So, with the summoner druid becoming more popular by the day, more and more players have been tossing out ideas for this or that. Even had a few discussions about adding some fire damage to the ravens.
However, in a blast of inspiration I thought instead of fire why not LIGHTNING RAVENS. SO, hear me out. SO, lore wise odins the god that uses ravens and is a god of thunder and lightning. Right now there is no lightning damage available thru skills to a summoner druid. If the ravens did lightning it would be better than just physical and would stay with lore and would help boost the druid the little bit he could use to be at his best.
some confusion lies in which iteration of Odin were talking about. There are Norse, Germanic and other versions. Also, versions in different video games like final fantasy. In some he does have lightning. in fact he is a lightning based “eidolon”. But yea Thor is more commonly associated with lightning. Thor doesn’t have the crows though. Yes they didn’t do magical damage but could easily have them do it in sanctuary.
Well, I have a better idea for all Druid’s summons, not just Ravens. It is just a draft, rather early one, finally it’ll be something like Improvements for necromancer
Summoning tree improvements
The tree shall be renamed to Summoning and Boons.
Boons mechanically will be something like curses, but cast on friendly characters. Boons and curses are not mutually exclusive.
Boons shall replace Spirit summons.
There will be Boon of Vigor instead of Oak Sage, Boon of Might instead of Heart of Wolverine(the boon will increase ALL attack damage dealt by summons, you, and allies, not only physical), haven’t figured out with what to replace Spirit of Barbs.
Boon of Might could have a synergy with Armageddon and Hurricane - 5% of base damage as additional fire/cold damage respectively. Example - bear deals 500 physical damage, with the boon, assuming 20 points in Armageddon, it’ll deal 500 physical + 500 fire damage.
Boon of Vigor synergies could be Werewolf for extra move and attack speed, or Werebear for damage reduction.
Other concept is to keep Spirits, but make them immune to elemental damage, and Vines immune to physical damage. Although conceptually Vines suck, and I’d like to see them replaced by something better designed.
Ravens Dim Vision 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)
Knockback of Grizzly SUCKS hard, I’d replace it with crushing blow(better), or stun.
Dire Wolf should be given chance to open wounds.
Damage type of Spirit Wolf should be magic, maybe revert back to physical, but not cold. It also should slow attacked enemy.
Even in this unfinished state the improvement shall open interesting options:
Boon of Might + Armageddon/Hurricane will help against physical immune enemies, and will increase overall damage.
Boon of Vigor + Werewolf will give extra mobility, while Werebear will make your summons(and you) tankier. I also see interesting twists for shapeshifters using Boon of Vigor - Werewolf will be faster while Werebear will be tougher, all that fits them thematically.
Ravens could be used with Amplify Damage, or Decrepify, and not spoiling them.
Extra crushing blow from bear, opening wounds from wolves, along with Boon of Might should help with damage output against tougher enemies.
How do you like it mates? Should I develop the idea further?
the boon of might part is pretty good but not feeling it mixing with armageddon or hurricane, rather more a boost that gives extra damage and a type of elemental damage depending on which summon. so ravens lightning, wolves cold, dire wolves poison, bear fire.
if the raven went elemental damage it should loose the blinding ability. possibly have the vines do magical damage.
vigor sounded pretty solid, the speed for werewolf and more defense and hp for bear.
boon of reflection could be the third. it should have physical damage reflected back at equal to thorns or better return. However it should also grant 5% chance to reflect magical or arrows/ranged attacks.
these would be my suggestions based on what prototypes you have presented
The boon concept is neat. The problem with pure summoner is that it is already very skill hungry. You need 81 points just to get all 4 main summons up. If you want to use HoW, vines or shapeshifting, you will need more. It is unlikely to have enough points to max, say, Armageddon, for the boon. And then how many points for the boon itself? This concept can be developed further.
I also like the idea that bear gains CB and loses KB, and DW gains OW. The new summoner is already quite a strong build, with incredible safety. He does have troubles with act bosses due to damage reduction. I think the bear with CB will solve this issue.
As to ravens doing lightning damage (or fire or magic), that’s a third innate damage type for a single build. I think that may be too good. The SW are already doing cold damage. It is balanced because the cold damage is quite low. You gain a weak second damage type by investing 20 points. However the ravens now are the biggest guns of the summoner. Making it a third damage type will simply make the game way too easy.
would be similar to say vengeance. its a single skill for paladins and does all the elemental damages. So a raven losing the blind to become a “storm crow” and get lightning is plenty with in reason. so to expand.
if you were hybrid say wind or fire or even shapeshift the crows would blind. However with say full synergy (60+ points) they become storm crows
Vengeance is very mana intensive. It is an underused skill despite of doing 4 damage types from 1 single skill for a good reason. The ravens are different. They are very accessible.
A more comparable build would be the MA assassin. But that’s a very glass canon build. The summoner druid on the other hand, is very safe.
not sure i follow you on that? veng starts at 4 mana ravens start at 6. veng can have mana drain on hit (gear) to keep it flowing ravens you have to drink pots.
also with classes like “Supadin” a.k.a. paladin the one who conquers all we can stand to be more creative in bringing the other classes to their full potential such as druid,assassin,barbs
Yes, vengeance starts at 4 mana per cast. But the cost goes up with level. At level 20 it is 8.7 mana per cast. That is a lot for a non magic class. The mana drain may not be enough, as vengeance does not have +% to physical damage.
Of course, I am only talking about the skills themselves. With high end gears pretty much everything works.
I am okay with giving the weak classes a hand, just as I was pushing to have all druid summons active before 2.4 was announced. But too much buffing will take the challenges out of the game.
right i Understand that. The elemental damage is ADDED to each successful attack. So, you hit something with a base attack of 100 lets say, at only 7% mana drain that’s 7 mana per successful atk, thereby refueling the mana spent to initiate the attack
Aka, outside of spirit owlves which should do pure magic, the others could do physical damage and as I mentioned, bear casting fire claws for fire damage, or having straight up physical / fire.
Besides Huginn and Muninn were “ordinary” crows, with no lightning, or other elemental enchantments.