The Official Druid Enhancements Discussion Thread!

[chrisdinus7]

I don't agree. You don't just get that one SLA for 24 AP you get 4, which is 4 more than druids have now. And all 4 of them are good DPS. Well worth 24AP. Especially when you consider that the 24 AP is also being added to your Universal Spell power.

I really like the Uni spell power per point because to me it means every single point I spend in the tree is being put to use, regardless of what I am spending it on.

Keep in mind I am speaking purely from a caster druid perspective. I do not melee at all.

Another thing I think is a good addition for caster druids are the wand and scroll mastery. Something which I felt we were missing. Heal scrolls currently on live are useless for me. Although, on Lam right now the wand and scroll mastery is not working on heal scrolls. But I hope this is a bug and not intended. If intended then this is bad.

Overall I like the way it has been done. Melee druids can specialise and so can casters. We are no longer forced to live with any crossover if we don't want to. But for the people who like to be "jack of all trades", they can take some of each tree/style. No you wont be as powerful as the specialists but that is the price you pay for melee and spells rather than one or the other.

As a pure caster, I don't see anything usefull in natures warrior for me. That does mean I will end up with no +to my HP but I guess I am a caster and casters in general have a reduced HP compared to other classes so it brings be in line with other caster classes. So I like that aswell.

Overall I am very happy. The only thing I don't like is the winters heart ability. But its the same as on live. I am a ranged caster so an ability trigger spell that centres on me is pointless. It is better suited to a melee, but alas it is a T5 in the caster tree. I think this makes it even more useless than it currently is on live. Not sure how many jacks will take that T5 as they will be limited in selection already.

This. Overall, the druid caster tree seems quite good. The SLAs are good. Produce Flame beats any sorc tier 1 SLA. Creeping Cold is very good, easily competing with any of the sorc tier 2 SLAs. Call Lightning is comparable to the Air Savant's lightning bolt, and makes a good tier 3 SLA. Overall, even if they don't fix the cooldown and word of balance and sunburst, druid's have excellent SLAs, maybe even one of the best sets. If they do fix cooldowns, then I'd say druid's have the best SLAs without question. Still undecided on whether that means sorcs should be buffed or druid's dialed back a bit, but I'm leaning towards buffing sorcs, given the meh nature of their trees overall.

[chrisdinus7]

I especially hate that you are further being forced to min/max. the way my character is on live, and how I enjoy playing, is basically running around as a Herald in Fire ele form, train a bunch of critters, earthquake, burning hamsterball of doom, and cleave cleave cleave cleave... I miss my toughness enhancements. I'm forced to consider if every point I don't put into herald will make me survive long enough to live through the lessened damage (generally, no). I'm positioning myself to take Overwhelming Critical (not 24 yet)...

There is no more synergy. Human Improved Recovery 2&3 is giving up 10% spell damage and outgoing healing for 11 or 12% incoming healing. Every point in Nature's is a point not in Herald. You are X Powerful, and how you want to divide that X is up to you.

I loved my druid because it was a pure hybrid. That's been taken away. I no longer have the versatility to choose the LD Destiny or Primal if the party and whim call for it.

I also don't like Winter's heart now, because now you won't have the HP and PRR to stand there and survive the attacks as the center of attention.

Yes, I dislike the gain +X per point in tree thing. It makes the racial trees horrid. And the balance is odd. Sorcs get +0.75 usp, but the caster druid gets +1 usp. I also agree the setup for druid currently kills the hybrid builds. On live, I take a mix of melee and caster enhancements / feats. With this, I can't see doing that. Prolly spec into caster based on this.

[oberon131313]

I bug reported this already with several others, its untrainable atm. My druid is pure druid, had 78 points in tree just to make sure it was not that, still could not get it.

Cool, just making sure it wasn't a "me being stupid" thing; it was first thing when I woke up this morning...

[Violith]

savants get .75usp, and .75sp for their element (for 1.5sp total for their element), same as wizard PM's, or should anyway. not sure how it is actually done atm. druids casters get 1usp since they dont specialize in an element, and druid warriors are left in the dark.,..

come on dev's, give warriors atleast .5usp per level in addition to the hp. or just give both prestiges 1usp per level. going from 100-150+usp to 0-40 just cause Im a melee build hurts alot

..

