So few things to add, though before I do I think it’s certainly a good idea to take a look at other ways to proc entangling roots in spriggan form (and faster), or even give the ability to cast it outright. Being locked into one pseudo-viable method does create obvious limitations.
That said, one has to consider just how much you can gain from being able to get entangling roots out now at least every 4 seconds (I’ll get to why later):
armor and cast/attack speed to totems and vines (3-5 second duration)
the above along with an extra thorn projectile for summoned spriggan
10 flat physical damage to EVERYTHING except yourself for 8! seconds.
40 adaptive spell damage to EVERYTHING except yourself for 8! seconds. Bonus points if this is physical spell abilities, like range converted vines, spriggans, and left-over totems. These get effectively 50 flat damage for 8 seconds.
The spell itself does decent damage even when speccing for minion damage and can apply build centric ailments like poison and frostbite.
The default cone behavior is a little unwieldly for buffing though, especially for ranged companions that typically hang back behind you, so I like the Overgrown Garden node which changes the expansion to a circle radiating from you (still covers a very large area). This has a 4 second cooldown though (which at the moment seems to be ignored when procced from valetide, but I am assuming at some point it will be fixed). For the 8 second buffs this is no problem. For the buffs provided by Frenzying Thorns, the 2 points in Entrapped set the “base” duration to 3.9 seconds, so as long as you can fire off Entangling Roots every 4 seconds, the buffs are covered.
As for totems themselves, remember that when you proc valetide, at least 3 totems are still up and attacking which will benefit from Entangling Roots. I say at least 3 cause you can certainly run your healing totem count up to 6 (2x3 summons) before the bombing starts. It delays the combo, but does buff more totems for a bit until you start the cycle again.
All of the above is applicable to both a base physical/poison build and also a cold converted build. Finally here is a link that gives an idea how to incorporate all of the above (cold version).
I’m still playing around with things trying to decide how far it can go. Mono boss kill time seems a bit long, so still undecided.
It sounds more complicated than it is to play. I basically throw down vines (if I need em), then just spam totems and cast thorns when I have 4 spirits. Pretty much all I need to do.
The only issue I have with that his the 60% to get Valespirit. It’s enought to work, like you said, 2-4 cast Totem and your good but is just that ‘random’ range of proc that bother me IG. It feel a little bit clunky because sometime you expect to proc but it doesn’t because of bad roll.
Because i didn’t play Minion this time I just switch to regular spam Spirit Thorns instead. But I’m a bit disapointed because I liked how ER feel and fun it was when it was smooth.
I played werebear summon build, where you use maul to cast entangling roots and some nodes in entangling roots allow you to summon vines that are affected by nodes in spriggan form. So yeah, except for the totem part, vines and pets receive all the buffs from entangling roots that you mentioned much easier while in werebear form than in spriggan form. And for a summon build, the %hp increase from werebear form is more practical than the % spell dmg in spriggan form. Additionally, regen rage in werebear form is also easier.
So I haven’t played the new werebear yet, but even despite that I fail to see how 100% uptime on the ER buffs (that don’t stack) can possible be easier than I am already doing? Also, I started with the vine proc in ER and didn’t like it nearly as much since you couldn’t control where the buds spawned in the area and if an enemy wasn’t around, they didn’t “sprout”. Plus, I want the vines down ahead of time to be hit by ER for the buffs.
As far as rage goes, my rage is more or less 100% full all the time with my spec and LotQF.
I also wouldn’t just hand-wave away “except for totems”. I have 10 down once I get the 4 from my idol procs and all 10 get the full benefit of ER (and my summon spriggan) since they have the spell tag.
Depend on which route you choose for your nodes.
For vines build, it’s usually 8-10s to proc entangling roots, 4s is a wet dream.
For thorn totem build, it’s more viable but I heard this is considerably weaker than in 0.8.3.
