How should Blizzard boost the Druid in the next upgrade? [Archive]

Ed from Russia

25-10-2006, 00:02

I've been playing Druid ever since the expansion came out, for about 50% of all my characters. Druids are versatile and fun to play. But there's no denying that it's one of the weakest classes in the game.

So my question is: how should Blizzard boost the Druid in 1.12?

My personal preference would be to make Raven more effective. If a Fishymancer can have 40 minions, I don't see why we can't have a raven per skill point invested. I don't care too much about more damage, but for block-lock and blinding 20-30 ravens can be awesome. You may remember the Hitchcock film 'Birds'.

Other upgrades should probably be to improve the Elemental tree, though I have no real idea how apart from simply increasing damage. Maybe boosting Hurricane and allowing you to cast it in Bear/Wolf form, so you can use it as a frost aura.

Both work great in PvM I think, but not sure about PvP since I never play that.

Next question: how can we reach Blizzard to make this reality? Any ideas are welcome here.

naturebunns

25-10-2006, 00:54

I've suggested several things

1) eliminate Hunger as a useless shapeshifting skill in the tree

replace it with a Passive Run walk skill (similar to increased speed) but that only works in wereform

2) remove the cast timers on fire skills (only tweak needed to elemental tree)

3) Increase the # of summons a druid can have (with major skill point investment, make it where you only get an increase to summon # with HARD points into it to avoid gayness with teleporting windys)

superjayson

25-10-2006, 02:58

4) get ride of the pre-req's for armageddon aka the cyclone/artic/twister/tornado/hurricane ones.

Clay bizzle

25-10-2006, 04:11

I think Naturebunns or Valvoux mentioned something like Werewolf and Bear synergizing each other. Not a bad idea to me. Lycanthropy should have a passive bonus to run/walk, either for every skill point or a nice one time bonus. I mean c'mon, animals are fast! The creeper and vines are pretty lame as well in their current status.

naturebunns

25-10-2006, 04:19

dodobird

25-10-2006, 04:34

Personally i'd like the ability to be able to cast max # of one type of wolf, and a bear. Otherwise the bear feels very lonely. =[

Maybe it'll happen yay!

naturebunns

25-10-2006, 04:37

Personally i'd like the ability to be able to cast max # of one type of wolf, and a bear. Otherwise the bear feels very lonely. =[

Maybe it'll happen yay!

bliz could make ALL elemental skills castable in wereform, but not able to teleport

pedu

25-10-2006, 10:30

Yea we dont need a teleporting furball of death. 12k fury in your face after a tele... they would have to nerf it even more, and thats not fun. So no tele.

Warmongers

25-10-2006, 12:07

make it where you only get an increase to summon # with HARD points into it to avoid gayness with teleporting windys)

How about this: Nerf paladins instead. -50% to concentration's effectiveness on blessed hammers. At least -25% to the holy shield defense bonus, 50k defense is not human, nor does it anywhere near the AR bonus that druids can manage in wolf form using fury and angelic's.

Or: give a passive +1.5% fr/w per hard point into lycanthropy, as mentioned above (that would be cool, not to mention realistic).

Or even better than both of the above: remove teleport from enigma, and replace it with telekinesis so that all of the hammerdins and barbarians can pick up potions while spamming 18k damage hammers and trying to catch sneaky wolves with 12k ITD WW's while dueling, giving us a chance to tickle them before we die from a massive overdose of cookie-cutter cheapness :thumbsup:

Rabbitz

25-10-2006, 12:11

Upgrade druid. Not downgrade others.

It would be very nice to see awesomely fast wolfies running around :D

Unchosen

25-10-2006, 12:48

Fix Spirit of Barbs.

pedu

25-10-2006, 12:49

I dont think it can be fixed. You would have to delete it, then remake it completely. You dont see paladins running around with thorns either. Oak/how is just so much better than some damage returned.

