Not Getting the "Druid as Nuker" thing..

[Khurse]

Hey All

So finally have played my first Druid build ever... hated it until late teen levels where it became ok, and it was decent through epics.

I do like the healing over my sorc builds, but I don't feel (and it is just a feeling) that I'm doing nearly the damage I do as a cold sorc using icerberg/ thunderstroke /polar ray /chain lightning etc.

Is cold druid pretty much just about spamming icy flowers (which I just started doing when I got back to 32) or am I missing some great spells?

AS I said- just comparing cold druid to my cold/air sorc, the damage , especially vs bosses ,doesn't seem to be there. (Although as mentioned, just noticed icy flowers has basically no cooldown, so that will help)
Just wondering if someone has a basic spell rotation or any tips.

It's a Dragonborn, racial and class completionist , just haven't actually played Druid before and for some reason I'm not able to make the nuking work well enough to see why people compare it to sorc.

Thanks for any suggestions you can provide,

[Ultinoob]

Well depending on what reaper you play on you might wanna cast call lightning storm for extra damage, but you dont know who it hits so dont use it above r4.

My spell rotation on a druid nuker for multiple mobs is
color spray for cc
tsunami
dragonbreath
ice flowers
Maybe even an ice storm



For single target
freezing spray
salt ray for single target stun
(call lightning)
2*creeping cold
word of balance
ruin
greater ruin

Take ruin intensified in draconic.

I know some spells have a long cooldown but usually in r10 other players need healing and you do that in between.

The epic destiny mantle i suggest is primal avatar that can proc 100 temp spell points which is really nice when using ruin.

EDIT: And take wellspring of power perhaps.

[Ultinoob]

If going pure nuker and having almost no defense you can consider adding Thunder Snow to the list of spells.

It has a long cooldown and is a bit weird but it does decent damage.

I usually take shard storm for added 25% extra temp hp instead though.

[Michele]

I would like to test salt ray with master of the wilds, kinetic lore and force spell critical damage item: it's like an half Ruin with 256 average base damage with no save for the damage portion

- Salt ray caster level: 20 druid levels +5 epic levels +1 hierophant +1 time and tide = 27

- Salt ray max caster level: 10 capped levels +5 epic levels +1 hierophant +1 time and tide +10 master of the wilds = 27

[Melkazar]

Like OP I was only mildly impressed with my druid in heroics, but now he is my favorite spellcaster. I was surprised at how much damage he did and joked to my daughter I was going to have to go the forums and complain about how overpowered I was.

So anyway, here is my battle plan.
Pure druid in water form. Draconic and Magus destinies. Ironically I don't use Primal with him but i usually put all my other characters in primal. Go figure.

Call lightning Storm. Keep this on all the time. It's like an early warning assassination system. In epic normal and in many hard quests I something just put this on and walk around.

Salt Ray and Moon Lance. These are long distance high damage attention getters. Instant death in most hard quests. Alternately Cold Light of the moon has tremendous range but they can run out of it so I usually use it for closer.

The remaining mobs now rush you. Lay down some damage and delay zones of you wants. Ice Storm and earthquake are good. And once they are in range the damage from lightning storm begins.

Now at close range white dragon breath, burst of glacial wrath, tsunami. If anything is left ice flowers and cold light of the moon.

For bosses add in creeping cold, greater creeping cold and word of balance.

And don't forget the mantle to ensure they take damage even if immune to cold.

[PedXing20]

Ice sorc is a better DPS nuker, especially vs single targets.

Druid has better healing and is more survivable.

Having said that, in most r10s one rotation from an ice druid will delete most packs.

Now at close range white dragon breath, burst of glacial wrath, tsunami.

You will do more damage if you cast burst first as anything you freeze is now helpless.

• Burst - tsunami - flowers - breathe - flowers

I save GCS for the odd stuff that gets through.

[Rush007]

Everyone goes draconic but druids have some really good AOE ice spells already. Ice flowers has no cooldown basically and Tsunami is a beast and they do great AOE. What your looking for is rotational ICE spells to use and Magus has what you need.

Moonlance is polar ray every 6 seconds for very little mana that freezes and gives vuln.