Umm, druid got a total rework in 8.4. While some stuff carried over there are entirely new mechanics at play, especially with spriggan form.
And I can say beyond an absolute shadow of a doubt, using a cycle of life build to proc vale spirits you can EASILY get more than 1 ER off every 4 seconds. It’s closer to 1 every 2 seconds.
I don’t know why you wouldn’t use Totem if you make a Vines Minion Build except the ‘I don’t want to’ reason. But yeah, we all agree with you -even Vyrzeden I think- that you can’t use ER that much with just Spirit Thorns so I don’t really get your point here. ^^’
5 points in overgrowth, 5 in creeping underbrush, 1 in garden of rage, 1 in great vine, 1 in rose meadow, 3 in spiritwhisperer, 1 in valetide. That’s already 17 points. Assuming you have the relic that +2 spriggan form, and horned staff, you’ll have 23 points to spend. If you want to use totems to cast entangling roots, 3 points in cycle of life is a must, so that’s 20. With 3 points left, I don’t see how only 1 totem summoned and dying at a time can generate vale spirit efficiently.
If you want ranged vines, things are even more complicated with 2 points in nightshade and 1 in huntersbane.
Well my point is that werebear has a much friendlier way to cast entangling roots, a skill that should be more of a signature skill of spriggan form. The way dev designs valetide, it’s easy to say that the only sensible way to use it is to go with healing totem thorn totem. Any other direction is possible but ineffective.
I agree that you can’t possibly take everything and something has to lose out (or at least be less effective). For me, I decided vines loses in terms of adding skill points directly, but 40 flat adaptive spell damage and up to 50% attack/cast speed does help close that gap.
As a side note, another unique that helps with getting the skill points is Raven’s Rise. Spriggan form has both the minion tag and spell tag, so it’s gets +2 (along with thorn totem and summon spriggan). There is also Valeroot in a pinch.
Also, taking huntersbane allows you to focus a bit more on spirit thorns nodes for scaling vines which does help as well since those are along the way to valetide.
Yup, and I said as much in one of my earlier posts. I absolutely agree there should be more/better ways to interact with valetide and ER than currently available.
Actually, if you don’t venture into healing totem nodes at all and have 3 points in cycle of life, how fast is it to proc entangling roots? If it’s around 4-5s, I’ll take it for my poison or cold vines build too.
And another question, thorn shield can cast eterra’s blessing and its ancentral renewal node can summon healing totem. Can this totem proc cycle of life?
Creeping Underbrush seems very useless for Spriggan when you can summon 3 (or 1 Great). So 2 pts just for getting Garden of Rage is enough if you want to regen your Rage with Vines. Ranged Vines seems also more usefull than 5 overgrowth (because they become ‘spellcaster’ scalling with added Flat Spell Damage + no DPS lose if Targets move a lot).
For now i have been toying with a Spriggan/Human Dual Form: Summon Vines and H. Totem then switch to Human, summoning Thorns Totem & Warcry against Boss or Spam ER when i need to. And go to Spriggan to rinse & repeat. I like it so far because i can also ‘jump’ with Fury Leap and gain some point because i don’t need to worry about Mana or Rage.
For the Healing totem of Eterra: It doesn’t gain anything from the Spriggan Form Skill Tree so no it shoudn’t work.
30% cast speed is kind of nice to have though. So if I don’t venture into healing totem nodes and still get to cast entangling roots every 3-4s, I’ll take it too.
You really need to be able to summon them 3 at once for that to be efficient. And the plus side to summon actual Shealing Thorn Totem is that they also do damage. But you can try.
Another thing to note on healing totems. The Totem Warden node grants 60% to ALL summoning speed. So not only does it let you get totems out faster (so faster cycle of life), but it also summons vines faster as well.
Actually I wonder how much of vines damage is poison, how much is physical. Somehow I feel that you should either play poison or cold vines. Physical vines seem meh.
And just checking, spirit thorn cast by vines can’t pierce right?
