Viable Druid Builds?

[Aren]

So, while I'm contemplating my next character, I'd like to try out a druid. Since they have undergone a few changes some months ago (Dragon Shaper), I am not sure how relevant old threads about druid builds are. Therefore I ask: What druid builds are currently viable, and what do they look like?

Thanks!

[Harasha]

Pure druid is the best way to go for the level 28 monolith elemental shapes. Go epic with conjuration and transmutation focuses. If you want dragonshape you need 25 wisdom now. You may not want dragonshape.

EDR builds are a thing too, which means going pure druid and getting 21 constitution and all three EDR feats to make the elementals even tougher. This is difficult to do and also get dragonshape, almost impossible if you want to take a totem.

That's about it, you have a few free feats to play with, expertise and imp. expertise are probably good ideas.

[Aren]

So Dragonshaper is off the table now then? It's not good?

[One Two Three Five]

They mean the EDR one. A wis-based druid can get it easy.

[Harasha]

So Dragonshaper is off the table now then? It's not good?

I don't think dragon shapes are bad, just no longer top of the list. The monolith elemental forms are definitely great, dragon shaping is pretty good. Monk dips also no longer add much.

I'd still pick up dragon shape if it was convenient but I'd build for the elemental shape. EDR or not is the tough choice since it does take three epic feats and probably means no totem.

[Sockss]

The two top are both pure builds.

One which takes a totem and focusses wisdom. (The totem's nice for levelling and is generally used to soak up some damage in PvP during a timestop etc.)

This variant also generally has epic spells, as it gains 4 feats on the EDR variant.

The other takes 21 con, for EDR pre's. This costs them 4 feats. (3 EDR and they don't get the bonus druid feat at 25).

They both essentially exist in elemental shapes, aside from buffing and summoning.

You'll want to pick up ESF Trans, Improved Expertise, GSF Conjuration and GSF Abjuration.

Right now elem shapes outshine DS, they absolutely excel at their intended functions (Aside from maybe water), be it DR (Earth has the absolute highest damage mitigation in the game), AC (IE + Air elem is huge) or PvE face roll (They all have their moments, but fires biteback particularly excels at this).

They're also infinite casts of elem shapes (Which allows you to do things you can't do with a DS'er) and aren't crazy-sized so don't have the environmental weaknesses.

[BegoneThoth]

Think if you're going totem a monk dip is still solid.

Though bear far outshines the others and bat is about to be nerfed.

[Harasha]

Having played both I think rat may be better than bear. +4 int means a lot of skill points (very valuable when going pure) and/or frees some ability points to make STR or CON not totally terrible. Immunity to disease is also nice and being small size has some obvious plusses.

But anyway if you take gnome or dwarf or possibly another +2 con race you can take +2 con and +2 wisdom gifts and get to both 21 con and 25 wisdom for both EDR and dragon shape. That without totem is probably the most powerful druid you can make right now.

[TimeAdept]

I wouln't take Dragon Shape, the Monoliths are where it's at.

I'd take EDK. Which you can drop while in Monolith form.

[OutOfChwi]

Dwarf pure druid and pick up EDR, mono forms and Dragonshape.

[Aren]

Thank you for your replies.

[PresidentCthulhu]

Basically there are more options now with the dragonshape changes.
Puredruid with cool elemental shapes and more CL and slightly better summons
Totemic with monkdip for godlike AC, lot more skill options, more attacks

Dragon-shape in itself is not really an "end-goal" of either route now, though certainly still powerful (just not ridiculously OP). On the real plus side you can grab it while getting other feats now not just spamming greater wisdom.

[Skeletor]

Pure druid has a LOT of options and is just plain better than most multiclass druids except maybe monk-druid. Here are some examples as to why:

1) Spike Growth: Spike Growth damage increased to 1d4/3 Caster Levels to a maximum of 40 Damage at Level 30

This does not seem to be a lot but in fact it is incredibly powerfull.
Spike growth lasts hours per level.
Spike growth has no save
Spike growth slows on a failed save.
Spike growth stacks with itself.

