U38 Preview 2: Druid

[SerPounce]

Mmmm.

I was going for 17 D/ 2 bard /1 cleric, with ~90 charisma, ~70 strength base, LD, build Tilo's Stealthy Druidic Annihilator

Divine might will be +40 strength.
Bardic rage will be +4
Rams might will be +2
primal scream will be +5
animal growth will be +4

~125 strength when everything is said and done > 57 modifier

70 + tactics will break 100. They don't want you to AoE permastun by layering this on top of Dire Charge both at 120 DC. Builds like mine built with 4 different AoE stuns are why they won't allow all 4 stuns to be at the 120 DC level.

As a self-healing hybrid class, DCs aree never going to be fully workable. Always marginal. Fighter needs the DCs because their self healing is far more limited.

You got a screenshot of that 125 strength?

[ned_ellis]

snip

TLDR: Please be sure key Druid spells arent indirectly left out when changing druid focuses around, and try to look at being sure there is an actual way to use their whole ability set instead of just one slice of it. It would be nice to see different sorts of Druids be options instead of funneling into "Sorc clones" with regen/quake instead of fireball. Thanks.

Signed. A million times signed.

Spell Penetration still removed
Enemy save debuff still removed
Transmutation bonuses still removed
Conjuration bonuses still reduced

And still no comment about this giant package of caster Druid nerfs in any of the multiple previous threads.

Also, capstone still adds un-thematic Con instead of being in line with other post-pass caster-focused trees.

(And still two melee trees but only one caster tree on a caster class.)

Why? Why the caster Druid hatred? Where's the evidence & testing of the over-performance that would justify all these nerfs?

Whilst I agree with most of what you wrote, I think we need to see this as basically a 'fix melee animal forms' pass. Seasons herald has essentially recieved a quality of life fix as another poster said earlier. Only the autumn leaves have me a little exicted - useful, not game breaking and flavourfull! Since we have only one tree to play with, a temp hp boost at T5 leaves me dissappointed. Core 3 improved shellilagh...erm, ok...???!? The mantles are still weighed pro-cold for some reason. The DC's based on school are still all over the place but I'm curious to see how the base spell modifications pan out (will probably help some but leave unused spells as it is now sadly). Essentially we gain one sla (which with the helpless issue sorted out doesnt need to be a sla!) and have varied defensive bonuses. It's a shame we'll still be laying down our aoe's or taking down our single target whilst the group has run off to the next encounter; feat spells (ruin, mass frog etc.) are the only ones that break that habit sadly. Oh well, missed opportunity imo but if they sort the animals out some should be happy anyway. I'll take the QofL I suppose...

[unbongwah]

Is there any way we could get “Natural Fighting” as an alternate prereq for the “Great Weapon Aptitude” enhancements? “Half-orc druid” is literally the definition of a Gatekeeper in Eberron.

<signed>

Although technically, you should be able to take THF feat (if you meet STR pre-req natch) in order to unlock all of the THF bonuses which require it like Mad Munitions etc. Which in theory should carry over to bear form. I meant to test that on my barb / druid bear build during the last preview but didn't have time.

But given that THF does nothing by itself in bear form, it's silly to force players to take that feat just to unlock other goodies. Particularly since melee druid builds are feat-starved already.

[Saekee]

does the thief acrobat attack speed boost with qstaff work in wolf form?

[SirValentine]

Whilst I agree with most of what you wrote, I think we need to see this as basically a 'fix melee animal forms' pass.
Seasons herald has essentially recieved a quality of life fix...

I'm failing to see any quality improvement in nerfing the tree. Giving me Feather Fall or SLAs I don't care about at all, while taking away my DCs & Spell Pen, is not an improvement to me.

If the pass really was just fixing the animals, I'd prefer that to the Season's Herald nerfs we're getting. But of course, that doesn't have to be the choice; they could just add whatever supposed quality of life improvements without nerfing existing abilities in SH.

