Passive Node Ideas - Primalist

Primalist
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Druid
(Realized after that many of these might be better as akill spec nodes instead of passive nodes but who knows maybe it can help you guys)

  • Guardian of the Forest - Gain 3% Damage Reduction for every nearby totem (not certain on in-game measurements)
  • Everlasting Nature - increase totem duration by (10 - 25)%
  • Spirits in the Wind - Increase movement speed of all allies affected by Healing Wind by (10 - 15)%
  • The Forest Runs Deep - Increase the duration of Entangling Roots and Thicket Blades by 15%. Entangling Roots and Thicket Blades apply a 20% slow.
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Love the suggestions @vegotio

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Beastmaster:
x% more minion damage, if less than x minions are active at the same time.
x% more minion attack speed, if less than x minions are active at the same time.
x% more minion damage, if more than x minions are active at the same time.
x% more minion attack speed, if more than x minions are active at the same time.
Druid:
Every step you take leaves behind a field of thorns, dealing x damage to enemies.
Every step you take leaves behind a field of flowers, healing you for x points of health.
Shaman:
Eye of the storm: You deal x% less damage to enemies nearby, but x% more damage to enemies far away.
The closer your totems are to each other, the more health and duration they have.

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Shapeshifting and even more shapeshifting :D. Male all the D2 druid players drool over your game with SHAPESHIFTING!
Call of the Wild - Some Tarzan action, jodel your shout and some regional wildlife runs through and takes a bite out of your enemys.
Link Totem - A totem you have to place between you’r already summoned totems that refreshes the duration, buffs the dmg, and makes a link between said totems that slows and damages enemys.

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I’ve already posted some about Summon Bear skill. But I think I should continue here to suggest such things.

Change skill: “Summon Vale Spirit” → “Vale Spirit”

While you have “Vale Spirit” skill on your panel the Vale Spirit orbits you and attacks your foes time to time. Vale Spirit cannot be targeted, damaged or affected by any hostile AoE effects. Spirit’s attack damage and distance are average and its speed is low.

This skill can be used directly. In this case the Vale Spirit splits to 5 “Vale Sparks”. Every Spark performs a single attack with all parameters of original Spirit attack though the distance of Spark’s attack is increased by 50%. Every Spark lives only 2 seconds or disappears after performing its attack. Vale Spirit recovers its original form after all Sparks disappear or after 2 seconds after skill being used.
Cost: 20 mana. Cooldown: 6 sec (starts after recovering Spirit form).

P.S. Obviously Vale Spark can’t get the benefit of attack-speed bonuses as it performs a single attack.

Passive Nodes:

Spirit Flare: [1 level]
Now skill can be used to target location. Vale Spirit rapidly moves to a chosen location and brightly explodes before splitting. Enemies affected by the explosion get low damage and suffer from blindness for 2 seconds. Vale Sparks appear at explosion location but Vale Spirit recovers near the caster. This effect counts as “spell” so it gets benefits from spell bonuses but not minion.

Brightness: [5 levels, requires Spirit Flare]
Radius of “Spirit Flare” area is increased by 20% per node-level. Also every attack of Vale Spirit or Vale Sparks prolongs any blindness effect on their targets by 0.1 seconds per node-level.

Wrathful Flare: [5 levels, requires Brightness 2]
Damage of “Spirit Flare” skill is increased by 20% per node-level though it’s mana-cost is also increased by 10% per node-level. Also Vale Spirit splits to an additional 1 - 2 Vale Sparks (yes, it’s random). Maximum number of additional Sparks is increased by 1 per node-level (up to 5) and minimum is increased by 1 on node’s level 5.

Cruel lights: [1 level, requires Wrathful Flare 3]
Vale Spirit’s / Sparks’ attacks now have a small AoE. All enemies in a small area around initial target gets 50% of damage. Also all targets damaged by Sparks’ attacks (not Spirit’s) have 30% chance to be “shocked” for 3 seconds. This area-damage can proc “shock” effects but not any other effects.

Lightning wrath: [5 levels]
Vale Spirit’s attack speed is increased by 10% per node level. Also any attack of Spirit and Sparks has 5% chance per node level to cause 2 second “shock” effect on its target.

