4.2 Dunadan Druid Winner and class review

**Nozok** · November 1, 2019, 23:00

General thoughts on Druid and 4.2 - ie How did I kill stuff.

I thing it was a good class addition. Different spell mix and turning into forms was neat. I never figured out what/how to Tame something, and gave up eventually, so no clue about that.

Early levels were tough, with 1 attack per round and not much available for attack spells. Running around in Fox form took some getting used to, but the extra stealth and move is nice early on.

Early levels killing things was a mix of whatever ranged weapon or wands I had, Stinking cloud, and a whole lot of Lightning Strike when I got that a L12.

Mid levels, was still a whole lot of Lightning Strike still, with Earth Rising added in there when it made sense. Plus changing to a Pukel-man and face tanking everything. I had good AC - that plus Pukel-man meant I just meleed down everything tough. All the tough named Trolls were trivial to melee down, for example. That balance didn't seem right to me.

Next main way to kill things was Meteor Swarm. That got through a lot of levels and uniques.

Late levels ended up killing things in melee, like I usually end up on all characters. Once I had the stat gain and equipment to max out at 4 attacks, then add Bear form for another attack and buffs, and melee did more damage than spells.

For Morgoth, I was low on Healing potions and rich on Banishment scrolls, so tried out a Meteor Swarm, Phase Door, and Banishment approach, which worked out fine. Used Eagle form a few times to out run annoying summons too, since Morgoth would chase and catch up.

All in all, the Druid forms were a good addition. I didn't like the extra step having to change out of the form to do anything, just due to the usual rapid rythem of moving and casting and macros I do, so I ended up having to deal with that a bunch.

**fph** · November 1, 2019, 23:33

Nice boots!

**Nozok** · November 1, 2019, 23:37

My thoughts on the Druid spells:

Since I don't dive fast, I ended up having many levels between when I had all the store bought spells (first two books) and finally got the 3rd book. This was Ok I guess, but kind of disappointing.

Lesser Charms
a. Detect Life -- Nice L1 utility spell. Used off and on the whole game.
b. Fox Form -- I liked its utility, though I would have liked something that helped me kill things in the early game. Used it more deeper probably, when I wanted more stealth for picking up loot on the floor without fighting stuff.
c. Remove Hunger -- standard food spell
d. Stinking Cloud -- Ok early damage spell. Not useful for long.
e. Confuse Monster -- I never used it. Never do an any character really.
f. Slow Monsters -- Didn't use it. I find phase door scrolls more to my liking.

Gifts of Nature
a. Cure Poison - Always nice to have in early levels
b. Resist Poison - Also nice. Probably used it most in late levels to get doubled up resist Poison for nasty breathers.
c. Turn Stone to Mud - Again a useful and much used Utlity spell.
d. Sense Surroundings - Used this all the time, liked having it. Made up for not having a light spell.
e. Lighting Strike - Main damage for many levels. It blowing up potions was not great, ended up doing that to some good potions. But, it was how I killed stuff, so that's how it went.
f. Earth Rising - Used along with Lightning strike when monsters were lined up or there was a potion I didn't want to AE. I found Lightning Strike to be overall better though.

Creature Dominion
a. Trance -- I think this is broken, it never worked for more than one turn when I tried it in L20-30ish range. Never went back to it.
b. Mass Sleep -- used it a couple of times. Nice to have, not game changing.
c. Become Pukel-Man -- Carried me through the mid level uniques, probably too powerful on the damage reduction, I shouldn't be able to kill the unique Trolls in melee with no healing and crappy melee. Less useful deeper with higher damage monsters, spell casters, and breathers.
d. Eagle's Flight -- used sometimes to run away, but didn't use much. Wasn't worth the cast usually for just running around.
e. Bear Form -- Used late game when meleeing - going from 4 to 5 blows plus the +hit and +dam was nice. There's no way for a 250 damage a cast meteor swarms to compete with a big weapon that slays dragons powerfully, once stats are maxed.

Nature Craft
a. Tremor -- Never used. I don't like earthquakes messing up the terrain.
b. Haste Self -- L25 spell, wonderful to have this
c. Revitalize -- Always lovely to have restore stats and life whenever I wanted.
d. Rapid Regeneration -- the only "Heal" spell for a druid. Rather disappointing actually. Healed less than a Healing potion as far as I could tell, and required another cast of Satisfy Hunger too. Used it before pulls sometimes, but it's effect was minimal I think.
e. Herbal Curing - I don't think I ever used it. I think by the time I could cast it at L40, I resisted everything it cured already.