Even if you love the other changes, where's the justification for the nerfs?

[Tilomere]

You got a screenshot of that 125 strength?

Nope, and considering what they did to monk splashes, not that interested in showing what other class splashes can do instead. Let me delete that real fast. Mistake to post it in the first place.

[unbongwah]

does the thief acrobat attack speed boost with qstaff work in wolf form?

No. Neither does Quick Strike: you get a "you are in the wrong form" error message when you try, IIRC.

[Well, I think you can use QS in humanoid form, then shapeshift into wolf form and the buff will persist. Seems like a huge PITA to micromanage to me, though.]

[edrein]

del

Before you deleted, just saying that calculation is a bit off. Skaldic Rage won't stack and I wasn't able to proofread any other errors.

[Tilomere]

The fact that some builds like mine and Hjarki's had significantly higher strength than expected of a druid is why your build DCs got nerfed.

[Soleran100]

Boo, no more wand and scroll mastery.

[Seikojin]

NATURE'S WARRIOR

Tier 3

• Ghost Wolf Pack: Wolf Form Melee Attack: When you trigger this spectral pack mates appear to assault all foes before you. On Hit: +2(W) and a +2 critical threat range. This also applies a 5 second confusion effect with no save. Bosses are immune to the confusion. You gain 35% Incorporeal defense for 20 seconds. AP COST: 2
  

When you do this attack, you disengage from combat and stop attacking. You cannot perform any combat actions until you move your character. To setup, build a druid with enough points for this enhancement and be in wolf form.
Repro:
1. Hold the attack key down to start swinging.
2. Press the hotkey button for the Ghost Wolf Pack
3. Observe the behavior after the attack animation ends
4. Press the hotkey for any other attack ability, observe the results
5. Press the attack key and observe the results
6. Move the character then repeat step 4 or 5, observing the results.
7. Repeat step 2 when able, and then attempt steps 3 - 5

Expected:
After the cool ghost wolf attack animation has started, the character should continue attacking and being able to use abilities.

Actual:
After the pack appears, the character stands still and combat actions cannot be executed.

Note:
The inability to attack lasted until I moved, I could not use ghost wolf again, until moving either. It looks like some mechanic related to going into incorp.

[SerPounce]

Before you deleted, just saying that calculation is a bit off. Skaldic Rage won't stack and I wasn't able to proofread any other errors.

Rife with errors and made up numbers.

Exactly now things get nerfed. People make up nonsense numbers on the forums and the devs think that druids are running around with 125 strength on a max CHA build.

[Maelodic]

KTA is not applying the DC boost to druid abilities at the moment - the number does not change when KTA is active.

[edrein]

So with my last post and review I dug into the issues with bear with a heavy emphasis on DPS and sustainability. I think rather than make a 5 paragraph run on block of text about defenses it'd be better if I gave a proposed revamp of the Nature's Protector tree and feedback as to why I believe these changes would be better. My feedback is in Orange to run counter to the changes in this preview which were Teal.

