This is a pretty big nerf to feral rage and Furry Druid and SS Druid. Furry heals on those hits, and now the amount of hits are reduced with lower IAS.
Include Dracul’s Grasp and this is a big problem. Endgame Fury needed those fast hits to survive.
1 Like
Sounds like druid shapeshifting needs some quality of life changes. Make wolf/bear attack speed separate from human form. Fury needs to be uninterruptable. Need to improve survivability. A gap closer would be nice like making it so all attacks have a lunge that moves you quickly towards a target. Maybe shake tree a bit and let druids dual wield weapons.
Leveling my Fury wolf right now thru hell without most of the optimal gear and it is hard, harder then my paladin or sorc at least. I hope their intention is that they want to break the need for the best stuff and bring all specs of druid up to par with the rest. Druid was my first toon and I ended up getting stuck in hell from a combination of bad spec and general mechanic fails.
My necro which I leveled after giving up on my druid went through hell like it was nothing special. This is the mountain blizzard better be prepared to climb over fixing druids to work correctly. A fresh just collecting whatever you find along the way necro out performs a druid similarly geared in every way currecntly on live. You have to outgear your competition greatly to keep ahead of the curve and its not simple or fast to get this gear yourself unless you are hacking offline or buying your way to victory.
3 Likes
Others have already replied but you are way way behind all the tests that have already been done.
We would not complain before we did the tests.
But as plenty of us have played the game for decades we knew what the changes would mean the second they changed the base speed to that of the human druid.
The effect of the change is something the devs should have seen directly on paper already.
When basic facts counter your little rant its easy to ignore.
Tengakus tests alone show how much they messed up the speed.
2 Likes
Human druid base speed is 19 frames and were forms used to be 13 frames that is what they messed up when they changed were forms to the human form druids base frame of 19 frames.
This is a change where you can see the effect directly on paper without needing to test it in the game for a single second.
not to mention base speed frames for 2 handed weapons was different between human druid form and transformed were form before as well so its even worst there.
I am far to jaded to think devs that didnt even catch that different will ever make the were forms reach their old fastest breakpoint ever again.
I would want to be proven wrong but vague promises to look at something without looking at the ias formula dont exactly give me confidence in the developers.
2 Likes
Based on the changes they are trying to make to druid they don’t understand the importance of unique wereform frames. Or the worse option, they know the importance but don’t care because they want to make the game more digestible for new inexperienced players. A game that’s been out for 20 years. If they elect to appease low level noobs and prioritize early gameplay over end game viability then D2R is dead to me and might as well be D3 2.0.
4 Likes
Come on Blizzard, you ought to know by now that this crap doesn’t work.
Wake up and revert it or update your “quirky”
forum post.
This destroys the Druid and it’s unbearable 
4 Likes
Hi Everyone.
My favorite class to play was a hybrid WW druid, using armageddon as an “AoE” damage source.
I’m no expert here, but the hybrid Druid using a SS was already pretty weak, I’ve played almost every other class through hell difficulty, and this one was, without discussion, the worst. (still my favorite, though).
I was thrilled when I heard that now it is possible to cast hurricane while in WW and WB form as armageddon damage output was sound but random and inconsistent still the total damage output of hurricane is too low IMO.
These IAS changes make it even worst, but there is also another thing that also needs an immediate solution:
-Warcries Buff while in WW or WB form (and ideally also Teleport). There is nothing more annoying than having to go back to normal form and lose your charges to get these buffs.
And my recommendations to the viability of SS and hybrid builds:
-Summoned Spirits need a life boost
-SS skill three needs a damage output adjust.
-SS skill three needs a rework (lycanthropy effects should be included into the WB o WW skill, freeing some skill points while granting full life).
-Damage output of hurricane needs a boost.
-End Elemental skill tree skills (Armageddon and hurricane) require too many synergy skill points to be viable.
Tl;dr: IAS needs a rework. Other class buffs need to be cast while in WW and WB.
2 Likes
….again:
They already said that they will further improve shapeshifting. They know it is nerfed right now.
What the…
1 Like
nope, they double down on their decision stating it is good and it is us, the player’s fault for not understanding what they are trying to do, and recommend us to try different weapons.
in which, I introduce
Zeal Druid, it’s even more viable than fury wolf at the current setting
because
- It is a different weapon of choice as the dev have suggested
- It has 6F attacking speed, which is 3F faster than current fury
- It is uninterruptable, fury is interruptable
- It can teleport, poor fury wolf can’t even get passive faster run/walk
- It can use whatever elemental skill it wants to, make him the true “son of nature” compare to furywolf
3 Likes
I have the simplest solution.
Problem: Blizzard wants to make the very early game weapon speed experience better for new players doing the first few acts of Normal. This is why they thought “unifying” attack speeds with the human form would be a good idea. But this is at the expense of end game viability as speeds are too slow for end game content.
Solution: Change the ias start point for the werewolf skill from 20% for level 1 to to equal the current level 6 ias of 48%
This makes a 0 speed (normal speed) weapon standard attack 18 frames in both human and werewolf form without any initial slowdowns in speed from shifting. Then reduce the per level ias increase to 2% so that the skill maxes out roughly the same.
And for the werebear form you simply make hard points in werewolf synergize werebear. Werebear has been in dire need of attack rating and ias bonuses since its inception. This will fix both the early and end game viability of werebear as well.
4 Likes
bear and druid will be CAPPED at 10 frame attack with their current changes. You will only need 11 IAS (anywhere on character) to max out, you CANT get faster than that because you’re starting with a 23 frame human attack swing table.
