druid, circle of the moon

[Destriss]

Hola ,

I spent several hundred hours on the game but well before the release of the many patches, especially the 8th (and last if I followed correctly).
And I'm thinking about making a moon circle druid.

Before it wasn't great from what people were saying, has that changed with the patches?

[Gamga]

The Moon Druid sub-class has always been great, imo. Depending on your team (s)he can take the role of a support, tank and/or crowd controller.

If you are looking for synergies during wild shape, pay a visit to this page: https://bg3.wiki/wiki/List_of_features_that_work_in_Wild_Shape

There are a few things that will change with patch 8 which may interest you:
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Guide:Patch_8_preview#Miscellaneous

Tavern Brawler

Tavern Brawler in wild shape form should now correctly add damage to unarmed attacks. Previously, this only worked in Tactician difficulty and below.
* It still does not apply to Slayer Form.
* The bonus damage while wild shaped applies to all damage dealt, including spell damage. For example, Spike Growth cast by a wild shaped druid will deal bonus Strength modifier damage every time a creature moves.
* Some wild shape attacks like Grounded Thunder Strike deal multiple instances of damage. The Tavern Brawler bonus damage will be applied to each of them.[/quote}

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

Make 4 druids to test them all, you'll find enjoyment in all of them. Multiclass them too even though druids are better not multiclassed, but the game being that easy you don't need them at their full potential and can have fun combinations. For example, the spore druid makes an excellent necromancer (for the moon druid, a paladin or a cleric can work fine).

Anyway, the moon druid was always great. All druids are excellent fighter-caster provided you don't want to specialize them in fighting or casting.

[Larco]

I've got one going at the moment. Level 11 now. I'd say they're definitely competitive now, but not sort double-S tier broken. As gamga said, the fix to tavern brawler makes wildshaping much more effective vis a vis classes that use weapons, the cc spells are pretty good - spike growth is amazing for a second level spell - plus you get strong summons. It's a good all round package.

edit - the only thing I would say is that, to get the most out of them, you're going to have to put up with summoning a small army every morning and then being followed around by them all day. You can't unfortunately park them in camp now.

[Chaosolous]

Moon Druids are the best class and have been since launch.

[seeker1]

A mod worth looking at. There is a mod to update druids to the 2024 PHB rules at mod.io, and it changes things for the base class, as well as specifically for Moon Druids. IMHO, all these changes are quite good.

Aside from that, I'll also mention again the Nexus mod that provides Wild Shape gear which provides a lot of useful benefits to druids in wild shape, particularly Moon Druids.

I'm not stress testing, so I don't know what changes Patch 8 is bringing to Moon Druids in vanilla. I do know there was a bug with Unlock Level Curve that interfered with druid wildshaping, but it's been fixed.

[Destriss]

hum ok , i read people who said circle moon is good , but the stuff a the end game dont exist , and circle become the weakest member of the group.

[Gamga]

Originally posted by Destriss:

hum ok , i read people who said circle moon is good , but the stuff a the end game dont exist , and circle become the weakest member of the group.

What stuff or items do you mean? Are you looking for certain items or are you following a guide? if you look for certain items, can you list them? If you follow a guide, can you share a link?
And why did he become the weakest of the group in your view?
What's your group composition? There are details missing to help you effectively.

Info needed.

[Destriss]

Originally posted by Gamga:

Originally posted by Destriss:

hum ok , i read people who said circle moon is good , but the stuff a the end game dont exist , and circle become the weakest member of the group.

What stuff or items do you mean? Are you looking for certain items or are you following a guide? if you look for certain items, can you list them? If you follow a guide, can you share a link?
And why did he become the weakest of the group in your view?
What's your group composition? There are details missing to help you effectively.

Info needed. :shcscribe:

I don't understand your questions.
I never said that the druid was weak etc ...
I'm talking about what other people tell me on other forums, that there's a lack of stuff for the druid with this special.
I don't know, I've never played with a transfo druid, so I never looked to see if there was any good stuff at the end of the game.

I'm just asking if it's true.

And I'm not looking for anything in terms of stuff in particular.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[Gamga]

Ah, then I got your message wrong.
Well, there are a few items dedicated to druids. Many see the lack of items as something bad. But there are other items and features that balanced that out. You don't need to min max to get a powerful character that can even survive HM (Honour Mode).

