2019 ED Pass: Primal Sphere

[Grace_ana]

Primal avatar is supposedly the spellcasting ED of the primal sphere. But it has been awful in that role since its inception, and now there are no proposed changes that improve ED in this regard. Caster druids still do not have an ED in their own sphere. Primal avatar needs bonus to the DC (as a minimum to evocation, conjuration, and transmutation) Druids need something that improves the damage of their spells, his lack of area nukes, and their role as healers in groups. Keep in mind, devs, that druids casters are good at heroics, but they have an atrocious scaling on epics. And something is needed to help the druid casters to be mana efficient in epics: one of the biggest problems of this type of characters is that they are nukers with MANY less spell points than the other classic nukers (fvs, sorcerers)

So, please, leave the left half of Primal Avatar for the melees druids, but turn the right half into something that really helps a druid caster, and not the hodgepodge of barely useful skills that there are now. And above all: a caster needs DC! DC is not only needed for instantkills, devs! A call lighting spell without DC without going any further is just mana wasted!

Personally I think that all the spellcasting EDs (exalted angel, magister, draconic and primal avatar) should have +1 to DC per core, as the exalted angel already has and you want to put in magister. Because DC is necessary for ALL casters, and not only for CCers /instantkillers. And because DC is something as basic as melee / ranged power for a weapon user

And by the way, add some spellpower to this ED, it need that!

I agree with all of this.

[Grailhawk]

Let's see: shiradi is not a good ED for spellcasting. It's just an ED that was good for magic missile spammers, and that is currently only mediocre even for them. too many nerfs to that ED have made the shiradi builds (I repeat, magic missile spammers) practically disappeared.

Primal avatar is supposedly the spellcasting ED of the primal sphere. But it has been awful in that role since its inception, and now there are no proposed changes that improve ED in this regard. Caster druids still do not have an ED in their own sphere. Primal avatar needs bonus to the DC (as a minimum to evocation, conjuration, and transmutation) Druids need something that improves the damage of their spells, his lack of area nukes, and their role as healers in groups. Keep in mind, devs, that druids casters are good at heroics, but they have an atrocious scaling on epics. And something is needed to help the druid casters to be mana efficient in epics: one of the biggest problems of this type of characters is that they are nukers with MANY less spell points than the other classic nukers (fvs, sorcerers)

So, please, leave the left half of Primal Avatar for the melees druids, but turn the right half into something that really helps a druid caster, and not the hodgepodge of barely useful skills that there are now. And above all: a caster needs DC! DC is not only needed for instantkills, devs! A call lighting spell without DC without going any further is just mana wasted!

Personally I think that all the spellcasting EDs (exalted angel, magister, draconic and primal avatar) should have +1 to DC per core, as the exalted angel already has and you want to put in magister. Because DC is necessary for ALL casters, and not only for CCers /instantkillers. And because DC is something as basic as melee / ranged power for a weapon user

And by the way, add some spellpower to this ED, it need that!

Good thoughts on Primal Avatar a few ideas this sparked in my head are:

+Crit Damage and +DC's at 3/4 the values of Draconic and Magister. Leave Coccon as the only real healing enhancement but but make the temp HP scale better if your in this destiny.

[0ldschool]

Ballistic Shot.

Or maybe something more thematic like 'Vengeance of the Fey'? 'Fury of the Fey' has a nice alliteration ring to it, but the the word 'Fury' is already taken.

[btolson]

Shiradi Champion
This tree is alright for casters and not great for ranged characters in its current state. A lot of the Bow users are pulled over by Fury right now, so we gave it a bit of that power to make Shiradi a more viable choice for them. We don't want to take Fury away from bow-users entirely (or Shiradi away from casters), just to make Shiradi a viable choice for ranged weapon characters.

• The first five cores (replacing their existing attack/damage bonuses) add +1 to hit and damage with ranged weapons.
• Favorable Winds and Fey Power scale with 200% Ranged Power.
• Stay Frosty's cold damage scales with 200% ranged power.
• Stay Frosty now passively provides its +3/+6 Spot and Listen
• Stay Good's light damage scales with 200% ranged power.
• Rainbow's random damage scales with 200% ranged power.
• Added clarifying language to Double Rainbow to indicate that its effects may scale with Melee, Ranged, or Spell Power depending on the origin of effects it finds.
• Whirling Wrists also grants +2/4/6% Doubleshot.
• Wild Shots scales with 200% Ranged Power.

Hopefully this all means, "scales with the greater of 100% spellpower or 200% ranged power" or this destiny is dead for casters.

