So in the recent Dev livestream we heard about updates forthcoming to the summoning Druid. I know these are already in the works, but as someone who has played a high level Summon Druid I wanted to provide some feedback on issues and corrections I see.
Improve SWolf, DWolf, and bear AI: When ran side by side, it is quite apparent that the Necro’s Skeleton’s AI is far more advanced and reactive than the Druid’s pet AI. Skeletons begin moving as soon as the necro does and will quickly run to targets barely on screen. Wolves and Bear should function identically to this. This alone would make Druid pets far more useful.
Make SWolves actually able to teleport: Their skill description literally says they can teleort - yet they never do except when you run too far from them (which isn’t a feature since ALL pets do that). Give them a combat teleport like the Shadow Master’s Dragon Flight. This would greatly help on target acquisition, which is one of the main issues facing Druid pets. Have the teleport attack be the SWolves primary attack - if they aren’t in melee range, they teleport. This gives them a lot of utility.
Give variety to Summon damage types: Currently, all pets do physical damage. The dev stream mentioned giving SWolves cold damage type, which is a good start. DWolves should also get the magic damage type, or at least 50% of damage as magic. This is not OP because Hammerdins already do insane magic damage and Necro’s have Amp Damage to negate physical immunes. Giving DWolves magic damage type helps Summon Druids be able to deal with phys immunes. Leave bear as physical damage. This then gives Summon Druids Cold, Magic, and Physical, which should allow them to deal with most immunes tactically.
Expand on DWolves “Eating a corpse”: For starters, show us the math of what this actually does - then make them do it often (perhaps as more of a counter vs those enemies that can revive and/or use corpse explosion). Perhaps this is how DWolves deal magic damage? Or Make eating a corpse fully heal the wolf. Or make eating the corpse cast a low-grade corpse explosion from it. Make it a useful feature!
Increase Pet Quantity: Necros will have 14-15 skeleton warriors at endgame - Druids get 5 wolves at most. The easiest fix for this is to have SWolf quantity advance at the same rate as Skeletons - 1 per lvl until 3rd, then 1 every 3rd level after that. This would be fair. DWolves could advance similarly, though probably on the 4th or 5th level. Bear would remain single, or advance at a rate of 1 per 10 levels. Another option would be to allow having 5 SWolves, 3 DWolves, AND the Bear, for a total of 9 pets. This would be the coolest option as then we could have a whole pack and an awesome bear.
Grant +Resistances per Level: Have each level of SWolf or DWolf grant +2/3 resist all to SWolves, DWolves, and the bear. This would help wolves survive against elemental attacks - very important for Hell!
Make summons target the creature you select when summoning them: I’m not sure if D2R AI and mechanics allow this, but if I could select a boss and then summon 5 SWolves and they would stay focused on that boss that would REALLY increase the utility of pets. This would be useful for ravens as well.
Make worms more durable: I can’t remember the last time I used a worm - they are far to fragile. It’s rather ironic, the worm stays underground most of the time yet a creature can come and swing at the air over the worm and kill it. Makes total sense. Simply make worms immune to most damage except for maybe cold, lightning, and poison.
Make Worms help the party: Have Carrion vine restore 4% of all party member’s life, not just 2% of the Druid’s life. Or at minimum have it restore the life of your pets and merc as well. Make the Solar Creeper restore a substantial amount of mana to the party as a way to negate the need for Insight. Make Poison creeper slow as well and leave behind a poisoned area after it poisons a target.
Make Ravens more deadly over short duration: Increase Raven damage and make it synergize with Bear damage bonus. Reduce the amount of “hits” and increase the damage per hit appropriately, by ratio. Have ravens always do a flat 10 hits perhaps, but now they’re hitting for several hundred at max synergized level instead of a measly 35. Make them to where a summon druid will be recasting them regularly almost like an active combat spell.
I will update this list as I think of more/as more are suggested below.
