Hello mates.
Some time ago, in this draft I’ve proposed some improvements for druid class. Now I’ve designed the rest. Be prepared for a loong reading.
In my overhaul I’d like to focus on:
- Make mixing skill trees possible, and interesting.
- Fix poorly designed/implemented skills, whose usage is either unreliable or inconvenient.
- Replace skills whose are just plain bad, and offer nothing.
- Make stills work both with high, and just 1 point investment whenever possible.
- Give summoner druid something to do instead of just glaring at minions doing their stuff.
- The changes are designed having PvM in mind only, I have no knowledge, and interest, in PvP.
So, here are the changes:
Summoning tree improvements
The issue with this tree is there are many skills with minimal to none usefulness, poor design, and also it requires very heavy skill point investment to even start being usable.
Well, let’s start with 1st issue in summoning tree - spirits.
- The tree shall be renamed to “Summoning and Boons”
- Boons mechanically will be AoE spells similar to curses, but cast on friendly characters giving them various buffs.
- Boons and curses are not mutually exclusive - a character can be affected by a boon and a curse simultaneously.
- Only one boon can be active at a time; casting another will replace the previous one.
- Boons will replace Spirits.
- In my initial design boons, unlike curses, don’t have duration.
- Boon of Vigor - should replace Oak Sage. Synergies with Werewolf will give extra move and attack speed, and with Werebear damage and knockback reduction.
- Boon of Might - should replace Heart of Wolverine, and increase ALL damage dealt by affected unit, not only physical; its bonus to attack rating should be incorporated into summons themselves. Its synergies would be all skills from Elemental tree, a point invested there would give respectively 10% of extra fire/cold damage on top of base damage of the affected unit, calculated after all modifiers. So for example - assume grizzly normally deals 500 damage, but rolled Deadly Strike somehow, and now it deals 1000 damage; in that case, with a single, hard point invested in Firestorm and Arctic Breath, the bear would deal 1000 physical + 100 fire + 100 cold damage.
- Boon of Renewal - should replace Spirit of Barbs, which design is beyond any hope of fixing. This boon will be a bit special, as it shall be not AoE but single target spell, cast on yourself or an ally. And what it does - it’ll replenish life and mana; have no idea about exact numbers, anyway for mana it should be comparable to Meditation aura, and life regeneration also should be significant(idk, around 100 life/s? 1000 seems to be too much)
Next, the zoo. They are more or less fine, however, there is the issue that put them into full potential requires 80 hard points investment due to synergies. This can be changed by introducing:
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Beastmaster - a new level 1 passive skill with prerequisite Raven, where all bonuses from synergies of summons should be moved; similar to necromancer’s Skeleton Mastery. Thanks to the passive it might be enough to invest 20 points into Beastmaster, and only few in each summon type. This however conflicts a bit with Boons of Might and Vigor, undermining their existence - without a playtesting I can’t tell if it’ll fit well.
Synergies between summons also could be left as they are, it still leaves 29 points to pick something other up. With my other proposed changes other skill even with low points investment should provide some useful utility.
Each summon type also could use some improvement:
- Raven - Dim Vision it inflicts shall be replaced by special version of the DV which neither is overrode nor overrides other curses.(Not my concept, but I like it - Ravens and Curses - #8 by Pilgrimage11-1854).
- Spirit Wolf - should visually be semi-transparent, don’t block other units in their attempt to reach enemies, and have their damage be changed to magic, or reverted back to physical. Also its AI should be changed a bit so it’ll use its teleport to attack enemies on regular basics.
- Dire Wolf - it should be given a chance to open wounds, 1.5% per level should be fine. Remove prerequisites other than Spirit Wolf.
- Grizzly - replace its annoying and harmful knockback with crushing blow chance(1-3% per level)
And the last branch, creepers. They suck so hard it should be scrapped, and instead of them something for a summoner(and not only summoner) druid to do should be added:
- Entangling Vines - an AoE, level 6 spell which holds in place enemies for a duration. On higher levels it might also slow down attack speed perhaps? With more levels the area and duration increases. Although I don’t care about PvP rooting down players might be OP, so against players it could just reduce movement speed.
