feydark druid

[cru121]

It's been a while since I played a druid.
How bad would be a caster druid with 41 AP in Feydark Illusionist? Perma displacement is fun; Color Spray is great, Season's Herald tier 5s are not so great (I guess Word of Balance SLA is probably obscene, but other than that).
High-DC color spray + plinking mobs with cheap single-target SLAs should be okay until you get some post-pass AoE spells. Not sure which Druid AoEs are useful these days, post-spell-pass. Help?

[Ultinoob]

Hi cru121

Long post. Hope you read.

I have been playing both an ice druid and a fire druid. Lately fire.

I would not recommend going all for feydark but I haven’t tried it. In tier 5 in seasons you have almost everything is usefull imo.

I do however take tier 4 in feydark for extra crit chance and wisdom.

As you stated word of balance sla is pretty nice. Hitting reapers with wob twice deals a lot of damage.

If you play a fire druid use firestorm and flame strike and maybe even fire seeds for aoe. For single target use sunbeam, produce flame, salt ray and maybe call lightning depending on gear. And ofc word of balance.

Sunburst should be used both in fire and cold form for instakills of forge wraiths and shadows. You have this as both an sla and spell. In fire form they can be good against oozes and undeads too.

In cold form use: Creeping cold, greater creeping cold, wob, call lightning, salt ray. For aoe you really dont have that much damage. I usually used tsunami, burst of glacial wrath and then ice flowers. It should be mentioned that speccing for acid can be usefull with creeping doom and enveloping swarm which is actually pretty nice spells. Also storm of vengeance which you get both as an sla and spell can do a little damage and it also deafens casters in it. That can be pretty nice.

There is a better synergy between fire and force than ice and force so your word of balance and salt ray will do more damage when in fire form.

I have found that when I play fire I heal better and do more damage, but are more squishy. Usually because I forget to crowd control and just try to kill the mobs.

A druid can be a very good crowd controller. Earthquake (reflex save), burst of glacial wrath (fort save and helpless), color spray from feydark (will save and helpless).

In my opinion a fire druid is like a nuker when doing low level reaper – clearly not as good as a sorc. Mid level reaper I usually just heal and do a little crowd control. In high level reaper I die.

Ice druid is about dots and setting up areas where mobs is cc. Killing mobs in ice form seems to take a longer time.

A note on ice flowers. It is a level 8 spell and does the same damage as flame strike and has the same max caster level. And as I stated ice don’t mix so well with force as fire does.

Wait I totally forgot about finger of death. You should use this. You will figure out which mobs it is effective on.

Post update 51 I have been looking into swithching back to cold druid taking “spell of nature” tier 2 from primal avatar and then the tier 3 that doubles this damage. Thats 2d6+8 per character level equaling 450 base damage each 20 second.
Then from draconic taking dragon breath epic strike and taking gaping maw from tier 4. This means your dragon breath would do 2d6+20 per character level and 810 base damage at level 30. You can cast this every 15 seconds.

And lets see what they do with tsunami. So I guess the new rotation is primal avatar sla every 20 seconds and draconic every 15, maybe tsunami and then ice flowers.

A note on caster levels. When I play a druid now I usually take master of the wilds feat and get the caster level of word of balance and all the slas as high as possible. This should not be needed with the new system giving +5 caster levels and max caster levels. This also means that ice flowers should be cast at 15 (max caster level of spell) + 3 (winter season) + 3 (Ice form) + 5 (new epic thing) = 26. So this is 26*(2d6+6)=338 base damage. But bear in mind that half is force and half is cold.

If in fire form and using firestorm you would get 31 as caster level and doing 356.5 base damage.

[cru121]

thanks gotta read this carefully

[Michele]

Consider that Ice Flowers have 2 seconds cooldown that could be reduced with Arcane Alacrity epic past life ability.
I mostly spam ice flowers when I play ice druid.

Flame strike has 4 seconds cooldown and Firestorm has 6 seconds cooldown.

Hi cru121

Long post. Hope you read.

I have been playing both an ice druid and a fire druid. Lately fire.

I would not recommend going all for feydark but I haven’t tried it. In tier 5 in seasons you have almost everything is usefull imo.

I do however take tier 4 in feydark for extra crit chance and wisdom.

As you stated word of balance sla is pretty nice. Hitting reapers with wob twice deals a lot of damage.

If you play a fire druid use firestorm and flame strike and maybe even fire seeds for aoe. For single target use sunbeam, produce flame, salt ray and maybe call lightning depending on gear. And ofc word of balance.

