UPDATE 58 PREVIEW 1 - Blightcaster Druid

[Torc]

New Archtype for Druid

New Tree: Blightcaster
Replaces: Nature's Protector.

Themes: Death, Famine, Decay, Plague, Poison, Insects, Moss, Fungus. Bleached Bones. Scavengers.

Summary:

Thesis statement: Death is a necessary part of life.

A dark take on druid that celebrates the cycle of death & decay. This druid's power still comes from the "cycle" of nature, it just focuses at the end of that cycle.

BASE CLASS PROGRESSION:

LEVEL 1: Disease Immunity - (applies to natural diseases like other immunities)

LEVEL 2: Wild Shape - Plague Wolf (note All wildshapes are using PLACE HOLDER ART in this build)

Basic Wolf Form replaced by Plague Wolf: Transform into a magically diseased wolf.



10% Combat Style bonus to attack speed, a +3 bonus to attack while flanking
+10% enhancement bonus to movement speed.
While in wolf form, you gain access to a number of spells and enhancements that require Wolf form, but the cooldowns on your non-animal form spells are increased to 2.5 times their normal length.


Bonus Feat: Imbue Toggle that only functions when in any animal form, pick 1 of 2.



Biting Acid: 1d6 acid damage with all melee attacks. Scales with spell power. This can only be used in Wolf or Hive forms.
Biting Poison: 1d8 poison damage with all melee attacks. Scales with spell power. This can only be used in Wolf or Hive forms.



LEVEL 4:

Minor Elemental Kin Form Pick (1 of 2)


WildShape - Thorn-Kin:


You create a suit of living thorny wood around your body armoring you from harm. Note: Note this will be gearset over-ride instead of an animal form so the player will fight with their regular weapons. Basically you become a knight in plate mail made of wood and thorns.



+1 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Physical and Poison spells
10% exceptional bonus to armor class and 50% fortification.
You gain access to the thorn imbue.
10% vulnerability to fire damage




WildShape - Hive Keeper:


You give part of yourself to the hive, gaining insect like reflexes and senses. Your bodily fluids become poisonous to others, and the swarm is always close.




+1 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Poison and Acid Spells
You gain 25% concealment and Evasion.
Your reflex saves are increased by 1 for every 3 druid levels.
10% vulnerability to cold. Your diplomacy checks are reduced by 5 (Jeff Goldblum early in The Fly)



BONUS FEAT - Thorn Imbue: Your weapons sprout sharp thorns adding 1d6 piercing damage to all your weapon attacks. Scales with spell power.

LEVEL 5: Venom Immunity

LEVEL 8: Minor Elemental Kin Form Pick (1 of 2) - lets you pick the other form from level 4

LEVEL 11:

Wild Shape - Blighted Wolf

Plague wolf upgrades into Greater Plague Wolf:



you gain a 15% Combat Style bonus to attack speed, +5 bonus to attack while flanking
Grants +1 imbue dice while in this form.
+1 per druid level (max 30%) bonus to movement speed.
If unarmed, your natural attacks do 1d10 damage, do both piercing and slashing damage, and critically hit for triple damage on a roll of 19 or 20.
You are considered a magical beast
Wolf spell access as above.


BONUS FEAT: Imbue Toggle pick the other one from level 2.

LEVEL 13:

You gain access to full Elemental forms

WildShape - Thorn Knight: - (upgrade to thorn kin)


A more advanced version of Thorn Kin where you actually become a plant under the armor.



You are considered a plant for purposes of most immunities, poison, sleep, paralysis, stun, mind effects. You can no longer drown in water.
+3 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Physical and Poison spells
You gain 10% absorption against piercing damage and 5% absorb against blunt damage.
You gain +2 imbue dice
10% exceptional bonus to armor class and 100% fortification.
15% vulnerability to fire damage



WildShape - Hive Master:


You have become one with the swarm. Your body shifts between yourself and a cloud of insects, as you merge in and out of the swarm.



You are considered vermin for the purposes of immunities and are immune to mind effects and knock down.
+3 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Poison and Acid Spells
You are ethereal to monsters while tumbling.
You gain 50% concealment as displacement and Improved Evasion.
You gain +2 Imbue Dice and +1 to Reflex saves for every 2 druid levels (Max 10)
15% vulnerability to cold and -15 on diplomacy checks (Yeah Jeff is just pretty creepy now).


LEVEL 15:

Timeless Body (as druid)

LEVEL 17:

2nd Wildshape Elemental Form Pick (Thorn Knight, HiveMaster)

....

DRUID FEATURES REMOVED FROM SUBCLASS



No Wild Empathy (Or empathy in general...)
No Goodberry
No Wolf Companion
No Bear Form
No Fire or Water Elemental Forms
No Auto Memorized Spells


SPELL BOOK ADJUSTMENTS:

New Spells:

These appear in BOTH base druid and Blightcaster books.


Thorn Strike- Level 1: Conjuration - Cost: 2 Sp, Cooldown 2.0 seconds. Sends a giant thorn toward the target doing 1d6+2 piercing damage per caster level (max 10d6+20 at caster level 10).

Thorn Bloom- Level 3: Conjuration, Cost: 15 SP, Cooldown 3.5. Point Blank AOE - Send a wave of thorns out from your body dealing 1d6+4 piercing damage per caster level (max 10d6+40 at caster level 10). Reflex save for half.

Plant Growth- Level 4: copy of Animal Growth for Plants (which the thorn knight form works with)

Thorn Wave- Level 6: Conjuration, Cost: 25 SP, Cooldown 4.5. Cone - Fires a wave of powerful thorns in a tight arc in front of you dealing 1d6+6 piercing damage per caster level (max 20d6+80 at caster level 20).

Grasping Roots- Level 6: Conjuration, Cost: 30 SP, Cooldown 20 seconds. Duration 10 seconds. Powerful thorny vines rip out of the ground siezing all enemies in the area. Enemies save vs Reflex or become entangled, with a Re-occurring Strength save to break free. Entangled targets also take 1d6 in piercing damage every 2 seconds (max 15d6). All enemy movement through the area is slowed by 30%, no save. Area of effect fire spells will destroy these vines and free any entangled creatures. Incorporeal creatures and oozes are naturally immune. Fire elementals and other fire creatures are immune because they burn through the plants.

Thorn Lance-Level 8: Conjuration, Cost: 20 SP, Cooldown 5.5. Bolt - Fires a single powerful thorn that pierces through targets for 1d6+8 piercing damage per caster level. (Maximum 20d6+160 at caster level 20.)

New Animal Spells: - Blight Caster Only


Blighted Charge: Requires Any Wolf - Cost: 25 sp Cooldown: 15. You leap forward with the speed and ferocity of a sudden avalanche. You attack enemies in your path, dealing an extra 2[W], and targets caught in your wake are blinded for 20 seconds. A successful reflex save negates the effect, and creatures can attempt fortitude saves to escape every 3 seconds. Creatures also suffer 1d4 per caster level in acid damage every 2 seconds. This damage is changed to 1d6 poison damage if you are using Biting Poison Imbue. (Not functional in this build)

Jaws of Doom: Any Wolf - Cost: 20 Cooldown: 20 seconds. As your jaws close over your enemies, they begin to dissolve. This attack deals an extra 6(W), +1 bonus to critical threat and multiplier, and if it counts as a sneak attack, your foe is stunned for 6 seconds and are considered helpless. Fortitude save negates, and the creature gets and additional save attempt every two seconds. Stun vs Fortitude DC: 10 + Druid level + Highest of Wisdom, Dexterity, or Strength + Stun Bonuses. The target also takes 1d8+6 Poison damages. If you are using Biting Acid Imbue this damage is changed to 1d6+6 Acid damage. (Not functional in this build)

Blighted Bite: Valid Forms: School: Evocation Cost: 10 sp. Any Plague Wolf. You gain +2 Imbue dice while in any wolf form for 20 minutes.

Blighted Breath: Valid Forms: Cost: 20 SP. Cooldown: 2 seconds. Any Plague Wolf. Sends out a breath of poisonous gas in a frontal cone dealing <rgb=#00BFFF>1d8+2 points of Poison damage per caster level every 2 seconds for 6 seconds</rgb> (up to a maximum of 90 to 195 damage at caster level 15). If you are using the Biting Acid Imbue this damage is converted into 1d6+2 Acid damage.

Revamped Spells: - applies to all class versions of these spells.


Contagion - focused down to 3 versions instead of 7.



Blinding Sickness: Target goes blind and they take 1d4 ability damage to strength and dexterity
Cackling Fever - Target is stunned for 6 seconds and takes 1d4 ability damage to wisdom and intelligence
Slimy Doom - Target takes 4d6 acid damage +1 per caster level every 3 seconds


Melf's Acid Arrow - Now does 1d6 acid damage per caster level (Max caster level 10 for 10d6). Applies damage and ticks twice again over 4 seconds (Damage occurs 3 times in total)

Black Dragon Bolt - is being updated to do 1d10 acid damage per caster level (Max caster level 25, caps at 25 to 250 damage). Applies damage and ticks twice again over 4 seconds (Damage occurs 3 times in total)

Spells Added to the Druid spell book for Blightcaster



1st level - Night Shield, Thorn Strike, Chill Touch, Acid Spray

2nd level - Gets Contagion at level 2 instead of 3, Melf's Acid Arrow, Web

3rd level - Acid Blast, Thorn Bloom, Stinking Cloud

4th level - Fear, Acid Rain, Plant Growth, Wave of Fatigue

5th level - Negative Energy Burst, Blighted Breath, Cloud Kill

6th level - Negative energy ray, Jaws of Doom, Blighted Bite, Thorn Wave

7th Level - Acid Fog, Wave of Exhaustion, Horrid Wilting

8th level - Black Dragon Bolt, Thorn Lance

9th level - Acid Well, Wail of the Banshee, Rend the Soul, Blighted Charge


Spells Removed from Druid Book for Blightcaster



No Animal Summons
No Basic Cure Wound Spells or the Heal Spell (you keep Vigor but get them 1 level later, no mass regeneration)
No Fire Spells
No Sun Spells
No Fire Shield
No Bear Spells
No Elemental Fire/Water Elemental Form Spells


Skills: as Druid

Past Life

Blightcaster:

Past Life: x3 (stacks)


+5 Acid and Poison Spell Power


BLIGHT CASTER TREE:

Core 1:


The Cycle of Decay - You gain 5 Force, Poison, Negative, and Acid Spell Power per core in this tree.

Core 3:


Spread the Blight - Your offensive spells now apply a 10 second debuff called Blight: reduces saves by 1 and incoming positive healing by 20%.

Core 6:


Death Eater - You gain 1 temporary hit point equal to your wisdom score whenever you kill an enemy (Creatures 2 levels below you do not count). These hit points remain until damage removes them or the quest ends. This can stack 5 times and is refreshed on each kill.

Core 12:


Know the End - You gain Know the End which acts as a permanent Death Block. Blight effect is improved to reduces saves by 2 and incoming positive healing by 40% for 10 seconds.

Core 18:


Vile Eruption - Earth Quake now deals 2d6 + 1 per caster level in acid damage every 3 seconds in addition to it's regular effects.

Core 20:


Master of Decay:


+2 Wisdom & Con
SLA Creeping Doom Cost: 20 spell points Cooldown: 15 seconds
Blight now reduces saves by 4 and positive healing by 60%





TIER 1:


Prickly: 1/2/3 PRR, rank 3: +1 to damage with weapon attacks.

Kiss of the Blight: You gain 5/10/15% Absorption against Poison and Acid Damage.

Pick Your Poison I Multi Selector


SLA: Thorn Strike 3 ranks, cooldown 7/5/3 Spell Cost 3,2,1
SLA Acid Spray 3 ranks Cooldown 12/8/4 seconds , 4/3/2 SP cost

Sharp Edges 1: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Lore of the Great Plagues: You gain a +1/2/3 saving throw bonus against poison and disease. Rank 3: Gain 5 Poison and Negative Spell Power.

TIER 2:



Defiled Growth - Your Entangle and Spike growth spells now cause 1d4 negative energy damage per spell level every 2 seconds.

Meta Selector, Empower, Max, Quicken

Pick your Poison II Mutli Selector


SLA Splinter Bolt 3 ranks, Cooldown 8/6/4, Spell Cost, 6,4,2

SLA Melf's Acid Arrow 3 ranks, Cooldown 8/6/4, Spell Cost, 6,4,2

Sharp Edges II: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Every Rose Has it's Thorn - Spike Growth damage is increased by 100%.

TIER 3:




Out Break - upgrades the contagion and insidious spores spells to also hit enemies near the primary target.

Meta Selector - Empower, Max, Quicken

SLA Enveloping Swarm - 3 ranks, Cooldown 16,12,8, Cost 8,6,4

Sharp Edges III: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Stat Boost - Wis/Con

TIER 4:


Fast Acting Poison - The Poison spell now does 1d6 per druid level poison damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds in addition to its original effect. A successful Fort save applies this dot at half strength.

Murder of Crows - 120/90/60 second cool down, A swarm of crows blasts through you and a narrow path ahead. Enemies in the way take 1d3 piercing damage per druid level and must save vs confusing and blind separately DC: 20+ druid level + Conjuration DC. If you have a crow summon active from the falconry tree when you used this ability you gain the Murder in your Eye effect for 10 seconds; All your spells and attacks apply 1d6 piercing damage to blind targets for every druid level. This damage can only apply once every two seconds.

Pick your Poison III Multi Selector


SLA Thorn Bloom - 3 ranks, Cooldown 16, 12, 8, Cost: 20,15, 10

SLA Acid Rain - 10 SP cost, Cooldown 20/16/12 seconds

Sharp Edges IV: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Stat Boost, Wis/Con

Tier 5:

Thorns in your side - Multi Selector -


Poisoned Thorns - Your Splinter Bolt and Thorn Spells now also cause additional 2 points of Poison damage for every spell level. This scales with spell power.

Vile Thorns - Your Splinter Bolt and Thorn Spells now also cause additional 1 point of Acid damage for every spell level. This scales with spell power.

SLA Grasping Thorns - Spell Like Ability: Thorny Vines erupt from the ground seizing all enemies in the area. Save vs Reflex or be Entangled. On Successful save the targets have their movement slowed by 35%. Targets also take 1d6 piercing damage every 2 seconds per caster level. This double is doubled on targets which are entangled.

Everything Decays - Gain 5/10/15 Acid & Poison Spell Power Rank 3: Your spells remove Acid and Poison Immunity for 30 seconds.

Doomsayer - Gain a +1 Bonus to Conjuration, Evocation and Necromancy DCs


ADDITIONAL CHANGES....


Changes to Seasons Herald



Core 3 (level 6) updated to : +1 to max caster level of your season. Your Shillelagh does one extra W of damage. Your plant spells like entangle, spike growth and grasping thorns will no longer be dispelled by fire effects.

Changes to Nature's Warrior: - (Not in this build, coming next preview)



Howl of Winter renamed: Hunter's Howl to make it agnostic to Blighted Wolf or Winter Wolf

Great White Wolf Gets a multi selector with the alternate called Doom Wolf - 10/20/30 acid spell power, 10/20/30% Acid Resistance

Jaws of Winter get's renamed "Feasting Jaws" - Gain 10 times your character level in temporary HPs for 30 seconds after using Jaws of Winter or Jaws of Doom

Cold Breath damage will be updated to match current spell damage formulas




Notes on things coming down the line:





Will be adding a Flame Blade equivalent to the Blightcaster (thorn themed, weapon type or types TBD. We might do a few) for the next preview
Will be adding Master of Thorns Epic Feat: +140 SP, will boost thornstrike, thornbloom and splinterbolt by 10 max caster levels.




KNOW ISSUES


NO ART IS IN YET (it's all place holder on the wildshapes. Only a few spells have a basic vfx pass)
Blighted Charge and Jaws of Doom and the new Contagion effects are not set up yet.
Nature's Warrior Changes are not in this build mostly
Don't think Mind Immunities on Hivemaster are done yet
Thorn Knight's water breath perk isn't in this build
Blight debuff makes undead take less damage from healing
Murder of Crows works with the RAVEN in falconry (ability will be renamed to a Raven theme. We got our birds mixed up)

[cmecu]

Hi Voodu

[Smokewolf]

Just skimed through this and Wow!

[Zeklijan]

I am absolutely stoked to try out this new druid archetype!

[Xezom]

Will there be an epic feat that increases the CL/MCL of these new spells/SLAs as well like most of the other caster trees get?

Also an SLA Evards in the form of Grasping Thorns is going to be sick.

[Scrag]

This is all very confusing to me, but it seems like its pretty potent with the enhancement tree. I am building up some +acid/acid lore gear on my sorcerer, but most of that alts gear is +cha.

It definitely seems... interesting. How well do you guys think this would play in the hands of a noob?

[Torc]

Will there be an epic feat that increases the CL/MCL of these new spells/SLAs as well like most of the other caster trees get?

Yes! I forgot to add that to my post. Will fix.

Master of Thorns: +140 SP, will boost thornstrike, thornbloom and splinterbolt by 10 max caster levels.

-T

[Xezom]

Yes! I forgot to add that to my post. Will fix.

Master of Thorns: +140 SP, will boost thornstrike, thornbloom and splinterbolt by 10 max caster levels.

-T

Awesome! I was assuming so, but wanted to double check.

Unrelated question: Will
Every Rose Has it's Thorn - Spike Growth damage is increased by 100%.

also increased the added damage from
Defiled Growth - Your Entangle and Spike growth spells now cause 1d4 negative energy damage per spell level every 2 seconds. (assuming this is in addition to the 1d4/cl of piercing it naturally does in spike growth)

or will it only increase the base damage by 100% (1d4/CL to 2d4 per CL)?

Basically is the resulting numbers: 2d4/cl piercing + 1d4/cl negative or 2d4/cl piercing and 2d4/cl piercing + 2d4/cl negative

[dlsidhe]

Did y'all know it's my birthday this week, because this is a dang gift.

