Lammania Druid Update

[Vooduspyce]

Master of the Elements: Gain 5/10/15 spell power in your season. Passive rank 3: If the character has 17 druid levels they gain anger of the noonday sun or mantle of icy when changing in the appropriate elemental form. This effect costs 8 spells points when it occurs.

Mantle and Anger automatically applying as a timed buff when entering elemental form will not be much benefit to those who stay in one form. If we are changing forms often then it will be nice but I think most caster druids stay in the same form 90% of the time. Instead of being a timed buff, I suggest a permanent effect while in ele form when Master of the Elements is taken.

[Silverleafeon]

Mantle and Anger automatically applying as a timed buff when entering elemental form will not be much benefit to those who stay in one form. If we are changing forms often then it will be nice but I think most caster druids stay in the same form 90% of the time. Instead of being a timed buff, I suggest a permanent effect while in ele form when Master of the Elements is taken.

Every time you die, and in reaper that is fairly often, one loses certain stances including body forms.

So when one dies, you have to apply elemental form, cast Mantle/Anger, cast DW & FoM, along with Rezzing others and healing and trying to drop new Quakes while mobs swarm around you...

[Silverleafeon]

Another random note: Please consider adding nightshield to the druid spell list or adding some other form of magic missile immunity for quality of life purposes. You can't use wands or scrolls in animal form so it's going to be a real PitA to switch out of form and whip that shield wand every few minutes so you don't get pummeled by the absurd number of magic missiles that fly around in reaper.

I ended up crafting 4ish Legendary Greensteel Nightshield clickies that last about 20 minutes each.
They are very cheap to make ~ mostly tier one and one or two teir two

You are likely to have a 2+ piece Legendary Greensteel set, or you can swap out after you get to level 26.

[Hipparan]

One thing I noticed on Lammania is that Nature's Defense works while not in Bear form, but enhancements that improve Nature's Defense does not work. Is this WAI?

[Claver]

I suggest you to swap beguile and the x2 shillelagh of Nature's Wellspring. This effect (x2 shillelagh) is only useful in the first 3 levels for a druid caster, and should be easily accessible to a melee druid. Level 6 is too late for this effect to be useful. At level 6 a druid caster is full caster, and it is a bit late for a melee druid that needs invest first in melee trees. Beguile not always work, but it will be fine as core paired with the +1 max caster level in the active season

This seems very reasonable and logical.
I would be agreeable to this change.

I have mixed feelings about implementing this suggestion

This would certainly help Henshin Mystics and Thief Acrobats who might be willing to consider splashing 1 levels of druid for double the weapon dice damage of their staff. Henshin mystic staff users could use the help following the nerf to melee power

On the other hand, I sometimes splash a few levels of druid for increase spell crit chance along with beguile. I would not want to have to take 6 levels of druid just to get beguile

In a perfect world, Summer/Winter form would be a multi-selector at Core 1, Super Shillelagh would be at Core 2 (level 3), and Core 3 (level 6) would offer a bonus to all summons, pets and hirelings...say +100% fortification and stacking +6 to all stats

[unbongwah]

One thing I noticed on Lammania is that Nature's Defense works while not in Bear form, but enhancements that improve Nature's Defense does not work. Is this WAI?

IIUC, the Improved Nature's Defense enhancements should work in any form, but the Ursa Protector bonuses are bear-only. Do you remember which you were using?

[edrein]

After dwelling on it for a while. Can we please remove Spirit Renewed from the bear tree? If you want to keep this ability please give it to the wolves.

Give bears something genuinely useful given they are supposed to be raging. Either a strong regeneration like Accelerated Metabolism (albeit with better scaling so it's not completely negated by Reaper) or an 'charge' based ability like One Spirit.

In fact the One Spirit route is the best in my opinion. Make it require three stacks of Killer Instincts with a 15-20 second cooldown. Same 400HP heal with melee power scaling. This builds upon the mechanics created lower in the tree and makes a solid T5 option for self healing while raged. As currently the rage blocks you from casting self heals.