1 Like
Damn do i have to drag in all the videos Tengaku posted in the various threads so you can use your eyes?
or should i provide a direct link to a interactive character planner where you can see every single damn weapons breakpoints on a were druid in 2.3?
Because you dont seem to understand the community you are adressing.
The diablo 2 community has always tested builds and digged deep into the calculations that drive the game.
This here:
We would like to encourage PTR players to experiment with different weapon choices for their Werewolf and Werebear forms.
Is laughable from a CM.
If a base -30 weapon on handed weapon with 100%ias cant reach the damn breakpoints no other slower weapon can.
same with tests using 2 handed weapons.
same with cranking up off hand ias just for the hell of it(the werewolf skill stops that directly anyway)
That is pure math.
Again this part:
We will be looking at ways to improve the performance of the transformed Druid without sacrificing the benefits obtained from unifying the attack speed calculations.
Does in no way equal that the frames per attack will ever reach the highest speeds at 4fpa.
Ways to improve the performance could very well be a uninterrupted attack or built in DR.
You are free to be as optimistic as you please.
I cant speak for others but i am far to jaded to think the devs that is taking over after the original devs that are long gone from blizzard will even think of approaching the game in the same way.
You can call it old fashioned if you want but vague promises of looking at something are meaningless to me.
I go after raw data and how it actually perform and in this current state its clearly a huge nerf.
“Future improve shapeshifting” can be spun in a million different directions without ever fixing the ias speed issue.
It remains to be seen what they actually do if anything at all.
Its not like they ever let skills rot away for years upon end before. oh no that has never happened.
And that was long before the current dev team
1 Like
It looks like a lot of people have not seen the redit thread where Pez addresses some of the anger. Still being insufferably vague, but they are saying they will address it within the 2.4 PTR. https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/sddg5o/werewolf_and_werebear_attack_speed_changes/
That being said, if you are going to roll out a change that breaks the class this badly then PLEASE have more to say then “Trust us, we’ll get to it”. We understand that PTR testing is an iterative process, but the attach speed changes are too broken to even test. Far better would have been to do nothing until you have the complete changes ready to go. Shapeshifting builds need much more help than just fixing a wonky piece of math, so please just let us know what the plan is or roll out those changes soon!
1） they shouldn’t have calling ppl “confused” and claim that it is us the player’s fault for not testing out different weapons and then proceed to saying that “we are not reading the last few lines”. They made the changes, we have them the feedback, then they make a blue post accusing us for not testing things out and not understanding what their intention is.
- even if that’s the case why won’t they have the gut to response here, but have to run to reddit for the responses? It’s alreadya bit too late by the time they try to “explain” more changes are to come. They should have just said “hey, we hear your feedback and we are looking at how to make it better” not “we believe that you are confused to the changes, you guys don’t know what we trying to do and you guys have not test out all the different weapons, it isn’t our intention to destroy as{oh so it is player’s fault then?}. We will try to make changes while keeping what has done now {so you still think you are right, you just try to cover your butt by adding that line to make you look like you care}”
We are not confused, we know exactly wtf blizzard has done to ss druid
1 Like
I think it’s just a numbers problem. They could just slap some IAS on the base form and bring it right back to where it was outside of extreme cases.
The main problem is that blizzard doesn’t seem to realize that melee chars are underpowered to start with.
They need:
- a source of cannot be frozen → one less item slot and low item variability (cnbf is a rare stat)
- massive ar → at least one less item slot (most likely two for the angelic combo)
- massive life → lower damage since strength only won’t work (especially in hc)
- massive attack speed → rules out 90 % of the weapons in the game (that don’t have weapon ias)
They don’t have:
- area damage → slow clear speed
- access to teleport → eni is not an option since forti needs to be worn by physical melee chars (otherwise damage too low → low clear speed again)
So until Blizzard recognizes this problem and does something about it, the shapeshifter ias concerns are comprehensible but only one more drop in the ocean of messed up melee. It would be easy to do something about it. Here is just a minor selection of ideas:
- make cnbf a random attribute that can also be found on rares/crafted, etc.
- dramatically increase the damage of ALL melee skills
- reduce the ratio between needed ar and mob def/level that results in a hit
- …
Thanks!
3 Likes
For Druid SS, I tend to think the need for area damage and teleport are overblown. I’m fine with them being single target beasts. But they do need a mobility buff, and I think we are seeing some interesting ways to get it.
I think both SS forms need a big baseline movement speed buff, something like +20% on the bear or WW skill, or maybe tie it to lycanthropy. The charge ups should last way longer. Also, if the changes to Blaze go well, adding infernostride to SS could be a cool piece. Add it up and SS Druid should be screaming across the map.
If we get this kind of running mobility and some of the other changes people have suggested, SS Druid could be a legit build without just making it like pally (If they fix attack speed).
Edit: Reduced collision when in bear or wolf might be sweet too
2 Likes
Do they know it’s nerfed right now? I’d like to see where they acknowledged it. In their now-deleted statement, they explicitly called this a “beneficial” change and blamed the player base for not understanding how to take full advantage of it because we had yet to “explore” different weapon choices. Also, they have now deleted that statement, leaving the player base even further in the dark than before.
2 Likes
The post still exist, if you go to blizz tracker you can see that still, I think they may have just unpinned it
1 Like
Nonsense. They aren’t useless. They occupy space in the shape shifting tab so it can look like Druids also have 3 skill tabs to choose from.
If they want to simplify the equation, fine. But they really need to dump that back into the build some how.
Blizzard, you’re nerfing the wrong stuff. :-/