Oh something else I wonder about: will procs continue to always use the relevant spellpower crit chance, even when drawing from ranged power if it's greater? Or will the crit chance come from your weapon's threat range instead?

[GramercyRiff]

Wake me up when THF is functional in epic/legendary and I'll care about the Fury changes. I like them, it's just THF is so slow and bad right now; these changes don't matter. Can't say anything about the ranged Fury stuff because I've never played it.

Shiradi changes seem good, but not sure they're good enough. I hope they are because I love the flavor of this ED.

Poor Primal Avatar no one has a clue what to do with you.

[PsychoBlonde]

In Primal Avatar, please look at Insidious Spores and:

1. Change it from Poison and Rust to ACID and rust so it's actually associated with a spellpower type (like what you did with Creeping Doom during the Druid pass)
2. Make it scale with spellpower!

And I do hope you get to making Tsunami better. It's a pretty cool spell if it were only working properly!

With Tsunami and Insidious Spores actually DOING something, this has the potential to also be a pretty neat CASTER tree or provide some good twists for epic casters to use!

I'd suggest adding a caster-oriented Tier 6 if you can manage it. My suggestion would be something like this:

Wrath of the Elements
Activated effect
Duration: 20 seconds
Cooldown: 4 minutes
Your spells become imbued with the fury of the uncontrollable elements. For the duration of this effect, your offensive spells have a 20% chance to do an additional 10d10 fire, cold, acid, or electric damage that scales with spellpower.

[Cantor]

I really hope that tree gets revisited. The change proposed is <redacted>. As long as there is a plan to make it good at some point ok. Otherwise the cooldown is absurd.
I guess trees are in such a bad place already noone cares, but I really enjoyed playing trees when they worked.

[SerPounce]

The more I think about it the more I dislike the idea of using FotW as a bandaid for 2HF.

Not only is it too little to make 2HF endgame viable, it will also make for a boring situation if/when 2HF gets a proper rebalance. 2HF will be balanced around the (mostly non-twistable) FotW, and FotW will be balanced around the now buffed 2HF. So to be viable while 2HF you will have be in FotW, and to be viable in FotW you have to 2HF.

Even if it’s balanced that’s pretty boring. Ideally destinies will offer a unique plat style that works with a variety of classes and fighting styles (in the case of melee). And FotW is so close to being that: make it the burst and helpless dps tree to complement the grind it out approach of blitz/LD (and the unique feels of GMoF and SD). At the very least it should work for all the primal melee dps archetypes: barb, tempest, wolf druid.

[Steelstar]

The more I think about it the more I dislike the idea of using FotW as a bandaid for 2HF.

Not only is it too little to make 2HF endgame viable, it will also make for a boring situation if/when 2HF gets a proper rebalance. 2HF will be balanced around the (mostly non-twistable) FotW, and FotW will be balanced around the now buffed 2HF. So to be viable while 2HF you will have be in FotW, and to be viable in FotW you have to 2HF.

That's really specifically not our balance goal here.

Even if it’s balanced that’s pretty boring. Ideally destinies will offer a unique plat style that works with a variety of classes and fighting styles (in the case of melee). And FotW is so close to being that: make it the burst and helpless dps tree to complement the grind it out approach of blitz/LD (and the unique feels of GMoF and SD). At the very least it should work for all the primal melee dps archetypes: barb, tempest, wolf druid.

I mean...

• Shiradi already has plenty of things that work for ranged characters but not for barbs or wolf druid, because they're ranged-related
• Primal Avatar has several things that specifically work when Two Weapon Fighting or in animal form, but not for bow-users or THF melees

& that's before diving into other Destinies and the things that they have that work well for some archetypes and not-at-all for others.

Wolf Druids, Tempests, and most Barbs are doing just fine. In the revamped version of this tree, they're getting a slight bump compared to what they can do in the tree now. Two-Hander users are less fine, so we're giving them a little extra shine in the tree that most closely aligns with that archetype.

[SerPounce]

That's really specifically not our balance goal here.

• Primal Avatar has several things that specifically work when Two Weapon Fighting or in animal form, but not for bow-users or THF melees

But overall it’s hot garbage for animal druids and rangers compared to LD. And the best ability ( balanced attacks) is an easy twist.

Wolf Druids, Tempests, and most Barbs are doing just fine..

Sure, in LD. Which is where they’re going to be after this. Which is fine I guess, but it’s kind of a dull result of a destiny makeover. Why not make either fury or Primal Avatar a competitive option?