[Mark2422]

Yes, I dislike the gain +X per point in tree thing. It makes the racial trees horrid. And the balance is odd. Sorcs get +0.75 usp, but the caster druid gets +1 usp. I also agree the setup for druid currently kills the hybrid builds. On live, I take a mix of melee and caster enhancements / feats. With this, I can't see doing that. Prolly spec into caster based on this.

Forgive me if I am way of the mark because I have been a divine caster for 6 years and know very little about melee.

If you ignore the mentioned "nerfs" that have been mentioned about the melee tree, can you not split your points 50/30 or something and gain some nice + to your spells while still taking a lot of the melee stuff? In all honesty 80 spell power may seem like a lot but in reality, in the old system we only had +65 and it wasnt universal. It was 65 for two schools and you had to spend more to get the others. So if you only spent 30 points in the caster tree you are only 35sp worse off in which ever school you spent points on and 30 spell power better off in every school you didnt used to spend points in. And when you add atleast +20 you will gain from the new spellcraft skill, that brings the loss to 15 spell power. Now that is not a huge loss is it.

To me this sounds fair. Why should a hybrid who has good melee abilities be able to equal my spell power as a pure caster. I would actually be more inclined to say the cost of being a hybrid should be more like -50 spell power, which it now would be if you split your points 50/30. But again if you add spellcraft of only 20, that reduces to 30 spell power.

It just seems logical that the more you invest in melee, the worse your spell power will get and vice versa. You should not be allowed to have the best of both worlds and I think that is what hybrids used to have in the old enhancement system.

[Mark2422]

I do think Winters Heart needs altering though. Casters won't want it as we are ranged, and melee wont want it because you have to sacrifice a lot of AP just to get at it.

[Dieterstrife]

Hey does that doublestrike action boost depend on a form, or can I use it while say fighting unarmed?

[Daemoneyes]

why no spellpower for melee tree? Druid is a HYBRID class! give it at least heal and cold spellpower.

Fatal Harrier - is dead now, duration is a bad joke and costs far more points then live.
Reaving Roar - why nerf a meh enhancement? true it needed downscaling in lowlvl but it was anyway useless in endlvl
Alpha Strike - needs something to make it scale, we dont need another cleave (especially not when 99% of us in LD anyway) we need something useful

Bear form is still a sad joke

[Khatzhas]

I don't like the Points in Tree system. It really devalues a lot of choices. I am currently playing a human druid on Live, and "no brainers" have become skill traps... On Live, Of course I want Healing Amp enhancements. On Lamma, you take the 1st one for 2 AP, but after that: do you put 10 AP into Human to get a net 11% healing amp, or just throw 10 AP anywhere in Season's Herald and get 10% healing and 10% damage from the boost to USP? ... Duh.

There is no more synergy. Human Improved Recovery 2&3 is giving up 10% spell damage and outgoing healing for 11 or 12% incoming healing.

Unless the spellpower situation has changed, 10 spellpower will not be close to 10% healing amplification in terms of healing yourself.
The positive spellpower only affects the base amount of the spell, whereas the healing amplification is 10% increase based on the total amount.

[~AlissSeven]

crown of summer is now friend only instead of friend, self wai?

I was told crown of summer overwrites various effects so I just don't hand it out anymore unless asked for (which is never), leaving it for myself basically. If that's gone, then it's truely useless now.

(edit: actually, it doesn't even work sometimes on myself for whatever reason.)

[Silverleafeon]

Its the bottom of the 9th, one out (alpha) and chicken little is two runs ahead.
There is a wizard on first base, and a sorcerer on second base.
The Devs are the home team, and time out has been called.

Will the Devs pull it off, or will they lose the game to chicken little?



Speaking as someone who has played every class and race the old fashion way,
I am distressed and upset at the current events playing out in this enhancement alpha.


You, the Devs, are about to implement a nerf to every class in the game except two.
That is a pretty strong charge, let's talk it over.


Archmage wizards probably need some more flexablity.
Other than that, the arcane powerhouses (Sorcerer and Wizard) almost always come out on top.

The enhancements for the melee is coming along, until one considers that melees exist in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis
with other classes. When those classes suffer, the melee classes suffer.

Most melees have gotten to the point of realizing that sorcerers and wizards often don't care.
That is why we melees carry haste clickies, haste potions, and melee aclarity items.
That is why we melees carry permanent blur items.
We can get along if we have to without them.

But we melees have another Symbiosis, a strong greater one that is much more important.
If this group is weak, we melee are also weak.
It is the group of classes that can cast mass curative spells.

