Druid Update Preview

[AbyssalMage]

Yes as a combat style bonus this will not stack with animal forms. Our current approach is to balance the animal forms and natural weapon feats against the combat styles as it's own style.

Please rethink this. Currently, we can do THF/SWF + SM/ISM which are both combat styles that compliment each other. Allowing Natural Fighting to the list shouldn't cause game imbalance for those who wish to spend the 5! feats to acquire such a bonus.

Second, please break Natural Fighting up into Natural Fighting (level 1), Improved Natural Fighting (level 3 or 6), and Greater Natural Fighting (Level 9 or 12) like the other combat styles.

[GeoffWatson]

Natural Fighting needs a massive improvement. It gives 6% doublestrike, which is a lot less than 20% off-hand strikes, 10% attack speed, or 10% glancing blows.
Making it available at lower levels would help too.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Because 98% of the heavy armor in the game is metal and will break Druid's oath. This may cause confusion especially to newer players.

I think the core should at least get reminder text for said players. I can see this being a source of frustration for them--not cool.

[Mryal]

Nice! Fixes, buffs to spells, some new enhancements.I like.
I mainly play caster druid and got epic completionist as Caster Druid, so i will comment on season's herald, and spellcasting in general.

First of all any buff in season's herald is a step in the right direction, SPECIALY tying the season mechanic to the elemental form you are.Adding salt ray SLA is a good idea too.
But honestly, there is still a lot to do.Caster druids have always been in a strange spot where unlike other casters they use several different elements at once and also several schools while recieving little support to some of the schools they use.Additionaly there is the ED/Epic feat issue.More into that bellow.

Elemental Forms - Ice : In this form you have a very usefull usefull buff: Mantle of the Icy Soul, and a special form spell: Ice Flowers, wich is a neat spell, neat animation , good concept, but... it's a Transmutation school spell.Why?
Proposal : Change Ice Flowers to Evocation.

Elemental Forms - Fire: In this form you have Anger of the Noonday Sun wich is honestly useless, and a very good damaging spell in the form of Body of the Sun.On top of that you also have good Fire spells alredy in the druid spellbook, Firewall,Flame Strike.
Proposal: Change Anger of the Noonday Sun into a usefull buff that helps maximize damage, a spell version of Radiant Glory from Lantern Ring is a good idea.

Master of the Wilds and Epic Destinies: Master of the Wilds is a neat feat, but in order to use it you must be in an Epic Destiny from the Primal Tree to gain druid Caster Levels and all of them are honestly depressive for a Caster Druid.Solving this requires changes into the ED system, in wich all ED's meant for casters would give caster levels for all casting classes, this would also open room for other kinds of builds from other classes.

Epic Spells and ED based SLA's : As mentioned before Druids are WIS casters that use several elements, right now several good epic feats such as Hellball, and good ED SLA's such as the ones from Draconic do not offer a WIS choice.It's time to make it so all ED based SLA's and epic feats use WIS/CHA/INT for their DC's.This would also help other casting classes that would want to use things like Tsunami, for instance, not just druids.

[tanuki013]

Kensei Focus: Druidic Weapons?(Fighter enhancements)?can apply to this New Animalform?

[AbyssalMage]

A major revamp on druids is in progress! This our working plan at the moment.

SEASONS HERALD

TIER 3

• [INDENT]Autumn Leaves: Toggle ability: Leaves always seem to blow around the druid. Grants feather fall, +2 dodge and 5% proc chance on a gust of wind knock down anyone hitting you in melee. Costs: 15 SP Lasts until death or toggled off AP COST: 1

Am I correct in thinking that, "5% proc chance on a gust of wing knock down anyone hitting you in melee" will remove your AoE spells? If this is the case, can you please leave the "flavor text" but replace it with the actual ability that the Bard - Swashbuckler enhancement does (i.e. no save knock them prone/down)? Losing mine (or my teammates) AoE spells will be some major griefing that could lead to death/wipe.

[Cantor]

Really like the looks of the trees and changes to seasons.

Melee will 100% depend on what change is done with natural fighting, it's garbage. Take away twf and animal has nothing, the new natural fighting has a lot to make up.

[Avocado]

ll.



