DeathTitan DC caster druid

[Marcb81]

Thank you for the information

Happy to help. I’ve learned so much from your posts.

[Michele]

How do You get 57 fate points?!

36 from 12 EDs
3 from fate tomes
17 from past lives (5 arcane/4 martial/4 divine/4 primal)

this should amount to 56...

Maybe you are missing the "Tome of Destiny +1 for all characters" got from the "Feywild ultimate bundle"?

[xTethx]

Maybe you are missing the "Tome of Destiny +1 for all characters" got from the "Feywild ultimate bundle"?

This tome only increases destiny ap not fate points

[Archfae]

How are you finding the greater shout sla in fatesinger? Decent enough replacement for BoGW?

[Michele]

How are you finding the greater shout sla in fatesinger? Decent enough replacement for BoGW?

no because greatest shout doesn't make mobs helpless like bogw.

[Archfae]

no because greatest shout doesn't make mobs helpless like bogw.

That's really disappointing to hear. I had expected them to upgrade the stun to a helpless effect :/

Curious why you don't take BoGW then? Seems like an auto take for your build?

[Michele]

That's really disappointing to hear. I had expected them to upgrade the stun to a helpless effect :/

Curious why you don't take BoGW then? Seems like an auto take for your build?

I'm using greater color spray for now with its 8 seconds cooldown and it works against reapers.
Burst of glacial wrath has 10 seconds cooldown and if I'm not wrong it doesn't work against reapers.
Greatest shout has 6 seconds cooldown and it doesn't work against reapers.

I'm maxing DC, so I took +1 wisdom instead of Burst of glacial wrath.

[Marcb81]

I'm using greater color spray for now with its 8 seconds cooldown and it works against reapers.
Burst of glacial wrath has 10 seconds cooldown and if I'm not wrong it doesn't work against reapers.
Greatest shout has 6 seconds cooldown and it doesn't work against reapers.

I'm maxing DC, so I took +1 wisdom instead of Burst of glacial wrath.

I just wanted to update and say that I have been playing with a shifter cold druid for a bit now. The 5-p Blood feast for 1k HP has been really helpful to keep me alive. I stand around 1500 HP in reaper (only 55 reaper points). With rage buff and Winter's Heart, I'm over 3k HP. I have been playing with different set ups that trade DC for damage. I'm currently using a setup with Evo 108-109 DC, which despite being lower seems to work in r10 often enough that my CC is dependable. I sit around 1000 Cold spell power in reaper without metamagics or Wellspring (up to 1450 Cold spell power with these boosts). Cold crit chance sits at 69% and crit mult sits at 100% before wellspring (120% after). Damage feels much better than when I pushed DCs more. Just wondered what numbers you were getting for comparison on cold spell power, crit chance, and crit mult.

Marc

[Michele]

I just wanted to update and say that I have been playing with a shifter cold druid for a bit now. The 5-p Blood feast for 1k HP has been really helpful to keep me alive. I stand around 1500 HP in reaper (only 55 reaper points). With rage buff and Winter's Heart, I'm over 3k HP. I have been playing with different set ups that trade DC for damage. I'm currently using a setup with Evo 108-109 DC, which despite being lower seems to work in r10 often enough that my CC is dependable. I sit around 1000 Cold spell power in reaper without metamagics or Wellspring (up to 1450 Cold spell power with these boosts). Cold crit chance sits at 69% and crit mult sits at 100% before wellspring (120% after). Damage feels much better than when I pushed DCs more. Just wondered what numbers you were getting for comparison on cold spell power, crit chance, and crit mult.

Marc

you can show us a video soloing Wke me up inside R6 (short quest with 1 shrine where you can use all metamagic without worrying about spell points).
if your evocation DC is 109, how much is your transmutation DC? (ice flowers).
Half of ice flowers and tsunami damage uses force spellpower: did you max that too?
Next life I'll be back as dragonborn druid and I'll update the build with the exact values you asked (now I'm completing the last iconic life).

[Marcb81]

you can show us a video soloing Wke me up inside R6 (short quest with 1 shrine where you can use all metamagic without worrying about spell points).
if your evocation DC is 109, how much is your transmutation DC? (ice flowers).
Half of ice flowers and tsunami damage uses force spellpower: did you max that too?
Next life I'll be back as dragonborn druid and I'll update the build with the exact values you asked (now I'm completing the last iconic life).

