Caster Druid discussion

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The Guide Centre guide for caster druids is quite new but it's out of date already due to the new skills in the patch.

The old guide is a poison druid early on, moving to oskills for ice/lightning later, but the new skills seem pretty good with fire especially Rain of Fire. So a few discussion points on the new caster druid (feel free to add others ofc):

What caster druid skills and gear for levelling?
For example, if you're going fire, it doesn't look like

Dubhdroiacht

will be best any more, but Pagan Rites needs to use a druid staff until we get the class charm.

What end game spec are you aiming for? Still oskills or do we expect the innate skills to be good enough? Or maybe switch to another spec?

Do you think the caster druid will be good for end game ubers? rifts? farming?

[Mr_Ali]

I've been playing a rain of fire druid and he just melts every uber up to lvl120 and xazax and atro so far at 125. Greats single target damage but due to the delay and small aoe farming is clunky but that's an understandable trade off. I've found bremmtown is the best farming location as yu can clump the mobs up with summons and destroy them easily.

My gear is far from great so far so think it could have the potential for top notch single target damage with some investment.

The pagan rites aura is good. I get about 1400 life per corpse which is better than the bear or wolf passives. The downside is I don't think this will work in later rifts when monsters no longer drop corpses.

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I've been playing a rain of fire druid and he just melts every uber up to lvl120 and xazax and atro so far at 125. Greats single target damage but due to the delay and small aoe farming is clunky but that's an understandable trade off. I've found bremmtown is the best farming location as yu can clump the mobs up with summons and destroy them easily.

My gear is far from great so far so think it could have the potential for top notch single target damage with some investment.

The pagan rites aura is good. I get about 1400 life per corpse which is better than the bear or wolf passives. The downside is I don't think this will work in later rifts when monsters no longer drop corpses.

You're not using Ember Spirit for clearing then? Wondering where your skill points are going if you have nothing left for ES.

Are you using Harvesters? They may not be very tanky without investing in the poison synergies.

[Mr_Ali]

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I've been playing a rain of fire druid and he just melts every uber up to lvl120 and xazax and atro so far at 125. Greats single target damage but due to the delay and small aoe farming is clunky but that's an understandable trade off. I've found bremmtown is the best farming location as yu can clump the mobs up with summons and destroy them easily.

My gear is far from great so far so think it could have the potential for top notch single target damage with some investment.

The pagan rites aura is good. I get about 1400 life per corpse which is better than the bear or wolf passives. The downside is I don't think this will work in later rifts when monsters no longer drop corpses.

You're not using Ember Spirit for clearing then? Wondering where your skill points are going if you have nothing left for ES.

Are you using Harvesters? They may not be very tanky without investing in the poison synergies.

This is my build so far: https://tsw.vn.cz/acc/char.php?name=Mr_Ali

I find ember spirit slow with crap aoe early. Might be worth it at higher base points and the ssu that gives more spirits.

I've invested quite a lot into the summons so they can tank bosses and hold them in place so rof can melt them

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I've invested quite a lot into the summons so they can tank bosses and hold them in place so rof can melt them

Thanks for sharing. As you say, it looks painful for farming especially since we need to target a minion to cast it.

I'm no expert at this game, but I'm wondering if maybe it would be better to lose max Barkskin, since defence isn't high in a caster build and life-per-point isn't great from Barkskin (or maybe Elvensong - for 6% minion life per level doesn't seem a great return).

Also, you don't seem to have any minion resists... so what about maxing Infected Roots instead of Barkskin for some aoe and getting minion resists on your honorifics (which Inf. Roots adds as poison spell damage)? That would make the minions tankier, allow them to do some decent damage - and give you a clearing skill as well?

I know you couldn't get poison pierce as well as fire pierce, but you could switch the honorifics around for boss vs farm? And Mythal affects both.

[Mr_Ali]

I've invested quite a lot into the summons so they can tank bosses and hold them in place so rof can melt them

Thanks for sharing. As you say, it looks painful for farming especially since we need to target a minion to cast it.

I'm no expert at this game, but I'm wondering if maybe it would be better to lose max Barkskin, since defence isn't high in a caster build and life-per-point isn't great from Barkskin (or maybe Elvensong - for 6% minion life per level doesn't seem a great return).

Also, you don't seem to have any minion resists... so what about maxing Infected Roots instead of Barkskin for some aoe and getting minion resists on your honorifics (which Inf. Roots adds as poison spell damage)? That would make the minions tankier, allow them to do some decent damage - and give you a clearing skill as well?

I know you couldn't get poison pierce as well as fire pierce, but you could switch the honorifics around for boss vs farm? And Mythal affects both.

A few things:

You don't need to target minions for rain of fire but you do need to target an enemy. I just use the minions to rank and distract bosses so they stay still so I can kill them easily.

I haven't maxed barkskin. 20 pts is just to get max efficency which from memory goves me over 3k life and 600% character defence which both help a lot. While defence overall isnt great even the 150k I have helps make fautz a lot less painful.

Elvensong points are to get the 20% dodge from the black road skill. Harvest is what gives minions more life per point.

I'm not sure why my honorifics are showing the minion resist mos as minion damage in the not armoury. I can't check right now but I'm pretty certain I didn't mess that up. With the quov tsin charm I'm not quite at maxed minion res but not too far off but as I said anyway my gear is far from optimal yet.

