Elemental Warrior - melee elemental form build

[FuzzyDuck81]

I don't really get on with proper caster type builds. As such, when U57 arrived along with the imbue changes & improvements to falconry, I decided to use that free LR+3 heart to experiment with my caster druid rather than just TR it completely & arrived at the following, essentially as a nature-based melee EK or warpriest, that I've decided to name the Elemental Warrior. Yes, there's obviously a bunch of optimisations that can be made & I'm aware that it only really works at late heroics onwards due to the nature of the build & the way I assembled it as an LR+, nevertheless for anyone that's interested this is what it currently looks like. Yes, it's also pretty rough & a little rambling because it's very much a work in the process of being tweaked and adjusted.

Race - Wildhunt Shifter, 36 point build, chaotic neutral
Tomes - it has +8 stat tomes across the board as well as +2 racial AP & +1 universal tree AP tomes.
Stats: STR 10, DEX 14, CON 15, INT 12, WIS 17(i think? nevertheless, all level ups go here), CHA 8
Class Split: Druid 17 (gotta have level 9 spells for mantle of the sun to strip fire immunity), fighter 2, barbarian 1
Feats: (in no particular order) 2wf, i2wf, g2wf, p2wf, toughness, IC:slashing, knight's training, precision, empower spell, maximise spell, quicken spell, extend spell, intensify spell, epic toughness, wellspring of power, harbinger of chaos, epic spellpower: fire, scion of the plane of fire

Destinies:
Tier 5 in draconic incarnation (fire based, naturally), also points in primal avatar (heart path, 1st 3 cores, reborn in fire & at it's core plus points in shadowdancer up to shadowstriker, because I like inherent energy drain immunity... yes i know, death ward but the more passive immunities i can fit in to save me thinking about them, the better.

Enhancements:
Falconry (41 AP); WIS to hit & damage naturally, plus bird attacks, expose weakness, deadly instincts etc. Only took dangerous & death from above strike in tier 5 since I'm experimenting with howl of terror in racial tree & mark the prey doesn't seem worth it for the long cooldown & short duration.
Racial (21AP); 1st 4 cores, hardy shifting, extended shifting, empowered by nature, wild magic, howl of terror
Nature's protector (11AP); defensive stance for PRR/MRR & saves plus 3rd core for heavy armour proficiency
Feydark Illusionist (3 AP); illusionary weaponry because i just like having weapons that don't take damage, also turns it into an implement for extra spellpower.
Ravager (4 AP) hardy rage stacks nicely with the hardy shifting in the racial tree, making that wildhunt shift a very solid buff
Vistani Knife Fighter (3AP); because 25% negative energy absorbtion is nice

Assorted thoughts:
Mixture of casting & melee feats because duh, it's a hybrid casting & fighting build. It can heal a nice chunk too, sometimes with the same spell, yay.

Fire elemental over water elemental because body of the sun is a fire & forget persistant damage aura while fighting. Debated similar on the boost to dragon breath, but ultimately kept with the single larger punch for that.

Knight's training isn't as essential, but that character already had the Bitter Edge longsword & it's freeze proc works off attacks & spellcasts, so that's pretty nice. I've paired it with the goldcursed dagger in the offhand & that can also immobilise things in melee, it's occasional gold shield proc is pretty nice too.

Extend spell works on body of the sun & having that for 60secs a pop instead of the annoyance of renewing it every 30secs in large fights is enough of a reason to take it for me, anything else I might happen to use it on is a bonus.

I went 2wf because that way there's double the amount of hits from the imbues to help make up the lack of any critical profile boosts from enhancement trees.

Debated going with primal avatar tier 5 or just using it's mantle for the extra imbue dice, but I prefer the wings for mobility & the extra DoT effects from the draconic mantle procs.

Thoughts on a couple of potential alternatives;
Shadarkai, similar AP spread, use light mainhand weapon & the chains for melee fun times with the goldcursed dagger as primary weapon since the flesh to gold effect is on crit not just "a chance" & those chain attacks have threat boosts (I already used this on an EK/PM build to great effect). You'd also have that displacement (extended, yay) SLA. Since you wouldn't have shifting for the combined WIS/CON boost you could either keep the barbarian level using it's own rage for the CON buff & add the "cast while raging" thing from draconic, or you could switch that level out to take something else. For weapon style, keeping 2wf would naturally be great for damage, though going sword & board route with points in vanguard for missile shield & stunning shield could be an interesting option that'd add another high-DC crowd control as well as boosting your defenses significantly.

Tabaxi trailblazer, 2hf quarterstaff user with monk levels, embodiment of law instead of harbinger of chaos, swords to plowshares instead of knight's training, ditch improved critical, empower spell & epic toughness in favour of the monk stance feats. Could keep 1 of those feats depending whether you go 2 monk & 1 fighter or 3 monk for fists of light. Shadowdancer 3rd core upgrades evasion to improved evasion & run in water stance for more saves, dodge, to-hit & casting plus bird strike DCs. Would be a lot more AoE combat based & have SPEEEEED.

