Being a DCUO Naturalist

Note: Insect has recently been fixed to be able to regen power. And the guide has been updated accordingly.
Note: Bug form is still kind of bugged (no pun intended) and does not work for some people. If you can’t build combo’s don’t use it.
Note: Heal players not in your party with Cross Pollination.

Stats:

1. Restoration
2. Power
3. Health

Reasoning: Restoration is self explanatory.  Power however is my #2 because, simply put, it gives you a bigger battery to use for spike heals. Until Vitalization is tested and confirmed that it works for normal power regen, I don’t want to commit to it.  Somewhere I saw someone say Health > Power, but I can heal more than 300 health with 300 power.

Raid Heals

Khandaq tip: You can stun the waterkeepers with Roar + it heals your group.

Link: http://dcuosource.com/skillplanner/
Code: FgafcfcfGjfahafZeeeebNeeePfeec

SHAPESHIFT: Roar => Metabolism => Gorilla => Swarm Shield => Regeneration => Ptersosaur Form => Insect Form => Hive Mind => Primal Wolf => Canine => Carnage
PLANTS: Vine Lash => Blossom
ICONICS: Miracle Worker => Empathetic Healing
In PVE: Before everyone engages, pop Swarm Shield, if everyone is at full health, this should activate on the entire raid. Keep up your Combo’s and use Roar every 5-8 seconds, to keep everyone topped off. Use Blossom to Spot heal critically injured allies. If the raid all needs a decent amount of healing, use Hive Mind and Roar to heal everyone for around 1000+. For Supercharges: Use Hive Mind + Regeration (HoT heals for 2000 damage a tick) if your team is extremely low on health and power and it looks like a wipe.

Carnage: Carnage is a great ability to use to help the team push out a lot of damage. While not as apparently useful as Hive Mind, it can signifigantly increase the damage output of your raid. Not to mention it can be useful in your Daily Solo PVE Challenges and the Canine Form can be used to sneak past most of the trash mobs in them as well.

The most important thing you have to remember while healing is to constantly be using your weapon combos or you will run out of power really fast.

Loadouts:
DPS: Vine Lash – Swarm Shield – Metabolism – Blossom – Roar – Gorilla
Healer: Roar – Blossom – Swarm Shield – Regeneration – Hive Mind – Carnage

Or

Healer (with Bug): Roar – Blossom – Regeneration – Hive Mind – Carnage – Insectoid Form
Gorilla: Vine Lash – Swarm Shield – Roar – Blossom – Carnage or Hive Mind – Regeneration (Since Gorilla is timed we don’t need the “Return to normal state” power.)
Bug: Roar – Blossom – Swarm Shield – Regeneration – Hive Mind – Carnage (rotate Carnage out with Return to normal as you need it)

PVP Heals:

URL: http://dcuosource.com/skillplanner/
Code: FgagdfbGhagafafbZeeefcgaNeeeSfeeb

SHAPESHIFT: Roar => Metabolism => Gorilla => Regeneration => Ptersosaur Form => Insect Form => Hive Mind
PLANTS: Vine Lash => Thorn Shield => Blossom => Briar(junk) => Impaling Thorns
ICONIC: Empathic Healing => Wisdom of Solomon => Miracle Worker
DPS Role: Vine Lash – Impaling Thorns – Metabolism – Blossom – Thorn Shield – Gorilla
Heal Role: Hive Mind – Roar – Blossom – Swarm Shield – Regeneration- Gorilla
Gorilla: Vine Lash – Thorn Shield – Roar – Blossom – Hive Mind – Regeneration

In PVP: I typically role in healer mode, but usually have a pre-made. Keep up the Roar spam to keep people topped off, but don’t over do it to the point of draining all of your power. Spot heal with Blossom like in PvE. Use Hive Mind + Roar if your team needs a medium boost. Use Hive Mind + Regeneration if your team needs a big boost/Invulnerability. If you are trapped in a 1v1 situation, suprise them and shift into Gorilla and make the 1v1 100% easier for yourself. Do not use Bug in PVP because you are an instant squishy target.

