U38 Preview 2: Druid

[Silverleafeon]

Is this just a rumor or do acid/electric caster level penalties exist?


Do I need to bug report thus now, or wait till it goes live and then ask for Quality Control to fix any penalty to electric and acid caster levels?

Not Happy if this bug exists or is allowed to happen!!

[]Insert pictures of pitchforks and torches here[]

Sorcerers and Druid differ in that Sorcerer gain many more bonuses to their favored element at the expense of the other elements while Druids are more rainbow casters.

[Silverleafeon]

By the way, if offered the exchange of:


Elimination of elemental form caster level penalties

for

Not getting Earth & Air elemental forms (never or at least for a long time)


Would definitely take that exchange.

One of the attractions of Air Form is placing the caster level penalty on Earth because Druids lack Acid spells (at least until this update).

So, if you eliminate the elemental form caster level penalties, you have also eliminated the main reason that I want Air form anyway.


This also has the advantage of a bigger class separation between Druids and Sorcerers.

[Silverleafeon]

Mentioning again:


D&D 5th Edition Player's Handbook page 238:

Entangled is now considered a conjuration school spell.

[Haphazarduk]

I'm not sure if anyone else has picked up/commented on this but I'm very happy to have Force included in Summer and Negative in Winter for SH - opens up some nice new builds, especially the multiclass ones (which is more or less all I do!).

Hap

[Silverleafeon]

I'm not sure if anyone else has picked up/commented on this but I'm very happy to have Force included in Summer and Negative in Winter for SH - opens up some nice new builds, especially the multiclass ones (which is more or less all I do!).

Hap

+1
Yes adding force is very nice.

Hmm...

Druid 4 -> +8 force crit chance
Favored Soul 4 -> +8 force crit chance
Wizard 12 -> Arch Mage tier 5/core 12

Epic Feats ~
21) Well Spring of Power
24) Master of Knowledge
26ED) Epic Spellpower (Force)
27) Ruin
28ED) Epic Skill Focus (Spellcraft)
29ED) Arcane Pulse
30) Great Ruin
30L) Scion of the Plane of Fire

[Silverleafeon]

Also if offered this compromise:



Water Elemental
You gain +2 bonus to caster level and max caster level to water and cold spells.
Your fire spells get a -1 penalty to caster level and max caster level.
You gain a +10 racial bonus to cold resistance, and -10 electric resistance.
You have +20 swim skill
Form specific spells:Elemental Toughness, Freezing Spray, Ice Flowers, Mantle of the Icy Soul


Fire Elemental
You can breath indefinitely underwater
You gain +2 bonus to caster level and max caster level to fire spells.
Your water spells get a -1 penalty to caster level and max caster level.
You gain a +10 racial bonus to fire resistance, and have -10 cold resistance.
Form specific spells: Body of the Sun, Elemental Toughness, Fires of Purity, Anger of the Noonday Sun



I would definately take that and consider it an upgrade.

[Pilgrim1]

Honestly, if it were up to me. I'd separate force spell power from the seasons entirely. As this would benefit all druids.

Currently druids have the following spells effected by force:

• Splinterbolt
• Spike Growth
• Ice Storm bludgeon portion
• Salt Ray
• Earthquake
• Iceflowers piercing portion

Three of those; Iceflowers, Earthquake, and Icestorm aren't force spells as far as CL boosts are concerned.

You forgot the biggest one, word of balance.

[unbongwah]

The thing which annoys me about elemental forms is not the caster level penalties per se, but that at any given time about half your druid SLAs are taking that penalty. It seems to me that Season's Herald should've been split into two trees - call `em Summer Herald and Winter Herald - with the relevant bonuses, SLAs, etc. put into each tree for each season, much as with sorcerer Savants. Those who want to specialize in only one season can do so (e.g., I'd like to do a hypothetical Winter Herald / Nature's Warrior hybrid wolf build); while those who want to alternate between seasons for more spell variety can invest in both Heralds.

But it's probably way too late in the process to go back and split the tree now, so oh well.

[Kuunkukka]

This iteration of Doggy druid seems a lot better balanced than the last one. I tried a melee oriented 20 Druid with a transferred completionist character on Primal Avatar destiny, that had also been buffed in Lammannia (10 MP per core).
- Autoattack speed seems adequate. I twisted LD haste boost and naked doggy did hit with satisfactory frequence.
- Wielded weapon interaction still seems iffy/buggy/working only selectively:
1) Momentum swing does not work (wrong form notice)
2) Dog seems to get glancing blows randomly from alpha strike when wielding 2-hander
3) Item damage from oozes et cetera is a new source of worry for doggy druids. Just a 5 minute test run in the quest Creeping Death shattered a 21 hardness quarterstaff

Bugs in this instance of Lammannia:
- Druid got a barbarian version of "dismiss rage". This does not dismiss rage, but does impose the fatigue debuff.
- Ghost wolf pack AOE switches autoattack off

Opinions:
Personally, I didnt find animal form rage a very compelling mechanic; it is too big a tradeoff. Heals are an inherent part of playing even a splashed druid. If the rage shuts the heals down, it should REALLY change the way the character is played. Im looking at power level of Ravager tier5 heals/crit rage/autostuns from ear smash... preferably powering the NW tier5 abilites. Those seem quite cool.

