Poison Stacking and Minions - Entangling Roots / Spriggan Form Druid Build Guide

Strong, and easy to pick-up.

Doesn't feel boring or one-dimensional for a minion build.

Massive damages to bosses with poison stacks.

Really efficient at clearing large groups of enemies with Entangling Roots, keeping enemies at distance while vines melt your opponents.

Really hard to kill in Spriggan Form, which makes it really safe to fall back to in case of emergency.

Lack mobility without gear, some possibilities can be to play around haste with Summon Wolf howl or free a slot for Fury Leap.

Can be squishy in human form in some situations.

Not having access to directly Summon Vines in human form + lack of mana.

Getting all of the spells in the passive can make the build long to get really activated.

With enough summons, you should summon in human form:

• 1 Primal Scorpion can be something else earlier in the game, for example Primal Wolf.
• 1 Spriggan
• 1 Primal Serpent from Serpent Strike. (Even if you don't actively use the skill you can summon the snake and then transform into spriggan for example).

By switching to Spriggan Form you get a second Spriggan but only in that form. (You might lose a summon if you don't have an extra one with your gear).

You have two playstyles:

Human form

• More consistent AOE damage.
• Can use your companions actives.
• Squishy and need to be in closer range but Ensnaring Roots with Summon Vines makes it easy to not get hit most of the time.

Except against bosses I always try to be in that form if possible.

How I usually fight:

1. Use some Ensnaring Roots on a group of enemy. It will spawns bulbs directly on the enemies that will sprout into vines taking aggro and making a lot of damage.
2. Use Serpent Strike when out of mana or if it make sense to poke the enemies.
3. Use companion actives when necessary (don't spam for mana).
4. If you realize that you are going to die, enter the magical world of the Spriggan Form. This will give you some ward and massively increase your armor!

Spriggan form

• Better AOE static area damage. Your vines are your main source of damage, mobile enemies or large groups are not ideal in this form since you will have to Summon Vines again.
• More tanky and can stay far from the enemy.

Technically you can always be in Spriggan Form, it just might be slower to clear. What you will do is usually:

1. Summon Vines when they are expiring or no enemies are standing on them.
2. Summon Healing Totem when you take some damage, this is a great survivability tool aswell and can really help in some situations.
3. Launch some Spirit Thorns on the enemy when not doing any of those two actions to stack more poison.

Some personal preference to take with a grain of salt.

Before level 15:

I like to start with Gathering Storm into Tempest Strike very early as the base damages are really good to clear.

Level 15-25:

Once I get the druid form I get some fun with the Werebear Form until I get to the Spriggan Form.

Level 25-50:

At that point I switch to play poison, and try to find a spear for Serpent Strike.

Until I get Ensnaring Roots I basically only play in Spriggan Form, with some poison damage and armor, it destroys everything and is really tanky.

Level 50+:

Around laggon you should get Ensnaring Roots, and get close to the build (you can just replace the scorpion with a wolf for the howl bonuses). Just make sure you start gearing up for resistances at that point and you should have a nice time.

As you progress and get better gear, especially more mana (or mana regeneration), and more tankyness, you will be able to rely almost only on Ensnaring Roots with your companions to clear maps. This can be extremely fast and fun.

For bosses, static bosses are the best for you to damage them fully in the Spriggan Form. More bosses start to have constant AOEs that will disrupts the vines placement and kill your companions so take that in perspective.