Drovier builds?

[MOK]

Having played CRPG's a while, and Kingmaker, and good fluency with Pathfinder, I'm aware that there's a lot of ways to build(or choose classes) that make your character pretty miserable, or pretty fun. I have a knack for choices or RP gimmicks that make me miserable. So I figure I better ask for help early.

I've rolled a Drovier with no real melee capacity, intending to play pure caster. I was attracted to the subclass because i don't like shapeshifting or summoning. I'm only in chapter 1, but I can see that for a while I will have very little capacity to contribute.

I'm interested in hearing from people that have played Drovier, or are pretty confident about how to use or build them to be effective. I've done some searches for Drovier builds but there's no good results.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Gracey Face]

Oh and I almost forgot to mention, if you're dead set on playing a pure caster Druid there's actually an Arcanist variant which is this called the "Nature Mage". You get Druid spell list with Arcanist exploits and feats. The only downside is that you lose access to your animal companion and wildshape, and your animal companion is probably the most powerful part of a druid's kit.

[Raikon]

Hmm there are several good builds for druid. I'd say the best are demon though. You can really capitalize on aspect of kalvakus with a dog wild shape, or the drovier trip. Or you can go elemental rampager. That's also very strong. All the demon forms attacks count as natural weapons. Again you can also abuse aspect of kalvakus.

Angel is ok with a fey speaker. I had great success with it, but the character has been nerfed hard. Angel and druid are still good party members. At least the feyspeaker anyways.

As for your initial desire to play a caster drovier. No. There's a good reason no good builds exist for them online.

[MOK]

lol this happens to me every time

[MOK]

Well for anyone else interested in The Druid Situation, I found this writeup that's been useful for further orientation. They're far more enthusiastic about the class, and it's for p&p, not the video game. But much of the info translates, and it's functional as an orientation, and points out a lot of the landmines.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/o337qe/becoming_a_force_of_nature_a_druid_guide/

[Schlumpsha]

MOK님이 먼저 게시:

They're far more enthusiastic about the class, and it's for p&p, not the video game.

Druids in tabletop can be true power houses. Especially with some of the archetypes getting spontaneous domain casting (wanna be a druidic blaster? Storm Druid got you covered!). Or wild shaping into an octopus and getting 8 natural attacks... each tentacle loaded with a different touch spell. Suffice to say there are lots of crazy things you can do there.

Druids in any video game adaption are far more limited tho. Both because they lack many of their unique tabletop spells. As well as being handed a watered down list of animals and plants to shift into. The utter lack of flying, burrowing, climbing and swimming also reduces a Druid's true worth. But so does the general lack of vertical level design.

Druids still can be fun for RP in WotR. I'm particularly fond of the Blight Druid for either Lich or Swarm. But an Elemental Rampager Demon is fine too.

[fox5s]

I like the Drovier Druid. There's a Lann build I like that uses it and sort of turns him into a summoner. I'm a but curious why you'd discard summoning with a Drovier. Having your aspects bounce to Summons is one of the cool things about it.

MjKorz is giving suggestions from an Unfair difficulty's standpoint. You can get away with a LOT more if you stick to Normal to Core.

If you want a pure caster Druid, @Schlumpsha's suggestion for Feyspeaker is solid. I have a build that mixes Feyspeaker and Sorc with Mystic Theurge that throws SOOOOOOOO many Snowballs. I don't think it's good but it IS fun! :D

IMO one of the big things that holds Druid back in WotR is poor spell selection especially at the later levels. And the way ranges were changed to account for video game limitations screws them over as well. Tabletop Druids just have better spells that make going pure caster work better.

[MOK]

The ban on summoning is just my personal gaming preference, it's arbitrary. I don't like the image of yanking an elk and tiger out of thin air. But I understand now that the class doesn't really have the flexibility to sacrifice that... At least, not at low levels when you have gained few options. So I'll be using it.

I'm thinking that to make a good drovier build, it needs to be tailored to either the 6th or 8th lvl Communal Aspect. Respectively, Gorilla(combat maneuvers for melee focused party) or Falcon(accuracy & damage for ranged focused party). The other options just aren't as impactful or widely applicable. You can switch it up when you later have access to the Wolf Aspect's big boosts at lvl 14, but that's far too long to wait for a build IMO.

