It's possible that they didn't consider the Minute Meteors simply because they might have felt it necessary to reprint the spell, and they only had so many pages they could fit in content. I'd like to say that spellcasting subclasses tend to use spells from the Player's Handbook, but that is based on an assumption that the supplement featuring the subclasses don't also have extra spells. It wouldn't be unfair to say that limiting bonus spells to content from the PHB simplifies early playtest builds.
But we don't have the Minute Meteors or Fireball. So I'll content myself with getting a Staff of Fire to cast Fireball. I'll work with having an increase to Flaming Sphere and Flame Blade. And I'll console myself with having access to a fiery teleport via the Wildfire Spirit. I'm not too fussed.
So bit of a different question: Is there a way to get a copy of the Wild Fire Spirit stat block in your extras for summons? related same thing for the Summon X spells from Tasha's.
I would be more onboard with Melf's Minute Meteors than Fireball. The Druid spell list has always been heavy on concentration spells rather than insta-kill ones. MMM is the fire version of Call Lighting, so it fits well with the general legacy of Druid spells. And it's actually better in that it only takes a BA to proc every turn instead of a regular Action.
It's really sad, that all people think that wildfire was nerfed. The opposite is the case: it was buffed, massevly!
Your spirit can now use Fiery Teleportation at will. With your bonus action, you can teleport the whole party 15 feet and damage surrounding enemies. That's so strong. You can position the entire party in a new arrangement, the party doesn't need to be in the same formation when they were teleported. This is one of the strongest features ever!
I know right!? I don't understand why people don't see that! And outside of combat? That is so good!
A) It gives you "infinity" party teleport out of combat, this could help you in so many ways... -Getting out of prison? Easy! -Is the castle door locked? Doesn't matter, I can look through the key hole or under it and teleport us to the other side. -Athletics or Acrobatics to pass some small distance obstacle? Nope!
B) As a "bonus action turret" it does damage similar to the Polearm Master and Spiritual Weapon which are already good considering the "duration" of 1-hour (2x) for SHORT rest.
C) If you are fighting creatures that does not have range capability you can always get close and AoE then all by teleporting up(since it can fly) to a place they can't reach. And doing so, you have the stronger damage from a bônus action you can get, I mean, on a perfect scenario you can hit up to 9 creatures, although realistically you will be hitting 2 or 3 enemies most of the times. Which is still by far the stronger damage anyone can get for on a "bonus action", "resource free", "non-concentration spell". PS: It's good to keep in mind that you can do that against range enemies too, but you probably does not wan't to pull there aggro to you by dealing a bunch of damage.
As a new person to DnD I find these forums a lot of the time a treasure trove of information. It rather saddened me this morning reading through these 4 pages trying to figure out what sub-class to go for my druid to realize this whole post could have been 2 posts w/the rest just whining over spilt milk about the whole fireball/fire bolt. Thanks @Tenawa and @TiradentesZ for adding a lot of cool ideas/information.
All the bonus spells are found in the PHB, if not the Basic Rules, to cut down on the number of books needed to play the class. This design philosophy is consistent with the PH + 1 rule for DDAL. Regardless of how thematic you might think Melf's minute meteors to be, and I don't think it is, it wasn't going to happen.
I always felt the Circle of Wildfire suffered from a bit of an identity crisis. You can wade right into melee with fire shield and flame blade, and flaming sphere doesn't have much reach. But it was also really "blast" with spells like fire bolt and fireball. And it still retains some of that with [/spell]flame strike[/spell], but now it doesn't lean too hard in that direction. As it stands now, it feels like a switch-hitter. It's comfortable hanging back, as most full-casters are, but it doesn't lean so heavily in that direction that it discourages getting up close.
Yeah, it's a little weird that they get two 1st-level spells, instead of a Cantrip, at 2nd-level, like most other caster subclasses do. Circle of the Land gets a druid cantrip of their choice. Circle of Spores get's chill touch. (Speaking of them, they got an update, too. Their bonus poison damage from Halo of Spores was changed to necrotic.) If I felt inclined to adjust the spell list, I'd probably run a hybrid of the UA and release version. But it's definitely solid, as is, it certainly isn't unplayable. I think I actually like it a little more, now.
I have a question, both text of the Stell Defender and the Primal Companion there is a reason that the "pet" moves and has reactions, while such a quote in the Summon Wildfire Spirit does not exist. Was this a failure or was it intentional to avoid a combo?
Ps .: Sorry for my rotten English.
