Here is the gathered feedback for the season 16 druid overhaul. More issues will be added when identified.
Main Issues
- Grizzly Rage is too powerful, eclipsing the other Ultimate skills, hurting human-druids who cannot use it, and giving Druids a feast or famine playstyle, depending on if it is up or not. Its damage bonus should be halved, and the damage doubled of every other skill Druids have.
- Werewolves needing to poison targets is a HORRIBLE change, which was removed because everyone hated it and it made playing Druids worse in every instance. Bringing this back is NOT the solution to build diversity, especially when you massively nerfed Werewolves’ ability to poison targets (with the Constructing Tendrils death blow).
- Storm 5 piece change is not good, basically changing it into the Melted Heart of Selig or go home set. You removed this mechanic from Ultimate skills, only to give it to ALL storm ones?
- General Set balance is off, with Earth dominating from the moment you get it, Storm competing at extreme end-game, and Companion, Werewolf and Werebear relegated to the farmer league or secondary set.
- Human-only Druid is still not there. Increased damage to range is bad, and clashes with the human helm’s (Gathlen’s Birthright) use in pulling in monsters and grouping them on you. Ancestral Guidance paragon node should be 100%, include Versatile skills, and not cap at the weird 5 skills. Human Earth druids also only have ONE set they can use, so will not be able to use the two 5 piece bonuses everyone else will with the new set bonuses on legendaries. Finally, the unique human ring (Greenwalker’s Signet) is very weak at 15%, and completely clashes with the tag changes (what spell is it supposed to proc when you are spamming Landslide, etc?).
- The new Inner Beast is incredibly powerful, but has one large flaw: Grizzly Rage locks you into one form, so you cannot activate Inner Beast’s cooldown reduction shapeshifting requirement without using an emote or town portal (or using the bugged Avatar of Nature Variant, but only as a Werewolf).
- The Constricting Tendrils change is horrendous, completely screwing over Werewolves and nerfing everyone who takes this now-horrible legendary node. This change also means that Werewolf Rabies has ONLY THREE LEGENDARY PARAGON NODES. Yes, the main poison skill gets absolutely nothing from the poison node…
- Trample is much better (and Torment 12 viable) with the unique chest change, but needs a much shorter cooldown, so you can actually stop trampling everywhere for 2 seconds, without triggering a 20 second cooldown and screwing yourself over. A much shorter cooldown would also allow it to be used as a mobility skill. Werewolf Trample will give 99% of players motion sickness when spammed. The camera should NOT track the Druid’s vertical movement when using this skill. Additionally, Earth Trample should gain Tectonic Spikes and its tag. Trample cannot fight Belial properly with controller!
- The lack of Vulnerability application means that most builds just tack Lightning Storm - Hero of the Storm onto their builds and use the ‘Storm skills cause Vulnerable’ aspect. Some more options would be great.
- The loss of Resolve sources means that Werebears have to sit on their asses and wait for Demoralising Roar to slowly stack Resolve to 20ish, before starting any fight.
Skills
Basic
- Only Storm Strike and Earth Spike do real damage, end-game. The other three need buffs.
- Wind Shear has THREE different damage types (poisoning, physical and lightning) when specced properly, which makes it very hard to gear and do paragon nodes for.
Core
- Landslide pillars miss way too much, wasting a lot of its damage, and giving Landslide only one viable variant (Land Mines). The unique ring (Earthbreaker) is also quite weak, not even giving Landslide the Tectonic Spikes tag.
- Lightning Storm is mainly still a ‘1 point wonder’ you take to give vulnerability and lucky hit procs, and you might even need to take it to proc poison now (which is horrible).
- Pulverise lacks damage, and its unique weapon (Purified Lightbringer) is not even used (Basilisk is, instead). Making Purified Lightbringer a charm would at least give Pulverise some better options.
- Shred’s unique weapon (Waxing Gibbous) procs a zillion times more when you macro spam Shred with a mouse, which is why Shred usually tops the ladder. When used normally, by holding down the Shred button, it seems to not proc properly. Shred also only has one viable Variant (Lightning Shred), with one Variant being so incredibly bad that it might be the worst skill ever designed (Critical Shred).
- Stone Burst lacks damage, and is currently only used to activate the Earth set bonuses for non-Earth builds. The Epicenter Variant is also very weak, and completely outclassed by Rumbling Stones.
- Tornado lost a lot of damage with the paragon changes, and now is forced to use the super-nerfed Constricting Tendrils node.
Defense
- Blood Howl’s cooldown is far too long, making the skill impossible to use without Malefic Crescent auto-spamming it. This is especially true now that Werewolves will probably have to use this to poison targets (the poison variant, Berserking Howl, needs a serious point-scaling and duration buff).
Companion
- Ravens unique pants (Kilt of Blackwing) should give all 3 Variants, and should be able to become a unique charm, so that a full Companion build can be used.
- Poison Creeper needs more damage and scaling, and probably the Nature Magic tag. Its Variants are also quite weak.
Wrath
- Two of Boulder’s Variants (Crushing Impact and Landslip) are terrible and its spirit cost is too high when using Dolmen Stone (making it an extreme end-game build, only).
- Hurricane’s damage is terrible and its unique ring (Hunter’s Zenith) is an instant salvage.
Ultimate
- Cataclysm is probably relegated to support, having lost most of its damage, and even some synergies.
- Lacerate is pretty much dead, losing at least 50% of its damage with the paragon changes, and now being required to poison targets. It needs its damage massively buffed, and its unique chest (Mad Wolf’s Glee) given 30% damage reduction to help it with its incredibly squishiness and poor spatial awareness.
- Grizzly Rage dominates and is now easily made permanent (get ready to spam emotes or town portal).
- Petrify’s new stun is pretty extreme and very spammable, but it is hard to use solo without something else pulling everything in (maybe replace the useless Enduring Consequences Variant with a mass pull, like Lacerate has). The increased duration also seems to do NOTHING for increasing boss stagger; normal packs and elites are sometimes permanently stunned, though (it is buggy). A way to scale Seismic Shift’s damage would be nice.
Spirit Boons
- The new Gift of the Stag is actually bad for leveling (no idea why you think it would be good, when you are constantly out of spirit and need regen, not max, while leveling), and will only be used for Storm 5 piece builds.
- The old Pack Leader was flawed because it did nothing for Poison Creeper, but the new one is even worse. 60% chance to fail and force you to wait for a long cooldown?
- Bolster is still terrible.
- Masochistic losing its Berserk procs means Druids will rely even more on Grizzly Rage, which gives Berserk for its duration.