Sunburst should be used both in fire and cold form for instakills of forge wraiths and shadows. You have this as both an sla and spell. In fire form they can be good against oozes and undeads too.

In cold form use: Creeping cold, greater creeping cold, wob, call lightning, salt ray. For aoe you really dont have that much damage. I usually used tsunami, burst of glacial wrath and then ice flowers. It should be mentioned that speccing for acid can be usefull with creeping doom and enveloping swarm which is actually pretty nice spells. Also storm of vengeance which you get both as an sla and spell can do a little damage and it also deafens casters in it. That can be pretty nice.

There is a better synergy between fire and force than ice and force so your word of balance and salt ray will do more damage when in fire form.

I have found that when I play fire I heal better and do more damage, but are more squishy. Usually because I forget to crowd control and just try to kill the mobs.

A druid can be a very good crowd controller. Earthquake (reflex save), burst of glacial wrath (fort save and helpless), color spray from feydark (will save and helpless).

In my opinion a fire druid is like a nuker when doing low level reaper – clearly not as good as a sorc. Mid level reaper I usually just heal and do a little crowd control. In high level reaper I die.

Ice druid is about dots and setting up areas where mobs is cc. Killing mobs in ice form seems to take a longer time.

A note on ice flowers. It is a level 8 spell and does the same damage as flame strike and has the same max caster level. And as I stated ice don’t mix so well with force as fire does.

Wait I totally forgot about finger of death. You should use this. You will figure out which mobs it is effective on.

Post update 51 I have been looking into swithching back to cold druid taking “spell of nature” tier 2 from primal avatar and then the tier 3 that doubles this damage. Thats 2d6+8 per character level equaling 450 base damage each 20 second.
Then from draconic taking dragon breath epic strike and taking gaping maw from tier 4. This means your dragon breath would do 2d6+20 per character level and 810 base damage at level 30. You can cast this every 15 seconds.

And lets see what they do with tsunami. So I guess the new rotation is primal avatar sla every 20 seconds and draconic every 15, maybe tsunami and then ice flowers.

A note on caster levels. When I play a druid now I usually take master of the wilds feat and get the caster level of word of balance and all the slas as high as possible. This should not be needed with the new system giving +5 caster levels and max caster levels. This also means that ice flowers should be cast at 15 (max caster level of spell) + 3 (winter season) + 3 (Ice form) + 5 (new epic thing) = 26. So this is 26*(2d6+6)=338 base damage. But bear in mind that half is force and half is cold.

If in fire form and using firestorm you would get 31 as caster level and doing 356.5 base damage.

[Ultinoob]

Consider that Ice Flowers have 2 seconds cooldown that could be reduced with Arcane Alacrity epic past life ability.
I mostly spam ice flowers when I play ice druid.

Flame strike has 4 seconds cooldown and Firestorm has 6 seconds cooldown.

Seen your videos and posts Michele. You are a better player than me, but still one thing comes to mind. Is energy criticals not better on an ice druid?

I mean for a fire druid maybe since it only affects fire, but for an ice druid with cold+lightning plus maybe even acid...?

[Michele]

Seen your videos and posts Michele. You are a better player than me, but still one thing comes to mind. Is energy criticals not better on an ice druid?

I mean for a fire druid maybe since it only affects fire, but for an ice druid with cold+lightning plus maybe even acid...?

My ice druid always use energy criticals toggle, doesn't use acid and lightning spells because I can max only ice and force (and maybe positive) spell power: I just spam earthquake + icestorm + ice flowers at will (salt ray to make single targets helpless, the 2 creeping cold spells against bosses, and maybe word of balance against reapers).

As a fire druid I would use Arcane alacrity to reduce the high cooldown of flame strike and firestorm.

In high reaper the -4 fortitude/reflex debuff from Mantle of the Icy Soul is a must, especially with the huge DC nerf coming with update 51.

If you cast ice flowers you have to wait 1 second because all spells have 1 second cooldown, then you spend 1 more second doing nothing or to cast a backup spell/sla of your choice, then cast another ice flowers: consider also that it has a fast casting speed, so you don't need to use quicken spell with it and it costs only 20 spell points (I always cast it without metamagic, unless I know I can burn a lot of spell points and I use maximize spell with it).

You have to use quicken spell with flame strike and firestorm because they have a slow casting time.

In update 51 Tsunami and Stormrage will be added to the druid spell book, another reason to go follow the ice path (I don't know yet how Tsunami damage will be calculated).