I really did not like the published version of Wildfire Druid.
Fire is such a bad damage type to focus on, if the Wildfire Druid wants to stick to their fiery identity they need to invest in the elemental adept feat in order to bypass resistance. While other druids can get other helpful feats, wildfire druids need to grab a feat that they can barely utilize, seeing as there are only a handful of fire spells for them to use.
Druids barely have any good fire spells that they will use consistently. Heat metal and flaming sphere are basically all there is, with the burning hands and scorching rays being somewhat poor choices for druids to use. I really would rather cast anything but burning hands because it requires me to be in melee range (even if I could go forward to use burning hands than have my wildfire spirit teleport me out, it's not safe). And moonbeam is just so much better than scorching ray. With that said, this means the feature that increases fire damage is obsolete; and increased healing is not useful for a supposedly offensively oriented druid. Plus, dream druid and star druid can do better in the healing department, they also get access to heal boosting features much earlier. Lastly, Heat Metal and Flaming Sphere uses your bonus action. What does commanding the wildfire spirit require? A bonus action. Which am I going to use? The spells ofc! Not that I'm ever going to use flaming sphere (and opportunities to bust out heat metal is such a rarity in wilderness campaigns anyway, which is why you are playing a druid in the first place!) even if moonbeam's CON save is technically worse than the flaming sphere's dex save, 2d10 radiant is less likely to be resisted than fire and has higher average damage than 2d6, I'm never going to upcast flaming sphere when I can just call lightning, besides.
The wildfire spirit's damage is absolutely trash. Fire seed does 1d6 + PBfire damage, this translates into 1d6 + 2~6. Admit it, using a bonus action to get a 1d6+3 at lv5 is already weak as weak can get; What the heck is 1d6+6 even gonna do during lv20 settings? It's also most definitely going to be resisted so the damage is halved, what the hell WotC, 3~6 fire damage at max level for a bonus action? The wildfire spirit also does not benefit from your elemental adept feat to bypass resistance. The wildfire spirit is basically a glorified tinder igniter.
Teleportation is nice but really not what I think is important. While it's true it is a get out of jail free card and can no sale challenging terrains or long jumps, the whole point of having a wildfire spirit that uses your bonus action is to increase your combat power. Which, this doesn't do at all. This allows convenient repositioning during combat, but as the battles get more difficult, this also means enemies are much faster which higher speed and/or special methods of movement like teleporting. The spirit teleporting 15 ft away prevents opportunity attacks if they take your teammates for a ride, yes, but what is a single hit of opportunity attack compared to the five hits multi attack they can do each turn, anyway? Even if someone might get hit by opportunity attacks, they would rather just dash to get out of range entirely than to risk the enemy catching up that 30ft of regular walking distance. Not to mention ranged attacks from enemies which ignores all of this entirely.
The wildfire spirit is also beyond squishy. It is stuck with 13 AC from lv1 all the way to lv20. THIRTEEN ARMOR. Even a wizard will eventually get higher natural armor than this as time goes on and that's saying something! 15HP ~ 105 HP are all pitiful numbers of health, coupled with that abysmal armor class the wildfire spirit is dead if an enemy from a difficult battle sneezes on them. This is low level wizard's level of fragility, I really don't think having a teleport to keep their distance in battle justifies this squishiness at all. Yes, maybe having the wildfire spirit die instead of having a teammate die is totally a good trade, but conjure animals can do so much better than this. Others have already mentioned the lack of bonus to saving throws, so allow me to remind you all that its stat is permanently stuck at 10,14,14,13,15,11 ; +0 +2 +2 +1 +2 +0 does not save them from AoE effects.
(With that in mind, while it's potentially amusing to teleport a bunch of animals or elementals right into the enemy's face, and the 15 ft teleport with9 passengers as the upper limit can allow your summons to blitz into all kinds of position, this is once again not what the wildfire druid's focus is supposed to be. Shepherd druid is what you're looking for if you want to focus on summons.)
Casting spells from the Wildfire spirit's position is also extremely awkward. The wildfire is beyond squishy, they are unlikely to last more than one turn when in close combat for you to use any meaningful spells that have limited range. Your usual repertoire of druidic spells also happen to have really decent range, with 90 ft the general distance and 120 or even 150 to many useful spells, extending that range doesn't achieve anything meaningful.
