Best Specializations for Draconian Archdruid?

[ethandestruct]

Just bought this game, and, as the title suggests, I want to make a Draconian Druid, but not entirely sure what Specializations to take.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

In general, don't worry too much about specialisations when you're new to the game and not playing on very high difficulty levels. Personally, I just picked things without much thought in my first bunch of games, until I understood the races and classes. (which are more important).

If you do want to figure out specialisations, this guide is the best starting point:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=247323957

But to answer your specific question: As a Draconian druid you have plenty of options.

Druids are a strong early-game class that rely on summoned creatures. Draconians add fire damage, fire resistance, and fast healing to the mixture.

You could pick something that bolsters your fast growth and early game, like Expander. You could pick Fire Adept that has some good synergies with Draconians. (Skin of Oil + fire damage, Domain of the Sun + your starting climate) Wild magic is always useful for its utility and debuffing spells. Creation adept gives you combat healing, though not much else.

If you have the expansions, the alignment based specialisations (Keeper of the Peace, Grey Guard, Shadowborn) are all very strong options in general, but less so for archdruids than for other classes as it's much harder to buff summoned units with them. They also constrain your playing style, so I suggest avoiding them until later.

One very interesting synergy is Earth Mastery. The adept skill doesn't offer too much (very situational spells and you already have a spell that deals physical damage) but the master-level skills include the very powerful Summon Earth Elemental and Earthquake. Earthquake hits all units on the battlefield for heavy physical damage, unless they're flying or floating. And since Draconians have a lot of flying units, and druids can make all their units float with their ultimate spells, this can be very effective.

But to be honest, that is such a late game combo that the game is likely to be over (or at least in the mopping up stages) long before it becomes relevant.

In general I'd suggest just picking a bunch of adept-level specialisations that sound like they'd fit your character and figure out what works for you.

[ethandestruct]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

In general, don't worry too much about specialisations when you're new to the game and not playing on very high difficulty levels. Personally, I just picked things without much thought in my first bunch of games, until I understood the races and classes. (which are more important).

If you do want to figure out specialisations, this guide is the best starting point:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=247323957

But to answer your specific question: As a Draconian druid you have plenty of options.

Druids are a strong early-game class that rely on summoned creatures. Draconians add fire damage, fire resistance, and fast healing to the mixture.

You could pick something that bolsters your fast growth and early game, like Expander. You could pick Fire Adept that has some good synergies with Draconians. (Skin of Oil + fire damage, Domain of the Sun + your starting climate) Wild magic is always useful for its utility and debuffing spells. Creation adept gives you combat healing, though not much else.

If you have the expansions, the alignment based specialisations (Keeper of the Peace, Grey Guard, Shadowborn) are all very strong options in general, but less so for archdruids than for other classes as it's much harder to buff summoned units with them. They also constrain your playing style, so I suggest avoiding them until later.

One very interesting synergy is Earth Mastery. The adept skill doesn't offer too much (very situational spells and you already have a spell that deals physical damage) but the master-level skills include the very powerful Summon Earth Elemental and Earthquake. Earthquake hits all units on the battlefield for heavy physical damage, unless they're flying or floating. And since Draconians have a lot of flying units, and druids can make all their units float with their ultimate spells, this can be very effective.

But to be honest, that is such a late game combo that the game is likely to be over (or at least in the mopping up stages) long before it becomes relevant.

In general I'd suggest just picking a bunch of adept-level specialisations that sound like they'd fit your character and figure out what works for you.

Thanks! I opted to go for Fire Mastery and Expander. May try out that Earth Master at a later date, but on a Sorcerer, since I hear all their units are flying.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Fire Mastery is also a nice choice, since it has a late-game giant battlefield nuke fire spell and Druids generally lack powerful late-game stuff. Like Earthquake, it hits all units on the field, but draconians at least resist fire damage. Though your summoned units will burn alongside your enemies, unfortunately.

Earth Master sorcerer can be pretty insane in the very late game, since their ultimate spell halves casting cost on all magic, allowing you to spam earthquake. Again though, it's less a strategy for winning the game and more for making the mop-up phase more fun, because you get that combo so late.

Have fun!

[Fulano]

I also like the "turn the world to tropical" spell with fire mastery to keep all the draconians happy with their climate and hopefully annoy a few AI's that don't like tropical climates.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by Fulano:

I also like the "turn the world to tropical" spell with fire mastery to keep all the draconians happy with their climate and hopefully annoy a few AI's that don't like tropical climates.

Mechanically I like it.

But I don't like that it removes all the volcanoes I start out with.

[Fulano]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

Originally posted by Fulano:

I also like the "turn the world to tropical" spell with fire mastery to keep all the draconians happy with their climate and hopefully annoy a few AI's that don't like tropical climates.

Mechanically I like it.

But I don't like that it removes all the volcanoes I start out with.

I always wondered why there isn't a volcanic climate spell. I assumed it was something planned for eventual DLCs but they ended up needing to make more games.

I mean... maybe it could fit under the Wild Magic specialization.