So, there seem to be quite a few Druid fans hereabouts and I could seriously use some advice.  I have finally managed to get my final life on my main and I want to come as close as I can to a hybrid melee/caster in wolf form.  I made him an 18/2 Druid/Monk on his second life, running in GMoF and it was what inspired me to pick up some extra lives in the first place and it all sort of snowballed from there. 

I'm only just sticking my head up above the Epic parapet properly for the first time since the enhancement pass (which came while I was in the middle of picking up my PL's) so my gear is... um... embarrassing.  Pretty much just the village comms stuff, some addy knuckles and a +10 Stunning Dun Robar ring.  I do have some Old Skool shizz like a bauble, but nothing significant.

At the moment, I'm inclining toward 17 Druid / 2 Monk / 1 Wiz (for the extra feat and the extra cleave from EK).  I have only one of each past life.  I believe I have managed to pick up +5 tomes for every stat except Charisma.  (I have stupidly good tome luck; I have an entire page of unused, unbound +4's)

Obviously, something has to give in terms of DPS vs. casting, but I'm thinking that if I can get a high enough Earthquake DC, the awesome cc (along with Drifting Lotus) will compensate.

I love my cleaves and would be sad to do without them, but like I say, I know something has to give.  Feats are so tight that human is pretty much the only choice.

At the moment, I am thinking along the lines of:

Monk: Stunning Fist, TWF
Wiz: Spell Focus: Evocation
Human Bonus: Power Attack
Levels:  Maximize Spell, PL:Wizard, Completionist, Quicken Spell, ITWF, GTWF (or Heighten?), Greater SF: Evocation.
Epic feats: Great Cleave, Epic Spell Focus: Evocation, Improved Critical: Bludgeoning
ED feats: Tactician (not sure about this, might be better to take whichever of Heighten or GTWF I didn't pick up earlier), Perfect TWF

The other thing I might consider doing is dropping Quicken in favour of getting Tactician in the mix as well.  I just don't know. 

Toon will mainly be soloing.  I'll take whatever advice I can get on which feats to drop and which to keep, and particularly how an earth to gear him.  Frankly I don't have a clue these days what most of the items are that people go on about unless I look them up on the wiki 

I'd edit if I had an edit button... just realised that you can't swap ED feats for normal, if memory serves.  Bah.

I don't think the cleaves will be particularly worth it, if you do want them though, I would give up empower heal and mental toughness.

I don't think heighten is particularly worth the feat slot or sp costs on a caster specced druid.  You get enough debuffs that your earthquakes should be landing in all EE content.

if you really want completionist, I'd give up the 27 feat slot for it.

I don't think the 2fighter/2druid lives are necessary persay.  But I would go through the effort of getting them all over again.

alchemical wis wraps. (air/water/x)
Sages Locket
Shadowsight EE
blue +3 wis helm
evocation augment crystal (they stack with items now)

After that it's all personal preference.

Since this thread is about a caster/melee hybrid... is sleetstorm still working in EE content(at least the getting blinded part)?

If so, wouldn't that be enough CC?
Yeah, mobs won't get knocked down and stuff, but shouldn't they still be blinded and have less chance to hit?
In combination with dodge, displacement and stuff this sounds good enough for me, but I am not doing EE content regularly.

And it would increase damage output, since you get sneak attacks in the sleet storm.

tachyon wrote on Feb 13^th, 2014 at 6:50pm:


You get a few SA dice from the druid melee tree core abilities and could pick up another in the dark monk tree if you cared, but yeah.  I don't currently have Displacement clickies on that toon; something of an oversight on my part!

tachyon wrote on Feb 19^th, 2014 at 12:10am:


I definitely want to be in wolf form most of the time.  I am addicted to Snowslide, and the doublestrike doesn't hurt either    Incidentally, are the doublestrike procs on cleaves in animal form WAI?

Quote:


Ah, much obliged!  I'm still puzzling over the twists...  that sounds like a better bet than twisting the +DC.  I hadn't thought about running in Shiradi; I've been imagining GMoF or even LD.  Now you've said it though, Shiradi makes sense with so many spells giving AoE ticks.  Hmmm.

tachyon wrote on Feb 19^th, 2014 at 10:09am:


Surely it's no worse than any other Evocation...?

tachyon wrote on Feb 19^th, 2014 at 10:09am:


I hear ya and there's nothing wrong with that approach, but then you're basically playing a caster build with some melee capability, whereas the aim of the thread is explicitly a wolf form melee/caster hybrid, getting as strong as possible in each.  IMO, you gain more on melee from doing it doggy-style than you lose as a caster for not being frigid.

Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, it never used to be necessary to *stay* in water form to use Mantle... has that changed?

Quote:


It's tough.  I don't know what to drop, but I do know that I don't want to be without A Dance of Flowers if I'm running outside of GMoF.  LD will give tactics of course, but if I'm going to try Shiradi there'll be some very tough choices to make.  Of course, one of the nice things about this build is that there are hardly any destinies that are actively terrible for it; the core is strong and flexible enough that running in off-destinies is slightly less awful than for more focused toons.

Persiflage wrote on Feb 19^th, 2014 at 2:46pm:


Because you touch yourself at night.

Also because you need to update your session.

Oops. I didn't see the aim of the thread 

Snowslide is a DC 19 + WIS mod. Even with a 28 mod (66 WIS) it's only at 47 DC... which sounds eh.  then again I haven't tried much EE with it. 


Mantle always turns off for me when I go into wolf form, but if it does work in wolf form, that would be sweet. Will check again later.

Persiflage wrote on Feb 20^th, 2014 at 3:37am:


In theory, yes. I'll test it out later some more.

froggy wrote on Feb 25^th, 2014 at 12:45am:



13druid/5rogue/2monk. keeps killer buff, gains evasion, uncanny dodge, 3d6 sneak attack (before enhancements) & rogue skills.

loses 10% off hand procs, some tempest enhancements.

second monk level makes up for losing ranger 2wf and tempest PRR, 1 feat loss overall.

Enhancements