Lightning burst: [7 levels, requires Lightning wrath 2]
After any basic attack Vale Spirit and Vale Sparks have 10% chance to perform additional attack on another target after 0.2 second delay (yes, in this case Vale Spark won’t disappear after first attack).

Longer burst: [1 level, requires Lightning burst 4]
If “lightning burst” attack is performed there’s a 60% chance to perform one more attack after 0.2 second delay. Targets of previous two attacks can’t be used for this additional attack.

Heavy strikes: [5 levels, requires Longer Burst]
Vale Spirit’s attacks become slower by 5% per node level. At the same time Spirit’s and Sparks’ attack damage and distance are increased by 10% per node level.

Sparking: [3 level]
Active skill’s cooldown is increased by 1 second per node level but Spirit splits to an additional 1 Spark per node level. Also every 5 seconds Spirit passively creates one Spark up to a maximum of 1 per node level (so potentially you may have 3 Sparks over limit after using skill). These Sparks orbits you while there’s no enemies around.

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Skill: Thicket Blades

Visuals: perhaps it should appear more… grassy? Something like whirlwind of leaves, small and few bigger ones, with sharp whistle sound and wind gust after skill being used. I beleive it fits skill’s name and Primalist’s nature.

Thoughts about functionality :
Though the current skill is ok, wouldn’t it be more fitting (again :blush:) to make it about thicket, leaves, branches, spikes and all effects they can do? And what are those effects? What can those things do while moved so fast inside a whirlwind? They shred their victims alive, slowly cutting them into pieces. Also I’m sure that Primalist is hardly observable inside the whirlwind (dodge bonus).

So…

Thicket Blades:
A whirlwind of living blades appears around the caster making any enemy it touches to bleed for 2 seconds (small area). New bleed effect is applied every 1 second while enemy is inside a whirlwind. Also caster has a 20% bonus to dodge. Cost: 40 mana. Duration: 8 seconds. Cooldown: 5 seconds.

Additional functionality:
If this skill is used before its duration expires the duration renews and caster gains additional stack of whirlwind up to a maximum of 3. For every stack whirlwind’s dodge bonus is increased by additional 20% (so basic max = 60%), and bleed effects are applied by 0.15 second sooner per whirlwind stack after first (so it’s 0.7 second with 3 stacks).

Specialization node examples …

Speed of Hurricane: [3 levels]
With at list one whirlwind stack, caster gets 5% movement speed bonus per node level. Also caster gets 7% bonus to attack speed and cast speed per node level and per whirlwind stack.

Storm Sweep: [5 levels, requires Speed of Hurricane]
Every use of this skill grants 2 second buff to a caster. The buff increases caster’s melee damage and attack speed by 8% per node level.

Rushing the Winds: [5 levels, requires Storm sweep 2]
Duration of bleed effects caused by whirlwind is increased by 0.2 second per node level. Also every melee attack prolongs whirlwind effect by 0.1 second per node level.

Crimson tempest: [1 level, requires Rushing the Winds 1]
You bath in blood of your enemies. While you have a whirlwind stack and any bleeding enemy near by, you suffer 50% less damage from bleeding. Also every use of this skill has 30% chance to make enemies flee for 2 seconds. This effect may also happen when any bleeding enemy dies inside the whirlwind.

Relentless wind: [7 levels]
Increases whirlwind duration by 2 seconds per node level and decreases skill cost by 2 per node level.

Greater whirlwind: [7 levels, requires Relentless wind 4]
Enemies inside the whirlwind have their movement speed reduced by 5% per node level and per whirlwind stack. Also radius of whirlwind is increased by 10% per node level.

Sudden gusts: [1 level, requires Greater whirlwind 3]
Reduces skill’s cooldown by 2 seconds and increases whirlwind stack maximum by 2. But once you’ve reached maximum whirlwind stacks, their duration can’t be renewed by using this skill.

Dust storm: [10 levels]
You gain 15 more dodge per node level and per whirlwind stack. Also the effect of blindness on you is passively decreased by 5% per node level.

Hurricane pack: [1 level, requires Dust storm 2]
You gain only a half of percentage bonuses to your dodge but your minions also gains same benefits while they are inside the whirlwind. Also radius of whirlwind is increased by 30%.