[Ballrus]

Quote Originally Posted by Steelstar

NEW: T1: (Multiselector with Boulder Toss): Boulder's Might: Requires being in Two-Handed Fighting style to use (i.e. no Natural Fighting). 5[w] attack, 6 second cooldown. Rank 2 and 3 add +1 and +2 Critical Multiplier on that attack. (3 Ranks, 1AP Each)

NEW: T5: Strong Swings: +10 Melee Power. While fighting in Two Handed Fighting style, this is instead +25. (1 Rank, 2AP)

Work only with two handed weapon equipped, or work with hand and half weapon using two handed feats? (b swd/d axe + thf feats).

Thanks.

Any answers?

[count_spicoli]

Let's see: shiradi is not a good ED for spellcasting. It's just an ED that was good for magic missile spammers, and that is currently only mediocre even for them. too many nerfs to that ED have made the shiradi builds (I repeat, magic missile spammers) practically disappeared.

Primal avatar is supposedly the spellcasting ED of the primal sphere. But it has been awful in that role since its inception, and now there are no proposed changes that improve ED in this regard. Caster druids still do not have an ED in their own sphere. Primal avatar needs bonus to the DC (as a minimum to evocation, conjuration, and transmutation) Druids need something that improves the damage of their spells, his lack of area nukes, and their role as healers in groups. Keep in mind, devs, that druids casters are good at heroics, but they have an atrocious scaling on epics. And something is needed to help the druid casters to be mana efficient in epics: one of the biggest problems of this type of characters is that they are nukers with MANY less spell points than the other classic nukers (fvs, sorcerers)

So, please, leave the left half of Primal Avatar for the melees druids, but turn the right half into something that really helps a druid caster, and not the hodgepodge of barely useful skills that there are now. And above all: a caster needs DC! DC is not only needed for instantkills, devs! A call lighting spell without DC without going any further is just mana wasted!

Personally I think that all the spellcasting EDs (exalted angel, magister, draconic and primal avatar) should have +1 to DC per core, as the exalted angel already has and you want to put in magister. Because DC is necessary for ALL casters, and not only for CCers /instantkillers. And because DC is something as basic as melee / ranged power for a weapon user

And by the way, add some spellpower to this ED, it need that!

Well put and also agree

[count_spicoli]

I think that one of the inconsistencies of fury is the way adrenaline works itself. I don’t really understand why a cleave won’t apply the adrenaline strike to every enemy it hits. The tree will always favor rangers who can fury shot through an entire line of enemies with no mob cap on how many they can hit. That mechanic instantly makes the tree 4 times (or how ever many enemies they can hit) more effective. I think that if y’all could fix that mechanic, 2 handers could compete again.

This is actually a really good idea. So.e kind of proc on glancing blows and cleaves. Barb havi g 3 cleaves could really benefit from this.

[Grace_ana]

The nerf to LD won't make people choose other destinies. Making Primal and GMoF significantly better, particularly in specific ways for certain builds, will do that. These don't really hit the mark.

[OfElectricMen]

glancing blows don't get doublestrike or crits

Nor should they. They are glancing blows. And should never have been added to the game.

[Duhboy]

Is Boulder's Might going to be a cleave type of attack or a regular type? Would it be possible to make it a cleave? Also with the changes to Fury, any chance in making Adrenaline fully work with cleaves?

[lyrecono]

]

Wake me up when THF is functional in epic/legendary and I'll care about the Fury changes. I like them, it's just THF is so slow and bad right now; these changes don't matter. Can't say anything about the ranged Fury stuff because I've never played it.

Shiradi changes seem good, but not sure they're good enough. I hope they are because I love the flavor of this ED.

Poor Primal Avatar no one has a clue what to do with you.

This entire pass hangs on this, without good changes to 2hf, this entire pass falls flat on it's face because by nerfing LD, 2hf have no decent destiny, fury is just, no good without procs and a decent capstone, blitz is just way more reliable compared to adrenaline.

So steelstar, what plans are on the table for 2hf? You mentioned something earlier but it's the core of all these issues, al of these ED changes means nothing to us if they don't work due to a bugged 2hf.

[whoolsey]

Nor should they. They are glancing blows. And should never have been added to the game.

They are important to 2hf and bugged.

Evey melee playstyle and even ranged benefits from crits and double strike/ doubleshot.
On an ability that recharges (too slowely for 2hf), by doing vorpals in a destiny build for 2hf barbarians it is simply not working.
For the last 7 years or so, fury of the wild is primairily used by ranged toons because their high attack rate allows them to use this destiny way better then 2hf melees.

