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Post by setekhi on Feb 2, 2007 22:05:02 GMT
I "heard" myself "say" in another post that I didn't think it was possible to make a druid with 63 reflex. That bugged me because it actually wasn't that far off, so I worked it out. I slimmed down the Spell Focii to make room for the saving throw feats and moved stats around to fix the saves. So, given the option and inclination, this is how I would make a druid. 37 Druid/2 Monk/1 Pal Fallen Angel - Human Post relog base stats: 9 Str 10 Dex 16 Con 22 Wis 8 Int 14 Cha Your control class (and monk) is 4+ int for skills, so a human with 8 int will let you have Discipline, Concentration, Animal Empathy and Tumble maxed (well, -2 skill points total from pal, but that's okay because you only need 40 tumble). I cut the int down because the other stats were more important in terms of performance than tertiary skills like Appraise. Here's a feat list. =Pre Epic Feats Toughness, Combat Casting SF - Evoc Spell Pen GSF - Evoc Greater Spell Pen SF - Conj Lightning Reflexes =Epic Feats Armor Skin Epic Spell Pen Imp Combat Casting SF Trans GSF Trans Dragon Shape Epic Reflexes =Epic Druid Bonus Feats ESF Evoc GSF Conj ESF Conj ESF Trans =LL Feats LL Spell Pen Gat Wis I-VI There's not a lot of room for feat swapping; notice no metamagic feats at all. (If you went Treant you could get all these abilities and have Still Spell or something to boot, but that's a different discussion... ) Without the wis artifact your base wisdom is 48. I chose Dragon Shape because I hear it's a survival feat in the hells, and as much as we all like to plan for success, contingencies are fun too. Technically there are ways to get to 50 base Wis without the artifact, but it would involve losing some con to start with 23 Wis and probably dumping Dragon Shape for another Great Wis. Unless you didn't particularly care that much about hitting DC 65 Reflex saves which would make all of this moot. Here's the arithmetic justification for the saves. +6 Druid pre-epic +2 Monk pre-epic +10 Epic saves progression +5 LL saves =23 +20 Item bonus +6 Feats =49 +6 Dex bonus (equipment enhancement) =55 +8 Cha =63 So there you have it. 95% success rate for DC 65 reflex saves without using Dragon Shape. And you still have it for when everything goes to hell. (Ugh. It had to be said I guess.) I'm sure someone has already worked this out, but I haven't seen many build listings here that specifically aim for a saving throw total and a lot of builds don't even mention them, and I've been working over like everything to hit 65 reflex. So there.
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Post by thedomicron on Feb 2, 2007 22:58:08 GMT
i'm not sure if the dex bonus counts towards the +20 cap, but i believe it does.
can i ask why you care for reflex saves being so high? while all saves are important, i know for many instant death attacks the important save is fortitude. for dragon breath and other attacks i believe in staying out of harms way, or having gear to absorb the dmg.
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Post by setekhi on Feb 3, 2007 1:12:04 GMT
Ability modifiers shouldn't count in any item-based caps.
I dunno, you tell me. I haven't been everywhere on the server, but it seemed an interesting challenge to take on. It might not be as necessary for a caster to survive dragon breath than for a tank, but all I know is it can be done so I drew it out. I heard it gets rough in the hells so the option is there.
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Post by sithdad on Feb 7, 2007 21:04:23 GMT
I don't recall seeing this in the thread, but is there any benefit to having dragon form other than to have it "just in case"? I'd like to build a druid caster, but I don't plan on shifting at all. Also, why is Still Spell feat necessary here if druids can cast in armor without spell failure?
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Post by fragment on Feb 8, 2007 3:35:22 GMT
I don't recall seeing this in the thread, but is there any benefit to having dragon form other than to have it "just in case"? I'd like to build a druid caster, but I don't plan on shifting at all. Also, why is Still Spell feat necessary here if druids can cast in armor without spell failure? 1) There's quite some discussion about dragon form I believe on page 2, use your browser's search function Consensus seems to be, don't take it. 2) The silent feat is taken to allow memorizing more spells of a type if you know in advance you can use that spell best. A practical case would be to memorize still fods (finger of death) on level 9 to be used against boss monsters. Other caster type builds take even more such feats, silent/still for 1 level higher, maximize for 2 levels higher, empower for 3 levels higher. That's how my sorc comes to have access to 55 fods Regards.
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Post by phalthallus on Feb 8, 2007 19:13:32 GMT
And actually I took Silent over Still, because as you said, druids (and clerics) can cast in whatever armor they like without worry about arcane spell failure; but you WILL be silenced in some areas of the game. Might as well have some silenced spells that you are still able to cast until you are "unsilent" (<- warning: made up word).
