Pugilist & Druid

[Peacewhisper]

I thought about posting this in Questions & Answers but it is also kind of feedback so posting it here instead.

It says on the wiki that Pugilist does not work while shape shifted.

Special: Monks, Werewolves and while Shapeshifted do not benefit from these feats. All classes except Monks, Weapon Masters, and Arcane Archers can take Brawler/Pugilist as general feats.

However, this is incorrect. It does work for druids in their wild shapes and elemental forms. The most broken way to use this is with the monolithic earth elemental form. It deals damage comparable to a weapon master, while also having tons of hp, 19 DR, and being immune to knockdown, mind-effects, death magic, etc. There's also a rare equippable item to almost completely mitigate its weakness to sonic damage. I've been brainstorming on a completely broken way to use this on a totem druid too but it only works for a major reward character.

Now that I am done with the feedback portion of my post, here is the question part:

Is this going to be patched out in a future update since it is probably unintentional? Or should this be considered a feature worth burning a major reward to use? I'd really hate to burn my major for this kind of build, only to see it nerfed.

Disclaimer: I was going to just sit on this knowledge but having seen multiple other pugilist druids running around lately I figure the cat is already out of the bag so might as well see if this is going to be addressed or if its simply the new meta.

[AstralUniverse]

1. it might look strong on paper but shapeshifting in general is in fact so awful that it needs to have absurd looking stats on the sheet for it to be somehow competitive.

2. It's been like this for so long. It used to work for plant shapes too, but plant shapes dont require much of a druid/shifter investment and could be coupled with bab classes and ki barrier. Some shapeshifting methods still recieve monk ac. afaik the devs have been aware of all that stuff for years and have disabled some outlier too strong interactions and I can only estimate that the remaining interactions are known and deemed not too problematic so we label it as 'feature' for the time being.

3. DO NOT ever burn major award on druids or anything else that relays on shapeshifting, regardless of puglist or whatever is the flavor of the month druid shenanigan.

[For Sound and Silence]

Oh no, I'm sorry! I should have remembered to make the official bug report on the forums so that others would know it was a known bug and intended to be fixed. I could have saved you a little time.

That said, this would be better off sorted into Bug Reports.

[Peacewhisper]

1. it might look strong on paper but shapeshifting in general is in fact so awful that it needs to have absurd looking stats on the sheet for it to be somehow competitive.

2. It's been like this for so long. It used to work for plant shapes too, but plant shapes dont require much of a druid/shifter investment and could be coupled with bab classes and ki barrier. Some shapeshifting methods still recieve monk ac. afaik the devs have been aware of all that stuff for years and have disabled some outlier too strong interactions and I can only estimate that the remaining interactions are known and deemed not too problematic so we label it as 'feature' for the time being.

3. DO NOT ever burn major award on druids or anything else that relays on shapeshifting, regardless of puglist or whatever is the flavor of the month druid shenanigan.

Regarding your first point, I fought against this thing on the PGCC, it really is as broken as it sounds. I played a dragonshape druid back when they still had monk AC, I played a plant shape druid back before that got nerfed into the ground, this is just way better than either of those. Dragonshape and plant shape are both vulnerable to critical hits. The monolith earth elemental is not. Pair that with 19 DR and its very hard to kill.

But yeah, you're probably correct, this type of build will probably be next on the chopping block, as it should be. Guess I'll hold onto the major or spend it on something else.

[AstralUniverse]

pgcc isnt a very good reflector because there's no corner sneaking in that arena, and unless you brought a character from the live server to test with, you're missing a lot of game changing consumables. Just to name a few, shapers cannot use items or cast so they cannot remove your damage shields with breaches or use true seeing scrolls/spells against corner sneaking. btw, if you want to negatet your vulerability to sonic without investing a precious item slot on a shaper, drink silence potions.

[Kythana]

Fight it as a caster. The mono shape is only really dangerous to melee builds with no room to maneuver.

Not every matchup is even.

[Kalopsia]

Moved to the correct subforum.
I wouldn't recommend building around this unintended interaction, as it will be fixed eventually.

[Peacewhisper]

no corner sneaking

Immune to Sneak Attacks
Immune to Poison
Immune to Critical Hits
19 DR

Ain't no rogue or shadow dancer beating this guy. Best they can do is hide and run away.

Fight it as a caster.

Mind Immune
Immune to Knockdown
Immune to Paralysis
Likely to have Energy Buffer up, along with Spell Resistance, Freedom of Movement, Death Ward, etc.

Your only real option is to fish for 1's on death spells, after dispelling it, because ain't no way you got enough in your spellbook to chew through 900 hp before the big earth elemental starts chugging potions of cure critical wounds.

As for it being slow, it has a longer reach than people think, and also comes with summons that move at normal speed. That means, on top of needing to breach magical resistances, you also need to deal with summons, before you can even stand there and try to comfortably cast spells to kill it. And then you're still fishing for 1's, because this thing has excellent fortitude even without wards with spellcraft as a class skill on top of that- plus it has easiest gear requirements on the server to max it out.

Look, I get it, you guys are good builders and good at the game and pvp. But it's okay to admit this particular build is way overpowered atm, especially since we've got a dev confirming that it is indeed broken and shouldn't even be working this way. It's nothing new either, I remember when monk AC druids had 85 AC, and plant shape druids could solo DM event bosses. So there's really no shame at all in admitting "Yeah this thing needs nerfed/fixed its just plain unfair." Pretending you can reliably 1v1 this thing and win just makes you look silly.

Moved to the correct subforum.
I wouldn't recommend building around this unintended interaction, as it will be fixed eventually.

Thanks! My question is answered.

[AstralUniverse]

Look, I get it, you guys are good builders and good at the game and pvp. But it's okay to admit this particular build is way overpowered atm, especially since we've got a dev confirming that it is indeed broken and shouldn't even be working this way.

it's been broken for years and no one cares except you. You may notice that when something is particularly game breaking it is fixed much faster (and if there's no way to fix it, it is oftentimes disabled entirely). So yeah, it's unintened and will be fixed everntually but it doesnt really mean it's as overpowered as you think.

There are tons of variables you're not taking into account in your arguments**. it's okay to addmit you're just riding on the 'unintended' statement from the devs without really having a clue what you're talking about and whether or not it is actually overpowered.
(*like for example, that most builds can dip for stealth and dont necessarily depend on sneak attacks to deal damage and even if they're rogue and cannot hurt the druid the druid cant hurt them either it's a two-way street, or that shape has no gear set and it's saves are kinda average, especially after mords)

Pretending you can reliably 1v1 this thing and win just makes you look silly.

Heh. Ok.

[Peacewhisper]

Okay yeah, after further testing I've seen its not as invincible as I had thought. Still overtuned damage wise but at least it can be killed. Sorry for calling you silly, turns out I was the silly one.