Dirty wounds: [5 levels, requires Dust storm 4]
Every time when skill causes bleed effect it also has 20% chance per node level to cause 3 seconds poison effect.

Thicket pests: [7 levels, requires Dirty wounds 3]
Increases duration of poison caused by Dirty wounds by 0.3 sec per node level.

Knowledge of the Wilds: [1 level, requires Thicket pests 4]
Your poison resistance so as your minions’ is passively increased by 100%. Also every time you take lethal damage from poison or bleeding effects, you lose 15 mana but stay alive and become immune to those damage sources for 1 second.

(not sure this one should be a skill’s passive node :slight_smile: )

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Some thoughts about Druid.
I must admit that I don’t like shapeshifting, even for a short period. Mostly because nowadays we have a lot of appearance customization options, like with equipment or additional effects over it, spell effects and sort of. And shapeshfting always hides all that :disappointed: .

But I have an example of what I think is pretty good Druid implementation (in my opinion of course): Udyr from League of Legends! He switches between spirits and that spirit appears over him or even AROUND him. He gains pretty fun effects over his head, back and arms, but without REPLACING them.

So, the core skills for Druid are: Spirit blessings.
Blessing’s functionality is similar to stance’s though also has some significant differences.

  1. You may have any number of blessing-skills on your panel you wish.
  2. Every blessing grants some passive effect which is always applied while you have its blessing-skill on your panel.
  3. Every blessing-skill can be used directly but all blessing-skills have shared cooldown. So when any blessing-skill is used and its cooldown is started, other blessings’ cooldown also starts, and it has same duration as used blessing’s cooldown.
  4. Last used blessing-skill always grants a doubled passive bonus while others bonuses are normalized.
  5. Every blessing-skill grants significant but short duration effect every time it’s used.
  6. Every blessing-skill must have visuals providing full understanding the fact that Druid is blessed by known Mighty Spirit! :sunglasses: .

Examples …

Skill: Great Oak’s blessing.
Passive: +20% armor and poison resitance. Also you have 7% bonus to mana efficiency of your lightning skills.
Active: Sacred Grove: Cost 20 mana, cooldown 9 seconds.
You become unable to move (but able to cast and attack) for 3 seconds and summon several young oaks around (count as minions, 50 health). All regeneration and healing effects are increased by 50% in a large area around you. Also, any damage you or your minions take is transferred between them equally (minion damage taken can’t be transferred to you). And you and your minions can’t die in the Grove while you all have health to take transferred damage.
Visuals: when skill is used thunder is heard :slight_smile: . Transparent oak-like silhouette appears around the caster. You can see its crown, foliage and eyes (around caster’s head and shoulders). Most of silhouette is dark green / brown but it also has an outer blue / green glow. When performing Sacred Grove skill silhouette becomes less transparent, glow becomes brighter (and thunder of course). Silhouette should have some cast animation. Young oaks are not transparent and they also should slightly glow.

Skill: Manticore’s blessing.
Passive: +5% movement speed and +25% any poison damage you deal. Also your direct attacks have 15% chance to apply 2 second poison effect.
Active: Manticore’s attack: Cost 30 mana, cooldown 6 seconds.
You perform a short distance leap to a selected direction. Every enemy on your path is knockbacked and gain 3 stacks of poison with 5 seconds duration. Also your movement speed is additionally increased by 25% for 1.5 seconds.
Visuals: when skill is used Lion roar is heard. Transparent lion-like silhouette appears around the caster. You can see its head, back and clawed paws (around caster’s head, back and arms). Paws and head are feathered. Most of silhouette is dark brown but fangs, claws and feather tips are bright green (poison). When performing Manticore’s attack silhouette becomes less transparent, more red, gains some glow (and Lion roar of course). Silhouette should have animations for such caster’s actions like attack, cast or leap.

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Couple of Shaman node ideas:

“Our Powers Combined” : 5% of your elemental damage added as Minion Elemental damage per point.

“Insipid Companions”: Minions have 0.5% poison damage leeched as health per point.

Beastmaster node:
“Informed Hierarchy” : Minions have increased minion damage and increased minion health.