NATURE'S PROTECTOR

Cores

1. Nature's Protector: Gain 8 hp and 3 MRR. For every additional core in the tree gain 16 hp and 3 mrr.
2. Nature's Defense or Nature's Fury: Defensive Combat Stance: +8 Physical and Magical Resistance Rating. Cannot be active with other defensive stances but can be used while raging. (Nature's Defense provides an additional 20 PRR where as Nature's Fury cancels any form of intimidation check or hate gain while using bear form spells and abilities.) #1
3. (Strong Paws: You deal blundgeon damage type as well as your weapon's damage type in bear form. You additionally deal 1d6 bludgeon damage, this scales 100% by melee power and scales 200% when using Nature's Fury stance. While in an animal form the penalty on your spell cooldowns is reduced from 2.5 to 2.0. This benefit does not stack with the Nature's Warrior versions of this ability. ) #2
4. Big Claws: Adds Great Maul to your spell book. Great Maul: Requires Bear or Dire Bear Form: Activate to do an Innate Attack: Deals +2[W] and the target you strike must make a Fortitude save or be stunned for 6 seconds (DC: 13 + Highest of STR or WIS mods + Tactical bonuses). Cooldown: 12 Seconds. Activation Cost: 3 Spell Points. Shares a cooldown with Maul. (Additionally your Tremor spell now has a 20% chance to grant you an addition use of Rage.) #3
5. Big Bear: (You gain a size bonus increase to attack melee attack range. Additionally your strong paws damage increases to 2d6 bludgeon with 100% melee power scaling and 200% if using Nature's Fury stance. When struck in combat you have a chance to gain +1 primal bonus to strength, this stacks up to five times and decays at a rate of one every ten seconds.) #4
6. The Great Bear: Grants a 10% combat style attack speed bonus in bear forms. +2 Strength and Constitution. While in animal forms your spell cooldowns are only increased by 1.5 down from 2. This effect does not stack with the Nature's Warrior version of this ability. (You have a 2% chance to knock down an enemy with your melee attacks, this has no saving throw attached.) #5

Tier 1

• Rage of the Beast: Activate to rage gaining +4 strength and Con, +2 will saves, -2 ac for 40 seconds. (You can cast druid spells while raging.) This ability shares cool down and charges with Barbarian Rage. Effects that modify Barbarian Rage also affect this and vice versa. Can be used 1/2 times per rest. Grants the Dismiss Rage Feat. (While Nature's Fury is active the duration of your rage scales based on Constitution Modifier similar to a barbarian.) #6 AP COST: 1
• Bloody Claws: Every time you use maul you gain one stack of Killer Instinct: +1 to damage for 20 seconds. Max stack size: 2/4/6. #7 AP COST: 1
• Improved Natural Defense: AP COST: 1 Choose one of the following three bonuses which apply while in Nature's Defense Stance:
  
  • Enchanted Defense: +4/8/12 Competence Bonus to Physical and Magical Resistance Rating
  • Fierce Defense: +50/100/150% Competence Bonus to Melee Threat Generation in Nature's Defense or +5/10/15% Glancing Blows Damage in Nature's Fury #8
  • Grizzled Defense: +1/2/3 Sacred Bonus to all Saving Throws
• Fey’s Blessing: Gain a +2/4/6 bonus to Magical Resistance Rating AP COST: 1
• Animal Brutality: Gain a +1/2/3 skill bonus to intimidate, swim, and jump. Rank 3 grants +1 to hit and damage. AP COST: 1

Tier 2

• Primal Beast: While raging in animal form you gain +5/10 Melee Power. AP COST: 1 Requires Rage of the Beast
• Sharp Bloody Claws: Your Shred attack now grants you one stack of Killer Instinct: +1 to damage for 20 seconds. AP COST: 1
• Improved Natural Defense: AP COST: 1 Choose one of the following three bonuses which apply while in Nature's Defense Stance:
  
  • Enchanted Defense: +4/8/12 Competence Bonus to Physical and Magical Resistance Rating
  • Fierce Defense: +50/100/150% Competence Bonus to Melee Threat Generation in Nature's Defense or +5/10/15% Glancing Blows Damage in Nature's Fury
  • Grizzled Defense: +1/2/3 Sacred Bonus to all Saving Throws
• Thick Hide: +2/4/6 Natural Armor Bonus and Heavy Armor Proficiency at rank 3. #9 AP COST: 1
• Action Boost: Beast at Bay: Activate to gain an action boost for +5/10/15 Armor Class and +7/14/21 Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds. Cooldown: 30 seconds. Activation Cost: 1 Action Boost Charge. AP COST: 1