If you cast it several times on the same spot, every instance of the spell deals damage.
I don't mean overlapping slightly, i mean casting it in the exact same pixel allows for creating a "Square of death" that lasts hours per level and has no save, and dmg scaling to higher levels.

Or you can spread it around a whole area and make it your hunting ground, luring mobs into death traps. Choices.

2) Animal Companion. Animal companions have been buffed, are now on a 10 minute cooldown, and are provided AC by greater magic fang. What's not to love ?

3) Monstrous regenerations and regeneration. Power increased. Regeneration scales. Duration increased. Loosing hp sux. Don't do it, just cast regeneration.

4) Inferno buffed when used with transmuation. Well ... if there's nothing else you can't go very wrong with an inferno.
Inferno now deals 1d6/4 Caster Levels with Greater Transmutation Focus. Also, this allows sunbeam to trigger the buffed inferno on a failed save. Enjoy!

5) Vine mine camouflage grants HIP inside it's area of effect. Well... you just go there and hide. you'll be safe given that it still provides a massive bonus.

6) Stonehold. Massive will or paralyze spell, persistant, rounds per level. Can be empowered to affect it's duration, or extended to affect it's duration, or maximized to affect it's duration. For some reason it's also mind affecting. Use it frequently when applicable You can protect your allies from it with freedom of movement.

7) Wall of fire. No spell resistance allowed. No save allowed. Scales. PErsists several rounds. Metamagic applicable. THis be good magics.

8) Drown has been modified and then... meh.. i wouldn't really bother with it, you have better choices.

9)Aura of vitality scales duration greatly improved with gsf transmutation or esf transmutation. Use this.

10) Firestorm: Always a superb spell even back in vanilla edition. THe spell suposedly caps at 20d6 divine and fire damage. What it doesn't tell you is that the caps are separate, so the max is 20d6 fire and 20d6 divine.Of course we can't get that high on arelith, max are 15d6 each. Still, at lvl 30 this can poke enemies for 15d6 divine+15d6 fire in one cast. Druids get this one level lower than clerics, so it can be empowered. 30d6 +50% = 45 d6 of pure damage. Yes please.

It does have a save for half, but it's a circle 7 spell.. you can get a high DC on it. Also, doesn't affect allies so it's entirely party friendly

11) Call Lightning. Remember fireball ? Well this is electrical fireball, only that it's party friendly, and can be empowered, maximized stilled and quickened. Oh, and if it rains it hits for d10s instead of d6. So on a rainy day this can deal 100 dmg maximized. The dc gets a bit low on higher level areas.

12) Bombardment: PArty friendly, enormous area, damages and knockdowns enemies. Only drawback is it's physical damage, but it's still an emergency spell to pull out when your party is getting the wrong end of the stick.

13) Earthquake. THis isn't good in party settings but can be fun to use... or better not

14) Storm of vengeance. An excellent spell to punish your foes, stunning and damaging them.

15) Elemental swarm. The summons are just so good you won't need a party anymore. Just get ESF Conjuration and get those pure 20+ druid levels to see them scale in power and raise you into godhood.

16) Shapechange : The golem shape is excellent. Use it to gain immunities and traverse areas hostile to you.

17) Elemental shapes: Well.. if you lvl this all the way to lvl 28 your power will be complete. Not going to add anything else.

18) Pesky mages with acid sheats ? Cast nature's balance and see just how weak and feeble they are. It now applies Lesser Spell Breach. With Greater and Epic Transmutation focus, the area of effect and power of the Breach increases.

19) Death Ward: Stop that pesky death magic.

20) No mind affecting imunity ? Just turn into something that has it! Dragonshape, golem shape, elemental shape. All have mind affecting immunity. Be safe and choose your shape wisely.

With the changes, Druid is by far the best elementalist save or damage caster.
You also get premonition and energy buffer which are the best damage reduction spells available, truesight, ultravision, and the ability to gain Dragonshape.

I would say Dragonshape is a weaker version of what you can get by just gaining more levels in pure druid.

You can also learn epic spells to spice things up.