[edrein]

You forgot the biggest one, word of balance.

Word of Balance is light not force. Alignment spell power is light, hence the second post.

[edrein]

This iteration of Doggy druid seems a lot better balanced than the last one. I tried a melee oriented 20 Druid with a transferred completionist character on Primal Avatar destiny, that had also been buffed in Lammannia (10 MP per core).
- Autoattack speed seems adequate. I twisted LD haste boost and naked doggy did hit with satisfactory frequence.
- Wielded weapon interaction still seems iffy/buggy/working only selectively:
1) Momentum swing does not work (wrong form notice)
2) Dog seems to get glancing blows randomly from alpha strike when wielding 2-hander
3) Item damage from oozes et cetera is a new source of worry for doggy druids. Just a 5 minute test run in the quest Creeping Death shattered a 21 hardness quarterstaff

Bugs in this instance of Lammannia:
- Druid got a barbarian version of "dismiss rage". This does not dismiss rage, but does impose the fatigue debuff.
- Ghost wolf pack AOE switches autoattack off

Opinions:
Personally, I didnt find animal form rage a very compelling mechanic; it is too big a tradeoff. Heals are an inherent part of playing even a splashed druid. If the rage shuts the heals down, it should REALLY change the way the character is played. Im looking at power level of Ravager tier5 heals/crit rage/autostuns from ear smash... preferably powering the NW tier5 abilites. Those seem quite cool.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post6082736 My feedback/suggestions are in orange to make the rage a bit more useful and in general make the Bear tree more similar to a barbarian if you choose the rage/DPS path rather than a tank. Granted it's got nothing for dogs at the moment, I'd be willing to make suggestions for wolves if asked. I just didn't have the desire to test the wolves in conjunction with bears.

[edrein]

So, if you eliminate the elemental form caster level penalties, you have also eliminated the main reason that I want Air form anyway.

Stop lying Silver, you know you want to be a translucent tornado man. :P

But in all reality, the functionality of the missing two forms would be nice. But the visual portion is just as important. I want to be a strange form of stoneskin with a runearm shaped stone growth on my forearm while I drop earthquakes and storms of vengeance, and now weave in Creeping Doom and Enveloping Swarm.

Which makes me wonder is Salt Ray considered an earth spell?

[Haphazarduk]

+1
Yes adding force is very nice.

Hmm...

Druid 4 -> +8 force crit chance
Favored Soul 4 -> +8 force crit chance
Wizard 12 -> Arch Mage tier 5/core 12

I have a Druid11/FvS4/Wiz5 Shiradi build that works very well.

I think I'll LR (hopefully with the new heart) to Druid13/FvS4/Wiz3. You can still hit CL9 on MM with Force being included in Summer now and Salt Ray SLA will be interesting to add into the mix.

Hap

[edrein]

• Shillelagh is now a self buff that enchants any wooden weapon you wield for it's duration. While the enchant stays on the player casting other weapon enchants will suspend it until the weapon is re-equips and it clears other temp weapon enchants.

So I thought about this, this is a good change and with the core 6 double effect buff it's good.

The issue is frankly, we've got a lack of wooden weapons. And more importantly good wooden weapons. Most of them are quarterstaves, and most of those are caster sticks. Beyond that you can count the remaining non-QT wooden weapons on one hand. You can't sentient weapon Ironwood Khopesh, so it's rather meh. Legendary Cranium Cracker will only be good if Dethek Runestone is fixed and you can pull +3W out if it with the double shillelagh effect.

So my suggestion here is to extend Shillelagh to apply to any non-metal weapon and to Flameblade. Mostly because any non-metal weapon in DDO is a druidic oath appropriate material: Bone, crystal, stone, etc. Secondly, since there has been no talk on the dev end of updating Flameblade to scale, this would atleast help give it more use and life once you hit epics and the scaling stops. Although I'd suggest that flameblades get the full +1W as if they were two handed weapons and +2W with the core 6. This might make them a bit 'strong' in heroics, but mostly would help them in epics where they need it the most.

Allowing Shillelagh to apply to shields might open interesting doors for caster-tanks that splash fighter and could grab low hanging vanguard fruit, though I'm not entirely sure about that. Could still be a boon to elemental druids that might grab improve shield bash given Wooden Shields at endgame have Bashing enhancement built on them.

