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
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.
Nodes that give bonuses similar to the “only on companion” nodes for playing WITHOUT companions. Primalist is more fun then any other class but to be “forced” to use pets for a minmaxed build is a downer.
I know and I opened up a suggestion thread on the topic. It would simply be an option because the combat skills of the Primalist are fun and at least one subclass playable petless would be fun.
Which nodes specifically are you referring to? Druid has multiple “On Crit” nodes that require a good number of nodes to fully max out - do you feel that there are multiple areas where you have to “waste” passive points because the remaining nodes that aren’t companion related are too lackluster to use?
If there are particular damage types that you feel are too weak without companions, let me know and I’ll see if there are any interesting ways to incorporate new node ideas. For Primalist, I generally see Physical / Bleeding for Beastmaster, Lightning for Shaman (Cold is too unsupported at the moment), and Physical / Bleeding / Poison for Druid.
The Companion nodes are good and the druid tree is a pretty good example how stuff should be done because it’s pretty versatile. I only dislike the lack of an option to play petless out of personal taste. I like the primalist class most and have not much fun with other classes because they feel boring to me but I realy don’t like pet classes. I hoped there was a way to get rid of pets all togheter but the “with only one companion” nodes are to spicey to leave them out if you want to create a minmaxed build. I’m in the mid 50 levels and I loose a lot of dmg I can’t get otherwise without a companion.
It’s only a “My taste” thing and the Class is playable and fine as it is but I simply wish for some passive nodes that compensate for a no pet build.
The “only one companion” nodes are beefy by design because it’s an odd middle ground between going full pets and going full petless. Companions are fairly squishy if you don’t invest in them and they will die quickly if you don’t provide appropriate protections for them. As someone who’s dabbled in hybrid pet/player builds in other RPGs, if you try and take those nodes and don’t bother with pet bonuses, the build just ends up being a mess, no matter how minmaxed your other stats are.
You’re not missing out on much in the end because whatever beefy bonuses you get in the nodes are cancelled out by having to invest in pet stats to ensure your companion isn’t dead weight. All the Primalist sub-classes can use some beefy nodes that aren’t reliant on pets, and I’m trying a write-up of different ideas that keep the flavor of the classes (essentially high-level passive nodes that grant skills like Druid’s Tremor, except actually good). The top ranked passive nodes for Beastmaster, Druid, and Shaman are all lacking in a significant way, and I’d love to hear more ideas about how to make good 45-50 mastery nodes that are worth the 50-60 levels it takes for someone to get to it.
As long as the pet buffs are still there while your pet is down but rezzable pet survivability is a non issue because who cares? Right now I’m pretty happy with the Druid tree to be honest. The only thing that makes me shake my head is the Tremor branch… that’s a bit poor in my eyes and for every class… the high end nodes you can skill 15-20 times to get + stat X hurts my brain. On one side I want to have those on the other side it feels wrong to invest such a mass of points for it. I still need to play far more with the druid to paint a whole picture.
If the Bear and spriggan shift will be fledged out I think I will take a deep dive but untill then my main priority is still the same a possibility to play petless even if the emphasis of the class are pet companions ^^.
Ideas for generic Primalist buffs and passive nodes
I feel like there should be ways of gaining more generic buffs; such as Haste and Frenzy, instead of so many unique ones on so many different skills and passive trees. There should be multiple ways of gaining the buffs and they should also be easily recognisable at a glance. I also like the idea of having buffs scale with level as to make them more viable late game. The numbers are kept low, since these buffs shouldn’t make your character too powerful early game.
These ideas are just to get discussions rolling, so please add your own generic buff ideas that can be obtained in different ways and augmented further.
I will start these discussions for each base class with 3 buff suggestions. Don’t hold yourself back with crazy ideas!
Pack Tactics
Effect
Nearby allies deal 1% increased Physical damage per your character level for 4 seconds. Cannot stack.
How to obtain
Passive node in the bottom half of the Beastmaster tree. You have a 50% chance to gain Pack Tactics each time one of your minions kill an enemy.
Skill node in the Summon Wolf tree. Top left path. Gain Pack Tactics when one of your wolves howls.
Skill node in the Summon Bear tree. Right path. Gain Pack Tactics when your bear taunts an enemy.
Augments
0/5 - Passive node in the bottom half of the Shaman tree. Increases the duration by 20% per point.
0/5 - Passive node in the bottom half of the Beastmaster tree. You and your minions have 1% melee health leech per point while Pack Tactics is active.
0/1 - Passive node in the bottom half of the Druid tree. You and your minions have +5% global critical strike chance per point while Pack Tactics is active.
0/1 - Passive node in the top half of the Beastmaster tree. You and nearby allies have 35% critical strike avoidance.
Frenzied Rage
Effect
1% increased Melee damage per character level for 4 seconds. Cannot stack.