[Cadic]

Are you adding another Falconry bird because there isn't a Crow available in Falconry atm?

[Xezom]

Found an oops. Cure serious wounds in still in the spell book at level 4

[Evendor]

First impressions:
Nice! Was wishing for something similar to this for druid.
Aww, was hoping they'd find a use for the wood wowd transform from old primal avatar.
I think we could benefit from a few more instakill spells on this death/decay druid. Hopefully # of spells prepared can be a gate between them and all the other goodies. Would like to see Destruction and Circle of Death added, along with druid already having finger.
I was thinking could have druid the inflict damage spells, as rust damage, and to be able to make all enemies vulnerable to rust damage.
Was hoping past life would give +1 necro DCs.

Still excited though. Thanks.

[QuantumFX]

Just to be clear:

Decay Wolf uses the Natural Fighting Feat Chain?
Thorn Knight and Hive Master use the TWF/THF/SWF/S&B feat chains?

[Xgya]

Is the projectile speed on Thornstrike closer to Produce Flame or to the Sorc/Wiz Elemental Bolts?
While we're here, could you also make the Bolts move at the speed Produce Flame does?

Post error alert - you noted Plant Growth twice, and made Dragon Bolt deal 10d25.


Still pretty nice idea. The healing loss will definitely hurt, but it's good to see tradeoffs where needed.

[Torc]

Are you adding another Falconry bird because there isn't a Crow available in Falconry atm?

Rats! I mean Ravens! CURRENTLY it works with the raven...It's really just a name mismatch. Likely the murder of crows ability will just be renamed The Unkindness of Ravens with different puns :D

-T

[Torc]

Awesome! I was assuming so, but wanted to double check.

Unrelated question: Will
Every Rose Has it's Thorn - Spike Growth damage is increased by 100%.

also increased the added damage from
Defiled Growth - Your Entangle and Spike growth spells now cause 1d4 negative energy damage per spell level every 2 seconds. (assuming this is in addition to the 1d4/cl of piercing it naturally does in spike growth)

or will it only increase the base damage by 100% (1d4/CL to 2d4 per CL)?

Basically is the resulting numbers: 2d4/cl piercing + 1d4/cl negative or 2d4/cl piercing and 2d4/cl piercing + 2d4/cl negative

2d4 Piercing, 1d4 Negative. (max caster level applies to all effects normally). Rose doesn't double defiled.

[Torc]

Just to be clear:

Decay Wolf uses the Natural Fighting Feat Chain?
Thorn Knight and Hive Master use the TWF/THF/SWF/S&B feat chains?

The wolves use the same combat style as basic druid wolves.

The Thorn Knight and Hive Master are like fire/water elemental forms. You still have thumbs (thorny or buggy thumbs) and you use weapons and styles normally.

[Lotoc]

Seems really interesting, especially to finally have an acid focused caster that isn't lacking for spells or just using green flavoring on their regular spell damage like alchemist or warlock. Very nicely supported by the thorn side of primal avatar, also having poison/acid immunity strips being more common will help make the ninja spy imbue, assassin imbue and other forms of poison damage more relevant.

I will say it's a bit ironic that the tree and the forms don't really focus on negative casting and then the class has rend the soul while the heavily negative focused archetype Dark Apostate lacks a negative damage 9th level spell.

[Darckssassins]

Ah yes i have always dream to roleplay as a sickened animal !

no in all Seriousness can we get something different another wild shape? a giant beetle (just x10 fire beetle model and make it green)

i believe that another tree with a Cat Wild shape will be nuts something between the wolf and the bear, like a ranger cat, that uses 2wf because its a cat one blade in each front paw (wild shaped of corse into claws ) and with one core that make you atack with your back legs as well because you are a dam cat , oh bonus saves vs enhancements (because cats) and penalty vs illusions.

or at least a form selector to change the wolf for a lioness since they work pretty much the same in hunting regards, perhaps give the wolf piercing damage and the lion slash damage .

i even have the Feat description :

Feat "cats un grace":
you are a Cat: you don't care ...
you get 1/4of you dex as bonus saves vs enhancements and same amount as penalty vs illusions

Feat: "Meh"
you are a cat you don't obey orders and feel conformable in loneliness
you get +2 to flank and tack bonus when no allies are in Range ( aura of courage range) in aiditon allies feel your hostility , allies with in range take -2 penalty to armor class

Feat : "yes you"
You are a cat you occasionally choose someone's companionship making them feel special
Target: target can be with in "meh" range with no penalties , in additional they get +2 morale bonus to armor class and atack roles per 5 wildness lore feats you have .

[Xezom]

2d4 Piercing, 1d4 Negative. (max caster level applies to all effects normally). Rose doesn't double defiled.

I didn't assume but wanted to check if it was a math oops or the way it was intended.

In game, Defile also states that it heals you for 1d2 per CL while standing in it if you have death eater and does not. Guessing as it's not in the patch notes this was a scrapped idea that the text made into the preview? Should probably be removed. From what I'm finding playing it, it doesn't need the extra sustain power anyway. Death Eater is EXTREMELY strong. So much so I would almost suggest bringing it down to max of 3 stacks or add a set duration of a minute or two. You basically have a permanent 5x widsom temp HP shield cause last hitting on these guys is not hard at all.

[Ultinoob]

Couple of questions:

You changed the core 6 in seasons herald. Does it mean it does not give to caster level anymore but only max caster level? Also it seems like you give +1W to shillelagh. This is already in core 3. does this mean that shillelagh if taking all cores gives +3w for wooden staffs?

Spike growth seems to be worth casting with these changes. Maybe even in endgame. Is there any chance you can change the visuals? When I used it in raids people got upset cause it meant they could not see anything…

What tree from druid do you loose when selecting this archetype? Seasons herald?

In hive keeper from level 4 you get “Your reflex saves are increased by 1 for every 3 druid levels”. Is this also the case in the upgraded version?

[Torc]

I didn't assume but wanted to check if it was a math oops or the way it was intended.

In game, Defile also states that it heals you for 1d2 per CL while standing in it if you have death eater and does not. Guessing as it's not in the patch notes this was a scrapped idea that the text made into the preview? Should probably be removed. From what I'm finding playing it, it doesn't need the extra sustain power anyway. Death Eater is EXTREMELY strong. So much so I would almost suggest bringing it down to max of 3 stacks.

Ya after play testing Death Eater's temp HP mechanic we cut that heal out. That string is out of date. Death Eater is kinda crazy when it comes online at level 6. It is meant to be one of the signature abilities of the tree. We'll keep an eye on it.

-T

[WiseFreelancer]

I'm going to focus my previewing on the ranger tree as I am just too excited about it (and I don't really play druid-type classes much) but I have to say I really love the flavour and distinctiveness of this new druid. The first three classes we got were cool and all but this really seems like a gear-shift in terms of taking a class in a different direction.

[Torc]

Couple of questions:

You changed the core 6 in seasons herald. Does it mean it does not give to caster level anymore but only max caster level? Also it seems like you give +1W to shillelagh. This is already in core 3. does this mean that shillelagh if taking all cores gives +3w for wooden staffs?

Spike growth seems to be worth casting with these changes. Maybe even in endgame. Is there any chance you can change the visuals? When I used it in raids people got upset cause it meant they could not see anything…

What tree from druid do you loose when selecting this archetype? Seasons herald?

In hive keeper from level 4 you get “Your reflex saves are increased by 1 for every 3 druid levels”. Is this also the case in the upgraded version?

1. The core 6 in SH should do exactly the same thing it did plus prevent certain spells from burning up. There may be a transcription error if it appears to be missing anything.

2. Spike Growth's entity is getting look at for a few things (sometimes it floats). We can probably shorten it easily enough.

3. as stated at the top of the post you lose the nature's protector (bear tree) and you get no bear form.

4. The upgraded version of the Hive gets it every 2 druid level (+10 at level 20 druid). It's missing from the post (will fix).

[SWCarter]

Is there any chance of adding the option to heal from negative healing (which in turn reduces positive healing)? Thematically, it seems viable for this archetype to have that option.

I run with an undead group and having to splash 3 levels of Wizard or 3 levels of Dark Apostate to fit in really takes the "oomph" out of the core class. If you want to add a universal tree that adds support for negative healing instead, that'd be even better :).

[cru121]

In the Hive Keeper form, Biting Poison Imbue does not deal any damage.
When I swap to plague wolf, I can now see the damage.

[Rehmlah]

You changed the core 6 in seasons herald. Does it mean it does not give to caster level anymore but only max caster level? Also it seems like you give +1W to shillelagh. This is already in core 3. does this mean that shillelagh if taking all cores gives +3w for wooden staffs?


I think this is just a misconception regarding notation. Looking at the notation used for the Blightcaster tree, "Core 6" refers to the core unlocked at level 6 (the third core). As Torc said, the only thing changing about it should be the addition for spells to not be burned up.

This archetype looks really exciting, and I can't wait to try it out!

[Zeklijan]

Ya after play testing Death Eater's temp HP mechanic we cut that heal out. That string is out of date. Death Eater is kinda crazy when it comes online at level 6. It is meant to be one of the signature abilities of the tree. We'll keep an eye on it.

-T

I definitely agree that healing would be a bit crazy. I think 5x ability score is good, I like where it stands. It will be amazing for leveling, and still great at cap.

[cru121]

Changes to Nature's Warrior: - (Not in this build, coming next preview)



Howl of Winter renamed: Hunter's Howl to make it agnostic to Blighted Wolf or Winter Wolf

Great White Wolf Gets a multi selector with the alternate called Doom Wolf - 10/20/30 acid spell power, 10/20/30% Acid Resistance

Jaws of Winter get's renamed "Feasting Jaws" - Gain 10 times your character level in temporary HPs for 30 seconds after using Jaws of Winter or Jaws of Doom

Cold Breath damage will be updated to match current spell damage formulas





Consider unlocking some animal/wolf-only abilities also for plants (and elementals maybe).

[Ipsum]

Some initial thoughts:

* The theming is really cool, glad to have a dot/poison caster
* Glad the DOT spells are getting an adjustment
* I wish we had nature's protector or something else tanky to go with the "Thorn Knight" theming - i'm honestly not sure season's herald makes sense as a tree in this archetype

bugs so far:

* You can double up on "efficient metamagic: maximize" due to a lack of anti-requisites in Blight Caster
* Carrion swarm doesn't apply "spread the blight"

[Arkat]

Blight Druid...yes!

Finally, a use for the Blightstaff (https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Blightstaff)!

[Xezom]

So here are some pieces of feedback. My current set up I'm running a thorn Druid. Very single target focused, but seems pretty decent, with no trouble in the sustain department:

1) Splinterbolt has a shorted natural range than Thorn Strike. It's a higher level spell version of thorn strike so should probably have the double range of thorn strike as well.
2) Splinterbolt is for some reason having a double proc when it hits (more on that in a sec). It does a small mount of damage upfront with the larger full damage following. I'm not sure what's causing it to do that. Checked it with and without the Imbues and makes no difference.
3) The Thorn Spells need some work with targeting. They are very prone to hitting the floor or objects that are actually slightly larger in there hit box than they would suggest. Jump casting is almost mandatory on short characters as most of the thorns crash into the ground only feet in front of you. I'm wondering if this is an issue with how large the projectiles are since they are significantly fatter than most with their hit boxes.
3.5 edit) the thorn spells also have little to no target tracking. (ie. they don't follow targets). Combined with point 3 this makes them a little tricky to pull off very efficiently. Maybe consider adding tracking to them.
4) Thorn Bloom is VERY close range. Like less than touch range with enlarge for it to be reliable. I think this might be in part related to point 3? Maybe the collision is occurring too fast with the ground or something? I'm not entirely sure but if it's not a collision issue I would suggest upping the range a bit, it's even harder to use than the Acid Spray/Burning Hands spells at present. It also has the same issues as the rogue's Time Bomb. If you are fighting something on uneven ground, it is very likely to go off and not hit them.
5) Death Eater is EXTREMELY powerful. I know Torc, you stated that it's one of the signature abilities of the tree. That it is. It is basically a permanent 5x wisdom temp HP shield that full refreshes on kill no matter how low your temps get. Even If you have a paltry 50 wisdom and 5 stacks (250 temp HP shield) and you are down to 1 temp HP remaining and get a kill, it resets to 250. It's not uncommon to be running around late game with 400+ permanent temp HP. I would suggest bringing this down to maybe 3 stacks max, or make it when you get a kill, you gain 1 stack worth of temp HP back not a full refresh to 5.
6) The T5s are... okay. They're not bad. The immunity strip makes poison actually viable so that is good, but for me it's just missing a certain Je ne sais quoi. Maybe add something related to your animal or elemental form sorta like the mini Anger of noonday sun/Icy Mantle but death aura-ish?

Something like:
While in Wolf form gain: Nearby enemies take 1d6 poison damage per caster level (to a maximum of 20d6 at level 20) every 3 seconds. Fortitude save halves.
While in Thorn Form gain: Nearby enemies take 1d6 piercing damage per caster level (to a maximum of 20d6 at level 20) every 3 seconds. Fortitude save halves.
While in Hive Form gain: Nearby enemies take 1d6 acid damage per caster level (to a maximum of 20d6 at level 20) every 3 seconds. Fortitude save halves.

No metamagics on them and be the same range as Body of the Sun. Would give some extra touch of solidifying the identity of your shape, A t5 that altered based on your form, and play into the death and decay spreading druid fantasy.


So far, I really like this tree at lot and the playstyle. It's definitely different but familiar. With some tweaks it could cross the line into great. Just my first play through thoughts

Further Edit: Splinter Bolt and thorn Strike are both doing pierce damage according to combat log, but mephits take reduced damage from Splinterbolt but not from Thorn Strike.

[Zeklijan]

5) Death Eater is EXTREMELY powerful. I know Torc, you stated that it's one of the signature abilities of the tree. That it is. It is basically a permanent 5x wisdom temp HP shield that full refreshes on kill no matter how low your temps get. Even If you have a paltry 50 wisdom and 5 stacks (250 temp HP shield) and you are down to 1 temp HP remaining and get a kill, it resets to 250. It's not uncommon to be running around late game with 400+ permanent temp HP. I would suggest bringing this down to maybe 3 stacks max, or make it when you get a kill, you gain 1 stack worth of temp HP back not a full refresh to 5.



You're making it sound better than it is. Druids can get thousands of temp HP at cap, with 100 wisdom death eater is 500. It's good but it's nothing game breaking. Perfectly fine for endgame. It will be amazing in the heroic range, but Torc already acknowledged that this is intentional because it's a signature ability of the tree.

Reminder, in endgame:
Shard storm 25% of total HP in temp HP.
Legendary Affirmation 1000 temp
Blood Feast 1200 temp
Winter's heart 8x wisdom temp
With a decent HP pool we're talking 3k-4k temp

Adding 500 isn't gonna be a huge deal at cap. Especially since you will lose blood Feast unless you are shifter, because Blight druid doesn't get rage of the beast.

The ability is fine as it is.

[cru121]

Blight caster druids gain access to the level 7 Elemental Body spell, but they are not eligible targets.

[Xezom]

You're making it sound better than it is. Druids can get thousands of temp HP at cap, with 100 wisdom death eater is 500. It's good but it's nothing game breaking. Perfectly fine for endgame.

Reminder:
Shard storm 25% HP in temp HP.
Legendary Affirmation 1000 temp
Blood Feast 1200 temp
Winter's heart 8x wisdom temp
With a decent HP pool we're talking 3k-4k temp

Adding 500 isn't gonna be a huge deal at cap. Especially since you will lose blood Feast unless you are shifter because Blight druid doesn't get rage of the beast. The ability is fine as it is

It will be amazing in the heroic range, though.

It's pretty dang good. Even at cap. Did a reincarnation on my capped druid to see what you can get up to temp HP wise. Legendary Elite you can make it so that you never take actual HP damage with all the stacking temp HP you can get. I run a shifter Druid, which for a blight caster is pretty dang good since you're not having to worry about the added caster levels from Draconic since they dont apply unless running acid. The thing that makes it ridiculous is it's permanent uptime, no cost and refreshing mechanics. Most of the temp sources you listed are "temporary" temporary hit points. 400-500 permanent full refreshing temp HP is strong no matter how you slice it. Not to mention that Blight Casters will undoubtedly be going Shard Storm in ED.

I definitely get that this is there sustain in lieu of direct healing spells and is it a never die mechanic with no effort? Hardly. You still have to score kills for the refresh.
Is it something that needs to have an eye kept on it? Absolutely. It's a very powerful ability. Especially for one that you receive at level 6.

[Xgya]

I'll say I'm a bit iffy on the T5 SLA.

It took YEARS of asking for Black Tentacles to become a spell other classes could use, the day it becomes available, it's available to Druids, that also get it as an SLA to boot.

If this patch didn't also come with a buff to basic Warlocks, it'd feel outright distasteful.

I'm not UNhappy it happened, I just think it feels off. Tentacles was deemed too strong to hand as a T5 in Feydark, and now it's a T5 for Druids.

[arkonas]

I was wondering could it be possible to add minor elemental forms to druid itself at 4? like 25% of what they get at 13? i think it kinda sucks to wait 13 levels to finally be water/fire elemental. just my thought.

[Xezom]

I'll say I'm a bit iffy on the T5 SLA.

It took YEARS of asking for Black Tentacles to become a spell other classes could use, the day it becomes available, it's available to Druids, that also get it as an SLA to boot.

If this patch didn't also come with a buff to basic Warlocks, it'd feel outright distasteful.

I'm not UNhappy it happened, I just think it feels off. Tentacles was deemed too strong to hand as a T5 in Feydark, and now it's a T5 for Druids.

Not going to lie, it makes them a better caster of it than Warlocks simply by nature of being an SLA. While you don't get all the crit damage boosts you can get from TS, you can stack a good chunk of crit chance between the two caster druid trees, AND you get free metas on it. It definitely feels like a t5 when you get it. Only, slight, saving grace is that it's pierce damage not bludgeon so it's resisted by more things, but when you take all the extra spell power and crit chance you can get on the druid... it's still better.