Zero degree comet is Iceberg. This is amazing with ice spray. 40 mana fully meta'd. Big single target #'s.

Cold of the light moon is a missing puzzle piece for soft melee control. It slows which stacks with icestorm bringing mobs to a crawl. Bonus it is ice which is exactly what you want and nice AOE blast.

There are gaps in rotation yet but it can be filled with call lightning, word of balance or salt ray depending on mob. Most likely one of the force spells.

I wouldn't use mantle in magus, draconic is still where it is at for that. I feel like 3 destiny points are wasted going up the tree to tier 5 but it is worth it. Time stop, null magic aura very useful too.

Destiny spilt would be Magus t5 (36), draconic mantle dot and core 3 for eschew (12), primal avatar for spell power and absorb core 3 (12).

[Michele]

you listed single target spells, while you want area of effect spells because often you have to deal with more that 5 mobs at the same time: usually druids cast burst of glacial wrath (or any other crowd control spell) followed by dragon breath and if something survives then Tsunami.

Tsunami is good, but alone doesn't oneshot mobs in R10.

Zero degree come has 18 seconds cooldown... while iceberg has only 6 seconds cooldown for a sorcerer (I don't have spell points problems to be honest to care about spell points consumption).

Moonlance is nice but druids have salt ray that can be cast every 2 seconds (ok, salt ray deals way less damage but it's free and stuns everything anyway).

Moonlight has 25 second cooldown... too much in my opinion.

Everyone goes draconic but druids have some really good AOE ice spells already. Ice flowers has no cooldown basically and Tsunami is a beast and they do great AOE. What your looking for is rotational ICE spells to use and Magus has what you need.

Moonlance is polar ray every 6 seconds for very little mana that freezes and gives vuln.

Zero degree comet is Iceberg. This is amazing with ice spray. 40 mana fully meta'd. Big single target #'s.

Cold of the light moon is a missing puzzle piece for soft melee control. It slows which stacks with icestorm bringing mobs to a crawl. Bonus it is ice which is exactly what you want and nice AOE blast.

There are gaps in rotation yet but it can be filled with call lightning, word of balance or salt ray depending on mob. Most likely one of the force spells.

I wouldn't use mantle in magus, draconic is still where it is at for that. I feel like 3 destiny points are wasted going up the tree to tier 5 but it is worth it. Time stop, null magic aura very useful too.

Destiny spilt would be Magus t5 (36), draconic mantle dot and core 3 for eschew (12), primal avatar for spell power and absorb core 3 (12).

[PedXing20]

Let's speak about burst of glacial wrath? in R10 it lasts 6 seconds with a 10 seconds cooldown, I hope that mobs do not succeed the "fortitude" save, and it costs a feat (I'm not against bogw, but...).

It also does solid damage and being evoc based, DCs are decent.

I'm in the process of trying to solo as many r10s as possible on my shifter druid and BogW is an important part of my rotations and deeps!

I think it comes down to what you're focusing on with your druid. Michele values DCs and i can see why BogW might not make the cut. I prioritize DPS and as a result, BogW carries more weight for my build.

That's one of the things i like most about druid to be honest - it's such a versatile platform!

[jasonayoung]

It also does solid damage and being evoc based, DCs are decent.

I'm in the process of trying to solo as many r10s as possible on my shifter druid and BogW is an important part of my rotations and deeps!

I think it comes down to what you're focusing on with your druid. Michele values DCs and i can see why BogW might not make the cut. I prioritize DPS and as a result, BogW carries more weight for my build.

That's one of the things i like most about druid to be honest - it's such a versatile platform!

For EDs, I go t5 in angel to get healing aura and the fireball.
Rest In draconic with minimal in Primal to get the wis and prr/mrr.

My cycle is BoGW, dragon breath, tsunami, fireball. I keep lightning storm on me and cast the aoe light/heal bomb when needed.

I use FoD for annoying singles a LOT. I have a mid 90s DC quake and never cast it. CC from BoGW and tsunami is exceptional. Plus winter set helm freezes things too.