ToThePoint

25-10-2006, 12:59

wolves dont need anything - the forgotten bears could use something and similar to the 'remove prereqs for armageddon' remove the need for 1 in wolf!
speed for bear not wolf might be fun

Eilo Rytyj

25-10-2006, 13:30

How about a bonus of 5% life per level of Werebear, on top of the +50% it already has. Wolves and Bears have essentially the same life with equal Lycanthropy investment, it would be nice to see the Bear as the hulking super-tank as he's supposed to be. With the extra life, that would allow for less reliance on Oak and more HoW users.

The fire skills need revamping, or at least make them deal equal parts fire and physical damage for Volcano, Molten Boulder and Armageddon. Synergies also reassessed to increase both fire and physical components equally of said skills. Perhaps a small rolling speed increase for Molten Boulder each level (slvl 30 MB rolls at almost sorc's Fireball speed or something)?

IronCrown

25-10-2006, 14:00

Give the spirits Physical I and Poison I in hell, not in NM. Would make PvM much better with a higher survivability in Hell.

Unchosen

25-10-2006, 14:33

No fix it.

SoB would be absolutely awesome if it was damage return +damage reduction.

It would allow for the low level of damage return because there is damage negated as well.....might even make for some interesting PvP builds since the item requirements are freed up tremendously.

Metathrom

25-10-2006, 15:23

1- Get rid of the Armageddon pre-reqs -> only fire skills should be pre-requisites
2- Add a different property to Spirit of Barbs -> resistances, maybe? Faster run-walk?
3- Add stun time for Twister -> 0.1 per hard point, Twister is a really useless skill right now
4- Allow 1 type of wolves + Grizzly to be cast together -> that'd improve the Summoner Tree
5- Pelt runewords, maybe? Out of ideas here. A boost to the Summoner and a boost to the Fire Druid would be welcome.
6- No idea as to what needs improving in the shape tree. Maybe add a new bonus to Lycanthropy?

Kosmos

25-10-2006, 16:34

Make the bear more viable. An easy solution could be to make maul an uninterruptable attack.

Remove the casting delay on the fire elementals.

thats all :wave:

RareBear

25-10-2006, 17:11

hmm lots and lots of changes, but I highly doubt there will be any

1) Improve the very low AR for Werebears, esp. maulers

2) Improve the defense for Werebears

2) Extend the duration of feral rage, should last much longer. This would be very useful for Wolf Druids, because they cant tele, so that extra F R/W would help, with a longer duration

3) With a very small summoning army, why not summon a bear along with your wolf pack?

4) Get rid of that pathetic SOB, this spirit skill just sucks.

5) Druid spirits should always be immune to physical because they are, well, spirits. And immune to another kind of attack, so they can survive without dying constantly. Barbs and Pallys dont have to worry about their auras and warcrys going away, but Druids always have to recast and recast.

6) I dont know about ravens, maybe they should be more effective?

7) All those wind skills you have to invest in if you want to max out Armageddon, if your a fire druid, should not be necessary

8) If Paladins get an exclusive runeword like that lame sheild called "exile", why not a runeword for a Druid?

9) And my last, for Blizzard, to realize that Paladins should not be the only Uber class in D2

Proxyi

25-10-2006, 17:13

a) TELE in shape form

or when this cant be then :

b) much moooooore speed for wolfies (omg for bears too ^^)

thats all ^^

Mitch Turnbuckle

25-10-2006, 17:24

-Increase damage+ and defense+ for Werebear skill.
-Add missing third skill bonus for Werebear form (see Werewolf skill's 3 bonus's)
-Increase ar+, stamina+, and attack speed+ for Werewolf skill.
-Hunger is werebear only and synergizes with Maul & Shockwave.
-Rabies is Werewolf only and synergizes with Feral & Fury.
-Hurricane acts the same as Armageddon in that it is castable in wereform,
have element determine claws damage type (thunder claws as opposed to fire claws for exapmle).
-More max spirit wolves at a time, give them a later game use for crying out loud!
-Aforementioned spirit P.I. on nightmare hell.
-Make Spirit o' barb's useful on it's own.
-Spirit synergize with one another just like summons.

