To change the Druid elemental tree so that elemental armor is viable in a fire elemental build would be a grave mistake. This would take the druid in a more defensive direction overall when the issue of needing to go in a more offensive direction is easily more important. I only say more important because of how the Druid currently is with the cold and tornado build. The tornado build is possibly over defensive but that wouldn’t even be the primary problem. The priority problem is that tornado is a disgrace to all the weapon based physical damage characters in the game who have to work hard to build up their physical damage where as with the druid the pure physical damage of tornado is skill based.
Tornado disgraces those weapon based physical damage characters especially when reapers toll is put on an act 2 merc. The physical weapon attacker is working really hard to get deadly strike and ethereal to work in tandem with decrep’s 50% physical resistance reduction of enemies but the Druid is receiving all benefit immediately because he only has to worry about skills with no worry about deadly strike.
Further more… with the druid elemental philosophy it can be stated that his damage is close range on top of close range. This is particularly true when you consider Armageddon with hurricane. But then when considering a Hero like the Trap Assassin you would identify that as long range on top of long range. Cast range of trap on top of trap’s attack range.
It’s a pure no brainer that druid elemental damage should be doing another level of damage output beyond assassin traps because of close range direction vs long range direction, yet, here we are apparently stepping in a defensive direction with the elemental druid. The step in the offensive direction that includes cold skills would sure as hell warrant a change of tornado to half cold damage and half physical.
Gotta stop failing to consult the spectrum. Left to right is greatest defensive to greatest offensive output.
https://ibb.co/5RpxbQQ
Even more accurately, the corners of the spectrum…
https://ibb.co/SBjPzsX
And it’s tricky because the accuracy of those corners is up for debate considering that hero 8.5 is not a balance to the spectrum, so if that hero is omitted then the squaring of the spectrum ends up as Barbarian, Sorceress, and Javazon on one side with Bowazon on the other.
This is accurate most likely for sure because we know that the diablo 1 trinity was Warrior, Rogue, and Mage
Hurricane is cold damage. You really don’t want nado to do cold, unless you’re goal is to ruin pvp.
Armageddon is fire damage but that didn’t stop volcano from being half fire and half physical.
Slam Dunked.
Even more visually significant, the 3 trinities of Diablo 2
https://ibb.co/8YnsvGW
No wonder the Assassin is the Dual Wielding Elementalist
Now that the truth of the spectrum is on the table the question becomes “is the druid as offensive as he should be with elemental skills” not “how can we merge the tree together to make fire skills defensively viable”
why?? windy druid already has a source of cold damage in hurricane… whats the issue here… this would just be a nerf, would be interesting if it added a “slow” effect like the arachnid web trails but again it doesn’t exactly need a “buff” if u are going to buff druid i suggest starting by addressing bugs in feral rage and fury making them much weaker than they should be, wind druid is like the only actually viable druid… he isn’t the one that needs help…
What you’re saying is that the summon druid and the fire druid are inadequate. An argument could be made that there aren’t enough skill points for the summon druid to be viable. If we already know that the bonus skill points to summons are enhancing the other summons then imagine what 20 more skill points with a lvl 119 cap would do. Take the grizzly bear skill for example. It enhances the damage output of itself and wolves by a percentage with more base skills added and bonus skills count. With a lvl 119 cap you could do Wolverine, Swolf, Dwolf, Gbear, and then divide the rest between lycanthropy and feral rage or lycanthropy and fury. By proportion sense you could even max either of those attack skills before dumping the rest in to lycanthropy because you have meat shield wolves.
Then the pure fire elemental druid. Obviously wouldn’t waste skills getting to Armageddon
but with a lvl 119 cap you could max lycanthropy and fire claws also. If a 1 pointed carrion vine made an actual significant difference then there would be enough here to behold a viably balanced hero.
Even with these points made, changing tornado to half cold damage would not be a nerf because it might require more cold damage to proportion out. I believe there could be a lacking sense of mastery with the elemental druid.
Maybe that mastery could be that Armageddon and Hurricane should be merged as one skill and the skill should be called cataclysm mastery… Why would you shift sideways in a skill tree at level 30 from hurricane to Armageddon?
Maybe they are currently rearranging the elemental skill tree the wrong way!? What are they fooling around with at the cost of the player experience for 2.4!?
it seems that tornado was pure physical damage to prevent the druid from becoming an elemental purist like the sorceress. But hello? Tornado shames the weapon wielders of warriors and you can still become impure by merging the level 30 skills in to cataclysm mastery.
Come on people, I’m tired of this nonsense… let’s do this right.
Cataclysm Mastery? OF COURSE! what other pair of skills in the game side step from one skill in to the other from any other character? Skeleton in to Skeleton Mastery
Now tell me this… who knew that side stepping in the skill tree was actually governed by the mastery rule?
Tell me of the Diablo experts who knew of this…
At least we know that there is a problem to solve here and it will be very easy to tell if they have solved it or not