Hi, I hope you will take the time to watch this gameplay of a personal mod I’ve made. The reason I took the time to make a mod, is so I could better communicate some of the visions I have for the Shapeshift Druid. This is just an quick attempt with rough skill values, I also had to record the gameplay multiple times because I have been awake for too many hours making this mod.
I will sleep now and answer any questions you may have, when I wake up.
ADDED - Important changes to notice:
Werebear.
Now has synergy with Hunger, gains “lifesteal %”. (3% + 1% per 8 lvl)
Maul.
Now has “- To Monster Defense Per Hit” instead of stun. Fit’s the theme of clawing deeper into your enemies and helps with AR. ( -5 x maximum number of charges)
Shock Wave.
Now has 1.4sec cooldown.
Reduced stun duration, to funtion more as a “mini-stun”.
Now always hits.
Now does “% of your weapon damage”, meaning it can now use damage mods and trigger skills effects.
Removed Maul synergy, since it will now benefit from damage mods instead(ed%, crit, etc).
Increased flat Phys damage to improve reliable damage increase per lvl invested.
Has 75% chance of knocking back on hit, this allows SW to hit multiple times per wave if Knock is triggered. Intended to make SW greatly against lesser monsters for aoe clear but weaker against stun immune/big/boss monsters. In these situations Maul or Fire Claw will still be better.
Fire Claw.
Now has “Physical to Fire damage conversion %”, (3 + 2xlvl).
Removed synergies, since it will now benefit from damage mods instead(ed%, crit, etc).
Increased flat Fire damage to improve reliable damage increase per lvl invested.
Hunger.
Is now a buff skill.
Eat a delicious corpse to Regenerate % of maximum life per sec, for a duration.
Also gives Stamina Recovery Bonus % during this time.
Offers passive lifesteal to both Wereforms through synergy.
Skill is meant as a way to better sustain HP while fighting leech immune monsters.
I don’t understand what skills you’ve changed, or how you’ve changed them… But the twisters look really cool!
It would be very cool if some of the elemental skills synergized with the shapeshifting skills…
For example Fissure/Molten Boulder/Volcano and Tornado/Twister could synergize with Maul and Fury… Each point in those elemental skills could add a “chance to cast” synergy for that skill… So for example, a 20-pt twister might add 10-20% chance to cast twister while attacking with Maul… Very, very cool…
This would help solve the problem of fireclaw, because how the hell is a SS druid going to use Firestorm or Molten Boulder when they are shapeshifted? But if those skills added a “chance to cast” effect, investing points in those skills would be much more worth while, and hybrid Elemental-Shapeshifters would be more viable…
You probably have good ideas too, so when you wake up, please type them out and explain them because I don’t understand your video very well (other than the attacks look cool!)
Ah nice, I understand better now… Need to think, these are complex changes…
I think first reading those, the thing I really like is the changes to shockwave… Even in the PTR, the damage it does is negligible, and even though the animation is fast and the frames are quick, no-one is going to spam it. I like the idea of giving it a cooldown and making it a much more powerful opening attack… It looks comical when players stand there spamming shockwave, and it’s a really weak, low damage attack - which does not mke sense because the bear is literally hitting the ground with so much force that it stuns the enemies… does not make sense why something that can stun an enemy for 13 seconds deals virtually zero damage… If something if going to knock me out for 13 seconds, I’d assume it’s going to hit me bloody hard!
Very nice change… Others I need to think and understand…
This one is a big change… My favorite character is fire druid, and I’ve been trying to think of hybrid builds where you cast armageddon, volcano, then turn into a bear to maul them with fireclaw, then stun them with shockwave, then turn into a human and roast them with fire spells while they are stunned…
These changes would break that build or change it very drastically… I think it’s not a good idea to remove the fire skill synergies…
What I would very much like to suggest is that the Devs should change the fireclaw synergies to Armageddon and Volcano, as these are the best fire skills for a SS druid to use as openers/passive AoE spells…
On the other hand, MB and FS will have zero usefullness to a SS druid…
I just don’t think it’s fair to the Shapeshifter players to demand they spend lots of points into Elemental synergies, just to make Fire Claw function properly. The SS skills should benefit from the bonusses given by the other SS skills which isn’t the case right now.
Actually, with my changes you would be allowed to play a very fun build Using Earth Shifter, to trigger Fissure and still having plenty skill points left for synergies or Armageddon. My Shock Wave would allow better chance of proc’ing Fissure making it a more viable to invest in the Trigger skills.
Just look in the video, how well Twisters proc using Windhammer. Now Imagine with the buff Twister got in 2.4 and fully synergized. Because I din’t have that available in my mod, since it was made using the non-ptr patch.
Yeah, windhammer could potentially be a great weapon… Slap 5-10 spare points into arctic blast for the stun synergy with twister, then use the new IAS mechanics to hit higher attack speed… You could potentially stunlock entire mobs with windhammer…
I definitely think PROC-Druids will be a thing going forward - I think it’s better than letting SS druids cast spells, melee attacking should be your main focus and procced spells add theme and light… Yeah would love to test Earthshifter… Doing some rough calcs on Maxroll, each fissure you proc can probably hit about 1k damage? If you can hit fast enough, and proc enough of them (one every second or two) that adds some nice AoE…
I tested Destruction+Phoenix with a fireclaw-Armageddon werewolf and Doom with a hurricane werewolf and they were both really fun and procced a lot of druid spells with high IAS gear like treachery…
The devs definitely need to fix/buff hunger… IT STILL HAS THE MANA LEECH BUG!!
Yeah, your changes to hunger make a lot of sense too, It should be a skill you use every 5 seconds or so on a corpse or a monster to get an instant health boost… Not something you need to bite the enemy constantly…
Shockwave and hunger shouldn’t be skills you need to spam over and over, they should be a secondary skill to your main attacks which should be fireclaw or maul for a werebear or fury or feral rage for a werewolf…