Basically, the Druid can be a healer, (extremely effective one) melee, caster, disabler and has spells that bypass spell resistance and mantles. You even get harm, heal and if you really must, finger of death. Lots of your spells can be enhanced by metamagic to make them even more destructive.

Pure druid is a monster class, and there are few ways to ruin it. Returning home battered from a dungeon run, no spells left and tons of monsters betwen you and safety ? Well remember than with enough levels you get infinite elemental shape! You'r never truly unarmed as a druid.

Also, druids are on the VERY CHEAP side when it comes to magical equipment, because they don't need all that many trinkets to shapeshift.

Finally, remember you also receive +1 spell to every spell circle, so you have just as many spells as a cleric or non-specialist mage.

Get an altar asap, and you'll be able to recharge your spells... so easy to reach low piety when they are all so powerful!


Yes, you MIGHT be killed by some other build perhaps, but when it comes to PVE, pure druid is just godly.

[PresidentCthulhu]

Skeletor sums up all the Druid features nicely in that nice long sales pitch type of comment.
Some features are a bit exaggerated I feel as in practice you simply don’t need them and swapping out from your combat shapes to your caster shape is a high risk manouver mid-combat at high level areas so you mostly start with them to deal with a specific emergency situation. But all in all yes Druid is godlike in PVE.

The topic was about BUILD options though not options to have at your disposal right? To that the sort summary is really all is needed:
Pure druid for monolithic shape and four more CL
Druid/monk for better totemshape, more skill options and saves

One thing to remember is that Druid is relatively feat starved so you cannot have everything. Picking some melee feats (blind fight, knockdown) is desirable.
Metamagic feats are nice to have
Spell focuses: conjuration, transmutation and evocation are all nice you just normally can’t fit all three and get the epic spells for it

[BegoneThoth]

craft wand will make you a lot of money.

if you want to melee at all blind fight is literally required. it's not a debate.

[Truesight]

Pure druid has always been something I've wanted to try, how would you fix this build? I'd really like to fit Blind-fight, knockdown and Greater Focus Abjuration but have no idea where the feats would come from.

Druid Druid 30
Human

STR: 9
DEX: 8
CON: 16 (18)
WIS: 17 (19) (26)
INT: 14
CHA: 8


01: Dru(1): SF: Conjuration, Grtr SF Conjuration
02: Dru(2)
03: Dru(3): Extend Spell
04: Dru(4): WIS+1 (21)
05: Dru(5)
06: Dru(6): Empower Spell
07: Dru(7)
08: Dru(8): WIS+1 (22)
09: Dru(9): SF Transmutation
10: Dru(10)
11: Dru(11)
12: Dru(12): WIS+1 (23), Grtr SF Transmutation
13: Dru(13)
14: Dru(14)
15: Dru(15): Expertise
16: Dru(16): WIS+1 (24)
17: Dru(17)
18: Dru(18): Improved Expertise
19: Dru(19)
20: Dru(20): WIS+1 (25)
21: Dru: Epic Dragon Knight
22: Dru:
23: Dru
24: Dru): WIS+1 (26), Epic Spell Focus Conjuration, Epic Spell Focus Transmutation
25: Dru
26: Dru
27: Dru : Dragon Shape
28: Dru: WIS+1 (27), Greater Ruin
29: Dru
30: Dru: HellBall

[BegoneThoth]

drop empower for blind fight.

consider dropping imp expertise as it's not really needed, your ac will be very high w/o it.

end on an even wisdom not 27

consider int over con, as con don't help when shifted and if you're caught not shifted you're basically so dead 30 hp and 1 fort wont help.

[PresidentCthulhu]

I’m personally not fond of transmutation focus on druids. Extended time aura of vitality and more useful nature’s balance is nice, but they only have access to bull’s strength and the inferno buff is still meh. Teleporting is fun, but buy lens.

If you want to pick epic evo spells you should really pick the epic focus evo cuz the backlash hurts even druids with heals.

Due to system limitation afaik you don’t have to spend feat on dragon shape.

You really should pick blind-fight. Maybe one meta magic or improved expertise could be traded off.

I don’t think you need a crafting skill, as Skeletor said before you don’t really spend much so you will have enough money always.

