Hello everyone, this build is perfect if you want to spend every minute of the game as an animal and I’ve beaten honor mode with it. You could be a party face if you wanted to, however I prefer to stand back from being the party face so I never have to lose my wild shape charge doing dialogues which sometimes happens. Throughout most of the game you’re item independent but the act 3 items make this a lot more fun.
Race choice reason:
Halflings and gnomes are the best options for this build ’cause their passive works in wild shape (which just a few things do), Halflings passive is absolutely busted so that’s my top 1 choice
Ability points destribution:
I don’t really focus on physicals stats because I don’t plan on being a spellcaster, the build isn’t focused in casting a spell and then going to wild shape during combat. The build is focused in changing to an animal and still having 2 more wild shapes as a backup plan. The mental attributes stay with you in your animal form, that’s why I focused on having them prepared.
Gameplay progression and tips:
Abuse the least used wild shapes, learn how a certain animal can be helpful for a certain fight. I could tell you combat by combat but I want you to have your fun as well.
Use your spell slots whenever you’re not transformed.
-Cast longstrider at the beginning of every day, it will help you and your party a lot
-I normally use all my level 1 spell slots on goodberry, sometimes your bonus action will be free playing as an animal, if I’m not at full health I eat one of those
-Casting ehance leap before transforming if you know a fight is comming will be really useful to get where you want
-Casting Barkskin is really good early game and can protect you from some hits, later cast Stonekin on yourself, it will also reduce a lot of the damage you take but you will most likely lose concentration on both eventually (not to worry, you’re not going to be so attatched to your spell slots)
– If you are actually playing as a Halfling, cast darkvision at the beginning of the day, it’s a quality of life in Act 2
Get alert as soon as possible, most animals will have a terrible initiative and they have no armor, so you’ll lose your wild shape form pretty quickly if you’re not careful. Going first is amazing and some wild shape forms have extremely strong abilities, like the Deep Rothé charge attacks going first can destroy a lot of enemies at once
I guess I don’t need to advocate about getting Tavern Brawler, after patch 8 it will increase your damage and hit chance
There are a lot of options for the last feat, I love mage slayer ’cause it gives you a powerful reaction to use next to mages and I tend to be near mages or archers when playing meele characters
Itens and Elixirs:
So, almost nothing works in wild shape, you’ll have to wait a little bit before getting an item that can actually help you, however let’s talk about them;
You can get the Shapeshifters boon ring early at the grove by killing the strange ox, however that’s very risky, there’s a way to buy it from him, there’s a video on youtube about how to do that but it isn’t simple, just mentioning it.
The reason why I like to use Club of the hill giant strength is just for quality of life, as previously discussed I don’t plan on being in my humanoid form. However I loot a lot and I don’t like to get encumbered when coming back from my bear form, so I take it
Shifting Corpus Ring I use because I can cast displacement before going to a fight and before wildshaping if I know a fight is coming, being able to turn invisible if things turn to shit is quite helpful as well.
Corvid Token is only possible to get on a good playthrough and I absolutely love the item. First, it gives you the raven form for you to abuse for free, and I advise you to use it sometimes, like to fly over surfices (e.g ice) but it also (and that’s the best part) gives you feather fall all the time, no matter what animal you transform into.
Jhannils Gloves is amazing to get out of a bad situation when the situation calls, your character will instantly cast it on himself when you get stunned or paralised
Shield of Shielding adds to the defence layer of your human form, because it gives you the ability to cast shield on yourself.
Gontr Mael is there only because you can cast the haste on yourself beforing transforming and going into a fight and it doesn’t matter if you lose concentration, there are no downsides
If you didn’t kill the ox on the grove try to do it when first reaching Last Light Inn because that ring he gives you is amazing
Last but not least, the Armour of Moonbasking is the best armor for any wild shaping druid. When you wild shape it gives you 22 temporary hit points, and it reduces the damage you take while you have them. If you did cast stoneskin on yourself the damage is cut by 75%, alowing you to use some of the wild shape forms you may wanted to try but didn’t get the chance earlier, like the wolf for example.
I hope you have fun my friends!