[edrein]

Another suggestion of mine is to also go back and make a minor adjustment to the following Cleric Domains:

Give Animal Domain and the Elemental Domains full Wilderness lore progression. IE: 2 wilderness lore feats at level 2, and 1 every subsequent level.
Give the Destruction and Strength domains half Wilderness lore progression similar to bards. IE: 1 wilderness lore feat at level 2, and 1 every other level. Maximum of 10.


If at all possible to edit into religious lore feats as well. Give Vulkoor and Silvanus the half Wilderness lore progression similar to bards to reflect the knowledge of their patron deities with a maximum of 20 wilderness lore in case of domain bleed over. As this opens further multiclass options for FVS and Clerics as well.

[edrein]

One of the last things I feel like is really missing from the trees is the most obvious.

That's wisdom to hit and damage.

However, I think each tree should have a manner of handling stats to hit/damage.

Wolves should get the option of Strength, Wisdom, or Dexterity. Bears should get the option of Strength, Wisdom, or Constitution. Please consider adding multiselectors for these options similar to Different Tack. Where as caster's have the option of just slapping on Flameblade, although it needs to be updated to scale into both epics and legendary levels.

Bonus points if we could actually get a Wisdom based tactics bonus clickie, but I won't push my luck.

However, please consider the request as druids are currently the most stat taxed and gear taxed class if you want to try and actually be an appropriate jack-of-all-trades. And even a focused druid will find that they are still rather taxed as well.

[edrein]

A level 21 wildshape feat might also be nice.

Similar to the Vorpal Strikes monk feat, this could provide either Manslayer as an effect similar to the various gold seal animal companions. Or merely a mirror of Improved Martial Arts to work with druids. An Improved Natural Fighting could also work and of course a Perfect Natural Fighting feat would also be a welcomed edition.

[Aree_Soothsayer]

No balance pass on the Companions yet. Fooo.

[Hipparan]

IIUC, the Improved Nature's Defense enhancements should work in any form, but the Ursa Protector bonuses are bear-only. Do you remember which you were using?

Ah I see now that the Ursa Protector HP % bonus says in the description that it only works in bear form. However, I also had the increased PRR/MRR from the tier 1 enhancement. I didn't notice any increased PRR/MRR though other than the +8 from Nature's Defense. The Improved Nature's Defense enhancement does not say in the description that it needs Bear form on to function.

[Hipparan]

A level 21 wildshape feat might also be nice.

Similar to the Vorpal Strikes monk feat, this could provide either Manslayer as an effect similar to the various gold seal animal companions. Or merely a mirror of Improved Martial Arts to work with druids. An Improved Natural Fighting could also work and of course a Perfect Natural Fighting feat would also be a welcomed edition.

I really like this idea. Vorpal Strikes is a favorite on my monks and I would love to use something like that on a melee Druid (although I usually use primarily caster druids).

[Dalsheel]

A level 21 wildshape feat might also be nice.

Similar to the Vorpal Strikes monk feat, this could provide either Manslayer as an effect similar to the various gold seal animal companions. Or merely a mirror of Improved Martial Arts to work with druids. An Improved Natural Fighting could also work and of course a Perfect Natural Fighting feat would also be a welcomed edition.

This is a great proposal. 1 Epic and 1 Destiny feat would be great and it's only fair since other melee builds have these options.

/signed

[Silverleafeon]

/signed for animal & elemental Epic Wildshape Feats

/signed for Perfect Natural Fighting Feat

[SirValentine]

Still no reply to the multiple comments in any of the 3 threads about the multiple caster Druid nerfs.

- Spell Pen enhancement removed
- Save debuff enhancement removed
- DC enhancement had Transmutation removed
- Capstone DC & Spell Pen removed completely for Transmutation, and lowered for Conjuration

Between the changes & removals, we end up with up to:

-5 to DCs and -5 to Spell Penetration of Transmutation spells
-3 to DCs and -4 to Spell Penetration of Conjuration spells
-2 to DCs and -3 to Spell Penetration of Enchantment spells
-2 to DCs and -3 to Spell Penetration of Necromancy spells
-2 to Spell Penetration of Evocation spells (no change to DCs)
-2 to DCs of Abjuration spells (none subject to Spell Pen)

Most "class passes" have buffed classes. Most nerfs have been for clear balance reasons of over-performing stuff.