How to obtain
Passive node in the lower half of the Beastmaster tree. Gain Frenzied Rage when you gain Frenzy.
Passive node in the lower half of the Druid tree. You have a 25% chance to gain Frenzied Rage when you critically strike an enemy.
Augments
0/5 - Passive node in the bottom half of the Druid tree. You have 10% increased health regen per point while Frenzied Rage is active.
0/5 - Passive node in the bottom half of the Beastmaster tree. Increases the duration by 20% per point.
0/1 - Passive node in the top half of the Shaman tree. You and nearby allies have +5 health regen while Frenzied Rage is active.
0/1 - Passive node in the top half of the Shaman tree. You gain 5 mana when your minions kill an enemy while Frenzied Rage is active.
Storm Herald
Effect
1% increased Lightning damage per character level for 4 seconds. Cannot stack.
How to obtain
Passive node in the lower half of the Shaman tree. Gain Storm Herald when you kill an enemy with lightning damage.
Passive node in the lower half of the Beastmaster tree. Gain Storm Herald when one of your companions critically strike an enemy.
Skill node in the Tempest Strike tree. Lightning path. You have a 50% chance to gain Storm Herald when you kill an enemy with Tempest Strike.
Skill node in the Leap Slam tree. Lightning path. Gain Storm Herald when you hit an enemy with Leap Slam.
Augments
0/5 - Passive node in the top half of the Shaman tree. You and your minions deal +1 added lightning damage per point while Storm Herald is active.
0/1 - Passive node in the bottom half of the Shaman tree. Gain 1% increased Cold damage per character level while Storm Herald is active.
0/5 - Passive node in the top half of the Beastmaster tree. Nearby allies have 20% increased critical strike chance per point while Storm Herald is active.
0/1 - Passive node in the bottom half of the Druid tree. You and your companions have 35% increased critical strike multiplier per point while Storm Herald is active.
I would like to piggyback of arts here cause he has good ideas and just add that ALL buffs should be changed to scale with your character lvl. Almost every build ive done has a “prime” age where its most efficient (usually levels 60-85) then after 85 mob scale there damage/health higher but characters dont have much to increase there own damage. Buffs like frenzy totem/healing totem/healing wind gaining 1% effectiveness per char level would help.
Primalist passive: Your Sabertooth is fully grown now.
→ Every of the 3 Flurry Swipes your Sabertooth do on your command take away 5/10/15/20 % of each enemies current health [EDITED this for Llama8] on hit. (halves on players/bosses)
Beast Master passive: The Bear Roar impresses all other Beasts.
→ All Minions have 10 % increased attack speed, damage and movement speed if your bear roars recently (4 seconds).
Druid passive: after Primal Shifter, Turtle Form:
→ Every Time you use a skill, it RESETs the remaining duration of the Shapeshifter buff.
Druid passive: Tremor: Alter this whole thing to:
→ Chance To Cast Tremor For You And Your Companions When Hit. 10 % per point. This Effect has no (maybe something like 0,5 seconds?) cooldown.
Beast Master Mastery: Your Beastmaster loves his Beasts!
-> +1 max Companions per Companion Skill on your Skill Bar.
-> +5 to all Attributes if your minions/companions have killed an enemy Rare or Boss recently (4 seconds). This effect can stack.
If one of your minions/companions dies, you become aggressive.
-> If you’re on the state “aggressive” your base critical strike chance is doubled.
Although I am glad that the earthquake werebear has not been killed off, I am a little disappointed that there are few if no other alternative styles to build the werebear which even remotely close to stack up to the power of the earthquake variant.
I think the modus that there should be many variants of ways to build the druid, and looking at things since the rework I don’t see how there is any other alternative viable builds in the current state that druid is in. The main ability, swipe, which is supposed to be the core and bread and butter of the druid, has scaling that is so poor that it could never be used as a main build pivot or focus, for example. The balance is so far in favour of maul that it is actually more effective to simply never swipe, ever.
I would have liked something that favours more alternative ways to build the druid. For example, make it possible for an earthquake focused werebear, a swipe (maybe bleed) focused werebear, a cold conversion werebear and so on.
I also think the abilities should have more synergy and impactfulness on choosing which to use. Ie. If swipe had a stacking buff each time you used it, which buffed attack speed depending on how many times you had swiped in a row as well as consuming all these ‘swipe’ buff stacks to empower your other abilities, like to make your bear charge faster, or your next maul do more damage in a bigger AoE for example.
Just my 2cents. The more build variety the better. I didn’t bother playing the druid race this past weekend because after alot of testing on my 100 druid as well as browsing all the other existing druid builds, I could see that there was only one viable way to build the druid; the earthquake maul fury leap build using bhauldor’s wrath, and trying to build the druid any other way would never stack up to what that build can do. And I’ve already extensively played that build (I was the one who popularized it a few patches ago) and am simply tired of playing the same thing so I did not participate.