Tier 3

• Enduring Beast: While raging in animal form you gain +10/20 Positive Healing Amplification and +1/2 Strength. You additionally have a chance to proc (2 x Wilderness Lore) temp HP when struck while raging. Grants +1/2 additional uses of rage per rest. #10 AP COST: 1 Requires: Undying Beast
• Savage Roar: Using the Roar spell with 1 stack of killer instinct active now triggers a burst of 1-10 sonic damage per wilderness lore feat you have. Scales with Melee Power. If you have 2 stacks it also stuns (DC: 10 + Wilderness Lore Rank + Strength Mod + Stun Mods). At 3 stacks the damage is increased to 10-30 per Wilderness Lore Feat in addition to the Stun. Casting Roar clears up to 3 stacks of Killer Instinct. #11AP: 2 (Update: Moved down from Tier 4)
• Improved Natural Defense: AP COST: 1 Choose one of the following three bonuses which apply while in Nature's Defense Stance:
  
  • Enchanted Defense: +4/8/12 Competence Bonus to Physical and Magical Resistance Rating
  • Fierce Defense: +50/100/150% Competence Bonus to Melee Threat Generation in Nature's Defense or +5/10/15% Glancing Blows Damage in Nature's Fury
  • Grizzled Defense: +1/2/3 Sacred Bonus to all Saving Throws
• Ursa Protector: AP COST: 1 Choose one of the following three bonuses which apply while in either Bear Form with Nature's Defense Stance active:
  
  • Ursa's Heart: +15%/20%/25% Competence bonus to maximum Hit Points
  • Ursa's Spirit: +2/4/6 Competence Bonus to Constitution
  • Ursa's Strength: +2/4/6 Competence Bonus to Strength #12
• Strength OR Constitution AP COST: 2

Tier 4

• Undying Beast: While raging in animal form you gain immunity to energy drain and death effects. Grants an additional use of rage. AP COST: 2 Requires: Primal Beast
• Swift Swipes: You gain 5% combat style attack speed while in bear forms. #13 AP COST: 2
• Nature's Salve: You expend 6 Killer Instinct charges to lick your wounds. You heal for (10 x Wilderness Lore) HP, this scales at 50% melee power. #14 AP COST: 2 Requires: Bloody Claws
• Ursa Protector: AP COST: 1 Choose one of the following three bonuses which apply while in either Bear Form with Nature's Defense Stance active:
  
  • Ursa's Heart: +15%/20%/25% Competence bonus to maximum Hit Points
  • Ursa's Spirit: +2/4/6 Competence Bonus to Constitution
  • Ursa's Strength: +2/4/6 Competence Bonus to Strength
• Strength OR Constitution AP COST: 2

Tier 5

• Beast unleashed: While raging in an animal form you gain an additional +25 Melee Power. In addition, if the druid is in a Bear Form they gain a +15% bonus to Armor Class and +50% Melee Threat Generation. Grants an additional use of rage per rest. AP COST: 2
• Requires Enduring Beast
  
• Bear Charge: Bear Form Melee Attack: Charge forward dealing +2[W] with a +1 Critical Threat Range and Damage Multiplier to all targets before you. In addition, knock down all enemies that fail a Reflex Save (DC: 15 + Highest of WIS or STR Mod + Trip Bonuses). 15 second cooldown. AP COST: 2
• Lightning strikes the Mountain: Bear Form Melee Attack: Activate to call down a bolt of lightning as you launch an attack . On Hit: +3[W] and 5-8 Electric Damage per character level (Scales with Melee Power). You are also granted a +100% bonus to Melee Threat Generation and +20 Magical Resistance Rating for 15 seconds. Bonuses are doubled if Nature's Defense stance is active. Cooldown: 30 Seconds. Activation Cost: 15 Spell Points.
• Swifter Swipes: You gain 5% combat style attack speed while in bear forms. AP COST: 2 Requires: Swift Swipes
• Ursa Protector: AP COST: 1 Choose one of the following three bonuses which apply while in either Bear Form with Nature's Defense Stance active:
  
