6 Druids Path of the Damned complete!

[vinzi]

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

I want to share with you the experiences i have made during my all Druid run.
I have started the game over twice before completing it. The first time i took a party of story characters to the beginning of chapter 2. Them giving me little satisfaction and after understanding the game better i restarted on hard with a premade party. There is played a Druid for the first time and i really liked all of the spells it had, some being very offensive ranged while other are very defensive or melee based. After getting to the end of chapter 2 i decided to take a challenge of completing the game on the highest difficulty with a party of Druids only.

As an introduction i want to present you with my party:

The tanks "Bear Hug" and "Bear me". Both using the bear form
Might min
Con Max
Dex min
Per Max
Int Rest(15)
Res Max

The damaging casters "So Horny", "Kitty" and "Big Bad Wolf". Using the Stag the Cat and the Wolf.
Might Max
Con 6
Dex Max
Per 6
Int Max
Res 9

My main character Lenneth as a melle based shapeshifting Boar Druid.
Might Max
Con Max
Dex 10
Per 9
Int 15
Res 9

The progress:

Chapter one:
The beginning proved to be pretty challenging. Since casts are so limited i relied on shapeshifting most of the time. Sometimes this prooved to be suicidal and i had to rest pretty often.

Chapter Two:
This is where the fun started. After getting more casts and access to the first thunderstorm spell my party felt alot more powerfull. Felt Pretty good to greet the wild druids with 6 thunderstorms :D.
I had difficulties in the lighthouse and fighting the ghosts in Ad Nua though. Since i want there pretty early i did not have the accuracy to hit my spells reliably and they often went straight for my casters. The only way i found to get by this was to stack in a corner and cast 6 Force of Natures (over time heals) that ensure that my party would never run out of endurance.

Chapter 3:
In this chapter it really started to become smooth sailing gaining access to my second thunderstorm spell and later getting unlimited lvl 1 casts really trivialized most fights. Even the Sky Dragon, while hitting pretty hard and killing 2 of my party members in the first 2 seconds easily fell to the amounts of condition enducing spells and self buffs my party had at that time. Basicly at this point i had so many casts of my thunderstorms and normal spells, that i was just about stunlocking enemies in every encounter.

The fight against Adra Dragon (lvl 11):
I tried this fight three times with different approaches. Stunlocking him with thunderstorms proved very ineffective. The successful strategy was to kite him to me and welcome him a lot of Thorn Walls while stunlocking the rest of his minions with thunderstorms and waves. Felt a little cheesy though :P


Overall it was a very enjoyable run and i would recommend the Druid class to everyone that like a big variety of spells.
I'd especially recommend Druid tanks because they provide healing and buffs to the frontline as well as hard cc and debuffs to enemies. Its pretty great to cast Overpowering Wave in the frontline and stun the whole enemy group for 10 secs. They are incredibly self sufficient and useful.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions feel free to ask :)

[Separa]

Sounds like you had some fun with it, and it's definitely a noteworthy accomplishment; I enjoyed reading about it. I do have a couple of questions for you. Did you find yourself shapeshifting at all, in the later parts of the game? And do you have any plans for a follow-up, or have you had your fill of the game for now?

[General Malaise]

Well done on that.

I'm playing my third playthrough on PoTD(but no knockdown for the first time), using all the pre made characters.

I use Hiravious over Sagani & GM. He's far more powerful as far as I'm concerned. Relentless Storm most notable, and a starting spell in tough battles - but a lot of other good spells. It's only my second playthrough using him, but I've never once shapeshifted him - I don't even know what he looks like. It''s that ability put me off Druids to start with, and why I left him out - choosing GM originally.

[vinzi]

Thank you for your kind replies. :)

@The Universal Void
The tanks never shifted to begin with since it gives them nothing and it definitely got harder to use as the game progressed. My casters only shifted in situations when they had to defend themselves in melee range or if the fight was so easy that i didn't even bother to cast spells.
But my main character killed the final boss shapeshifted. Taking all the appropriate shapeshifting talents and gear she was doing very good damage throughout the game in this form. Aided by the stun and blinds that my other casters provide she crits for something like 60 damage per hit. Being in melee range also offers support option for the frontline, better ability to cast cone Aoe's and thunderstorms hitting the enemies backline. Still during some fights it simply wasn't possible to go into melee or sometimes just spam casting was a better idea. No doubt the shapeshifting could use some better scaling but even late game it wasn't useless.

For your second question. I will no doubt return to this game sooner or later since it offers a very rich experience and rewards multiple playthroughs but for now its all about the Witcher. xD

[Separa]

I pre-ordered The Witcher but I won't be playing it for probably a good long while. So, you could say that I wasted money; but I never have finished the first two games and I'd like to do that first. I can't ever seem to make it through the first one, and I've tried like four times. I really need to make a point of fixing that.

[vinzi]

I heard some mixed things about the first two games, overall though they are supposed to be well worth playing. Im sure you would get more out of the story by playing them, but its still fun even without having played those two. I kinda got addicted to the ingame card game xD.
Also i gave shadowrun returns a shot and its quite entertaining. Scratches the itch that i thought only a new fallout could scratch.