Your Encounter Power, Darting Bite, is pretty easy to understand if you think of it like this: once in every fight, you can make two attacks and then shift for free.
There's no reason to hold back on an Encounter power because there's no benefit to having it if you don't use it in a given fight. When you've got more than one enemy adjacent to you, set this off. That goes double if you're flanked. This is a get-out-of-flank-free card if you hit at least one target with it. In a fight where you never get pinned down by multiple enemies, just use it to bite the biggest, baddest opponent twice.
Your Daily Power is a summon, and it's a good one. The toad has a long reach with its tongue, pulls enemies towards it. You have to spend a minor action to move it or have it do anything else but an attack, and you have to spend a standard action to make it attack a specific attack (you use your attack to make it attack, basically.) But if you don't have it do anything (even move) on a given turn, it will attack automatically. So it can kind of work on "autopilot".
The other advantages to having the toad out is that your enemies have one more target, and your teammates have one more body that works as a frontline fighter. Because you can only use the Toad once a day, save it for fights that feel climactic ("boss fights") or one that starts going badly. You can use the Toad's tongue attack to pull enemies off opponents like some of your own attacks.
To get someone out of trouble, you can do things like summon the Toad a few steps back from their opponent and have it attack. It's a standard action to call the Toad so you can't order it to attack on the same turn you summon it, but since you're not giving it any commands it will attack the nearest enemy on that turn.
Now, your equipment list... you're a bit over-armed for a Druid. Perhaps that's for character reasons, but I thought I'd point it out in case you have familiarity with older editions where casters ran out of spells and needed daggers and crossbows. That's not the case in 4th Edition. You can use Thorn Whip (or any of your other at-wills) all day long and never run out.
Your beast form attacks are your best "melee weapon". It's a minor action to draw a dagger and a standard action to attack with it. It's also a minor action to turn into an animal and a standard action to Savage Rend or Pounce someone. The second option will do more damage and hit more often (because Wisdom fuels your attacks in beast form... your strength of spirit determines how powerful your beast form is, in essence.)
It's not a terrible idea to have a staff. Staves count as druid implements so you don't drop it if it's in your hands when you transform. The daggers and crossbow would fall to the ground if you didn't put them away first. Carrying a staff is also just a good image for a druid.
The crossbow could be useful if you found yourself facing something too far away to throw your human evocations at and that you couldn't reach (on the other side of a chasm or flying). You've got enough Dexterity that it's not pointless to have. But you should understand that Thorn Whip will always be better if they're inside ten squares/fifty feet.
And daggers can just plain be useful tools.
So there's no reason you shouldn't have those weapons. But you don't need to be considering them every turn, weighing them against using druidic magic or beast form attacks.
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ninetydegrees
Part 2: Other Attacks
on 2010-07-16 07:15 pm (UTC)There's no reason to hold back on an Encounter power because there's no benefit to having it if you don't use it in a given fight. When you've got more than one enemy adjacent to you, set this off. That goes double if you're flanked. This is a get-out-of-flank-free card if you hit at least one target with it. In a fight where you never get pinned down by multiple enemies, just use it to bite the biggest, baddest opponent twice.
Your Daily Power is a summon, and it's a good one. The toad has a long reach with its tongue, pulls enemies towards it. You have to spend a minor action to move it or have it do anything else but an attack, and you have to spend a standard action to make it attack a specific attack (you use your attack to make it attack, basically.) But if you don't have it do anything (even move) on a given turn, it will attack automatically. So it can kind of work on "autopilot".
The other advantages to having the toad out is that your enemies have one more target, and your teammates have one more body that works as a frontline fighter. Because you can only use the Toad once a day, save it for fights that feel climactic ("boss fights") or one that starts going badly. You can use the Toad's tongue attack to pull enemies off opponents like some of your own attacks.
To get someone out of trouble, you can do things like summon the Toad a few steps back from their opponent and have it attack. It's a standard action to call the Toad so you can't order it to attack on the same turn you summon it, but since you're not giving it any commands it will attack the nearest enemy on that turn.
Now, your equipment list... you're a bit over-armed for a Druid. Perhaps that's for character reasons, but I thought I'd point it out in case you have familiarity with older editions where casters ran out of spells and needed daggers and crossbows. That's not the case in 4th Edition. You can use Thorn Whip (or any of your other at-wills) all day long and never run out.
Your beast form attacks are your best "melee weapon". It's a minor action to draw a dagger and a standard action to attack with it. It's also a minor action to turn into an animal and a standard action to Savage Rend or Pounce someone. The second option will do more damage and hit more often (because Wisdom fuels your attacks in beast form... your strength of spirit determines how powerful your beast form is, in essence.)
It's not a terrible idea to have a staff. Staves count as druid implements so you don't drop it if it's in your hands when you transform. The daggers and crossbow would fall to the ground if you didn't put them away first. Carrying a staff is also just a good image for a druid.
The crossbow could be useful if you found yourself facing something too far away to throw your human evocations at and that you couldn't reach (on the other side of a chasm or flying). You've got enough Dexterity that it's not pointless to have. But you should understand that Thorn Whip will always be better if they're inside ten squares/fifty feet.
And daggers can just plain be useful tools.
So there's no reason you shouldn't have those weapons. But you don't need to be considering them every turn, weighing them against using druidic magic or beast form attacks.