Druid Changes Current On PTS

[Everyone]

I'd just like to point out that I didn't touch the Satyr. He's always hit that hard (assuming you made full use of Fervent Strike, Combined Effort, and Rage of the Fae).

I noticed that, the satyr is parsing at the exact same level I parsed it at a month ago. No complaints there, I think the satyr is a fantastic pet beyond a) the inherent problems with pets (reliability of an AI in dynamic situations) and b) the incompatibility of his buff with the bard buff.

[Xillean]

Zinbik a lot of us would really like the earth damage changed to life to better synergise with Justicar, is there a reason this cant be done or could you at least let us know if your even willing to consider it? I do have to add though with the ranged earth attacks even if you aren't willing to make them life, something needs to be done, right now it feels far to clunky with the melee attacks.

As far as the Satyr I didn't notice him hitting any harder then he normally did. I think he does alright for the most part. I really appreciate the time you take to give us feedback Zinbik keep it coming

[Eughe]

I am so confused by your post. What makes you conclude that the druid is a ranged magic soul?

The 4 ranged magic attack and 2 ranged CC it currently has?

Combined effort, eruption of life, and fervent strike are three of the four highest damage abilities the druid has, and they're all melee. Crag hammer, a central druid buff only affects melee attacks.

And they all hit lower than bombard, fervent strike is hardly used in rotation, i stated EoL is strong already, CE contributes lass overall damage than all the spirits due to CD, and its only rationale is to buff the pets.

So in a given rotation, CE and fervernt would make up 3% of your total strikes. While ranged would make up 15% of your total strikes.

Most contribution comes from the pet due to asphodel, sanction, and the magic part of EoL which doesnt require melee hits anymore.

Am I missing something here? Are you using spirit attacks in your dps rotation? On the test dummy I just did a 946 crit with the spirits, and an 1154 crit with fervent strike. Why would you ever use spirits in your dps rotation?

Because i would not ever consider druid as a PvE spec since none of the problems druid had with PvE scaling is address, nor will it be afaik?

However, on the test dummy, my spirits did 1100 damage, while fervent did 1260. Not much of a discrepancy.

I'd just like to point out that I didn't touch the Satyr. He's always hit that hard (assuming you made full use of Fervent Strike, Combined Effort, and Rage of the Fae).

Had a feeling but wasnt sure. I just dont remember him being that powerful, guess it shows how long that ive seriously used it.

[batou079]

I am excited for Druids!! I always loved the idea of the class, just hated how it worked in action.

But some build ideas are beginning to form with these much needed changes.
One thing i am slightly miffed about is the gap closer... a teleport?? Seems really unfitting. A simple charge mechanic would make sense as a physical attacking Fae based "druid" in the classic sense. But not a big deal i suppose. Just a dev style choice that seems odd to me. :P

Other than that, the Druidicar seems like it will be more potent! hehe

[Everyone]

The 4 ranged magic attack and 2 ranged CC it currently has?


And they all hit lower than bombard, fervent strike is hardly used in rotation, i stated EoL is strong already, CE contributes lass overall damage than all the spirits due to CD, and its only rationale is to buff the pets.

So in a given rotation, CE and fervernt would make up 3% of your total strikes. While ranged would make up 15% of your total strikes.

Most contribution comes from the pet due to asphodel, sanction, and the magic part of EoL which doesnt require melee hits anymore.



Because i would not ever consider druid as a PvE spec since none of the problems druid had with PvE scaling is address, nor will it be afaik?

However, on the test dummy, my spirits did 1100 damage, while fervent did 1260. Not much of a discrepancy.





Had a feeling but wasnt sure. I just dont remember him being that powerful, guess it shows how long that ive seriously used it.

I'd hesitate to call spirits 'ranged magic attacks'. They're debuffs that happen to do damage. Do you think of excommunicate as a ranged magic attack? Is it in your dps rotation?

Bombard is similar to Ekkehard's Invocation, except that it does more damage and thus gets a regular spot in the rotation.