Good luck with your last iconic life. To answer your questions:

1) I've never made a video, and I don't solo much, but I will try in the next few days to solo R6 and try to comment on spell points.
2) With regards to transmute DC and Force spell power crit stuff: My transmute DCs are 10 below my Evo DCs. If I had all the PLs like you do, my current Evo DC would be 113 and transmute would be 103 (not including icy mantle debuff; mine lag behind by 4 because of missing PLs so 109 Evo as mentioned). I put 142 Impulse and force crit on a cannith crafted item. I used sunken slippers for insightful and quality potency, which is obviously less than dedicated insightful force spell power (overall 20 force spell power less).
3) Spell points are always a concern. By spending ED and SH points to reduce maximize spell along with meridian fragment (-6 for maximize), I can get maximize to cost 1 spell point, but then I'm paying full price on intensify, enlarge, quicken, etc.

UPDATE:

I tried to run R6 "Wake Me Up Inside" (WMUI) one time to get a sense of spell point utilization. I died after being one-shotted in the middle of the bear fight, and I didn't try again. Maybe I can solo it on a future try maybe not. I never solo, and I'm not as good as you are at kiting mobs around earthquake and stuff, but that's a player issue not a build issue. With regards to spell point utilization, I captured a quick screen shot after killing the trolls under the bridge by the cerise. I killed 24 enemies at this point in the quest including 2 reapers. I did not use RoSS or anything up to this point, and spell points went from 4180 at max to 1991. So it took me 2189 spell points on this particular run of the quest to kill 24 enemies. I used maximize on earthquake, Icestorm, Tsunami, and Ice Flowers and Intensify on Icestorm, Tsunami, and Ice Flowers (not earthquake). SLAs obviously benefitted from free intensify and everything benefitted from Wellspring (when I remembered to use it).

PS - I'm embarrassed to say that when I went to post the screen shots of this, it asked for a URL. I don't have an account for hosting images online, so I didn't attach them. In my defense, I could make up a much better story than I died on a short R6 quest. When looking over your video of WMUI, you used a similar number of spell points at that point in the quest as I did.

[Michele]

Good luck with your last iconic life. To answer your questions:

1) I've never made a video, and I don't solo much, but I will try in the next few days to solo R6 and try to comment on spell points.
2) With regards to transmute DC and Force spell power crit stuff: My transmute DCs are 10 below my Evo DCs. If I had all the PLs like you do, my current Evo DC would be 113 and transmute would be 103 (not including icy mantle debuff; mine lag behind by 4 because of missing PLs so 109 Evo as mentioned). I put 142 Impulse and force crit on a cannith crafted item. I used sunken slippers for insightful and quality potency, which is obviously less than dedicated insightful force spell power (overall 20 force spell power less).
3) Spell points are always a concern. By spending ED and SH points to reduce maximize spell along with meridian fragment (-6 for maximize), I can get maximize to cost 1 spell point, but then I'm paying full price on intensify, enlarge, quicken, etc.

UPDATE:

I tried to run R6 "Wake Me Up Inside" (WMUI) one time to get a sense of spell point utilization. I died after being one-shotted in the middle of the bear fight, and I didn't try again. Maybe I can solo it on a future try maybe not. I never solo, and I'm not as good as you are at kiting mobs around earthquake and stuff, but that's a player issue not a build issue. With regards to spell point utilization, I captured a quick screen shot after killing the trolls under the bridge by the cerise. I killed 24 enemies at this point in the quest including 2 reapers. I did not use RoSS or anything up to this point, and spell points went from 4180 at max to 1991. So it took me 2189 spell points on this particular run of the quest to kill 24 enemies. I used maximize on earthquake, Icestorm, Tsunami, and Ice Flowers and Intensify on Icestorm, Tsunami, and Ice Flowers (not earthquake). SLAs obviously benefitted from free intensify and everything benefitted from Wellspring (when I remembered to use it).

PS - I'm embarrassed to say that when I went to post the screen shots of this, it asked for a URL. I don't have an account for hosting images online, so I didn't attach them. In my defense, I could make up a much better story than I died on a short R6 quest. When looking over your video of WMUI, you used a similar number of spell points at that point in the quest as I did.

The smallest of the 3 bears seems to have huge reflex saves and he often escapes my earthquake: it's for mobs like him that I max my spells DC.

