Caster Druid Primal avatar and master of the wilds vs Draconic and intensify spell

[Ultinoob]

Or Why I think an ice druid should pick Primal Avatar and Master of the Wilds



Short answer:
Due to +8 in wisdom

The complete analysis:
If we take Primal Avatar, master of the wilds and is an ice druid we get these caster levels.
Call lightning 28, creeping cold 31, salt ray 20, word of balance 25.
We also get +8 wisdom from primal avatar and 3 dc to transmutation and evocation. You also gain 20 universal spell power. 5 caster levels to druid spells but that is included.
We also get tsunami but that can be twisted so let’s forget that.

If we do not take primal avatar and master of the wilds we could instead take draconic and intensify spell if we do not have it already.
Let’s look at the benefits from draconic.
+30 crit multiplier, +3 evocation and conjuration dc, +3 max caster levels and caster levels +30 spell power to one element, +2 and 20 of the same to a different element.

The evocation dc cancels out. Conjuration does nothing really for an ice druid. 30 crit multiplier gives around 10% more damage. See this thread for an analysis https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...rit-multiplier
We should probably take +3 max caster levels and 30 spell power to cold and the +2 and 20 to lightning.

This brings our caster levels for creeping cold to 27 and call lightning to 20. word of balance is 20 and salt ray 10.

This means for creeping cold we loose 31/27-1=14.8% damage.
For call lightning we loose 28/20-1=40%
Word of balance 25% and salt ray 50%.

Not taking master of the wilds opens up a feat and we can take intensify spell which I do not usually take. Let’s say we have empower and maximise for 225 extra spell power. At level 30 getting 750 after the update should be obtainable. That’s 975. 75/1075~7% increase.

We also get 30 spell power to cold spells but we got 20 from primal avatar so it is really a 10 increase.
10/1075~1% increase.

We do however loose 20 spell power to force and lightning stays the same.

So the total gain/loss from taking draconic is:
creeping cold: Loose 14.8% and gain 18%
Call lightning: loose 40% gain 17%
Word of balance: loose 27% gain 17%
salt ray: loose 52% gain 17%.
It should be noted that we gain around 10% more damage with all spells including ice flowers.

One thing is we can twist draconics dragon spell knowledge for +3 max caster levels and caster levels for cold for primal avatar build. Making the gain in creeping cold lesser.

Ice flowers max caster level is 15 last time I checked. In both primal avatar with dragon spell knowledge twisted and in draconic we get the caster level to 15+6 from elemental form and winters season +3 draconic=24.

So there you have it. If loosing 8 in wisdom, some damage for the sla’s and 3 in transmutation dc but gaining some damage with all the rest of the spells is fine for you, take Draconic. You can of course also have other reasons.
I personally use the sla’s a lot and plan on using ice flowers when the update comes and would therefore not like to loose 3 dc in that.

[ned_ellis]

Mmm...don't you mean +6Wis?
Regardless, the spell pass has indeed returned Primal ED's to be a contender along with the Wilds feat; the downside I'm debating at the moment (apart from being principally fire ele) is 1) yoou have invested 12 (probably 16 to get past first tiers) points in stat so the main loss is utility / effects (compared to Draconic / EA) and 2) the DC's, but that would be compared to Magister.
Do either of these points worry you? Do you have DC problems outside of magister? Is there any utility you are pained to lose to support the extra bit of dps?
Also, what would be your typical epic feat loadout for a caster druid bar intensify / wilds toss-up?

[Ultinoob]

Mmm...don't you mean +6Wis?
Regardless, the spell pass has indeed returned Primal ED's to be a contender along with the Wilds feat; the downside I'm debating at the moment (apart from being principally fire ele) is 1) you have invested 12 (probably 16 to get past first tiers) points in stat so the main loss is utility / effects (compared to Draconic / EA) and 2) the DC's, but that would be compared to Magister.
Do either of these points worry you? Do you have DC problems outside of magister? Is there any utility you are pained to lose to support the extra bit of dps?
Also, what would be your typical epic feat loadout for a caster druid bar intensify / wilds toss-up?