And lastly, Tasha gave all the druid's the ability to expend a wild shape to summon a familiar with temporary duration. You need to reach lv6 before the wildfire spirit can carry any of your spells for you, why not just use a familiar during low levels from the get-go? While it's true that during low levels there aren't many touch spells to be delivered, an owl wouldn't even need to eat up your bonus action to perform the help action.
I am fine with how the wildfire druid plays out, limitations are just limitations that I have been able to work with/around.
But for a spell that does take into the spirit of wildfire, it would be the other 3rd level spell lightning. That's how wildfires start in the wilderness, barring careless campers and gender reveal parties.
I just started playing a Wildfire Druid in Tomb of Annihilation. Flavored it as a genasi whose soul is host to an all-consuming flame. Burns one thing for it to become another.
The subclass has let me pull off some unique stuff!
The party was surrounded by firenewts. They were swarmed on me and the barbarian. To maximize AOE I cast ice knife at myself from the spirit through water wall, which missed me (high AC + disadvantage) yet the AOE hurt every newt around me and froze part of the wall, giving me a shield.
The spirit's teleport comes in handy for leading enemies around the battlefield, away from the party. It's easy to slip out of their grasp and teleport allies away (or towards!).
Enhanced Bond Synergizes incredibly well with the Moon Sickle (almost like they're made for each other!).
Some issues:
- spirit has no melee attack which means no opportunity attack! Feels like an oversight.
- it goes after your turn which makes many of its features harder to use, especially the range spells through the Enhanced Bond. It would be nice to be able to teleport then run and cast a spell but perhaps they thought that was OP.
- no fire resistance/immunity for the subclass centered around fire
Overall it feels powerful but rather rough in certain areas.
that's one thing overlooked sometimes abuot it's teleport function. it is a way to shut off enemy AoO's triggered by any circumstance safely. Which is something that tends to be forgotten or overlooked when it's being complained about. And it's one of the only ones that works on your allies and not just yourself as well as being heavily repeatable.
It's really sad, that all people think that wildfire was nerfed. The opposite is the case: it was buffed, massevly!
Your spirit can now use Fiery Teleportation at will. With your bonus action, you can teleport the whole party 15 feet and damage surrounding enemies. That's so strong. You can position the entire party in a new arrangement, the party doesn't need to be in the same formation when they were teleported. This is one of the strongest features ever!
I know right!? I don't understand why people don't see that! And outside of combat? That is so good!
A) It gives you "infinity" party teleport out of combat, this could help you in so many ways... -Getting out of prison? Easy! -Is the castle door locked? Doesn't matter, I can look through the key hole or under it and teleport us to the other side. -Athletics or Acrobatics to pass some small distance obstacle? Nope!
B) As a "bonus action turret" it does damage similar to the Polearm Master and Spiritual Weapon which are already good considering the "duration" of 1-hour (2x) for SHORT rest.
C) If you are fighting creatures that does not have range capability you can always get close and AoE then all by teleporting up(since it can fly) to a place they can't reach. And doing so, you have the stronger damage from a bônus action you can get, I mean, on a perfect scenario you can hit up to 9 creatures, although realistically you will be hitting 2 or 3 enemies most of the times. Which is still by far the stronger damage anyone can get for on a "bonus action", "resource free", "non-concentration spell". PS: It's good to keep in mind that you can do that against range enemies too, but you probably does not wan't to pull there aggro to you by dealing a bunch of damage.
I feel you. I think the wildfire spirit is THE most underrated feature in Tasha! And even in this thread a lot of people don't understand its potency.
False argument a) The Wildfire spirit deals low damage.
As you stated, it's nearly on par with Spiritual Weapon. And that's only for the ranged attack. Fiery Teleportation deals AOE damage. Just think about a cantrip that deals 1d6+prof damage in a 10 ft. radius - that alone would be an ok or good cantrip. Now add the teleport to that. That would be the best cantrip. And now add the bonus action cast on top of that...
False argument b) The Wildfire spirit has low HP and low AC.
Ok, that's not false per se... BUT: so what? Let enemies attack it. Better the spirit than the druid! And you can summon it 2x/short rest... with a spell like effect that deals AOE damage. And btw: That spirit can fly... so most of the time only ranged attacks can damage it! Between fly and teleport once per round, it's not so easily killed as people think it is.
False argument c) The teleport is good in non combat situations, but in combat it's just ok or nice, but not really great.rie
Ok, if you think this is true, perhaps we play a different kind of dnd...
To conclude: The wildfire spirit is like an at will cantrip with AOE damage, with a build-in shorter range but group (!) misty step, that you can use nearly all day long!