[cru121]

thanks for the additional discussions
if I indeed go ahead with the 41 AP in feydark, one implication is that I don't have to be a druid 20. I was also thinking of going with an iconic race.

How scarce are spell slots for caster druids, is it enough stay at 17-18 druid levels?
Not sure what are the max caster levels for druid spells, am I leaving a lot of damage by not going to druid 20?

Are there any iconics that stand out? I was thinking Deep Gnome for the MRR, and illusion focus can be handy for a caster character. PDK is also nice.

How tight are skill points on a druid? Maybe fit it an Artificer level for traps? 18/1/1 Deep Gnome?

[Ultinoob]

Hmm. I am not sure about displacement. depends on what reaper difficulty you like to play.

For iconics I would go with deep gnome for extra wisdom.

All your questions more or less comes down to what you wanna do. Do you wanna go fast through reaper 1 solo and be somewhat usefull in mid reaper in parties, like me, or do you wanna solo reaper 4 like michele?

Druids gets 3 level 9 spells at level 17. That could be mantle/anger – depending on ice or fire – and then regenerate mass and then maybe the new tsunami. So in that sense 17 druid is ok I think.

However you loose 1 dc, 1 max caster level and caster level and 2 wisdom from not having the core 6 in seasons. If you are also not taking tier 5 you loose another caster level. In total you loose 3 caster levels from not being druid and 2 from not using seasons. This is 5 caster levels which is a lot. If we assume you are fire with a max caster level of 31 on firestorm this is 5/31~16% damage.

If you are an ice druid the max caster level of ice flowers is 15 so you could get away with it here. We do not know about tsunami yet.

Also divine augmentation does not seem to work. I am not sure though.

To my finding skill points, ability points and action points are pretty tight. I would not recommend going artificer. You need skill points and gear and maybe int for that. This does not add up in my head.

But again it all boils down to what difficulty you plan on playing. If you choose fire and solo reaper 1 I will gladly share my build.

A side note: The spell Panacea or pancake as i like to call it is very very usefull. Mummy rot go away as an example.

[Marcb81]

Hmm. I am not sure about displacement. depends on what reaper difficulty you like to play.

For iconics I would go with deep gnome for extra wisdom.

All your questions more or less comes down to what you wanna do. Do you wanna go fast through reaper 1 solo and be somewhat usefull in mid reaper in parties, like me, or do you wanna solo reaper 4 like michele?

Druids gets 3 level 9 spells at level 17. That could be mantle/anger – depending on ice or fire – and then regenerate mass and then maybe the new tsunami. So in that sense 17 druid is ok I think.

However you loose 1 dc, 1 max caster level and caster level and 2 wisdom from not having the core 6 in seasons. If you are also not taking tier 5 you loose another caster level. In total you loose 3 caster levels from not being druid and 2 from not using seasons. This is 5 caster levels which is a lot. If we assume you are fire with a max caster level of 31 on firestorm this is 5/31~16% damage.

If you are an ice druid the max caster level of ice flowers is 15 so you could get away with it here. We do not know about tsunami yet.

Also divine augmentation does not seem to work. I am not sure though.

To my finding skill points, ability points and action points are pretty tight. I would not recommend going artificer. You need skill points and gear and maybe int for that. This does not add up in my head.

But again it all boils down to what difficulty you plan on playing. If you choose fire and solo reaper 1 I will gladly share my build.

A side note: The spell Panacea or pancake as i like to call it is very very usefull. Mummy rot go away as an example.

It all depends on what you want. If you go 17 Druid/3 FvS with AoV cores you get better casting levels for flame strike and firestorm than pure druid. You also get 375 or so extra spell points compared to pure because of how spell points work for multiclassing, particularly with 2 Wis based classes. You can use just reward for temp sp too. If you want heals 2 FvS for beacon close wounds can help a ton.

If you want iconic, deep gnome is a great choice, though you’ll have color spray from FI but at least you get som Wis from the racial tree. If you want max DC go pure Druid with shifter for Wis rage.

[Ultinoob]

It all depends on what you want. If you go 17 Druid/3 FvS with AoV cores you get better casting levels for flame strike and firestorm than pure druid. You also get 375 or so extra spell points compared to pure because of how spell points work for multiclassing, particularly with 2 Wis based classes. You can use just reward for temp sp too. If you want heals 2 FvS for beacon close wounds can help a ton.

