Post by maljin on Dec 9, 2011 16:49:19 GMT
Since I've gathered a couple of really nice druid items on my hard-core characters (more by chance than anything else), I thought of building a Druid, where I'd really appreciate some insight in two builds I've been coming up with in the next two paragraphs and some comments on my thoughts at the bottom of the thread:
Right now I'm tempted to go with the Fallen Angel version of the build Rain posted here. Fallen Angel has extra cha which helps with saves from Pally, strider and 10 extra skill points to spend since I'll have Heal anyway (probably even lowering heal to about 50 so I can spend around 15 into craft armor for another point of ac with bard song).
This build features 5 epics (trans, evo, abj, conj, necro), Gr. Ruin, and rather good saves (reflex at 55, fort at 60) and one meta magic feat (most likely Extend Spell over Silent Spell since as a -HC- character I'm not likely to visit the two areas where silence is prevalent anytime soon). The downsides would be no Lore, no UMD and only gr. wis 7 on an UR race (leading to 2 dc down from a BUR with 10 gr. wis).
Another version (with Doppelganger) I've come up with myself is using Bard splash instead of Pally since Doppelgangers have a -2 cha penalty (4 lower than Fallen Angel) anyway so Pally saves are not that attractive. Dropping the necro foci and 2 con (Doppelgangers have +2 con) for Dauntless, Leg. Valor, Empower Spell and UMD would be the perks of this one. Dropping Animal Empathy to about 25 and heal to 50 would even allow me to max Lore (put to some use with Empower Spell). With Leg. Valor the saves are actually better than the pally version above (reflex at 57, fort at 61), though the pally could reach the same value (and better fort saves) with +14 items. Drawback here is obviously the loss of an epic; dc for the rest stays the same as above. Dropping trans, evo or conj is out of question since there you'll find the most important Druid spells imho and they've got really nice epics as well. From what I've read in other threads abj is required just because of Frailty and Energy Immunity is just handy so necro would be the one to drop.
Now there are several questions I could use some insight:
Being new to druids (and casters in general) I'd appreciate UMD very much (being able to read scrolls on my Staffmaster and Rogue made a huge difference), especially since Druids have no way to gs reliably.
On the other hand I don't really wanna drop the necro epic since I've seen it in action on a Rona run some long time ago. And since Druids don't have Contingency (or the Cleric version), another "panic button" would be very much appreciated for any -HC- character I'd image. Beside that the necro spells Defoliate and Infestation of Maggots don't really have an equivalent in spellbooks from other casters (or even shifter abilities) so I'd love to play around with them / find some use for them (and without necro foci the dc will be too low I'd imagine).
Dropping spell dc's by 2 from max (be aware that this is a -HC- char so far from max anyway to start with) when using those subraces would allow for a difference of just 1 might not be a good idea to start with either; I've did it because it was suggested in Rain's post (linked above) and I suppose his builds set a very good base to start from. The Druid spells benefiting most from dc are all in trans or necro (but those in necro are not required for the "typical Druid tasks"); the rest being damage spells of buffs, so I'm hesitant taking any other Leg. Spell Focus besides trans atm (necro would be cool I think, but I guess it'll be very hard to impossible to fit into any non-Rilmani build retaining all the other things Druids "are required to have").
Going with Bard splash and the necro epic (losing save feats) would drop my fort save to 55 and reflex to 51 which seems a tad low for any character. It might be doable with a Wizard, but not a Druid (Nature's Balance and other point blank AoEs) or Cleric (Battle Tide, Prayer). That's just my impression from playing a shifter with relatively low reflex saves though, so some insight about Druid saves would be great.
Dropping Gr. Ruin for Epic Reflexes would shoot the Bard splash even without Leg. Valor to saves of 55 fort and reflex; still low but probably acceptable, so I could pick up Esf: necro. In earlier threads dropping Gr. Ruin has been strongly rejected though (been titled as wipe protection by mish). But I've just recently read in the build minimums thread that Gr. Ruin is dropped from casters more often these days. Any comments?
Similar with abj and Frailty: The further you go back in the Druid forums the more often you encounter the opinion that Frailty is a required epic, while the only open subby druid doesn't have it. I guess on a Rilmani with demi iterations, wis arti, dc ego and whatever else Nature's Balance would land fast enough even on bosses.
Animal Empathy vs Lore: In the Bard version from above with only 4 epics I'd be tempted to pick up max lore instead of Animal Empathy since I'll have room for Empower Spell. Would this be advisable? The only char where I'd never drop AE is an Ability Mage Shifter because there's so much you get out of it, but Druids? Extra damage on Creeping Doom (without illusion foci not comparable to a build that has them anyway, and the extra damage won't change a lot at this fact either), improves the summons from Stone of the Earthmother but not those from the Summon Creature spells I think, can dominate animals (more of a gimmick than anything else if you're asking me, especially since the summons update where you can get another tank per caster with just spells + buffs).
I'm not sure if Lore is that useful without Empower Spell since the spellbook would be rather limited to fit in the damage spells without another tier of metamagics. From what I've read Tyran likes lore on his Druid really much but I don't know how others feel about it since Druids have so much to cast before even thinking about damage spells that the fight might well be over before they get to it.