Why would not everybody understand how strong this feature is!
And the best part of it? You get the spirit on level 2! Perhaps the best build out of Tasha is a Twilight Cleric X/Wildfire Druid 2 build. Your wildfire spirit loses HP, but this is totally compensated through the temp HP from Twilight Sanctuary - this is the best support/control (with nice dmg) build I can think of right now!
Wildfire druid is to druid what purple dragon knight is to fighter. Total garbage. Anything that uses your core classes resources to introduce a sub par ability that doesn't even scale is what we in the business like to call Trash with a capital T. You get the privilege of wasting your first action in combat to summon an elemental that does 1d6 damage throughout it's entire 1-20 career so it can largely be ignored by anyone with a brain. In melee this thing impressively pews a tepid commonly resistible 1d6 luke warm turd AT DISADVANTAGE once per round. Oh but look forward to lvl 10 boys! You get a 2d10 single 5ft space telegraphed mine! I would rather go any other subclass and just summon flaming sphere, which will scale with upcasting and also doesn't have a ******* health pool. Either that or I'd rather spend my first action summoning up a multitude of ACTUAL elementals to do something useful, or become the spirit yourself with a ton more versatility, health and damage via moon druid. You gotta be juggling with the circus to be saying the at will teleport is useful enough to make up for what you lose; it's a gimmick. Let's be real here, there are spells, skills and keys that can perform the same function without investing an entire subclass for a dedicated group misty step. And don't bring up multiclassing like as if duct taping a failed subclass is going to patch it up.
If they included auto resistance bypass into the subclass and scaled the bonus attack as a cantrip would then I wouldn't care.
eh. The teleport is really powerful, but not what I really want out of playing a wildfire druid. I would rather have the teleport be limited (perhaps longer distance) to once per summon but have it actually be a potent damage dealer at higher levels.
Losing firebolt was a big loss unless your DM lets you treat produce flame as having a 30 ft range instead of self (assuming you throw it immediately). They give you this awesome feature to cast your spells from your wildfire spirit... and then don't let you do it with the two most appropriate spells you could use (produce flame, burning hands) because they are range: self. Oh, but you can cast scorching ray from it. For those times when 120 ft range is not enough. If I could only fly my spirit above a group of enemies and have it cast burning hands down upon them, I would be 10x more interested in playing this subclass.
@Zoltan I am current playing the class and loving it. But I admit that my DM letting me hurl the flame of produce flame thought the WFS is a big part of the enjoyment. (I never asked about the burning hand).
I mean, it feels like a design mistake, they "swapped" the spells but didn't took into account that the natural replacement are all self. I wish they address to that matter, so everyone can have the same experience as I do.
Currently, all comes down to what you expect from the class. If you are looking for a blaster, WF druid are not for you(Well, maybe he still is at lower levels, but that pass quickly). He's basically a PowerCreep land druid... He does a little more damage, a little more heal and have a little more versatility. Since land druids are already ok (On power level) the WF Druid is pretty Powerfull.
If you ask me, he is toe to toe with Shepard, losing only to Moon (Because of the absurd early and late game of the class). But since most adventures take place on the average levels of D&D, I am Inclined to say that with WF and SHEP you will have you best experience on a power level point of view. {I won't go to deep explaining this since Tenawa did it very well few comments above}. I would just add that: Do not fear fire resistance/Immunity because you still a full functional Druid, you still can cast other spells (even from you WF if u wan't to). You will be only not gaining the extra d8. So yeah, of course you loose potencial on those fights but you can still play your part on this type of situation.
So Guys, do not get discourage from playing this class because of comments like Zanzobox's, he's just hating or is oblivious to D&D mechanic. He even compared the WFS damage to a concentration spell, which is likely the most importante resource for a druid in combat, instead of comparing to things that actually make sense like Polearm Master and Spiritual Weapon.
Well if you to want some extra ideas/point of view there are some good videos on ytbe talking about the class. I suggest Treantmonk's Temple video...
Yea, I agree with your assessment. I still like Land Druid because of Natural Recovery. Being able to do the most impactful thing you can do more often (i.e. cast your highest level spells) is huge. But their higher level features are lackluster, so over time the Wildfire druid becomes better.
I wish Tasha's would have given Land druids an optional feature to swap their circle spell list to another type of land after you have spent a week of downtime in that environment.