Simple beginners guide:

Since Nature has such a variety of specs, people are asking me for suggestions as to what skills are important while leveling. First off let me start by mentioning that the leveling Nature build is very different than what I am writing above, and requires a respec once you start getting close to 30 to fit more smuggly into the end game.

My recommended build is this:

Weapon choice: What ever you read, try to choose something you will enjoy playing. You can always choose another weapon at level 10.

Power Choice: Roar => Wolf Form => Vine Lash => Thorn Shield => Blossom => Metabolism => Gorilla Form => Regeneration. From here on you can choose DPS Powers if you want more DPS or more Heal Powers if you want to start healing Alerts, although you should be able to do both effectively.

Reasoning: When I was leveling I absolutely loved Wolf form, I was able to solo every instance with no problems. The damage output is great and it basically gives you an entire completed weapon skill tree to use. With Thorn Shield used to AOE when I had too many on me, I was able to take out several enemies at once. Vine lash is very useful to solo pull mobs from groups and almost instantly kill with Wolf Form. Roar is useful to stun mobs out of their charged attacks. And Blossom/Metabolism is nice to quick heal if you get low by switching to human form. Gorilla form can just be nice for some good tanking in dire situations (like a boss that is being a bit difficult,) since you can heal while still pushing out the DPS. The most efficient combo with Wolf form is Holding RMB followed by several RMB clicks (Thanks Durgan.)

However all that said, I recommend you stop using wolf form around 20 to get more familiarized with your weapon and its tactics to prepare yourself for the late game.

Weapon notes:

This will be where I outline my journey through every weapon and notes that I have on each.

Dual Pistols:  Medium Clicking. Dual pistols can be nice as it is a quick ranged weapon, easy to build combos with. Combined with Flight you can hover above the action out of sight of the enemy and heal. However this can also be a curse since if someone does see you, its easier to pick you out of the crowd. The Full Auto from dual pistols is extremely easy to use, and you can simply hold it to build combo’s if your facing intensive healing situations. Easy to retreat using the backwards role keep away from melee heroes.

Dual Wield: Very Clicky. Like pistols this is a very fast weapon. Easy to build combos with. Better for PVP than PVE, this weapon keeps you in the mix with all of your allies as you heal them, using these as my main weapon I found that I wasn’t being picked out and targetted as much since I wasn’t obviously hovering out of the group healing, instead discretely healing in the mix. Also good to note is that using a melee weapon or using melee in general makes it easier to release an instant effective Cross Pollination since your close to your allies. This is a very clicky weapon.

Two-Handed: Very Hold Heavy. 2h weapons are slow and powerful which made this an extremely easy weapon to use to push out good amounts of damage in healer mode, more-so than with the fast weapons. Even when healing and hovering at range, I found you can quickly build combos by spamming your ranged attack Tap move(which works suprisingly well.) I have found this to be the best PVE weapon for me, and also the easiest 1v1 weapon.

Hand Blasters: Very Clicky. I can’t really say I liked these as a weapon, just felt too much like bug form, and didn’t do nearly enough damage to satisfy my needs. However it does have a fast combo build by spamming the ranged attack.

Staff:  Good Mix of Holding/Clicking. Staff is a very fun weapon to use. It looks cool and feels good using it. Builds Combos fast, but can’t build them high since the last attack from the Hold chain halts you for too long. I am only using this since I got a Purple from Khandaq with nearly 100dps. However still doesn’t perform as well as 2h’s hard hitting hold combos in PVE, but is great for quick combo’s in queued PVP.

Rifle: Holdy. I specced into rifle after several people recommended it to me. While pushing out great damage from a distance, I found it just feels awkward and clumsy sometimes. The Holding RMB while using the arrow keys seems a bit laggy or unresponsive sometimes. It could just be from lack of experience with the weapon though. Still testing this one.

Bow: Medium Clicky. I am really liking the bow. It has a really good feel to it and has strong ranged combos and strong melee combos. Think of this as 1 hander + Rifle, best of both worlds in my opinion. Even has a great AOE. Easiest ranged weapon to do Challenges with by far.

We would like to say a big THANK YOU to Scrump proud member of “OMG I’m Drunk since 2007” for writing this guide and allowing us to post it on our site. We think this will be extremely helpful for all of the DCUO community members and we hope you will enjoy it.