Questions About Nature Mastery

[dwaynegand]

Again, I've given this game another try. Since Nature seems to be the easiest mastery for me to level up with thanks to Call of the Wild, I started with it. So far, I'm at level 15, I've reached Delphi, have twenty-four points in the mastery bar, maxed Call of the Wild, and have a point in each synergy of Maul, Survival Instinct, and Strength of the Pack. I have rings and an amulet that add physical damage to my pets, a staff that does the same, and an alternate staff with the Wander's prefix to increase all skills in Nature by one. I haven't touched any other skills yet since I'm focused on my wolves, standing back and letting them do all the work for me since that's the way to go with Nature this early in the game.

Skills I plan to get later on are Susceptibility for reduced physical damage resistance to all enemies and Earthbind to reduce all enemy defensive ability for more critical hits.

Should I keep climbing the bar and get Earthbind as soon as possible? Should I get Susceptibility with Plague and Fatigue now? What about Strength of the Pack, Survival Instinct, and Maul? When should I start pumping more skills into them? In what order should i max them? When I choose a second mastery, what are some good skills to use with what I have in Nature? When should I pick up skills such as Heart of the Oak, Permeance of Stone, Sanctuary, and Refresh and how many points should go into them? What about the Regrowth skill tree, would that be good to get too?

[Psixi]

15 in Survival instinct, then 12 in Strength of the Pack
You should be in late Act 2/Early Act 3 by then

Then you can bar up for Earthbind/Refresh

[dwaynegand]

Since characters who choose Nature play as Petmasters early game, here is what I think are the best skills to take from other masteries to go along with them:

Defense: The trees of Rally and Battle Awareness
Dream: Mastermind, Trance of Convalesence
Earth: Earth Enchantment, Brimstone, Summon Core Dweller tree
Hunting: Study Prey, Flush Out, Call of the Hunt tree, Art of the Hunt
Neidan: Terracotta Servants, Weakest Chakra
Rogue: Lay Trap tree
Rune: Rune of Life, Guardian Stones, Aftershock
Spirit: Liche King, Summon Outsider, Dark Covenant, Unearthly Power, Spirit Ward, Spirit Bane
Storm: Storm Nimbus tree, Thunderball, Squall, Obscured Visibility
Warfare: Battle Standard, Triumph, Ancestral Horn, Lasting Legacy

[Psixi]

All 3 trances can be used to help pets
Same thing with consequences, and throwing knives/envenom from Rogue

[dwaynegand]

Currently, I'm working on maxing Earthbind. Do I max Suceptibility after that? Should I also max Plague for longer duration and Fatigue for reduced damage? Or should I start on my second mastery afterwards?

[Psixi]

susceptibility is only +32% damage multiplier, so if you don't have anything to take after that in your 2nd mastery. Druid would probably start maxing Storm Nimbus first, then you can take that after

plague duration can be extended by spreading it, that way you can keep it way longer and infinitely if you keep dragging enemy packs into more enemies that aren't already plagued. The time you max the base skill is for single target bosses where you can't spread it. Fatigue is just if you're taking a lot of damage, i dont take that till epic unless im playing hardcore

[dwaynegand]

So should I skip Susceptibility for now or should I max it?

[dwaynegand]

So far, I'm amazed how much more powerful the wolves are with both Survival Instinct and Strength of the Pack are maxed. Sometime ago, the last Nature character I had taken so far (the subject of the 'Trying Again' thread), the wolves were dying quite easily and quickly against tougher enemies. Now, they rarely die. I may actually beat the game this time for the first time in a very long time, the first truly strong character I made.

[Psixi]

I already told you to do that, you want them at under 33% HP to always have the damage buff and absorption

[dwaynegand]

So basically, the Regrowth tree is useless? What about if my wolves face a powerful monster that is still able to kill them in that state? Shouldn't I heal them to prevent this?

While I'm at it, should I also pick up Heart of the Oak for more life and speed for myself and my minions?

Earthbind is great for weakening monster defensive ability and inflicting poison damage. In fact, most of my own kills were made by use of that skill. But it isn't as effective against boss creatures since they cannot be immobilized or slowed.

[Psixi]

You can heal them while under 33% if you want, if they're going to "die" I consider that spell useless, if they go above 33% they take more damage and deal less damage

Heart of Oak past 1 pt doesn't give any more total speed. But if you want to give them more health you can

Earthbind works on bosses, it gives 50% reduced DA

[dwaynegand]

I was lucky enough to get an amulet of Convocation, which not only increases damage done by pets by a percentage, it also heals them by a percentage of the damage they deal.

[Psixi]

Yeah you can farm that it's very easy to get, it's the best slot for amulet for suffix

[dwaynegand]

In case you are wondering, I took Neidan as my second mastery, and became a Hermit. From what I found out, Terracotta Servants don't regenerate their own health like the wolves do. Maybe being constructs has something to do with it. They deal much more damage than the wolves, but they are more fragile. So the amulet really helps.

[dwaynegand]

I'm think I'm really getting the hang of this game now. To start off with, I pick skills that deal flat amounts of damage, then those that increase the skill of my main attack skill, which in this case is Call of the Wild. Once I get everything I need for helping my primary damage skill in my first mastery, I move on to the second mastery and pick skills that improve further upon the skill. Once there are no more skills in either mastery that benefit the primary skills I picked in my first mastery, then I can start picking other skills for offensive or defensive purposes.