I run in heavy hruit set and dread/deacon sets.cold SP just over 1000

[Michele]

It also does solid damage and being evoc based, DCs are decent.

I'm in the process of trying to solo as many r10s as possible on my shifter druid and BogW is an important part of my rotations and deeps!

I think it comes down to what you're focusing on with your druid. Michele values DCs and i can see why BogW might not make the cut. I prioritize DPS and as a result, BogW carries more weight for my build.

That's one of the things i like most about druid to be honest - it's such a versatile platform!

Thanks, I will try it.

[Michele]

- -

[PedXing20]

Yup - it certainly requires you to be a little closer.

Glad you gave it a try to see how it works for your play style so you have a good opinion of it.

It's still a staple of my build that's helped me complete about a dozen or so solo r10s so far - but - it's not for everyone!

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I take 2 things from this thread :

Heroic : "Stay away from that class !"
Reaper & end game : "Absolutely brilliant !"

[Haphazarduk]

Coming back to Druid after a long, long break and interested in the current state. The Combat log is definitely not working well - it shows max potential levels I think rather than actual but even then it's not clear. One thing I noticed in some recent testing was that the bonus caster levels and max caster levels from SH were not applying in the 'right' way. For example Salt Ray, which is on the face of it a Force spell and therefore should sit in summer actually gets its CL increase via Winter which is a pain as you get the Spellpower through Summer.

I also noticed Word of Balance doesn't get any affect at all from CL/MCL either which I guess makes sense as its not elemental although nor is Salt Ray or Piercing Bolt both of which do....

All quite confusing. I was hoping to play a build with R/Gruin as a major part fo the rotation but I guess I'll just have to see how it develops.

I always played Fire Druid before so looking forward to trying out Water.

Hap

[Michele]

the combat log helps you to understand if something increase the caster level of a spell, without considering the maximum caster level.

my combat log says that salt ray is increased by 3 levels in winter season and 1 level in summer season, while word of balance caster level is not affected by summer/winter season.

Anyway I would not bother about those 2 spells caster level because salt ray is used to make a single target helpless while word of balance could be a decent damage filler in your spell rotation (especially against reapers).

ruin and greater ruin don't have a caster level: I got the epic feats embolden, intensify, burst of glacial wrath, and I learnt how to use burst of glacial wrath thanks to the suggestions of the players writing in this forum.

Coming back to Druid after a long, long break and interested in the current state. The Combat log is definitely not working well - it shows max potential levels I think rather than actual but even then it's not clear. One thing I noticed in some recent testing was that the bonus caster levels and max caster levels from SH were not applying in the 'right' way. For example Salt Ray, which is on the face of it a Force spell and therefore should sit in summer actually gets its CL increase via Winter which is a pain as you get the Spellpower through Summer.

I also noticed Word of Balance doesn't get any affect at all from CL/MCL either which I guess makes sense as its not elemental although nor is Salt Ray or Piercing Bolt both of which do....

All quite confusing. I was hoping to play a build with R/Gruin as a major part fo the rotation but I guess I'll just have to see how it develops.

I always played Fire Druid before so looking forward to trying out Water.

Hap

[Michele]

It also does solid damage and being evoc based, DCs are decent.

I'm in the process of trying to solo as many r10s as possible on my shifter druid and BogW is an important part of my rotations and deeps!

I think it comes down to what you're focusing on with your druid. Michele values DCs and i can see why BogW might not make the cut. I prioritize DPS and as a result, BogW carries more weight for my build.

That's one of the things i like most about druid to be honest - it's such a versatile platform!

I followed your suggestion and I learnt to use Burst of Glacial Wrath: I don't need Greatest Shout sla anymore (in tier 4 Fatesinger tree) and my secondary tree is now Primal Avatar with all his cool abilities included Shard Storm for more temporary hit points.

Can you tell me if a mob made helpless with burst of glacial wrath takes more damage than a mob made helpless with hold monster spell?
On wiki I only read: "Helpless monsters take an extra 50% damage from all sources".

After update 59 release (casters dps nerf in r10 difficulty) I'll try to publish new videos (IF I will still able to solo r10 with that nerf :P ).