Wildfire druid is to druid what purple dragon knight is to fighter. Total garbage. Anything that uses your core classes resources to introduce a sub par ability that doesn't even scale is what we in the business like to call Trash with a capital T. You get the privilege of wasting your first action in combat to summon an elemental that does 1d6 damage throughout it's entire 1-20 career so it can largely be ignored by anyone with a brain.
2d6 on summon (Dex save), then 1d6+PB with SAM to hit assuming you use your bonus action, and it's on a 2-20 career, so you're just incorrect. When you first get it, it's 2d6 damage with save DC usually 13, then 1d6+2 damage, usually +5 to hit. At level 17, it's 2d6 damage vs DC 19, then +11 to hit, 1d6+6 damage.
In melee this thing impressively pews a tepid commonly resistible 1d6 luke warm turd AT DISADVANTAGE once per round.
In melee it can teleport for damage.
Oh but look forward to lvl 10 boys! You get a 2d10 single 5ft space telegraphed mine!
The mine's primary purpose is healing.
I'm not trying to defend Wildfire Druid here, but your post was full of misinformation.
Indeed. Also, with it lasting for a full hour, you can very reliably use it before combat starts. If not, then you may not want to open with it and instead cast a concentration spell. Unless you need the teleport.
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It's possible that they didn't consider the Minute Meteors simply because they might have felt it necessary to reprint the spell, and they only had so many pages they could fit in content. I'd like to say that spellcasting subclasses tend to use spells from the Player's Handbook, but that is based on an assumption that the supplement featuring the subclasses don't also have extra spells. It wouldn't be unfair to say that limiting bonus spells to content from the PHB simplifies early playtest builds.
But we don't have the Minute Meteors or Fireball. So I'll content myself with getting a Staff of Fire to cast Fireball. I'll work with having an increase to Flaming Sphere and Flame Blade. And I'll console myself with having access to a fiery teleport via the Wildfire Spirit. I'm not too fussed.
So bit of a different question: Is there a way to get a copy of the Wild Fire Spirit stat block in your extras for summons? related same thing for the Summon X spells from Tasha's.
I would be more onboard with Melf's Minute Meteors than Fireball. The Druid spell list has always been heavy on concentration spells rather than insta-kill ones. MMM is the fire version of Call Lighting, so it fits well with the general legacy of Druid spells. And it's actually better in that it only takes a BA to proc every turn instead of a regular Action.
I think wildfire should get fire resistance. If your harnessing fire you should at least have some kind of defence against it.
I know right!? I don't understand why people don't see that! And outside of combat? That is so good!
A) It gives you "infinity" party teleport out of combat, this could help you in so many ways...
-Getting out of prison? Easy!
-Is the castle door locked? Doesn't matter, I can look through the key hole or under it and teleport us to the other side.
-Athletics or Acrobatics to pass some small distance obstacle? Nope!
B) As a "bonus action turret" it does damage similar to the Polearm Master and Spiritual Weapon which are already good considering the "duration" of 1-hour (2x) for SHORT rest.
C) If you are fighting creatures that does not have range capability you can always get close and AoE then all by teleporting up(since it can fly) to a place they can't reach. And doing so, you have the stronger damage from a bônus action you can get, I mean, on a perfect scenario you can hit up to 9 creatures, although realistically you will be hitting 2 or 3 enemies most of the times. Which is still by far the stronger damage anyone can get for on a "bonus action", "resource free", "non-concentration spell".
PS: It's good to keep in mind that you can do that against range enemies too, but you probably does not wan't to pull there aggro to you by dealing a bunch of damage.
As a new person to DnD I find these forums a lot of the time a treasure trove of information. It rather saddened me this morning reading through these 4 pages trying to figure out what sub-class to go for my druid to realize this whole post could have been 2 posts w/the rest just whining over spilt milk about the whole fireball/fire bolt. Thanks @Tenawa and @TiradentesZ for adding a lot of cool ideas/information.
All the bonus spells are found in the PHB, if not the Basic Rules, to cut down on the number of books needed to play the class. This design philosophy is consistent with the PH + 1 rule for DDAL. Regardless of how thematic you might think Melf's minute meteors to be, and I don't think it is, it wasn't going to happen.
I always felt the Circle of Wildfire suffered from a bit of an identity crisis. You can wade right into melee with fire shield and flame blade, and flaming sphere doesn't have much reach. But it was also really "blast" with spells like fire bolt and fireball. And it still retains some of that with [/spell]flame strike[/spell], but now it doesn't lean too hard in that direction. As it stands now, it feels like a switch-hitter. It's comfortable hanging back, as most full-casters are, but it doesn't lean so heavily in that direction that it discourages getting up close.
