGS cloak spell points; I win +2 DC to evocation spells, I lose 1000 spell points
* Head: https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legend...sophic_Circlet instead of https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legendary_Arcsteel_Brim ; I win the insightfull potency, I lose the MRR and insightful MRR
* SL trinket instead of cannith crafting trinket, with sheltering (for MRR), resistance, spellcraft and quality WIS. For another +2 DC on spells based on WIS, but I lose CHA.

DC of earthquake will be 113 with these modifications, 116 with reaper boost for 30 seconds (5 reaper charges per rest).

To really push the DC, eye of the beholder could be put in the filigrees:

* 4 otto filigrees (CON, PRR, MRR, SPP)
* 4 eye of the beholder filigrees (WIS, SPP, MRR, eye of the beholder/inevitable grave)
* 2 frozen wanderer filigrees (blood feast/frozen wanderer, WIS or cold SPP)
* celeriry/vigilance filigree for +2 WIS

DC of earthquake will be 115 with these modifications, 118 with reaper boost for 30 seconds (5 reaper charges per rest). Wellspring of power could also be changed with arcane insight for +6 DC for 30 seconds every 3 minutes, to a possible 124 DC.

I don't know if I will made all these modifications, but I can test them, I have the leg pansophic circlet, so I just need to craft the SL trinket. The spell points pool will go to 4600, but I will have 41 reaper points very soon for a boost of 200 points, to a total of 4800, I think it's a good pool.

In conclusion, with an "effort" on the spell points pool, it's possible to increase the DC. It's probably a good idea. With the option to begin instances with the LGS cloak for buffs.

[Marcb81]

Yesterday, I have looted the hallowed trail cloak.

So, to increase the DC, these modifications in the gear could be done:

* Cloak: https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legendary_Hallowed_Trail instead of LGS cloak spell points; I win +2 DC to evocation spells, I lose 1000 spell points
* Head: https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legend...sophic_Circlet instead of https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legendary_Arcsteel_Brim ; I win the insightfull potency, I lose the MRR and insightful MRR
* SL trinket instead of cannith crafting trinket, with sheltering (for MRR), resistance, spellcraft and quality WIS. For another +2 DC on spells based on WIS, but I lose CHA.

DC of earthquake will be 113 with these modifications, 116 with reaper boost for 30 seconds (5 reaper charges per rest).

To really push the DC, eye of the beholder could be put in the filigrees:

* 4 otto filigrees (CON, PRR, MRR, SPP)
* 4 eye of the beholder filigrees (WIS, SPP, MRR, eye of the beholder/inevitable grave)
* 2 frozen wanderer filigrees (blood feast/frozen wanderer, WIS or cold SPP)
* celeriry/vigilance filigree for +2 WIS

DC of earthquake will be 115 with these modifications, 118 with reaper boost for 30 seconds (5 reaper charges per rest). Wellspring of power could also be changed with arcane insight for +6 DC for 30 seconds every 3 minutes, to a possible 124 DC.

I don't know if I will made all these modifications, but I can test them, I have the leg pansophic circlet, so I just need to craft the SL trinket. The spell points pool will go to 4600, but I will have 41 reaper points very soon for a boost of 200 points, to a total of 4800, I think it's a good pool.

In conclusion, with an "effort" on the spell points pool, it's possible to increase the DC. It's probably a good idea. With the option to begin instances with the LGS cloak for buffs.

Any updates on soloing mid-reaper Sharn Evo DC requirements? I think you've made a lot of progress on building a nuker caster druid, but I'm surprised that 109 DC is enough.

Swapping Mental Toughness feat for past-life Arcane
Hallowed Trail (+9 Evo)
Slaver item for +4 Qual Wis
Swapping wellspring of power for arcane initiate
- With the release of Soul Splitter I would imagine sunken slippers to be a high priority (Qual +5 Wis, Lesser displacement, Insightful Potency, Qual Potency). Certainly worth giving up the CC trinket.


