Druid past life: 2x terrible = terrible still

[Wizzly_Bear]

As someone who likes to use hirelings, summon, and charm, I actually think its pretty nifty to have a past life that improves these abilities. IMHO. FWIW. YMMV.

[riexau]

Ive taken it to level 20, both forms.
Try running an elite ritual sacrifice as the bear and tell me it was a fast fun quest for you.

If you're having a slow ritual elite run on a 20 druid you're probably not using the right weapon. Get a PK weapon (terror, etc) - the vale mobs have next to nothing for saves. 30% attack speed + 18% passive doublestrike = every non-red mob dies in under 2 seconds. And the red ones, well, that's what max + empower creeping cold is for.

The only vale quest that should be slow and not fun is devils elite...

[Brennie]

As someone who likes to use hirelings, summon, and charm, I actually think its pretty nifty to have a past life that improves these abilities. IMHO. FWIW. YMMV.

The problem is, even someone who specializes in summons/charms/pets/hirelings can still only use them situationally.

• Hirelings can't be brought into raids, and can't join full parties. Given the option between a halfway capable person and a hireling, a halfway capable person would almost always be a better slot filler.

• Summons are weak. They attack slowly, they don't have much "oomph" behind their attacks, and they die very quickly when they take aggro (especially on elite difficulties). Plus, you have no control over their actions, making them liabilities in a lot of quests, and outright banned in many raids (As well as a few other quests that require tactics above "Kill everything on sight, and don't worry where you step" - Such as Sleeping Dust, Inferno of the Damned, any place with "Stepping stone" floor puzzles, etc etc)

• Charms can save a group from a really bad situation, even a party wipe, if used correctly. However, so can good use of CC, instakills, party buffs, and good ol' kill-them-before-they-kill-you. And in any situation where you party is not in imminent peril, charms are more likely to slow you down than anything else. That one kobold you charmed is now not being roasted by your sorc's fireball, or is waiting around aimlessly as you barb swings at it over and over, and you fumble for your dismiss charm ability to slowly make your charmed mob's killable again.

• Pets are fun for low level, and either not very useful, useless, or an actual liability at higher levels. You can control them slightly better than summons, but not by much. Forgot to hold ground AND go passive? That might just cost you the quest! Didn't take uncaring master? Then the first trap you go to disable will probably one-shot your puppy and give you one heckuva headache. I would like to see pets remain useful from 1-25, but they are just not there yet (in my opinion).

I'm not tryign to say that all of these are always bad in every situation. Soloers can make teh most use out of all four of these abilities, and even hardcore gamers might find a few uses for them here and there. But compare this past life which has absolutely no effect for characters without pets/charms/summons/hirelings and is of situational use to those who do to other passive past life feats:

• Monk - +1 damage from all melee/ranged sources. Small benefit, but a good benefit that is applicable to everyone but pure casters.

• Ranger - +2 inherent energy resist and +2 ranged damage. Small benefit that is useful to everyone, and medium benefit to anyone who is ranged focused.

• Barbarian - +10 hitpoints. Small benefit, but useful to each and every class/build in the game.

• Paladin - +5% healing amp! Who doesn't love healing amp? (Shut up Pale Masters, I'm not talking to you!)

Other past lives have similar widely usable potential or narrow but powerful focus. Some classes have much more specialized past lives, especially casters, but most caster past lives are thing people will actively grind for because while they are not particularly universal, they are AMAZING for very focused builds.

The druid past life is terrible, and honestly should be scrapped *RIGHT NOW* before people get used to it implementation. Even a bad feat/ability would get plenty of outrage if it was wholey changed into something else entirely. No one wants to build a Pale-master summoner flavor build off 3 druid past lives, just to find out they instead ended up being +1 stacking natural armor a year after druid was released.

Completely off topic thread derail - Since we're talking about past lives, and druids... can we finally, PLEASE take a look at the ranger active past life? Natural armor is now available from so many different sources, including Ranger's Blue Bars, Druid's Blue Bars, Artificer Blue bars (If you're a warforged), platinum-purchasable +3 barkskin pots, FR turn-in +5 barkskin pots, cove hats, and various other items (Including atleast one source of +6 natural armor from some epic items!), can we finally admit that spending a feat, let alone a feat you need to TR as a particular class to even have access to, to get some limited uses of Barkskin is completely asinine? Alternatives include - a single favored enemy, mass resist elements, Rams Might (which would be slightly better than the popular Paladin Active Past Life... i don't know if that's a good or bad thing), or perhaps duplicated an existing feat with some minor tweaks, like Point Blank Shot or basic Two Weapon Fighting. Just not Diehard. Anything but Diehard.

Sorry for the offtopic

[Wizzly_Bear]

Brennie, see below quote.

As someone who likes to use hirelings, summon, and charm, I actually think its pretty nifty to have a past life that improves these abilities. IMHO. FWIW. YMMV.

[SirValentine]

Other past lives have similar widely usable potential or narrow but powerful focus. Some classes have much more specialized past lives, especially casters, but most caster past lives are thing people will actively grind for because while they are not particularly universal, they are AMAZING for very focused builds.