Let me see if i can answer the questions one by one.

1) +8 wisdom is from 6 points in wisdom and 2 from spirit boon.

2) The 12-16 points. I am sorry i don't undestand what you are saying here. (English is not my native tongue...) But what i think you mean is how do i spend the first 12 ap in primal avatar?

3) The DC. Well magister gives you +5 dc (+3 more but that can be twisted.) Primal avatar gives you +3 to evocation and transmutation. Granted you loose 2 in these and 5 in conjuration and necromancy. But you gain nothing in wisdom which gives you +4 dc. EA gives you 6 wisdom and 3 to spell dc making it probably the best for dc. It should be noted that magister has a debuff for evocation spells also...

4) Yes these worry me. I am able to solo some quests in sharn on R1 but not the hard ones. I have most heroic past lives and some racial 5*3, but limited epic past lives and only one iconic. What worries me is my earthquake dc which is around 97. I'd like to have it higher but with only one sorc past life this is what it is. I am not a power gamer and have 41 i think reaper points.

5) Epic feats for draconic:
1st: Maximize spell
1st (Human): ???
2nd (druid): Wild Shape: Wolf
3rd: Empower Spell
5th (druid): Wild Shape: Bear
6th: Quicken Spell
8th (druid): Wild Shape: Winter Wolf
9th: Completionist
11th (druid): Wild Shape: Dire Bear
12th: Heighten spell
13th (druid): Wild Shape: Fire Elemental – switch feat to Water Elemental at level 15
15th: Past life wizard. Switch feat from fire to water elemental
17th (druid): Wild Shape: Fire Elemental
18th: Spell focus evocation
21st: Spell focus transmutation
24th: Intensify spell for draconic or master of the wilds for primal avatar
26th: (Destiny): Epic spell power cold
27th: Burst of glacial wrath
28th: (Destiny): Mass frog
29th: (Destiny): Epic spell power force/electricity
30th: Embolden Spell
30th: (Legendary): Scion of the plane of fire/Air for either dps or dc

It is important to note that the way i see the druid played is with earthquake, BoGW and greater color spray from feydark. This means you can hit 3 different saves. Also i like using the sla's. They are very cheap and i usually never run out of spell points - except sometimes in raids. Having creeping cold, call lighting, salt ray and word of balance along with finger of death is really nice. If however you plan on doing a fire druid you would still boost salt ray and word of balance and maybe even use produce flame sla...

Word of balance does some good damage at caster level 25. Or 28 if fire druid. It's 12.5*25=312.5 base damage and double that for 2 steps away 625. With 900 spell power that's 6250 and double if you double crit. It does more damage than firestorm, though that is an AOE.

[Tilomere]

If you want damage per spell, maybe look at Shiradi? With damaging procs scaling off of ranged and spell power, they can hit for quite a bit. I was getting 20k force procs last time I played in it.

[Ultinoob]

If you want damage per spell, maybe look at Shiradi? With damaging procs scaling off of ranged and spell power, they can hit for quite a bit. I was getting 20k force procs last time I played in it.

I did not know that.

According to the wiki page the cores should only scale of ranged power... Only one that should scale of spell power seem to be prism...

Doing 20K damage from something that from the wiki does 2d100, meaning max 200 means you got to multiply it by atleast 100. I don't know how that happened?

But in that case yes shiradi would be the best for DPS. You get 6 wisdom from it and 5 caster levels to druid spells. You do however loose 3 dc to evocation and transmutation.

I am definately testing this.

Thx for the tip!

[ned_ellis]

Let me see if i can answer the questions one by one.

1) +8 wisdom is from 6 points in wisdom and 2 from spirit boon.

2) The 12-16 points. I am sorry i don't undestand what you are saying here. (English is not my native tongue...) But what i think you mean is how do i spend the first 12 ap in primal avatar?

