So, I always wanted to make a Druid kind of character that uses wolves, vines and calls storms to kill enemies. That means either Squall or Lightning Bolt and Briar Ward for vines.
Some problems:
Briar ward has low health and takes too long to recast(maybe useful with Refresh). Lightning Bolt has good damage but doesn’t debuff. Squall has good debuffs but draws insane aggro…
Another problem is that I know I will run into some issues in Ultimate, by splitting my stats between Pets and myself, specially if I choose to use lightning bolt.
I’m also having a lot of trouble keeping my wolves alive against Aether/Chaos/Vitality damage types(18s CD also doesn’t help). Heart of the Oak aura helps with elemental resistance, but it seems that the only way to protect them against other damage types is by investing heavily into pet resistance devotions.
I was thinking about maxing Squall entire spell line and spend the rest in Wolves + HoTO + Briar Ward + Refresh, but using Squall is like putting a target on my back, and I’m very skeptical about BW viability in tough fights.
I just want the wolves to be alive enough to deal sustained DPS while I cast some storms. No need to have uber pet dmg, just viability.
My skills atm are:
Call of the Wild - 16/16 -Maul - 1/12 -Survival Instinct 1/12
Heart of the Oak - 6/12 -Permanence of Stone 1/10
Squall 6/12 - Hail 2/10
Lightning Bolt 10/16
Ummm, I guess you don’t have v68 because you don’t own FG?
I’m not sure many people play v63 anymore.
Anyway, will try my best to answer… but v63 was a while ago so I’m not sure how accurate this info will be…
The easiest way to improve your wolf survivability is pretty much what you’ve done already afaik, maxing the base skill + heart of the oak should provide a significant health increase, permanence of stone is a great help too. Don’t overlook the utility of Survival instinct though, it gives a pretty decent damage reduction buff to the wolves when they hit 50% HP, at higher ranks you can reach over 50% damage reduction. Assuming they aren’t being one shot, it should help them survive a little longer and provide a bit of damage for them for the duration. (Up to 175% damage)
The kodama is a healing tool, it might help the wolves survive. Like I said above, not sure what v63 has anymore but the kodama should definitely be able to heal you at the very least, it should also have a health regeneration aura, this could help offset a bit of the damage the wolves take.
For debuffs you can also consider using plague - susceptibility, it will help your squall and lightning bolt damage by reducing elemental resists. Fatigue will help reduce the damage dealt by enemies affected by plague which in turn can reduce the damage taken by you and your wolves.
If you have discord you can join the official Grim Dawn discord and chat with other players in mod-discussion, there’s probably someone there who can point you in the right direction. I know @Mood has a bit of experience with nature and storm.
I plan to max Survival Instinct for the wolves,
I thought about using Plague or Kodama but there simply aren’t enough points. Plague seems redundant because Squall already reduces Elem. resist and DMG from mobs.
Squall would be perfect if it didn’t draw every single enemy to me. I could replace Squall with Plague and hope it draws less aggro, but Plague doesn’t reduce enemy’s Def ability.
Kodama seems good but it is a heavy 16 point investment and I’m afraid it will die fast to any AOE that isn’t elemental. I’ll try it anyway.
And it’s probably a bug, but I can’t control my wolves with ctrl key or see their HP bars…
It’s nice to know about the discord chat, hope I can fix my mic and jump on it.
I’m going to guess that it will be difficult to make wolves viable in end-game due to the hp pools/damage of mobs in ultimate combined with you not having tons of pet bonuses. Also wolves aren’t super tanky, even with “survival instinct” maxed you will still need %hp stat (and resistances) added to pets so that they don’t get killed quickly. “Sanctuary” (Briar Ward) also scales with pet bonuses, so I don’t think it will be very useful without you stacking those bonuses.
I’m not sure if you’re playing a tanky build or not, if not then plague is the better choice against bosses since it stays with them. Squall on the other hand requires you to make sure the boss stands within it when you’re bursting.
I can give you more advice on discord if you want. I’ve played a Stormcaller to level 100 using storm/shaman, one Plaguelord to 100 using nature/witchdoctor and one Woad Warrior to 100 using nature/shaman.