I know that the Hurricane thing is a little lofty . . . but not a bad idea dammit!

Osmium

25-10-2006, 18:25

werewolf synergize with rabies which synergizez with feral which synergizez with fury
werebear synergize with maul synergize with shockwave synergyze with a 3rd skill
spirits synergize themselves
15 max spirit wolves,10 max dire wolves,and 3 max grizlyes(one of the wolves can get cast with the grizzlyes)
the vines synergize each
more dmg to the spells
more ar to the shape-forms(i mean a lot........enough to make possible a 100% chance to hit a 50k defense pally)
well.......thats all.......

Lyrs

25-10-2006, 18:27

gib Leap & Leap Attack

or Dragon Flight

Osmium

25-10-2006, 18:30

gib Leap & Leap Attack

or Dragon Flight

nea.......no removal of the existing skills........

Kirah

25-10-2006, 22:56

It would be funny to see wolves teleporting around. I like the idea of a 10k hit point vita build teleporting around with a 8-12k fury or rabid attack.

Owooo!!!!
Kirah

sir goatscelot

26-10-2006, 01:56

Lot's of good suggestions here such tweeking fire tree and summon tree. We could go on and on about what exactly to do to each, but lets just leave it at make them more "viable".

As for tele fury druid and all pvp suggested reworkings, not going to happen. In every patch one char or another becomes easier to pvp than another..first it was Barbs, then Ama etc etc. The reason is Blizz makes changes to accomadate pvm, never pvp.

So when they do make changes to skills etc, it will of course carry over any effects to pvp..they will not fix this and have said they do not support any pvp imbalances.

More suggestions please lol

superjayson

26-10-2006, 03:11

werewolf:
get rid of the +% attackspeed. I've never known if it helps as its widely known only IAS from weapons affect that. (If im wrong on the IAS from werewolf bit ignore this)

Stamina bonus: either blizzard needs to make stamina something of importance in diablo 2 or just get rid of this bonus.

add a FRW to werewolf skill. werewolves are fast animals.. makes sense
add a +replenish life to werewolf skill. werewolves generally regenerate quickly, add's realism to the char.

werebear:
buff up the +damage +defense
make +% to life higher
add a crushing blow modifier(not a high one)

twister:
either bump up the damage to make it useable or up the stun length.

armageddon: get rid of the right tree skill pre-reqs
remove timer on fissure, firestorm(even though there isnt much of one) and molten boulder. Lower the timer on volcano.
Bump up the physical damage on volcano/molten boulder.

Josiphos

26-10-2006, 21:04

Wow. One thing we can all agree on is they need SOMETHING.

C'mon Blizzard..throw us a freakin bone, here.

With that my suggestions:

1) I like the idea of hurricane castable in wereform. You have no idea how many times I've thought about making a hurri-wolf anyway...unshape, cast, reshape...etc. not like hurricane is THAT overpowered anyway...its the darn tornados...

2) Speaking of nados...I dont think it will happen, but imagine being able to cast nado while in wolf form (no teleport though)! Smiters would think twice about charging in to smack you...give wolves some kind of medium range attack.

3) I like the idea of crushing blow modifier to maul...say 1% per hard point? C'mon...its a huge bear!

4) PI for all spirits would rock. It would actually make Oak useful in PvP...rather than just dying instantly and being a waste of a point. No way that would be overpowered.

5) I say get rid of the ias on werewolf skill (since its useless) and double the ar bonus. Then we get into the realm of a fair fight against exile users...

6) Give us a darn druid runeword! Faith, exile, White, Chaos, etc...druids got crap from the last patch. I suppose we have beast...but thats for ANY char...

7) I like the replenish life idea for wolf skills. At least its something. Faster run walk as a synergy would be most appreciated...

When did Blizzard say they dont care about PvP? IS that just in terms of balancing? Since PvP is the only thing that keeps d2 alive these days... as good business people I would think they should care...

Oh wait, they dont make any money off D2 post program sale...

