Shred Druid Feedback - Need help

Druid
1

Hello,

First let me say that the Changes for the druid have been in the right direction and i been enjoying playing this season. however that being said i have some concerns over shred druid build (my Favorite Build to play). i was exited to see the changes to mad wolf’s glee and Waxing Gibbous.

Now after testing and playing with +4 master worked gear, i would like to start with the mad wolf’s glee. i think the changes here are Great, between the changes to Lupine Ferocity talent rework and the Affix to chest it has been preforms very well.

The Waxing Gibbous on the other hand, while the changes here seem really good I think it might be Bugged or the scaling of shred drops off significantly after +14, for example with Waxing Gibbous on with +4 to master working and a +3 to shred affix my shred’s 3rd attack is doing 114,443 - 139,875 [372%] damage, lets compare that to +0 master working legendary sword my shred’s 3rd attack is doing 106,310 - 129,935 [329%] (Stats on sword are + to willpower, Max Life and Crit strike damage). now lets talk about the other Affix on it + to Toxic Claws, this seems to be useless because the talent itself is not very good since its calculated off of base damage so even if i do a 10,000,000 damage hit it Ticks for about 10K a tick for 4 seconds with a +4 to toxic Claws. at the end i went with a +0 2H polearm that has low end stats of willpower, Max life, crit strike damage that gave me a massive Boots to the shred damage to give you an idea my Shred’s 3rd attack Damage went from 114,443 - 139,875 [372%] (with the +4 Master working) to 130,117 - 159,032 [329%].

Aside from those two Uniques, there aren’t many other options to play with except for Mythic ones like Ring of Starless Skies or Harlequin Crest, etc… Now there is the Hunter’s Zenith but thats only good for Trash mobs and is not the greatest for Bossing. I’d like to try Tempest Roar, but to do that, I need to use Dire Wolf’s Aspect. That’s only good if paired with Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast, but this playstyle is far worse than the Werebear/Werewolf Quickshift build that provides a massive damage boost and damage reduction from Iron Fur/Heightened Senses and sometimes Ursine Strength. I would like to use the new Unique Crown of Lucion but the issue with that the Coast is was too high to keep the Buff up (4 seconds) and if we Pair it with the Dire Wolf’s Aspect then i am locked to only werewolfs abilities (because no Tempest Roar) and that’s just a terrible play style from defensive standpoint.

This Brings me to my Whish list, things i would like to see changed.

  1. Waxing Gibbous, again not sure if the +Shred scaling on this is maybe bugged?(Please look at that). I would like to see Change the Affix from Toxic Claw’s to Envenom Or Fix Toxic Claw’s Talent to scale more with damage rather than just base damage.
  2. Dire Wolf’s Aspect, here i would like to see the aspect changed to were its keeps the damage from the base talent and replace that with the movement speed (i think we have good amount of movement speed between all the + Digitgrade Gait and raw movement speed that is found through utility. Or maybe Change the Grizzly rage Talent and make it a hybrid talent used by both Werewolfs and Werebears (no one plays Lacerate anyway).
  3. Aspect of the Blurred Beast, this one is just a bit complicated because it is not consistent, we have to play hopscotch in order for us to get a consistent value out of it. Maybe rework to were we dont have to Dash to use it? or rework how dashing works (maybe close the distant by more than half way)? or shoot make it work with Lacerate since the Description says “quickly Dash 10 times” this would maybe make the talent somewhat viable… testing would need to made.
  4. Tempest Roar, here i would say make it were you add a tag to werewolf ability’s and make them Nature/storm so we can take advantage of more Aspects and Talent like Defiance/Natural Disaster/Resonance.

Lastly i would like to talk about Tempering recipes.
There seems to be a lack of Good Weapon Tempering for Shred or werewolf/werebear in general, compared to the recipes that earth/storm or even other classes get with the chance to abilities to cast twice (basically Double damage with master working).

Not to mention the Offensive Tempering recipes for werewolf having SIX yes SIX different ones in one manual and other Manuals having an average of 5 and some have 4. i was hoping that most manuals would be reduced to only Three for a more quality of life chooses.

This is What i can think of as of right now, I sincerely hope you guys take this feedback because i really want to enjoy playing this class/spec again.

3 Likes
2

My wish list for Shred:

Make the dash part of the base skill and rework its upgrades.

Storm claw should convert Shred to storm skill.

Toxic claws needs a massive rework. It’s absolutely terrible. Maybe remove Werewolf requirement at this point and have it be all dmg while in werewolf form or something to use procs to also apply poison. Idk it’s only used to debuff at this point.

