More Druid Wild Shape options

[dejafu]

Now that Druid seems to have settled into its niche in the game, I think it's time to start offering a few more options for Wild Shape.

As it currently stands, the only "choice" involved with possible Wild Shape forms is what order you acquire them in as you level - by level 17, you've got all the current shapes. So let's make some more choices available! Adding Earth and Air elemental forms should be easy, seeing as how they're now coded in for elemental savants. I would imagine it would also be relatively simple to add things like panthers, hyenas, and the like for lower levels and magical beast variations for higher levels. You wouldn't even need to add much in the way of different abilities - I'd be fine with panthers functioning mostly the same as wolves, for example.

Heck, even some simple reskinning options would be nice. Let me make my winter wolf form look like a worg or my dire bear look like a polar bear (or an owlbear!). Yes, I'd be willing to buy that kind of thing in the store. I'm willing to buy armor appearance kits, let me have something similar for my animal forms!

Speaking of bears, that form could definitely use some love - the only reason I ever see people shift into bear or dire bear form is for the dances (which are great fun, mind you, but I'd like bears to be more than a gag for druids). It just feels *wrong* that I can turn into a hulking dire bear but actually end up doing less damage than if I stayed in human form with a greataxe. I get that they're supposed to be for tanking, but the amount of damage they deal is so small and slow that it's next to impossible to gain or keep aggro. How about giving them a x4 crit multiplier? Or let their attacks count as two-handed attacks, complete with double power attack damage and glancing blows. Make choosing between winter wolf and dire bear a genuinely tough call to make, rather than the current winter wolf default.

Finally - and this is really, really minor, but little things matter, too - but could we get some more emote options in wild shape form? It seems funny that I can make wolf pup companion lie down, but I can't do the same thing for myself in wolf form. /Howl and /groom could be fun. Also, I've been told by multiple people that the way my winter wolf druid just stands and stares at the rest of them while shrining makes it difficult to tell whether I'm even shrining at all... and just kind of gives them the creeps

[davmuzl]

Just met one of the wold pups you can get for PDK favor in eveningstar on my druid. It really sucks when they have all these emotes (even with sound) and a player has so few emots. Sure the bear dances look pretty nice. But that's about it. Wolf only gets one dance. And the other emote (sleep) doesn't even have a fluent animation. You do some yawning and then *snip* lies on the ground. The creature companions even have sound effects for their emotes.

I was actually searching for a list of emotes that are possible in wolf/bear form and found this. And I completly agree with everything.
It would be really awesome to have a few different options other than winter wolf. Panther, worg, black wolf, large regular wolf, just like everyone else has cosmetic armor.

The part about bears I also completly agree with. Not only do wolves get extra attack speed, but their attack animation also works way better than the bear one. When spamming cleaves it doesn't really matter, but the rest of the time bear is just not usable. And then your crit profile is also worse and you lose the sneak attack bonus. If the bear form had actual use as an option for tanks it would be fine, but tanks simply aren't needed and bear isn't even that much better for tanking.

And then there is the air and earth elemental issue, where it looks like there is no reason not to have them.

[Tom116]

Now that Druid seems to have settled into its niche in the game, I think it's time to start offering a few more options for Wild Shape.

As it currently stands, the only "choice" involved with possible Wild Shape forms is what order you acquire them in as you level - by level 17, you've got all the current shapes. So let's make some more choices available! Adding Earth and Air elemental forms should be easy, seeing as how they're now coded in for elemental savants. I would imagine it would also be relatively simple to add things like panthers, hyenas, and the like for lower levels and magical beast variations for higher levels. You wouldn't even need to add much in the way of different abilities - I'd be fine with panthers functioning mostly the same as wolves, for example.

Heck, even some simple reskinning options would be nice. Let me make my winter wolf form look like a worg or my dire bear look like a polar bear (or an owlbear!). Yes, I'd be willing to buy that kind of thing in the store. I'm willing to buy armor appearance kits, let me have something similar for my animal forms!

Speaking of bears, that form could definitely use some love - the only reason I ever see people shift into bear or dire bear form is for the dances (which are great fun, mind you, but I'd like bears to be more than a gag for druids). It just feels *wrong* that I can turn into a hulking dire bear but actually end up doing less damage than if I stayed in human form with a greataxe. I get that they're supposed to be for tanking, but the amount of damage they deal is so small and slow that it's next to impossible to gain or keep aggro. How about giving them a x4 crit multiplier? Or let their attacks count as two-handed attacks, complete with double power attack damage and glancing blows. Make choosing between winter wolf and dire bear a genuinely tough call to make, rather than the current winter wolf default.

Finally - and this is really, really minor, but little things matter, too - but could we get some more emote options in wild shape form? It seems funny that I can make wolf pup companion lie down, but I can't do the same thing for myself in wolf form. /Howl and /groom could be fun. Also, I've been told by multiple people that the way my winter wolf druid just stands and stares at the rest of them while shrining makes it difficult to tell whether I'm even shrining at all... and just kind of gives them the creeps

That could be cool, maybe giving one option +1 crit range and the other +1 crit multiplier so people have choices. Definitely agree animal forms need some love, hopefully it won't be too long since they were on a list a while ago

[Silverleafeon]

/signed

[PentegarnDarras]

Can you imagine a druid shifting into say a rat and gaining all the speed and stealth of that little guy?

Wowzers

[Azre]

Instead of retro-actively changing the druid class which would probably be a programming nightmare.
How about they release a Shifter enhancement line, where you could adopt or gain traits from different forms?. From demons, to devils to dragons (capstone) to other animals?. Maybe throw in some proper elemental immunities whilst at it such as an improved shifting that gives fire elementals immunity to fire, etc?.

That would seem much easier to implement. And it would benefit both casting druids and melee druids.

[PentegarnDarras]

Instead of retro-actively changing the druid class which would probably be a programming nightmare.
How about they release a Shifter enhancement line, where you could adopt or gain traits from different forms?. From demons, to devils to dragons (capstone) to other animals?. Maybe throw in some proper elemental immunities whilst at it such as an improved shifting that gives fire elementals immunity to fire, etc?.

That would seem much easier to implement. And it would benefit both casting druids and melee druids.

/signed

[Rofaust]

/signed. I proposed some ideas for this topic here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...uid-Wildshapes