3) The DC. Well magister gives you +5 dc (+3 more but that can be twisted.) Primal avatar gives you +3 to evocation and transmutation. Granted you loose 2 in these and 5 in conjuration and necromancy. But you gain nothing in wisdom which gives you +4 dc. EA gives you 6 wisdom and 3 to spell dc making it probably the best for dc. It should be noted that magister has a debuff for evocation spells also...

4) Yes these worry me. I am able to solo some quests in sharn on R1 but not the hard ones. I have most heroic past lives and some racial 5*3, but limited epic past lives and only one iconic. What worries me is my earthquake dc which is around 97. I'd like to have it higher but with only one sorc past life this is what it is. I am not a power gamer and have 41 i think reaper points.

5) Epic feats for draconic:
1st: Maximize spell
1st (Human): ???
2nd (druid): Wild Shape: Wolf
3rd: Empower Spell
5th (druid): Wild Shape: Bear
6th: Quicken Spell
8th (druid): Wild Shape: Winter Wolf
9th: Completionist
11th (druid): Wild Shape: Dire Bear
12th: Heighten spell
13th (druid): Wild Shape: Fire Elemental – switch feat to Water Elemental at level 15
15th: Past life wizard. Switch feat from fire to water elemental
17th (druid): Wild Shape: Fire Elemental
18th: Spell focus evocation
21st: Spell focus transmutation
24th: Intensify spell for draconic or master of the wilds for primal avatar
26th: (Destiny): Epic spell power cold
27th: Burst of glacial wrath
28th: (Destiny): Mass frog
29th: (Destiny): Epic spell power force/electricity
30th: Embolden Spell
30th: (Legendary): Scion of the plane of fire/Air for either dps or dc

It is important to note that the way i see the druid played is with earthquake, BoGW and greater color spray from feydark. This means you can hit 3 different saves. Also i like using the sla's. They are very cheap and i usually never run out of spell points - except sometimes in raids. Having creeping cold, call lighting, salt ray and word of balance along with finger of death is really nice. If however you plan on doing a fire druid you would still boost salt ray and word of balance and maybe even use produce flame sla...

Word of balance does some good damage at caster level 25. Or 28 if fire druid. It's 12.5*25=312.5 base damage and double that for 2 steps away 625. With 900 spell power that's 6250 and double if you double crit. It does more damage than firestorm, though that is an AOE.

First off thanks for taking the time to answer so thoroughly!
1) a-ha, spirit boon! you're right!
2) I was just trying to work out what else one could get after buying all the stat bonuses
3) actually Master of Evocation gives another +3 dc so that would be 5+3(twist)+3=11 evo dc bonus of which 5dc to all schools
4) and this is why I'm, sadly, in magister with my druid; I have 3xsorc pl's but pretty much nothing else - im currently getting my end kit together so dont know what my earthquake dc will land on but I feel the strength of the caster druid is in its cc, not dps so I sacrifice caster levels for dc and feel I can't explore the Wilds feat...

I use all the sla's for my dps but they are single target (and produce flame is a spell I use a lot for finishing mobs, despite the targeting problems!) but the recent spell changes have made the fire aoe spells much more usable, which is great!
Basically, untill the ED pass I'm trying to max my dc's and then get as close as possible to the caster levels thanks to enhancements and kit and spell power/crit (for example I take the Mental Toughness feat line).

I'm going to group all the possible increases in Caster Level and Max CL then report back, also when I cap and have my end kit on I will do some further experiments on ED's (I tried shiradi before the pass and it was good...but not great!) and report back!

[Ultinoob]

First off thanks for taking the time to answer so thoroughly!
1) a-ha, spirit boon! you're right!
2) I was just trying to work out what else one could get after buying all the stat bonuses
3) actually Master of Evocation gives another +3 dc so that would be 5+3(twist)+3=11 evo dc bonus of which 5dc to all schools
4) and this is why I'm, sadly, in magister with my druid; I have 3xsorc pl's but pretty much nothing else - im currently getting my end kit together so dont know what my earthquake dc will land on but I feel the strength of the caster druid is in its cc, not dps so I sacrifice caster levels for dc and feel I can't explore the Wilds feat...

