Loremaster: Best secrets to pick to do druid/cleric job?

[Lyserus]

Aka, what are the most essential spells to take from cleric and druid's list?
I'd assume it's going to be a support spell from cleric list and a CC spell from druid list?

Please feel free to comment on potentially good loremaster build as well :)

[Matt]

My personnal picks :

Magic Fang (G)
Creeping Doom
Heal (M)

From the wizard/sorcerer spell list, I would also consider :

Mirror Image
Seamantle (that's debatable)
Icy Prison (M) (because it's the best CC spell in the game)

[SmallGespenst]

Originally posted by Matt:

My personnal picks :

Magic Fang (G)
Creeping Doom
Heal (M)

From the wizard/sorcerer spell list, I would also consider :

Mirror Image
Seamantle (that's debatable)
Icy Prison (M) (because it's the best CC spell in the game)

I'd caution against Magic Fang because it literally only effects Animal Companions, not natural attacks on actual characters and not unarmed attacks. it's just straight-up not a good investment, certainly not worth spending a Secret on.

[.O.]

If you're a full caster and will be going for greater enduring spells, I think Cave Fangs(?) is really good, if I remember correctly you get a free action to place all these traps all over the place. They cost "10 minutes" per trap you place, but if you have 24 hours spell duration then you can place quite a lot of traps as a free action each turn and not have to worry about anything running out.

[hilburnashua]

Creeping doom has a big problem in that it's primary effect is a poison, which demons are immune to.

What you want to take kind of depends on your role. Are you a front line melee cleric? Buffer? Debuffer? Nuker?

Animal Growth is generally a good spell since you will probably have one person in the team with an animal. Barkskin is also a generally useful spell since there will be people that you want to put amulets on other then amulets of natural armor. Mirror image is always good. Shield is excellent if you don't have a good UMD and you plan on being in the front and dual wield or use a two hander. Fiery body/icy body offer some really great advantages. Protection from spells is also pretty strong although mind blank covers a lot of the spells you really want to resist anyways.

Sirocco is fairly powerful crowd control without being a lockdown like Icy Prison which some opponents will be immune to due to freedom of movement (and some opponents fly and have immunity to fatigue/exhaustion so sirocco won't due much to them). Firestorm is a bread and butter AoE nuke for fire based casters.

Mind fog can be a really good set up for things like bestow curse and greater bestow curse as well as greater command. Feeblemind can absolutely shut down casters. Hold Monster, Mass and Dominate Monster, Hold Monster can also be really good.

[mudakonn]

Animal Growth is unique spell that lets rider to be enlarged as well (Righteous Might) and there are shenanigans that let characters to be animals themselves.

A funny thing is summoning maximized skeletons, turning them to bears with mass animal form (a druid spell)

Cleric has buffs like Eaglesoul (all criticals autoconfirmed)

Taking some low level spell that will be overshadowed later in the end feels like a waste so you better aim for unique effects what other party members cannot do or cannot cast on others

[Koveras]

The answer depends on your base class and if you're a DC spell caster or a blaster.

Creeping doom is an excellent choice. They will crush anything not immune to poison or does not have high DR (admittedly very few things). They're also the tankiest summons available. I'm sure you will recall just how much a pain in the ass swarms are to defeat.

Greater Command is superb for those with sufficient DCs in enchantment. I believe the benefit is that while it is mind affecting it does not count as compulsion. This can get around some immunities. Moreover, if I recall correctly, it is a level 5 area of effect spell. You'll not get a better enchantment area of effect spell until level 9 overwhelming presence.

Archon's Aura is a low level spell made worthwhile if you're an arcane spellcaster specializing in evocation. I do not tend to build Sosiel or Daran with evocation spells in mind, and, so the aura tends to be pretty weak with them. On a DC evocation caster it should go a very long way.

Vinetrap: is a good spell for arcane DC spellcasters with investment in conjuration. It is a lower level paralysis spell than chains of light and does some damage to boot.

Sea Mantle? I believe druids can get access to seamantle. I do not recall if it is domain specific or not. In any event, if you do not already have access to seamantle, and you're using a character that jumps into melee this is a good option.

Mass Heal or Harm. I suppose you could. Helpful in a pinch.

[snuggleform]

Mass Heal, although you have to caster level 18 to start using that so you gotta be patient. It's very useful in fights like Areelu where there's massive aoe damage coming atcha.

Greater Command is very popular as a level 5 cleric spell on your enchantment DC caster, whether it be Nenio or even Ember since it's not a compulsion type that gets resisted by certain things.

Good loremaster build is something roughly like Nenio or Ember, typically an arcane caster that doesn't have absolutely amazing class bonuses past level 10 or so. You put around 7-9 levels in their base class so they can have level 5 spells, perhaps take 1 point of crossblooded sorcerer for undead/fey if you're a DC enchantment caster or double fire damage bloodlines if you're ray casting, then max out loremaster then finish off their base class.

You usually don't want to make a cleric a loremaster because their domain spells scale directly off their cleric levels specifically. Arcane casters don't worry as much because the loremaster levels count as the base class levels for purposes of learning regular spells and base spell effectiveness.

[blackvoid]

Brownfur can turn your pets into dragons with Dragonkind 3 for 24 hours.

[Amoc]

Originally posted by hilburnashua:

Creeping doom has a big problem in that it's primary effect is a poison, which demons are immune to.

Creeping doom is extremely strong in Act 4 because it breaks enemy AI. In later levels there's too much enemy AOE for it to do much, so it's a wasted secret IMO.