New player looking for druid help

[Opalwing]

Hello,

I am new to DDO and the druid class interests me very much. I have looked over the forums and see a lot of bear tank builds but I do not like tanking and would be happier with a wolf/dps type build are there any updated wolf/dps builds that are viable with the update.

Thanks

[Tsutti]

Do you have access to the Aasimar race or the Falconry universal tree?

[Ripjaw7]

Hello, welcome to the game Opalwing!

So reading your post, I saw that your interested in a wolf/DPS build. So to do this, it really just matters how you build your character from scratch, and how you go through the leveling process. I currently am running on a character with 12 fighter levels and 8 druid levels. This is how I get high DPS in the game as of now. To get high DPS, you should choose a weapon type, I recommend doing a Greataxe or a Greatsword. When you are taking feats, you should take Natural Fighting 3 times, as well as the following feats: Weapon Focus: Slashing, Greater Weapon Focus: Slashing, Superior Weapon Focus: Slashing, Weapon Specialization: Slashing, Greater Weapon Specialization: Slashing, Improved Critical: Slashing, Power Critical, Cleave, Great Cleave, Stunning Blow, Power Attack, and Tactical Supremacy. Since you are a druid, I would also recommend taking Mental Toughness for more Spell points. I would recommend playing an Orc. in the character creation for abilities, I would start by maxing Strength, Increase your wisdom to at least 14, and put the rest in Constitution.

Now this is already a pretty good rough outline for your character, but enhancements will create the build entirely.

In the Kensei Fighter enhancement tree, I would take your focus in Great Axes, and take that to the top of the tree. Take the haste boost as well, and the Critical Mastery 3 times. Take all of the top enhancements in the Kensei tree. I would next recommend going into the Nature's Warrior tree and take all of the melee power increasing enhancements as well as the defensive ones such as dodge and ghost wolf. In Nature's Defender, you should take the Rage from the first tier but that is it.

I hope this helps you out. Feel free to comment if you need any clarifications or have any questions

RJ

[Opalwing]

Thanks for the warm welcome and for the advice.

Currently I don't have the aasimar unlocked. The only two races I have unlocked are the drow and the wood elf. I believe I have access to the falconry tree. I made a wood elf arcane ranger just to try things out in game and when I talk to the ranger trainer and open the enhancement window to spend points the falconry tree is there

[Tsutti]

If you are looking for max dps I think the general build layout above is a nice one to follow, I find the ddowiki very helpful for just looking at enhancements and seeing what I might want to do with a build. I don't know how soloable that build outline is, but I find something less fully committed to dps is usually more soloable on a wolf because you get a really nice crowd control if you go nearly pure druid.

As for Falconry, even if you don't have access to the tree it still shows up in your enhancement area because it is a universal tree. Somewhat of an annoying feature if you don't own the tree, but you can check if you own it either by trying to spend points in it or by going into the DDO store (accessed by the sort of home button in the bottom left of your screen in game or by Control + S, in case you aren't familiar) and searching Falconry. If it shows up in the store, you do not own it.

I was wondering about Aasimar and Falconry because Aasimar gives a wisdom bonus and a really awesome healing ability, which you get more uses of through their racial tree. Falconry allows you to use wisdom as your hit and damage modifier so you can make the Aasimar healing ability really powerful while also improving your to-hit/damage with a single ability score. Falconry also gives some bird attacks that can be useful, especially when combined with a Tier 4 enhancement in Falconry called Deadly Instinct--a very powerful ability if you use wisdom for your main stat.

Link to Falconry enhancements if you want to look at them, I would advise not using Tier 5 because while there is a really cool ability up there the tree is not actually very useful as a main tree and tends to function more as a supporting tree to many builds.
https://ddowiki.com/page/Falconry_enhancements

From that page you can see a list of all the other enhancement trees at the top, with their links. They are abbreviated, but if you just click on any then the page will tell you what tree it is so you can figure out what some abbreviations on the wiki are pretty easily.

[unbongwah]

I am new to DDO and the druid class interests me very much. I have looked over the forums and see a lot of bear tank builds but I do not like tanking and would be happier with a wolf/dps type build are there any updated wolf/dps builds that are viable with the update.

Welcome to DDO.

Bear builds are garnering a lot of attention right now because Update 45 buffed them (along with 2H weapons in general). Bears are no longer pigeon-holed into tank-y melee; wolves have higher attack speed while bears have higher base damage and Strikethrough bonuses, so they both have their own niche.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-Players-(U45)

You'll find wolf builds which use WIS with Falconry and others which use STR to take advantage of Rage of the Beast and other druid bonuses.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...e-Wisdom-Doggo
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...uid-Wolf-Build

[Opalwing]

Thanks again for all the informative posts. I will have to wait and see what I can do about unlocking a few of those races. Not really a fan of the half orc but if they are the best for a melee druid I will use them lol