  • Ursa's Heart: +15%/20%/25% Competence bonus to maximum Hit Points
  • Ursa's Spirit: +2/4/6 Competence Bonus to Constitution
  • Ursa's Strength: +2/4/6 Competence Bonus to Strength
• Force of Nature: You gain 10/15/20% resistance against force damage and 1/2/3 Constitution. AP COST: 1

1. This change is to give bear druid tanks the bump they lose in PRR now that Shield Mastery is officially not a wildshape compatible ability. Where as Nature's Fury distinguishes further changes in the tree to facilitate the dual-identity crisis of the tree and further pushes Tank vs DPS into more refined roles. These are to be two seperate defensive stances. The only difference being that Nature's Protector remains the same as now with the additional 20PRR and Nature's Fury stands to be a DPS stance with less hate gain/aggro management.
2. This change is to give a more 'beneficial' core at level 6. This helps mirror Barbarians (Ravager's Pain Touch/Frenzied's Frenzy) and reintroduces the blunt damage breaker portion of bear form. It also moves Heavy Armor profiency to T2, better aiding caster druid splashes as it's tucked into Thick Hide. (Net gain difference 11AP vs the new 8AP cost)
3. This change is due to the fact Tremor is unlocked at druid level 11. The original position of Big Bear made it useless for splash builds and worse for pure builds. Placing it here gives the smaller barbarian splashed builds a break, helps bear druids along earlier, and leaves room for more substantial bonuses for pure druids at level 18.
4. The idea for this change was to take a bit from the rules of size modifiers and use it for an unique effect. The range increase should only be about as far Dark Imbuement from Shadow Dancer, though I'd argue a bit shorter is fine. You also build upon the damage proc in the Core 6 and round off with a bonus similar to the druid spell Rising Fury, but one that doesn't need to be cast. Or perhaps this should just provide a permanent Rising Fury spell effect.
5. Just a small flavorful change. Adds more CC to bears without being too powerful.
6. This is an obvious change to myself. If we can now have Destruction Domain, there's no reason to prevent a raging druid from casting their own spells. Particularly heals. If you want to penalize DPS casting then add a DC hit similar to Tenser's. Additionally by tying the timer bonus to the DPS stance you solve the desire for longer rage.
7. This change is based on the slight annoyance of gaining and maintaining stacks for the use of Savage Roar, while increasing the cap for both damage purposes and a new T4 ability.
8. Again a small quality of life change for the DPS stance. This puts the bear at 45% glancing blows, 5% below Greater Two Handed Fighting and 15% below barbarians.
9. Already touched this one, but merely a reshuffling of the Heavy Armor proficiency to match the Core 6 change.
10. This change is to give a bit more survivability to a raging bear. Not as powerful as Blood Strength or I Like Pain but a small thematic boost.
11. Changing the damage to better scale based on my observations from both Lamannia previews. Clarified that it only removes 3 stacks of Killer Instinct due to the new T4 ability.
12. Removed the MRR bonus to instead have a Strength option. There was already an overkill of MRR in the tree.
13. This is just movement of the original 5% attack speed from Big Bear at core 18.
14. The heal. I wanted to see something more similar to One Spirit from Occult Slayer to replace the mess that is Spirit Renewal. I decided ultimately that with the change to being able to cast spells while raged, that this doesn't need to be neither a T5 nor super powerful. At a pure base of 200HP before melee power this will work in all heroic levels as a solid panic heal. It'll continue to work in epics as well. With the melee power scaling it should last until legendary. Once you reach Reaper it diminishes a bit, but becomes another good panic/top off ability. It also keeps the heal's usefulness tied to primal classes. With the Wilderness lore use barbarian splashes benefit.

[edrein]

[*]Weapons and shields should no longer erroneously display while in animal shape under certain conditions

Afraid this is still occurring. I see my dethek runestone poking out of my direbear body.