Thankfully the notes are wrong too. the notes say 1d6 (Evard's is 1d4). It is indeed 1d4 for the druid version too.

The amount of zone control these Blight Casters have is a bit nutty. Evard's 2, Earthquake, Web, Spike Growth, Acid rain, etc.

[Urklore]

Blight druids in D&D always had vermin as their wild form. I been asking for a bug form for years! Come on, gives us a fire beetle wild form :)


Also, now that we have a lot of thorn spells being added can we finally get a plant clerical domain? I been asking for this one as well for years. I want to play a plant cleric and be able to turn plant creatures! :)

[kpak01]

New Tree: Blightcaster
Replaces: Nature's Protector.


Wow, Druid can finally get 2 caster trees instead of 1 caster tree and 2 melee trees.



DRUID FEATURES REMOVED FROM SUBCLASS



No Wolf Companion
No Fire or Water Elemental Forms



No Basic Cure Wound Spells or the Heal Spell (you keep Vigor but get them 1 level later, no mass regeneration)
No Elemental Fire/Water Elemental Form Spells





Those are some huge huge hits.



Spells Added to the Druid spell book for Blightcaster



1st level - Night Shield, Thorn Strike, Chill Touch, Acid Spray
2nd level - Gets Contagion at level 2 instead of 3, Melf's Acid Arrow, Web
3rd level - Acid Blast, Thorn Bloom, Stinking Cloud
4th level - Fear, Acid Rain, Plant Growth, Wave of Fatigue
5th level - Negative Energy Burst, Blighted Breath, Cloud Kill
6th level - Negative energy ray, Jaws of Doom, Blighted Bite, Thorn Wave
7th Level - Acid Fog, Wave of Exhaustion, Horrid Wilting
8th level - Black Dragon Bolt, Thorn Lance
9th level - Acid Well, Wail of the Banshee, Rend the Soul, Blighted Charge




Some moderately interesting options, but can't make up for the huge huge hits.



Past Life

Blightcaster:

Past Life: x3 (stacks)

+5 Acid and Poison Spell Power


Meh.





BLIGHT CASTER TREE:


Whole tree is meh. It's no worse than crappy Season's Herald tree, but it's no better, either, and it would have to be a lot better to justify everything we have to give up.

Will continue to play my Druid as a normal Druid and be mostly invested in Feydark, which is a way better caster Druid tree than anything we have or is proposed.



These appear in BOTH base druid and Blightcaster books.

Thorn Strike- Level 1: Conjuration - Cost: 2 Sp, Cooldown 2.0 seconds. Sends a giant thorn toward the target doing 1d6+2 piercing damage per caster level (max 10d6+20 at caster level 10).

Thorn Bloom- Level 3: Conjuration, Cost: 15 SP, Cooldown 3.5. Point Blank AOE - Send a wave of thorns out from your body dealing 1d6+4 piercing damage per caster level (max 10d6+40 at caster level 10). Reflex save for half.

Plant Growth- Level 4: copy of Animal Growth for Plants (which the thorn knight form works with)

Thorn Wave- Level 6: Conjuration, Cost: 25 SP, Cooldown 4.5. Cone - Fires a wave of powerful thorns in a tight arc in front of you dealing 1d6+6 piercing damage per caster level (max 20d6+80 at caster level 20).

Grasping Roots- Level 6: Conjuration, Cost: 30 SP, Cooldown 20 seconds. Duration 10 seconds. Powerful thorny vines rip out of the ground siezing all enemies in the area. Enemies save vs Reflex or become entangled, with a Re-occurring Strength save to break free. Entangled targets also take 1d6 in piercing damage every 2 seconds (max 15d6). All enemy movement through the area is slowed by 30%, no save. Area of effect fire spells will destroy these vines and free any entangled creatures. Incorporeal creatures and oozes are naturally immune. Fire elementals and other fire creatures are immune because they burn through the plants.

Thorn Lance-Level 8: Conjuration, Cost: 20 SP, Cooldown 5.5. Bolt - Fires a single powerful thorn that pierces through targets for 1d6+8 piercing damage per caster level. (Maximum 20d6+160 at caster level 20.)


That's nice, at least.

[beldin13]

Hi

OK LAMANNIA IS UP, BUT IT WILL NOT LET ME DOWNLOAD THE CLIENT. WHY? i HAVE 2 DRIVES...
sry caps

[Kza]

This is……. AWESOME!!! New spells, forms and seems also on paper atleast be good. Cant wait try it out :-)

[TerabyteTavern]

New Archtype for Druid

New Tree: Blightcaster
Replaces: Nature's Protector.


So, I'm going to point out a couple things with my Vow of Poverty project in mind, as well as just general fun and function for a variety of builds.



BASE CLASS PROGRESSION:

LEVEL 1: Disease Immunity - (applies to natural diseases like other immunities)


Wonderful to have! Makes a ton of flavor sense and good early play benefit. Hardcore likes this a lot.



Bonus Feat: Imbue Toggle that only functions when in any animal form, pick 1 of 2.



Biting Acid: 1d6 acid damage with all melee attacks. Scales with spell power. This can only be used in Wolf or Hive forms.
Biting Poison: 1d8 poison damage with all melee attacks. Scales with spell power. This can only be used in Wolf or Hive forms.


Cool. More damage against most mobs, or just a little less damage against nearly all. With the Imbue system now, I'm always looking for ways to interact with it, and when you get to have both of these at level 11, I could see myself hotkey them to toggle between frequently.




WildShape - Thorn-Kin:


You create a suit of living thorny wood around your body armoring you from harm. Note: Note this will be gearset over-ride instead of an animal form so the player will fight with their regular weapons. Basically you become a knight in plate mail made of wood and thorns.



+1 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Physical and Poison spells
10% exceptional bonus to armor class and 50% fortification.
You gain access to the thorn imbue.
10% vulnerability to fire damage


WildShape - Thorn Knight: - (upgrade to thorn kin)


A more advanced version of Thorn Kin where you actually become a plant under the armor.



You are considered a plant for purposes of most immunities, poison, sleep, paralysis, stun, mind effects. You can no longer drown in water.
+3 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Physical and Poison spells
You gain 10% absorption against piercing damage and 5% absorb against blunt damage.
You gain +2 imbue dice
10% exceptional bonus to armor class and 100% fortification.
15% vulnerability to fire damage


A non-animal melee viable form? Excellent... However, Having wood plate mail in flavor is cool, but this only has a % boost to AC. Add an AC Bonus on the same channel that gear uses, so if you are naked (my Vow) or a Cloth/Light armor user, you get AC equivalent to medium armor, scaling with level. If you felt generous, you could tuck some non-stacking PRR in too. Drowning immunity in particular is nice for me, but comes late. Move it to the base version?



WildShape - Hive Keeper:


You give part of yourself to the hive, gaining insect like reflexes and senses. Your bodily fluids become poisonous to others, and the swarm is always close.



+1 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Poison and Acid Spells
You gain 25% concealment and Evasion.
Your reflex saves are increased by 1 for every 3 druid levels.
10% vulnerability to cold. Your diplomacy checks are reduced by 5 (Jeff Goldblum early in The Fly)


WildShape - Hive Master:


You have become one with the swarm. Your body shifts between yourself and a cloud of insects, as you merge in and out of the swarm.



You are considered vermin for the purposes of immunities and are immune to mind effects and knock down.
+3 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Poison and Acid Spells
You are ethereal to monsters while tumbling.
You gain 50% concealment as displacement and Improved Evasion.
You gain +2 Imbue Dice and +1 to Reflex saves for every 2 druid levels (Max 10)
15% vulnerability to cold and -15 on diplomacy checks (Yeah Jeff is just pretty creepy now).


This is the Druid version of Shadow-form. If we don't get the AC bonus with Thorn-kin form, then this is where I'll have to find myself for the Displacement, mind and knockdown immunities.


BONUS FEAT - Thorn Imbue: Your weapons sprout sharp thorns adding 1d6 piercing damage to all your weapon attacks. Scales with spell power.

The other two imbues here scale from Spellpower. Let this scale with higher of Melee or Ranged Power.



BLIGHT CASTER TREE:

Core 6:


Death Eater - You gain 1 temporary hit point equal to your wisdom score whenever you kill an enemy (Creatures 2 levels below you do not count). These hit points remain until damage removes them or the quest ends. This can stack 5 times and is refreshed on each kill.

Core 12:


Know the End - You gain Know the End which acts as a permanent Death Block. Blight effect is improved to reduces saves by 2 and incoming positive healing by 40% for 10 seconds.

I'll be watching both of these closely. Not having to slot Deathblock in gear or a yellow slot is nice, but for Vow of Poverty it is amazing. I understand Death Eater is in flux, but if it stays on this type of theme/function, it'll be useful at the right time. Please let it be useful.



ADDITIONAL CHANGES....

Changes to Seasons Herald



Core 3 (level 6) updated to : +1 to max caster level of your season. Your Shillelagh does one extra W of damage. Your plant spells like entangle, spike growth and grasping thorns will no longer be dispelled by fire effects.

Notes on things coming down the line:



Will be adding a Flame Blade equivalent to the Blightcaster (thorn themed, weapon type or types TBD. We might do a few) for the next preview


Yes, please! And make sure it is accessible early, either as a spell or an Enhancement option.

Armory of Thorns Suggestions We have two weapon-conjures that can create single or dual weapons. Do something different here that synergizes with Shillelagh and other styles.
Three Options on Cast, all that scale like Flame and Shadow blades:
Quarterstaff
Club and Large Shield
Returning Dart

This would allow 2HF (and not aligned with Bear, so safer balance-wise), Weapon and Board (Club does Bludgeon but with pierce proc damage till level 10 or 15 when it does both base as it gets thornier, Shield can have spikes and shield bash), and ranged (This will be needed eventually, so throwing a huge thorn here fits with themes and opens the ability up).

I look forward to seeing how this develops! I have high hopes to feature it in one (or more) of my Vow of Poverty project lives.

[Shedrakzo]

First of all I'm loving this archetype, from the design concept down to the implementation but there's one glaring pain point for me. And that's the Thorn Knight.

Conceptually, its a neat design, and yay for a 'wood woad' type wildshape finally.

But the issue is the Blightcaster Tree replaces the Nature's Protector tree, which automatically means this wildshape is at a major disadvantage as far as being a 'tank'/frontline melee hybrid. There's the obvious loss of 25% competence bonus to HP, not to mention the bonus HP from the cores themselves. But the biggest loss is the Druidic Oath changes in the T5. Which means Thorn Knights are locked to the old druid standards when it comes to gearing options.

Is it possible that the Blightcaster Tree could get a new T5 that ties to all 3 of the wildshapes similar to the Master forms for Palemasters?

Something like:

Thorn's Armaments - All equipped armor and weapons are made of unobtanium ironwood. Preventing you from breaking oath and making any equipped weapon available for Shillelagh. You gain 25% competence bonus to HP.
Hive's Defense - Your hive manifests to fend you, dealing X piercing damage when attacked (hit and/or miss) in combat. Additionally every X seconds your swarm casts Enveloping Swarm at a nearby enemy. (This works like a lantern archon reusing the vfx from One With the Swarm)
Plague Hunter - Same bonuses as Swift Hunter, just available as T5 in this tree as an alternative to running T5 Nature's Warrior.

[QuantumFX]

Will be adding a Flame Blade equivalent to the Blightcaster (thorn themed, weapon type or types TBD. We might do a few) for the next preview

Sorry to add onto the work, but: Could you also add in a legendary named version of whatever you come up with in the same update? (ex. Valorius, the Flameblade and Esper, the Shadowblade) Sentient weapons are a thing in DDO, and having one that mimics the spell created weapon you're using would be a good thing.

[Axcarth]

Hey Torc. First of all, thank you for this fine work on U58.



...
Thorn Wave- Level 6: Conjuration, Cost: 25 SP, Cooldown 4.5. Cone - Fires a wave of powerful thorns in a tight arc in front of you dealing 1d6+6 piercing damage per caster level (max 20d6+80 at caster level 20).
...


This math is confusing. Is it 1d6+4 for 20d6+80 or is it 1d6+6 for 20d6+120 at caster level 20?

[Cadic]

A few bugs I noticed so far:

Cure Serious and Cure Critical were available as a level 4 and 5 spell respectively.

Thorn Bloom misses...ALOT. If you quicken it, it always misses. Even without quicken on, I was not hitting any enemies over 75% of the time. It was stupid how often I would be standing in the middle of a pack and no damage at all.

The thorn strike and splinterbolt spells seemed to miss a decent amount of time as well. I couldn't find rhyme or reason on why they weren't doing damage sometimes.

Blighted Breath seemed to work in any form. Honestly I kinda liked it as there aren't really good poison or acid spells for a few levels in there.

Thorn Bloom SLA description is wrong. It is just the text from Thorn Strike.

[rabidfox]

nevermind I can't read

[unbongwah]

But the issue is the Blightcaster Tree replaces the Nature's Protector tree, which automatically means this wildshape is at a major disadvantage as far as being a 'tank'/frontline melee hybrid. There's the obvious loss of 25% competence bonus to HP, not to mention the bonus HP from the cores themselves. But the biggest loss is the Druidic Oath changes in the T5. Which means Thorn Knights are locked to the old druid standards when it comes to gearing options.
Despite the names, Thorn Knight and Hive Master don't seem to be any better than elemental forms for melee DPS or tanking. There's some defensive buffs, but no Competence bonus to HPs and no crit bonuses that I can see. Some Imbue damage, but no more than elementals get AFAICT. The focus of Thorn and Hive forms is apparently on caster bonuses. Meaning like regular druid elementals, you're either going to rely on Vistani Knife Fighter or multiclassing to boost melee DPS and HPs unless Blightcaster is tweaked to be more powerful.

Between that and losing Nature's Protector options (defensive stance, Rage of the Beast, etc.), it seems like a worse choice for non-wolf melee DPS than regular druids.

[Tilomere]

No to full immunity break.

Would be better at 1% per caster level, because it breaks lore, and makes casters just a green or blue or red lightsaber jedi, casters already obliterate heroics, and there has to be a tradeoff to building a 1 dimensional 1 trick pony build, or build space decreases and that becomes the only way to build.

While you are at it, feel free to nerf every single other immunity break to 1% per caster level as well.

[cru121]

Despite the names, Thorn Knight and Hive Master don't seem to be any better than elemental forms for melee DPS or tanking. There's some defensive buffs, but no Competence bonus to HPs and no crit bonuses that I can see. Some Imbue damage, but no more than elementals get AFAICT. The focus of Thorn and Hive forms is apparently on caster bonuses. Meaning like regular druid elementals, you're either going to rely on Vistani Knife Fighter or multiclassing to boost melee DPS and HPs unless Blightcaster is tweaked to be more powerful.

Between that and losing Nature's Protector options (defensive stance, Rage of the Beast, etc.), it seems like a worse choice for non-wolf melee DPS than regular druids.

Yup, unfortunately this is not the non-animal melee DPS tree some of us were looking for.

[Zeklijan]

No to full immunity break.

Would be better at 1% per caster level, because it breaks lore, and makes casters just a green or blue or red lightsaber jedi, casters already obliterate heroics, and there has to be a tradeoff to building a 1 dimensional 1 trick pony build, or build space decreases and that becomes the only way to build.

While you are at it, feel free to nerf every single other immunity break to 1% per caster level as well.

The game is setup in a way to reward those who dedicate to a single element. Unless the game made it easier to be good at multiple elements at the same time, dedicated spellcaster builds do need immunity removal. If a spellcaster using damage spells is a one trick pony, what would be fighter swinging a sword then? Unlike Warriors, no monsters are completely immune to melee or ranged damage.

Also, I don't believe the game is balanced around heroics, but the endgame content.

[Diracorvus]

Since it can't use fire or sun spells and can't get elemental forms, the season's herald enhancement tree seems pretty unfitting for this archetype. Why not use an enhancement tree from another class, like you did for sacred fist? E.g. vanguard, deepwood scout, earth savant or one of the barbarian ones.
Or maybe make a special season's herald that has fall instead of summer, for buffs on physical, negative and poison spells.

[Baahb3]

The game is setup in a way to reward those who dedicate to a single element. Unless the game made it easier to be good at multiple elements at the same time, dedicated spellcaster builds do need immunity removal.

Tell the devs then to address Warlocks.

[mikarddo]

So, in caster mode it will be bit like an acid sorc?

Mostly the loss of most healing seems to deviate greatly from the regular druid concept.

Will it be a worse dps but a few heals sorc basically? Sure, improved evasion is great early on but Sorc can have evasion at level 26 as well so for the end game that matters less.

How does a Hivemind Druids differ substantially from an Acid Sorc (which isnt really a strong sorc) at end game?

[tanuki013]

DC calculation for Blighted Charge Spell is not being done correctly.
On a character with Druid lvl 20 Wisdom, Score 29, Stunning bonus 0
I looked at the DC of Blighted Charge Spell.
The DC of the Blighted Charge Spell was listed as: DC: 10 + Druid level + Highest of Wisdom, Dexterity, or Strength + Stun Bonuses.

And the DC of Blighted Charge Spell on this character was listed as 28.
If the DC calculations were done as described above, then the DC should be 39.
I don't think the DC calculation is correct.
After this, I tried to see the change of DC after getting 4 Stuning bonuses, but the DC value did not change.
At the very least, I could see that the Stuning bonus had no effect at all.
The same problem occurs with Takedown spells (Druid LV1 spells).
Liveserver has also confirmed that all ANIMAL Spells are not displaying DC correctly.
Please fix. Please correct it.

