Dark and Darker: Best Druid Build and Guide

The Druid has a unique playstyle compared to the other classes in Dark and Darker. Not only can they fight with conventional weapons and spells, but they also have access to a variety of animal forms to take advantage of. This article will guide you on the Druid’s mechanics, skills, perks and the best build for this class.

Druid Skills

The Druid class currently only has two skills available to them, which are the following:

Spell Memory

Spell Memory allows you to memorize spells to use in your dungeon adventures. With Spell Memory, you can also memorize up to 5 spells.

Shapeshift Memory

This skill is what grants Druids their unique power, allowing them to switch between different animal forms to their advantage. Druids can select from the following forms:

• Bear
  • Transform into a bear, gaining 50% damage reduction and 50% maximum health while staying in this form, but lose 30% of your movement speed and 20% action.
• Panther
  • Transform into a panther, gaining 5% more movement speed and 20% jump height, but lose 30% maximum health and healing received.
• Rat
  • Transform into a rat, shrinking down small enough to pass under and over door gaps. You lose 95% maximum health and reduced healing but gain 10% movement speed and jump height while in this form.
• Chicken
  • Transform into a chicken, gaining the ability to fly and hover for a short while. You lose 60% maximum health and receive 60% less healing from both physical and magical sources.

Each animal form comes with its own unique attacks and skills. The Bear form gains “Wild Fury,” which buffs it with 15% extra damage and increases the form’s physical damage reduction multiplier.

For the Panther form, its skill “Wild Rush” is a forward leap that causes it to enter frenzy, allowing attacks to be performed while mid-air.

The Chicken form’s “Insect Predation” allows a special interaction with insects in a dungeon, devouring them to restore a small amount of health.

Finally, the Rat form’s “Survival Instinct” skill grants 20% bonus movement speed for 6 seconds, which after the duration, slows the player for the same amount for 3 seconds.

Druid Perks

Druids have access to some extremely useful perks for their class, as these make them versatile in combat. Since their class revolves around the usage of nature as a form of magic, Druids can provide both healing and harm.

• Natural Healing
  • You and your allies regenerate 1 health every 3 seconds.

• Enhanced Wildness
  • Gain 5 extra movement speed and 10 armor while in animal form

• Force of Nature
  • Healing an ally grants them 3 extra physical damage for 3 seconds.

• Herbal Sensing
  • Detects nearby herbs within a 4.5-meter radius.

• Spirit Magic Mastery
  • When you cast spirit magic, you gain 10 magical damage.

• Sun and Moon
  • Nearby allies gain 3 vigor and 5 magical damage.

• Thorn Coat
  • Taking melee damage will reflect 5 True Damage back to the enemy.

• Dreamwalk
  • Receiving damage while in human form will grant 5 magic damage for 4 seconds and turn you into a spirit, phasing through targets and becoming invincible. While dream walking, you cannot attack or use skills except for spells. Has a 12-second cooldown.

• Spirit Bond
  • You receive 15% of the damage suffered by your allies in their place with a cooldown of 1 second. You can only take a maximum of 20 damage at any time.

• Animal Kinship
  • Not all animals and insects attack first.

Best Perk Combo

One of the best perk builds for any Druid would be Thorn Coat, Shapeshift Mastery, Dreamwalk, and Enhanced Wildness. Shapeshift Mastery should be your first priority since you will want to shapeshift on demand without going through cast animation. Next is yourDreamwalk perk, as this will help you escape certain situations and give you a moment of respite while fighting. Enhanced Wildness will make you even more powerful while shapeshifted, giving you more armor to survive enemy attacks, while Thorn Coat will help you win melee trades against other players.

Druid Spells

Like the Wizard and Bard, Druids have their own list of spells that they can use in a fight, having a mix of offensive and utility spells that can make raids easier. The following spells are available for this class:

Tier 1

• Nature’s Touch
  • The target gains 15 additional recoverable health and regenerates 15 health over 12 seconds. Casts instantly and casts on yourself if no target is found.

Tier 2

• Barkskin Armor
  • Increases armor rating by 20% for 8 seconds, encasing you in a protective bark.

Tier 3

• Summon Treant
  • Summons a treant as an ally for 24 seconds. Treants become more powerful when summoned underwater.

• Dreamfire
  • Deals 15 magical damage within a radius. While you or your allies are currently affected by Nature’s Touch, instantly healed for 10 health for each target hit.