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I have just started the Primalist class in the beta phase, and I’d like to see what sort of vision everyone has when creating a Primalist build. Having an endgame in mind will help clarify and smooth all the passive nodes so that each one of the nodes is useful for some type of build. Otherwise you end up with a lot of useless nodes and a few very OP builds.

I am a massive fan of the shapeshifter builds and the passive nodes that grant large bonuses if you only have one pet. It’s a great idea that helps stick out from the typical zookeeper and challenges you to think of ways to give good damage bonuses to both yourself and your pets. I would recommend pushing those bonuses down before the lock nodes so that all the Primalist masteries have a chance to play with the “person and his trusty sidekick” archetype.

Some examples include:

  • Shaman with cold skills + Sabertooth tiger with the Ice Tiger nodes
  • Druid with the Wearbear shapeshifter + Bear companion (focusing on mauling)
  • Druid with the Spriggan shapeshifter + Spriggan or Scorpion pet (focusing on Thorns and DoT effects)
  • I think Wolves have a few Lightning nodes, though I don’t know of any animals outside of fish that actually produce electricity enough to harm other living things. I would personally replace Lightning with Fire and make them like Hellhounds and give the Shaman some Fire abilities (after all, Lightning sparks can cause fire).
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Hello, i’ve been leveling as a serpentstrike plague dot primalist, using the druid tree, because it seemed the most focused on melee.

I like the passives in the tree for poison, bleed, damage over time etc.
however, neither of the forms have any dots, so here’s my idea:

Scorpion form

  • Right click: ‘swipe’
  • 2 fast slashes with your claws hitting in a 90° arc in front of you
  • low hit dmg but high (±70%) chance to inflict bleeding per strike
  • no cd, 2 mana cost
  • Q : ‘sting’
  • Stab an enemy with your tail
  • medium poison damage, 100% chance to poison, 50% to poison with 2 stacks, 25% chance of 3 stacks, 12% for 4 stacks, 6% for 5stacks (etc, i dont know how much you can go after the comma (:slight_smile: ) like 0.0002% for 100stacks would be sweet :stuck_out_tongue:
  • 2sec cd, 10mana
  • W: ‘Burrow’
  • Become untargettable, digging under the ground and charging towards the cursor, jumping out from underground and stun everyone in the area.
    *8sec cd, 5mana
  • E: ‘Vitriolic barbes’
  • Gain 100%(is 100% op?) armor for 20seconds, anyone who strikes you in melee is retaliated upon with a poison stack and a bleed stack (50%chance for each)
  • 20sec cd, 20mana

please allow us dotlovers a way to feel cool and animalistic :slight_smile:

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Currently Druid as a spellcaster feels pretty underwhelming both for damage and survivability. I’d like a passive where we get ward from doing damage with plant based skills. You could call it thorn armor or bark armor. Most of his damaging plant spells are fairly close range so it would make a spellcaster Druid more viable.

A similar upgrade on thicket blades could give ward on damage as well

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I thought so too, but after playing a druid with a defensive focus, I now think it’s fine that they don’t get ward, and wouldn’t even need leech either. When you spec the healing nodes on entangling roots and spriggan, and use thorn shield with armor buffs, physical damage pretty much doesn’t matter anymore. Because of that you can focus on attunement for element protection and vitality for void, necro, poison protection, resulting in your heals outhealing any damage effortlessly. We’d just need some protection against massive one-hits that can kill you instantly, like a node “You can’t take more than 70% of your health as damage from a hit. This can only trigger once every 10 seconds” or something, and Druid would be mighty fine IMHO.
Shaman (and probably Beastmaster too) are more in need of some regeneration options when they focus on pets. I’d like to see a “Your minions leech 1% of their damage as life”-node with up to 5 points, and a follow up node that says “You get 10% of your minion’s leeched health instead” with another 5 points.
That would make it costly to get going, but since it’s be rather powerful that’s okay IMHO. (Though generally procentual leech might need to be looked at, see according threads)

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I agree that physical is easy to deal with and that one hit kills are the biggest issue here; however, I differ with your evaluation in that I do not think Druid would be fine if the one hit kill protection passive were implemented. This is mostly because we have to spend much more points in our passives than say a mage in order to get to the same defensive level. My level 40 mage could spend 0 passive points in defense and use only 3 skills (with their upgrades) and still have better defense than my level 70 Druid with multiple points in defensive nodes and on top of that the mage would also be doing considerably more damage and have higher mobility. In order to catch up the Druid could use some ward of his own, through passive and skill nodes, and it would work thematically with the plant armor idea.