- Fungal Doom - level 18 spell which conjures a magical puffball fungus. When an enemy steps on it the puffball explodes in similar way Poison Explosion does, releasing its spores which deal poison damage. In an enemy affected by the spores dies, another puffball grows up in its place, consuming its corpse. With levels damage, explosion range and max number of puffballs should increase. It could also be considered if poison damage from these puffballs should sum up…but in that case it’d be total bonkers against bosses. In general, its power should be comparable with Poison Nova/Poison Explosion + their synergies.
- Ent Bombardier - level 30 spell, it summons a stationary tree which acts as a kind of artillery, shooting seed capsules which explode on impact into several piercing shrapnels flying in random directions; initial target however is shotgunned which should be very potent against bosses. Each shrapnel deals physical + poison damage. Ent, as a summon, can be affected by Boons. With levels Ent’s life, duration, attack speed, and number of shrapnels generated increases. On 20th level you can summon 2nd Ent, on 30th 3rd and so on. Synergy with Fungal Doom - 20% increased poison damage. A curiosity - I’ve designed it based on Hura Crepitans.
Shape Shifting tree improvements
This tree is in general okay, also I have no experience with shapeshifter druid. However, what I can see are shared skills like Fire Claws which forces player to waste point on Werewolf/Werebear path. This should be improved by introducing optional prerequisites, so for the mentioned Fire Claws it’ll be enough to pick either Werewolf + Feral Rage, or Werebear + Maul to unlock the skill. Other problem with this tree is complete lack of any movement skill.
- Lycanthropy - move it to level 6, and make optional prerequisite from Werewolf and Werebear.
- Werewolf - add it 2% chance for deadly strike per level.
- Werebear - add it 2% chance for crushing blow per level.
- Ambush Prey - a new level 12 skill, a fast leaping attack - so needed movement skill for shapeshifter. Optional prerequisites from Werewolf and Werebear. Might behave slightly differently for each form after initial jump, say Werewolf when preforming Ambush Prey can inflict open wounds, while Werebear stuns for a duration.
- Fire Claws - change prerequisite to Ambush Prey. As a shared skill it could also differ a bit for Werewolf and Werebear, however I lack experience what it might be. Also, Boon of Might, with its fire branch synergies, makes this skill a bit redundant.
- Rabies - change synergy to Fungal Doom, as Poison Creeper will be removed.
Elemental tree improvements
In patch 2.4 they removed biggest issue with these skills, which was shared cooldown. However, there is still a room for improvement. A global one would be a possibility to cast these spells in direction where cursor is pointing, even without line of sight; I’ve reported that already.
- Firestorm - the skill is okayish, however these fires move too slow, and have poor reach; when I was leveling my Wind Druid imps from 5th act easily walked away when I cast Firestorm on them. Improvements for the skill would be, with levels, increase speed of these flames, max reach, and add additional flame to initial three each 5th level.
- Molten Boulder - oh Lord how bad this skill was…I have no experience with it in 2.4, however during my leveling the biggest issue was its speed(or rather lack of it), and that was already addressed. I’m not sure if making it 100% faster than before is good enough…but that’s definitely a good start. However, Molten Boulder requires some more improvements. 1st, it’d be nice if player could detonate it on demand, by tapping (quickly double pressing) assigned key; pretty often in heat of fight I have send boulder a tiny bit off ex. line of archers, and result was complete miss, passing a pixel away of them. 2nd, it should not explode immediately when colliding with bigger enemies, instead knockback distance/time should be reduced. 3rd, trail of lava it leaves should last longer. 4th, explosion also should cause knockback. 5th, the boulder should be able to fall down into lower ground and continue its movement, like trenches at the beginning of Act V. And 6th, it should be able to bounce off walls when colliding on low angle, say 15 degrees.
- Fissure - the skill is rather fine as it is, the only nice improvement for it would be clear, graphical marking of its area of effect.
- Volcano - the only issue with this skill is it cannot be cast directly under an enemy when the enemy is next to a wall in ex. tomb, or a column/pillar. Allow it to intersect with such objects/be partially outside of the map, and that’s all what’s needed. Well, maybe a more clear tooltip would be welcomed, as I still don’t know if all firebolts from Volcano hit the enemy standing on it.