[btolson]

Cloudkill needs a balance pass. It's weak, offers a save every single tic unlike other cloud spells, and doesn't take maximize, empower, etc metamagics. Not worth using, weakest option in the spellbook.
Maybe retool the spell's HD restrictions so those parts of the spell actually serve a purpose (currently, you'd have to take a trip back to water works at level 10+ for them to do anything); make it a unique spell instead of just another dps aoe.
Maybe:
-scrap the hitdice stuff entirely
-set the duration to 30 seconds
-every 2 seconds, creatures take 2d6 + 1d3 poison damage and 1d4 Con damage unless they make a fort save. Regardless of save, they ALSO gain a stack of debuff: "Cloudkilled"
-upon taking the above damage: if a creature has 5+ stacks of "Cloudkilled", then there is a 33% chance it must make a fort save against death instead of Con damage
Rough idea, but potentially useful as a way to mop up crowds. Most things probably won't survive long enough for the instakill part to come into play, but it's more useful than the spell currently stands.


Acid Rain could use a tweak as well. Upping the dice to 1d3+1 maybe. Or MCL 20. Not both.

[axan22]

Any chance while you are looking at Druid you could add some lvl 9 spells to norm Druid they have literally no choice, especially if you use elemental forms you end up taking the animal from spells just to fill slots.

[shmagmhar]

suggestion / request instead of blight wolf make it a gaint undead rat . aslo make abilities to spawn oozes . I always thought this was a cool game mechanic . for example whenever hive form strikes with a spell there is a small chance to spawn a black pudding or ooze . when stuff attacks you have a chance to bleed out a black pudding

thank you for adding blight druid i have been suggesting it for a long time.

[Rehmlah]

Trying this out has been really fun. I especially like the animation of the Murder of Crows ability; it feels satisfying to use. I know you mentioned many spells and abilities are only using placeholder art, but I hope this one is final. Also, the enhancements that upgrade existing spells, like making Contagion and Insidious Spores into AoE spells, are neat.

Small bug: The Acid Arrow and Enveloping Swarm SLAs are putting each other on cooldown. Thorn Strike and Acid Rain are not putting the others on cooldown, though I have not tested all combinations of multiselectors.

Minor weirdness: I agree with the sentiment some others have expressed about Season's Herald. It's nice to have a second casting tree when specced for it, but it feels strange to get access to Produce Flame and Sunburst when fire and light spells were removed. Neither of the two seasons are particularly aimed towards this archetype, either, though Winter boosting Acid spells is nice. Could poison at least be added to one of the two? Or maybe make the first core a multiselector with choices similar to Primal Avatar?

[Maldrick]

This is by far my favorite archetype you all have dreamed up so far. I am genuinely so, so excited to play it!

My only concern about it for end game is there aren't really sets as far as I can find that combine poison and acid which seems to limit the gearing on this kind of character. Fix that, and this might be one of my favorite classes to ever grace ddo!

Finally, I'll be able to roleplay the plague from my favorite horror game! xD

[Cadic]

A few bugs I noticed so far:

Cure Serious and Cure Critical were available as a level 4 and 5 spell respectively.

Thorn Bloom misses...ALOT. If you quicken it, it always misses. Even without quicken on, I was not hitting any enemies over 75% of the time. It was stupid how often I would be standing in the middle of a pack and no damage at all.

The thorn strike and splinterbolt spells seemed to miss a decent amount of time as well. I couldn't find rhyme or reason on why they weren't doing damage sometimes.

Blighted Breath seemed to work in any form. Honestly I kinda liked it as there aren't really good poison or acid spells for a few levels in there.

Thorn Bloom SLA description is wrong. It is just the text from Thorn Strike.



Another couple bugs I believe:
Contagion: Blinding Sickness does not seem to spread to other enemies with the Out Break talent. (Shouldn't that be Outbreak btw? Not two words)
No plant growth in the spell list that I can tell.

[Tyrande]

This is by far my favorite archetype you all have dreamed up so far. I am genuinely so, so excited to play it!

My only concern about it for end game is there aren't really sets as far as I can find that combine poison and acid which seems to limit the gearing on this kind of character. Fix that, and this might be one of my favorite classes to ever grace ddo!

Finally, I'll be able to roleplay the plague from my favorite horror game! xD

No, there are sets: (note that one is exceptional and the other artifact and legendary; so they should all stack)

Mountain skin set from Killing Time raid reads:

2 Pieces Equipped:

+30 Exceptional bonus to Acid Spell Power
+6% Exception bonus to Acid Spell Lore
When struck, you will occasionally have the Stoneskin spell cast on you.

Legendary Elder's Knowledge (Items) * 2 Pieces Equipped:

+6% Artifact bonus to Spell Critical Chance
15% Legendary bonus to Spell Critical Damage

Chained Elements (Items) (from LLOB & LMA)

2 Pieces Equipped:

+10% Artifact bonus to Fire, Cold, Acid, Electric Spell Crit Damage
+50 Artifact bonus to Fire, Cold, Acid, and Electric Spell Power


and let's not forget Blight Staff: (from Legendary Vision of Destruction)

Quarterstaff
Accepts Sentience
Simple Weapon Proficiency

Minimum Level: 29
Bound to Character on Acquire
Base Damage: 65.63
Damage: 5[1d6+6]+15
Damage Types: Bludgeon, Magic
Critical Roll: 20/x2
Attack Mod: STR
Damage Mod: STR
Enchantments:

Spellcasting Implement +29: Passive: +29 Implement bonus to Universal Spell Power.
+15 Enhancement Bonus: Weapons and Shields: +15 Enhancement Bonus Attack and Damage rolls. Armor and Shields: +15 enhancement bonus to Armor Class.
Blighted Lore +22%: Passive: Your Acid, Negative, Poison, and Evil spells gain a +22% Equipment bonus to their chance to Critical Hit.
Power of the Blight +148: Passive: +148 Equipment bonus to Acid, Negative, Poison, and Evil Spell Power.
Spell Focus Mastery +5: Passive: +5 Equipment bonus to DC of all spells.
Spell Penetration +9: Passive: +9 Equipment bonus to penetrate Spell Resistance.
Inflict Blight: his weapon is infested with the unholy and blighted power of the earth. Rarely, this power will come to the surface, attempting to melt enemies struck with Acid, Negative, Poison, or Evil spells by dealing significant Acid damage over time.
Legendary Earthgrab Guard: This item stores the implacable strength of the earth deep within. When the wearer of this item is successfully attacked in melee, this power occasionally comes to the surface, calling on the earth to erupt from the ground and hold an enemy in place.

[Cadic]

Quick suggestion:
I would suggest you change the Acid Rain SLA to Acid Blast. The acid version of this class doesn't have a great "Master of xxxxxx" epic feat to take otherwise. Neither Acid Spray or Melf's Acid Arrow is really worth taking Master of Earth for.

[Cadic]

Another bug:
Items that give bonuses for Wild Shape are not working with the minor forms at least. I don't have the new forms yet to test that, but take the "Lore-Fueled Packbanner", it is supposed to give bonuses based on your wilderness lore. I did verify I have 13 instances of Wilderness Lore atm.

Immunity stripping doesn't seem to be working in the T5 as well btw. Just did Into the Mists and the wisps remained immune to the acid the entire time.

[Ultinoob]

No, there are sets: (note that one is exceptional and the other artifact and legendary; so they should all stack)

Mountain skin set from Killing Time raid reads:

2 Pieces Equipped:

+30 Exceptional bonus to Acid Spell Power
+6% Exception bonus to Acid Spell Lore
When struck, you will occasionally have the Stoneskin spell cast on you.

[..]

This is not exceptional bonus. I know the wiki says so and i believe it once was, but i just checked the runes for killing time and it is artifact. so they don't stack. however this frees up some slots.

[BananaHat]

Flavor suggestion: The plague wolf should have an inherent Disease Guard (as per the item ability) or perhaps cause a random disease on vorpal hits. Not super powerful but it would be fun. Similar to zombie form in Palemaster having a hidden effect that causes Int damage on vorpals because they are eating your brain.

[Cadic]

A couple more bugs:
The thorn spells will not hit the Phantom Archers in Oath of Vengeance. I'm not sure if this happens elsewhere, but its 100% here. Could not land a single one. I showed spell crits in the log, but no damage so the spell should have been landing.

Black Dragon Bolt is very inconsistent in it's damage. Sometimes it does 2 ticks, sometimes it does 3 ticks.

[Zeklijan]

Tell the devs then to address Warlocks.

I very much agree that warlocks should have an immunity strip in their kit, just like Blight Druid does.

[Shedrakzo]

No Wolf Companion

I am a bit concerned about this for the utility loss. While the druid wolf isn't amazing (though it is by far the best animal companion in the game currently), it has its purposes and losing the wolf is a hit to the utility of any druid.

Is this a matter of not wanting to make a model for the wolf to be a plague wolf or something? Is there any chance we can discuss giving the wolf back? Especially since the Archetype is shipping with both Season's Herald and Nature's Warrior, the two trees with the pet buffs. Perhaps replace the wolf with a twig blight or something thematic?

[Maldrick]

and let's not forget Blight Staff: (from Legendary Vision of Destruction)




I was not aware of the Blight Staff, thank you

[Tyrande]

This is not exceptional bonus. I know the wiki says so and i believe it once was, but i just checked the runes for killing time and it is artifact. so they don't stack. however this frees up some slots.

hmmm.... I look it up for the runes and its artifact not exceptional. Such a bummer and I had high hopes... /sigh.

When was this nerfed? I never had an acid caster so I thought it was still there.

[Tyrande]

I very much agree that warlocks should have an immunity strip in their kit, just like Blight Druid does.

/agree

I played two warlocks previously, and currently still have one fire warlock.

I was hoping for stripping, because there are a-lot of fire immunity mobs... and I mean all devils, all fire elementals, all fire <xxx> and warlock DPS IMHO now is not optimal and way behind other casters IMHO, even with this update 58.

I know DI destiny and ruin/ greater ruin make up some and cold warlocks made up some, but what about other warlocks?


Abyss warlock by itself should not exist...

[Zuldar]

aslo make abilities to spawn oozes . I always thought this was a cool game mechanic . for example whenever hive form strikes with a spell there is a small chance to spawn a black pudding or ooze

thank you for adding blight druid i have been suggesting it for a long time.

Since they're revamping contagion why not make the slimy doom version summon an ooze when it's target dies (limited to 1 at a time like others summons) with a CR equal to the targets CR? That would be a way more interesting revamp than just a bit of damage.

[Maldrick]

Okay, I have a rough gear sketch for this thing.

To all the people who created this archetype, THANK YOU! I have not been this excited about the game in long time.

Just one question though. Is anyone aware of a helmet that resembles a plague doctor mask, and if not, can we please have one?

[Tyrande]

Okay, I have a rough gear sketch for this thing.

To all the people who created this archetype, THANK YOU! I have not been this excited about the game in long time.

Just one question though. Is anyone aware of a helmet that resembles a plague doctor mask, and if not, can we please have one?

You mean sometime like this from Darkest Dungeon plague doctor:
https://i.ibb.co/Gd3dgh7/Screenshot-from-2023-01-19-13-52-34.png (https://imgbb.com/)

I do not believe we have something like this in DDO. The closest one we got is the Undying Gaze.

[Scrag]

Tell the devs then to address Warlocks.

-> Acolyte of the Skin <-

This is coming in 58. No idea what it is but it sounds exciting.

I wonder what would happened if you did all three new archetypes in one char! Hah!

[Maldrick]

You mean sometime like this from Darkest Dungeon plague doctor:
https://i.ibb.co/Gd3dgh7/Screenshot-from-2023-01-19-13-52-34.png (https://imgbb.com/)

I do not believe we have something like this in DDO. The closest one we got is the Undying Gaze.

This is indeed what I mean.

Devs, pls bring the creepy bird helms to complete my joy!

[Atremus]

Level 7 Druid Spell: Elemental Toughness needs to be updated to work with Hive Forms or removed from the spell list

Edit:

Targeting on Thorn Bloom needs to be refined into a burst radius. Right now the thorns do not hit all enemies when surrounded.

BUG: In Hive Master Form I only have 25% Concealment instead of the listed 50% while under the effects of SHIFTER RAGE [Wisdom Version]

[Gratch]

As a thematic update would it be possible to make Lore of the Great Plagues a multi-selector:

Lore of the Great Plagues:

Avoidance: You gain a +1/2/3 saving throw bonus against poison and disease.
Acceptance: When targeted by any opponent's poison or disease effect - gain 1 imbue dice and 5/10/15% movement increase for 20s.
Rank 3 for both: Gain 5 Poison and Negative Spell Power.

Just something along the lines of "you fool... you dare to disease or poison a Blightcaster!"

Also I don't think I've ever specifically selected gear, feat, or enhancement to gain saves vs. poison, disease.

[Madja]

This looks super awesome. I love poison builds. A lot of enemies are immune to poison, though. Any chance we can get something like alchemist has to make enemies vulnerable to poison?

EDIT: My bad I'm blind

[Zeklijan]

BUG: In Hive Master Form I only have 25% Concealment instead of the listed 50% while under the effects of SHIFTER RAGE [Wisdom Version]

This bug is on live, if you use 50% displacement while raging, the 25% from rage overrides your 50% for some reason. It's not specific to the form.


This looks super awesome. I love poison builds. A lot of enemies are immune to poison, though. Any chance we can get something like alchemist has to make enemies vulnerable to poison?

You can find the ability named Everything Decays from T5 Blight, that removes immunities to poison and acid.

[Zeklijan]

Spell range for all the new thorn spells don't work as intended, some of them don't deal damage at all.

Biting Acid Imbue does not apply it's damage.

All the new spells don't trigger the Primal Avatar Thorn Mantle damage.

Elemental Forms Legendary Feat is not applied to hive/thorn elementals.

Elemental Toughness does not work with Hive/Thorn.

[KrypticSouls]

Seems like a fair subclass. Seasons Herald needs to be replaced though, can't use a tree if you don't have any spells or the elemental forms to match it.

[Lotoc]

Seems like a fair subclass. Seasons Herald needs to be replaced though, can't use a tree if you don't have any spells or the elemental forms to match it.

Season's herald actually does have benefits for Acid, and force/physical spells. The only thing that doesn't actually function in season's herald for blightcaster is "Druid level 17 or above: Changing into Fire Elemental form now grants you a brief version of the Anger of the Noon Day Sun effect. Changing into Water Elemental Form grants you a similar version of Icy Mantle. This is not affected by metamagics."
You'll be in summer for the thorn spells as it boosts force spells and in winter for the acid spells as it boosts acid/earth spells.
It is actually very strong as your subtree for a blightcaster and it's also a source of +1CL/MCL from early cores.

[Zeklijan]

The only thing that doesn't actually function in season's herald for blightcaster is "Druid level 17 or above: Changing into Fire Elemental form now grants you a brief version of the Anger of the Noon Day Sun effect. Changing into Water Elemental Form grants you a similar version of Icy Mantle.

Much like the Doom Wolf gets a multiselector for acid spellpower and absorption instead of cold in Nature's warrior, I could see this enhancement also getting a multiselector for Hive/Thorn elementals.

[Lotoc]

Much like the Doom Wolf gets a multiselector for acid spellpower and absorption instead of cold in Nature's warrior, I could see this enhancement also getting a multiselector for Hive/Thorn elementals.

I mean it doesn't exactly need it, Blightcaster's blight with capstone is somewhat equal to the debuffs those two effects apply and it has immunity strip in it's own t5s. The tree upto t4 supports blightcaster incredibly well honestly and by having the t5 be pretty much inferior for a blightcaster it pretty much solves the problem that occured with stormsinger where it became "Oh, I can just go spellsinger with this archetype and just be a generally better caster bard without changing my playstyle at all."
Or the way many did DA which was "I don't feel like playing the actual class so all my points will go into DD and feydark and I'll just play light/fire nuker"

[Fisto_Mk_I]

When was this nerfed? I never had an acid caster so I thought it was still there.

It was Artifact all time in individual items pages and tooltips, just was incorrect Exceptional in summary page (may be it was correct in Lammania tests). Corrected now.

[shmagmhar]

giant rat ! giant rat ! we want giant undead rat the bleeds ozzes when struck !

[Madja]

You can find the ability named Everything Decays from T5 Blight, that removes immunities to poison and acid.

Cheers. That'll teach me to open my eyes more :D

[MasterKernel]

Several thoughts :
1) The absence of healing spells is crucial. Why choose Blightcaster Druid over a Sorc in that case ? Poison-based Druid ? But Poison is like the worst type of damage, at least for now...
2) Quite bad spells selection. DDO doesn't have much of a good Acid-based spells in the first place, but something like Acid Rain/Cloud Kill etc. are generally hated by everyone. Even if you'll buff them, those spells create some sort of a "mist" which makes difficult to see anything on the screen.
(I've had an Acid Sorc life once... the fastest imaginable way to learn new English swear words. XD )
3) The Enhancements tree is strange (and uninspiring). Add Poison damage to already unused spells ? Add Acid-based Spells/SLAs but [almost] no passive enhancements to make them better ? Incompatibility between Blightcaster and Season's Herald trees but a player have both at the same time ?
Core 6 is still +2 WIS, while other casters got their +4. :-(

Overall :
1) I think you had to create new Acid spells instead of the Piercing ones and replace all of the Acid rain/mist nonsense with them.
2) A character using DOTs is useless in DDO. Nobody are going to wait till your DOTs would kill an enemy. Everyone plays as if it is a Diablo-like hack&slash RPG : run-pew-pew-pew-run-repeat. Why create such an archetype in the first place ? It'll be a way too boring to play - anyone from the group would kill everything faster then you and you don't even have heals to contribute something for the group.

[Zeklijan]

Hive elemental form does not grant it's bonus to Acid caster level. It correctly provides it for poison only.

The new thorn spells are not affected by Draconic Incarnation Core 3's Eschew Material. (It will still consume material)
The new thorn spells are not affected by the bonus to caster level from season herald's Child of Summer.

Option to train your pet is still enabled at the trainers despite not having a pet for Blight Druids.

Murder of Crows' "Murder in your Eye" Doesn't apply it's additional piercing damage on blind targets despite having a raven summoned.

[Scrag]

1) I think you had to create new Acid spells instead of the Piercing ones and replace all of the Acid rain/mist nonsense with them.
2) A character using DOTs is useless in DDO. Nobody are going to wait till your DOTs would kill an enemy.