I use all the sla's for my dps but they are single target (and produce flame is a spell I use a lot for finishing mobs, despite the targeting problems!) but the recent spell changes have made the fire aoe spells much more usable, which is great!
Basically, untill the ED pass I'm trying to max my dc's and then get as close as possible to the caster levels thanks to enhancements and kit and spell power/crit (for example I take the Mental Toughness feat line).

I'm going to group all the possible increases in Caster Level and Max CL then report back, also when I cap and have my end kit on I will do some further experiments on ED's (I tried shiradi before the pass and it was good...but not great!) and report back!

1) Notice to self. I have been right atleast once in my life

2) Well taking all the stats bonuses costs you 12 and then tsunami and spirit boon another 4. So you have 9 left to spend on something. Cocoon is still nice to have as a druid.

3) I see. Yes then magister is best for dc.

4) I think you are right. CC on a druid can be really good. Earthquake, Burst of glacial wrath and maybe even greater color spray. You could in theory also use shifter paralyzing howl… I forgot tsunami.

There are so many ways to play a druid and lately I have wondered how the devs would play it.

Thing is I solo a lot so I have to have some way of killing the mobs.

Also taking the mental toughness feat line is probably not worth it if you don’t need to spell points. Each of these gives about 1% more damage. Where as each spell focus evocation gives you in theory 1/20=5% more chance of landing the spell.

Maybe consider spell penetration line to land Finger of death if you use that.

[Kebtid]

On a druid shifter is the only choice as race right now, for a caster druid.
It offers the best return for investment as it has 2 nice things you can do with it.
nm 1 you dont need to chug rage pots and get a massive wisdom increase with fury 2 wisdom twist and rage
nm2 paralyzing howl from shifter procs core in wolf tree but does not require to be shapeshifted.

Its niche at most, since druids damage does not come from cold spellpower right now but from force, the cold spell power is there just as supplementary damage and to help sorcs in party deal with reapers.

Best splits would be tied to 18 druid levels to still keep the bursty lv 18 core which can help somewhat in some cases (dots can be ok when boosted by cold crit damage, so can ice flowers kinda).

Using a 18 split core, gives the ability to splash 1 wizzard and 1 fsoul, fsoul giving scourge and more force crit damage and wizzard giving access to magic missile for debuff purposes which has brilliant synergy with magister which sadly still is the best choice for druids.

You should account the dc clickie as a difference between other destenies.

Although primal is a great choice, magister offers more for general questing, while exalted is best for raids for rebuke purposes.

Primal could be the best one to solo content tho due to another dodge interactable and tsunamis nature of not needing dc as it is a broken spell which does not calculate dcs properly (always works and bug reported to get fixed but never got fixed)

[ned_ellis]

Hi Ulti,
So I did a little spreadsheet (that I don't know how to upload! ); with regards your original post, I found that Ice elemental in Primal Avatar with Wilds feat and Seasons Herald capped would give MCL of Call Lightning 31, Creeping Cold 34, Salt Ray 23 and Word of Blance 33...which would mean that Creeping Cold and Word of Balance would have 3 and 5 CL's lower than the max available - if paired with Reflection of Wave this wouldn't be a problem for Creeping Cold but I have no idea where WoB stands - could possibly get 2CL from a Divine Augmentation item but the other 3 I don't know...?
If I'm right maybe this changes your calculations?

Regardless, it would seem that the highest dmg per spell would come from your proposal with Draconic Spell Knowledge of Draconic twisted - Creeping Cold would be MCL 37!
However, it remains that no caster druid outside of Primal should take Master of Wilds feat since you would have to recuperate, via items, 5CL from Produce Flame, 8CL from Creeping Cold, 5CL from Call Lightning and 10CL (!!) from WoB which is currently impossibile afaik. The only one we can hit the MCL of outside a Primal ED is Salt Ray.