Beastmaster Primalist Node that turns vines into permanent Vine Snakes that travel underground and attack enemies by popping out of the ground and viciously biting them using serpent strike’s nodes.
I had some shaman passive suggestions in another post full of skill idea suggestions but after noticing this thread I wanted to also write them here (they are kinda hidden off in a skill suggestion post) and add a few more:
Shaman:
For every different source of lightning dmg dealt to enemies in the last x seconds gain a defensive buff. (All 3 applications of Lightning Strike as well as lightning from different minions will count as seperate sources. Giving a reason to run perhaps a lightning scorpion on a shaman)
Gain X amount of water/ice shield (could be like ward or could be % dmg decrease or armor etc.) for casting a cold spell up to a maximum stack after which the shield pops and you cast Y spell for free (Y right now could be ice thorns but if it is replaced it could be a water based skill that deals cold dmg to targets around you.)
Although not technically a passive a new ailment called soaked. When you cast a water based cold skill it applies “Soaked” which increases lightning dmg done to the target because they are wet and thus more conductable. I think this idea could fit shaman nicely filling a nice cold/lightning shaman fantasy. Passives that give soaked chance for cold dmg could be how it is implemented.
Since Storm Totem is the mastery skill and you can only have one of it there should be a passive at possibly 45 point mark that either is a single point to make you able to put two storm totems down or it could be a multi point node that gives a stat when you only have exactly one totem out.
Shaman could be the primalist spec that can go ward, if that is a potential direction to be pursued having a passive that gives int per point while also having an effect is wise. That effect could be totem based or spell based or both. Similar to how smite can be converted with passives to a vitality skill this node could convert a key skill such as storm totem or avalanche to have int scaling. Furthermore there could be another passive which turns your x% mana regen into x ward per second or 2x/3x ward retention. These are of course if ward is something wanting to be pursued design wise on primalist(shaman). The reason why I think this is a good idea is both other specs have some identity when it comes to defence. You have nodes based on dodge, endurance, armor, %dmg reduction (on nearby and aspect of boar) on bm with leech as the primary recover. You have endurance, armor, crit avoidance and %dmg reduction that favors dodge builds on druid with recover being more of a focus via your healing, pet healing, leech on crit, form swap healing and health regen. Shaman has resistances and armor and maybe a few life nodes that could use a buff. A heavier focus on resistances or ward could do the trick. The first passive suggestion I had just said defensive buff, it could instead be a flat ward granted on an internal cd for every different lightning dmg.
You no longer gain cast speed benefits. Instead you have a chance to double cast a spell equal to your cast speed %. The second cast is free. Channeled skills instead have a chance every second to allow mana regenaration for 1 second.
Kinda silly when I say it out loud but having a cloud follow the shaman overhead that strikes enemies at intervals could be fun. As a skill or a passive like lightning strike. The internals could be decreased with cast speed. This could also be a minion if it doesn’t follow the shaman directly overhead. Though I really would prefer a spirit guide companion if shaman is to a get a companion. I had that in the skill ideas post, sorry for the repeat, but basically it’s the spirit of a deer that phases through enemies to damage them similar to wandering spirits but a permanent companion. There is more info on it in my skill suggestion post. If only one of my skill ideas were to be implemented I would pick that one.
Since both other specs have a companion node that limits you to 1 but shaman doesn’t, an idea I had was having a node that makes storm totem count as a companion, so it is also affected by buffs to companions but also counts for the companion limit. Revive range could increase totems range or reduce its mana cost and revive speed could either increase its cast speed or it could increase its duration or visa versa. It would still have the totem tag but it will also have a companion tag.
Another companion related node for shaman could be to have +3 or +2 (or even just +1) to companion limit but you can only summon storm crow as companions. I always found it weird you have to go beastmaster for a storm crow build when thematicly being shaman could be a better fit for them. If this route is chosen I would also like to see some companion spell dmg or cast speed nodes on the second half of the shaman tree. (Such nodes would also work for storm totem if and only if it is made into a companion) And if this road is not taken then the same for the second half of bm tree.
When overhealing an ally, convert X% of the health restored into Elemental and Poison Resistance for X Seconds. (‘X’ scale with additional points)
For example, Player ‘A’ has 90/100 health and they are healed for 20; X% of 10 (overheal) is converted to additive Elemental and Poison Resistance for X seconds.
Blooming Briar
Thorns damage now also scales with Healing Effectiveness.
When Thorns triggers, heal a random ally for X if they are below maximum health.
Embody the Ancestors
You can no longer summon totems, inherit the effects of your totems.
This passive would only consider the totems that the player has in the active ability slots. For example, if a player was using Storm Totem, they would be casting the lightning, Thorn Totem would cast projectiles from the player, etc.
Are there any plans to update the shaman passives? It’s my understanding that they are from a very old version and they seem very underwhelming compared to for example druid passives.