Tier 4

• Thorn Barrier
  • Creates a thorn barrier that lasts for 10 seconds. Any character that stands near the thorn barrier will take 3 physical damage per second.

• Entangling Vines
  • Spreads roots across the floor in a 1m radius that last for 6 seconds. Any targets that pass through the AoE are frozen in place for 3 seconds. After the effect is removed, the target gets immunity to the entangling effects for 3 seconds.

Tier 5

• Restore
  • Restore the health of all allies within a 3m radius by 30 health for 10 seconds.

Tier 6

• Tree of Life
  • Sprout a tree of life, granting 5 all attributes and granting 40 additional recoverable health over 8 seconds. Cannot cast on self.

• Mending Grove
  • Create a forest patch centered around you within a 3m radius. Targets in the area gain 10% max health bonus and are healed for 10 health per second.

Best Spells in Slot

The ideal spells to bring for general are the following:

• Summon Treant
• Restore
• Nature’s Touch
• Entangling Vines
• Dreamfire

For your first spell, take Nature’s Touch as it is an all-around solid support spell. Summon Treant gives you a minion to help distract enemies. Entangling Vines will stop any fleeing player in their tracks. Restore gives you and your team even more sustain. Finally, Dreamfire not only deals damage, but synergizes well with the Nature’s Touch spell, granting instant healing for landing a hit with Dreamfire.

These will be your staple spells unless you wish to experiment with a different playstyle.

Druid Exclusive Weapons

The Druid can use the following weapons:

• Ceremonial Staff
• Magic Staff
• Quarter Staff
• Spellbook
• Crystal Ball
• Torch
• Spear
• Clubs
• Flanged Mace
• War Hammer
• Rondel Dagger
• Morning Star
• Castillon Dagger

Best Gear Affixes for Druid

When chasing for rarer gear, look for the following affixes as these will help with your gameplay as a Druid:

• +Additional Magic Damage
• Will
• +Additional Physical Damage
• Strength
• Movement Speed

Due to the nature of the Druid, a mixture of Physical and Magic Damage sources is an excellent option. The Druid is so versatile that it can play as a frontliner class or a support role with proficiency. While these stats are useful, it ultimately depends on your preferred playstyle. If melee is more of your style, stick to the extra physical damage affixes and strength.

How To Play Druid

When you play the Druid class, you must master the Shapeshifting system, as balancing different animal forms mid-fight will make you very oppressive in melee combat. You must learn the different strengths of weaknesses of every form you take since each animal form excels at different aspects of combat, like the Panther’s ability to close the gap with their leap, the Bear’s raw melee damage and the Rat’s tiny hitbox.

While Shapeshifting gives you an edge in melee, remember that you are also a caster class, meaning you can also provide support to your party members with some much needed heals.

Mastering the Druid class requires you to learn how to be versatile with the many tools the class has at its disposal. If played right, Druid might just be the most powerful class in Dark and Darker.

PVE & PVP playstyles

Druids in both PvE and PvP have a lot of great utility when it comes to approaching combat encounters. In particular, their Rat Form is extremely useful when exploring a dungeon, as this form allows you to enter rooms without needing to open doors and alert nearby players. This gives you the best possible stealth advantage, as players will have a hard time finding you in your small form. The Bear form is also very useful for players without any gear, as this form gives you solid melee damage and damage resistance at base.

Druids also have plenty of good spells to choose from, with the Treant being useful to draw enemy aggro and Nature’s Touch granting a nice fire-and-forget healing spell for your teammates.

Experienced Druid players use the different animal forms to execute some advanced movement techniques. For jumping large gaps, use the Panther Form’s Wild Rush skill to gain forward momentum, then transform into a Chicken mid-air for extra flight time. If you need to enter a room without opening a door, you can jump up then transform into a Rat to slip past the door gap.

Starting Fights in PvP

Druids can add a lot of pressure on enemy teams with their many spells that can be annoying to deal with. Try to find an enclosed space with only one exit and trap them there. Summon a Treant minion, as they will be an extra source of damage and another threat that enemy players have to deal with. Close the exit with a Thorn Barrier spell and start shapeshifting into the Bear Form. This will be effective at psyching out your opponents, since the Bear Form will make you tanky and deadly up close. If you can catch your enemies by surprise, the Druid class will allow you to end a fight quickly once you balance your spell usage and shapeshifting abilities.