The Official Druid Enhancements Discussion Thread!

[SerPounce]

Nice changes!

Did you check to see if they reduced any of the insane cooldowns (e.g. celerity)?

With these changes, and if 2wf is WAI, animal druids are finally going to come into their own as a viable option.

[Systern]

Reaving Roar got nerfed to a flat 5d6 sonic damage and 2/4/6% scaling threat generation.

[Failedlegend]

Reaving Roar got nerfed to a flat 5d6 sonic damage and 2/4/6% scaling threat generation.

Fatal Harrier has its "stacks up to 5 times" text removed...haven't had a chance to test it yet.

[Violith]

So, teh cooldown for animal forms was moved to a t5... is alpha strike still there? And if so does it work now?

[Claver]

Nature Warrior:
Core:
2,3,4 and 5 bow also give +1 base melee dmg while in wolf or bear form and +10 positive spell power (no matter if in form or not). Positive change for sure .
Capstone now gives:
Wolf form: +2 base melee dmg, 10PPR, +2d6 sneak
Bear form: +2 base melee dmg, 15% attack speed, 10 PPR
Other bonuses: +1 STR and DEX and CON, +2 Bluff and Intimi.
.

This is unclear to me...

Is this an increase to [w] i.e. a dire bear does 1d12 so a dire bear with 4 core enhancements would get 4[w] or 4[1d12]...(4 - 48 damage per swing)

Or does it just mean +4 to damage i.e. 1d12 + 4 damage.

The difference in power is significant.

Can someone who can log into Lamannia please confirm.

[Violith]

This is unclear to me...

Is this an increase to [w] i.e. a dire bear does 1d12 so a dire bear with 4 core enhancements would get 4[w] or 4[1d12]...(4 - 48 damage per swing)

Or does it just mean +4 to damage i.e. 1d12 + 4 damage.

The difference in power is significant.

Can someone who can log into Lamannia please confirm.

the enhancement in natures warrior currently says it adds to base damage, total of +3 and that is merely a +3 damage, so that is probably the same thing. to help lessen the loss of the fact that animal forms dont get any extra base dice like alot of epic items.

[Claver]

the enhancement in natures warrior currently says it adds to base damage, total of +3 and that is merely a +3 damage, so that is probably the same thing. to help lessen the loss of the fact that animal forms dont get any extra base dice like alot of epic items.

That's extremely disappointing then.

Which would you rather use, an Epic Great Axe that does 2[w] i.e 2-24 points of damage or attack as a dire bear for [w] + 4 or 5 - 16 damage at incredibly slow animation rates?

Throw in the fact you miss out on epic destiny attacks that increase your base damage and there is still no reason to play a bear or wolf.

Why did turbine bother? This hardly seems to address the serious weaknesses of playing in wolf or bear form.

As an aside, thank you for answer my question. The rant wasn't directed at you per se.

[Violith]

That's extremely disappointing then.

Which would you rather use, an Epic Great Axe that does 2[w] i.e 2-24 points of damage or attack as a dire bear for [w] + 4 or 5 - 16 damage at incredibly slow animation rates?

Throw in the fact you miss out on epic destiny attacks that increase your base damage and there is still no reason to play a bear or wolf.

Why did turbine bother? This hardly seems to address the serious weaknesses of playing in wolf or bear form.

As an aside, thank you for answer my question. The rant wasn't directed at you per se.

animal form isnt that bad atm although it needs a monk splash to be viable so you can get higher then 1w. an extra 7-9 (3 from enhancements, 4 from cores 2-5 and 2 for cap) damage isnt much but its not a bad increase since its base damage and thus is effected by crits and such. but having animals gain the W of the weapon they have equipped wouldnt be a bad fix either. even so I dont believe the capstone is strong enough to validate staying pure.

to make it actually worth staying pure, the twf needs to be commented on and made WAI to work with animal forms. Wolf should be +2str/con, +2 damage, 4d6 sneak attack dice. and 10ppr. Bear should be +2str/con, +4 damage, 30% attack speed, and 50ppr. since animal form 'attacks/spells' have a wisdom DC, an addition of a DC modifier wouldnt be bad either.

other capstones should likewise be increased, currently I dont think there is many capstones outta the 20+ prestiges that are worth the choice of not splashing. there are some nice ones but nothing that really makes someone agonize over splashing.

[SerPounce]

So I finally got on to Lamania and got to take a look at these.

The one big thing the poster above missed is that season's Harold now has a t5 that gives +1 evocation or conjuration DC. That's great, and with that I can say SH is a fine tree. I'm still not a huge fan of the season mechanic, but that's the mechanic, and it's a good tree with the stuff a caster druid needs. Well done devs.

Natures warrior is vastly improved, but it still needs work. The cooldowns for some abilities (celerity, skin of the croc) are still silly. 5 minutes is just way to long for a modest ability like these that last 12 seconds. They need to be able to be active *at least* 1/6 of the time (same as manyshot, an ability MUCH stronger than either), and probably more like 1/3.

Dodge requirement for four legs goods should be removed. Druids are already extremely feat starved, they shouldn't be yoked with mediocre requirements.

The attack speed increasing ability (forgot the name) is still confusing and too weak. charges need to last much longer (like 30 seconds).

Finally, and this is really important, animal druids desperately need a way to boost DCs for animal attacks. Spell DCs are currently calibrated such that viability requires an all-in commitment. Something that just isn't reasonable for a melee druid that sacrifices so much casting power. Animal attack DCs should be more like monk DCs (stunning fist, quivering palm, etc) where a significant, but not all-in that gimps the toon for melee, investment can get effective DCs.

You could do this by altering the DC calculation on the "spells," you could do it by giving a big boost to DCs in these enhancements (say remove celerity and replace it with +2/+4/+6 (yes they need that much, really, really) to animal attack DCs) or you could do it by adding combat mastery equipment bonus to animal attack DCs (and maybe vertigo/stunning/sunder depending on the attack). Use what method you'd like, but something needs to boost those DCs.

Overall excellent work, but *please* don't stop just short of viability. Go that extra bit to make this tree, and animal druids generally, really work.

[dlsidhe]

So, I didn't test the changes to the Herald tree (I'm happy with it as-is, and the changes just make me happier, so yay!), but I figured I'd try the Nature's Warrior tree.

Celerity and some other skills have ridiculous cooldowns, but other than that I'm pretty impressed. However, they need a way to up the DCs on the animal form spell/attacks, and those SERIOUSLY need to be immune to a beholder's antimagic cone. There's no reason a beholder should stop a bear from roaring, unless it is able to kill the bear with disintegration.

[elyssaria]

I totally fail to see the point of the nerf of Reaving Roar.. Why ever would I want to invest more then 1 point into Reaving Roar?? And that 1 pointer is only useful in the beginning since Reaving Roar isnt worth a **** as soon you come up to around lvl 10.

Then need to adjust this ability. Maybe they could make it so that Rank 1 - Lvl Requirement, Rank 2 - Lvl 7 Requirement and Rank 3 Lvl 14 requirement. Then up the damage accordingly to have it useful at those lvls.

**Edit I also concur that something drastic needs to be done to the Wolf/bear spells DC. As it is now they ALWAYS fail since the DC's are way to low for the current content.

/E