Druid Builds

From Duels Content

See also: Druid

Contents 1 Slow/Insect Swarm Druid 1.1 Skills 2 Feline Ferocity Druid 2.1 Skills 2.2 Ranks 2.2.1 Notes 3 Shakes Druid 3.1 Skills 3.2 Attributes 4 Ice Storm Druid 4.1 Offensive Ice Storm 4.1.1 Notes 4.2 Defensive Ice Storm 4.2.1 Notes 4.3 Attributes 5 References

[edit] Slow/Insect Swarm Druid

Item links added by Demithycs:

The most popular druid build continues to be the strong slow/insect swarm druid. Five points in slow cripples most assassin and warrior builds. Insect swarm, although readily resisted in some loadouts/builds, can provide the fast damage when confronting the dreaded Talak's mage build and against other druids. For the staff weapon, the Trident of Tides and the Life Binder are regular weapons. With the release of Noble Set 5, Razan's Crystal Focus is another popular choice. For those on a budget, Geomancer's Volcanic Staff, Flame of the Sea , Emperor's Hand Staff of the Rising Sea, and Alren's Pyromantic Focus have been used as well. For the wand, The Rose of Yumeria is one of the sought after ones. Razan's Dragon Spine can also be effective. Recently, there has been a trend to use purple wands such as the Manaspring and the Wand of Demonic Potency to free up power for other things. Other good purple wands include Phearaux's Scepter and Flesh Molder.

[edit] Skills

Path of the Staff
Mind Amplification	5/5
Staff Mastery	5/5
Wands	1/1
Wand Mastery	5/5
Magus Blood	5/5
Item Amplification	5/5

Early levelers will find that stamina will help them win more duels, but the key to the end game will be an high intelligence. Magus Blood is also one of the most important early skills to grab when leveling this build.

[edit] Feline Ferocity Druid

Feline Ferocity builds are built around the Tier I opener Feline Ferocity. Feline Ferocity is a damage opener that adds a percentage of your intelligence to all non-wand attacks, But now Feline Ferocity was changed to be based on Current Health. After hitting 50% health for the first time, the next 6 attacks are guaranteed to hit. Feline Ferocity (FF) builds generally focus on their intelligence for the additional damage.

Since the duels 2.0 update this skill has become extremely potent again.

[edit] Skills

Path of the Staff
Mind Amplification	5/5
Staff Mastery	5/5
Wands	1/1
Wand Mastery	5/5
Magus Blood	5/5
Item Amplification	5/5

High Path of the Druid
Feline Ferocity	5/5

[edit] Ranks

1. Increase the damage from all but Wand Attacks by 22*(1-(Current Health/ Max Health))%. The first time you are reduced below 50% of your starting Health, your next 2 attacks are guaranteed to hit.
2. Increase the damage from all but Wand Attacks by 44*(1-(Current Health/ Max Health))%. The first time you are reduced below 50% of your starting Health, your next 3 attacks are guaranteed to hit.
3. Increase the damage from all but Wand Attacks by 66*(1-(Current Health/ Max Health))%. The first time you are reduced below 50% of your starting Health, your next 4 attacks are guaranteed to hit.
4. Increase the damage from all but Wand Attacks by 88*(1-(Current Health/ Max Health))%. The first time you are reduced below 50% of your starting Health, your next 5 attacks are guaranteed to hit.
5. Increase the damage from all but Wand Attacks by 110*(1-(Current Health/ Max Health))%. The first time you are reduced below 50% of your starting Health, your next 6 attacks are guaranteed to hit.

[edit] Notes

This leaves 5 skill points left for any backup openers or any other Passive skills. Wand Mastery is debatable, however with wand damage being so high at the time of writing it allows a huge buff to not only overall damage but some wands give a big boost to INT as well. I would suggest putting the remaining 5 into Feedback, at level 45, thats an extra 135 power. Very useful in my opinion.

[edit] Shakes Druid

Item Links added by Demithycs:

Shakes Druids are built upon the Tier II skill Shakes. Focusing on maximizing Intelligence in order to reduce the higher amount of your opponent Absorb as is possible. There are at least two key factors that you should consider:

1. A good weapon - You need a staff that can deal good damage on it's own and also provide you with some defense. I am lucky enough to own a Burning Heart of Illustra, it's the perfect staff for Shakes, but if you can't get one the best alternatives imo are:

1 - The Trident of Tides 2 - Gnarled Demon Bone 3 - Earthmender's Stave 4 - Alren's Pyromantic Focus 5 - Blackwarder Darklash

1. Critical% - Critical is your best friend, when your shakes kicks in your criticals will hit for around 500-850 damage so it's always nice to have some critical% if that doesn't hurt your int too much. Burning Heart of Illustra and Earthmender's Drape are perfect because they give you the best int and also the best crit. Usually most of the Earthmender's Set pieces are good for that job. My favorite pieces are the gloves and the boots, because the int/power ratio is almost the same as the best int items available. You lose a bit too much int with the other set pieces though, so a Crimson Candescence item could be good to fill in the gap in your loadout, my personal favorite is Crimson Candescence Hat, followed closely by the Chest.

