Initial druid observations

[Claver]

Here are some initial observations

TIER 2

[INDENT]Primal Beast: Gain 5/10 melee power when raging in animal form. Gain one more use of rage 1/2. AP COST: 1 Requires Rage of the Beast

TIER 3

[INDENT]Enduring Beast: while raging Increase healing amp by 10/20 in any animal forms. Gain one more use of rage per rank. AP COST: 1 Requires: Undying Beast

TIER 4

[INDENT]
Undying Beast: While raging in animal form you gain immunity to death effects and energy drain. Gains one more use of rage. AP COST: 2 Requires: Primal Beast

Spirit Bear Charge: Requires bear form Charge forward inflicting +3W and knocking down enemies, reflex save vs DC 15 + Highest of Str/Wis + Trip Bonuses. 15 second cooldown. AP COST: 2


SEASONS HERALD

CORES:


3. Nature's Wellspring: The effects of your shillelagh are doubled. +1 max caster level in your active season

A) The various bonus effects while raged do not seem to be applying while under the effects of Skaldic Rage from Warchanter but the bonus to constitution from Skaldic Rage stacks on top of the Natures Protector Rage. No added benefits are given while under the effects of the Rage spell

B) Spinning Ice and Frozen Fury (war chanter) work just fine while in Bear Form...thank you for that!

C) Ferral Charge (Animal Domain) and Spirit Bear Charge are on a separate cool down...Again, Thank you! This looks like it will allow a fun cleric/druid combination

D) I like the animation for cleave cracking the earth (I don't recall if that was in the original bear form animations)

E) Season's Herald doubling of Shillelagh effects don't seem to be working on quarterstaffs. I tested with multiple versions of several quarterstaffs including staff of the seer and Twig of the Giant Mage casting with the enhancement and without the enhancement. Damage increase seems to only be +[W] rather than + 2[W] with or without the Season's Herald Enhancement

[Claver]

Ghost Pack looks cool..and modestly effective...but the 60 second cool down undermines the fun and usefulness of the attack.....Any chance you could reduce the cool down to 30 seconds (maybe even 20 seconds)

I like the red "shred" visuals in front of winter wolf attacks...I don't recall seeing those in the past

ESSENCE OF NATURE…sounds like a botanical shampoo and doesn’t imply critical hits…would you consider calling it something else...maybe Apex Predator

[unbongwah]

A) The various bonus effects while raged do not seem to be applying while under the effects of Skaldic Rage from Warchanter but the bonus to constitution from Skaldic Rage stacks on top of the Natures Protector Rage. No added benefits are given while under the effects of the Rage spell

Skaldic Rage isn't "real" Rage because it doesn't block spellcasting nor does it stack with barb Rage or barb enhancements to Rage; so that's probably WAI. Likewise Rage spell is just a morale bonus to STR & CON, not a true Rage effect: again, probably WAI, IMO.

B) Spinning Ice and Frozen Fury (war chanter) work just fine while in Bear Form...thank you for that!

That's cool (no pun intended I swear), although in practice I'm not sure how I'd exploit that, since freeze duration is based on bard levels and Swashbuckling presumably still doesn't work in animal form. Hmmm...

[cru121]

swashbuckling does not work in animal form. sigh.

also, cannot attack in wild shape when using a throwing weapon.

[Hipparan]

swashbuckling does not work in animal form. sigh.

also, cannot attack in wild shape when using a throwing weapon.

As far as I know these are both WAI. Swashbuckling is classified as a combat style (or at least dependent on a combat style), and Wild Shape attacks should only be using melee weapons.

[unbongwah]

Even in shapeshifting's current super-buggy state, Swashbuckling has never worked in animal forms (and explicitly says so in the description), so it remains WAI. On live you can take advantage of Skirmisher's "you may use a Buckler and still benefit from the Single Weapon Fighting line of feats" in animal form (since that does not depend on Swashbuckling being active); but since SWF applying to animal forms is going away, I'm not expecting it to do anything post-revamp.

Melee attacks in animal forms with a ranged or thrown weapon equipped never made sense to me in the first place; and I suspect they were never WAI to begin with. So with the revamp to animal forms being based on your equipped melee weapon, it doesn't surprise me that's going away too.

[Claver]

- Occult Slayer rage abilities seem to correctly enhance Bear Rage

- Bear rage abilities seem to correctly enhance Barbarian Rage

- Ranger Tempest dual wielding bonus to AC for dual wielding correctly disappears when going into bear form

- I'm getting a strange sneak attack bonus of 58 to 268 hitpoints of damage on attacks in bear form while dual wielding Famine (dwarven axe) using Con (throw your weight around) on a 5 barbarian/ 12 ranger/ 3 druid. I'm not sure of the source ...seems to be a bug

- Natures Hunter (Core 4) does not seem to be giving a +1 to critical hits when using Warhammer in Bear form as a level 20 druid using con (throw your weight around)....Bear melee damage feels a bit lackluster

- The 15% bonus to AC from Beast Unleashed correctly stacks with bonus to AC from Cleric Protection Domain and Warpriest.

- Warpriest Inflame stacks with Nature's Protector Defense Boost. Ameliorating strike seems to be working properly in Bear Form