These seem like relatively painless trade-offs, which would add 5 DC and +6 boost, bringing you closer to 115. With pots and the reaper bump you could get up to 125 situationally. You wouldn't even have to give up insightful glaciation from CC trinket or loose the 50 bonus Cold spell Power for 4-p frozen wanderer.

Also, thoughts on twisting tsunami versus sense weakness? Seems like since you start with burst of glacial wrath it might be better just to have extra helpless damage, which would be a considerable damage boost for your character. If you want more Evo DC, then you could swap for Evo Augmentation from Magister. This gives a 15% chance for Evo spells to give -10 debuff to reflex saves for 30 sec, which is basically like increasing earthquake DC by 10.

Finally, do you feel like this approach is better optimized than a caster/wolf build or just more fun? It looks like a ton of fun personally.

Overall, I think this is the best post on a non-wolf druid build since Gingerspyce, so keep up the good work!

[Pilgrim1]

So last night I used a lesser heart of wood to turn my dc-wolf druid into a pure ice caster druid.

these are my thoughts:

The good:
1) first off, its fun. It brings back the old style druid of bringing mobs into a huge pile and killing them with damage. It's really nice having an effective way of doing damage. This lack of DPS was what started me down the wolf-dc hybrid mix.
2) It was surprisingly effective. The lowered DC of draconic spells where somewhat mitigated by the mobs being helpless (BoGW) or knocked down (earthquake/tsunami), lowering there reflex save to manageable levels. My DC's where 117 evocation and 103 draconic spells (reaper).

The bad:
1) reapers where difficult to deal with. BoGW, tsunami, and salt ray all do not work on reapers, leaving only on earthquake with its very short duration (high reaper), and sunburst. This was especially true of despair reapers which seam to have much higher reflex saves making them extremely difficult to CC. I may have to use a LGS salt stick as a weapon swap in to deal with reapers.
2) Archers and spread out mobs. When the mobs where spread out and not clumped together it became much more difficult to deal with them easily.
3) My non-evocation spell DC was really lowered. Finger of death and mass frog where both sub 100.
4) An almost dead mob was really irritating to deal with, I seamed to lack any instant punch to finish them off. I might look into lighting bolt for situations like this.

Some general thoughts:
1) ice flowers still stinks, i cant see a use for it.
2) I took intensify over master of the wilds because 75 cold spell power seamed better then bonus CL to spells I don't use.
3) I did not take the SLA in the season's Harald tree as they seamed sub par. I may re-consider and work my way up-to call lighting and take master of the wilds for a burst shot.
4) I was assamar scourge (because that was the race prior to my lesser), dragonborn would provide more dps with worse self healing and worse non-evocation DC and better draconic DC.
5) I used some slightly different gear choices:

https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legendary_Sunken_Slippers (with +5 Q.wisdom)
https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legendary_Hallowed_Trail
One of thoes two I will have to replace when I can craft a LGS cold crit chance, likely the cloak and eat -2 evcoation DC.
And my trinket is a Slave lord with Intelligence/Resistance/spell sight/Q.con

Gear holes are a lack of incorporeal and after the LGS swap less evocation DC.

In some quests one could jump into magistrate for 123 DC on evocation.

I skipped mental toughness and wellspring of power and Scion of fire all in favor of evocation DC boosts.

EDIT: You could do almost the exact same build using fire spells and spiral. Disadvantages are your BoGW and Tsunami deal worse damage. Advantages are body of the sun and viable acid stuff.

[tipav]

So last night I used a lesser heart of wood to turn my dc-wolf druid into a pure ice caster druid.

these are my thoughts:

The good:
1) first off, its fun. It brings back the old style druid of bringing mobs into a huge pile and killing them with damage. It's really nice having an effective way of doing damage. This lack of DPS was what started me down the wolf-dc hybrid mix.
2) It was surprisingly effective. The lowered DC of draconic spells where somewhat mitigated by the mobs being helpless (BoGW) or knocked down (earthquake/tsunami), lowering there reflex save to manageable levels. My DC's where 117 evocation and 103 draconic spells (reaper).