This group includes Bards, Druids, Clerics, and Favored Souls.
The games fate and destiny are interwoven with their destiny.

These four classes have some else in common.
All four of them currently only have tier two prestige classes.
Since three tier should exists, one can obviously concluded that each of these classes
should be increased in enhancement power by 50% during this enhancement update.

Bards also suffer as already needing upgrades in many forms.
They sit at the bottom of all the classes, needing much love.
I will not list in detail what should be changed as you the Devs already have my very
details notes on the subject documented for later access.

While some will say, the spellsinger looks kinda nice, I say you have a long way to go.
The bard needs a lot of work, you know what it is, do it.


Fifty percent is a lot of power addition.
Fear is the original sin.
Be bold, be creative, show us how smart you can be.

[SerPounce]

Season's Harold:

Some nice improvements here over live, but it needs some tweaking. The addition of SLAs is huge, as is the evening out of spellpower with other casters.

RE: changing seasons. you should either buff the in-season powers, or improve flexibility and control over what season you're in. As is the bonuses are really too small to bother really adjusting your strategy to fit your season. Particularly given your limited selection (for example if you're DoTing a boss you're going to use creeping cold).

non-scaling abilties: They're bad. I'm looking at you spring resurgence and winter's heart. Make them scale in some way so they don't start out super powered and end up useless in EE.



Nature's warrior:

This one still has lots of problems, and needs serious work.

1. Needs Spellpower with AP spent

2. Needs spellpower with AP spent

3. Seriously, they're still primarily a caster, they need spellpower

4. make non-stacking bonuses stack

5. Make abilties scale (eg. reaving roar)

6. Defensive action boosts are more trouble then they're worth. Make the defensive bonuses passive or activated on an effect (eg. chance on being hit/hitting).

7. While I can't say I've tested this stuff extensively (my druid was a caster before I TRed) a lot of the numbers just seem too low.

For example fatal harrier seems like a really cool idea, but since it doesn't stack with melee alacrity or haste it's going to be pretty rare to get it up to the point where it's doing any good. you'd have to kill 5 enemies in a row in less then 8 second each to get what really amounts to 10% more attack speed over haste. I know from using masters blitz that this is going to be pretty unrealistic in most situations. I have blitz attempts sputter out regularly on EE because I can't string together enough kills in 15secs each to really get it going, and that's on a toon that does more DPS than most druids are going to muster. I'd recommend something like +10% speed for 30 seconds stacking 1/2/3 times (based on points spend).

And that's just one example, there are a bunch of abilities where the numbers just seem way to low.

Anyway, nice work on season's herald, that one is really getting somewhere, but nature's warrior needs serious work.

[~Formulacion]

Druid nature's warrior need rework (as all peeps on that threat say)

->Tree adds 1 hp x point (that correct, cause we need be on melee to dish the dmg so we need good hp), but also add 0,5 postivie spell power (and maybe 0,5 cold)
->Alpha strike.. what a joke. its a cleave with limited uses per day... awsome... keep this a the "supreme cleave" version of the druid (with extra damage and low CD) or make it awsome powerfull if need to use wild empathy charges.
->In all the tree, the WORST problem of melee druid its not fixed. Druid need someform to upgrade the damage from claws. Actually its 1[1d10], that need some kind of improve (only form atm its splashing monk, that just wrong). At least we need some form to upgrade to 2[1d10] (at VERY minimun) but something like 2,5[1d12] will be a most balanced option.

[SerPounce]

Druid nature's warrior need rework (as all peeps on that threat say)

->Tree adds 1 hp x point (that correct, cause we need be on melee to dish the dmg so we need good hp), but also add 0,5 postivie spell power (and maybe 0,5 cold)
->Alpha strike.. what a joke. its a cleave with limited uses per day... awsome... keep this a the "supreme cleave" version of the druid (with extra damage and low CD) or make it awsome powerfull if need to use wild empathy charges.
->In all the tree, the WORST problem of melee druid its not fixed. Druid need someform to upgrade the damage from claws. Actually its 1[1d10], that need some kind of improve (only form atm its splashing monk, that just wrong). At least we need some form to upgrade to 2[1d10] (at VERY minimun) but something like 2,5[1d12] will be a most balanced option.

Yeah melee druids are pretty jacked in a variety of ways having nothing to do with enhancements.

1. No die steps as you mention

2. Insanely feat starved. They really need to take both shield mastery feats and all three natural fighting feats for their basic fighting style. With no bonus feats, and such an important capstone that's a huge price.