I like this option and have advocated for it, some mods have even implemented it and I’m pretty sure it was well received. The only thing I would say to avoid if they do ever go this route is not allowing a full on Elemental/Wind druid from having all the summons out with only 1 hard point investment (along with all their +skills). I think that might be a bit too much powercreep for wind druids if they allowed that. Instead, I think they should make it a synergy that is gained at 10 or 20 hard skill points where the summon can remain out regardless. So 10 or 20 hard skill points in spirit wolves, spirit wolves can always stay out, even if you have a grizzly summoned. Same with dire wolves, 10 or 20 hard skill points, they can always stay out. I guess this would mean you only need to get 10 or 20 hard skill points in 2 of the 3 summoning skills, to have the 9 total pets, but any real or true druid summoner build would put 20 into spirit wolves, dire wolves, and grizzly anyway, so.
if you allow every druid to have all his pets out it would buff windy druid a lot. Maybe connect it to 20 points invested in one of the non sage summon skills to activate this, to prevent buffing the already top tier windy druid.
Honestly the wolves/Dires should be usable together. The spirits could be consolidated down to one spirit, a totem (bloodlust?) and maybe some tree like creature that provides thorns this way you could slap minor versions of the spirits buff on one spirit and the other two new summons could have different functionality (Whatever that might look like)
the spirits are WAAAY too fragile and are honestly not worth taking most of the time in conjunction with one another. Early game its hard to make use of them because they just float into the middle of a blob and die.
Bear should have two at level 20 , dires should life leech on hit, when they devour corpses their frenzy should make the life leech scale higher.
The worms also could be consolidated, because like stated above for the squish they have they offer little to nothing and are not worth taking beyond act 1 in normal and even then its eh at best.
On the fly so no real attempt to even balance, just a direction I would like, balancing damage, health etc needs to be done.
Allow all summons to be active at the same time, including the Creepers/Vine.
Give all summons a Mana Pool.
Raven becomes permanent and gets bonus from the wolves/bear.
Raven also gets HP, hit box etc (make it real summons).
Raven gives bonus to wolves/bear (thinking movement and/or attack speed).
Raven gains couge attack costing mana and causing blind (normal attack, only change is blind and mana cost)
Max Ravens 7.
Spirit Wolf
Teleports to monster nearest to the druid and attacks that monster when switching targets. Teleport costs mana.
Dire Wolf
Eating a corpse triggers enrage.
When Enraged the Dire wolf deals more damage, but loses X mana per second, Enrage is lost when manacost cannot be payed or no targets are visible.
Will not eat corpses when Enraged or no visible targets are near.
Grizzly
Gains special attack Maul, basically like the skill Maul and this costs mana.
Poison Creeper
Gains bonus from all pets and gives bonus to all pets; Pets deal X poison damage over X (Venom like, less damage ofcourse, affected by the damage bonus from Grizzly).
Don’t change the remove present effect, just rebalance as needed.
(on the sides, synenergize with and from Rabies)
Carrion Vine
Gains bonus from all pets and gives bonus to all pets; Pets heal X health when Carrion Vine eats a Corpse.
Eats max of 1 corpse per X seconds.
Don’t change the remove present effect, just rebalance as needed.
Solar Creeper
Carrion Vine
Gains bonus from all pets and gives bonus to all pets; Pets restore X mana when Solar Creeper eats a Corpse.
Eats max of 1 corpse per X second.
Don’t change the remove present effect, just rebalance as needed.
True. The Summoner needs to be an 80 point build for optimum. It wouldn’t hurt for other builds to be able to benefit slightly from better pets, but they should really shine when you focus on them. Allowing pets to become additional summons at level 20 hard points makes sense.
Oak Sage and Heart of Wolverine are both useful, but exclusively. It’s never worth maxing both. Oak for tanking, Heart of Wolverine for DPS. Depends on the build. The AI definitely needs to be improved upon and they need to be given resists. Let’s be honest, no one ever uses Spirit of Barbs and I doubt changing thorns will change that.