The bad:
1) reapers where difficult to deal with. BoGW, tsunami, and salt ray all do not work on reapers, leaving only on earthquake with its very short duration (high reaper), and sunburst. This was especially true of despair reapers which seam to have much higher reflex saves making them extremely difficult to CC. I may have to use a LGS salt stick as a weapon swap in to deal with reapers.
2) Archers and spread out mobs. When the mobs where spread out and not clumped together it became much more difficult to deal with them easily.
3) My non-evocation spell DC was really lowered. Finger of death and mass frog where both sub 100.
4) An almost dead mob was really irritating to deal with, I seamed to lack any instant punch to finish them off. I might look into lighting bolt for situations like this.

Some general thoughts:
1) ice flowers still stinks, i cant see a use for it.
2) I took intensify over master of the wilds because 75 cold spell power seamed better then bonus CL to spells I don't use.
3) I did not take the SLA in the season's Harald tree as they seamed sub par. I may re-consider and work my way up-to call lighting and take master of the wilds for a burst shot.
4) I was assamar scourge (because that was the race prior to my lesser), dragonborn would provide more dps with worse self healing and worse non-evocation DC and better draconic DC.
5) I used some slightly different gear choices:

https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legendary_Sunken_Slippers (with +5 Q.wisdom)
https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legendary_Hallowed_Trail
One of thoes two I will have to replace when I can craft a LGS cold crit chance, likely the cloak and eat -2 evcoation DC.
And my trinket is a Slave lord with Intelligence/Resistance/spell sight/Q.con

Gear holes are a lack of incorporeal and after the LGS swap less evocation DC.

In some quests one could jump into magistrate for 123 DC on evocation.

I skipped mental toughness and wellspring of power and Scion of fire all in favor of evocation DC boosts.

EDIT: You could do almost the exact same build using fire spells and spiral. Disadvantages are your BoGW and Tsunami deal worse damage. Advantages are body of the sun and viable acid stuff.

Hi Pilgrim, I am very glad you have tried the build.

On your thoughts:

1) yes, the build is extremely fun.

2) yes, it is very very effective. About this point, I have started to play in 2 ways:a) in raids, I play with the build described in my original post; I heal the raid and I do dps, I am almost all the time the 1st at the score card, I use mass frogs as soon as he's available, and all aoe spells. b) in reaper quests, we play now almost all the time in R8 to R10, and I play differently; my main goal is to heal and CC; so, I tried to play magister to boost DC, and i made modifications on my gear I will explain, to go to DC 122, and even in R10, my earthquake is really effective in sharn; to my surprise, my DPS was still very high without draconic incarnation. So, I have now 2 modes of playing the build, one in raids and one in R8+ quests.

3) about reapers, I can say you I do not have so much difficuties; indeed, I use wellspring of power, frezzing spray, and put all the 4 druid dots (no spell resistance, no save): creeping cold, greater creeping cold, envelopping swarm, creeping doom, and I often takes aggro if I use bogw and energy burst, and then I use fade into the waves or I kite to avoid to die. It's really effective.

4) about archers, yes, this is really difficult to manage

5) I don't play with finger of death, but a lot with mass frogs. Mass frogs is awesome, it must be used on the good monsters, ie constructs, skeletons, ...

6) I never use icy flowers, true

7) master of the wilds it not an optimal choice for the build, yes

8) SLA are still good to have in my opinion, I still play with them to finish mobs not dead with aoe, but it's true there are not the main tools of the build, except call lightning, which is still a very good 2nd tool option

9) dargonborn is the optimal choice, yes

10) about skipping mental toughness and wellspring of power and Scion of fire all in favor of evocation DC boosts, it's a question of choice. I agree with you on skipping mental toughness and wellspring of power; if I want to skip mental toughness, I need a wizard life. About scion of fire, I do not agree: it's better to go to magister in R8+ quests, and so keep scion of fire, because with magister you gain +6 permanent evocation DC and +5 DC each minute, better than scion of air in my opinion to keep a high DPS. As already said, I play in this way now in R8+ quests, my earthquake works very well, and I keep a very high DPS.