So Combat Maneuver bonuses are what I'm leaning toward. Meaning that I'm better off building melee survivability, mounting up, and investing in teamwork feats. This seems to synergize with druid spellbook's amount of buffs, and the benefit of staying in touch-spell proximity to allies.

I don't know whether or not I have enough feats to accomplish this and still be a competent caster, but it seems like the Druid spellbook doesn't benefit as much from metamagic anyways. The whole idea of a Drovier is teamwork anyways, but whether the mechanics fit the thematics I guess depends on the matter of feats.

I guess the build could stay caster-focused, and lean toward metamagic if it was pretty bow-heavy party, but I've never found a thin front-line to be practical/reliable. At that point, a feyspeaker's larger capacity for control is lot more attractive.

Big picture, I'm optimistic that it'll work but disappointed by how specific you gotta get with the whole group for the subclass to have appreciable & unique benefit. You can't just throw a Drovier into any group and watch it shine, which thematically is unfortunate.

[Sophis]

MjKorz님이 먼저 게시:

Sophis님이 먼저 게시:

If you pick Angel, you win the game just by using Angel spells lol

Angel spells are completely irrelevant:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971470706

Yes, that's a screenshot of a extremely min-maxed character at endgame (angel oracle I'd guess). It doesn't contradict my point.

MOK님이 먼저 게시:

So Combat Maneuver bonuses are what I'm leaning toward. Meaning that I'm better off building melee survivability, mounting up, and investing in teamwork feats. This seems to synergize with druid spellbook's amount of buffs, and the benefit of staying in touch-spell proximity to allies.

That's your best bet if you want to play Drovier, which is all about the aspect sharing anyway. Since now those effects have a polymorph tag, everyone can grab the master shapshifter feat (+4 to all physical ability scores while polymorphed) and receive a huge boost to stats while under the effects of your communal aspects. That's probably the most efficient way of playing it since the caster route is so limited.

[MjKorz]

Sophis님이 먼저 게시:

Yes, that's a screenshot of a extremely min-maxed character at endgame (angel oracle I'd guess).

It's a Druid9:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971763291
Can be Druid17 which results in the loss of useful lower level spells and gives you a potential level 20 pet. Funny thing about this character is my cantrips I use to energize myself hit so hard I lose 50% of my health.

I'm also already working on the v3 which should deliver even more damage.

[Belegc]

MjKorz님이 먼저 게시:

Sophis님이 먼저 게시:

Yes, that's a screenshot of a extremely min-maxed character at endgame (angel oracle I'd guess).

It's a Druid9:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971763291
Can be Druid17 which results in the loss of useful lower level spells and gives you a potential level 20 pet. Funny thing about this character is my cantrips I use to energize myself hit so hard I lose 50% of my health.

I'm also already working on the v3 which should deliver even more damage.

isn't chain lightning supposed to cap at 20d6? not that I am complaining but this is what the description says. if not (and it appears it isn't) you can use Ashmaker for another 2 CL and maybe spell specialization for another 2CL.

I assume you dipped crossbloded for the dragon bloodlines and elemental specialist for converting it to fire + 1 per die rolled damage. what was the 3rd dip? Loremaster to get chain lightning? you can get it (and a free conversion of elemental damage to electricity) from Stormlord's Bracers. there is also a helmet (Helm of Static Discharge) that adds damage to electrical spells and Elemental Imbuement robe for +2 per die rolled. (I assume its the 78 "other" damage in the screenshot).

[MjKorz]

Belegc님이 먼저 게시:

isn't chain lightning supposed to cap at 20d6? not that I am complaining but this is what the description says. if not (and it appears it isn't) you can use Ashmaker for another 2 CL and maybe spell specialization for another 2CL.

I assume you dipped crossbloded for the dragon bloodlines and elemental specialist for converting it to fire + 1 per die rolled damage. what was the 3rd dip? Loremaster to get chain lightning? you can get it (and a free conversion of elemental damage to electricity) from Stormlord's Bracers. there is also a helmet (Helm of Static Discharge) that adds damage to electrical spells and Elemental Imbuement robe for +2 per die rolled. (I assume its the 78 "other" damage in the screenshot).

