Does anybody know if equipping the “Aspect of the Stampede” grants 1 additional Poison Creeper at the moment?
I could swear that a couple of days after launch, when I first tried the aspect, there was a second creeper visually appearing on the ground and the rate at which enemies were being poisoned increased. I even discussed the effect with another player interested in the aspect, telling them how pleasantly surprised I was from the fact, considering the tooltip of the skill does not update to reflect the increase in the number of creepers.
Today things seem different. I don’t think there’s a second creeper on the ground any more. Poisoning rate even feels halved. Literally standing next to a single enemy and counting to 7 after the creeper has poisoned them once, I don’t see the creeper reemerging out of the ground after the seventh second. On a side note, ravens don’t seem to be swooping down nearly as often as they should either.
Was the effect I observed initially unintentional (it shouldn’t be!)? Has this combination been nerfed silently? Is this a bug?
From what I could see it does not add another creeper vine. Only add 1 more wolf and raven.
I am about to try to make a conpanion build myself. But not sure if I should use aspect of the alpha for wolves. I like for them to remain as wolves and not werewolf. I am torn though since the alpha aspect damage bonus seems too good to pass up.
Yes it does you can clearly see 2 vines once you apply it and if there were 2 enemies it would hit both of them when the passive procced.
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You get 2 creepers. 20chars
So you do see them? They stopped appearing for me…
I get a second creeper vine.
Each one does its own passive attack (so two at a time).
The active skill does not appear to be doubled in any way though for me – damage/area covered/duration, etc. Probably intentional.
Do the extra vines, or initial one for that matter, count towards the total number of minions for the aspect that boosts damage per minion?
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Here is my answer from another thread:
So when I read my tooltips with and without aspect of the stampede they read like this.
Without: Summon 2 wolves, Summon 3 ravens, Summon A poison creeper.
With: Summon 3 wolves, Summon 4 ravens, Summon A poison creeper.
My stampede also give +19% damage, so here are the tooltips for creeper damage:
Without: passive damage 21,537, active damage 89,740
With: passive damage 22,403, active damage 93,347
So I see more vines around me, but the tooltip doesn’t move in a way that even reflects a 19% increase in damage let alone double damage. Now that could be in part due to diminishing returns be cause I have my companion damage is 206% according to my stats and that number does not change when I unequip the item with the aspect.
It comes down to that weird math where some stats are additive and other multiplicative. Still by reading everything I see both with and without the aspect equipped, my poison creeper numbers are not doubled.
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It does summon 1 extra creeper as well as an extra raven and wolf. It also adds to the total for the damage boost from Aspect of the Shepherd.
To also add on it does add another creeper. You probably don’t notice it because unless you really look you dont see it. The extra creeper follows the other one basicslly clipping over it. So you will see them emerge in the same location while not in combat. I haven’t paid enough attention to see if they attack the same targets.
So 9 total active companions for the damage buff from shepherd’s aspect if we take the added 2 ravens node? 3 wolves, 4 ravens and 2 creeper vines?
That should be accurate. It’s been a bit since I played companion aspects. I’ve read that stampede is adding 2 additional ravens for some reason but I can’t confirm that.
Also, in my experience it was better to run vulnerable on raven active than two additional. Vulnerable is very important for damage. But I was using maul/shred. If you use Stormstrike you can get vulnerable from that.
There is no way of actually seeing how shepherds calculates, it would be nice if it did so we knew for sure. Going by tooltips it adds to 8 but visually it’s 9.
Good old murky tooltips with missing information and hidden stats. It’s the one thing that’s bothers me about the RPG genre for years.
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I am about to try an experimental companion build.
Basic and core: Storm strike and Lightning Storm.
Skills: Creeper, ravens, wolves and Cyclonic armor.
I almost skipped aspect of the alpha since I wanted my wolves to remain as wolves but I tested and the difference between werewolf and wolf pets are vast. not only does werewolf seems to attack faster and have rabies but they seem to use shred from time to time.
I put in cyclonic armor aspect to help buff my wolf pets armor as well as my friends if ever we party up.
I just need a boots with high movement speed buff since I do not have my trusty trample on this build to close the gaps fast and I am not using claw and shred like most companion builds do to teleport fast to mobs. I am trying to build a human storm warrior druid that fights like a viking with his trusty companions 
If I put shepherd’s aspect on my weapon it will be 14% per companions for a total of 126% core damage buff which is huge. I might replace the lightning dancer aspect that will spawn 3 lightning that do 5400 lightning damage on crits.
Look for boots that also have 3 extra evade charges in addition to movement speed. Those are almost essential if you don’t have trample.
I dash in, drop creeper, dash out, spin and pulverize. I also have a +3 to envenom on my amulet that takes my crit damage to poisoned enemies up to 60%.
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Yes this is the challenge. I did get one with movement but did not have the dash. Dash is important for us melee on this game with so many CCs haha.
That’s is our choice for going without unstoppable as well. That’s why almost every build uses grizzly rage and/or bulwark.
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Yea my first build was pure storm melee build that has both bulwark and trample. my current build is shapeshifter but still has earthen bulwark and trample. This next build will be the first one I will play without those two skills.
I have always been interested in companion build for something different and this week for some reason companion gears keeps dropping on me for some reason lol. Even got a second storm legging unique with perfect rolls lol. I will have rank 16 wolves and 13-14 on creeper and raven based on the gears I am assembling on my stash.
My amulet has +3 companions skill and +3 Defiance. Defiance will be good since I will be using lightning storm for my core and the storm legging unique makes my wolf/werewolf into nature magic and lightning damage as well. So I am assuming it buffs them too.
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