I do like your passive idea as well. Having a passive that say only allows the druid to take damage equal to some percentage of his total life in any one hit would be great. I would also like a passive on a fairly sizable cooldown, which would allow him to periodically take lethal damage and have a short period of invulnerablity afterward.

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Alright. I have no experience with mage/aco/knight yet, so I can only compare Shaman and Druid at the moment. Other classes are probably stronger according to your and others posts, I just feel that in a vacuum of only druid vs. the game, druid generally feels on a good powerlevel for me (apart from above things) ":slight_smile:

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Here are what I would consider the most useless passive nodes in the Primalist class and what they should be replaced with:

Primalist:
Hunter’s Restoration and Hunter’s Emmanation - the early Primalist nodes are either going to be spent on STR / ATT, pet bonuses (the leech one is especially good), and the potion bonus that allows you to heal your pets with a potion. I would remove those nodes entirely for a 2H bonus tree, as each of the 3 classes can somewhat benefit from a 2H weapon. You can also put one of those primal bond nodes (that grants bonuses or having only 1 pet) in here as well as Shaman and Druid can use this equally well.

Speaking of the leech nodes, Beastmaster melee pets are already well and beyond other types of Primalist pet builds, as you have all the nodes necessary to summon the maximum number of pets, and you are open to max out pet speed and pet crit, meaning they would have the highest DPS, and with leeching, the higher DPS, the more healing you have as well.

For the Primalist passive tree that gives an extra companion, I’d keep Health regeneration at full strength, but remove leeching entirely. That way you’d be forced to use the potion nodes and the Health on kill nodes and not auto-cheese to the golden path with maximum DPS and health leeching.

Beastmaster [Pre lock]
Aspect of the Ox (Proc that relies on you to get Stunned is an awful idea)

[Post Lock]
Lumierra’s Salve [50 Beastmaster] - considering the level 30 and 40 passive nodes are mandatory for pet builds (Crit chance and crit damage multiplier), a level 50 passive node that just does potion restoration and 4 seconds of resistances that are reliant on potion finding is pathetic.

Druid: [Pre lock]
Tremor and associated nodes: three passive nodes for a weak AoE that hits a random target? What is this nonsense? As Druid is based on healing, maybe replace this with increased pet damage when a pet is healed (either through spells or potions)
Healing Totem - Chance to spawn healing totems is far too small (2%!!!)

[Post lock]
Eternal Attunement, a level 40 passive node, is far worse than the level 1 passive node that grants Attunement + Mana efficiency. Not to mention it has 20 nodes! Who’s going to put 20 passive points here when you can max 4 other passive skills? I’d reduce the max number to 5 and have it grant 4 Attunement so that it’s worth being a level 40 node.

Briar Skin has 1% (!!!) for Thorn Burst, is Thorn Burst even a useful skill? I’d remove this for that Briar armor that was mentioned above.

Shaman: [Post lock]
Frostblade - a skill that gives cold damage - gives Lightning protection instead of Cold protection. This is more of an oversight than a useless node.

The “Every 3 seconds your next attack” nodes
Beastmaster = Ambush
Shaman = Rhythm of Thunder
If you need to attack for damage, you’ll be attacking so much that it will only add marginal damage compared to other nodes that give flat damage every hit. If you’re not attacking much, then you don’t need to spend points there in the first place as you’re focusing your nodes elsewhere.

There are more things here to remove than added, but I’d reiterate that I’d appreciate more 2H bonuses scattered around, for both Primalist and the sub-classes (before reaching the lock point, obviously). Especially since a Primalist skill requires a 2H polearm (Serpent Strike), I’m surprised there aren’t more bonuses like:

3X flat damage bonuses when equipping a 2H weapon
Great armor + reduced damage when equipping a 2H weapon
Totem bonuses increased when equipping a 2H weapon
3X DoT damage bonuses when equipping a 2H weapon
Shapeshifted bonuses increased when equipping a 2H weapon

I’m sure others can think of better ways to fine-tune the Primalist tree.