I feel a Past Life feat should pass this test:

There should be reasonable builds that someone who feels Completionist is too much work to bother with, would still think it worth the effort to triple-stacking that past life.

I'm not sure I phrased that very well, but the idea is clear to me. :-) Let me rephrase:

If nobody would bother with triple-stacking it except ultimate-TR-ers like Lithic/Star, it's not powerful enough. Somebody, on some build X, who's only only doing 4 lives, should want Past Life Y triple-stacked as their 3 past life feats.

[janave]

/signed

The past life feats could optimally improve the character instead of his/her pets. I see how it is a though decision to appeal to all druids.

Casters could benefit from DCs - the druid DCs are really puny - or - spellpower.
Shapeshifters could benefit from some extra damage or protection.
Melee^same as above.

+ 2% doublestrike *while in form* with energy resist + 2s - that stack with ranger PLs. Or 2% dodge instead of energy resist.
+ 3-5 spellpower for conjuration/evocation spells (dont know how much would be balanced).

[Bartholamew]

Yeah sure, and what level are you... 7?
Ive taken it to level 20, both forms.
Try running an elite ritual sacrifice as the bear and tell me it was a fast fun quest for you.
I had taken all the shield feats, 3x natural weapons, everything I could to try make the bear feel faster at attack speed.
It was so slow, almost like a bug in the graphics animation.
You know the attack the bear does when it stands on its hind legs for the big swipe.. it takes so long to go through the animation. If a mob moves slightly, you miss. I also noticed if you roll low, it will miss with all 3 attacks, not sure if it was lag or just buggy or the mob had moved out of range, but I can say the quest took forever.

Look I love the idea of Druid, I just wish it had more to offer.
Yes very fun up to level 12, after that = GIMP O Maximus

I think your mistake was not taking cleave/ great cleave. The bear and wolf both benefit from having incredible burst damage with no fewer than 5 clicky attacks each. This means that as a bear or wolf you can CONSTANTLY spam these attacks, that do +1-4W damage. If you're using your regular attack chain for more than 1 second every 5 you're doing it wrong.

Bear= Cleave, GC, Maul, shred, Relentless Assault. All of which have strong effects. I think you're too much in the box of other classes, and not realizing that the druid plays differently. Between those 5 clickies your attack speed is FAST, and each attack is doing bonus damage and an effect.

[hit_fido]

Completely off topic thread derail - Since we're talking about past lives, and druids... can we finally, PLEASE take a look at the ranger active past life? Natural armor is now available from so many different sources, including Ranger's Blue Bars, Druid's Blue Bars, Artificer Blue bars (If you're a warforged), platinum-purchasable +3 barkskin pots, FR turn-in +5 barkskin pots, cove hats, and various other items (Including atleast one source of +6 natural armor from some epic items!), can we finally admit that spending a feat, let alone a feat you need to TR as a particular class to even have access to, to get some limited uses of Barkskin is completely asinine? Alternatives include - a single favored enemy, mass resist elements, Rams Might (which would be slightly better than the popular Paladin Active Past Life... i don't know if that's a good or bad thing), or perhaps duplicated an existing feat with some minor tweaks, like Point Blank Shot or basic Two Weapon Fighting. Just not Diehard. Anything but Diehard.
Sorry for the offtopic

Just release the caster level cap on barkskin - then you'd see +6 at 15 and +7 at 18. A modest buff for rangers and a better reason to take the past life.

[Deathdefy]

As someone who likes to use hirelings, summon, and charm, I actually think its pretty nifty to have a past life that improves these abilities. IMHO. FWIW. YMMV.

I hate hirelings, never use summons, and haven't charmed anything since an incident where a ranger charmed a hyena in the first room of Wiz King and it sat on a box while the party stared at it for about 5 minutes until the charm wore off.

That said, I really like the past life too. *Plaguerized disclaimers from Wizzly Bear about personal opinion*

I plan to:
1) Choose a class with a pet. (Read "Artificer"; though Druids, or PMs with minions would work)
2) Take Augment Summoning.
3) Take the Magister Grand Summoner ability (unfortunately it's T5 so you can't twist it, and Magister is darn boring - albeit powerful in the DC bolstering sense)

Grand summoner (required 16 - Prereq: Call kindred being 1) (1 rank - 1 AP): (Passive) Summons gain +4 to all ability scores, increased health, increased fort (50%) and a 40% increase to movement speed. Stack with augment summoning and similar effects

4) Grab 3 Druid PLs
5) Re-order this list
6) Make the fastest attacking class-appropriate Ooze II Greensteel weapon(s) I can.
7) Go to town on the Storm Reaver so he floats on my giant metal dog and a sea of superfast death oozes.

All of that said, I appreciate its use is probably too niche.

To me, the rubbish Passive PLs were always:

You were a Bard in a past life. You occasionally find yourself humming a merry tune. Each time you acquire this feat you gain +2 to saves vs. enchantments and illusions. You gain 1 bard song usage. This feat can be stacked up to three times.

and

You were a Cleric in a past life. You occasionally feel the presence of the divine. Each time you acquire this feat you gain +1 to the DC's of your Conjuration spells, +1 Turn Undead attempt per rest, and you Turn Undead as if you were two levels higher. This feat can be stacked up to three times.

since -most- character types gain very little substantive benefit from them.

