Druid is in a very bad position this season

Druid
1
  • Our DPS are pathetic compared to other classes.
  • Our malignant ring needs 3 good rolls to be usable: will power %, cooldown %, dmg range which depends on ilvl. And even with all that it also requires anther unique to actually function (Flicker step). And EVEN after all that, it still does worthless damage and two pulls in 5 seconds, which is more than enough for other class to clear the whole room and move on.
  • Our new build (Boulder) has such a big weakness it’s almost worthless: Whenever it comes into contact with suppressor or waller elites, instead of doing zero damage all the boulders just disappear completely. For a build that relies on momentum this kills it completely.
  • X’Fal’s doesn’t work with one of the build/skill that needs it the most: Claw. The tooltips say X’Fal’s has a 50% lhc to proc but in actual test it only proc’d 1 per minute.

Druid is in need of a solid buff/rework. We’re so weak that whenever I run a 4 man every other member just out dps and out run me constantly, despite the fact that my gears and build are all solid. The math just doesn’t do Druid any favor this season which is very odd since before all this Druid has always been solid and well balanced (minus the notorious bulwark bug which overstayed it welcome thanks to Blizzard).

With the upcoming content I don’t know how we can even compete. T100 is easy now and we’re already behind.

4 Likes
2

Hello

I am a fellow druid player as well and has been playing druid all along. Ofcourse, I dont abuse bugged out build such as the previous Bulwark build. Also, I play HC, so low-life and jenkin leroy is not my Stuff

I guess, you can say that I am a common casual player.

So, I have been playing with only 2 styles: Storm Claws, and Pulverize. Now, this season bring in Boulder build as well.

The followings are my inputs

1/ Pulverize: Overpower has been granted an additional vampiric ability to allow druid to guarantee an OP hit. Druid also has their own guarantee OP hits which is no longer overlapping. The new Might aspect, and the overall mechanic is setup so that druid can OP hit every 4 seconds or so. Together with the new amulet, they can pull off a huge damage output of 11-18M single hit.

Yes, while this is nowhere near the capability of Barbarian which hits for 5X as much, it is still very significant in comparison to the previous

2/ Storm Claws: Very hard to get these stuff, considering Tempest and Crane never dropped even previously where the drop rate wasnt nerfed, now it is about 1/3 except if you farm bosses. Depends on your build, you could be an immortal being, moving along the mobs, taking a bit to drop them, but never have to worry about their CC or damages. You can also ditch all the defensive sides of it and go all out DPS. You dont do Million damage but you do hundred thousands and 15-20 hits a seconds or so. You can drop boss pretty quickly. Yeah, you do as much damage as a Rogue

3/ Boulder build: Boulder is bugged, and very limited. You can opt for stormclaw and shapeshifting with nature fury, and cast it infinitely. However, you can only have upto 5 Boulder to rotate around you and not more. The same as Hurricane, where there is no tooltips saying “you can only have X number of hurricane or X of Boulder at once”. In comparison to Ball-Lightning, I have seen Sorc having as much as 8 Balls, surrounding them all, and attacking scaling with their own attack speed

Our Boulder “DOES NOT SCALE with anything we have”, which makes this build a lot more inferior to Ball-lightning

Overall, Druid in my opinions has always been this way, very well balanced, some what limited, if no bugs are abused. I do agree that in this season, Over Powered BARB which was bottom of the list has now moved up top, just below Ball Lightning

Druid, is pretty disappointing at the moment

1 Like
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You’re aware Druid can one shot uber bosses yeah? Pretty behind.

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In order to do that you need gimmick builds which perform miserably on t90+. Even Pulverize, the hardest hitter has trouble with boss, especially in a team run.
Meanwhile other classes can also 1 shot or burn through bosses HP in like 2 secs with builds that can handle all content easily.

2 Likes
5

Oph, it feels like reading how sorcs felt season 1, especially since there was a bug with Ball lightning dispearing when hitting walls. Sounds like the exact same bug on boulder carried over now when spinning/rotating!

6

pretty much. if only it would trigger lucky hit stuff (4% is basically nothing).
couple that with knockback and you know why i switched from boulder to something else.
blizzard really designs D4 only on paper.

1 Like
7

Idk man - I’m playing a Stormclaw variant and its waay stronger than ever before…

The only builds that can keep up or outdo me are the absolutely broken trash HotA Barb or Ball Lightning Sorc and that is strictly because they are broken af.

So, I wouldn’t say Druid is in a bad spot - Druid is by far the best balanced class - which is likely why it seems to be the only class I see different variants being played. (Unlike every Barb = HotA or every Sorc = Ball Ltng, etc).

I don’t want any broken builds at all and I wish Blizz would fix them. Tbh I don’t really understand how playing that trash is even fun. Anyway, that’s my 2 cents :slight_smile:

2 Likes
8

Stormclaw is strong now but it won’t be anymore when the new rifts arrive. Even right now if it falls off hard in any 4 man content be it NMD or Duriel.
Barb, Sorc, Rogue, Nec all can out pace Druid easily.