If you want to get rid of 2hf feats and glancing blows, then fine, replace them with 3 heroic and 1 epic feats that allow for and increase doublestrike with 2handed weapons and make them work during cleaves on all the targets that we hit so we can generate blitz and adrenaline charges like any other playstyle
(And allow them to pick up the epic def stance with them)

[ned_ellis]

Let's see: shiradi is not a good ED for spellcasting. It's just an ED that was good for magic missile spammers, and that is currently only mediocre even for them. too many nerfs to that ED have made the shiradi builds (I repeat, magic missile spammers) practically disappeared.

Primal avatar is supposedly the spellcasting ED of the primal sphere. But it has been awful in that role since its inception, and now there are no proposed changes that improve ED in this regard. Caster druids still do not have an ED in their own sphere. Primal avatar needs bonus to the DC (as a minimum to evocation, conjuration, and transmutation) Druids need something that improves the damage of their spells, his lack of area nukes, and their role as healers in groups. Keep in mind, devs, that druids casters are good at heroics, but they have an atrocious scaling on epics. And something is needed to help the druid casters to be mana efficient in epics: one of the biggest problems of this type of characters is that they are nukers with MANY less spell points than the other classic nukers (fvs, sorcerers)

So, please, leave the left half of Primal Avatar for the melees druids, but turn the right half into something that really helps a druid caster, and not the hodgepodge of barely useful skills that there are now. And above all: a caster needs DC! DC is not only needed for instantkills, devs! A call lighting spell without DC without going any further is just mana wasted!

Personally I think that all the spellcasting EDs (exalted angel, magister, draconic and primal avatar) should have +1 to DC per core, as the exalted angel already has and you want to put in magister. Because DC is necessary for ALL casters, and not only for CCers /instantkillers. And because DC is something as basic as melee / ranged power for a weapon user

And by the way, add some spellpower to this ED, it need that!

In Primal Avatar, please look at Insidious Spores and:

1. Change it from Poison and Rust to ACID and rust so it's actually associated with a spellpower type (like what you did with Creeping Doom during the Druid pass)
2. Make it scale with spellpower!

And I do hope you get to making Tsunami better. It's a pretty cool spell if it were only working properly!

With Tsunami and Insidious Spores actually DOING something, this has the potential to also be a pretty neat CASTER tree or provide some good twists for epic casters to use!

I'd suggest adding a caster-oriented Tier 6 if you can manage it. My suggestion would be something like this:

Wrath of the Elements
Activated effect
Duration: 20 seconds
Cooldown: 4 minutes
Your spells become imbued with the fury of the uncontrollable elements. For the duration of this effect, your offensive spells have a 20% chance to do an additional 10d10 fire, cold, acid, or electric damage that scales with spellpower.

Agree entirely with bolded parts.

[edgarallanpoe]

Shiradi Champion
This tree is alright for casters and not great for ranged characters in its current state. A lot of the Bow users are pulled over by Fury right now, so we gave it a bit of that power to make Shiradi a more viable choice for them. We don't want to take Fury away from bow-users entirely (or Shiradi away from casters), just to make Shiradi a viable choice for ranged weapon characters.

• The first five cores (replacing their existing attack/damage bonuses) add +1 to hit and damage with ranged weapons.
• Favorable Winds and Fey Power scale with 200% Ranged Power.
• Stay Frosty's cold damage scales with 200% ranged power.
• Stay Frosty now passively provides its +3/+6 Spot and Listen
• Stay Good's light damage scales with 200% ranged power.
• Rainbow's random damage scales with 200% ranged power.
• Added clarifying language to Double Rainbow to indicate that its effects may scale with Melee, Ranged, or Spell Power depending on the origin of effects it finds.
• Whirling Wrists also grants +2/4/6% Doubleshot.
• Wild Shots scales with 200% Ranged Power.
• Rain of Arrows no longer requires charging.
• Rain of Arrows now has a 3-minute cooldown.
• Rain of Arrows' damage scales with 200% Ranged Power.
• Rain of Arrows now costs 1AP.
• Rain of Arrows' tooltip now properly reflects its 20% of application per second (previously read 10%).
• Tea With the Queen now costs 1AP.
• Track also debuffs fortification by 2% per stack
• Stand & Deliver now alson grants +1mult on 19-20 with Ranged weapons
• In The Weeds adds +3 PRR and +3 MRR per stack.
• NEW: Horizon Shot (T6): Your next shot with a Ranged or Thrown weapon has +400% damage and +16 to its Critical Threat Range. 30 second cooldown. (1 Rank, 1AP)

Thank you for this...I've always hated running in LD with a bow user. Stand and Deliver will close the gap a little with the additional multiplier.