Abjuration focus is not worth it due to not having access to top level dispells or the shield spell. (IMO)

[BegoneThoth]

i like transmutation as aura o vit stacks with bulls strength and transmut focus boosts bulls so you can easily cap your +12 to str by yourself.

extended transmutation inferno is basically a death sentence.

breaching on natures balance is also supurb utility for pve and mayhaps pvp

abjuration focus is not needed at all.

transmutation teleport is fantastic, being able to tp your party around and save your group 10k in lens's is nice.

if you want money get craft wand. barkskin wands are always hot sellers.

[Truesight]

Dragonshape is free now? Neat, saves a feat. I took the advice above and tinkered, upping intelligence, dropping expertise and empower spell and the dragonshape feat to pick up blindfight and epic spell focus Evocation, how are we looking?

I like the idea of both Epic Transmutation and Conjuration, suits the old druid treewalking idea. Get your whole party to you and wherever you want.

Druid Druid 30
Human

STR: 9
DEX: 8
CON: 14
WIS: 17 (19) (26)
INT: 16 (18)
CHA: 8


01: Dru(1): SF: Conjuration, Grtr SF Conjuration
02: Dru(2)
03: Dru(3): Extend Spell
04: Dru(4): WIS+1 (20)
05: Dru(5)
06: Dru(6): SF Evocation
07: Dru(7)
08: Dru(8): WIS+1 (21)
09: Dru(9): SF Transmutation
10: Dru(10)
11: Dru(11)
12: Dru(12): WIS+1 (22), Grtr SF Transmutation
13: Dru(13)
14: Dru(14)
15: Dru(15): Blind Fight
16: Dru(16): WIS+1 (23)
17: Dru(17)
18: Dru(18): Grtr SF Evocation
19: Dru(19)
20: Dru(20): WIS+1 (24)
21: Dru: Epic Dragon Knight
22: Dru:
23: Dru
24: Dru): WIS+1 (25), Epic Spell Focus Conjuration, Epic Spell Focus Transmutation
25: Dru
26: Dru
27: Dru : Epic Spell Focus Evocation
28: Dru: WIS+1 (26), Greater Ruin
29: Dru
30: Dru: HellBall

[Ork]

Could always go the EDR, EDK, Dragonshape Dwarf.

Druid 30
Shield Dwarf

STR: 8
DEX: 8
CON: 18 (20) (21)
WIS: 18 (20) (26)
INT: 12
CHA: 6


01: Dru(1): SF: Conjuration
02: Dru(2)
03: Dru(3): GSF: Conjuration
04: Dru(4): WIS+1 (21)
05: Dru(5)
06: Dru(6): Extend Spell
07: Dru(7)
08: Dru(8): WIS+1 (22)
09: Dru(9): SF: Transmutation
10: Dru(10)
11: Dru(11)
12: Dru(12): WIS+1 (23), GSF: Transmutation
13: Dru(13)
14: Dru(14)
15: Dru(15): Empower Spell
16: Dru(16): WIS+1 (24)
17: Dru(17)
18: Dru(18): Blind Fight
19: Dru(19)
20: Dru(20): CON+1 (21)
21: Dru(21): EDR I
22: Dru(22):
23: Dru(23):
24: Dru(24): WIS+1 (25), EDR II, ESF: Conjuration
25: Dru(25): Dragonshape
26: Dru(26):
27: Dru(27):
28: Dru(28): WIS+1 (26), EDK
29: Dru(29):
30: Dru(30): EDR III

[PresidentCthulhu]

Both looks viable imo.
From the human build I would swap extend with expertise, but if you want that inferno combo and be a bit more castery then it's nice to have (otherwise your buffs will last for ages anyway with pure druid so it is not that important).

[Harasha]

I would argue you need extend.. not just for buffs but for versatility in spellbook options, and to make the most of rounds per level damage and utility spells like stonehold and grease. A Druid can do fine without other metamagics but that one seems crucial.

AC isn't a prime concern anyway as you'll have a swarm of beasts to take hits for you and you have greater stoneskin and premonition.