Introduction

Welcome to our Disruption Shapeshifter Druid build guide. In this guide, we’ll cover everything essential to you to play the Disruption Druid. This includes Skills, Perks, Stat Priorities and more.

The Disruption Druid plays around two key styles – disruption spells and utilitzing Shapeshift Mastery to outplay opponents.

Skills

Shapeshift and Spell Memory are the recommended skills required to run the Disruption Shapeshift Druid build. Spell Memory is essential to using all the disruption spells. Shapeshift is also a vital part of the Druids kit so you can switch between various animal forms.

Recommended Disruption Shapeshifter Druid Build Spells

For this particular Druid build, the recommended spells are the following:

• Thorn Barrier
• Summon Treant
• Dreamfire
• Restore
• Entangling Vines

Thorn Barrier, Summon Treant and Entangling Vines all serve as spells that can heavily disrupt enemy players plans and movements. Thorn Barrier summons a wall that deals damage to anything that walks into it. However, it can also be used as a way to close off escapes that your opponent may try – or help you escape by blocking the path you ran through. Entangling Vines leaves a root trap on the ground for players and monsters to run into. Be careful though, as it can root you and your teammates too. Summon Treant provides a powerful tree spirit to assist you in battle. However, you can also summon the Treant to block doors and paths. Finally, Dreamfire is a decent poke damage spell and Restore puts a HoT on you and teammates in AoE.

Perks

For this Druid build, we recommend the following perks:

• Shapeshift Mastery (A MUST HAVE)
• Dreamwalk
• Enhanced Wildness
• Thorn Coat

Shapeshift Mastery is crucial to the builds success. With Shapeshift Mastery, you can pull off incredibly powerful combos and utility shifts throughout the dungeon. This is due to having no cast time with the perk. Dreamwalk is also a powerful perk that puts you into a phased state when taking damage. As a result, it is very hard to be burst down by a player. Finally, Enhanced Wildness and Thorn Coat are simple passives that reflect damage and give movement speed and armor while in animal form.

Stat Priority

• Knowledge (enough to use all spells)
• Max Health
• Vigor
• True Magical Damage
• Magical Power
• Additional Movement Speed

Knowledge and Max health are the highest priorities in the build. Reaching around 120-130+ Max Health is preferred. Knowledge, however, has two breakpoints. The first breakpoint is the ability to use all of your equipped spells. The second breakpoint is around 32~ for casting speed. True Magical Damage is a BIS stat, however, it is VERY expensive to buy. As a result, try to focus less on the Magical Power & True Magical Damage at first.

Movement Speed is very important in Dark and Darker – we highly recommended finding some of this stat on boots where possible.

Weapons

Weapons for the Disruption Shapeshift Druid build is a fairly straightforward situation and not too important overall. The main choice for the build that we recommend, however, is a combination of Spellbook & Spear. The Spear is a great choice for damage and range. Alternatively, a Spellbook & Flanged Mace + Lantern combination is fine too.

Armor

For the Disruption Shapeshift Druid build, a mixture of leather armor and cloth is preferred:

• Leather Cap or Straw Hat (for more HP or Strength)
• Oracle Robe
• Low Boots (preferably with additional move speed rolled on them)
• Rawhide Gloves
• Leather Chausses

The above loadout provides the best possible resistances without compromising your movement speed too much. Try to build your loadout with the above in mind to yield the most optimal results. Finally, do not forget to find the associated stat priorities required for the build!

The playstyle of the Druid is focused around the following:

How To Play Disruption Shapeshift Druid

To play the Disruption Shapeshift Druid build, the following is important to be aware of:

• The use of a unique Shapeshifting mechanic. Shapeshifting allows the Druid to switch between powerful beasts such as a large bear and panther. This is a drastically different playstyle to most other classes.
• The Druid shares a similar base playstyle to the Wizard, starting also with a Staff to be able to cast Nature Magic.

PVE & PVP

To navigate PVE as a Druid in general, it is important to enter most rooms through the use of the Rat Shapeshift form. Utilizing the Rat means you can enter the room fairly hidden, giving you time to scout the room before clearing the mobs out. Clearing out mobs is pretty easy and can be done just by using weapons or a couple of magic spells on a large pull, such as Dreamfire. Fortunately, moving between rooms is easy with the use of the Panther form. This means you can both clear and move on to the next room with great speed – this can throw off PVP players as well. Remember that you’re able to heal yourself and allies around you, the team being topped up between rooms is crucial to surviving the dungeons. We also recommend utilizing Summon Treant as a way of assisting mob clear and being a “taunt” of some kind.

PVP

Navigating PVP as a Disrupter Druid can be both fun and skill intensive. The main goal you’ll want to achieve when approaching a fight is simple. First, take a look at any potential exits or trappable spaces the opponents might be in. For example, if the enemies are close to a door or heading to a door, block it off with a Thorn Barrier. Doing this usually confuses the enemy for a moment. Summoning a Treant on the side closest to you can sandwich the enemy in and cause panic. To summarize:

• Check for situations where you can close or “trap” the enemy in
• Before committing to the engage, ensure that your Thorn Barrier, Treant and Entangling Vines have all been placed
• Pre-use your Restore on yourself and teammates when you’re about to engage
• Use Dreamfire for poke

This build, as the name suggests, has a lot of controlling disruptive skills due to the spells you have access to. As a result, constantly causing headaches for your enemies and then engaging on them is always ideal. It is important to remember that you can fight in Panther form to deal fast and efficiency damage. Sometimes, players are completely unaware you’re attacking them from below.

In melee, between pressuring your opponent with the Treant summon and other crowd controls – you have the range advantage too. Using the Spear and keeping space while the opponent deals with the Treant provides a huge advantage.

Movement Tricks

For those that’re looking to become as skillful of a Druid as possible, look no further. This particular movement trick uses the mechanics of the Shapeshifting skill to cover very large distances in a short period of time – at varying heights. To make the most use out of this trick, make sure to do the following:

• Find a height spot or small object to jump from
• Transform into the Panther form and use the Rush pounce Skill to jump fast and high into the air
• Immediately transform into the Chicken Form and double jump in the air
• Reach your target destination

To pull this off successfully, it is VITAL that you have the “Shapeshift Mastery” Perk equipped so you can transform instantly. The reason that this movement mechanic works so well is that the Panther jump provides a ton of momentum. This allows the Chicken form to instantly be casted (without a cast time thanks to Shapeshift Mastery) and pull off the double jump with maximum momentum. This type of mechanic is incredibly powerful when chasing down enemy players or moving between parts of a room – you can even find new ambush spots.

Rat Hop

Another game changing mechanic available to the Druid through the use of Shapeshift Mastery is the Rat hop. The Rat hop can only be used in the Ice Caverns and Goblin Caves maps. This is because this movement mechanic requires the doors to have the classic grated window on the top half. To pull off this mechanic, you have to run towards a door. As soon as you get close to it, jump into the air and transform into the Rat. If timed right, you’ll fly through the grated window – completely ignoring the need to open any door!

This particular mechanic is great for several uses. For example, moving fast across the dungeon, chasing enemies, escaping danger – even hopping into a room undetected can surprise other players. As a result, combine the usage of the Rat hop and the Panther + Chicken movement tricks to massively outplay your opponents.

Druid Disrupter Shapeshifter Druid Build Conclusion

That concludes our Disrupter Shapeshift Druid build. If you’re a fan of shapeshifting and being an incredible nuisance in the dungeon, this build is for you. The build provides a strong controlling way of playing the Druid. For more builds and guides, check out our Dark and Darker section.