Wrong forum, but... I took acid rain on my sorc because on paper it looks good. On a solo sorc its terrible. By the time i cast it on something at distance, its there for 1 tick of damage and they are out. That leaves me with trying to spam it in melee range which is just a horrible solution to my cold-proof enemy problem.

Frankly, my cold sorc does more damage even highly resisted than it does with notable crit chance and acid rain.

I need to check out the acidness in blightcaster, but if it is more of the same dot, thats going to be frustrating. Same with poison. I need to kill things hard and fast, or live through getting the snot pounded out of me, and this doesnt seem to fall into the getting pounded on category of play...

[EnragedBears]

1) Thorn Lance - need spell components - even though I have have Draconic I & II - that should remove the need for any spell components
2) Everything Decays rank 3 - do NOT remove Acid and Poison Immunity - tested in quest Grim and Baret on reaper 1

[SocratesBastardSon]

Even though I don't know how it plays yet, I really love the idea.

Without getting bogged down in specifics, in general Disease and Poison spells are woefully underpowered. This archetype would be the perfect platform for giving them a boost, and the changes to Contagion are a move in the right direction. But like before, the problem is they just don't scale well, and it looks like Contagion still suffers from that drawback. DC bonuses are good, AOE effects are welcome, but I suspect that's not going to be enough to make them worthwhile beyond the early game.

How about a Druid version of Warlock's Dark Discorporation (https://ddowiki.com/page/Dark_Discorporation)? Instead of turning into bats the caster turns into a cloud of insects. You could even use the insect swarms from Borderlands as a model.

[Xezom]

So this tree has some good potential. It needs A LOT of bug fixing and spell tweaking though. The Thorn spells are painful to use due to their single target nature and tendency to crash into the ground, hit doors that are already open, not tracking, etc. I covered most of that in my first review.

Death Eater is a strong ability. Especially solo. When you get in a party, especially with other nukes or large parties, it gets a little less OP but is still a strong ability to have. The reduction in healing capacity makes sense thematically, and Death Eater definitely makes up for the loss in solo. It also makes you have to be more of a proactive healer, instead of a reactive healer as you are down to using HoT's rather than emergency heals. I'm a fan of DoT and Hot characters so I'm not bothered by either of these. I think DDO has room to grow when it comes to players learning to play with different styles all around. Active HoT healing is something DDO does not have much of, so this is a sort of baby step into that. Active HoT healing vs reactive healing are two completely different beasts, and arguably it takes more skill to be a HoT healer than a reactive healer. My opinion, again not everyone will agree.

The immunity strip is wompy. Sometimes it seemed to work, but most of the time it didn't.

The damage profiles of the thorn spells is a little odd too. Some of the spells, like Splinterbolt, are resisted as you would expect, while others like Thorn Bloom and Thorn Strike hit for normal damage despite the combat log showing that they all do piercing damage.

Funny enough, I thoroughly enjoyed the DOT build a lot. It's by no means a clear speed master, but on bosses which as just HP Meat bags it's pretty handy and can shuck out a good amount. You have so many DoT's at your disposal that they string of numbers becomes pretty nutty once you get them stacked up there. It's definitely a nice change from just the blow them up, run, blow them up, run, repeat. DoT characters in almost every game face that issue, but considering that this is the first real tree o double down on the potential fantasy of a DoT character, it's actually very solid. DoT is not everyone's style so there will be some disagreement here, but from someone who has been dying for some good DoT characters in DDO, I have to say that this tree scratches that itch.



My suggestions after three days of playing (Mind you I played both a Legendary reincarnated character, and started a level 7 toon as well):

1) Bug Fix Bug Fix Bug Fix. I know it has an insect elemental form, but the play doesn't need to be THAT buggy.

2) The hit box and tracking issues of the thorn spells MUST be fixed before release or thorn knight it's going to be borderline unusable (especially without the poison strip working properly). The inconsistent target hitting is painful to try to deal with.

3) Interactions with the various epic destinies is hit and miss. The Thorn spells don't qualify for the PA Mantle, and only sometimes seems to for the draconic (Poison dragon). Maybe I missed it but seems to be inconsistent.

4) Add a T5 that alters its power based on your form kinda like the pale master. Whether it's damage aura, DC modifiers, buffs, etc. just something that makes your elemental/wolf choice feel more impactful with t5.

Other than that I don't have a lot of negative to say about the tree and the set up. I like the theme and the feel of the character and don't even mind the more single target nature of the thorn spells (til later when you get the kick butt Grasping Thorns). There is a lot of area coverage options so you don't ever really feel like you're that single target even though most thorn and poison spells are naturally single target (can be made less so by points in the tree).

I'm looking forward to seeing what things actually look like when the VFX's are completed as right now they are pretty basic, but we know they're not finished. I'm hoping along with that will come some spell adjusting to make the Thorn spells more user friendly.

I'll break my ratings into 2 sections based on the Builds I did:

Thorn Caster
Theme: 9/10
Unique Playstyle: 5/10 (pretty standard cast and run)
Durability/Solo-ability: 9/10
Party Friendly: 8/10
Functionality: 3/10 (Lots of work needs done here. Tons of bugs and spell hitting issues.)
Look/Aesthetic: 3/10 (I know that the FX's are not finished, so this is once that i know will improve. As is it's very bland looking)
Epic Destiny Synergy: 9/10 (Works decently well with Primal Avatar, Draconic Incarnation, or Magus depending on what augmented damage type you take in T5 and your overall goals. See notes above tho.
Late Game Gearing: 8/10 (Surprisingly there is a good amount of gear that works well for physical/poison casters. Morgrave Staves are great)

DoT Caster
Theme: 9/10
Unique Playstyle: 8/10 (Very very active on keeping DoTs going on bosses, the tag along and a little painful clear speed but to be expected)
Durability/Solo-ability: 7/10 (surprisingly not as bad as you'd think for a DoT character. Easy leveling, but not the fastest thing in the world)
Party Friendly: Both 9/10 and 3/10. (9/10 on bosses for the DoT power that rips through their HP pools safely and consistently, 3/10 for the clear speed and because you cause A LOT of screen noise).
Functionality: 7/10 (fix the immunity strip and we'll be in good shape here, otherwise most everything else functions great with the DoTs)
Look/Aesthetic: 3/10 (I know that the FX's are not finished, so this is once that i know will improve. As is it's very bland looking)
Epic Destiny Synergy: 9/10 (Works decently well with Primal Avatar or Draconic Incarnation. I took Draconic for the poison DoT from the Mantle to add more DoT power, worked amazing)
Late Game Gearing: 8/10 (Still a good amount of gear for DoT since its basically just regular caster gear. Conjuration and negative/poison spell power is an odd mix tho)

Those are my thoughts. Looking forward to the next preview to see how things improve. Thanks for the opportunity to test this out!
Xezom

[btolson]

The Horn/Hive forms should have some form-specific spells to differentiate them a bit more, and contrast against the regular druid form spells.
Some ideas:

Poison Presence: requires a Hive form; enemies near you are poisoned by the toxicity you exude, suffering 1d3/level poison damage every 3 seconds and having their move and attack speed slowed by 10%.

Thorny Growths: requires a Thorn form; You regularly sprout thorny vines from your body. Enemies that attempt to attack you in melee must make a strength check or be snared for 4 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once per 6 seconds.


Flowing Swarm: requires a Hive form; you rush forward (wings ability), passing through enemies in your path, who suffer 1d4 acid damage and 1d4 poison damage per caster level and also affected by "Clinging Drones" for 12 seconds if they fail a fortitude save. Clinging Drones: You cannot benefit from incorporeality, concealment or invisibility, and your MRR is reduced by 10. Cooldown 15 seconds.

Steadfast Roots: requires a Thorn form; You sink your roots deep into the ground to gain offensive and defensive power. For the next 12 seconds, you cannot move (or suffer move speed -100, depending on what's implementable), you suffer dodge -100, you gain 50% resistance to all physical damage, and you gain poison and force spellpower equal to 10 times your caster level.


The goal is to foster different playstyles between the forms, where the Hive form emphasizes mobility vs your enemies and the Thorn form is more about endurance and hard hits.

One more pair of contrasting abilities would be good, but I'm out of concrete ideas atm.

[Lotoc]

Will the blightcaster elemental forms work with the legendary elemental forms feat?
The feat seems it'll heavily bias thornknight form as thorn is innately physical/poison while swarm is acid/poison.
while the feat grants bonuses to acid (making thorn knight actually better with acid spells than swarm would be) it doesn't currently boost anything offered in the thornknight's specialties of poison or physical spells for a swarm form to take advantage of.
It may be for the best not to include blightcaster forms in this feat or to treat both forms as technically earth elementals so it will benefit cold/air/fire spells only.
On another note, it probably makes sense to give the thorn spells the Earth elemental tag for things such as earth savant or season's herald. I believe the thorn spells currently aren't properly tagged as physical spells or such for the season's herald season bonuses.

[Caarb]

Seems like a fair subclass. Seasons Herald needs to be replaced though, can't use a tree if you don't have any spells or the elemental forms to match it.

Not replaced - updated.
Add Spring (move all healing to this season)
Add Autumn/fall this is the season for decay stuff

Theres not much negative synergy here.
I would remove vigor spells and replace them with negative versions
Add negative version of regenerate
Add negative healing to forms

[FuzzyDuck81]

About the only thing I'm not as keen about for this is that the immunity stripping comes via the enhancement tree rather than a shiny new level 9 spell, so it'll be trickier to adapt my fire elemental falconry build & make it lean more heavily into the spellcasting role than the melee side, however everything decays simultaneously stripping 2 types of damage immunities from a target rather than just the one will have some really tasty possibilities including opening up more multiclassing options - for example, you could mix in a few levels of GOO or abyss pact warlock with some soul eater enhancements & the right gear, (possibly make them tiefling too & use magus destiny) & that would give you a character that, while not the strongest individual build, would act as a fantastic debuffer for raid groups.

[kpak01]

...its there for 1 tick of damage and they are out.


You're not describing a spell problem, you're describing a you're-doing-it-wrong problem. Use CC spells.

[Zeklijan]

Mirroring the sentiment of many people here with Acid Rain, it would be really nice if there was an acid spell that did straight AoE damage in the spell level 6-8 range, without doing DoT. (To complement Acid Well at cap, much like Ice Flowers is the complement to Tsunami.)

Another thing I think would be really cool is if there were a few elemental form only spells for Hive and Thorn, just like the base druid has on live. Adding some flavor, maybe a few debuffs in there, etc.

But hey, that's just my opinion.

[Kivandel]

Giving broken OP Imbue to broken OP Wolf... At least add some breasts to WF and Dragonborn females.

[kellendir3000]

Hello all. I copied the post and shall be attempting to interweave my initial feedback into the post itself.

========Organization and Methodology========

a) All feedback shall be demarcated via ***Feedback*** appearing before my thoughts.
b) All feedback shall be be marked for easy reference via a superscript applied to the right of the ***feedback***0 in question for ease of reference.
c) The blight druid used for testing was an Asimar with maxed starting wisdom and a +7 supreme stat tome (this was to provide an in-between betwixt the meekness of a first life and the "your strength
befits a crown" of a many times reincarnated chadcaster).
d) The character was tested with two quest runs on each difficulty (up to reaper one) with no quests being outside a range of two levels higher or lower than the druids own.
e) Every pair of quests (for a given difficulty) was chosen to encompass the following challenges: a boss, a horde, casters known to have reasonable spells in their arsenal, groups with multiple champions,
at least two reapers when in reaper mode. When the two dungeons chosen failed to produce one or more of these challenges more dungeons where run.... in some cases wwwwaaaaayyy too many
were run (extended testing has concluded that reapers are afraid of blight druids and refuse to come out and play).
f) The druid was tested at levels 1, 3, 5, and 6 (as the early levels can be a touchy time for spellcasters). And then at levels 10, 15, 18, 20, 26, and finally 32.
g) All gear was level appropriate standard quest/chest acquirable gear. No raid items. No set bonuses were ever attained (intentionally). Expansion loot was valid (Borderlands, Barovia etc.) While these
restrictions do not mimic the profoundly powerful arsenal many veteran players can call upon (while also not reflecting the paucity of a new players choices/understanding) they did allow me to make
sure I had careful control/understanding of all my stats/bonuses and made testing much easier.
h) This test only covered a blight druid caster. I have not played any animal focused druids, and as such do not feel like I would provide useful feedback regarding them. So remember, all feedback ONLY
covers the caster focused blight druid!
i) When it comes to balance I am focusing on whether or not the blight druid is powerful enough to meaningfully contribute to your group/solo run on difficulties up to reaper 1. It doesn't have to be "the
best", it just has to be good enough so as to feel fun in groups/solo. Things are "overtuned" if they unreasonably trivialize what should be reasonable challenges for your character at your level/past life
progression.



========Post & Feedback========

New Archtype for Druid

New Tree: Blightcaster
Replaces: Nature's Protector.

Themes: Death, Famine, Decay, Plague, Poison, Insects, Moss, Fungus. Bleached Bones. Scavengers.

Summary:

Thesis statement: Death is a necessary part of life.

A dark take on druid that celebrates the cycle of death & decay. This druid's power still comes from the "cycle" of nature, it just focuses at the end of that cycle.

***Feedback***1 (Most of the depictions of blight druids tend to render them as anathematic towards the natural cycle. A fascinating mixture of evil, corrupted, and insane. I don't mind this shift in their portrayal, but i am curious to know if this shift was triggered by the fact that we have no ability to play as evil aligned characters, or if it came about for other reasons?)

BASE CLASS PROGRESSION:

LEVEL 1: Disease Immunity - (applies to natural diseases like other immunities)

LEVEL 2: Wild Shape - Plague Wolf (note All wildshapes are using PLACE HOLDER ART in this build)

Basic Wolf Form replaced by Plague Wolf: Transform into a magically diseased wolf.

***Feedback***2 (I was pleased to note that the Blight Druid caster has an easier time leveling, from 1 to 5 specifically, without resorting to running as a wolf, than standard druid does. The swift progression of SLA's, coupled with the inherent debuffs they inflict upon spellcasting, pairs with their good 'caster level to dice of damage ratios' to make the progression feel more enjoyable. The relative power of many of their spells, combined with a hefty dosage of SLA's, also reduces the drain on their spell point reserves (something that can often discourage players new to the game/new to casters).)



10% Combat Style bonus to attack speed, a +3 bonus to attack while flanking
+10% enhancement bonus to movement speed.
While in wolf form, you gain access to a number of spells and enhancements that require Wolf form, but the cooldowns on your non-animal form spells are increased to 2.5 times their normal length.


Bonus Feat: Imbue Toggle that only functions when in any animal form, pick 1 of 2.



Biting Acid: 1d6 acid damage with all melee attacks. Scales with spell power. This can only be used in Wolf or Hive forms.
Biting Poison: 1d8 poison damage with all melee attacks. Scales with spell power. This can only be used in Wolf or Hive forms.



LEVEL 4:

Minor Elemental Kin Form Pick (1 of 2)


WildShape - Thorn-Kin:


You create a suit of living thorny wood around your body armoring you from harm. Note: Note this will be gearset over-ride instead of an animal form so the player will fight with their regular weapons. Basically you become a knight in plate mail made of wood and thorns.



+1 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Physical and Poison spells
10% exceptional bonus to armor class and 50% fortification.
You gain access to the thorn imbue.
10% vulnerability to fire damage


***Feedback***3 (The vulnerability to fire is not in any way an unreasonable detriment, just nice flavor with some situational repercussions. The form can also be easily shifted out of to avoid repeated crisping. Blight druid actually has a large enough repertoire of physical damage spells so as to make this a reasonable choice early on. Overall, solid and in no way over overperforming. If this was a higher level form I would critique it for not going far enough in allowing a more interesting shift in gameplay... but as this is available at level four it works very well (the same goes for Hive Keeper). One of Thorn-kin's saving graces is the strength of the early level physical spells (though we will look at that in more detail later on).)



WildShape - Hive Keeper:


You give part of yourself to the hive, gaining insect like reflexes and senses. Your bodily fluids become poisonous to others, and the swarm is always close.




+1 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Poison and Acid Spells
You gain 25% concealment and Evasion.
Your reflex saves are increased by 1 for every 3 druid levels.
10% vulnerability to cold. Your diplomacy checks are reduced by 5 (Jeff Goldblum early in The Fly)


***Feedback***4 (This is the better of the two initial caster form choices... but not to any really large degree. Cold damage is not as common a threat as fire, it is easier for a druid to boost acid spellpower/crit as apposed to force/untyped (though future itemization may shift this/feydark gives lots of force spellpower [caveats about feydark later on]), and the physical spells, because of their nice damage scaling/mostly non DOT nature (we will get into the interesting nature of DOTs later on), are still super useful even without this buff. Also, by the time the 10% increased AC can begin to save you from enough hits per quest to equal evasions utility, you already qualify for the advanced forms/monsters to-hit does not scale with difficulty in the same way that monster dc's do. As a caster it is often easier to make a save than it is to boost your AC to the point where a threatening melee wont hit you the vast majority of the time (though these are only generalities and you can totally make a supper armored caster). Overall Hive Keeper works well and is in no way sooo much better than Thorn-kin soo as to be overbearing. You can have fun with either one.)


BONUS FEAT - Thorn Imbue: Your weapons sprout sharp thorns adding 1d6 piercing damage to all your weapon attacks. Scales with spell power.

LEVEL 5: Venom Immunity

LEVEL 8: Minor Elemental Kin Form Pick (1 of 2) - lets you pick the other form from level 4

LEVEL 11:

Wild Shape - Blighted Wolf

Plague wolf upgrades into Greater Plague Wolf:



you gain a 15% Combat Style bonus to attack speed, +5 bonus to attack while flanking
Grants +1 imbue dice while in this form.
+1 per druid level (max 30%) bonus to movement speed.
If unarmed, your natural attacks do 1d10 damage, do both piercing and slashing damage, and critically hit for triple damage on a roll of 19 or 20.
You are considered a magical beast
Wolf spell access as above.