[*=1]Primal Avatar will be given some kind of damage boost to maintain its hard-hitting style with this change. It will also get Cleave animations to fix a bug with Cleave attacks caused by lack of animations.
[/INDENT]

Question on this as well. What does this mean? Elaborate please, it has potential to eliminate an entire unique play style from the game. Tree builds work for a very specific reason and this sounds a lot like that wont be the case anymore. Dont doom primal avatar to uselessness.

[bucket4]

Nice! any chance you can get the wolf collars and defender collars to work? I have played Druid 3 lives and artificer 3 lives and the collars have NEVER worked...

Thank You.

[thanytos]

As for pets, include Rangers. it makes little sense to alter just 2 classes when there are more classes with same lame pets.

I've been saying for a while now, also...why has vulkoors avatar never been brought into line with other types of pets...seems like such a cool idea is kind of wasted by being limited to only being useful at lvl 10. Why can't it progress in power/lvl with the cleric/fvs who summoned it like a wizards skelly, etc...

[PsychoBlonde]

I just want to reiterate these two very important points, the spell on any druid fails 100% of the time against any Spell Resistance, and it's a damage only spell

Without this change, the lowered cooldown only amounts to being able to waste SP faster.

And, to add insult to injury, the damage is already highly dependent upon what alignment the target mob is. Some mobs are just flat out immune.

[PsychoBlonde]

Elemental Forms - Fire: In this form you have Anger of the Noonday Sun wich is honestly useless, and a very good damaging spell in the form of Body of the Sun.On top of that you also have good Fire spells alredy in the druid spellbook, Firewall,Flame Strike.
Proposal: Change Anger of the Noonday Sun into a usefull buff that helps maximize damage, a spell version of Radiant Glory from Lantern Ring is a good idea.

I like the idea of just adding a spell damage proc based on which form you're in. (Let's face it, even the best druid spells are mediocre damage.) Along the lines of Lantern ring. So if you're a Water elemental, you get a cold proc, if you're a fire elemental, you get a fire proc.

[PsychoBlonde]

Big suggestion:

Add an ability to Nature's Warrior that gives you a big boost to Animal Form spell DC's. Since there aren't really any good alt stat options for the animal form, boosting your DC's enough to make them useful AND have decent attack/damage stats is going to be problematic. So a boost to animal form spell DC's is in order.

Or, alternatively, change animal form spells to not have standard Spell DC's but to use STR/DEX/CON as their DC base. (perhaps Str for the wolf ones and Con for the bear ones).

[Avocado]

Big suggestion:

Add an ability to Nature's Warrior that gives you a big boost to Animal Form spell DC's. Since there aren't really any good alt stat options for the animal form, boosting your DC's enough to make them useful AND have decent attack/damage stats is going to be problematic. So a boost to animal form spell DC's is in order.

Or, alternatively, change animal form spells to not have standard Spell DC's but to use STR/DEX/CON as their DC base. (perhaps Str for the wolf ones and Con for the bear ones).

Or just make it so tactics bonuses apply. Win for all. Affected by past lives, reaper, gear racial trees, etc.

[AbyssalMage]

From my initial reaction, looks like you have a good start.

Pure Druid Animal Form still looks too weak.

Wolf Form:

• Needs boost to SA dice/damage. For being a hybrid Rogue/Monk/Ranger, they didn't get much additional love. "Bleed" type affects are worthless against undead. No additional explaining needed.
• Evasion needs to be addressed (already pointed out in previous post). I love the fact that you gave them this ability. Now they need to have a "natural" way to get their reflex saves to respectable LE number so they can actually make those saves.
• Damage is still lacking (which is why there are so many exploited melee Druids).
• I didn't notice so if it was there in the "wall of text" I am sorry for including. Did you add additional Fortification Bypass? It doesn't need to stack with Ranger or any other class, but if those classes are absent, it would be nice to also have.

