Greetings to you all,
My first post on this site, been a follower for a long time but first time truly getting involved. The subject line says it all folks, what is the best way to deal the most damage in fights as a Core druid? Is it in Wildshape form as a specific animal with specific feats (ie. vital strike, etc), or are certain spells capable of doing prodigious damage that I am unaware of? Would love to hear from a wide range of people and experiences. Thank you.
You could do silly things like dazing flaming sphere.
It wont do the most damage, but will be a persistent pain in the but to your enemies.
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Vital Striking is definitely an option. An 8th level blight druid with the Rage subdomain can turn into a behemoth hippopotamus, cast strong jaw, rage, and use Vital Strike/Furious Finish for 128 damage before bonuses.
But it's hard to top a saurian shaman turning into allosaurus and pouncing with a bite/claw/claw/rake/rake routine.
How about Wildshaping into a Giant Octopus with 8 tentacles all with Grab and Constrict, and a Bite for 17 attacks/round.
Dip into Warpriest and make your base Medium Size for your Natural Attacks be 1d6. As an Giant Octopus, you are Size L for 1d8, then cast Strong Jaw on yourself and do 3d6/attack.
Dip a level in White Haired Witch, and you get a Hair Attack with Grab (sort of), and you already have Constrict.
Wear Lamellar Horn armor made for your Octopus form, with Armor Spikes: 1d8 for size Large with every Grapple Attack.
Acquire a Helm of the Mammoth Lord and get a Gore Attack, too.
Take Hamatula Strike, and your Gore and Bite also get free Grapple Attacks, and again, you already have Constrict.
Dip a level in Monk, take 2 Weapon fighting, and add Unarmed Strikes to your Full Attack. Take Snake Style, and your Unarmed Strikes benefit from Hamatula Strike.
So 26 attacks/round with a Base Damage of 3d6 + Armor Spike Damage for most of them.
This was inspired by an old build proposed by Lord Markov: the Monktopus.
Actually tried (most) of this with a high level druid. No monk or warpriest levels, and no armor spikes, but a high caster level frostbite and vine strike boosting damage on every attack. Did alright, still not better than the 2 handed fighter in the group.
If you really want to max out damage, what you're really looking for is a one level dip into barbarian with a cave druid, and do what Avoron suggested with a Carnivorous Crystal. Ends up being 32d6 maximized with vital strike, or 192 damage before modifiers. 288 with improved vital strike. It does take a long time to get going though.
My Druid Dag is a dwarf Core Druid.
Our DM counts Dire versions as animals, he shapes into a Dire Bear most of the time.
If it is a really resilient opponent, go Dire Weasel to use 1d4+1 CON bleed per bite under Blood Rage instead of mass HP damage.
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The best way to deal the most damage with a druid is to wield it two-handed.
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With core your best bet is probably to go the giant octopus route.
Tentacles are secondary natural attacks though, but they have reach and you get 8 of them. The maths should put you ahead of almost any other attack routine.
Make sure you know how secondary natural attacks work before you go down this route though. They only add half strength.
So your attack routine is:
Bite (full bab) at str dmg. + 8 x tentacle (bab -5 ( -2 if you have the multi attack feat)) at half str damage.
However if we want to get fancy here we can get this damage to scary levels.
Amulet of mighty fists. I haven't done the maths but going for elemental damage types might give more damage than the +1 does by increasing to hit as well.
Large animal: If the form you take is that of a Large animal, you gain a +4 size bonus to your Strength, a -2 penalty to your Dexterity, and a +4 natural armor bonus.
Say you start at 20 str. With the size increase and your self buffs you easily get to 28 str. Str bonus is then 9.
So frost, flaming, corrosive, +2 amulet of mighty fists. Bulls strength. Wild shape.
Total to hit = bab+11 on the bite. Bab+9 on the tentacles.
Damage is 3d6+2+9 on the bite, 3d6+2+4 on the tentacles. This is excluding the base bite or tentacle damage.
Total damage is 27d6 + 11 + 48
Avg is 153.5 with 9 chances per round to crit.
An awesome spell for this is natural rhythm granting a potential (1+2+3+4+5+5+5+5+5) 35 damage increase on the first round. And a potential 45 on every round there after.
Dip in paladin to get smite to all 9 attacks as well to completely ruin someone. Barbarian rage can increase these bonuses even further.
So druid 6,barb x, paladin x
Should give you some absolutely insane damage.
I might actually state this out later.
Having 8 grab attempts in a single turn with a 20' reach is not bad either.
Wait just a moment. Could one become a pounce-tepus?
Greater beast totem for pounce.
Lvl 6 druid for octopus.
1 bite. 2 claws. 8 tentacles.
So 11 attacks on a charge. Ouch.
I so badly want to build this. I will try this evening in a couple hours.
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Wait just a moment. Could one become a pounce-tepus?
Greater beast totem for pounce.
Lvl 6 druid for octopus.1 bite. 2 claws. 8 tentacles.
So 11 attacks on a charge. Ouch.
I so badly want to build this. I will try this evening in a couple hours.
I guess you could not really a core thing, and it requires 10 level barbarian and 6 level druid so it's a very late game option and mostly outside of society use.
