Yes, I am very curious about this too. Not on PTR right now, but should be fairly easy to test how Raven synergy operates.
Respec skills, put on gear with +1 or more all skills, put a point into Raven and note the damage value, then put a single point in Spirit Wolf. If damage goes up by only 12%, we know Raven doesn’t benefit from “soft” synergies, but if damage goes up by more than 12%, then it does benefit.
The better way to test this is to prepare a +X to spirit wolf/firewood/bear helmet and check the difference in raven’s damage when you equip that helm. If soft synergy is active, raven should deal more damage even from the +skill helm. If raven does not increase the damage then soft synergy is not active.
The reason for the test is to not touch the level difference of raven as raven would also increase it’s own damage with skill up.
What you said is true. But it shouldn’t matter which build is x times stronger than your build. After all many of us just play for fun.
I have tried pure summoner druid many times over the years (HC, self found), only to remember why I gave up in the first place. I never made it pass Hell Act 2. At some point your summons simply cannot handle it anymore, like when you run into the maggots and the mummies. They spawn faster than your summons and merc can kill. Your vine don’t move that fast when a target is killed before it’s revived again. Your ravens can blind, but there are champion packs and boss packs everywhere.
The only time I made it to hell Baal was when I tried a mod that allowed all wolves with the grizzly together (and I died to Baal because I ran of out potions). It was then obvious to me that to make a pure summoner druid viable, more summons were needed. And no, even that, they still didn’t amount enough damage before my druid was killed with hoarded potions stuck out of his noses.
In my mind, a druid is a summoner, just like a sorceress throws lightning/fire balls and an amazon uses a bow. Unfortunately a pure summoner is the least viable path of the druid in the current situation.
I just tested and unfortunately, I was wrong. Equipped a +1 Dire wolves pelt does not increase the damage of Raven. Sorry for the misinformation. I guess for now it’s like other trees, for example elemental trees. Then we need to buff it to benefit from soft point, too!
The problem is, for Summon Druid, there was NO viable build if we don’t use mod, just as your experience proved. This tree is too weak that it does not even pass the game till Baal, does it? It means it’s TOO weak. I don’t want to outplay nec summon, I want druid summon to be viable to pass the game, and do a little bit of other things, at least at the half of efficiency of nec summon. Now with PTR 2.4 it’s better, but does not reach the level yet.
I was just trying to uber with Raven and ofc, Raven alone could not kill even the easiest Duriel without Merc doing CB. (With A2 merc CB+OW I can kill Duriel/Lilith/Izual, but dies at Mephisto). When Duriel stays poisoned and my AD curse + Raven + Grizzly all present, even without merc I got 50% HP down fast, but then it generates back to 100%. The poison creeper seems bugged and does not actively attack Duriel, or its threat is too high as Duriel keeps killing it.
I agree with you.
The summon tree as right now is beyond weak. Simply changing SWolves to do cold damage is a plus, but not enough. The new ravens may be able to carry the game to hell Baal, but 5 birds dishing out over 80% of all your damage while your wolves or bear can hardly tank is something very puzzling to me.
I will give it a try when the patch comes out. I will always give the summon druid a try no matter what. It’s always on my wish list.
Yeah, that seems to be the case I have always seen too. After the poison run out, the poison creeper doesn’t reapply. I can’t remember if resummoning the creeper on top of the target solves this issue. It’s been a while since I used the creeper.
No, it does not. It seems like it fears the enemy and does not want to approach…
Nah…the whole reason they throw in soft synergy for wolf and bear was to compensate the non-existing summon mastery.
And raven doesn’t really need that based on how it performed right now
Thank you for confirming. This is disappointing, but we can now provide better feedback to the devs since we understand the current mechanics.
Summon druid needs more juice for sure. Would love to see removal of blind and a faster attack rate for them, and also allow wolf and bear to be active at once.
How do the Ravens attacks function with tele stomping? When they are just out flying around they have a very slow attack speed of 28 frames to complete their animation, can this be somewhat mitigated by teleporting your character onto a monster?
Does telestomping force them to all engage immediately with faster frames for one attack? Similar to how it works with a mercenary?
I think maybe the first peck works, but without enigma how can we teleport around like, once per second? Even the enigma test I did is like endgame level. You will need to stand still for some moment. If we can teleport all the way, we can literally stay invincible right? As no one will be able to catch us.
After talking with other testers, I definitely think the Ravens need an attack speed increase to shorten their animations. They have better ai than before, but still take forever to complete each attack.