Imagine a despair reaper buffing his saves even further.

[Marcb81]

The smallest of the 3 bears seems to have huge reflex saves and he often escapes my earthquake: it's for mobs like him that I max my spells DC.

Imagine a despair reaper buffing his saves even further.

I killed the small bear in seconds. The angry one swiped me and killed me instantly. Believe what you will but DCs we’re not the problem in the least, nor was spell point utilization. Feels like DCs are working at lower numbers than they used to, making them worth less compared to alternatives.

[Marcb81]

Just wanted to keep this thread active, so I'm replying with more updates. I tried a second time again tonight to do R6 Wake Me Up Inside. This time I died during the end-fight. I think my biggest issue has been being a little squishy. Without a ton of reaper points, I'm playing with max HP just under 1500 HP in reaper. I often die from a one-shot that I can't heal from. If I had just a few more HP, there's a good chance that I could just heal back to full and keep playing. I had to watch your video to see how you maneuvered between mobs to run up the middle without any trash mob fights before getting to the portal. I've learned a lot watching your video about how people solo, so thanks for that. I will say after trying again, I do feel strongly that spell point issues and lower DCs are not really big problems for this quest. Maybe R10 Sharn would make me want more DCs but a few more HP is all I would need for this quest. Maybe third time's a charm. Would love to hear from anyone else regarding their experiences with DCs needed for druid CC. I know there are more than 2 people playing druid. There are clearly differing view points out there.

Marc

[Michele]

With update 52 it should be possible to add +2 stacking DC by crafting +1 reaper DC bonus on both rings.

Also everyone can craft +2 reaper ability on their favorite helm.

[Iaga]

Hi Folks

Thought I’d throw in my $0.02 and keep this very informative thread running .
I’ve recently started playing a cold based caster druid as well after many years of playing fire sorcs and alchies – mostly in high reaper.

Running a shifter with 16 racial AP for the rage, 41 herald, 31 in wolf for the extra spell dmg and 7 in bear.

Heroic Feats: maximize, empower, quicken, completionist, PL wizard, enlarge, mental toughness
Epic Feats: heavy armor, wellspring, embolden, intensity
Destiny: cold spell power, positive spell power, 15% helpless dmg
Scion: cold
HP buffed with blood feast and temp HP thingy ~ 4,200
PRR/MRR ~200/???
SP ~ 4,700
*this is all from memory as I’m at work

I’ve run that fey quest a couple of times solo on R6. If I’m lucky with reaper spawns, I can complete it if I’m patient and don’t try to zerg it (which is a bad habit of mine L) This likely won’t help the DC discussions, but I make liberal use of an LGS salt item. Prep an area with longer lasting AOE then EQ as stuff enters, swap to fully upgraded wave, DPS buff, and cast iceflowers, dragon breathe and tsunami. Most stuff is dead at this point.

Coming from an arcane fire caster background, my gear is lacking.
Hruits 3x piece
Minor Arty bracelet
Clouded dreams
Attunement’s gaze
Dire bear belt
Slippers with +3 quality WIS
Trinket – empty
Ring – something with CON
Cloak – also something with CON

My impression so far is that this is a dominant DPS caster with excellent CC and heals. I’m looking forward to optimizing a gear set and getting better at playing the class.

I’m thinking of swapping out the heavy armor feat for BogW – with all the dmg this build can do, adding a way to provide AOE helpless will be step forward. I’m also torn on enlarge … my AOE targeting needs to improve, but atm, it all gets cast close by. This is working pretty good for me, but I’m not sure I’ve optimized this as well as I can!

Thanks for this threa

[Michele]

Hi Folks

Thought I’d throw in my $0.02 and keep this very informative thread running .
I’ve recently started playing a cold based caster druid as well after many years of playing fire sorcs and alchies – mostly in high reaper.

Running a shifter with 16 racial AP for the rage, 41 herald, 31 in wolf for the extra spell dmg and 7 in bear.