If you want iconic, deep gnome is a great choice, though you’ll have color spray from FI but at least you get som Wis from the racial tree. If you want max DC go pure Druid with shifter for Wis rage.

I thought the casting levels did not stack? The one for fvs only affecting fvs casting firestorm and druid only for druid?

[SocratesBastardSon]

I thought the casting levels did not stack? The one for fvs only affecting fvs casting firestorm and druid only for druid?

The first and second cores from AOV erase the loss of three levels in Druid: "Each core enhancement in this tree grants +1 Caster Level and +2 Max Caster Level" for those spells. Since Druid 18-20 doesn't offer all that much, adding 3 levels of FvS isn't a bad idea.

[cru121]

Looks like 18 Druid/1 Iconic/1 FvS would be solid compromise for fire druids.

[Ultinoob]

Well if the split is 17 druid 3 fvs you would gain +4 max caster levels and only 2 caster levels. So you loose one caster level. also not taking the core 6 in seasons also makes you miss 1 caster level.

If we assume a pure druid gets caster level 31 with firestorm a druid fvs would get 29. this is 93.5% of the damage. so you loose 7% damage.

Also you could take divine augmentation item for the +2 caster levels if that works.

However i am still doubtful that the spells are not coded differently internally. where one version is druid and the other fvs and maybe a third for cleric. and therefore the caster levels would not stack even if it states so on the wiki.

I should really roll up an iconic and test all this. Wonder if i have a divine augmentation item for those levels...

Also 3 levels of fvs could get you scourge for 30 spell power and 6% more crit chance...

Do you know for sure the caster levels stack. I mean have you tested the damage with and without the aov cores?

[Marcb81]

Well if the split is 17 druid 3 fvs you would gain +4 max caster levels and only 2 caster levels. So you loose one caster level. also not taking the core 6 in seasons also makes you miss 1 caster level.

If we assume a pure druid gets caster level 31 with firestorm a druid fvs would get 29. this is 93.5% of the damage. so you loose 7% damage.

Also you could take divine augmentation item for the +2 caster levels if that works.

However i am still doubtful that the spells are not coded differently internally. where one version is druid and the other fvs and maybe a third for cleric. and therefore the caster levels would not stack even if it states so on the wiki.

I should really roll up an iconic and test all this. Wonder if i have a divine augmentation item for those levels...

Also 3 levels of fvs could get you scourge for 30 spell power and 6% more crit chance...

Do you know for sure the caster levels stack. I mean have you tested the damage with and without the aov cores?

I don’t know for sure. I played 17 Druid/3 FvS a long time ago and had the extra spellpower and crit, so I did more damage but didn’t specifically test if caster lvl was contributing. Didn’t have a divine augment item at the time. Definitely get more spell points with FvS than pure Druid.

[Ultinoob]

It turns out i have asked this question before:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...classes-stack?

To summarise. The test showed that the caster level typed in the combat log did not change when taking the AoV cores. If the actual damage changes was not tested.

I think i a long time ago did test this but can't find it on my computer. I seem to recall that neither fvs cores or divine augmentation worked.

Now 1 level of fvs still makes you loose 2 caster levels and you get 2% crit chance and 30 spell power from scourge. I believe the spell power can come real handy at low levels, but at endgame i would rather have 2 caster levels.

So my conclusion until someone actually test the damage output is that it is not worth taking 1 or 3 levels of fvs. But you do what you feel like.

[Michele]

divine augmentation items do not work for druids: I tested them.
alchemical weapons are good to increase fire or cold spell caster levels +2.

legendary alchemical large shield with glaciation +148, ice lore +22%, alchemical wisdom +2, improved cold augmentation.

nice for a dragonborn druid.

Well if the split is 17 druid 3 fvs you would gain +4 max caster levels and only 2 caster levels. So you loose one caster level. also not taking the core 6 in seasons also makes you miss 1 caster level.

If we assume a pure druid gets caster level 31 with firestorm a druid fvs would get 29. this is 93.5% of the damage. so you loose 7% damage.

Also you could take divine augmentation item for the +2 caster levels if that works.

However i am still doubtful that the spells are not coded differently internally. where one version is druid and the other fvs and maybe a third for cleric. and therefore the caster levels would not stack even if it states so on the wiki.

I should really roll up an iconic and test all this. Wonder if i have a divine augmentation item for those levels...

Also 3 levels of fvs could get you scourge for 30 spell power and 6% more crit chance...

Do you know for sure the caster levels stack. I mean have you tested the damage with and without the aov cores?