Yeah, it's a little weird that they get two 1st-level spells, instead of a Cantrip, at 2nd-level, like most other caster subclasses do. Circle of the Land gets a druid cantrip of their choice. Circle of Spores get's chill touch. (Speaking of them, they got an update, too. Their bonus poison damage from Halo of Spores was changed to necrotic.) If I felt inclined to adjust the spell list, I'd probably run a hybrid of the UA and release version. But it's definitely solid, as is, it certainly isn't unplayable. I think I actually like it a little more, now.
I have a question, both text of the Stell Defender and the Primal Companion there is a reason that the "pet" moves and has reactions, while such a quote in the Summon Wildfire Spirit does not exist. Was this a failure or was it intentional to avoid a combo? Ps .: Sorry for my rotten English.
I think it is a really cool idea, but not the best features.
I really did not like the published version of Wildfire Druid.
Fire is such a bad damage type to focus on, if the Wildfire Druid wants to stick to their fiery identity they need to invest in the elemental adept feat in order to bypass resistance. While other druids can get other helpful feats, wildfire druids need to grab a feat that they can barely utilize, seeing as there are only a handful of fire spells for them to use.
Druids barely have any good fire spells that they will use consistently. Heat metal and flaming sphere are basically all there is, with the burning hands and scorching rays being somewhat poor choices for druids to use. I really would rather cast anything but burning hands because it requires me to be in melee range (even if I could go forward to use burning hands than have my wildfire spirit teleport me out, it's not safe). And moonbeam is just so much better than scorching ray. With that said, this means the feature that increases fire damage is obsolete; and increased healing is not useful for a supposedly offensively oriented druid. Plus, dream druid and star druid can do better in the healing department, they also get access to heal boosting features much earlier. Lastly, Heat Metal and Flaming Sphere uses your bonus action. What does commanding the wildfire spirit require? A bonus action. Which am I going to use? The spells ofc! Not that I'm ever going to use flaming sphere (and opportunities to bust out heat metal is such a rarity in wilderness campaigns anyway, which is why you are playing a druid in the first place!) even if moonbeam's CON save is technically worse than the flaming sphere's dex save, 2d10 radiant is less likely to be resisted than fire and has higher average damage than 2d6, I'm never going to upcast flaming sphere when I can just call lightning, besides.
The wildfire spirit's damage is absolutely trash. Fire seed does 1d6 + PB fire damage, this translates into 1d6 + 2~6. Admit it, using a bonus action to get a 1d6+3 at lv5 is already weak as weak can get; What the heck is 1d6+6 even gonna do during lv20 settings? It's also most definitely going to be resisted so the damage is halved, what the hell WotC, 3~6 fire damage at max level for a bonus action? The wildfire spirit also does not benefit from your elemental adept feat to bypass resistance. The wildfire spirit is basically a glorified tinder igniter.
Teleportation is nice but really not what I think is important. While it's true it is a get out of jail free card and can no sale challenging terrains or long jumps, the whole point of having a wildfire spirit that uses your bonus action is to increase your combat power. Which, this doesn't do at all. This allows convenient repositioning during combat, but as the battles get more difficult, this also means enemies are much faster which higher speed and/or special methods of movement like teleporting. The spirit teleporting 15 ft away prevents opportunity attacks if they take your teammates for a ride, yes, but what is a single hit of opportunity attack compared to the five hits multi attack they can do each turn, anyway? Even if someone might get hit by opportunity attacks, they would rather just dash to get out of range entirely than to risk the enemy catching up that 30ft of regular walking distance. Not to mention ranged attacks from enemies which ignores all of this entirely.
The wildfire spirit is also beyond squishy. It is stuck with 13 AC from lv1 all the way to lv20. THIRTEEN ARMOR. Even a wizard will eventually get higher natural armor than this as time goes on and that's saying something! 15HP ~ 105 HP are all pitiful numbers of health, coupled with that abysmal armor class the wildfire spirit is dead if an enemy from a difficult battle sneezes on them. This is low level wizard's level of fragility, I really don't think having a teleport to keep their distance in battle justifies this squishiness at all. Yes, maybe having the wildfire spirit die instead of having a teammate die is totally a good trade, but conjure animals can do so much better than this. Others have already mentioned the lack of bonus to saving throws, so allow me to remind you all that its stat is permanently stuck at 10,14,14,13,15,11 ; +0 +2 +2 +1 +2 +0 does not save them from AoE effects.