[Ultinoob]

Hi Ned

You are not 100% correct. Being an ice druid does not give you 3 max caster levels to force spells meaning salt ray is stuck at 20 and WoB at 30. And the divine augmentation items are necklace and gloves which does not fit with hruits....

You could in theory get 3 caster levels from might of the abishay chronoscope set...

But i've found that creeping cold is not worth all that investment.

All primal destinies gives +5 caster levels to druid spells so as Tilomere pointed out shiradi might actually be best for dps.

You could do a fire druid and max out WoB at caster level 33 with divine augmentation and abishay set but not sure it's worth it.

I myself is in doubt but i am playing in primal avatar atm. It's sort of a first lifer and i made him a summoner. Been wanting to see if he could solo an easy sharn quest on reaper 1... Wanted to make a video but not sure i ever get around to it.

Also uploading documents: You can either take and image and upload the image somewhere and link to it or use google docs maybe...

[ned_ellis]

Hi Ned

You are not 100% correct. Being an ice druid does not give you 3 max caster levels to force spells meaning salt ray is stuck at 20 and WoB at 30. snip

Ah-ha, you're right (again!), but I had added the +3MCL from Seasons Herald...which don't apply to those two spells anyway! So, if in Primal, we now have 3CL in Creeping Cold and 2CL for WoB to recuperate via items. As you say, the itemisation of our end game kit does not currently support not being in Primal unless we abandon Hruits which I don't think is possible - maybe with very large amounts of raid kit that split the artifact set bonuses but I don't see where we recuperate the DC's?!

However, the problem remains : do we take Masters feat hence forced to stay in Primal ED or ignore it and use a different ED? How is your primal experiment going? Personally, I'm still testing without Masters in Magister and I'm quite happy so far; I'm still missing some loot but earthquake should be around DC100.

The other problem is, if one wants to push dps one has to go ice elemental, Master of Wilds and Primal ED (and probably twist draconic cl and have reflection of wave).
I am wondering, do you think 20% spell crit dmg from Staff of the Summer Solstice could have any impact on the ice druid superiority? Of course it can't compete with Reflection of Wave still but maybe a little...?

In conclusion, I think I'm going to wait for the ED pass then ETR

[Ultinoob]

We are not forced to stay in primal avatar. We could use shiradi as Tilomere pointed out. I am currenly running 3 druids. One of them is in shiradi. I must admit I did not pay close attention but I do not seem to get anywhere near what Tilomere got. Should be noted he is a first lifer and only level 25 so that might be the reason.

I must say I still advocate for taking master of the wilds. See later on elaboration.

My Primal experiment is sort of ok. I have another char with 6 past lives – none of them really helping a druid. I soloed epic hard on that one and did something crazy as I went all in on summonings and wolf pet. Been wanting to test that build on an easy sharn quest on R1 to see if summonings are worth anything if you go all in on them.
I raided yesterday and got some kills. I think my evo dc was 102 when buffed by bard. It is 92 right now standing in tavern unbuffed. My sunbursts seemed to land just fine on LN or LH – cant remember what we did it on – THTH forgewraiths. I even got a couple of FoD in in KT.

Granted this build is definitely not top tier dps and with disregard to THTH where I could insta kill the wraiths and skulls I was probably with the lowest 6 in kill score.

One does not have to go ice druid after the updates. Also as Kebtid pointed out your damage does not come from cold. I respectfully disagree a little as I think some comes from cold but force (WoB) can do a lot of damage.

I have not been able to find anything besides some update notes on Staff of the Summer Solstice and it said nothing about 20% crit multi? Do you have a link?

When they nerfed reflection of wave they did it so much that I don’t think it is worth making anymore. Going from 20% cold crit chance to 5% exceptional crit multi they nerfed it from giving about 20% more damage to cold spells to 2%. Sure the cold spell power is nice but still.

What I spend half the night yesterday contemplating was another druid build. Namely a fire, force, light and a little cold and lightning druid.