- Armageddon - the improvements here would be set and keep burning ground where meteors impacted for the whole duration of the skill. Yes, with time whole screen will be burning, but that’s the point.
- Arctic Blast - the skill is so bad it requires a major overhaul, simple damage increase won’t help. Make it have 3 stages, reached after one second of continuous channeling; each stage should keep benefits of previous ones. 1st stage should increase its area into 1.5-2x of initial length, 50 degrees cone. 2nd stage should increase damage by 100%. 3rd stage should inflict -100% enemy cold resistance as long as enemies are affected by chill effect from Arctic Blast; that stage also should be able to break cold immunity on usual, 1/5 rate.
- Twister - The problem with this skill is functionally it duplicates Tornado, and very short stun just doesn’t make it any useful or unique. A way to improve this might be increasing number of twisters with levels, up to idk, 12 on 20th level. Also make their movement even faster, and increase their reach up to edge of screen. Other required change is in their mechanic, reduce by half, or even more, an internal counter how often the same enemy can be damaged by the same, one whirlwind; or better even, just allow them to shotgun an enemy, but make them spread faster and bit wider. Twisters also should bounce off walls if collided on ~15 degrees angle. With these changes Twister might get some use.
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Tornado - a programmer which created pathfinding for the skill should be immediately fired. While its damage is really good, reach is good enough, Tornado is so inconvenient to use I seriously think of respeccing into fire branch. No other skill in game is capable of diverting almost 90 degrees of intended way - and no, aiming behind an enemy is not an option due to line of sight issue. Its path should be something like this
i.stack.imgur.com/uIst0.jpg, 2 on the X axis means outer radius of Hurricane. The last improvement for it is bouncing off walls when hit on low angle, just like Twister and Molten Boulder. Another much appreciated change would be increase AoE of the Tornado, that’s way it’ll become more potent against dense pack of enemies, while shotgunning Twister would be a bosskiller, or area carpet bombardment. With these changes both skills will finally get their distinct tactical usage. - Elemental tree evidently lacks of lightning branch, but designing 5-6 lightning skills is a bit too much work. Let Blizzard guys deserve their payment.
How these changes would improve druid class
Summoners will get options:
- Go pure summoning by taking Entangling Vies, Fungal Doom, and Ent Bombardier. These skills also would provide some activity for them meanwhile zoo is killing enemies, and also poison damage source to handle physical immune foes.
- Mix with shapeshifter tree through Boon of Vigor, and investing points into Werewolf or Werebear, or both. Of course, utility stuff that worked, like Werebear’s Shock Wave, will still work, better even thanks to adding crushing blow for Werebear.
- Mix with elemental tree through Boon of Might, adding elemental damage to all summons; preferably fire. That will also be a way to deal with physical immune enemies.
Shapeshifters will be strengthened by deadly strike(wolf) or crushing blow, and finally will get their movement skill. Boons open possibilities for increasing life even more, increase damage(including elemental add-on), or replenish mana and life. Entangling Vines, and Fungal Doom, with 1 point investment could serve as nice utilities to keep annoying runners in place, or deal with corpses. Ent Bombardier might provide long-range fire support while player occupies enemies.
Elementalists would definitely use Boon of Renewal to get mana regeneration without relaying on Insight, at the cost of lower life total. They can use summons as meat shields as it is currently in 2.4, but due to heavy investment in elemental skills, and with even one point in Boon of Might these animals gonna deal some noticeable elemental damage. I think they will also wouldn’t mind to be able to pin enemies in place thanks to Entangling Vines, remove corpses using Fungal Doom, or have a backup physical/poison damage source thanks to the ent. Arctic Blast should become a viable option as main spell, and same for Twisters, increasing diversity of builds.
But there is more - it might arise a completely new build, based on Fungal Doom + Ent Bombardier; try to imagine a build based on current creepers ;].
In multiplayer druids should become very nice supporters thanks to boons(especially mixed with shapeshifting), breaking cold immunities, or Entangling Vines.
That’s all mates, I hope you’ll find it interesting. The numbers in the suggestion are ofc placeholders, as exact values can be determined only through playtesting.