What about that is not core?
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Dip in paladin to get smite to all 9 attacks as well to completely ruin someone. Barbarian rage can increase these bonuses even further.So druid 6,barb x, paladin x
Should give you some absolutely insane damage.
I might actually state this out later.
And remember the Allignment restrictions...
Not every GM will allow this.
At druid 6, alchemist 1, barbarian 1, I just got a build to 262.5 dmg per round with a +18 to hit on bite and +17 on all the others.
At druid 6, alchemist 1, barbarian 1, I just got a build to 262.5 dmg per round with a +18 to hit on bite and +17 on all the others.
Wouldn't that only be good for like 1 combat a day?
I mean sure, you can get a nice bonus to strength from rage and mutagen. But you have very limited rounds/use.
I guess it's a neat trick, but I never cared for these sorts of builds.
I'd think changing into an octopus would only be effective in water, so a pretty narrow application there.
If done outside of water, I'd imagine there really is no MV or charge, and you start suffocating and take penalties in all aspects.
just looked it up... 20ft. Why is there a land MV for an octopus?
Core only your best bet is wild shape into the form with the best single attack available and use power attack + vital strike.
At druid 6, alchemist 1, barbarian 1, I just got a build to 262.5 dmg per round with a +18 to hit on bite and +17 on all the others.Wouldn't that only be good for like 1 combat a day?
I mean sure, you can get a nice bonus to strength from rage and mutagen. But you have very limited rounds/use.
I guess it's a neat trick, but I never cared for these sorts of builds.
I agree on that, it is a single combat nova for sure. But you can still be doing really really well without the rage and mutagen.
Besides as you advance you could take more levels in those two classes for more rounds/uses per day.I sometimes just like developing crazy numbers because I can
I'm rather partial to taking a level of Barbarian, and then using earth elemental form with a huge bastard sword (since that works well whether you go large or huge size). You can easily end up with 38 STR by level 13, which would make a huge bastard sword deal monstrous damage with Power Attack. It's also nice and easy to enchant a weapon. An Extra Rage or two means plenty of rage rounds per day.
Snowball.
The subject line says it all folks, what is the best way to deal the most damage in fights as a druid?Bolding and embiggening mine, for emphasis.
The subject line didn't say it all, but anyways...
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He asked for advice in the core druid in the OP, but people are coming with ideas all over the books.
If you like spells you can add a lot of damage by controlling the battlefield and let your friends have easy access to kill them off.
If you rather want to be the one dealing the damage I think Wildshape has the potential for most damage, but I haven't played a druid much so I don't know how good the core spell list are for damaging abilities.
Actually tried (most) of this with a high level druid. No monk or warpriest levels, and no armor spikes, but a high caster level frostbite and vine strike boosting damage on every attack. Did alright, still not better than the 2 handed fighter in the group.
If you really want to max out damage, what you're really looking for is a one level dip into barbarian with a cave druid, and do what Avoron suggested with a Carnivorous Crystal. Ends up being 32d6 maximized with vital strike, or 192 damage before modifiers. 288 with improved vital strike. It does take a long time to get...
If you could somehow get Chill Touch on your druid spell list (eg Dreamed Secrets or Shade of the Woodlands feats), you can do one STR damage per attack.
Some trick with Fire Seeds? It's not consistent, but definitely a very good burst.
With core your best bet is probably to go the giant octopus route.
Tentacles are secondary natural attacks though, but they have reach and you get 8 of them. The maths should put you ahead of almost any other attack routine.Make sure you know how secondary natural attacks work before you go down this route though. They only add half strength.
So your attack routine is:
Bite (full bab) at str dmg. + 8 x tentacle (bab -5 ( -2 if you have the multi attack feat)) at half str damage.However if we want to get fancy here we can get this damage to scary levels.
Amulet of mighty fists. I haven't done the maths but going for elemental damage types might give more damage than the +1 does by increasing to hit as well.Large animal: If the form you take is that of a Large animal, you gain a +4 size bonus to your Strength, a -2 penalty to your Dexterity, and a +4 natural armor bonus.
Say you start at 20 str. With the size increase and your self buffs you easily get to 28 str. Str bonus is then 9.
So frost, flaming, corrosive, +2 amulet of mighty fists. Bulls strength. Wild shape.
Total to hit = bab+11 on the bite. Bab+9 on the tentacles.
Damage is 3d6+2+9 on the bite, 3d6+2+4 on the tentacles. This is excluding the base bite or tentacle damage.Total damage is 27d6 + 11 + 48
Avg is 153.5 with 9 chances per round to crit.An awesome spell for this is natural rhythm granting a potential (1+2+3+4+5+5+5+5+5) 35 damage increase on the first round. And a potential 45 on every round there after.
Dip in paladin to get smite to all 9 attacks as well to completely ruin someone. Barbarian rage can increase these bonuses even further.
So druid 6,barb x, paladin x
Should give you some absolutely insane damage.
I might actually state this out later.
are vines considered secondary natural attacks?
Sit on the back of a dinosaur!!
The druid turns into a bird and flies about a mile above the target. Then the druid wildshapes into a Blue Whale. Death from above!