I made two characters uptill now:
- Druid, hardcore, lvl 100, build with Greatstaff of the Crone.
- Druid, hardcore, lvl 87, companion build.
Pace of levelling
It feels the same as in S4. Think about right, but there is a difference in gameplay. Compared to season 4 my druid feels more powerful and less squishy. This is probably because in S5 damage reduction in the talent tree and on glyphs is increased. For the first time in all of the seasons I now felt comfortable in hardcore to try and kill higher content while levelling. With my lvl 87 I am farming NMD 20 levels above me.
Rewards from seasonal questline
In S4 you nailed it. The rewards gave legendary gear that was higher then the current content I was running. It really felt as a reward.
In S5 there are more rewards and all the gear was worse then what I already had, except the uniques.
Season Journey in Battle Pass
In S4 I didn’t finish the season journey. The last step was too hard.
In S5 the last step is again very steep. Im stil in doubt if this is a good thing, or a bad thing.
Infernal hordes
On my lvl 100 druid I only made it to lvl 3. At lvl 4 I had to bail out. I wasn’t killing fast enough and got chain cc’ed by ranged. I had my own version of a Crone build with Seismic shift and Nature’s fury keypassive (3 basic skills). Had my gear mostly 4/12 masterworked. I then decided to level a second druid cause I didn’t see me completing the Season journey on this one, and I wanted to try out different things.
Unique weapons
Bosses like Varshan still drop non 925 unique weapons. This is really annoying.
My lvl 100 has a Greatstaff of the Crone with near perfect stats, a greater affix on damage vs close, but the item is lvl 912.
Companion build feedback
The companion build feels very strong. I think this is a good change. In my opinion the companion build could be a go-to build for new players to learn the class.
Druid things that need attention
Lacerate: I made a build around it in S4. The damage buff afterwards is noticable, but the skill still lacks damage. I want to see dead mobs when I finish my Lacerate.
Rabies: S4 was the first time it was remotely possible to make a build around it. This was because Shepherd’s aspect also buffed Wrath skills. In S5 this aspect is changed. Core skills were buffed, but not Rabies. Another reason Rabies doesn’t perform is the Virulent aspect. It says it lowers cooldown on Elite enemies. According to your own tooltip this includes bosses. But it only works on Elites, not Bosses. This has already been pointed out by many fellow druids and reported on the bug-forum.
Poison in general: druid has skills with poison, affixes on gear, its in the talent tree and got a separate paragon board for it. But it never shone in all of the seasons.
Wildheart hunger, unique boots
The damage buff ramps up too slow and it falls off as combat ends. This way the maximum damage is almost never achieved. Currently it only looks good on paper.
Skins for Druids
I think you should look into skins for our wolf and bear forms. Currently its not worthwhile to heavily invest in skins cause most of the time we dont see them cause of the animal forms.
Self found mode
I would play this if it was introduced.