So it's just a difference in approach then. You think of the druid as a ranged spec, and go inquisitor as your off-soul. I think of it as a melee, and put 15 points into shaman as my off soul. To each his own, though I will say that I've got considerably less cognitive dissonance from my take on it than you seem to have.

I'll take my version though... I just did three parses and averaged 2300 combined DPS in them, while self buffed. I parse around 2150 in shaman, and 2100 in inquisitor builds.

As for the scaling of the pet being such an issue, how many people who say that have actually brought a well practiced druid build into HK (with a 4pc crystal!), and used it in a boss fight? I think I will on Wednesday to find out for myself.

[Eughe]

Nothing change really change how druids were in pve in the slightest aside from wild strike. Maybe a minor increase from the druid itself, but there is no difference in operation for pve.

Drudicar with fae has always been decent since a CEs fae ST heals for 1600/2k and HoT hits for 324/ 500 a piece.
With rage Fae hits for 3.9/6k ST and a little over 733/1k a tick


So i cant see any hooplah about pve.

The warp and increased in debuff also isnt pve directed as druid, in general pve anyway, wasnt particularly bad. And the complaints was mainly due to consumables and enchants not affecting the pets. Which was big when it makes up a large chunk of your dps.

[Eughe]

I'd hesitate to call spirits 'ranged magic attacks'.

And ranged, and do magic. Why hesitate to call a spade a spade?

They're debuffs that happen to do damage.

So they are ranged magic attacks that debuffs. My, the concept is so different now that you switched up the words in a completely different order.

Do you think of excommunicate as a ranged magic attack? Is it in your dps rotation?

I have it in one of my macros, helps when a melee is trying to get close to me.

Bombard is similar to Ekkehard's Invocation, except that it does more damage and thus gets a regular spot in the rotation.

What? Bombard is and has always been, a spike attack. Doing more instant damage than all other skills in a druid rotation. It being on a small cooldown makes it do a considerable amount of your total rotation.

Are you really being serious?

So it's just a difference in approach then. You think of the druid as a ranged spec, and go inquisitor as your off-soul. I think of it as a melee, and put 15 points into shaman as my off soul. To each his own, though I will say that I've got considerably less cognitive dissonance from my take on it than you seem to have.

I find it strange that you would use druid in a pve setting...

Or how you can ignore a large portion of a soul and be fine with it.

I'll take my version though... I just did three parses and averaged 2300 combined DPS in them, while self buffed. I parse around 2150 in shaman, and 2100 in inquisitor builds.

Druid has always out parse shaman and inqui self buffed. I just dont..

As for the scaling of the pet being such an issue, how many people who say that have actually brought a well practiced druid build into HK (with a 4pc crystal!), and used it in a boss fight? I think I will on Wednesday to find out for myself.

The pet using base stats and not enchanted stats was the issue.


I really do not understand what you are trying to convey.

[Stay]

These changes are a clear improvement, but their direction feels like Shaman Redux to me: a melee pure dps role for raids which lacks raid utility, doesn't make good hybrids, and needs favorable conditions to produce marginally higher DPS than more flexible trees. Do we need 2 of those?

I respect you trying to add some utility for PvP, but IMHO you underestimate the inherent PvP disadvantage of a melee dps with no mitigation/avoidance and limited selfhealing. Fae step looks strong, but it's an offensive move. I don't see anything new to prevent druids from splattering the moment an enemy manages to target them and queue an attack. A hybrid with justicar might be a possibility, but the talent layout in druid discourages hybrids: 3 crucial abilities are 44+ and there is a scaling talent as well.

You've had to scale PvP damage up so people can actually kill Chloro/X mages, NB/RS rogues, and wardens. That scale of damage trivializes any druid defense aside from the 51-point cooldown. Druid needs a quite strong buff to defense if it is going to be a viable melee in PvP. Alternatively you can improve the ranged abilities and allow PvP druids to play as casters (giving CE range and swapping the nuisance debuffs for real CC would be a good start). But they're not going to work as a melee with the defence of a caster.