BONUS FEAT: Imbue Toggle pick the other one from level 2.

LEVEL 13:

You gain access to full Elemental forms

WildShape - Thorn Knight: - (upgrade to thorn kin)


A more advanced version of Thorn Kin where you actually become a plant under the armor.



You are considered a plant for purposes of most immunities, poison, sleep, paralysis, stun, mind effects. You can no longer drown in water.
+3 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Physical and Poison spells
You gain 10% absorption against piercing damage and 5% absorb against blunt damage.
You gain +2 imbue dice
10% exceptional bonus to armor class and 100% fortification.
15% vulnerability to fire damage



WildShape - Hive Master:


You have become one with the swarm. Your body shifts between yourself and a cloud of insects, as you merge in and out of the swarm.



You are considered vermin for the purposes of immunities and are immune to mind effects and knock down.
+3 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Poison and Acid Spells
You are ethereal to monsters while tumbling.
You gain 50% concealment as displacement and Improved Evasion.
You gain +2 Imbue Dice and +1 to Reflex saves for every 2 druid levels (Max 10)
15% vulnerability to cold and -15 on diplomacy checks (Yeah Jeff is just pretty creepy now).


***Feedback***5 (Hive master is still slightly 'better' in most circumstances (displacement is real good) but if you want to play Thorn Knight you will in no way be disappointed. Thorn Knight allows for a heavily armored, more melee range, caster druid that could be really cool... But it is undeniable that the gear investment for survivability in harder gameplay will be more intense for the Thorn Knight. They both are totally viable. I would love to have just that little extra nudge added to the Thorn forms to bring them up to par. But that is a want not a need.)

LEVEL 15:

Timeless Body (as druid)

LEVEL 17:

2nd Wildshape Elemental Form Pick (Thorn Knight, HiveMaster)

....

DRUID FEATURES REMOVED FROM SUBCLASS



No Wild Empathy (Or empathy in general...)
No Goodberry
No Wolf Companion
No Bear Form
No Fire or Water Elemental Forms
No Auto Memorized Spells


SPELL BOOK ADJUSTMENTS:

New Spells:

These appear in BOTH base druid and Blightcaster books.


Thorn Strike- Level 1: Conjuration - Cost: 2 Sp, Cooldown 2.0 seconds. Sends a giant thorn toward the target doing 1d6+2 piercing damage per caster level (max 10d6+20 at caster level 10).

***Feedback***6 (Very nice spell. Good single target for the early through mid game (SLA is nice for far, far longer). It's one problem is that it seems to sometimes think it hit an object right as it is launched, resulting in the spell 'poofing' about a foot in front of your character?)

Thorn Bloom- Level 3: Conjuration, Cost: 15 SP, Cooldown 3.5. Point Blank AOE - Send a wave of thorns out from your body dealing 1d6+4 piercing damage per caster level (max 10d6+40 at caster level 10). Reflex save for half.

***Feedback***7 (The big brother of Thorn Strike, this spell also does exactly what it says on the tin and is also very nice. I should note here that the caster level caps on these two spells seem to be off from their Lamania tooltips/test-results...)

Plant Growth- Level 4: copy of Animal Growth for Plants (which the thorn knight form works with)

Thorn Wave- Level 6: Conjuration, Cost: 25 SP, Cooldown 4.5. Cone - Fires a wave of powerful thorns in a tight arc in front of you dealing 1d6+6 piercing damage per caster level (max 20d6+80 at caster level 20).

***Feedback***8 (I could not get this to land on monsters (was this just me?) and as such could not test its efficacy.)

Grasping Roots- Level 6: Conjuration, Cost: 30 SP, Cooldown 20 seconds. Duration 10 seconds. Powerful thorny vines rip out of the ground siezing all enemies in the area. Enemies save vs Reflex or become entangled, with a Re-occurring Strength save to break free. Entangled targets also take 1d6 in piercing damage every 2 seconds (max 15d6). All enemy movement through the area is slowed by 30%, no save. Area of effect fire spells will destroy these vines and free any entangled creatures. Incorporeal creatures and oozes are naturally immune. Fire elementals and other fire creatures are immune because they burn through the plants.

***Feedback***9 (This is what happens when Evard gets freaky at a dryad party. I love this spell. It is the bane of corporeal, non-fire creatures. I would consider this a core component of the caster blight druid arsenal (acid or physical focused there is good reason to use this spell). The only problem with this spell is not actually a problem with this spell... The problem is that Evard's Tentacle Touch-pit of Demonetization is not also a wizard/sorcerer spell! Evard was a WIZARD for crying out loud! How is a spell invented by a wizard not in the wizard spell list!?)

Thorn Lance-Level 8: Conjuration, Cost: 20 SP, Cooldown 5.5. Bolt - Fires a single powerful thorn that pierces through targets for 1d6+8 piercing damage per caster level. (Maximum 20d6+160 at caster level 20.)

***Feedback***10 (This is thorny Sun bolt but better. This spell shares the same fun gameplay element that both Lighting bolt and Sun bolt have... Namely that it is really satisfying to line up a nice shot that punches through most of an enemy pack. Very fun spell to use!)

New Animal Spells: - Blight Caster Only


Blighted Charge: Requires Any Wolf - Cost: 25 sp Cooldown: 15. You leap forward with the speed and ferocity of a sudden avalanche. You attack enemies in your path, dealing an extra 2[W], and targets caught in your wake are blinded for 20 seconds. A successful reflex save negates the effect, and creatures can attempt fortitude saves to escape every 3 seconds. Creatures also suffer 1d4 per caster level in acid damage every 2 seconds. This damage is changed to 1d6 poison damage if you are using Biting Poison Imbue. (Not functional in this build)

Jaws of Doom: Any Wolf - Cost: 20 Cooldown: 20 seconds. As your jaws close over your enemies, they begin to dissolve. This attack deals an extra 6(W), +1 bonus to critical threat and multiplier, and if it counts as a sneak attack, your foe is stunned for 6 seconds and are considered helpless. Fortitude save negates, and the creature gets and additional save attempt every two seconds. Stun vs Fortitude DC: 10 + Druid level + Highest of Wisdom, Dexterity, or Strength + Stun Bonuses. The target also takes 1d8+6 Poison damages. If you are using Biting Acid Imbue this damage is changed to 1d6+6 Acid damage. (Not functional in this build)

Blighted Bite: Valid Forms: School: Evocation Cost: 10 sp. Any Plague Wolf. You gain +2 Imbue dice while in any wolf form for 20 minutes.

Blighted Breath: Valid Forms: Cost: 20 SP. Cooldown: 2 seconds. Any Plague Wolf. Sends out a breath of poisonous gas in a frontal cone dealing <rgb=#00BFFF>1d8+2 points of Poison damage per caster level every 2 seconds for 6 seconds</rgb> (up to a maximum of 90 to 195 damage at caster level 15). If you are using the Biting Acid Imbue this damage is converted into 1d6+2 Acid damage.

Revamped Spells: - applies to all class versions of these spells.


Contagion - focused down to 3 versions instead of 7.



Blinding Sickness: Target goes blind and they take 1d4 ability damage to strength and dexterity
Cackling Fever - Target is stunned for 6 seconds and takes 1d4 ability damage to wisdom and intelligence
Slimy Doom - Target takes 4d6 acid damage +1 per caster level every 3 seconds


***Feedback***11 (Contagion is WAY better than before... Sadly I still think it wont see a ton of use because hard-cc/blowing things up is just way more spell point efficient.)

Melf's Acid Arrow - Now does 1d6 acid damage per caster level (Max caster level 10 for 10d6). Applies damage and ticks twice again over 4 seconds (Damage occurs 3 times in total)

***Feedback***12 (Are people going to begin using Melf's as a staple spell? Probably not (unless you are an Earth Savant). But the SLA of Melf's is now really nice to have while leveling! The damage ticks swiftly enough that you honestly feel like you can use it on priority targets on higher difficulties!)

Black Dragon Bolt - is being updated to do 1d10 acid damage per caster level (Max caster level 25, caps at 25 to 250 damage). Applies damage and ticks twice again over 4 seconds (Damage occurs 3 times in total)

***Feedback***13 (Sadly, Even this buff has still left poor Black dragon bolt feeling pretty anemic (especially when compared with other acid DOT options the blight druid has). I would love to see Black dragon Bolt's spell point cost be doubled or even tripled and its damage raised to the point where it is a costly but very nasty damaging spell. As it is now, there is sadly no place for this spell on my hotbars.)

***Feedback***14 (Let us talk about DOT spells for a moment... Why do DOTs suffer in ddo? Well, there are a few reasons: (1) Often non-boss/reaper/special enemies just don't live long enough to warrant the attention of a DOT. This means that a DOT is a spell you have to slot/learn while knowing that it has a narrow use-case. (2) Often blaster casters will just opt to "blast harder" instead of using a DOT because the DOTs available to them just aren't appealing enough to warrant switching things up. (3) When you go and hit something with DOTs it is often because you need to deliver "the sickness to the thiccness" before that beefcake comes over and brutalizes you as if you were a Blizzard QA tester... DOTs (as they are now) often just aren't a fast enough option. This can be especially true in higher difficulty content or when solo. (4) DOTs are more harshly effected by non-percentage based resistances because their damage comes in smaller dosses.
While DOTs on the whole are often not the best, blight druids are actually able to make great use of them! In Sharn on reaper 1 (with no reaper points) the AOE DOTs that a blight druid can bring to bear can efficiently and swiftly wipe out packs of enemies. This is not a fluke for the blight druid but rather the norm once you get past the first 7 levels of the game!)

Spells Added to the Druid spell book for Blightcaster



1st level - Night Shield, Thorn Strike, Chill Touch, Acid Spray

***Feedback***15 (Acid spray is your one real low-level AOE on blight druid. Getting its SLA is super useful.)


2nd level - Gets Contagion at level 2 instead of 3, Melf's Acid Arrow, Web

***Feedback***16 (Non-metaed Melfs is nothing to write home about... But web is glorious!)


3rd level - Acid Blast, Thorn Bloom, Stinking Cloud

***Feedback***17 (Acid blast go Splat! That spell alone makes level five on the Blight druid rewarding. The other two spells are good additions as well.)


4th level - Fear, Acid Rain, Plant Growth, Wave of Fatigue

***Feedback***18 (Acid rain is another good addition the the toolkit. It has a good cost-to-damage ratio, and is another AOE DOT that we will throw into the inevitable acid-storm we become.)


5th level - Negative Energy Burst, Blighted Breath, Cloud Kill

6th level - Negative energy ray, Jaws of Doom, Blighted Bite, Thorn Wave

7th Level - Acid Fog, Wave of Exhaustion, Horrid Wilting

8th level - Black Dragon Bolt, Thorn Lance

9th level - Acid Well, Wail of the Banshee, Rend the Soul, Blighted Charge

***Feedback***19 (The acid spells are solid (except Black Dragon bolt) and the thorn spells are also nice. Overall blight druid has a series of very nice additions to its spell-book.)



Spells Removed from Druid Book for Blightcaster



No Animal Summons
No Basic Cure Wound Spells or the Heal Spell (you keep Vigor but get them 1 level later, no mass regeneration)
No Fire Spells
No Sun Spells
No Fire Shield
No Bear Spells
No Elemental Fire/Water Elemental Form Spells

***Feedback***20 (While the blight druid definitely gives up a number of good spells, the new spells feel like a fair and thematic trade. No complaints from me.)



Skills: as Druid

Past Life

Blightcaster:

Past Life: x3 (stacks)


+5 Acid and Poison Spell Power


BLIGHT CASTER TREE:

Core 1:


The Cycle of Decay - You gain 5 Force, Poison, Negative, and Acid Spell Power per core in this tree.

Core 3:


Spread the Blight - Your offensive spells now apply a 10 second debuff called Blight: reduces saves by 1 and incoming positive healing by 20%.

***Feedback***21 (Not only is this very thematic, but that lowered save can really make a difference for never players with fewer stats/past lives!)

Core 6:


Death Eater - You gain 1 temporary hit point equal to your wisdom score whenever you kill an enemy (Creatures 2 levels below you do not count). These hit points remain until damage removes them or the quest ends. This can stack 5 times and is refreshed on each kill.

***Feedback***22 (Death Eater is super cool... But is, at the moment, over-tuned. It renders you nigh unstoppable; to the point where I had to unselect it in order to test blight druid self-healing! It would be super cool if, instead of directly nerfing it, the temp health 'decayed' non-linearly (much like qi does) albeit at a much faster rate. This would allow you to stack the awesome numbers, but have them 'rot' off of you instead of amounting to a very unfair perpetual damage shield.)

Core 12:


Know the End - You gain Know the End which acts as a permanent Death Block. Blight effect is improved to reduces saves by 2 and incoming positive healing by 40% for 10 seconds.

Core 18:


Vile Eruption - Earth Quake now deals 2d6 + 1 per caster level in acid damage every 3 seconds in addition to it's regular effects.

Core 20:


Master of Decay:


+2 Wisdom & Con
SLA Creeping Doom Cost: 20 spell points Cooldown: 15 seconds
Blight now reduces saves by 4 and positive healing by 60%

***Feedback***23 (Nice capstone that is both useful and thematic. I am very fond of useful SLA's in caster capstones.)






TIER 1:


Prickly: 1/2/3 PRR, rank 3: +1 to damage with weapon attacks.

Kiss of the Blight: You gain 5/10/15% Absorption against Poison and Acid Damage.

Pick Your Poison I Multi Selector


SLA: Thorn Strike 3 ranks, cooldown 7/5/3 Spell Cost 3,2,1
SLA Acid Spray 3 ranks Cooldown 12/8/4 seconds , 4/3/2 SP cost

***Feedback***24 (This SLA chain really stands out to me. There are no useless or super niche spells in the line! Every spell here could reasonably be chosen by a player, and that is awesome to see!)

Sharp Edges 1: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Lore of the Great Plagues: You gain a +1/2/3 saving throw bonus against poison and disease. Rank 3: Gain 5 Poison and Negative Spell Power.

***Feedback***25 (While this is definitely thematic, blight druids are going to wind up being mostly immune to these things... The spell power at the end really does not seem like a worthwhile reason to put points into this enhancement.)

TIER 2:



Defiled Growth - Your Entangle and Spike growth spells now cause 1d4 negative energy damage per spell level every 2 seconds.

***Feedback***26 (Super thematic, and honestly not bad at all! When combined with some of the other Spiked Growth perks (think Primal Avatar, not just the rest of this tree) it makes an otherwise meh spell rather useful.)

Meta Selector, Empower, Max, Quicken

Pick your Poison II Mutli Selector


SLA Splinter Bolt 3 ranks, Cooldown 8/6/4, Spell Cost, 6,4,2

SLA Melf's Acid Arrow 3 ranks, Cooldown 8/6/4, Spell Cost, 6,4,2

Sharp Edges II: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Every Rose Has it's Thorn - Spike Growth damage is increased by 100%.

***Feedback***27 (By itself this sucks. When joined with its fellows, it turns spiked growth into a very spell-point-to-damage efficient spell.)

TIER 3:




Out Break - upgrades the contagion and insidious spores spells to also hit enemies near the primary target.

***Feedback***28 (Even with the updates, I think these spells just don't warrant this enhancement. You just have so many better spell options as a blight druid that it is hard to imagine taking these.)

Meta Selector - Empower, Max, Quicken

SLA Enveloping Swarm - 3 ranks, Cooldown 16,12,8, Cost 8,6,4

Sharp Edges III: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Stat Boost - Wis/Con

TIER 4:


Fast Acting Poison - The Poison spell now does 1d6 per druid level poison damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds in addition to its original effect. A successful Fort save applies this dot at half strength.

***Feedback***29 (While interesting in theory; I am just not sold on this one. Turning poison into a single target DOT is fine... But 'fine' is all it will ever be in its current form.)

Murder of Crows - 120/90/60 second cool down, A swarm of crows blasts through you and a narrow path ahead. Enemies in the way take 1d3 piercing damage per druid level and must save vs confusing and blind separately DC: 20+ druid level + Conjuration DC. If you have a crow summon active from the falconry tree when you used this ability you gain the Murder in your Eye effect for 10 seconds; All your spells and attacks apply 1d6 piercing damage to blind targets for every druid level. This damage can only apply once every two seconds.

***Feedback***30 (This looks sooooo cool! But I could not get the piercing damage buff to work properly. There is also another problem... Blight druids who go the force rout are often going to want to put points into Feydark Illusionist to boost force spellpower/get other goodies. But you cannot have both a Falconry bird and a familiar out at the same time. Just some things to consider.)

Pick your Poison III Multi Selector


SLA Thorn Bloom - 3 ranks, Cooldown 16, 12, 8, Cost: 20,15, 10

SLA Acid Rain - 10 SP cost, Cooldown 20/16/12 seconds

Sharp Edges IV: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Stat Boost, Wis/Con

Tier 5:

Thorns in your side - Multi Selector -


Poisoned Thorns - Your Splinter Bolt and Thorn Spells now also cause additional 2 points of Poison damage for every spell level. This scales with spell power.

Vile Thorns - Your Splinter Bolt and Thorn Spells now also cause additional 1 point of Acid damage for every spell level. This scales with spell power.

SLA Grasping Thorns - Spell Like Ability: Thorny Vines erupt from the ground seizing all enemies in the area. Save vs Reflex or be Entangled. On Successful save the targets have their movement slowed by 35%. Targets also take 1d6 piercing damage every 2 seconds per caster level. This double is doubled on targets which are entangled.

Everything Decays - Gain 5/10/15 Acid & Poison Spell Power Rank 3: Your spells remove Acid and Poison Immunity for 30 seconds.

***Feedback***31 (I appreciate the fact that this strips immunities for a pretty long period so that your DOTs have time to actually run their course.)

Doomsayer - Gain a +1 Bonus to Conjuration, Evocation and Necromancy DCs


ADDITIONAL CHANGES....