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Post by aommaster1069 on Mar 11, 2007 18:38:32 GMT
Nevermind. I found out why and I was way off! Now im confused Well now wouldn't 1 Druid, 1 Fighter, 37 Druid, and 1 Monk be better? You get the Heavy Armor feat quick and that might be helpful. Thanks, aommaster1069
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Post by aommaster1069 on Mar 11, 2007 21:53:20 GMT
I just thought of a build. I have no clue how well this will work but it might. Race - Human Subrace - Thri-Kreen STR - 10 DEX - 8 CON - 15 WIS - 18 INT - 12 CHA - 8 Feats 01 Druid - Spell Penetration, Combat Casting 02 Fighter - Weapon Focus Warhammer 03 Druid - Spell Focus Evocation 06 Druid - Empower Spell 09 Druid - Maximise Spell 12 Druid - Silent Spell 15 Druid - Spell Focus Abjuration 18 Druid - Spell Focus Conjuration 21 Druid - Greater Spell Penetration 24 Druid - Epic Spell Penetration 25 Druid - Improved Combat Casting 27 Druid - Greater Spell Focus Evocation 29 Druid - Greater Spell Focus Conjuration 30 Druid - Greater Spell Focus Abjuration 33 Druid - Epic Spell Focus Evocation, Epic Spell Focus Conjuration 36 Druid - Epic Spell Focus Abjuration 37 Druid - Great Wisdom 1 39 Druid - Toughness This doesn't have to work! Just a build that came to mind. I dont know why it did but it's here
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Post by thedomicron on Mar 11, 2007 21:53:26 GMT
paladin is much better than fighter, charisma bonus to saves help a lot
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Post by webber on Mar 15, 2007 23:25:49 GMT
it's pretty annoying to switch to lawful good and then back though. Anyways, I have a quick, relatively noobish question: What useful spells have abjuration as the school? I've been wondering whether my fourth focus should be abjuration or necromancy. My subrace (kenku) already gave one for abjuration so it does take one less feat to get abjuration to epic.
I've read through this entire post and the general consensus is that necromancy isn't terribly useful if you dont' care about critters saving against FoD. But what spells does abjuration help?
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Post by thedomicron on Mar 15, 2007 23:43:52 GMT
the druid abjuration epic spell is a really good spell to have against bosses or tightly grouped packs of monsters who have high SR and lots of buffs
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Post by webber on Mar 16, 2007 4:40:54 GMT
I'm leaning towards abjuration just because i already have spell focus in it from the subrace. Otherwise I would definitely go necromancy for the FoD dc because, honestly now, who doesn't like that cool effect and noise FoD makes when the target fails the save and dies?
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Post by sithdad on Mar 17, 2007 23:49:37 GMT
I followed the build but decided to try and squeeze in 4 epics. Here's how I did it. Dropped Toughness @ lvl1 and took Spell Pen & Combat Cast. Lvl 3: Grtr Spell Pen. Lvl 6: Spell Focus: Abjur. Lvl 24 : Dropped Still Spell and took Grtr Spell Focus: Abjur (I felt Still Spell was unecessary since Druids don't have Spell Failure from armor. In hindsight I should have tried to get Silent Spell in because not being able to cast kinda suck ) Lvl 36: Dropped Dragon form (I barely use this on my shifter) took Epic Spell Focus: Abjur. Lvl 40: Read Epic Transmutation book. Perhaps I could have dropped two Great Wis and taken Silent Spell and one other feat (toughness perhaps?) without any real loss in quality to the build.
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Post by cathedralmaster on Apr 7, 2007 18:33:59 GMT
1. How useful are bombards in the hells? 2. What are your opinions on silent, empowered, and maximize in the hells?
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Post by phalthallus on Apr 9, 2007 12:25:01 GMT
Silent (or Still) is VERY advantageous. Lets you double-up on Quills, Healing Circles, and Bombs (though I rarely take/use bombs in the Hells - my concern is that the thing I target moves to something I'd rather not hit, like loot or something with awful KB - EQ is much easier to use in that regard). I went the 5 epic route on my druid, and thus my Wisdom isn't quite as high as it could be, so my Bombs are only effective after I've Balanced something (or used Frailty) anyway, which is another reason for not using them very often. However, if you DO have an effective Bombard, then silent/still becomes even more useful, so you can double up on those (at the loss of some Mass Heals).
It seems I'm normally casting Healing Circle or clearing away some Festering on someone with Heal/Mass Heal, so I rarely cast any damage spells, and thus I don't miss Empowered or Maximized. I suppose I could use them on Quills in some areas, but would lose out on Healing Circles, which my party would normally not be very happy about.
All of this is moot of course if you are in a party where you have at least one and maybe two other healers though, and you're a "damage-dealing druid". But I can't speak to how effective you might be in that scenario.
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