Bear Form:

• The tree looks better than before but what is the "point" of the tree. Originally it was to be the "Tanky" form (original development) but it seems you have moved away from that (which I applaud). So if it is supposed to be a hybrid Barbarian (i.e. added Rage/"True" Rage) can we please add more to that concept.
• As pointed out, the DC's are low at level 30 for all content levels (actually you may need to look at DC's in ALL animal forms, they are most likely all too low).
• Thanks for giving them access to Heavy Armor, unfortunately unless you address Wolf Evasion, this will be the defacto only option.
• Along the hybrid Barbarian theme, please add a CC option. Call it "Bully of Nature" or whatever. Basically a "trip attack" similar to the Bard's Knockdown enhancement usable only in Bear Form.

Overall, I really do like the first pass but you need to address Damage (in form) because currently I see 8 Druid being the max anyone will take after the "glow" wears off. 8 Druid/8 Fighter/4 Monk (or Rogue) will be better. That's if anyone wants to bother with Animal Form in the first place.

[PsychoBlonde]

Really like the looks of the trees and changes to seasons.

Melee will 100% depend on what change is done with natural fighting, it's garbage. Take away twf and animal has nothing, the new natural fighting has a lot to make up.

Well . . . I did a 100% doublestrike build on a druid a while back that was working quite well. Attack speed can stand to be rather lower than a true "exploiter" wolf and still work just fine.

It's really impossible to know where it stands until it goes up on Lamannia and we can actually SEE what the tweaks to attack speed and animations and so forth MEAN.

[PsychoBlonde]

Thanks for giving them access to Heavy Armor, unfortunately unless you address Wolf Evasion, this will be the defacto only option.
Along the hybrid Barbarian theme, please add a CC option. Call it "Bully of Nature" or whatever. Basically a "trip attack" similar to the Bard's Knockdown enhancement usable only in Bear Form.
.

Uh, Tier 5 wolf . . . Evasion. So it's addressed.
CC option on bear . . . stun. DC 10+Druid+Wis+stunning. So it's basically like Stunning Fist.

And the Nature's Defender is hecka tanky, they basically get the defensive stance from the Defender tree but can ALSO rage at the same time. MASSIVE Con boost. That's quite tanky.

[PsychoBlonde]

Or just make it so tactics bonuses apply. Win for all. Affected by past lives, reaper, gear racial trees, etc.

This is also a very functional option.

[Mindos]

A major revamp on druids is in progress! This our working plan at the moment...

• We are reducing the Basic Wolf Form attack speed bonus to 15%. Winter wolf remains about the same speed at 30%. We are also fixing some flaky behavior in the attack chain.

5. Bear & Dire Bear form's AC bonus is now typed Exceptional.

• Improved Mage Armor will also be typed Exceptional.

6. Water and Fire Elemental form will now grant 65% Absorption to their element, instead of Damage Reduction, and 15% Vulnerability to their opposite element.

• The bonus will not stack with Fire Shields or Energy Sheath.

1. What are your design goals here? Are you improving or nerfing? IMHO, it looks like you are removing avenues of choice from players, and offering them ??? in exchange. For example:

A. Wolf attack speed. YES its exploity, and yes (it can be) crazy fast. But why wrap this fix in shiny christmas update paper? I know it HAS to be done, but whats the draw for players here? Yes the nerf will move them away, but what makes them decide to play this class then???

B. Is there an AC exploit you don't like? Why can't these stack? Would it REALLY be too high?

C. Elemental form ABSORPTION!!! YES, very very good! This is a great change... but then you say "bonus will not stack with... or Energy Sheath" I can see Fireshield not stacking, but Energy Sheath? EPIC DESTINIES SHOULD STACK WITH EVERYTHING AND EACH OTHER. Reduce the Elemental Form absoption to 55% if you need to, but it should always stack with energy sheathe.

Good luck fixing/updating this class. Its been broken for so long, and used for so long that people have an expectation of damage and speed stuck in their heads. You are (lets be honest here) basically starting OVER with this update. So ask yourself, why would anyone play this class? Why go pure? What makes it unique? What are the good splash points/levels?

It's like making a brand new class, but people are gonna hold all this time that druid has been broken against your changes. IE, they are gonna say: "hey, this was broke for so long and so wrong, and all they did was..." or they say: "insert bug is STILL broken...they fixed one thing but another..." ETC

Like I said, good luck!

[PsychoBlonde]

There hasn't been a single set of druid-friendly heavy armor since Update 20. Plz add at least one druid-friendly heavy armor in next update.