3. No realistic way of getting DCs of the animal attack spells high enough to matter in EE.

4. Arbitrarily locked out of one of the best abilities of the best Destiny (Dreadnaught, momentum swing)

This tree is just another nail in the coffin. I have one more sorc past life to do on my druid, and as much as I'd like to make some kind of hybrid, in all likelihood it will be back to an elemental form caster, maybe with monk levels for stunning fist. Not as cool as being a winter wolf, but it has the advantage of actually working in tough content.

[Silverleafeon]

The druid wolf companion needs more survivability at levels above 13ish.
It is more difficult to have good fort on the wolf than the iron defender, and the iron defender has better survivability at higher levels.

The ability to spend action points to increase the wolf companion's survivability at higher levels could be a good option.
The same could be true of the iron defender.

[Tilomere]

I just finished my 2nd druid life to 20.

My feedback after looking at the trees is that animal form is no longer viable. You will no longer be able to pick out the healing spell power you need, even as a pure druid, and multiclassing a few monk levels makes your heals bad to start with.

Wolf form, the most popular form, requires ice + healing spell power enhancements on live which are no longer possible to get at the same time as wolf abilities.

Bear form, the least popular form, requires healing + universal spell power, and doesn't self heal or stay alive well already due to a lack of mana procs.

Lacking spell power to self heal and stay alive, both forms are useless, and everyone will remain in caster form.

Druids also won't be able to take racial abilities, like elf AA + elf abilities, or dwarf tankyness + bear + healing, because they wouldn't be able to heal at the same time due to a lack of spell power.

A low dps healing hybrid class is becoming a low dps non-healing class, or a pure caster non-hybrid class.

Next patch, I'm just not going to be able to use animal form entirely...LD looking better now.

TLDR: Animal form needs spell power for healing and animal form spells, at the least.

Caster tree looks OP.

Can we get an enhancement for animal form that gives bonus physical damage based on health? This would fix both bear and wolf late game scaling. 20:1 or something?

Edit: I'm sure I could make a 17/x druid build self heal at cap with epic gear and healing amp, it just wouldn't work 1-20.

[QuantumFX]

Sorry for the Johnny come lately.

Nature’s Warrior

- The PrE fails to address the problems with melee druids. Namely, there is no way to achieve a Full BaB without resorting to magic items. BaB affects more than just the ability to hit something. It also affects attack speed and PRR. It seems like all the other abilities are balance around a druid having full BaB.

- It still does nothing to address the derpy implementation of Natural Fighting. 3 feats on a feat starved class is simply bad design.

Solution: Completely ditch the natural fighting feats. Have each core enhancement improve the BaB of the character by 1 and grant 2% doublestrike while in animal form.

[SerPounce]

So druid didn't get any significant changes.

Sad, but not surprised.

[hermespan]

Cool, just making sure it wasn't a "me being stupid" thing; it was first thing when I woke up this morning...

concur. I can't train it either. pre-reqs are lit up green and it's the last thing I am trying to train. So it's not level, or lack of enhancement points spent.

Other than that, I LOVE melee druid tree setup abilities and descriptions.

Awesome stuff! I can't wait to start testing all of the enhancements.

The one exception to the whole "loving it thing" is alpha strike. Maybe my opinion will change in testing, maybe not, but it seems like it's an awfully expensive enhancement to only be able to use it a few times between shrines. I think it should be a charge on thing like momentum swing is for dreadnought, where you have, say, a 1 minute cooldown, however certain ability uses (such as baiting bite, takedown, etc) have a small chance of resetting the cooldown.

Naturally there would need to be a balance struck between damage dealt with the attack and the probability of resetting it prematurely through the use of druid abilities.

Maybe something similar to my idea could be done. I don't like tying it to wild empathy. It doesn't make any sense to me.

This would fill the gap left in dreadnought, where most pure druid S&B melee builds won't have enough feats after maxing doublestrike to take cleave and great cleave, so can't use momentum swing. This would fit perfectly into that hole.

Can't wait to get to testing all of this stuff on Sunday. Unfortunately I promised saturday to my fiance with no gaming lol.

BTW
Edit: I'm running a capped pure druid wolf build.

[hermespan]

Solution: Completely ditch the natural fighting feats. Have each core enhancement improve the BaB of the character by 1 and grant 2% doublestrike while in animal form.

O.O

Please don't ask for this and devs please don't implement it!