So in 90% of the cases this will you be your only loadout. An *almost* full int loadout with the best mix of critical% and defense (stamina, %dodge, armor, resistance%, etc) you can get. You should always aim for at least -70% opponent absorb with your main loadout.

Another Important loadout is the "Resist Loadout". Exaggerating on the resist% is usually not a good idea. I would go for a mix of int and resist. It's easy to get somewhere around 50% resist and -50% opponent absorb, those are good values for balance. You can get as many Loadouts as you want, if you think they fit your strategy. But usually these two are the ones you'll be using exclusively. I can see a reason to use other loadouts in 2 situation:

• When you know for sure that your opponent has 70%+ resist, or a very high chance of resisting your Shakes - In that case you will most likely be fighting without an opener, so you can somewhat forget about maximizing int and chose anything else that fits the fight. In most of the cases int/critical is still the best choice. Especially if you'll be using a lot of Outbreaks and Tornados. If you KNOW, with 100% certainty or close, that you'll lose a specific fight when shakes is resisted then you don't have many options, just go for max int regardless of opponent's resist... And pray for good luck :P

• Against shield slammers (or any build that relies on an shield to deal most of the damage). In this case fighting without a staff *can* be the the best option (usually it's the best, but not always, I'll leave that for you to decide :P). So if you're not using a staff you don't need -opponent absorb %, wands are not affected by absorb :) (On a side note, with this build your staff will deal a lot more damage than your wand, so the wand *advantage* of bypassing absorb is not really an advantage, it's more of an handicap).

[edit] Skills

Path of the Staff
Mind Amplification	5/5
Staff Mastery	5/5
Wands	1/5
Wand Mastery	1/5
Magus Blood	5/5
Item Amplification	5/5

High Path of the Druid
Shakes	5/5
Feline Ferocity	5/5
Roar	4/5

[edit] Attributes

Shakes Druid
Strength:	0
Speed:	0
Intelligence:	130
Perception:	0
Stamina:	0
Resist:	0

[edit] Ice Storm Druid

After the Duels 2.0 update, this Skill has changed dramaticaly. Ice Storm now attacks both the user and the opponent. The damage that Ice Storm does is a static amount (based on Stamina and Intelligence) and is resistible. A higher Intelligence allows you to pump up the damage dealt, but a higher Resist allows you to resist the damage that you would deal to yourself. In a similar vein buffing Stamina will allow you to last out the damage you do to yourself.

[edit] Offensive Ice Storm

Path of the Staff
Mind Amplification	5/5
Battle Mage	1/1
Clarity	5/5
Staff Mastery	5/5
Magus Blood	5/5
Item Amplification	5/5

High Path of the Druid
Gaze of the Basilisk	5/5
Roar	5/5
Ice Storm	5/5

[edit] Notes

The Offensive Ice Storm Druid uses gaze to combat against those who easily defeat IS with resistance or attribute lowering openers. The offensive Ice Storm druid uses int and other att points where the defensive IS druid puts all their points into stamina.

Any other Tier 1 or 2 druid opener could be swapped in. However it is very gear dependant to have a decent tier I or II due to the lack of mind amp.

It also be noted that even if you have one hp left when you use ice storm, since your opponent is always hit first, you have an advantage. Because before it hits you, your opponent can die from it.

[edit] Defensive Ice Storm

Path of the Staff
Clarity	5/5
Staff Focus	5/5
Staff Mastery	5/5
Magus Blood	5/5
Item Amplification	5/5

High Path of the Druid
Ironwood Thorns	5/5
Roar	5/5
Ice Storm	5/5

[edit] Notes

The Defensive Ice Stormer uses Staff Focus to fortify your armor and add resistance by your staffs power. However the downside of this is that your damage will be very limited due to the lack of wand damage. The last point you have can be used in Wands, Mind Amplification, or Shimmer.

[edit] Attributes

Ice Storm Druid
Strength:	0
Speed:	0
Intelligence:	0
Perception:	0
Stamina:	130
Resist:	0

Notes: It is recommended that you use all of your attribute points into Stamina. The new updates to Staff Focus provides enough extra resistance to allow you to put all your points into Stamina.

[edit] References

Force of Nature's Druid Build thread [1]