Thoughts after little testing of blight caster hive master

[Ultinoob]

So as some of you know I do most of my druids builds with 1 level of wizard and 2 levels of monk. This was no exception.

I have only played at cap with this toon which is my alt who does not have a lot of past lives and about 50 reaper points.
I was able to solo isle of dread on r2 and did some questing on r4 later on with a friend.
My gear was not optimised as I did not have proper filigrees or augments or crafted on isle of dread gear.

The thing about this build is that it is more squishy than my cold druid.
The cold druid gets immunity stripping as a level 9 spell where acid immunity stripping is a tier 5 enhancement. This mean I cannot take +25% hp from falconry.

The permanent displacement from hive master is nice but at r10 you would only have 20% left and reapers have true seeing.
On the other hand the mobs did seem to miss me because of it.

The look on a hive master reminds me of middling I think it is called in english. But you can turn of the looks of it. Sometimes I turn it on.

With regards to spells I am using:
single target:
salt ray, black dragon bolt, necrotic ray, thorn lance, word of balance, shard storm, finger of death
AOE:
Spike growth, acid rain, poison, insidius spores, acid well
Cone:
Burst of glacial wrath, thorn wave, dragon breath.

A spell that is really good is the shard storm from primal avatar. It does 18 damage on average per caster level. Half acid, half poison. It strikes 6 times. That’s a lot of damage.
I tested using primal avatars summoning. I used the dryad summoning which heals. It is really nice to have a healer along with you.

Gear:
Belt: Legendary Black Satin Waist
Boots: legendary sunken slippers
Bracers: Legendary Necromancer's Bracers
Cloak: IOD with acid spell crit multiplier and profane dc
Gloves: Legendary Skin-tight Gloves
Goggles: Attunement’s Gaze
Helm: elders
Necklace: shamans
Ring 1: shamans
Ring 2: IOD with force spell crit multiplier and sacred dc
Trinket: Gem of many facets with elders and CC force lore and parrying with ins physical sheltering
Armor: Legendary Robes of the Dreadkeeper
Main hand: iod kama
Off hand: alchemical acid
Quiver: epic quiver of alacrity – has stealth strike

If you have suggestions or questions feel free to respond.

[Michele]

tsunami deals a lot more damage than thorn wave, even for a blightcaster

[Ultinoob]

tsunami deals a lot more damage than thorn wave, even for a blightcaster

Ah yes.

I have acid well and rend the soul as level 9 spells. I have forgotten to use rend the soul.

My druid build only gets 2 level 9 spells.

More testing needed.

[Michele]

Ah yes.

I have acid well and rend the soul as level 9 spells. I have forgotten to use rend the soul.

My druid build only gets 2 level 9 spells.

More testing needed.

if you have only two level 9 spells then in my opinion tsunami and acid well are a must have.

I remember that rend the soul spell has a slow casting time: I would use creeping cold sla, greater creeping cold, melf's acid arrow and dragon bolt.

I remember poison and insidious spores spells dealing low damage.

How does thorn lance spell work? I found very difficult to target mobs with that: it didn't work for me.

[Ultinoob]

Yes will have to test tsunami against rend the soul.

I am not using creeping cold spells on this. There seemed to be enough single target spells without.

Yes not sure about poison and spores. will have to check that.

Thorn lance works fine for me.
select a target preferably far away and cast. it hits all mobs in front and behind the targeted mob. Deals decent damage too.

[Ultinoob]

Rend the soul does not seem to do a whole lot of damage. Did not try to change to tsunami, but will try and remember tomorrow.

You are right about poison and spores. They don't seem to do a whole lot of damage. Forgot to check if poison immunity is only stripped when casting poison spell.

Yes something is off with thorn lance.
When i used it as single target spell and had a mob hard selected it worked fine.
Now when i have it on rotation for aoe spells it messes up and sometimes cast it in a weird direction.

[Ultinoob]

Yes you are right Michele. Tsunami is better than rend the soul.

This makes me think of a acid, cold and force druid.

Spells:
single target:
salt ray, black dragon bolt, Greater creeping cold, thorn lance, word of balance, shard storm, finger of death
AOE:
acid blast, acid well
Cone:
Burst of glacial wrath, Tsunami, thorn wave, dragon breath.

Get acid from tier 5 so thorn wave strips acid immunity.

Gear:
Belt: Legendary Black Satin Waist – with Esoterica augment
Boots: Legendary Sunken Slippers – with Esoterica augment
Bracers: Legendary Kundarak Warding Bracers
Cloak: IOD cloak - Deacon of the Auricular Sacrarium
Gloves: IOD
Goggles: Attunement’s Gaze – with Esoterica augment
Helm: IOD helm - Deacon of the Auricular Sacrarium
Necklace: Biting sands set
Ring 1: bound elemental ring of frost
Ring 2: Bound elemental ring of acid? Or whatever
Trinket: Gem of many facets with Wards of House Kundarak and biting sands. CC force lore and spellpower and ins physical sheltering.
Armor: Legendary Robe of the Locus or iod cloth armor with - Deacon of the Auricular Sacrarium
Main hand: IOD kama
Off hand: Alchemical kama with acid spell power and lore and +2 wisdom and acid augmentation
Quiver: epic quiver of alacrity – has stealth strike

Also poison immunity stripping seems to be only done by the enhanced poison spell.

[Michele]

are you sure that thorn wave strips acod immunity? it's not an acid spell: maybe you mean acid blast.

Also I moved to Orien server, if you join me there we can play together :P

PROS: a lot of players and group/raid lfm to play with.

CONS: a lot of lag to deal with

On Cannih server there is almost no lag due to the departure of many players to Orien, while in Orien the lag makes the game almost unplayable (I tested it during the weekend).

I wonder if the DDO team thought about this issue when they made Orien a free to transfer server, and if they have a short term solution for it.

I remember many years ago that I quit due to lag and then years later I returned to find the issue resolved only because the server population drastically reduced.

[Ultinoob]

If you imbue thorn wave with coated thorns/vile thorns from blighcaster it does a little acid damage.

I'd be more than happy to play with you.
Would be nice to see the builds compared side by side.

I think you do more damage.

My name is Tytteboevsen online and i am on orien.

[Michele]

If you imbue thorn wave with coated thorns/vile thorns from blighcaster it does a little acid damage.

I'd be more than happy to play with you.
Would be nice to see the builds compared side by side.

I think you do more damage.

My name is Tytteboevsen online and i am on orien.

omg! nice!
I'm now a level 20 warlock, please carry me to level 30 ahahaha

By DeathTitan.