Chain Lightning CL isn't capped. I'm already using pretty much all sources of CL that do not clash with damage/die items and I'm wielding the Ashmaker which you can even see in the screenshot. Yeah, you're right about all the classes, but Loremaster is useful to get more lower level evocation spells just to have something to cast at those levels. Stormlord's Resolve is pointless, because it competes for the bracer slot with Scorching Bracers. You want to convert energy into fire, not electricity. I'm already using elemental imbuement and the head slot is reserved for a +8 WIS or CHA headgear since I need to beat reflex and the Helm of Static Discharge is pointless anyway since I convert lightning into fire and change the spell descriptor.

The only thing I think I'm missing is the duplication of the Sword of Heaven +4 die increase which would result in a 43d6 Chain Lightning. That's the final step. Probably.

[MjKorz]

Done. Here's your Druid pure caster OP:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971858262

43d6 Chain Lightning for 2.2k damage on the primary target and something like 1.5k on secondary ones and my cantrips hit so hard they almost kill me when I energize myself to trigger Elemental Imbuement. Might be a smart idea to delegate this crucial task to Nenio.

[Belegc]

MjKorz님이 먼저 게시:

Belegc님이 먼저 게시:

isn't chain lightning supposed to cap at 20d6? not that I am complaining but this is what the description says. if not (and it appears it isn't) you can use Ashmaker for another 2 CL and maybe spell specialization for another 2CL.

I assume you dipped crossbloded for the dragon bloodlines and elemental specialist for converting it to fire + 1 per die rolled damage. what was the 3rd dip? Loremaster to get chain lightning? you can get it (and a free conversion of elemental damage to electricity) from Stormlord's Bracers. there is also a helmet (Helm of Static Discharge) that adds damage to electrical spells and Elemental Imbuement robe for +2 per die rolled. (I assume its the 78 "other" damage in the screenshot).

Chain Lightning CL isn't capped. I'm already using pretty much all sources of CL that do not clash with damage/die items and I'm wielding the Ashmaker which you can even see in the screenshot. Yeah, you're right about all the classes, but Loremaster is useful to get more lower level evocation spells just to have something to cast at those levels. Stormlord's Resolve is pointless, because it competes for the bracer slot with Scorching Bracers. You want to convert energy into fire, not electricity. I'm already using elemental imbuement and the head slot is reserved for a +8 WIS or CHA headgear since I need to beat reflex and the Helm of Static Discharge is pointless anyway since I convert lightning into fire and change the spell descriptor.

The only thing I think I'm missing is the duplication of the Sword of Heaven +4 die increase which would result in a 43d6 Chain Lightning. That's the final step. Probably.

thank you for answering. I guess CL 43 is form (17 base + 10 mythic + 1 Loremaster + 2 Specialization + 2 Ashmaker + 1 school master Evocation) + per die bonus? I don't know of any way to make this higher apart from the Storyteller's Knowledge but that is at the very end of the game.

by the way, will this also work on Storm Bolts? are they uncapped as well? the only way to bolster+empowered+maximized will be by using the grandmaster rod, but in theory the damage should be higher no?

[MjKorz]

Belegc님이 먼저 게시:

thank you for answering. I guess CL 43 is form (17 base + 10 mythic + 1 Loremaster + 2 Specialization + 2 Ashmaker + 1 school master Evocation) + per die bonus? I don't know of any way to make this higher apart from the Storyteller's Knowledge but that is at the very end of the game.

by the way, will this also work on Storm Bolts? are they uncapped as well? the only way to bolster+empowered+maximized will be by using the grandmaster rod, but in theory the damage should be higher no?

Stormbolts are capped at CL20:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971895085

Total Chain Lightning number of dice: 43
+9 from Druid/Oracle
+9 from Loremaster
+10 from merging spellbooks with Angel at MR10
+2 from Spell Specialization Chain Lightning
+1 from School Mastery Evocation
+2 from Ashmaker
+2 Storyteller's Knowledge
+4 from Sword of Heaven with Bound of Possibility
+4 from Sword of Heaven with Bound of Possibility duplicated via Heavenly Host

I do not use the Robe of Seven Sins, because it clashes with Elemental Imbuement. I could theoretically dip into Arcanist for Potent Magic, losing 1 CL and gaining 2 CL for a net gain of 1, but then I end up at 27 base CL which means I get no level 10 spells.

[fox5s]

Why does the bonus from Brass only match your base dice rather than the Sword of Heaven boosted amount?