I can only speak out of experience for what worked best for me:

Tavern Brawler is the features that you have to take, to be able to deal damage and have a good chance to even hit things in wildshape. And here I quote the wiki that I linked above about the feature that work during wildshape:

Tavern Brawler Tavern Brawler (The bonus to unarmed attack and damage rolls works properly in Explorer, Balanced, and Tactician difficulty but only applies to attack rolls in Honour mode. The additional +1 STR or CON does not apply in Wild Shape on any difficulty setting.)
* Requires a Wild Shape with unarmed attacks (i.e. everything except three of the Myrmidons)

But as quoted in my previous comment, this little issue with the HM will be patched with Patch 8 and made more powerful with spike growth.

As for items, the end-game items that I almost always pick are:

• Armour of Moonbasking (also provides +2 AC during Wildshape)
  
• Shapeshifter's Boon Ring (better rolls)
  
• Cloak of Protection (better AC and Saves)
  
  The rest is depending on my team composition.
  
  And as always, the game is modifiable. So if you think the game lacks something, then there is a chance, that someone made a mod for that. or something that comes close to that.

[jonnin]

This is one of the better takes on druids -- many other games the shape shifting does not scale well at all and leaves the class behind after mid levels, or it becomes just a cleric caster.

Here it is one of the best jack of all classes. Change form to be a fighter, stay human to be a hybrid support/cleric/damage caster. If your background had slight of hand you could literally fill all 4 major roles (warrior (tank or damage or both)), rogue (because sneak attack is so weak in this ruleset), damage caster, support caster) of D&D type parties.

Itemization is what you make of it. There are not TONS of druid specific items (and arguably there should be, since you get 2 of them in your group, and druids are an important group in the game) but there are plenty of items that druids can use to great effect.

[Chaosolous]

Honestly, stop listening to other people and just play the game how you want.

[Gamga]

None of his arguments have any weight in my opinion. What I see is "bad scaling at one of many things, build this freaking cool multi-class idea (that's worse then a swordbard) and I hate them for not serving me more items that says 'wild shape' on it"

After all, wild shape is not the only thing that makes the druid strong in the end-game. Beside summoning 5-8 summons and boosting the whole team (even your summons) with Heroes' Feast -which only druids and clerics can learn- at the start of your day, you can also cast a lot of spells or use a scroll. There are even fights, where using the wild shape is worse then just throwing in a spell or setup a choke point or make everyone wet, so your wizard or sorc can cast a cold or lightning spell. Then there are the ilithid powers that you can dip into and use and also the elixirs that stay for the whole day.

You don't need a jack of all classes, trades, or whatever. You have a team at your disposal. 4 characters (summons not included) to send into a fight or dialogue. And yes, the game gives you the chance to adopt 2 druids into the group. But I don't know why both should play moon druid and why you need 2 druid in the group at any time (especially in the end-game).

As for the lack of druid items: just mod the game. There came a build-in mod manager with Patch 7 which makes modifying way simpler.

Originally posted by Chaosolous:

Honestly, stop listening to other people and just play the game how you want.

And I agree to this.

But you'll never really come to your own conclusion without spending the time with a druid and a few items on them that compliment your team.

[Destriss]

hum It's true that if the tavern brawler works now, it gives an interesting side to the game, afterwards, for the lack of stuff that would strengthen our druid, are there mods for that?

So you're going to say yes, but a mod that doesn't make the class cheat and that remains balanced?
Although I don't know if I'll be modding my game at the moment, I'll ask just in case?

But in the worst case, I'll change class if I ever see that my character is lagging behind.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[seeker1]

There's a definite lack of druid gear that benefits you while in wildshape. There's some, but not a lot.

So if you want to go Moon Druid and focus on wildshaping, there is a mod that adds more wild shape gear to the game for you to use, with precisely these kinds of benefits. I recommend it. There are also some other mods that add additional wild shapes, or change the abilities your wild shapes get, too. Particularly your ability to cast while in wild shape. Take a look at those.

I obviously always agree with "play however you like"; I just mention options to people.

[Larco]

The only thing I think i'd add is that you don't really *need* druid gear that benefits you in wildshape to be good. I mean, the class is a full caster who can summon a small army of minions, spam spells at the start of combat and then wildshape into an elemental than frankly hits like an absolute truck as is. Unless you absolutely refuse to cast spells, load them up with caster gear. I've got mine with hood + cloak of the weave + markohesir dropping chain lightning, and then turning into an earth ele that's gets three attacks per action which hit for about 40 a pop... It's a bit ridiculous tbh.