WTF Blight druid

[Cannellonist]

Hey so I started this game, thought about following my heart and see what could be done.
I decided to try to go for a blight druid, seeing they have access to necromancy I heavily dipped into necromancy bonuses and wisdom, and ... Well it completely sucks, it's doing close to nothing. Especially consiering that it is very fragile and it's best spells (which aren't great either) so far are to be used at contact range.

Sooooo ... Is there any way to salvage the idea ?
Now that I have seen more of it, I'm supposing I was supposed to go for some kind of melee build and have the necromancy on top of that to debuff my enemies.

But I'm a beginner at Pathfinder, and I would need some help on that.
To summarize:
I feel like the way to go would be some kind of melee build, probably using shapeshift and the feat that allow to cast even when transformed.
Is that fine ?
Is there some multiclassing I should do ?
I was considering the Lich / Swarm mythic path. Is it alright ?
What would be the general distribution of stats for such a build ?

Thx a lot !

[Anri of Astora]

I see "beginner at pathfinder" and "spells/casting/shapeshifting" in one sentence and suggest you to stick for a fighter for a first playthrough.

[Cannellonist]

Mmmmh I felt like the magic I where the fun is at. And my Wenduag feels brainless to both use and build and she's destroying everything. That's a little disappointing ^^

[Schlumpsha]

Blight Druid shines more in a passive defensive role.

Miasma only needs you to stand close to an enemy to work. And Plaguebearer only comes online if you take damage from non-manufactured weapons. Death domain nets you more offensive necromantic prowess. Destruction domain is nice if you want to go into melee.

Remaining as either a Lich or going Swarm both work as a Blight Druid. As a Swarm you can tank massively via Swarm Form and let Plaguebearer and Miasma do their magic. As a Lich you get the most out of your spells. Plus you still can tank via Indestructible Bones.

[Super Cosmic Space Magnet]

The point of Blight Druid is to be a frontliner that uses its AoE miasma to damage enemies. It's a pretty neat little feature, especially since in Act 3 you get some armour which does the same thing. You can combine them to have a nice l'il AoE machine. I definitely wouldn't call the class imba or anything - heck, I'd consider trying to play Blight Druid in Hard Mode to be equivalent to doing a challenge run of the game. For regular difficulties though I think it's a very fun and flavourful class.

The downside is that both of these constant AoE effects also hurt allies. This CAN be very effective since there's a mythic ability called Enforced Discipline or something, which gives bonuses whenever you do friendly fire. I've never taken it, but I've long thought Blight Druid's little AoE that hurts friends could be an intriguing application of it.

[Yannir]

Well, you CAN go for a full caster build but you need to be aware that pure casters of any type kinda suck until you can get to higher level spells. About spell level 4 or 5 is where it's at. Martial types kinda stay at a steady power level through the game but casters go from sucking to amazing when reaching higher spell levels along with the tools to use them.

[Cannellonist]

Mmmmh I'd be down for some tanky with aoe build then, I'll look into that.
But then can you confirm me thata full caster will eventually bloom on later levels ? As I'm playing in "normal", everything's very easy so far so I believe I can achieve it.
I think I've also read somewhere that the spell list of druid isn't good. Maybe it's better with the necromancy ones ?

[Yannir]

Originally posted by D.:

Mmmmh I'd be down for some tanky with aoe build then, I'll look into that.
But then can you confirm me thata full caster will eventually bloom on later levels ? As I'm playing in "normal", everything's very easy so far so I believe I can achieve it.
I think I've also read somewhere that the spell list of druid isn't good. Maybe it's better with the necromancy ones ?

Just don't Poison spells and you'll be fine. 70% of the opponents you'll fight in this game are demons and demons are immune to poison without exception. Which there is no way around unlike elemental spells that can be made to penetrate resistances and immunities.

If you intend to go caster and focus on necromancy, you should aim for the Lich mythic path. It adds a bunch more necromancy spells that are Lich-exclusive, and many of them are quite good from what I hear.