[edrein]

New round of bugs:

• Confirmed Dethek Runestone does not stack with any weapon that has Impact, Keen, etc. If it adds +W then Dethek Runestone will only provide +1W. This also includes Vistani Deadly Blades.
• Vistani Single Dagger no longer works with wildshape forms at all. However, Vistani Double Daggers applies the 20% offhand chance. As does Aasimar Scourge's past life offhand doublestrike.
• Big Bear erroneously states it still gives the 5-8 damage and scales 300% with melee power. (I was hoping that was true!)
• Confront Any Foe and Strike Down still have animation/activation issues in bear form. If you move Strike Down will miss no matter what and Confront Any Foe seems to freeze up and delays about 2-3 seconds before delivering damage. Strike Down also removes momentum/stops you in place similar to the bug with Battle Engineer attacks.
• Unyielding Sentinel's Smite Evil has a damage delay in bear form.
• Cleave and Great Cleave in bear form use a forced animation which breaks attack flow substantially compared to cleaving non-wildshaped.
• The cleave animation problem is worse while moving as it performs a long wind-up leap.
• Great Cleave seems to be doublestriking/hitting twice. Figured this out. Only occurs when no mainhand item is equipped.
• Great Maul is currently broken and doesn't deal damage.

[edrein]

Additional suggestions:

Beyond reworking the DCs to actually be functional in content beyond normal as pointed out several times over. There still needs to be a reduction in the cooldown on animal form spells.
It takes way too long to use the animal attacks in comparison to every other clickie-heavy class combo out there. This wouldn't be bad if it wasn't for adding mechanics like Killer Instinct that requires maintaining stacks.

The animal attacks don't proc Arcane Warrior which is a huge oversight. Well, they proc the spell power portion not the melee power portion as if they were normal melee attacks.

I'd also suggest changing the bear form attacks to be cleaves.
Maul should work on par with normal cleave, Shred could function as Great Cleave. Allow Great Maul to work as a great cleave as well if possible. Tremor is now working as an AoE attack so that's fine.

[Torc]

Just dropping in to thank you for all the feedback and bug reports. We haven't had time to post much because are very busy fixing things and getting the dungeons ready for this update.

I confess we are behind on bear issues somewhat and haven't had time to re-evaluate some enhancements in view of feedback. That should change soon.

We should have more progress there by next week.

Clarify a few things...

1> Innate attack DCs - The whole use wilderness lore thing had some problems which made us "reset" them as it were. They're not final and we're evaluating what to boost.

2> Beast Rage duration wasn't nerfed as far as I can tell.... (not sure where that 40 seconds came from, maybe an old preview post?) Anyway... that whole line is getting reviewed, as is renewed spirit.

-T

[Avocado]

Seems the nature's protector stance is buggy. Tier 1 stance improvement adds 50% threat regardless of what you actually choose (saves or prr/mrr). Tier 2 only gives prr/mrr and tier 3 gives the saves.

[edrein]

Just dropping in to thank you for all the feedback and bug reports. We haven't had time to post much because are very busy fixing things and getting the dungeons ready for this update.

I confess we are behind on bear issues somewhat and haven't had time to re-evaluate some enhancements in view of feedback. That should change soon.

We should have more progress there by next week.

Clarify a few things...

1> Innate attack DCs - The whole use wilderness lore thing had some problems which made us "reset" them as it were. They're not final and we're evaluating what to boost.

2> Beast Rage duration wasn't nerfed as far as I can tell.... (not sure where that 40 seconds came from, maybe an old preview post?) Anyway... that whole line is getting reviewed, as is renewed spirit.

-T

That's good news to hear, I hope my proposal will be highly considered.

But seriously. One Dagger: Can we please get this to work with offhands beyond just runearms? Even if it won't work for druids. Swashbucklers could use it, as could anyone running an orb. (Although I'd love for it to work as I want a good reason to wear my Dethek Runestone assuming the stacking +W bonuses get fixed.)

And take your time on druids. I cannot emphasize this enough. Everyone both ingame and on the forums would rather you take the extra time to get this right rather than push out a half baked buggy 'pass' to coincide with U38s initial release.