Heroic Feats: maximize, empower, quicken, completionist, PL wizard, enlarge, mental toughness
Epic Feats: heavy armor, wellspring, embolden, intensity
Destiny: cold spell power, positive spell power, 15% helpless dmg
Scion: cold
HP buffed with blood feast and temp HP thingy ~ 4,200
PRR/MRR ~200/???
SP ~ 4,700
*this is all from memory as I’m at work

I’ve run that fey quest a couple of times solo on R6. If I’m lucky with reaper spawns, I can complete it if I’m patient and don’t try to zerg it (which is a bad habit of mine L) This likely won’t help the DC discussions, but I make liberal use of an LGS salt item. Prep an area with longer lasting AOE then EQ as stuff enters, swap to fully upgraded wave, DPS buff, and cast iceflowers, dragon breathe and tsunami. Most stuff is dead at this point.

Coming from an arcane fire caster background, my gear is lacking.
Hruits 3x piece
Minor Arty bracelet
Clouded dreams
Attunement’s gaze
Dire bear belt
Slippers with +3 quality WIS
Trinket – empty
Ring – something with CON
Cloak – also something with CON

My impression so far is that this is a dominant DPS caster with excellent CC and heals. I’m looking forward to optimizing a gear set and getting better at playing the class.

I’m thinking of swapping out the heavy armor feat for BogW – with all the dmg this build can do, adding a way to provide AOE helpless will be step forward. I’m also torn on enlarge … my AOE targeting needs to improve, but atm, it all gets cast close by. This is working pretty good for me, but I’m not sure I’ve optimized this as well as I can!

Thanks for this threa

Very nice prr/mrr and hit points.
You could give more love to force spell power, important for Tsunami, Ice Flowers and salt ray (maybe by getting "Epic spell power force" instead of "Epic spell power positive").

[Marcb81]

Very nice prr/mrr and hit points.
You could give more love to force spell power, important for Tsunami, Ice Flowers and salt ray (maybe by getting "Epic spell power force" instead of "Epic spell power positive").

I agree with Michele. You probably want force spell power. You also want artifact bonus to Universal spell power, crit/crit mult, which stacks with Hruit. Most people would add Elder Cap and Gem of Many Facets with Elder Knowledge for your head and trinket slot. Then you could add force spell power and crit to the cannith crafted raid trinket. Also, what main item are you using? It would likely affect some of your other choices. Giving up heavy armor is a bit strange since Hruit's only comes in heavy armor and that's a lot of PRR to give up. If you're giving up 40 PRR by not being proficient with HA, why go 7 pts in NP for 20 PRR/MRR? At that point just put points elsewhere, maybe VKF for deflection or Falconry for +1 Wis. As far as the rest of your gear, I run a similar build. I'm using shattered onyx as the other ring (profane SFM and +6 ins Wis), LGS cold crit cloak, and Reflection of Wave. Depending upon your interests you could use a scepter and crystalline Alchemical Shield from Lord of Blades for +2 Alch Wis. instead.

Marc

PS - After seeing Death Titan (reaper wings and all) in game today, I gave R6 Wake Me Up Inside another go, and ironically completed it easily. Thanks Michele for the challenge. I wouldn't have even tried to solo R6 if not for you.

[Michele]

I agree with Michele. You probably want force spell power. You also want artifact bonus to Universal spell power, crit/crit mult, which stacks with Hruit. Most people would add Elder Cap and Gem of Many Facets with Elder Knowledge for your head and trinket slot. Then you could add force spell power and crit to the cannith crafted raid trinket. Also, what main item are you using? It would likely affect some of your other choices. Giving up heavy armor is a bit strange since Hruit's only comes in heavy armor and that's a lot of PRR to give up. If you're giving up 40 PRR by not being proficient with HA, why go 7 pts in NP for 20 PRR/MRR? At that point just put points elsewhere, maybe VKF for deflection or Falconry for +1 Wis. As far as the rest of your gear, I run a similar build. I'm using shattered onyx as the other ring (profane SFM and +6 ins Wis), LGS cold crit cloak, and Reflection of Wave. Depending upon your interests you could use a scepter and crystalline Alchemical Shield from Lord of Blades for +2 Alch Wis. instead.

Marc spell

PS - After seeing Death Titan (reaper wings and all) in game today, I gave R6 Wake Me Up Inside another go, and ironically completed it easily. Thanks Michele for the challenge. I wouldn't have even tried to solo R6 if not for you.

very nice job at soloing r6 . now you could solo r6 also:
Rosemary's ballad
Heart of the problem
The Home of memory
The sacred bounty

Can you give me more details about your legendary green steel item? if I'm not wrong it should have insightful and quality cold spell critical bonus in tier 2 and 3 (I would like to know the exact values), while the tier 1 equipment bonus should not be stacking (I would like to know the exact value too and maybe it could be used for +intelligence skills and+propane sleep points).
I could give up winter set for more sleep critical chance from green steel item now that reaper ability bonus can be crafted on any helm (probably the feytwisted autumn helm).