[Healor]

Zinbik,

Thank you for the changes to the Druid soul. I noticed many of your changes are PVP oriented. I play druid in PVE including raiding in HK. It is a difficult class to play because it brings nothing to the raid. No raid buff that do not get overwritten. No competitive dps. No meaningful heals. Nothing. PLEASE add something to the Druid soul that would benefit a raid. Consider the following possibilities:

1. Give the Greater Fairy a single target cleanse. (This one change would make druids viable in raid environments)
2. Let the Satyr's buff "Fury of the Fae" (increases attack power for raid) ADD to bard attack power buffs.
3. Make one of the druid's debuffs, probably the 44 point one, increase damage taken on a boss mob, perhaps 3%. Something everyone would ALWAYS want to see up.
4. Give the druid's Greater Fairy a raid buff that increases SPELL POWER and let it stack with other raid buffs.
5. Cut the cool down on "Satyr Sweep" from 6 seconds to 4 seconds. (Nothing makes me happier than seeing all those damage numbers rise up out of a group of mobs.) Also cut the cool down on the satyr's "Enraged assault" from 3 seconds down to 2 seconds (As it stands currently, the 51 point druid gets spanked on single target DPS and humiliated on group DPS compared with other dps classes. This would help even up both substantially)
6. Increase the greater fairies ranged dps potential OR give the Druid soul a 3rd pet which is Ranged DPS specific. (Currently the druid can be all mele DPS or mixed mele/ranged DPS. What druids lack is a full ranged DPS option)

7. Thank god you increased the number of mobs hit by "Wild Strike"
8. I second someone's idea of changing the "Fae Step" to a visual where you transform into a little fairy while charging or travel underground and pop up next to a mob. That is just cool.
9. I agree with the other comments about changing "Eruption of Life". I would suggest making it ranged and proc 5 times instead of 3 off both ranged and mele damage. Alternatively you could just increase the damage it does by 30% so that items which add one more proc to it are viable and desirable.
10. I agree with the other comments about changing "Combined Effort". I would suggest making it ranged.
11. Thank you for reducing the cool down on "Rage of the Fae". Burst damage is lovely.

[Zinbik]

So in a given rotation, CE and fervernt would make up 3% of your total strikes.

I'm really curious what kind of rotation you're using. In my tests, Fervent Strike makes up 34% of my total strikes. Combined Effort, like Sanction Heretic, is used whenever it's up, making up 10% of my total strikes.

[Everyone]

I'm really curious what kind of rotation you're using. In my tests, Fervent Strike makes up 34% of my total strikes. Combined Effort, like Sanction Heretic, is used whenever it's up, making up 10% of my total strikes.

I've been trying to get the same information out of him, but he seems to be playing a ranged druid that uses spirits as his normal attacks.

[Everyone]

I have it in one of my macros, helps when a melee is trying to get close to me.

Can't... tell if troll....

[Undrsiege]

Can't... tell if troll....

100% not a troll. If you are using 34% Fervent strike you are killing 0 people in PvP...

[Everyone]

100% not a troll. If you are using 34% Fervent strike you are killing 0 people in PvP...

Man if you're using a pet dependent class, you're killing 0 people in pvp. I can two-shot any pet in the game. They are not part of the pvp equation.

A 51 druid is about as useful in pvp as a 51 justicar. Not all souls were meant to be pvp powerhouses.

I guess the spirits are a somewhat misleading abilities in that respect, but I'm not mortally offended by having a couple abilities in a tree that I don't use...

[Undrsiege]

Man if you're using a pet dependent class, you're killing 0 people in pvp. I can two-shot any pet in the game. They are not part of the pvp equation.

A 51 druid is about as useful in pvp as a 51 justicar. Not all souls were meant to be pvp powerhouses.

I guess the spirits are a somewhat misleading abilities in that respect, but I'm not mortally offended by having a couple abilities in a tree that I don't use...

18 points in druid is good burst and it needs 0 pet...