Changes to Seasons Herald



Core 3 (level 6) updated to : +1 to max caster level of your season. Your Shillelagh does one extra W of damage. Your plant spells like entangle, spike growth and grasping thorns will no longer be dispelled by fire effects.

Changes to Nature's Warrior: - (Not in this build, coming next preview)



Howl of Winter renamed: Hunter's Howl to make it agnostic to Blighted Wolf or Winter Wolf

Great White Wolf Gets a multi selector with the alternate called Doom Wolf - 10/20/30 acid spell power, 10/20/30% Acid Resistance

Jaws of Winter get's renamed "Feasting Jaws" - Gain 10 times your character level in temporary HPs for 30 seconds after using Jaws of Winter or Jaws of Doom

Cold Breath damage will be updated to match current spell damage formulas




Notes on things coming down the line:





Will be adding a Flame Blade equivalent to the Blightcaster (thorn themed, weapon type or types TBD. We might do a few) for the next preview
Will be adding Master of Thorns Epic Feat: +140 SP, will boost thornstrike, thornbloom and splinterbolt by 10 max caster levels.

***Feedback***32 (This could be very tempting indeed!)





KNOW ISSUES


NO ART IS IN YET (it's all place holder on the wildshapes. Only a few spells have a basic vfx pass)
Blighted Charge and Jaws of Doom and the new Contagion effects are not set up yet.
Nature's Warrior Changes are not in this build mostly
Don't think Mind Immunities on Hivemaster are done yet
Thorn Knight's water breath perk isn't in this build
Blight debuff makes undead take less damage from healing
Murder of Crows works with the RAVEN in falconry (ability will be renamed to a Raven theme. We got our birds mixed up)



========Final Thoughts========

1. Blight druid is a very old dnd archetype and it is awesome to see it added to the game!

2. As long as the temp health problem is tuned down in reasonable way, blight druid looks like it is going to be a blast to play.

3. It is really nice to have a class that can use DOT spells to such great effect as they are often... Less than ideal.

4. Blight druid is looking like it is going to be a very strong caster (up there with sorcerer).

5. Blight druid debuffs and CC will make them a nice addition to groups.

6. Blight druids may find that Conjuration DCs are more important than Evocation.

7. Blight druid casters are very good levelers (I paired mine primarily with Primal Avatar in the end game and it fits like a glove).

8. Inherent access to concealment effects via the Hive forms plugs a weakness on traditional druid that can normally only partially be solved via itemization.

As always, these are just my thoughts and opinions. Have a good day.

[Scrag]

You're not describing a spell problem, you're describing a you're-doing-it-wrong problem. Use CC spells.

You are absolutely right. I had web for a short while, but everything was dead by the first or second snowball storm, and now everything is dead by the first cone of cold.

Even if I swap out one of my sorc spell slots for web or the like (slots are like hens teeth!), it doesn't stop them from killing me from range for the things that don't close.

As a pure, first life water savant/cold/white dragonborn sorc, im not exactly sturdy and I can tell you for sure my hireling clerics work overtime. Dumping vast quantities of cold damage ultra fast is easy. Acid is my current backup for cold spells, but I will probably swap that for something else like electric. I would just be happy if the acid dots would pack it in faster.

As much as I would like to hive it up, it just seems that blight caster thorns is probably the better route to take, at least for me. Especially since grasping thorns is boosted by thorn form. It does seems that blightcaster dots are a lot better than what I am currently working with.

[LurkingVeteran]

This basically looks offensively better than the Earth Savant tree, with defensively better temp-hp than ES Warlock. The only thing holding back is that you need 2+ spell powers to fully leverage it.

Defensively: If Death Eater replenishes the whole stack on each enemy killed, it is probably OP solo, at least up to low reaper where you can one-shot stuff. A competent player will get one spell off per second, which if you kill something is ~500 temp hp every second. All other temp hp abilities have CDs. The ES aura is only 2x con every 2s. Maybe put a 3s CD on it and retune the numbers? EDIT: Not sure where I got it from that it was every spell cast. Since it is enemy killed, I actually think it's not as OP at the high-end where enemies are harder to kill, but it will make heroic / low-reaper leveling a total breeze. Some tuning may be needed for this imo but not sure what.

Offensively: Stacking the new gasping thorns/roots (do both get 2x1D6 on held mobs per caster level?) + damage on earth quake + the crow thing and the +2 poison damage on everything is going to be massive sustained AoE damage for very little spell points, however with the burst focus of the current meta, I suspect it's not that OP in PUGs. Definitely extremely strong solo leveler though. The entire build pairs extremely well with PA:Acid/Poison SLAs, which were already borderline OP if you cared about sustain. You also get dual immunity break.

At the moment, this druid is most likely the strongest solo caster tree L1-30 by a fair margin (assuming animations are fixed), although maybe not the fastest.

It's nice that Earth Savant gets some much needed buffs as well via Melf's and BDB being buffed, which I think were fair. Earth Savant could use one more high-level spell though. Maybe buff Acid Fog?

[btolson]

Death Eater should be based on CON, or some other non-WIS stat cuz WIS is already primary for everything else a druid does. CON seems to make the most sense.

[Maldrick]

Admittedly I haven't gone onto lamania to test it, but in concept I don't see the problem with it?

If you are a vet, heroic levels are already easy with or without this temp shield. If you are a noob, having a large margin for error might make you want to stick with the game more or allow you to be bolder in parties.

By the times we get to endgame high skulls, enemies hit far harder than 500 temp hp will ever stop. Even if it's being frequently reupped you will get smacked for 2k damage, and then how great is your temp shield? I would rather have more less often.

Just my (potentially incorrect) thoughts on the matter.

[SpartanKiller13]

Admittedly I haven't gone onto lamania to test it, but in concept I don't see the problem with it?

If you are a vet, heroic levels are already easy with or without this temp shield. If you are a noob, having a large margin for error might make you want to stick with the game more or allow you to be bolder in parties.

By the times we get to endgame high skulls, enemies hit far harder than 500 temp hp will ever stop. Even if it's being frequently reupped you will get smacked for 2k damage, and then how great is your temp shield? I would rather have more less often.

Just my (potentially incorrect) thoughts on the matter.

There's easy and there's "don't worry about your survivability from level 6-26 because of one enhancement" lol. Have you tried a Blood Strength Barb? Sorta just 12+ you don't need to self-heal, even in mid-Reaper. Or like Pale Master 7+ if you're not in mid-high skulls.

Also while I'm in favor of things helping new players, A) there won't be a large percentage of new players running a Druid Archetype, B) I don't want to tie new-player survivability to one enhancement in one tree, and C) new players in groups often won't be getting kills = they won't get any stacks anyway = very sad.

Endgame high skulls is about the only place where it's vaguely balanced lol. It's still very good, 500 temps for ~free ~constantly is a lot cheaper than self-healing in R8. Stack it with Affirmation, Elemental Blood, and Blood Feast for 3k temp HP, and suddenly you're in a pretty good spot lol vs the occasional 2k hit. Absolutely some are easier to keep up but Death Eater is basically free and always up so it's really good compared to (say) Affirmation where you (usually) need gearswaps and it has a 1min CD as well as 1min duration.

[GramercyRiff]

I dislike this archetype like I dislike most archetypes despite thinking archetype is a great idea. It's typical SSG. They copy some great idea someone else made up, but they ruin it somehow someway. The one exception to this SSG rule is Ravenloft. They really did other people's great ideas justice there.

[Maldrick]

Endgame high skulls is about the only place where it's vaguely balanced

What if Death Eater scaled with tier much like the Warlock Aura that gives your con hp at heroic, and double your con hp at epic?

So Death eater could then be 1/3rd wis per stack heroic, 2/3rds wis per stack epic, full wisdom legendary? Or alternatively, 2 stacks heroic, 3 stacks epic, full 5 stacks legendary.

[SocratesBastardSon]

kellendir3000, thanks for the excellent write-up.

+1

There's lots to think about here, but I'll just highlight one.

There appears to be some agreement that Death Eater needs to be toned down a bit. For instance, Strimtom (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn_TnAU2xGA) suggested spreading additional stacks across subsequent cores. I like your version better both thematically and dynamically: it creates pressure to be more aggressive in increasing your kills than a simple timer can.

Thanks!

[SpartanKiller13]

What if Death Eater scaled with tier much like the Warlock Aura that gives your con hp at heroic, and double your con hp at epic?

So Death eater could then be 1/3rd wis per stack heroic, 2/3rds wis per stack epic, full wisdom legendary? Or alternatively, 2 stacks heroic, 3 stacks epic, full 5 stacks legendary.

I'd probably vote for the 2/3/4 stacks with Core 3, Core 5, and Core 6 suggestion someone wrote earlier in this thread, but there's quite a few reasonable-seeming solutions :) it should definitely be at least more backloaded than Preview 1's version.

Or like 1 stack at Core 3, +1 stack per Core after that (just smoother than the above suggestion but stronger).

I've already theorycrafted a few builds around Death Eater just because it looks super strong lol. Idk. 8/6/6 Barb/Fighter/Blightcaster with Ravager T5 + Kensei C3 + Blightcaster C3 + Falconry T4? Do Cleric instead of Fighter, run OS for temp HP memes and go Silvanus?

[SocratesBastardSon]

I agree with kellendir3000 and some other players that I've talked to that Thorn Knight is a little underwhelming. The force spell power is a good feature for spell casters, but it feels marginally beneficial for melee. Fortification will be very helpful in HC, but for most player on Live it's usually not an issue at level 13.

I propose adding some new form-specific spells to make the form more attractive, spells that would not make it overpowered at all.



A plant version of Magic Fang (https://ddowiki.com/page/Magic_Fang). You could call it Magic Thorn or Thorny Weapon.
A plant version of Maul (https://ddowiki.com/page/Maul_(spell)), which you could call Brier Scratch.
A more thematic spell, but helpful at lower levels for Thorn-Kin, could be an armor buff based on Thorn Guard (https://ddowiki.com/page/Thorn_Guard). If the damage scaled it could have a useful role at higher levels too. I like the idea of making it a spell for those situations when you don't want to be damaging mobs around you, like Let Sleeping Dust Lie (https://ddowiki.com/page/Let_Sleeping_Dust_Lie) in the Vale.


EDIT:

We also need a level 9 (https://ddowiki.com/page/Druid_spells#Level_9) spell equivalent to Anger of the Noonday Sun and Mantle of the Icy Soul. Bring back the old Primal Wild Shape: Avatar of Nature (https://ddowiki.com/page/Avatar_of_Nature)! But now it's angry, and thorny. You know you want it! Tree lovers unite!

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

Hi All,
my initial reaction to Death Eater was it seemed way too powerful. i couldn't believe it could stack 5 times. It seemed too good to be true, and I was sure it wasn't supposed to be that strong.

But then I played it a little at mid level, and it was not as strong as it seemed. Sure, if I had better equipment or a better build, it might have been better, but a few things kept it reasonable at mid level.

1. I had to actually kill something to make it trigger. Sounds easy, but it only works if you are within 2 levels of the target, and you have to land the killing blow. Unlike the level 1 Warlock or Alchemist abilities, you have no way to refresh it other than killing something... and it has to be high enough level. I actually ran into multiple situations where I could not get temp hps up fast enough. A spammer alchemist can get temp HPs out much more reliably at level 1. At level 6+, both the Dark Apostate and Warlock can throw up a lot of temp HPs, and keep them up easily.
+
2. Stacking was great when it built up, but it was tough when I pushed it. Running elite at level, I was getting hit more often than I would have thought, and the results were very bursty... sometimes I would run up a bunch of temp HPs, other times I would get hit early and it was touch and go. If I ran difficult content at level, I did not feel invincible just because of the temp HPs.

3. The temp HPs cannot be shared. Almost all of the other temp HP options protect the entire party, where here it is just you... and you have to beat out your teammates for the kills to get them. A few of the arguments that this class can generate a 500hp shield at will are assuming 100 stat points. That only happens at high levels. A 20+ warlock is throwing up 200hp every 2 seconds to the entire party, without doing anything. Throw in some spell buffing, and a 20+ warlock can effortlessly put 300hp shields on the whole party and 800 more temp hps on youself every 30 seconds. To reach those numbers, the druid would have to kill 11 enemies that are within 2 levels of the character level (or higher).

I think solo, there are situations where the blightcaster can easily throw up 5 stacks... but there are lots of situations where that won't happen. I worry about nerfing it already, as there are already characters that have other ways to throw up big levels of temp HP.

Some of the ideas like, at core 3 only getting one stack, really weaken this character. If Death Eater is supposed to be character defining, the drop to just one stack at level 6 (all the way up to level 12) lowers the power level to not even close to character defining. Multiple level 1 characters could keep up temp hps more efficiently than a level 6 Blight Caster, if all you can do is 1 stack of Wis temp HPs. I totally get the concern that it could be overpowered, but I think this ability could easily become underpowered. Dark Apostate is a great example of a character that at level 6 can start to put up large numbers of temp HPs. If you are clever, you can get 40 temp HPs almost infinitely at level 6, with it spiking up to almost 100hp before each battle. And you don't have to kill anything to get all of those temp HPs. Dark Apostate goes up from there over the next few levels as you add more imbue dice, and a few builds can get really obnoxious with regenerating turn undeads and cross class imbue dice.

This really doesn't seem more powerful to me than Dark Apostate at mid levels, and not stronger than Warlock at high levels. It can spike very high, but I think the level restriction and the kill requirement already create situations where it will not work when you expect it to. Add in being in a party, and it may be much less than expected.

That said, if it really ends up being over powered, how about making it more situational: make death eater only trigger on killing living creatures, no temp hp vs. undead or constructs.

But still, I think this ability will end up being a little less powerful than people are worried. I really like the idea that it makes you have to keep killing, and I worry under that scenario, that making it a lot weaker (like 1 stack per core after 3) will make it too small a bonus to justify taking chances to keep the killing going.

[Zeklijan]

I agree that Death Eater is not as almighty powerful as some people have described it here. In my opinion there is nothing to change.

Nobody complains about warlock getting more temp hp every 30s without all the extra criterias. Death Eather requires you to kill something, and there are plenty of situations where this will not be possible. Meanwhile, warlocks can still hit the same button for their temp, kill or no kill.

The difference to note is that Death Eater is gained at level 6 and Shining Through at level 12. If it proved too much for level 6, adjustments could be done for lower levels. Nothing needs to change for higher levels though.

[Maldrick]

I agree that Death Eater is not as almighty powerful as some people have described it here. In my opinion there is nothing to change.

Nobody complains about warlock getting more temp hp every 30s without all the extra criterias. Death Eather requires you to kill something, and there are plenty of situations where this will not be possible. Meanwhile, warlocks can still hit the same button for their temp, kill or no kill.

The difference to note is that Death Eater is gained at level 6 and Shining Through at level 12. If it proved too much for level 6, adjustments could be done for lower levels. Nothing needs to change for higher levels though.

Title is all I have to say

[Indubitably]

I feel the Inflict line of spells to replace the cures makes sense.
The archtype does revolve around negative damage and there is a big lack of that.

I wouldn't suggest adding in a way to heal from negative damage though.
Vigor and temp HP are enough and the whole balance to extra damage it gets.
Just be too powerful otherwise.

Circle of undeath also feels like it might belong here.
Maybe circle of death to? Thematically it SOUNDS like it should be there.

[Ultinoob]

In the lammania release notes it says that thorn wave is a level 6 spell.

But in strimtoms video found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn_TnAU2xGA&t=475s at 7:41 you see that the thorn wave is a level 5 spell...

So now i am confused.

[Marty89]

New Archtype for Druid

New Tree: Blightcaster
Replaces: Nature's Protector.

Themes: Death, Famine, Decay, Plague, Poison, Insects, Moss, Fungus. Bleached Bones. Scavengers.

Summary:

Thesis statement: Death is a necessary part of life.

A dark take on druid that celebrates the cycle of death & decay. This druid's power still comes from the "cycle" of nature, it just focuses at the end of that cycle.

BASE CLASS PROGRESSION:

LEVEL 1: Disease Immunity - (applies to natural diseases like other immunities)

LEVEL 2: Wild Shape - Plague Wolf (note All wildshapes are using PLACE HOLDER ART in this build)

Basic Wolf Form replaced by Plague Wolf: Transform into a magically diseased wolf.



10% Combat Style bonus to attack speed, a +3 bonus to attack while flanking
+10% enhancement bonus to movement speed.
While in wolf form, you gain access to a number of spells and enhancements that require Wolf form, but the cooldowns on your non-animal form spells are increased to 2.5 times their normal length.


Bonus Feat: Imbue Toggle that only functions when in any animal form, pick 1 of 2.



Biting Acid: 1d6 acid damage with all melee attacks. Scales with spell power. This can only be used in Wolf or Hive forms.
Biting Poison: 1d8 poison damage with all melee attacks. Scales with spell power. This can only be used in Wolf or Hive forms.



LEVEL 4:

Minor Elemental Kin Form Pick (1 of 2)


WildShape - Thorn-Kin:


You create a suit of living thorny wood around your body armoring you from harm. Note: Note this will be gearset over-ride instead of an animal form so the player will fight with their regular weapons. Basically you become a knight in plate mail made of wood and thorns.



+1 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Physical and Poison spells
10% exceptional bonus to armor class and 50% fortification.
You gain access to the thorn imbue.
10% vulnerability to fire damage




WildShape - Hive Keeper:


You give part of yourself to the hive, gaining insect like reflexes and senses. Your bodily fluids become poisonous to others, and the swarm is always close.




+1 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Poison and Acid Spells
You gain 25% concealment and Evasion.
Your reflex saves are increased by 1 for every 3 druid levels.
10% vulnerability to cold. Your diplomacy checks are reduced by 5 (Jeff Goldblum early in The Fly)



BONUS FEAT - Thorn Imbue: Your weapons sprout sharp thorns adding 1d6 piercing damage to all your weapon attacks. Scales with spell power.

