2.4 Druid Wereform IAS Feedback

General Discussion
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The werewolf/werebear druid community may be small, but amongst the members of that community one notion is shared: the near universal rejection of the IAS changes made by Blizzard for PTR 2.4. These changes neuter a class already needing help to be competitive amongst melee classes. This is an earnest request Blizzard look at these IAS changes and either revert, or, what most druid players want, to expand the IAS possibilities for melee, wereform druids. The relevant note is below:

  • Changed how attack speed is determined while transformed as a Werewolf. Attack speeds while transformed should match attack speeds while untransformed (enhanced by the Werewolf’s increased attack speed).

In the days leading up to PTR 2.4, the unfortunate, now naïve hope that these IAS changes may expand the wereform druid’s options have been crushed by the reality of the situation: Blizzard nerfed wereform druids into the ground.

The chief problem is that now, instead of two separate attack speed tables (one for human, one for wereform), the wereform druid follows the human druid. Any experienced player understood that this meant an outright nerf in attack speeds - that the human druid attacked slower than the werebear/werewolf counterpart. You can find these comments around, but the general reaction was people couldn’t believe Blizzard would do such a thing. The commonly held opinion was that off-weapon IAS would be incorporated into the overall IAS for a wereform druid: offering expanded weapon options and gearing. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

Put succinctly, THE FURY WEREWOLF/WEREBEAR ATTACKS SLOWER THAN BEFORE. If Blizzard truly cares about the “fantasy” of playing a certain class, why DECREASE a WEREWOLF’S attack speed? The werewolf in game is limber and spry, and that image lends itself naturally to a fast attack speed. All we ask is for the PTR people to observe this feedback and analyze it carefully. We want MORE options, not less. (ie. Tomb reaver 4framespd > all)

Elaborating on that point, expanding the druid IAS situation with “off-weapon IAS” would greatly expand build choices. While min-maxers will always exist, what is the problem having an item, like a stormlash or other 30% attack speed weapon, be boosted by off-weapon IAS? Then Tomb Reaver would not be the FASTEST AND ONLY ITEM IN THE GAME that could reach that specific speed. The weapon OPTIONS and VIABILITY would be greatly expanded, and in a chiefly PVM game, why not?

We, the wereform druid community, (we welcome cold druid support, and others :joy:), request Blizzard REVERT the intended changes for patch 2.4, and request instead that Blizzard EXPAND the options a melee druid has by allowing off-weapon IAS, or other solution, for killing the monsters of sanctuary.

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Wrong forum. Head on over to the PTR Feedback forum, found over here!

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Thank you :slight_smile: very much for the tip

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Tldr. They reduced attack speed for werebear by A Lot. From 5 attacks per second with endgame gear to a little less than 3 attacks per second now.

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It is worth putting this both here and in the PTR forum because this issue is not being discussed in a way that is commensurate with how drastic of a change it is. To be clear, this effectively destroys any shapeshifting builds (read: werewolf, werebear, bearsorc, wolfhowl barb) to the point that they are not playable. You are talking about an approximate 70% DPS loss because of this change. It is devastating and will kill off the shapeshifting community on this game.

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I’ll repost here what i posted in a thread on the PTR forum with my experiences tonight on PTR

Now fury druids are not only the slowest MOVING characters in the game, but they’re also now the slowest ATTACKING characters in the game too… Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?

Druids, more so than any other class in the game, need help to be viable. There’s a reason everyone groans when they see a druid torch ID, because it’s widely considered, pretty universally, the worst class in all of D2. The one ‘bright’ spot it had as a class was a very niche build where you use very specific gear to be able to kill uber tristam. Now that’s impossible, i tried on PTR, you cant even kill duriel in the forgotten sands, you die, flat out, you cant attack fast enough to stay alive, no matter what you do.