So what's up here? Are you guys even going to acknowledge this massive set of nerfs? Give any reasoning for it? Stop implementing it? Because I'd much rather just keep the current Season's Herald than your proposed mega-nerfed version.

[Gargoyle69]

Torc, 2 questions please:

Question 1:

T1 Season's Herald, Shared Spirit: Your wolf pet gains 3/6/10% bonus to hps. Passive: You gain 1/2/3 spell power. AP COST: 1

Do you think that 3 SP is balanced around a cost of 3 AP (the pet hps are pretty irrelevant to most people) ? Can this be bumped to say 3/3/4 ? Heck even 2/2/3 ?

Question 2:

T4 Season's Herald, Spring Resurgence: Fill an ally with the vitality of spring. When that ally falls below 50% hit points, that ally and any other allies near him are healed by 20d6
positive energy, and receive a +2 primal bonus to attack rolls. (Lasts 5 minutes or until triggered.) (Activation Cost: [8/6/4] Spell Points.)
Cooldown: [8/4/2] seconds) AP COST: 1 (new – lowered cooldown to make buffing party easier)

Any word on having the bug with this ability fixed ? If the bug is fixed then this will be great, if not, it's still terrible.

Thanks for the great work so far :-)

[MasterKernel]

Creeping Doom will now do acid damage and benefit form acid spell power. Each character can have their own copy of this dot on a target.

And what about monsters that use this spell (Druids in Ravenloft for example). Will it be the acid version for them too ? That will add spells like "Neutralize Poison" into the long and abandoned "Useless spells in DDO" list… :-\

[edrein]

And what about monsters that use this spell (Druids in Ravenloft for example). Will it be the acid version for them too ? That will add spells like "Neutralize Poison" into the long and abandoned "Useless spells in DDO" list… :-\

Atleast there's Vale and removing trog stench, right?

[Tilomere]

When I think about swashbuckling as a standard, it gets the following:

Bard Level 1 charm humanoids buffed by reaper, attack speed from SWF, light healing nerfed by reaper, easily broken AoE non-helpless CC from bard song
Bard Level 2 AoE double cleave with enhanced crit from En Pointe
Bard Level 3 Crit and crit multiplier from swashbuckling
Bard Level 4 AoE helpless CC from soundburst, suggestion (charm on most things) buffed by reaper
Bard Level 4, Character Level 9 strong healing from heal scrolls regardless of multiclassing due to charisma/umd class/W&S mastery from bard 4

------------------------

Animal form druids get the following:
Druid Level 1 charm animals buffed by reaper, light healing nerfed by reaper, AoE movement slow from entangle (wisdom based only)
Druid Level 2 attack speed from wolf form
Druid Level 3 Defensive stance, to make up for CC being weaker
Druid Level 5 AoE blind from sleet storm
Druid Level 11, Character Level 12 strong healing from jaws of ice with NW Tier 5
Druid Level 12 Crit multiplier melee power from tier 5 in lieu of crit range
Druid Level 5 Character Level 12 double cleave NW Tier 5 Alpha Strike
Druid Level 13 strong healing from regenerate druid 13
Druid Level 17 AoE helpless CC from snow slide

Everything a druid gets spread out over 17 levels and 35 AP and T5 NW and 6 ap in NP a swashbuckling bard "standard" gets in 4 levels with 8 AP. Druids however, never get the charms of a bard. Sure by epics with epic ward gutting charms they are probably both going to be the same, but leveling through heroics, there is just no way they are going to even be close to equal, especially in reaper.

Because of the high druid requirements for crit multiplier(druid 12) and strong healing (druid 13), and loss of W&S mastery and inability to use scrolls in animal form, you can't multiclass for say AoE helpless (druid 17) with say soundburst to bring this closer to swashbuckler standard (level 4 AoE helpless CC) without putting those other core abilities swashbucklers get at with 4 bard levels out of reach until the end of heroics.