LEVEL 5: Venom Immunity

LEVEL 8: Minor Elemental Kin Form Pick (1 of 2) - lets you pick the other form from level 4

LEVEL 11:

Wild Shape - Blighted Wolf

Plague wolf upgrades into Greater Plague Wolf:



you gain a 15% Combat Style bonus to attack speed, +5 bonus to attack while flanking
Grants +1 imbue dice while in this form.
+1 per druid level (max 30%) bonus to movement speed.
If unarmed, your natural attacks do 1d10 damage, do both piercing and slashing damage, and critically hit for triple damage on a roll of 19 or 20.
You are considered a magical beast
Wolf spell access as above.


BONUS FEAT: Imbue Toggle pick the other one from level 2.

LEVEL 13:

You gain access to full Elemental forms

WildShape - Thorn Knight: - (upgrade to thorn kin)


A more advanced version of Thorn Kin where you actually become a plant under the armor.



You are considered a plant for purposes of most immunities, poison, sleep, paralysis, stun, mind effects. You can no longer drown in water.
+3 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Physical and Poison spells
You gain 10% absorption against piercing damage and 5% absorb against blunt damage.
You gain +2 imbue dice
10% exceptional bonus to armor class and 100% fortification.
15% vulnerability to fire damage



WildShape - Hive Master:


You have become one with the swarm. Your body shifts between yourself and a cloud of insects, as you merge in and out of the swarm.



You are considered vermin for the purposes of immunities and are immune to mind effects and knock down.
+3 bonus to caster level and max caster level of Poison and Acid Spells
You are ethereal to monsters while tumbling.
You gain 50% concealment as displacement and Improved Evasion.
You gain +2 Imbue Dice and +1 to Reflex saves for every 2 druid levels (Max 10)
15% vulnerability to cold and -15 on diplomacy checks (Yeah Jeff is just pretty creepy now).


LEVEL 15:

Timeless Body (as druid)

LEVEL 17:

2nd Wildshape Elemental Form Pick (Thorn Knight, HiveMaster)

....

DRUID FEATURES REMOVED FROM SUBCLASS



No Wild Empathy (Or empathy in general...)
No Goodberry
No Wolf Companion
No Bear Form
No Fire or Water Elemental Forms
No Auto Memorized Spells


SPELL BOOK ADJUSTMENTS:

New Spells:

These appear in BOTH base druid and Blightcaster books.


Thorn Strike- Level 1: Conjuration - Cost: 2 Sp, Cooldown 2.0 seconds. Sends a giant thorn toward the target doing 1d6+2 piercing damage per caster level (max 10d6+20 at caster level 10).

Thorn Bloom- Level 3: Conjuration, Cost: 15 SP, Cooldown 3.5. Point Blank AOE - Send a wave of thorns out from your body dealing 1d6+4 piercing damage per caster level (max 10d6+40 at caster level 10). Reflex save for half.

Plant Growth- Level 4: copy of Animal Growth for Plants (which the thorn knight form works with)

Thorn Wave- Level 6: Conjuration, Cost: 25 SP, Cooldown 4.5. Cone - Fires a wave of powerful thorns in a tight arc in front of you dealing 1d6+6 piercing damage per caster level (max 20d6+80 at caster level 20).

Grasping Roots- Level 6: Conjuration, Cost: 30 SP, Cooldown 20 seconds. Duration 10 seconds. Powerful thorny vines rip out of the ground siezing all enemies in the area. Enemies save vs Reflex or become entangled, with a Re-occurring Strength save to break free. Entangled targets also take 1d6 in piercing damage every 2 seconds (max 15d6). All enemy movement through the area is slowed by 30%, no save. Area of effect fire spells will destroy these vines and free any entangled creatures. Incorporeal creatures and oozes are naturally immune. Fire elementals and other fire creatures are immune because they burn through the plants.

Thorn Lance-Level 8: Conjuration, Cost: 20 SP, Cooldown 5.5. Bolt - Fires a single powerful thorn that pierces through targets for 1d6+8 piercing damage per caster level. (Maximum 20d6+160 at caster level 20.)

New Animal Spells: - Blight Caster Only


Blighted Charge: Requires Any Wolf - Cost: 25 sp Cooldown: 15. You leap forward with the speed and ferocity of a sudden avalanche. You attack enemies in your path, dealing an extra 2[W], and targets caught in your wake are blinded for 20 seconds. A successful reflex save negates the effect, and creatures can attempt fortitude saves to escape every 3 seconds. Creatures also suffer 1d4 per caster level in acid damage every 2 seconds. This damage is changed to 1d6 poison damage if you are using Biting Poison Imbue. (Not functional in this build)

Jaws of Doom: Any Wolf - Cost: 20 Cooldown: 20 seconds. As your jaws close over your enemies, they begin to dissolve. This attack deals an extra 6(W), +1 bonus to critical threat and multiplier, and if it counts as a sneak attack, your foe is stunned for 6 seconds and are considered helpless. Fortitude save negates, and the creature gets and additional save attempt every two seconds. Stun vs Fortitude DC: 10 + Druid level + Highest of Wisdom, Dexterity, or Strength + Stun Bonuses. The target also takes 1d8+6 Poison damages. If you are using Biting Acid Imbue this damage is changed to 1d6+6 Acid damage. (Not functional in this build)

Blighted Bite: Valid Forms: School: Evocation Cost: 10 sp. Any Plague Wolf. You gain +2 Imbue dice while in any wolf form for 20 minutes.

Blighted Breath: Valid Forms: Cost: 20 SP. Cooldown: 2 seconds. Any Plague Wolf. Sends out a breath of poisonous gas in a frontal cone dealing <rgb=#00BFFF>1d8+2 points of Poison damage per caster level every 2 seconds for 6 seconds</rgb> (up to a maximum of 90 to 195 damage at caster level 15). If you are using the Biting Acid Imbue this damage is converted into 1d6+2 Acid damage.

Revamped Spells: - applies to all class versions of these spells.


Contagion - focused down to 3 versions instead of 7.



Blinding Sickness: Target goes blind and they take 1d4 ability damage to strength and dexterity
Cackling Fever - Target is stunned for 6 seconds and takes 1d4 ability damage to wisdom and intelligence
Slimy Doom - Target takes 4d6 acid damage +1 per caster level every 3 seconds


Melf's Acid Arrow - Now does 1d6 acid damage per caster level (Max caster level 10 for 10d6). Applies damage and ticks twice again over 4 seconds (Damage occurs 3 times in total)

Black Dragon Bolt - is being updated to do 1d10 acid damage per caster level (Max caster level 25, caps at 25 to 250 damage). Applies damage and ticks twice again over 4 seconds (Damage occurs 3 times in total)

Spells Added to the Druid spell book for Blightcaster



1st level - Night Shield, Thorn Strike, Chill Touch, Acid Spray

2nd level - Gets Contagion at level 2 instead of 3, Melf's Acid Arrow, Web

3rd level - Acid Blast, Thorn Bloom, Stinking Cloud

4th level - Fear, Acid Rain, Plant Growth, Wave of Fatigue

5th level - Negative Energy Burst, Blighted Breath, Cloud Kill

6th level - Negative energy ray, Jaws of Doom, Blighted Bite, Thorn Wave

7th Level - Acid Fog, Wave of Exhaustion, Horrid Wilting

8th level - Black Dragon Bolt, Thorn Lance

9th level - Acid Well, Wail of the Banshee, Rend the Soul, Blighted Charge


Spells Removed from Druid Book for Blightcaster



No Animal Summons
No Basic Cure Wound Spells or the Heal Spell (you keep Vigor but get them 1 level later, no mass regeneration)
No Fire Spells
No Sun Spells
No Fire Shield
No Bear Spells
No Elemental Fire/Water Elemental Form Spells


Skills: as Druid

Past Life

Blightcaster:

Past Life: x3 (stacks)


+5 Acid and Poison Spell Power


BLIGHT CASTER TREE:

Core 1:


The Cycle of Decay - You gain 5 Force, Poison, Negative, and Acid Spell Power per core in this tree.

Core 3:


Spread the Blight - Your offensive spells now apply a 10 second debuff called Blight: reduces saves by 1 and incoming positive healing by 20%.

Core 6:


Death Eater - You gain 1 temporary hit point equal to your wisdom score whenever you kill an enemy (Creatures 2 levels below you do not count). These hit points remain until damage removes them or the quest ends. This can stack 5 times and is refreshed on each kill.

Core 12:


Know the End - You gain Know the End which acts as a permanent Death Block. Blight effect is improved to reduces saves by 2 and incoming positive healing by 40% for 10 seconds.

Core 18:


Vile Eruption - Earth Quake now deals 2d6 + 1 per caster level in acid damage every 3 seconds in addition to it's regular effects.

Core 20:


Master of Decay:


+2 Wisdom & Con
SLA Creeping Doom Cost: 20 spell points Cooldown: 15 seconds
Blight now reduces saves by 4 and positive healing by 60%





TIER 1:


Prickly: 1/2/3 PRR, rank 3: +1 to damage with weapon attacks.

Kiss of the Blight: You gain 5/10/15% Absorption against Poison and Acid Damage.

Pick Your Poison I Multi Selector


SLA: Thorn Strike 3 ranks, cooldown 7/5/3 Spell Cost 3,2,1
SLA Acid Spray 3 ranks Cooldown 12/8/4 seconds , 4/3/2 SP cost

Sharp Edges 1: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Lore of the Great Plagues: You gain a +1/2/3 saving throw bonus against poison and disease. Rank 3: Gain 5 Poison and Negative Spell Power.

TIER 2:



Defiled Growth - Your Entangle and Spike growth spells now cause 1d4 negative energy damage per spell level every 2 seconds.

Meta Selector, Empower, Max, Quicken

Pick your Poison II Mutli Selector


SLA Splinter Bolt 3 ranks, Cooldown 8/6/4, Spell Cost, 6,4,2

SLA Melf's Acid Arrow 3 ranks, Cooldown 8/6/4, Spell Cost, 6,4,2

Sharp Edges II: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Every Rose Has it's Thorn - Spike Growth damage is increased by 100%.

TIER 3:




Out Break - upgrades the contagion and insidious spores spells to also hit enemies near the primary target.

Meta Selector - Empower, Max, Quicken

SLA Enveloping Swarm - 3 ranks, Cooldown 16,12,8, Cost 8,6,4

Sharp Edges III: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Stat Boost - Wis/Con

TIER 4:


Fast Acting Poison - The Poison spell now does 1d6 per druid level poison damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds in addition to its original effect. A successful Fort save applies this dot at half strength.

Murder of Crows - 120/90/60 second cool down, A swarm of crows blasts through you and a narrow path ahead. Enemies in the way take 1d3 piercing damage per druid level and must save vs confusing and blind separately DC: 20+ druid level + Conjuration DC. If you have a crow summon active from the falconry tree when you used this ability you gain the Murder in your Eye effect for 10 seconds; All your spells and attacks apply 1d6 piercing damage to blind targets for every druid level. This damage can only apply once every two seconds.

Pick your Poison III Multi Selector


SLA Thorn Bloom - 3 ranks, Cooldown 16, 12, 8, Cost: 20,15, 10

SLA Acid Rain - 10 SP cost, Cooldown 20/16/12 seconds

Sharp Edges IV: Spell Crit +1 to Force/Neg/Poison/Acid Spell Crit Chance. (costs 1 AP, instead of the usual 2)

Stat Boost, Wis/Con

Tier 5:

Thorns in your side - Multi Selector -


Poisoned Thorns - Your Splinter Bolt and Thorn Spells now also cause additional 2 points of Poison damage for every spell level. This scales with spell power.

Vile Thorns - Your Splinter Bolt and Thorn Spells now also cause additional 1 point of Acid damage for every spell level. This scales with spell power.

SLA Grasping Thorns - Spell Like Ability: Thorny Vines erupt from the ground seizing all enemies in the area. Save vs Reflex or be Entangled. On Successful save the targets have their movement slowed by 35%. Targets also take 1d6 piercing damage every 2 seconds per caster level. This double is doubled on targets which are entangled.

Everything Decays - Gain 5/10/15 Acid & Poison Spell Power Rank 3: Your spells remove Acid and Poison Immunity for 30 seconds.

Doomsayer - Gain a +1 Bonus to Conjuration, Evocation and Necromancy DCs


ADDITIONAL CHANGES....


Changes to Seasons Herald



Core 3 (level 6) updated to : +1 to max caster level of your season. Your Shillelagh does one extra W of damage. Your plant spells like entangle, spike growth and grasping thorns will no longer be dispelled by fire effects.

Changes to Nature's Warrior: - (Not in this build, coming next preview)



Howl of Winter renamed: Hunter's Howl to make it agnostic to Blighted Wolf or Winter Wolf

Great White Wolf Gets a multi selector with the alternate called Doom Wolf - 10/20/30 acid spell power, 10/20/30% Acid Resistance

Jaws of Winter get's renamed "Feasting Jaws" - Gain 10 times your character level in temporary HPs for 30 seconds after using Jaws of Winter or Jaws of Doom

Cold Breath damage will be updated to match current spell damage formulas




Notes on things coming down the line:





Will be adding a Flame Blade equivalent to the Blightcaster (thorn themed, weapon type or types TBD. We might do a few) for the next preview
Will be adding Master of Thorns Epic Feat: +140 SP, will boost thornstrike, thornbloom and splinterbolt by 10 max caster levels.




KNOW ISSUES


NO ART IS IN YET (it's all place holder on the wildshapes. Only a few spells have a basic vfx pass)
Blighted Charge and Jaws of Doom and the new Contagion effects are not set up yet.
Nature's Warrior Changes are not in this build mostly
Don't think Mind Immunities on Hivemaster are done yet
Thorn Knight's water breath perk isn't in this build
Blight debuff makes undead take less damage from healing
Murder of Crows works with the RAVEN in falconry (ability will be renamed to a Raven theme. We got our birds mixed up)


Could there be a multiselector enhancement that would add thorn guard when using Barkskin or Poison Guard when using Spiderskin? Just for some added flair that keeps with the forms motifs whilst utilizing spells that already fit thematically.

[Xezom]

In the lammania release notes it says that thorn wave is a level 6 spell.

But in strimtoms video found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn_TnAU2xGA&t=475s at 7:41 you see that the thorn wave is a level 5 spell...

So now i am confused.

The notes were off on a variety of things (ie numbers were wrong, enhancement descriptions, what was removed and not, what level spells were, etc). Thorn Wave was a level 5 spell on this preview and provided that the damage numbers stay the same as they are, it's most likely intended to be a level 5 spell. 1d6+5 lines up with other level 5 mono-type single hit damaging spells like Ball Lightning (Sorc/Wizard), Cone of Cold, Poison Breath, etc.

[boogeiyman]

Piercing dmg spells are resisted highly by reapers so its at a clear disadvantage.

[SpartanKiller13]

Piercing dmg spells are resisted highly by reapers so its at a clear disadvantage.

No-save no-SR spell damage is pretty great for melee Druids at least, so I'm happy to see it. Can just melee the Reaper but having better options for hitting archers etc is nice IMO.

Damage spells that don't work (or work poorly) on certain monsters are pretty common in DDO :) change your selection based on the target, or play a class that can use the same spell always *cough cough* sorc ice druid alchemist *cough cough*

[dlsidhe]

I've been thinking about the thorn variant of flame blade and wanted to throw out a thought:

Two forms, like flame blades and shadow blades. The first is a club and shield, piercing and bludgeoning damage, shield scales from a buckler at low levels to a tower shield by legendary. The second is a quarterstaff with piercing and bludgeoning. Both use wisdom to hit and damage.

[Lotoc]

I've been thinking about the thorn variant of flame blade and wanted to throw out a thought:

Two forms, like flame blades and shadow blades. The first is a club and shield, piercing and bludgeoning damage, shield scales from a buckler at low levels to a tower shield by legendary. The second is a quarterstaff with piercing and bludgeoning. Both use wisdom to hit and damage.

conjured weapons don't really need proficiency so it could easily be actually good weapon types (crit profilewise) like a Khopesh
Though thematically a morningstar made of wood with poison/acid barbs would be pretty perfect for a onehander, and a staff with that morningstar design on each end probably? Or a greatclub that's a bigger version of the morningstar.
Unfortunately scimitar's 18-20 x2 crit profile to many weapon types is a downgrade without knight's training, rapier could be about on par and really a huge thorn of poison or acid would fit.

I do wonder though, if an elemental weapon has two elemental damage types on it does it just do whichever damage type is higher on hit? The blight weapon being acid and poison at once could be very interesting depending on how it works out.

[dlsidhe]

conjured weapons don't really need proficiency so it could easily be actually good weapon types (crit profilewise) like a Khopesh
Though thematically a morningstar made of wood with poison/acid barbs would be pretty perfect for a onehander, and a staff with that morningstar design on each end probably? Or a greatclub that's a bigger version of the morningstar.
Unfortunately scimitar's 18-20 x2 crit profile to many weapon types is a downgrade without knight's training, rapier could be about on par and really a huge thorn of poison or acid would fit.

I do wonder though, if an elemental weapon has two elemental damage types on it does it just do whichever damage type is higher on hit? The blight weapon being acid and poison at once could be very interesting depending on how it works out.

Flavor always comes first for me. A morningstar would be neat, or a sickle. Make a staff that looks like a scythe for the reaping aspect.

Or make the weapon a dagger and have a bunch of vistani Blightcasters running around. *shrugs* I'm just hyped for the archetype in general.

[shmagmhar]

if there can be a diseased wolf why not also a diseased plague bear ? I mean bears carry diseases as well just as much as wolves .

Or as I suggested before have this Sinister looking Diseased Deceased Rat form . give us a way to get elemental OOze guard like from greensteel . where you can spawn ooze when things strike you

[Duhboy]

if there can be a diseased wolf why not also a diseased plague bear ? I mean bears carry diseases as well just as much as wolves .

Or as I suggested before have this Sinister looking Diseased Deceased Rat form . give us a way to get elemental OOze guard like from greensteel . where you can spawn ooze when things strike you

Or maybe the ability to play as a shambling mound? ;)