Maybe their plan is to make d2 suck sooooo much...that we will all get disgusted and switch to WoW so we can pay 10$ a month...

superjayson

26-10-2006, 22:07

Wow. One thing we can all agree on is they need SOMETHING.

6) Give us a darn druid runeword! Faith, exile, White, Chaos, etc...druids got crap from the last patch. I suppose we have beast...but thats for ANY char...

Rain
Ort + Mal + Ith

5% Chance To Cast Level 15 Cyclone Armor When Struck
5% Chance To Cast Level 15 Twister On Striking
+2 To Druid Skills
+100-150 To Mana (varies)
Lightning Resist +30%
Magic Damage Reduced By 7
15% Damage Taken Goes to Mana

Yeah it sucks, but there's your druid runeword.

Josiphos

26-10-2006, 23:21

Rain
Ort + Mal + Ith

5% Chance To Cast Level 15 Cyclone Armor When Struck
5% Chance To Cast Level 15 Twister On Striking
+2 To Druid Skills
+100-150 To Mana (varies)
Lightning Resist +30%
Magic Damage Reduced By 7
15% Damage Taken Goes to Mana

Yeah it sucks, but there's your druid runeword.

LOL

Touche' on me I guess.

This can replace that useless CoH I've been using!

EDIT: the problem with this 1.11 RW is that all classes got one...

Funny how treachery is the only one used...and then only for prebuff...sad.:sad2:

Aldarad

27-10-2006, 00:41

Make the spiritwolves do magical damage rather then physical. Small change but migth make them more then a stepping stone.

RareBear

27-10-2006, 05:26

Rain
Ort + Mal + Ith

5% Chance To Cast Level 15 Cyclone Armor When Struck
5% Chance To Cast Level 15 Twister On Striking
+2 To Druid Skills
+100-150 To Mana (varies)
Lightning Resist +30%
Magic Damage Reduced By 7
15% Damage Taken Goes to Mana

Yeah it sucks, but there's your druid runeword.

yea, the only reason is because all classes were given a runeword for 1.11

But what the hell Blizzard? Why make that runeword (Exile, 1.10) I hate so much on the class I hate so much----> Paladins

superjayson

27-10-2006, 05:48

yea, the only reason is because all classes were given a runeword for 1.11

But what the hell Blizzard? Why make that runeword (Exile, 1.10) I hate so much on the class I hate so much----> Paladins

Yeah I know, I was joking.
I hate paladins too.

Verashiden

27-10-2006, 06:35

There should be a "I hate Pallies" Club :).

I'm all for the FRW bonus

sir goatscelot

27-10-2006, 07:32

Yeah I know, I was joking.
I hate paladins too.

Again it's worth noting a few things:

every patch has a different class that is considered better for pvp purposes..which of course has been proven wrong as it always boils down to the person behind the keyboard and not the char class being used.

Skills, runewords, item creation/changes etc, are ALWAYS done by Blizzard in an effort to improve the pvm monster aspect of the game. They have never supported that aspect of play..if they did, they would be in a never ending loop of patches and fixes, which of course would affect the original core purpose of the game creation..pvm.

Can you imagine the war between pvm, blizz, and pvp players if they were to address issues everytime someone is not happy with the aspect of the game they enjoy? Everyone has their own opinions and no matter what we think is correct, there is always someone who will disagree.

Thus all Blizz can and does do, is support the game for it's intended original purpose..rpg monster bashing. So lets stop the petty class bashing and throw out some legitimate ideas so that all classes will be balanced..not just the Druid.

superjayson

27-10-2006, 14:23

Again it's worth noting a few things:

every patch has a different class that is considered better for pvp purposes..which of course has been proven wrong as it always boils down to the person behind the keyboard and not the char class being used.

Skills, runewords, item creation/changes etc, are ALWAYS done by Blizzard in an effort to improve the pvm monster aspect of the game. They have never supported that aspect of play..if they did, they would be in a never ending loop of patches and fixes, which of course would affect the original core purpose of the game creation..pvm.