That's all I've got on my mind about Druids atm, more might come later.
Thanks
mal
Right now I'm tempted to go with the Fallen Angel version of the build Rain posted here. Fallen Angel has extra cha which helps with saves from Pally, strider and 10 extra skill points to spend since I'll have Heal anyway (probably even lowering heal to about 50 so I can spend around 15 into craft armor for another point of ac with bard song).
This build features 5 epics (trans, evo, abj, conj, necro), Gr. Ruin, and rather good saves (reflex at 55, fort at 60) and one meta magic feat (most likely Extend Spell over Silent Spell since as a -HC- character I'm not likely to visit the two areas where silence is prevalent anytime soon). The downsides would be no Lore, no UMD and only gr. wis 7 on an UR race (leading to 2 dc down from a BUR with 10 gr. wis).
Another version (with Doppelganger) I've come up with myself is using Bard splash instead of Pally since Doppelgangers have a -2 cha penalty (4 lower than Fallen Angel) anyway so Pally saves are not that attractive. Dropping the necro foci and 2 con (Doppelgangers have +2 con) for Dauntless, Leg. Valor, Empower Spell and UMD would be the perks of this one. Dropping Animal Empathy to about 25 and heal to 50 would even allow me to max Lore (put to some use with Empower Spell). With Leg. Valor the saves are actually better than the pally version above (reflex at 57, fort at 61), though the pally could reach the same value (and better fort saves) with +14 items. Drawback here is obviously the loss of an epic; dc for the rest stays the same as above. Dropping trans, evo or conj is out of question since there you'll find the most important Druid spells imho and they've got really nice epics as well. From what I've read in other threads abj is required just because of Frailty and Energy Immunity is just handy so necro would be the one to drop.
Now there are several questions I could use some insight:
Being new to druids (and casters in general) I'd appreciate UMD very much (being able to read scrolls on my Staffmaster and Rogue made a huge difference), especially since Druids have no way to gs reliably.
On the other hand I don't really wanna drop the necro epic since I've seen it in action on a Rona run some long time ago. And since Druids don't have Contingency (or the Cleric version), another "panic button" would be very much appreciated for any -HC- character I'd image. Beside that the necro spells Defoliate and Infestation of Maggots don't really have an equivalent in spellbooks from other casters (or even shifter abilities) so I'd love to play around with them / find some use for them (and without necro foci the dc will be too low I'd imagine).
Dropping spell dc's by 2 from max (be aware that this is a -HC- char so far from max anyway to start with) when using those subraces would allow for a difference of just 1 might not be a good idea to start with either; I've did it because it was suggested in Rain's post (linked above) and I suppose his builds set a very good base to start from. The Druid spells benefiting most from dc are all in trans or necro (but those in necro are not required for the "typical Druid tasks"); the rest being damage spells of buffs, so I'm hesitant taking any other Leg. Spell Focus besides trans atm (necro would be cool I think, but I guess it'll be very hard to impossible to fit into any non-Rilmani build retaining all the other things Druids "are required to have").
Going with Bard splash and the necro epic (losing save feats) would drop my fort save to 55 and reflex to 51 which seems a tad low for any character. It might be doable with a Wizard, but not a Druid (Nature's Balance and other point blank AoEs) or Cleric (Battle Tide, Prayer). That's just my impression from playing a shifter with relatively low reflex saves though, so some insight about Druid saves would be great.
Dropping Gr. Ruin for Epic Reflexes would shoot the Bard splash even without Leg. Valor to saves of 55 fort and reflex; still low but probably acceptable, so I could pick up Esf: necro. In earlier threads dropping Gr. Ruin has been strongly rejected though (been titled as wipe protection by mish). But I've just recently read in the build minimums thread that Gr. Ruin is dropped from casters more often these days. Any comments?
Similar with abj and Frailty: The further you go back in the Druid forums the more often you encounter the opinion that Frailty is a required epic, while the only open subby druid doesn't have it. I guess on a Rilmani with demi iterations, wis arti, dc ego and whatever else Nature's Balance would land fast enough even on bosses.
Animal Empathy vs Lore: In the Bard version from above with only 4 epics I'd be tempted to pick up max lore instead of Animal Empathy since I'll have room for Empower Spell. Would this be advisable? The only char where I'd never drop AE is an Ability Mage Shifter because there's so much you get out of it, but Druids? Extra damage on Creeping Doom (without illusion foci not comparable to a build that has them anyway, and the extra damage won't change a lot at this fact either), improves the summons from Stone of the Earthmother but not those from the Summon Creature spells I think, can dominate animals (more of a gimmick than anything else if you're asking me, especially since the summons update where you can get another tank per caster with just spells + buffs).
I'm not sure if Lore is that useful without Empower Spell since the spellbook would be rather limited to fit in the damage spells without another tier of metamagics. From what I've read Tyran likes lore on his Druid really much but I don't know how others feel about it since Druids have so much to cast before even thinking about damage spells that the fight might well be over before they get to it.
That's all I've got on my mind about Druids atm, more might come later.
Thanks
mal
This is just speaking from recent experience and keep in mind that like anything else there are many facets of play in which normal mode =/= hardcore. This is just one of them. And to be honest even NB can be substituted with Breach Balls--but let's not go there 