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.