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Hi, I’m new around here. I played some of the alpha and a portion of the beta so far. I want to comment on the shapeshifter forms but, as a broad criticism to the entirety of the passive trees I’d just like to say that the points/talents/passives or whatever you want to call it are entirely too convoluted and often times redundant. If I had to take a shot in the dark I’d say there are a ton of filler nodes that could and should be cut or replaced. I don’t have my game pulled up right now to give examples but, I can tell you that in the druid tree there is a passive with 20 possible allocations. I’m not sure how keen the direction of class fantasy is when there is so much filler content? If I were to compare the development of the game like a contract between a blacksmith(in this case a team of blacksmiths) and a citizen seeking to have a sword made for him/her than we have been given a heap of steel attached to a hilt. A lot of potential can be had from a large mass of steel but, it feels weird and very non-intuitive. My suggestion is to temper and mold the class fantasy a little. More meaningful choices make a more satisfying experience. I can attest to this however. Natural Duality ( 15% increased damage per point if you only have one companion) encourages a specific playstyle without explicitly breaking other options. However should this not be connected to Strengthened Bond(gives defense for the same playstyle)? As a shapeshifter the fantasy is not to constantly transform back and forth between human and whatever your chosen form is. Why is Regrowth a thing? Anyway, I just wanted to touch on the passive nodes as a whole. On to the shapeshifting forms…

As a Shapeshifter I don’t feel like there is going to be room to build around constant shifting. Maybe if you guys thought about scraping that idea we could get onto making shapeshifters fun? Here is a list of suggestions…

Step 1: Currently, shifting is locked behind 35 levels of progression. That feels weird as a first time player. It’s scary not knowing what to do for the first 35 levels of your experience. shapeshifting forms should be unlocked sooner and not attached to the druid subclass(which raises a reasonable question. What is the difference between a skill you get at level 1 and a skill you can only have through leveling up a subclass?). It just seems arbitrary to me, no?

Step 2: Separate the post shapeshifted skills into their own skill trees and place these on the passive selection. As a example, charge is a werebear ability only attainable by shifting into bear form. My suggestion is to remove this entirely and replace it with Fury Leap. Fury Leap unlocks 5 levels into druid and has bonuses attached to it for leaping bears. currently, there are 8 abilities attached to forms. If that number stays that’s an ability every 12.5 levels. I think it’s possible to consolidate some of the form specific skills though.

Step3: Make shapeshifted forms sustainable. the mana pool runs out and then poof idea doesnt feel good. Even with mana efficiency it feels bad.

Overall, it seems like a matter of trimming fat and consolidating power that appears to be the problem. too much scattered about everywhere not working very smoothly. I actually started to write up some of the skills I would combine and where and how they would work but, then I realized I wasn’t getting paid for this and people may not be interested. If anyone is curious I could finish that and share it I guess?

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Shapeshifting is in Druid tree as it were shapeshifting is in D&D WoW etc etc. Though I will say they do come late.

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I agree with everything you said, but especially the quoted part. I think the vast majority of People that like shapeshifting prefer permanent shapeshifting instead of temporary shapeshifting.

As to your Passive overhaul: I’m sure Devs would read that with big interest, and I would as well. I also plan to do this for primalist when I have more time (or possibly a Build-Tool-Website Comes up to make it easier to check the nodes without alt-tabbing all the time), as especially the caster side of druids and shamans Need some reimagining IMHO. Would be interesting to see where we would have similar ideas and where we would differ :slight_smile:

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Living Totem: Top Tier Shaman node 1-5-10 points of investment depending on what the Devs find appropriate for what this does.

In short it would turn the Shaman into a living totem. So any totem you activate instead of being put on the ground you would be the totem. Anything the totem does would come from you now. You still have to have the totem on your bars and you have to invest into it skill tree for it to be good still. Any nodes in its skill tree that added to life would increase duration. If totem stay as the aggro sticks they are now (i hope not) then you get all the aggro as well.