[Cannellonist]

Alright, I'll see what I end up with then !
Sucks for poison though, I didn't know demons are immune to it, and I just started the attack of the Grey garrison.. My only offensive spell so far is poison lmao

[fox5s]

The good Druid spells didn't make it into WotR. Or they are just less effective due to range limitations from the conversion to WotR. For example, Entangle is a great spell. It should have a range of long which is 400 ft. + 40 ft./level. That makes its 40 foot radius spread easy to use. However, Long or Medium Range in WotR is like 50 feet. This makes it annoying to place from the back line without catching half your party.

The new expansion gave us several different version of Entangle with extra effects that I really want to use. But they are all annoying to place due to the WotR range limitations.

That does not mean that Druids aren't powerful. They have access to quite a few strong spells. Cave Fangs is OP. Polar Midnight, Foresight, Seamantle, Legendary Proportions, Animal Growth, and all the Summons are still good. Yeah, Summon Monster is better than Summon Nature's Ally. But the Elemental Summons are still solid and it's not like the Summon Nature's Ally are useless.

[Cannellonist]

Oh wow I'm glad I made this post I'm learning so much through random examples. Like I casted Entagne once, it looked like it did nothing, just messed up the terrain and apparently affected my team too whatever it was doing so I promptly replaced it with something else and didn't try again afterward.
I'll try to remember the other good spells you're recommending.

Also I took some sommons bonuses too as they looked much better than the rest of my spells so far. As I said it's my first character, I'm trying sutff, and I think I can reset my points so I might as well

[Yannir]

Originally posted by D.:

Alright, I'll see what I end up with then !
Sucks for poison though, I didn't know demons are immune to it, and I just started the attack of the Grey garrison.. My only offensive spell so far is poison lmao

You can still use it on Cultists at this point.

[Yannir]

Originally posted by fox5s:

The good Druid spells didn't make it into WotR. Or they are just less effective due to range limitations from the conversion to WotR. For example, Entangle is a great spell. It should have a range of long which is 400 ft. + 40 ft./level. That makes its 40 foot radius spread easy to use. However, Long or Medium Range in WotR is like 50 feet. This makes it annoying to place from the back line without catching half your party.

The new expansion gave us several different version of Entangle with extra effects that I really want to use. But they are all annoying to place due to the WotR range limitations.

That does not mean that Druids aren't powerful. They have access to quite a few strong spells. Cave Fangs is OP. Polar Midnight, Foresight, Seamantle, Legendary Proportions, Animal Growth, and all the Summons are still good. Yeah, Summon Monster is better than Summon Nature's Ally. But the Elemental Summons are still solid and it's not like the Summon Nature's Ally are useless.

Selective Metamagic is your friend.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Yannir:

Selective Metamagic is your friend.

True and Real. Selective makes things much more usable. I just resent having to get it due to range limitations.

[Cannellonist]

I'll give this a try, thx a lot for the suggestions
But then ... I went for a human with gebbite necromancer, with death domain and focus + greater focus on Necromancy as a starter. I feel like I went too far before knowing how few necromancy spells would be available to me ahahaha. Might become good in a few levels then, i'll keep experimenting in the meantime.

Any suggestions on spells or feat to look out for ?

[fox5s]

Yeah, low level Necromancy spells aren't really worth it. Even as a Wizard, you pretty much have some some Fears, some Rays, and False Life. Not great. I'm also not impressed by the Druid Necromancy spells available. Maybe it's a bit better with the Domain spells.

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Druid+Spells

If you end up going Lich, there's quite a host of Necromancy spells available with a few Conjurations as well.

Here's a fun tip. If you want to specialize in a specific spell School, don't get Spell Focus in it. Get Spell Focus in something else. Then, when you get your second Mythic Rank, you'll get access to the Mythic Feat Expanded Arsenal. Choose that for the school you want and all your Spell Focus Feats will apply to it. Yes, this means you can stack Spell Focus bonuses higher than +2.

Here's an example Enchanter/Conjurer build for Nenio that I stole from someone here on the forums that takes advantage of it:

https://pastebin.com/RbdQQSqx

It even has some notes including an option for including Selective Metamagic.