Can you imagine the war between pvm, blizz, and pvp players if they were to address issues everytime someone is not happy with the aspect of the game they enjoy? Everyone has their own opinions and no matter what we think is correct, there is always someone who will disagree.

Thus all Blizz can and does do, is support the game for it's intended original purpose..rpg monster bashing. So lets stop the petty class bashing and throw out some legitimate ideas so that all classes will be balanced..not just the Druid.

I'm not bashing paladins, I just don't like them.
I'm all for every class to be balanced, but blizzard has yet to accomplish this.

Bladewind

27-10-2006, 14:34

Bleh Melee paladins were the weakest class for like uhhh 5 over years.
Back then everyone can simply destroy them with impunity, now they are strong for 2 years, everyone whines. :azn:

Well its always a cycle. The druid has always being pretty strong from the start (1.07 druid when compared to a 1.07 paladin...) though especially the SS tree. Of course elemental was almost useless since 1.07 until 1.10 where synergies turned Windies into a power house. Of course there is room for more improvements.

As for druid help.

1) Double life bonus for werebears. Make it 100%. Yes i am serious. They are big hulking tanks.
2) Maul should be uninterruptible, its a pretty slow attack already. Also it needs more AR unless you want to go the cheapo route of "always hit in range" mod. :laugh:
3) Give Maul passive CB bonus. Must be added hard points like synergies.
4) Fix Armaggedon. We do not need the damn wind tree to activate it !
5) Remove caster delay for firestorm and moulten boulder. The windies have
spammables, so should the fire guys.
6) Greatly increase Fissure damage and area of effect. Cooldown can be decreased slightly.
7) Increase Volcano's physical and fire damage.
8) Armaggedon meteors should drop faster and more frequently.
9) Twister. Increase mini-stun duration by 0.1 seconds for every 2 points added into skill. Hardpoints only.
10) Fix Arctic Blast !! Its bugged like Inferno.
11) Spirits. Spirits should have a natural stoneskin mod like all Ghostly champions plus 1 random elemental immunity and have more hp in general.
12) Spirit of Barbs needs to be fixed. Add an open wounds modifer and it should offer a bigger reflected damage bonus than thorns anyway. Toss in a slow effect and you will have a powerful Crowd Control Spirit. Instead of directly increasing firepower like HoW or life like Oak, it can help make your minions lives easier.

Note: I never ever played hammerdins because its stupidly boring and does not seem to fit the Knight in shiny armor thingy, so don't assume I am one of those airheads who can only spam hammers and TG.

naturebunns

27-10-2006, 19:09

too bad Smite isn't melee

wheel-of-doom

27-10-2006, 23:40

Man if they made grief only add to melee attacks and not to certain shield using skills. Lots of problems could be solved there.

But to improve the druid, since blizzard seems a bit lazy(when it comes to fixing/improving skills) they could simply make a pelt runeword that adds a substantial amount of points to armageddon but also benefits the fire tree. Thus you wouldnt need to put points into it,and it would get the synergies. And blizzard wouldnt have to go out of their way to do it.

If the spirits were made phys immune or whatever it would make them more useful to other classes to use charges. So synergies(lycanthropy or cyclone armor?) to give them resists, life, or phys resistance might work.

fr/w added to lycanthropy would be really nice

bears need a better bonus to life and a defense bonus

werebear should have defense atleast equivalent to holy shield or shout because a barb or pally can have more +% defense with 1 point in either shout or holy shield than a druid with 20 points in bear

I dont have any experience using the other bear skills besides fire claws, but I imagine they're sub-par

thats all i have for now.

xpumafangx

28-10-2006, 00:50

Ok im going to help you all out by filling in some blanks.

1. The diffance arua from exile is bugged.... Thats right I found this out by looking up info from the paladin forum back when stoutewood was around. Stormsheilds give you more defence. The only time a exile sheild will give you a ton of defence is when its done in a eth bugged sheild.