I would like to say "Thank you" to you ! And to all people who contributed to the build, and helped me understand that the good solution is to play in 2 different ways, in raids and in R8 quests. When I go in quest, I change some gear and the epic destiny to magister. To be honest, I'm still testing R8+ quests gear and destinies to find the best compromise. I will post when I will have finished all these tries.

TY again pilgrim for your feedback, and enjoy playing the build.

[Marcb81]

So last night I used a lesser heart of wood to turn my dc-wolf druid into a pure ice caster druid.

these are my thoughts:

The good:
1) first off, its fun. It brings back the old style druid of bringing mobs into a huge pile and killing them with damage. It's really nice having an effective way of doing damage. This lack of DPS was what started me down the wolf-dc hybrid mix.
2) It was surprisingly effective. The lowered DC of draconic spells where somewhat mitigated by the mobs being helpless (BoGW) or knocked down (earthquake/tsunami), lowering there reflex save to manageable levels. My DC's where 117 evocation and 103 draconic spells (reaper).

The bad:
1) reapers where difficult to deal with. BoGW, tsunami, and salt ray all do not work on reapers, leaving only on earthquake with its very short duration (high reaper), and sunburst. This was especially true of despair reapers which seam to have much higher reflex saves making them extremely difficult to CC. I may have to use a LGS salt stick as a weapon swap in to deal with reapers.
2) Archers and spread out mobs. When the mobs where spread out and not clumped together it became much more difficult to deal with them easily.
3) My non-evocation spell DC was really lowered. Finger of death and mass frog where both sub 100.
4) An almost dead mob was really irritating to deal with, I seamed to lack any instant punch to finish them off. I might look into lighting bolt for situations like this.

Some general thoughts:
1) ice flowers still stinks, i cant see a use for it.
2) I took intensify over master of the wilds because 75 cold spell power seamed better then bonus CL to spells I don't use.
3) I did not take the SLA in the season's Harald tree as they seamed sub par. I may re-consider and work my way up-to call lighting and take master of the wilds for a burst shot.
4) I was assamar scourge (because that was the race prior to my lesser), dragonborn would provide more dps with worse self healing and worse non-evocation DC and better draconic DC.
5) I used some slightly different gear choices:

https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legendary_Sunken_Slippers (with +5 Q.wisdom)
https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Legendary_Hallowed_Trail
One of thoes two I will have to replace when I can craft a LGS cold crit chance, likely the cloak and eat -2 evcoation DC.
And my trinket is a Slave lord with Intelligence/Resistance/spell sight/Q.con

Gear holes are a lack of incorporeal and after the LGS swap less evocation DC.

In some quests one could jump into magistrate for 123 DC on evocation.

I skipped mental toughness and wellspring of power and Scion of fire all in favor of evocation DC boosts.

EDIT: You could do almost the exact same build using fire spells and spiral. Disadvantages are your BoGW and Tsunami deal worse damage. Advantages are body of the sun and viable acid stuff.

Just out of curiosity. Will you go back to hybrid wolf or play this for a bit? Also if you want to go fire route, you can pick teifling and then use fire spell power in place of cold/acid/electricity. This way as spiral cycles you have > 1000 SP in all of them and the crit chance bonus cycles off spiral too, so you're good for all elemental damage. I suppose you could have multiple LGS crit multiplier items to cycle through too. Then you'd be a master of all elements.

Finally, how did you spend enhancement points outside of racial and season's herald? Did you go NW for prey on the weak or Falconry for No mercy helpless damage or did you not have enough left over?

I currently have a first life 30 druid with all the Sharn items, just no raid items. I'm trying to make some decisions of where to go next. Thanks in advance for any input.