The druid passive PL seems even more niche than what I consider to be the already disproportionately weak past-lives - but the core ability is really very awesome and I would much prefer it gain another perk a la the OP rather than be changed from the summon boost

[SkywalterDBZ]

I play this game in a 3 man static, and while we've never been level 20 or in a raid, pets have literally been undenyably awesome in many cases for us.

Both I (Palemaster) and our cleric have Augment Summoning. I'm currently summoning the 2nd Tier Mage Skeleton and Air Elemental. She summons either the Wight Priest from the Undead summon or the Orthon demon. In addition, our Paladin (who has UMD for various reasons) will always have something summoned as well (sans a failure when he tries for level appropriate pets) just because he can.


Now, maybe its cause we're First lifers without years of experience ... or because every quest we do is completely new to us ... or because we don't have piles of raid gear or past lives ... but pets have managed to serve as good distractions, the Air Elementals knockdown is no joke, and mage pets do fairly good damage. I've been in several quests where having pets has literally been the only difference between life and death, and to me, I can't wait for the Epic Destiny boost of +4 more and I would literally love for an extra +6 from this PL. In the end, thats +7 bonus above the base pets ... thats a non trivial amount of stats, especially HP.

[dterror]

I hate hirelings, never use summons, and haven't charmed anything since an incident where a ranger charmed a hyena in the first room of Wiz King and it sat on a box while the party stared at it for about 5 minutes until the charm wore off.

Been there, done that...just 2 days ago in fact. Also in Wiz King. Also by a ranger after 3 people said several times each DON'T CHARM THE MUTTS. Ran all over the room looking for the 1 remaining mob to kill before we realized the ranger had charmed one of the hyenas.

That said:
Just having augment, combined with a melee or caster hire, the wolf, a charmed animal, and a summoned whatever with the other various buffs you can give them (pack spells, etc) has been quite fun so far this life. 3 druids with 3 hires and all the rest makes for a small army rolling through a dungeon

[teh_meh]

Been there, done that...just 2 days ago in fact. Also in Wiz King. Also by a ranger after 3 people said several times each DON'T CHARM THE MUTTS. Ran all over the room looking for the 1 remaining mob to kill before we realized the ranger had charmed one of the hyenas.

You're telling me Rangers can't dismiss their charms like other classes can?

[SirValentine]

You're telling me Rangers can't dismiss their charms like other classes can?

Only Bard, Sorc, and Wiz get Dismiss Charm. Clerics and FvS can't dismiss their charm spells, either.

[FranOhmsford]

Only Bard, Sorc, and Wiz get Dismiss Charm. Clerics and FvS can't dismiss their charm spells, either.

Now this ^ needs fixing!

To the Druid Past Life however - As someone who fits Augment Summoning onto as many of my characters as possible I have to say Please don't listen to the people asking for it to be changed Devs, Please Don't listen to people saying that Augment is a terrible feat - It's in fact one of the best General Purpose feats in the game - In my view Second only to Toughness.

Truly Bad feats incl:

Snake Blood
Spell Focus Abjuration
Spell Focus Divination
Skill Focus: Swim
Skill Focus: Jump
Skill Focus: Heck there's only 4 of any use whatsoever - UMD, Concentration, Intimidate, Search {Disable isn't needed YET}.
Exotic Wpn Prof: Shuriken
Exotic Wpn Prof: Light Repeater
Exotic Wpn Prof: Great X-Bow
Slicing Blow
Resilience
Diehard
Acrobatic
Alertness
Athletic
Combat Casting
Self Sufficient
Luck of Heroes
Resist Poison

[SirValentine]

Truly Bad feats incl:
<snip>
Spell Focus Abjuration
Spell Focus Divination

Spell Focus Divination is, I think, completely useless.

Abjuration, on the other hand, is not.

I would like to see the Exorcist Cleric PrE make Abjuration even better.

[ZeebaNeighba]

Skill Focus: Heck there's only 4 of any use whatsoever - UMD, Concentration, Intimidate, Search {Disable isn't needed YET}.

Combat Casting

But the devs sort of addressed the last one in the patch...

Removed all suggestions to take the "Combat Casting" feat from the chargen advice for all classes.

[Vordax]

To the Druid Past Life however - As someone who fits Augment Summoning onto as many of my characters as possible I have to say Please don't listen to the people asking for it to be changed Devs, Please Don't listen to people saying that Augment is a terrible feat - It's in fact one of the best General Purpose feats in the game - In my view Second only to Toughness.

To the Druid Past Life however - As someone who never fits Augment Summoning into any of my characters I have to say Please don't listen to the people asking for it to stay this way Devs, Please Don't listen to people saying that Augment is a good feat.

Hirelings and summons AI pretty much sucks, giving them a little bit higher stats doesn't really help them at all. They will still sit there staring at the wall while you are dying, or go swimming in the lava or swing there mace ineffectually at a fire reaver.