(With that in mind, while it's potentially amusing to teleport a bunch of animals or elementals right into the enemy's face, and the 15 ft teleport with9 passengers as the upper limit can allow your summons to blitz into all kinds of position, this is once again not what the wildfire druid's focus is supposed to be. Shepherd druid is what you're looking for if you want to focus on summons.)
Casting spells from the Wildfire spirit's position is also extremely awkward. The wildfire is beyond squishy, they are unlikely to last more than one turn when in close combat for you to use any meaningful spells that have limited range. Your usual repertoire of druidic spells also happen to have really decent range, with 90 ft the general distance and 120 or even 150 to many useful spells, extending that range doesn't achieve anything meaningful.
And lastly, Tasha gave all the druid's the ability to expend a wild shape to summon a familiar with temporary duration. You need to reach lv6 before the wildfire spirit can carry any of your spells for you, why not just use a familiar during low levels from the get-go? While it's true that during low levels there aren't many touch spells to be delivered, an owl wouldn't even need to eat up your bonus action to perform the help action.
I am fine with how the wildfire druid plays out, limitations are just limitations that I have been able to work with/around.
But for a spell that does take into the spirit of wildfire, it would be the other 3rd level spell lightning. That's how wildfires start in the wilderness, barring careless campers and gender reveal parties.
I just started playing a Wildfire Druid in Tomb of Annihilation.
Flavored it as a genasi whose soul is host to an all-consuming flame. Burns one thing for it to become another.
The subclass has let me pull off some unique stuff!
The party was surrounded by firenewts. They were swarmed on me and the barbarian.
To maximize AOE I cast ice knife at myself from the spirit through water wall, which missed me (high AC + disadvantage) yet the AOE hurt every newt around me and froze part of the wall, giving me a shield.
The spirit's teleport comes in handy for leading enemies around the battlefield, away from the party.
It's easy to slip out of their grasp and teleport allies away (or towards!).
Enhanced Bond Synergizes incredibly well with the Moon Sickle (almost like they're made for each other!).
Some issues:
- spirit has no melee attack which means no opportunity attack! Feels like an oversight.
- it goes after your turn which makes many of its features harder to use, especially the range spells through the Enhanced Bond. It would be nice to be able to teleport then run and cast a spell but perhaps they thought that was OP.
- no fire resistance/immunity for the subclass centered around fire
Overall it feels powerful but rather rough in certain areas.
that's one thing overlooked sometimes abuot it's teleport function. it is a way to shut off enemy AoO's triggered by any circumstance safely. Which is something that tends to be forgotten or overlooked when it's being complained about. And it's one of the only ones that works on your allies and not just yourself as well as being heavily repeatable.
I feel you. I think the wildfire spirit is THE most underrated feature in Tasha! And even in this thread a lot of people don't understand its potency.
False argument a) The Wildfire spirit deals low damage.
As you stated, it's nearly on par with Spiritual Weapon. And that's only for the ranged attack. Fiery Teleportation deals AOE damage. Just think about a cantrip that deals 1d6+prof damage in a 10 ft. radius - that alone would be an ok or good cantrip. Now add the teleport to that. That would be the best cantrip. And now add the bonus action cast on top of that...
False argument b) The Wildfire spirit has low HP and low AC.
Ok, that's not false per se... BUT: so what? Let enemies attack it. Better the spirit than the druid! And you can summon it 2x/short rest... with a spell like effect that deals AOE damage. And btw: That spirit can fly... so most of the time only ranged attacks can damage it! Between fly and teleport once per round, it's not so easily killed as people think it is.
False argument c) The teleport is good in non combat situations, but in combat it's just ok or nice, but not really great.rie
Ok, if you think this is true, perhaps we play a different kind of dnd...
To conclude: The wildfire spirit is like an at will cantrip with AOE damage, with a build-in shorter range but group (!) misty step, that you can use nearly all day long!
Why would not everybody understand how strong this feature is!
And the best part of it? You get the spirit on level 2! Perhaps the best build out of Tasha is a Twilight Cleric X/Wildfire Druid 2 build. Your wildfire spirit loses HP, but this is totally compensated through the temp HP from Twilight Sanctuary - this is the best support/control (with nice dmg) build I can think of right now!