6 Likes
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This is a nice write up OP, but these writeups, on shred, cronestaff, or pulverize, have been left rotting and decaying on these forums season after season with s4 being no different.

They either,

A) are under staffed somehow to do overhauls and bring more skills and builds into alignment with one another

B) are too incompetent to make changes

C) are purposely holding back revisions to force people into specific builds each to create the illusion of diversity from season to season

D) are waiting to put these much needed fixes behind another paywall. Aka VoH

Not sure which is worse. Take your pick

4 Likes
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Shifter druid is absolutely horrific micromanagement, and I frankly got sick of having to look down at the bottom of my screen to track my buffs. Which sometimes led to deaths because I wasn’t looking at where I was on the screen for a split second.

Horde mode is a great game mode. I really enjoy it. However, as a shifter (I respeced since) it was awful to play in. I’ve since respec’d back to the ol’ ramp werebeast shred druid build. It feels a lot better and I can focus my eyes on actually hitting stuff and trying to avoid stuff instead of micromanaging buffs. Damage feels better too.

Shred has always been pretty s*** imho and has never really been in a good position (excluding the trillions/billions damage bug way back when). The damage sucks, it’s +skills suck, and it just falls way behind other druid skills (storm/rock n’ roll, bear bro). Not even going to mention compared to other classes.

I love druid. I love being a ww druid, and I absolutely hate being a werenado druid. Waxing Gibbous was a nice change, but it is basically worthless for bossing (including infernal council). I feel like shred got hit the hardest with the multiplicitive bucket changes.

So, once again, shred was left at the train station platform while everyone else is on the party train blasting through stuff with ease. And by ease I mean with much worse gear and much less effort. This isn’t to say that shred can’t do t100 nm dungeons, or tier 4 infernals, it’s just going to be a lot more difficult compared to others. (See fireball sorc/frost(lightning spear etc). Barbnado still seems broken asf.

Shred’s just doesn’t hit hard enough or scale well enough. If I had to recommend something I’d say buff the +skill scaling where it has a significant jump >5 ranks.

Edit Currently watching a frozen orb/lightning spear sorc murder the whole screen on T7 infernals without breaking a sweat. Yeah - I think it’s time to move on from druid.

2 Likes
5

I completely Agree with you, after spending much gold matts and everything to try and make shred work it just did not, i begrudgingly switched to the Landslide with much much worse gear and +0 Glyphs and i was clearing more content than i was with shred, it made sick to my stomach.

1 Like
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Needs bigger changes, nore dynamic reworks of skills, aspects, etc.
If its broke, a number buff isn’t going to cut it.
And stop forcing new aspects to fix these broken things.
Like polishing a turd.
Still a turd.

7

And for what it’s worth, I don’t think the devs understand the class or at least pure werewolf. They made the mad wolf gleee tier to lupine ferocity which guarantees crit every 3rd hit but then the most iconic werewolf skill’s unique is meant to grantee crits 100%.

Rework Lupine to increase all crit dmg/crit dmg vs injured rather than just every 3rd attack.

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As others have pointed out, I feel like the main issue is that it’s that other classes get these very nice synergies. While it feels like we are getting the opposite. Things just forgotten, or only partially updated.

Shred is a super fun playstyle with the dashing between enemies, I really wish they could look at some of these things. Like Pulverize and Trample have ways to make them earth skills, and also do earth damage. Shred has a way to do lightning damage but doesn’t make it a storm skill.

The lupine only effects every 3rd attack, and does something that the main axe already does as already stated. That axe also has toxic claws which is only used to proc poison and slow. Also that wolf unique body piece has lupine which you most likely aren’t using, and the legendary power only gives +3, and the movement aspect that does nothing.

You also have a lot of shred and related that require kills or other specific things to do things.

Not to mention the simple lack of damage multipliers, or a worthwhile temper.

Hopefully eventually druid gets focus for one of these seasons, guessing that will be a while

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The other thing is that this is crit centered, yet crit does nothing for poison. Right now the only reason that we use poison is to get other bonuses. The actual poison damage might as well be 0.

10

Waxing, at mw 4+ can give up to 5 to shred. Mad wolfs also gives 5 ranks. I got real lucky with one and it rolled GA to the lupine ferocity crit damage which I’ve mw once to 35%. The damage increase was noticable.

Shred still doesn’t do enough damage for 140+ level mobs. Even at armor cap, 41k life and max res, I still get chunked and one tapped in tier 5 horde. I tried a tier 6 and the incomming damage was too much for me to tank. Shred can’t nuke the screen like other builds, so it’s struggling real bad.