The druid – if trying to do some sort of dps – can not rely on one element. There simply is not enough spells for that. And the epic past life feat energy criticals can give you 9% to fire, cold, lightning and acid. So if we try to balance this out we see that the best season is summer, hence a fire druid.

If we then use Flamecleansed fury and accept we now use a medium armor it should be possible to use the gauntlets that gives +2 caster levels to divine spells which I hope WoB and Sunbeam are considered. This would bring each of these to caster level 30 if we take shiradi or primal avatar.

If doing this I see the CC spells to be:
Eartquake, BoGW, 2 times salt ray and maybe even greater color spray and sunburst for blinding.

AOE damage spells would be:
Firestorm, Tsunami and maybe sunburst and body of the sun. You can top that with call lightning storm and storm of vengeance. And don’t forget quench for fire type monsters.

Single target dps:
Sunbeam, WoB, (Greater) creeping cold, Call lightning, produce flame, salt ray and could use Fire seeds too (wiki says conjuration but tooltip in game says transmutation???)

This way your Fire gets the most bonus, then force and light, then cold and lightning. Where the epic past life energy criticals helping fire, cold and lightning where your season and gear helps fire, force and light.

Only thing is you loose Mantle of the icy soul which is a really nice debuff.

As mentioned your WoB and Sunbeam will have caster level 30. 31 for produce flame. 27 for Fire Seeds and 25 for creeping cold, call lightning. While greater creeping cold is stuck at 17, so might not even be worth casting.

I think this is the most dps you can squeeze out of a druid taking master of the wilds…. But I have been mistaken before.

[Tilomere]

We are not forced to stay in primal avatar. We could use shiradi as Tilomere pointed out. I am currenly running 3 druids. One of them is in shiradi. I must admit I did not pay close attention but I do not seem to get anywhere near what Tilomere got. Should be noted he is a first lifer and only level 25 so that might be the reason.

What is your ranged power? I was running around 200 ranged power, so x5 force procs, 1k spell power so x11 force procs, 20% vulnerable, around +75 multiplier so x2.75 on crit. A bit more somewheres.

100 force proc x5 (ranged power) x 11 (spell power) x 1.2 (vulnerable) x2.75 (crit) = 18k proc on red named

Fan of knives was doing some nice damage too

210 base x5 x 8 x 1.2 x 2.75 (crit) = 27k

[Ultinoob]

What is your ranged power? I was running around 200 ranged power, so x5 force procs, 1k spell power so x11 force procs, 20% vulnerable, around +75 multiplier so x2.75 on crit. A bit more somewheres.

100 force proc x5 (ranged power) x 11 (spell power) x 1.2 (vulnerable) x2.75 (crit) = 18k proc on red named

Fan of knives was doing some nice damage too

210 base x5 x 8 x 1.2 x 2.75 (crit) = 27k

I can't remember my ranged power, but it was on the low

There are so many things i don't undestand.

First of all can we agree on we are looking at the core 6 in shiradi called fey power, with a 7% chance to proc?

Second. Are you telling me it gets multiplied by both ranged power and spell power?

You say you had 200 ranged power and therefore multiply it by 5. shouldn't this be 3?

1K force spell power? id like to know how you did that without using metamagics?

Please undestand i am not questioning that you did it. I've seen the photos but i just can't get my head around how it happened.

[Tilomere]

1 yes
2 yes
3 The abilities scale with double ranged power, so you double it before calculating
4 That's with metas, on PL:Wiz in picture. It depends on build. That warlock/alchemist funzies build had that on PL:Wiz missiles with metas. It had even more on Eldritch Wave because it takes metas AND scales with 130% spell power. A bit less on cone since no metas but 130% scaling, and I would meta multivial so same.

I don't know if it is worth it, but can deal decent damage.

[Ultinoob]

Interesting.

Do you know if the shiradi wild shots scale the same way as fan of knives?

[Tilomere]

Interesting.

Do you know if the shiradi wild shots scale the same way as fan of knives?

It and boulder toss both used to be good caster abilities, but SSG nerfed both of them to the point no one uses either anymore.