Wild Forces
a. Meteor Swarm -- Great damage spell, not resistable. Mana cost was good. Had to watch it from destroying stuff.
b. Rift -- Didn't use it much, typically don't want to randomly blink stuff around, especially summoners. Didn't do more damage than Meteor Swarm, so was little point to it.
c. Ice Storm - great AoE for when you can use it, nice to clear rooms of weak stuff. But, casting this on a room full dangerous stuff just invites them all to cast and breath on you, so it didn't get much use, since I avoid that sort of exposure.
d. Volcanic Eruption - I don't like earthquake spells, so didn't use it.
e. River of Lightning - 250% the mana cost of Meteor Swarm for not much more damage than Meteor swarm. I didn't end up using it - again, I don't like to be in line of sight with that many bad guys deep in Angband.

**Nozok** · November 1, 2019, 23:38

Originally posted by fph

Nice boots!

Dang right, boots of speed with telepathy made my gearing decisions so much easier and more powerful.

**Diego Gonzalez** · November 2, 2019, 00:40

I agree with you about the spells. Used a lot rift, pukelman and bear forms.

I casted a few tines volcano, river of lightning and eagle form. The first two dont make too much damage.

Congrats!

**Nick** · November 4, 2019, 01:13

Thanks for the thorough review. Here are some of my thoughts on your thoughts about spells:

Confuse, Slow, Sleep - these are meant to be situationally useful, and thematic. May be worth noting that these are all now more likely to work but have lesser effects.
Pukel-Man - from your description that's working exactly as intended
Eagle - main intended use case was nabbing stuff quickly from vaults, don't know how useful it actually is.
Tremor - a matter of taste, mostly meant as a utility to break line of sight when needed.
Rapid Regeneration, Herbal Curing, River of Lightning - these probably need some work.

So, on the whole I'm pretty happy with how this class has gone in its first outing.

**Diego Gonzalez** · November 4, 2019, 01:32

Originally posted by Nick

[*]Confuse, Slow, Sleep - these are meant to be situationally useful, and thematic. May be worth noting that these are all now more likely to work but have lesser effects.

Slow is really useful. I used it with success against high level uniques, like the Tarrasque and others.

I really like druids, a good combination of melee and magic.

**Ed_47569** · November 6, 2019, 22:02

My warriors now always carry a stack of rods of Slow Monster. In 4.2 they seem to work even against the highest unique monsters like Sauron. IIRC in 3.x versions of the game, they didn't work against ANY uniques, or most mid-high level monsters.

**wobbly** · November 7, 2019, 08:59

I played round the merry go round with eagle & fox on the smaller vaults and I remember grabbing a TO wand from the centre of a vault with 1 of them. They are both good kiting forms if you are using devices or a shooter, you have to keep changing (not so bad keymaped) but it doesn't matter if your damage source is not on your SPs.

**dionysian** · November 11, 2019, 23:43

Originally posted by Nick

[*]Eagle - main intended use case was nabbing stuff quickly from vaults, don't know how useful it actually is.

The most fun I had with Eagle was when I got into some major trouble getting stat drained to the point that I was totally ineffective at combat. I teleported into a room full of trolls and a minotaur with no chance of taking them on. The only exit from that room led to certain doom. As I waited for recall to kick in, I flew around the perimeter of the room. The monsters couldn't cope with it and ended up clustered in the center.

**Nick** · November 11, 2019, 23:45

Originally posted by dionysian

The most fun I had with Eagle was when I got into some major trouble getting stat drained to the point that I was totally ineffective at combat. I teleported into a room full of trolls and a minotaur with no chance of taking them on. The only exit from that room led to certain doom. As I waited for recall to kick in, I flew around the perimeter of the room. The monsters couldn't cope with it and ended up clustered in the center.

Right, this is the sort of emergent gameplay I was hoping for. It makes me very happy

**Diego Gonzalez** · November 12, 2019, 01:59

My druid found a pair of boots that granted 2 extra blows. Those boots combined with bear form and a ring of speed made a great melee fighter.

I love how this release use items and spells to improve melee (blackguard comes to my mind...

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4.2 Dunadan Druid Winner and class review

4.2 Dunadan Druid Winner and class review

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