Hello Travelers,
Let’s talk about moving trees.
More specifically, the Spriggan Form Unique “Roots of Vithrasil”
These boots grant a large damage boost to the Spriggan Form skill Spirit Thorns, its main damage skill. They also have a downside: “You cannot move while in Spriggan Form”
I believe this design goes against the core tenets of design Mike has reiterated so many times; 1) You can hit things and 2) You can move.
I can understand wanting to create a theme around a slower moving tree, but there are various issues with this specific design:
- Due to the massive downside being permanent in Spriggan, it feels very punishing to cast anything besides Spirit Thorns in Spriggan. The boots push you towards a very focused Spriggan skill tree, to try and atleast make it worth giving up movement for. This means I’m either choosing between hitting things (Form) or moving (no Form). Any other buttons I press feel like the boots aren’t being used as they should.
- The Health Regen is by far not enough to compensate standing in things. If it can’t counter any sort of damage over time pool, it won’t help me move less. Either a leech or strong damage reduction against damage over time would be far more helpful.
- There is no multiform support around the Spriggan Form skill tree nodes that buff Spirit Thorns. This makes movement feel very punishing. The Swarmblade & Spriggan combo (Vines to Hives to Healing Totems) would be nice, except it’s minion-focused and the boots are not.(see #1) The Werebear to Spriggan support requires you to take a “Haste on going to Spriggan Form” node, which is useless with the boots.
- Spriggan has no access to a movement ability besides using an extra item, which locks out full use another skill; Vines. Vines also synergizes the best with Spirit Thorns either by being a melee ‘wall’ to distract enemies, or by casting Thorns themselves. See also multiform synergy in #2. There is literally no other way to mitigate the downside of the boots except this specific rare drop ring, which then comes back to point #1, single skill build.
Overall, I feel like no matter which way I try to approach these boots, I can’t see a way to make them work without at some point ignoring core game mechanics in a meaningful way.
I think the movement lockout needs a redesign. Ideally, Roots of Vithrasil would be a buff/debuff on yourself that increases Spirit Thorns projectiles & damage and reduces/limits movement, so that you are not be punished for using other abilities or maybe just cleanse it if you REALLY need to move.
I can definitely see a way to build around having that nice burst window, especially with the Primal Shifter passive. But it needs to let me do other things besides turn into a high polygon Totem.