[Marcb81]

very nice job at soloing r6 . now you could solo r6 also:
Rosemary's ballad
Heart of the problem
The Home of memory
The sacred bounty

Can you give me more details about your legendary green steel item? if I'm not wrong it should have insightful and quality cold spell critical bonus in tier 2 and 3 (I would like to know the exact values), while the tier 1 equipment bonus should not be stacking (I would like to know the exact value too and maybe it could be used for +intelligence skills and+propane sleep points).
I could give up winter set for more sleep critical chance from green steel item now that reaper ability bonus can be crafted on any helm (probably the feytwisted autumn helm).

I wanted to provide the info you requested. The T1 bonus of 20% enhancement bonus to cold crit mult is stacking for the full 20%. The tier 2 is stacking for 10% insightful cold crit mult. The tier 3 is 5% quality cold crit mult, but doesn't stack with the supposed 5% exceptional cold crit mult from Reflection of Wave, which I think is also typed as quality not exceptional. If you were going to use Reflection of Wave, it would be better not to put T3 qual cold crit mult but something else like Int skills and 75 spell points. They all stack with the universal crit mult from Elder knowledge Set, same as the stacking artifact universal spell crit chance with Hruit's artifact set cold spell crit chance.

With all of these stacking, I sit at 100 cold crit mult at base (x3 multipler on crits) and 120 with wellspring of power (x3.2). My current cold spell crit chance is 69%. At the moment I don't take a lot of filigrees to increase these numbers, as I take DC filigrees instead. Some people take Elemental Avatar and Coalesced magic to boost these further. If you take these and go with core 5 NW for the howl spell damage buff (obtainable as a shifter without need to turn to wolf), you can push to 100% crit chance with 175% cold crit mult (x3.75 when including wellspring and filigrees such as coalesced magic).

Marc

[Michele]

I just wanted to update and say that I have been playing with a shifter cold druid for a bit now. The 5-p Blood feast for 1k HP has been really helpful to keep me alive. I stand around 1500 HP in reaper (only 55 reaper points). With rage buff and Winter's Heart, I'm over 3k HP. I have been playing with different set ups that trade DC for damage. I'm currently using a setup with Evo 108-109 DC, which despite being lower seems to work in r10 often enough that my CC is dependable. I sit around 1000 Cold spell power in reaper without metamagics or Wellspring (up to 1450 Cold spell power with these boosts). Cold crit chance sits at 69% and crit mult sits at 100% before wellspring (120% after). Damage feels much better than when I pushed DCs more. Just wondered what numbers you were getting for comparison on cold spell power, crit chance, and crit mult.

Marc

I updated my build with the detail of the numbers you requested.
Please can you specify in detail how do you reach 69% cold spell critical chance and 100 cold spell critical multiplier like I did in my build?

Something like this, so I can understand what I miss and if it's worth sacrificing something else to increase cold spell critical chance.

Cold spell critical chance 57%:
5% magical training +6% artifact bonus from autumn set +5% exceptional bonus from cladding of dead leaves +2% feydark illusionist +8% season’s herald +9% energy criticals +22% equipment bonus from legendary alchemical large shield

Cold spell critical multiplier 100:
15% epic spell power cold +5% epic spell power force +5% epic spell power positive +25% scion of the plane of water +15% legendary bonus from autumn set +35% legendary bonus from lgs boots

I also added R7 solo quests made yesterday (update 52): I don't have the hit points for soloing R8, while in R7 I can afford to be hit a couple of times before I die.

Thank you very much for your tip about legendary green steel item for more cold spell critical multiplier, I see bigger numbers now (I sacrificed the 2 piece of winter set for that).

I tried to equip the Reflection of wave staff and I got +27 cold spell power and 2 more caster levels for Dragon breath (draconic and dragonborn) and maybe for tsunami (alchemical shield gives 3 caster levels and reflection of wave gives 5 caster levels, so the difference is 2 caster levels): Reflection of wave is still not an option for me because I rely on the legendary fusible sceptre of impulse on top of my cold alchemical shield.