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Keep in mind you are comparing Druid to builds that are broken af n idk why Blizz is doing nothing about it (unless they are THAT worried about losing players who get mad having their ridiculously OP toys taken away - which is pretty pathetic lol).

So what you want is for Druid to have a broken build as well? Blizz should balance the game around broken builds? Genuinely asking. And I gotta respectfully disagree with you if that is your wish.

Also, I don’t think Druid will have any problems handling the new content, any moreso than the cakewalk that is the current content - just won’t be able to brokenly braindead one-shot or melt everything in 2 seconds is all.

1 Like
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Well the new rifts are going to have the T175 equivalent difficulty plus some bonus debuffs, I’m sure there’s no magic that allows blizzard to be able to balance it around Druid’s current state. Are you aware how tough T175 is going to be at all? Your armor cap is no longer just a mere 13k2, and your stormclaw is not going to even tickle. Nobody wants a broken build, I myself dispited the old Bulwark too. But if none of your builds are gonna function then a massive buff/rework is absolutely necessary.

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Hm. Yeah I see your point. I sure hope Blizz isn’t going to make things end up like how über Lilith was at launch - where the only way to do it was to cheese with broken trash… No way ima do that now any more than I did back then lol.

Guess we gonna hafta wait n see how things pan out.

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What do you mean my “do it”. The new rifts start at level 100 which every class has multiple builds that can do the content. It is designed to test yourself/build and not a competition and also designed to not be able to be done 100% by any class/build. (Although I believe it will be conquered in a couple days by multiple people)

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I mean exactly how it sounds. There will be classes having no trouble clearing probably to or close to the highest tiers, while there are classes struggling with much lower tiers. It’s called terrible balancing. There will also be gauntlet and it is a competition. Everything is going to be a competition in this kind of game.

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Terrible balancing…they’re literally not balancing at all. It’s unbelievable they won’t even fix bugs in a season, hopefully when a leaderboard is added they won’t just sit around doing nothing. Hell, I heard they plan to showcase the new content on a ball lightning sorc…like so they’re admitting the new content you need to run a bugged build to even have a shot.

2 Likes
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Why does it matter? There is no competition between classes. It is a personal challenge to see how far you can get. I would agree if they have a ladder or something with player ratings. Also, there has never been balance in any AROG that has ever existed. There will always be your over performing builds and those that struggle.

We all hope in the future that maybe this small indie company will acquire the resources to at least remove bugged interactions and make sure things work as written.

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I just came back to the game and decided to re-level my Druid in Season 2 now that leveling isn’t a complete chore. I’m honestly amazed that they added yet another aspect for Grizzly Rage while the other Ultimates just languish there. It really feels like they have no clue what to do with skills like Cataclysm or Lacerate.

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I agree with you. I’ve tried every single form I can possibly choose with druid, storm, earth, werebear, werewolf, poison etc… They’re all awful compared to the other classes. Yes I am Tank, my fortify is making it that way, however boss kills take forever and for a class that does bulk damage I’m just not seeing it. Doing leagues with other classes and they just basically smash through it all like water and I’m occasionally left standing there with one hit to my name. I have two pulvarise (shockwave and earth spikes enchantments, one on a ring and the other on an amulet), these combined do alot of damage. I have poison creepers with the an enchantment that produces a wall of landslide when activated around me. Both of these are my best attributes. I have a ring that pulls enemies in so combined this is the best I have found so far. I’m a little faster and stronger with the vamp stats.
I’m level 100 and embarrassingly I had a level 86 Barbarian just smoke me on the boss in the winter event. I’ve played socerer, barbarian and rogue. All these classes right from the get go , have the quickest kill rate. I honestly wish blizzard would do something about the druid class. Going up against a soc in PVP would be absolutely embarrassing.

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Isn’t weird that sorc and Barb can clear lvl 19-20 while Druid barely clears lvl 10.
Tbh I am stucked in lvl 2 as pulverize. I do around 5-25m OP but I die one shot from almost everything while I have 11k Armor unbufed, 16k armor fully buffed, 22k HP.

Is just sad to see Diablo 4 just being a bad extension of Diablo 3 where you had to kill everything with one shot before they one shot you!!!

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I would like to make another important remark regarding the Druid bad situation. One of our key aspect Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast is also bugged since the beginning of the season and surprisingly the devs just didn’t seem to care? The tooltips clearly say the critical dmg bonus is supposed to be [x] but in reality we’re getting additive 200% cd only.
Stuff like this should be hotfixed I don’t know why they think it’s ok to just leave it be.

3 Likes
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I agree. Druid is terrible unless you are willing to hate every moment of playing until the stars align and you get the perfect set of gear. Then it’s fun. But that’s still hours of bad experience. I got to 69 with the druid this season after my 100 barb. It was at this point i realized i was having a miserable experience and have decided to Uninstall for the remainder of the season.

3 Likes