Edit: Okay, thinking about it I'm really liking that tabaxi idea, i think I know what it's going to be changing into later on.

[cru121]

Here's a build that I always wanted to try: elemental form melee druid swashbuckler. My planned split is 17 / 3 (for 9th level spells / mass regen). The ideal race seems to be Aasimar Scourge for +1 stacking crit multiplier with light maces (Skullsmasher while leveling). This combination does require a +1 heart to get rid of the ranger level. AP is straightforward: 17 in race for the multiplier, 12 swash, 41 FALCONRY, bear defensive stance, and not much left.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Here's a build that I always wanted to try: elemental form melee druid swashbuckler. My planned split is 17 / 3 (for 9th level spells / mass regen). The ideal race seems to be Aasimar Scourge for +1 stacking crit multiplier with light maces (Skullsmasher while leveling). This combination does require a +1 heart to get rid of the ranger level. AP is straightforward: 17 in race for the multiplier, 12 swash, 41 vistani, bear defensive stance, and not much left.

Vistani on a light mace seems an unusual choice, did you mean falconry? It's another interesting option for sure

[cru121]

Vistani on a light mace seems an unusual choice

uh indeed, sorry for the confusion

[Rush007]

You know I was thinking along the same lines except cold vistani. Use Raellia's dagger for WIS to hit and damage, vistani tree they selection of whatever else is needed for enhancements after that. No falconry because already have wis to hit and dmg but the falconry tree is so good with trance and helpless.

[unbongwah]

Since you opened the door, here's something I'm considering for a possible LR of a pure druid: Vistani Elemental.

Class: Druid 20
Race: human for extra feat
Key stats: WIS 18 + level-ups, DEX 14 (+3 tome), CON at least 14
Heroic feats: TWF x3, Improved Critical, Precision, Maximize, Empower, and <Quicken OR Empower Heal>

• The Offhand Versatility nerf makes SWF less attractive plus I already have a +3 DEX tome on this toon. OTOH a twink-free first-lifer could do SWF to save build points.

Enhancements: 41 Vistani / 27-ish Falconry / 12 Nature's Warrior (Prey on the Weak)

• Unfortunately Vistani didn't get any Imbue dice but they did get +25% Competence bonus to HPs in their tier-5, which makes up for not getting bonus HPs from Nature's Protector without switching to bear form.
• If I find this combo too squishy, I can reset NW and shift 6 APs into Nature's Protector (+20 PRR/MRR from defensive stance)
• Or if I want a more caster-focused build: 41 Season's Herald / 24 VKF / 12 Falconry, swapping Vistani's +25% HPs for SH's temp HPs (Winter's Heart). Losing Deadly Instinct + No Mercy is unfortunate but...tradeoffs, always tradeoffs.

Most daggers are 16-20/x3 critical threat range for a Vistani; a few are 16-20/x4 (e.g., Assassin's Kiss) or 14-20/x3 (Nightforge Stiletto, drow dagger). That's adequate for melee/caster hybrid.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Okay, found one of my many alts that was kind of in limbo so have an alternative version too:

Tabaxi Trailblazer, 34 point build, +7 tomes across the board, +2 racial AP, +1 universal AP. Lawful Neutral
druid 17, monk 3

Stats: STR 15, DEX 11, CON 16, INT 12, WIS 17 (level ups here), CHA 8

Feats: 3x 2hf, perfect 2hf, 3x monk forms, swords to plowshares, maximise spell, extend spell, quicken spell, scion of the plane of fire, precision, empower spell, epic spellpower fire, legendary toughness, intensify spell

Enhancements:
Racial: 22 AP; 1st 4 cores (WIS), sneaky strikes x2, deflect arrows, staff deflection, wayfinder's weapons, great weapon aptitude x3, focused agility, fast sprinter, escape artist, springing pounce
Falconry: 41 AP; all cores (WIS), out in nature x3, practiced accuracy x2, killer instinct 1 & 2, watch the center x3, diving attack strike x3, strike for the eyes x3, conditioning, deadly instinct x3, no mercy x3, coordinated strike, expose weakness, dangerous, death from above strike x3
Nature's Protector: 6 AP;1st 2 cores, enhanced defense, fey blessing
Shintao: 1st 2 cores, the receptive earth (curse cure on 3xpos), ki shout, exemplar (gotta use the APs to get to tier 2), iron skin x3
Henshin Mystic: 1st 2 cores (oh hey they adds an imbue dice each now, that's nifty), all-consuming flame (it's a fire druid, woo fire vulnerability debuff), henshin staff training, negotiator x1, quick strike x3

[FuzzyDuck81]

With the addition of blightcaster, a whole new approach for this kind of build has also opened up & will be investigating properly once it's released but am already having some ideas, unfortunately the acid/poison immunity stripping comes via T5 enhancement rather than the spell buff so you'll lose the competence bonus to HP though the increased defenses of both hive master & thorn knight forms will help mitigate that to some extent.