Edit: To further explain my suggestion.
Wooden weapons that aren't quarterstaves:

• Cranium Cracker 7 and 26 (Club)
• Ironwood Khopesh 16-18 and 23-25 (Khopesh)
• Greatclub of the Scrag 7 and 20 (Greatclub)
• Bonesplitter 18 (Greatclub)
• Moonhowl Axe 4 (Greatclub)
• Pastemaker 2 (Greatclub)
• Fist of Daarguul 8 (club)

Now if you expand that to non-metallic weapons the list expands greatly:

• Brocolli Basher 25 (club)
• Muck's Doom 6 (club)
• Muck Bane 2 (club)
• Crystallized Eternity 4-20 (greatclub)
• Frostbite Blade 17-19 and 26-28 (scimitar)
• Spectral Dagger 4-20 (dagger)
• Whisperdoom's Fang 6 (dagger)
• Miasma's Fang 2 (dagger)
• Icerazor 21 (sickle)
• Echo of the Sunsword 29 (shortsword)
• Celestia, Brightest Star of Day 23 (shortsword)
• Stonework Beam 15 and 28 (quarterstaff)
• Forgotten Axe 10 and 28 (handaxe)

These are just a sampling to show how much wider the options become when expanded beyond just wood to any natural druidic oath abiding material.

[edrein]

Also like everyone else, I'm concerned about weapon durability while in animal forms. Can the first cores add weapon defense? Full 100% would be great, but I could understand that might not fly.

[EmGreen]

Wolf tree- core - A True Hunter
This is missing some of the text in game. Currently it states its gives a +1 competence bonus to your attacks, which is pretty vague. According to the notes it should be to crit multiplier, please add that to in game text

Bear tree - Rage of the Beast
You must take 2 levels of this before you can take the first level of primal beast. But according to primal beast's text you should be able to take the first rank with just one rank of rage of the beast

Bear tree - Primal Beast
You must take 2 levels of this before you can take the first level of enduring beast. But according to enduring beast's text you should be able to take the first rank with just one rank of primal beast

Bear tree - Enduring Beast
You must take 2 levels of this before you can take undying beast. But you should be able to take undying beast with just one rank of enduring beast.

Bear tree - bloody claws
You must take 3 levels of this before you can take sharp bloody claws. Sharp bloody claws says you only need 1 rank of bloody claws

Bear tree - sharp bloody claws
In game name for this is bloody claws - the missing sharp needs to be added. Currently it has both same name and same icon as its precursor enhancement

Bear tree - the two con or str enhancements
These are only costing 1 ap, should be 2

Dismiss rage feat appears under barbarian feats in the feats panel - should be under druid feats. It also does not dispel animal/druid rage (but does still leave fatigue)

Animal rage duration is not increased by CON

Wolf Tree - Four legs good
The in game text states that its a toggle stance, but its showing up in the enhancement list as a passive ability. The update notes make it sound like its changed to a passive always on ability. Its in game text should be changed to make it clear that its a passive always on thing rather than a stance.

Henshin Mystic
The first and last cores have had their text updated to reflect the +3 melee power change, but cores 2, 3, 4 and 5 still say +10 melee power. They need to be edited to say +3

Nature's warrior feat
When I am in any of the wild shape forms, the doublestrike from this is not appearing in the character sheet in the when i hover over the attack bonuses icon that lists attack speed, double strike, etc

Rage of the beast
The duration of this is not affected by barbarian extend rage enhancement, but it should be.

Cleave and great cleave
the animation for this in bear form is much slower than humanoid cleaves - can it please be made faster so its on par with cleave for everyone else

[elvesunited]

Also like everyone else, I'm concerned about weapon durability while in animal forms. Can the first cores add weapon defense? Full 100% would be great, but I could understand that might not fly.

It's worse than it seems. Near as I can tell damage to weapons is worse in wolf form than in humanoid form.

[Silverleafeon]

Stop lying Silver, you know you want to be a translucent tornado man. :P

My hate of the -3 caster level penalty exceeds my fond desire to see all four elemental forms exist.

But in all reality, the functionality of the missing two forms would be nice. But the visual portion is just as important. I want to be a strange form of stoneskin with a runearm shaped stone growth on my forearm while I drop earthquakes and storms of vengeance, and now weave in Creeping Doom and Enveloping Swarm.

Sounds very cool indeed and desirable.

Stand by my offer, I strongly would like to see the penalty to caster levels greatly diminished or removed.

Which makes me wonder is Salt Ray considered an earth spell?

Force Damage = Summer ?

{although thematically salt = Legendary Superior Focus of Water
Legendary Superior Focus of Negative Energy
Legendary Salt }

[Silverleafeon]

Pointing out to the Devs about a bug nerf:

Up until now, Druid casters enjoyed the bug of +8 spell crit chance to both seasons being active at the same time.

There is enough of a seasonal advantage upcoming that the removal/diminishing of opposing element -3 caster levels is no longer needed.

[edrein]

My hate of the -3 caster level penalty exceeds my fond desire to see all four elemental forms exist.



Sounds very cool indeed and desirable.

Stand by my offer, I strongly would like to see the penalty to caster levels greatly diminished or removed.



Force Damage = Summer ?

{although thematically salt = Legendary Superior Focus of Water
Legendary Superior Focus of Negative Energy
Legendary Salt }

As I suggested Force and Light (particularly ALIGNMENT spells) should be separate of season. As it affects quite a few spells, three of which are actually winter spells. With them being separate of seasons and given crit bonuses as a general deal. That means elementals don't have to worry about which form to min-max salt ray's DC/caster level and frankly Word of Balance also gets freed up as well.