I'm not super interest in going poison to farm as it's still quite involved. I'm thinking I'll respec into a rat or make a palazon again for ultimate lazy farming later.

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A few things:

You don't need to target minions for rain of fire but you do need to target an enemy. I just use the minions to rank and distract bosses so they stay still so I can kill them easily.

I haven't maxed barkskin. 20 pts is just to get max efficency which from memory goves me over 3k life and 600% character defence which both help a lot. While defence overall isnt great even the 150k I have helps make fautz a lot less painful.

Elvensong points are to get the 20% dodge from the black road skill. Harvest is what gives minions more life per point.

I'm not sure why my honorifics are showing the minion resist mos as minion damage in the not armoury. I can't check right now but I'm pretty certain I didn't mess that up. With the quov tsin charm I'm not quite at maxed minion res but not too far off but as I said anyway my gear is far from optimal yet.

I'm not super interest in going poison to farm as it's still quite involved. I'm thinking I'll respec into a rat or make a palazon again for ultimate lazy farming later.

Actually, I meant "enemy", not "minion", sorry it was late when I was replying. It's a tricky mechanic to use when up against a touogh enemy that moves.

And when I say "max Barkskin", I wasn't being as literal as "supermax" but 20 points shifted into Inf. Roots would give your minions (and you) more damage and more aoe, especially if you do have min. resists on your honorifics since you're getting that percentage as +%psn spell dmg.


If you're building a separate farmer then fair enough - although you still have to get to the uber to kill it... I was looking to get something a bit more balanced / all-rounder, but making two characters is something to consider as well. Thanks for sharing your build.

I'll give it a try as you've built it, probably with that one change, Barksin --> Inf. Roots.

[Mr_Ali]

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A few things:

You don't need to target minions for rain of fire but you do need to target an enemy. I just use the minions to rank and distract bosses so they stay still so I can kill them easily.

I haven't maxed barkskin. 20 pts is just to get max efficency which from memory goves me over 3k life and 600% character defence which both help a lot. While defence overall isnt great even the 150k I have helps make fautz a lot less painful.

Elvensong points are to get the 20% dodge from the black road skill. Harvest is what gives minions more life per point.

I'm not sure why my honorifics are showing the minion resist mos as minion damage in the not armoury. I can't check right now but I'm pretty certain I didn't mess that up. With the quov tsin charm I'm not quite at maxed minion res but not too far off but as I said anyway my gear is far from optimal yet.

I'm not super interest in going poison to farm as it's still quite involved. I'm thinking I'll respec into a rat or make a palazon again for ultimate lazy farming later.

Actually, I meant "enemy", not "minion", sorry it was late when I was replying. It's a tricky mechanic to use when up against a touogh enemy that moves.

And when I say "max Barkskin", I wasn't being as literal as "supermax" but 20 points shifted into Inf. Roots would give your minions (and you) more damage and more aoe, especially if you do have min. resists on your honorifics since you're getting that percentage as +%psn spell dmg.


If you're building a separate farmer then fair enough - although you still have to get to the uber to kill it... I was looking to get something a bit more balanced / all-rounder, but making two characters is something to consider as well. Thanks for sharing your build.

I'll give it a try as you've built it, probably with that one change, Barksin --> Inf. Roots.

All good, I checked when I played last night and I did somehow screw up and put minion damage instead of res on a couple of honorifics which makes me feel a bit stupid luckily they're easy to remake to fix this

I might have overstated how bad it is at farming, I can comfortably do dunc but the harpies mobility in fautz give me issues right now. It's just not a mindless farmer like my boy the palazon.

My go to for new seasons is to pick a build that can kill bosses easily to get charms before respecing into a farmers to get items for a boss/labs character. This build gets an A for this for me as you can do all 120 charms and some 125 with ease

[Captcha]

► Show Spoiler

All good, I checked when I played last night and I did somehow screw up and put minion damage instead of res on a couple of honorifics which makes me feel a bit stupid luckily they're easy to remake to fix this

I might have overstated how bad it is at farming, I can comfortably do dunc but the harpies mobility in fautz give me issues right now. It's just not a mindless farmer like my boy the palazon.

My go to for new seasons is to pick a build that can kill bosses easily to get charms before respecing into a farmers to get items for a boss/labs character. This build gets an A for this for me as you can do all 120 charms and some 125 with ease

Palazon? A pally using a bow to farm - how does that work?

[Mr_Ali]

► Show Spoiler

All good, I checked when I played last night and I did somehow screw up and put minion damage instead of res on a couple of honorifics which makes me feel a bit stupid luckily they're easy to remake to fix this

I might have overstated how bad it is at farming, I can comfortably do dunc but the harpies mobility in fautz give me issues right now. It's just not a mindless farmer like my boy the palazon.

My go to for new seasons is to pick a build that can kill bosses easily to get charms before respecing into a farmers to get items for a boss/labs character. This build gets an A for this for me as you can do all 120 charms and some 125 with ease

Palazon? A pally using a bow to farm - how does that work?

Paladin using cherubism from the the zohar xis runeword. The last one I made would easily cruise through fautz and dunc with 400mf