Wildfire druid is to druid what purple dragon knight is to fighter. Total garbage. Anything that uses your core classes resources to introduce a sub par ability that doesn't even scale is what we in the business like to call Trash with a capital T. You get the privilege of wasting your first action in combat to summon an elemental that does 1d6 damage throughout it's entire 1-20 career so it can largely be ignored by anyone with a brain. In melee this thing impressively pews a tepid commonly resistible 1d6 luke warm turd AT DISADVANTAGE once per round. Oh but look forward to lvl 10 boys! You get a 2d10 single 5ft space telegraphed mine! I would rather go any other subclass and just summon flaming sphere, which will scale with upcasting and also doesn't have a ******* health pool. Either that or I'd rather spend my first action summoning up a multitude of ACTUAL elementals to do something useful, or become the spirit yourself with a ton more versatility, health and damage via moon druid. You gotta be juggling with the circus to be saying the at will teleport is useful enough to make up for what you lose; it's a gimmick. Let's be real here, there are spells, skills and keys that can perform the same function without investing an entire subclass for a dedicated group misty step. And don't bring up multiclassing like as if duct taping a failed subclass is going to patch it up.
If they included auto resistance bypass into the subclass and scaled the bonus attack as a cantrip would then I wouldn't care.
dnd should be free
eh. The teleport is really powerful, but not what I really want out of playing a wildfire druid. I would rather have the teleport be limited (perhaps longer distance) to once per summon but have it actually be a potent damage dealer at higher levels.
Losing firebolt was a big loss unless your DM lets you treat produce flame as having a 30 ft range instead of self (assuming you throw it immediately). They give you this awesome feature to cast your spells from your wildfire spirit... and then don't let you do it with the two most appropriate spells you could use (produce flame, burning hands) because they are range: self. Oh, but you can cast scorching ray from it. For those times when 120 ft range is not enough. If I could only fly my spirit above a group of enemies and have it cast burning hands down upon them, I would be 10x more interested in playing this subclass.
@Zoltan I am current playing the class and loving it. But I admit that my DM letting me hurl the flame of produce flame thought the WFS is a big part of the enjoyment. (I never asked about the burning hand).
I mean, it feels like a design mistake, they "swapped" the spells but didn't took into account that the natural replacement are all self. I wish they address to that matter, so everyone can have the same experience as I do.
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Currently, all comes down to what you expect from the class. If you are looking for a blaster, WF druid are not for you(Well, maybe he still is at lower levels, but that pass quickly). He's basically a PowerCreep land druid... He does a little more damage, a little more heal and have a little more versatility. Since land druids are already ok (On power level) the WF Druid is pretty Powerfull.
If you ask me, he is toe to toe with Shepard, losing only to Moon (Because of the absurd early and late game of the class). But since most adventures take place on the average levels of D&D, I am Inclined to say that with WF and SHEP you will have you best experience on a power level point of view. {I won't go to deep explaining this since Tenawa did it very well few comments above}.
I would just add that: Do not fear fire resistance/Immunity because you still a full functional Druid, you still can cast other spells (even from you WF if u wan't to). You will be only not gaining the extra d8. So yeah, of course you loose potencial on those fights but you can still play your part on this type of situation.
So Guys, do not get discourage from playing this class because of comments like Zanzobox's, he's just hating or is oblivious to D&D mechanic. He even compared the WFS damage to a concentration spell, which is likely the most importante resource for a druid in combat, instead of comparing to things that actually make sense like Polearm Master and Spiritual Weapon.
Well if you to want some extra ideas/point of view there are some good videos on ytbe talking about the class. I suggest Treantmonk's Temple video...
Yea, I agree with your assessment. I still like Land Druid because of Natural Recovery. Being able to do the most impactful thing you can do more often (i.e. cast your highest level spells) is huge. But their higher level features are lackluster, so over time the Wildfire druid becomes better.
I wish Tasha's would have given Land druids an optional feature to swap their circle spell list to another type of land after you have spent a week of downtime in that environment.
2d6 on summon (Dex save), then 1d6+PB with SAM to hit assuming you use your bonus action, and it's on a 2-20 career, so you're just incorrect. When you first get it, it's 2d6 damage with save DC usually 13, then 1d6+2 damage, usually +5 to hit. At level 17, it's 2d6 damage vs DC 19, then +11 to hit, 1d6+6 damage.
In melee it can teleport for damage.
The mine's primary purpose is healing.
I'm not trying to defend Wildfire Druid here, but your post was full of misinformation.
Indeed. Also, with it lasting for a full hour, you can very reliably use it before combat starts. If not, then you may not want to open with it and instead cast a concentration spell. Unless you need the teleport.