2. Most paladin builds have nothing on a really good werewolf build. I tend to kill smiters in one rabies, I kill zealots easyly by casting spirit wolf and letting them attack me, Templers can be killed off by casting spirit wolves, and oak sage. Hammerdins well I havent fought one in a long time in a actual duel. Mostly its I am anti pking.It goes like this any one that gets too close to a good werewolf tends to die.

3. If you want a druid only runeword item and want it to be used as a great pvp or pvm item. Make it like this.

4 to shapeshifting skills
indestructable
200%ed DEF
lvl15 vigor
50% fhr
30% resist all
plus to str per lvl or plus to dex per lvl
pul, zod, um

These really need to be a little better then a jalals inorder to be popler. Or other wise people will tend to use jalals instead.

trooper

28-10-2006, 03:42

Fury should be uninteruptible or block cooldown should be removed.

Clay bizzle

28-10-2006, 08:07

OH I thought of a cool one that I haven't seen yet. For Shockwave, add a radius of knockback/fhr stun to go along with the narrow stun affect wave that's really only effective in PvM. I mean an invisible radius of effect just like the Barb's Leap. If you have a high level Shockwave then like Leap, your whole screen will go into fhr, or double fhr as Leap does.

Barnical

28-10-2006, 09:08

Yea we dont need a teleporting furball of death. 12k fury in your face after a tele... they would have to nerf it even more, and thats not fun. So no tele.

I wouldn't mind a teleing furball as opposed to stacking massive r/w.

:fortuneteller: I forsee druids getting the least changes in 1.12 as 1.11 showed.

akybo

28-10-2006, 13:04

Did Blizzard said something about 1.12?

stoutewolf

28-10-2006, 19:32

dont change the werewolves.

they can be so powerfull if you know how to play with them.
:smiley:

akybo

28-10-2006, 21:40

A good realistic change is what a forum member said before:passive fast run walk-animals are fast period;grief not work with smite-swords do more damage then shields.
I know werewolves are powerfull but that thanks to the fact that old players like to choose underpowerd builds and with tricks and skill are making them a powerfull one,not becouse of the skills blizzard made for wereforms.

pedu

28-10-2006, 22:19

They can indeed be powerful, but a teeny weeny twink could be necessary.

RareBear

28-10-2006, 23:19

I'm fine with wolves, except with one problem--->extend the amount of time feral rage lasts. this wold be helpful

Werebears..now that is what seriously needs to be improved.

Anyway, these are all suggestions, but I HIGHLY doubt Blizz will do anything

RetroStar

29-10-2006, 01:35

Make them change into a horse with charge!!

wootage.

Kiba

29-10-2006, 02:15

Give em a Bo type skill with some sort of Howling skill!

AwoOoOoooOo! +150%frw Grrrowl!!!! +200%edmg AwroOOO +4879745849 life

Dimmu Borgir

25-11-2006, 05:29

Old topic I know. Here's your Druid runeword though. Kudo's to anyone who gets the musical reference.

Call of the Winter Moon
Ber + Jah + Tir
(Druid Pelts Only)
+3-4 To A Random Druid Skill Tree
+3-6 To Lycanthropy
+200-250% Enhanced Damage
Cold Resist +50%
+15% To Cold Skill Damage
Level 10-15 Vigor Aura When Equipped
Increase Max Life +50%
70% Chance To Cast Howl On Striking
+1 To Burst Of Speed

Oh snap that last mod might make it broken. Oh well.

Kiba

25-11-2006, 05:41

Call of the Winter Moon

IMMORTAL !!!!!!!

Dimmu Borgir

25-11-2006, 06:04

Dark mind landscapes and only me...
Seas and rivers high,
Deeps and waterfalls...
Massive mountain, powerful mountain, still only me...
Where bergs and peaks throne,
Cold beneath... the MOON

Hell yes, Kiba likes the good muziks.

I really like the idea of physical immune Spirits. As for the Spirit of Barbs issue, I recommend changing it to "Spirit of Plagues", have it poison everything in a certain radius at regular intervals (Or have the poison applied as the damage returned effect), have it stack with Rabies, and have it synergize with Rabies and Poison Creeper.