Druid synergies make absolutely no sense either. What is the point of having fireclaw synergies the way they are? yay you took away a few of the synergies , but you STILL woul dhave to spend 40 skill points in skills you CANT CAST while shapeshifted to be able to buff fireclaw to a measly maxed out 9k damage, and then you dont even have enough skill points left to put ANYTHING in fury or feral rage or even to max out lycanthropy and bear or werewolf.

You made it so shapeshift druids could use Cyclone armor while shifted… but cyclone armor takes SIXTY points of synergies… which you cant cast while shapeshifted, leaving you with no points to use in shapeshifting.

Rabies damage was buffed… but rabies is just SO BAD right now that it’s unusable even with buffed damage. With bramble and other best in slot poison gear, pushing close to 50k ‘sheet’ damage for rabies… you can go to Arcane Sancutary and attack a pack of spectres, and then twiddle your thumbs for almost 30 seconds before anything dies.

Druids need an almost complete overhaul in how their trees are built if you want to make any of this work, and that’s WITHOUT this rediculously class breaking IAS fiasco. With a group we spawend Dclone on PTR last night. I killed Dclone as a fury druid, speced the same way that I am on live. BOTD staff, gore riders, highlords, chains of honor, draculs, jalal’s with an um, ravenfrost, BK, arach (because i didnt have verdungos) and … it took me
from 10:58:08 to 11:03:39 to kill Dclone from engage to death. that’s FIVE AND A HALF MINUTES to kill dclone. I used a full potion belt of health pots + a full cube of full rejuvs too because i couldnt attakc fast enough to keep up with dclone’s damage output, even with draculs, because attack speed was so abysmally slow

I’ll take this 17/15/5 anni i have on PTR now to test other things until druids get some help because right now summon druids are just plain bad, shapeshift druids of every sort are unplayable. You took the worst class and made them even worse

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I have not tested on PTR, because I didn’t have to.

I have played wolfs and bears a lot in vanilla LoD, as well as the Hell Unleashed mod (this bares discussion because wolfs there actually became too strong).

The simple fact that they made attack speeds in human form is beyond bad. It simply shows that either a) they have zero idea how on Earth to play the game, or b) they hate any mechanics that aren’t prima facie or c) both and b are true.

Using the human attack form is a MASSIVE nerf. Nobody in their right mind would ever play them if left as they have implemented.

Now to modded wolfs and bears.
If you allow faster than 4 frame attacks, this can get out of hand quickly. If you get to 2 frame attacks, they are simply wtf broken in every regard.

Currently in vanilla LoD, and D2R only the Assassin can hit the attack speed using very specific items (including…gasp…blue items). You must also take advantage of putting the fastest attack speed weapon in the offhand (and not weapon switch for CtA, etc, or redo weapons after you do). There is good reason you must sacrifice something to hit this frame rate.

If they release the new attack speed change they are making, this will even further nerf both the barb and the assassin class. This will leave the paladin as effectively the only reasonable choice for melee. The paladin is already at the top of the heap in many respects. (I don’t really fuss over that, but if released as they have said…it becomes a very large gap).

The problems they are introducing by changing things that they seemingly have no clue how the hell they work, or simply don’t care that others like the depth of mechanics and quirks of the game is honestly terrible.

This was supposed to be a remaster, not a total upending of all mechanics in the game. They are stupifying everything, and nerfing dangerous things in the game. The carebears are never going to stick around, regardless of any spiffy (or silly) changes. It is the long term D2 fans that will stick around if there is any semblance of the game that we loved…it is quickly getting to the point where I have satiated nostalgia and no longer care to play with these totally ridiculous changes.

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Hmm, I understand that they expanded the IAS beyond the weapons, and not vice versa. If, outside the werewolf, the IAS will also work only with weapons, you can forget about the druids.

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They gave wereforms same attack speeds as human, and allowed for offweapon…which is still slower than original.
This is the problem that they should never have even had to put to PTR to understand the consequences.

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Meanwhile in Paladin-land they don’t need to attack at all to AoE everything down now hahahaha.