As someone who knows nothing about playing a druid what would you all say is the best subclass for pure support? The group this character is jumping into has a few people with support capabilities (We have a Bard/Paladin, a Bard/Fighter, a Fighter/Celestial Warlock, a Paladin, and our most supportive character is a Forge Domain Cleric) we don't have any real dedicated support
Circle of Dreams comes to mind first, the most healing oriented of the druid subclasses. After that a couple of the Circle of Lands have some good bonus spells for use as support Arctic, Grassland, or Desert.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
It seems like your group should be able to, with the people already in it,
Heal
Buff party members in combat
Debuff enemies in combat
Buff party members out of combat
What are you hoping to do that the party can't already do? If you want more battlefield control (stopping people from moving into certain areas, helping pursue someone who's fleeing, etc) then druids excel at that. If you just want more healing and buffs, druids can do that too. But that party seems to be fine on MOST support instances, assuming anyone is willing to do it (I'M LOOKING AT YOU BARD/PALADIN!)
The most over bloated healing druid has not been mentioned here. The circle of the shepherd. Minions is most peoples take away from them, but they are the distraction, the real medical power is hidden as a side effect. Shepherds summon totems, the totems are a little weird, one you use at the beginning of the day to generate some additional durability, after a short rest you recover the totem summon. Now you switch to unicorn. Its time to prance like horny pony.
For a minute the totem covers a large diameter area, but don't worry you can move it if you need to. Everyone friendly inside the radius is healed when you use casta spell that can heal. So you could cast a level one spell or a level nine spell and the healing remains the same from the totem, and the healing amount is tied to the level of the druid. The end result is a truly ridiculous amount of healing for the party once per short rest, with added minions also being healed.
Any druid gains access to the 2nd level spells spike growth for outdoor crowd control and heat metal to cook metal armoured opponents alive whilst also making them miss. Later more movement control and sight blockers become available. The more effective customisable support comes from Conjured minions. However due to some frankly bizarre 'errata' beast summons can be best described as pot luck. To increase your chances of gaining the right beast for the job, activate the summoning in a location unsuitable for some types. IE on a wall to get only creatures capable of climbing, in the air to gain only those capable of flying. Also on conjure elemental if you are told the elemental conjured is random do point out the material components and summoning location mention which one of four options you need to summon a particular elemental meaning you can be certain you get your pick for them.
In the end I believe the Shepherd is the most supportive of the druids. (sorry dream and land druids) but the choice is yours, a little off the questions topic, I agree with the previous sentiment that your group set up if accurate sounds as though you have enough bases covered to play anything you choose, even if that was a rogue or pure damage dealing spell caster. And remember, moon druids never sleep.
Definitely focus on healing. An issue we come across a lot is, since most of our people are multi classing, we run out of healing magic early in fights. Having someone more dedicated to healing is something we would benefit from greatly. This might sound odd with a cleric on our side, but this cleric focuses a lot more on de-buffing spells
With so much metal (armour) in that group you may have other issues if your needing that much healing, perhaps look into if anyone could throw a darkness spell and you throw fairy fire? that way for two 2nd level spells you have a beautiful night fight where the enemies all have disadvantage to hit and you dont! (providing they fail those pesky saves for fairy fire) 4 melee encounters a day can be solved easily like this with just 2nd level spells reducing healing needed.
If you need to heal something has gone wrong, spending HD after a fracas is the recovery standard. Healing is for patching up the boat to make sure it doesn't sink before it gets back to port. For example at 5th you will have access to nine spells, without Shepherd group horny pony heals thats 9 heals, so if your character is doing next to nothing except being an automated healing wand the chances are it wont be fun and you will still have the underlying 'we bleed rivers' problems that will only get worse as the levels rise and the hit point tallies get larger, the spells granted get fewer and the monsters hit so much harder.
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As someone who knows nothing about playing a druid what would you all say is the best subclass for pure support? The group this character is jumping into has a few people with support capabilities (We have a Bard/Paladin, a Bard/Fighter, a Fighter/Celestial Warlock, a Paladin, and our most supportive character is a Forge Domain Cleric) we don't have any real dedicated support
Circle of Dreams comes to mind first, the most healing oriented of the druid subclasses. After that a couple of the Circle of Lands have some good bonus spells for use as support Arctic, Grassland, or Desert.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Define "support" here?
It seems like your group should be able to, with the people already in it,
What are you hoping to do that the party can't already do? If you want more battlefield control (stopping people from moving into certain areas, helping pursue someone who's fleeing, etc) then druids excel at that. If you just want more healing and buffs, druids can do that too. But that party seems to be fine on MOST support instances, assuming anyone is willing to do it (I'M LOOKING AT YOU BARD/PALADIN!)
The most over bloated healing druid has not been mentioned here. The circle of the shepherd. Minions is most peoples take away from them, but they are the distraction, the real medical power is hidden as a side effect. Shepherds summon totems, the totems are a little weird, one you use at the beginning of the day to generate some additional durability, after a short rest you recover the totem summon. Now you switch to unicorn. Its time to prance like horny pony.
For a minute the totem covers a large diameter area, but don't worry you can move it if you need to. Everyone friendly inside the radius is healed when you use cast a spell that can heal. So you could cast a level one spell or a level nine spell and the healing remains the same from the totem, and the healing amount is tied to the level of the druid. The end result is a truly ridiculous amount of healing for the party once per short rest, with added minions also being healed.
Any druid gains access to the 2nd level spells spike growth for outdoor crowd control and heat metal to cook metal armoured opponents alive whilst also making them miss. Later more movement control and sight blockers become available. The more effective customisable support comes from Conjured minions. However due to some frankly bizarre 'errata' beast summons can be best described as pot luck. To increase your chances of gaining the right beast for the job, activate the summoning in a location unsuitable for some types. IE on a wall to get only creatures capable of climbing, in the air to gain only those capable of flying. Also on conjure elemental if you are told the elemental conjured is random do point out the material components and summoning location mention which one of four options you need to summon a particular elemental meaning you can be certain you get your pick for them.
In the end I believe the Shepherd is the most supportive of the druids. (sorry dream and land druids) but the choice is yours, a little off the questions topic, I agree with the previous sentiment that your group set up if accurate sounds as though you have enough bases covered to play anything you choose, even if that was a rogue or pure damage dealing spell caster. And remember, moon druids never sleep.
Definitely focus on healing. An issue we come across a lot is, since most of our people are multi classing, we run out of healing magic early in fights. Having someone more dedicated to healing is something we would benefit from greatly. This might sound odd with a cleric on our side, but this cleric focuses a lot more on de-buffing spells
With so much metal (armour) in that group you may have other issues if your needing that much healing, perhaps look into if anyone could throw a darkness spell and you throw fairy fire? that way for two 2nd level spells you have a beautiful night fight where the enemies all have disadvantage to hit and you dont! (providing they fail those pesky saves for fairy fire) 4 melee encounters a day can be solved easily like this with just 2nd level spells reducing healing needed.
If you need to heal something has gone wrong, spending HD after a fracas is the recovery standard. Healing is for patching up the boat to make sure it doesn't sink before it gets back to port. For example at 5th you will have access to nine spells, without Shepherd group horny pony heals thats 9 heals, so if your character is doing next to nothing except being an automated healing wand the chances are it wont be fun and you will still have the underlying 'we bleed rivers' problems that will only get worse as the levels rise and the hit point tallies get larger, the spells granted get fewer and the monsters hit so much harder.