Heya everyone, I really like the shaman and especially playing with the thorn totems. One thing that I like even more are the primalist armor skins, unfortunately I can no longer play in spriggan form because I don’t like his skin…
It’s complicated to explain but for me appearance matters a lot in the game and I would really like to be able to play my totems without the spriggan form.
I have two suggestions :
make an option to play without seeing the spriggan form, or perhaps a kind of ghostly aura in the form of a spriggan above the character (which would also be good for future store skins).
2)Currently the explosion thorn totem (rotten core node) build is below the single projectile build. Why not add more damage if not transformed on the node directly? I think it’s a good option to popularize the build.
I dont really care about the cosmetics. but I really like the idea of adding some bonuses to human form for thorn totem.
Cause yeah, I play shaman cause I wanna be the whimsical forest fighter archetype. I really hate having to use the transform mechanic which I think should be strictly a druid thing.
I think we need some boost on shaman character.
Well this is my opinion, when I played a long time ago an exclusive thorn totem’s, it’s seems little clunky. Specialty without some unique items.
IF swarmblade was obtained before the chain, and thus you had more options then just spriggan, then sure we might consider it to be not a druid thing.
The only non druid transform build is thorn totem, so it feels extremely forced. You are taking advantage of no tansform mechanics like bonuses for being in form, or swapping form, etc. You just want to get into spriggan because its objectively simply more powerful.
Why is so much of thorn totems power tied into spriggan form?
You dont use any of the other spriggan mechanics either, you simply pop into tree shape to play as if you were as human shaman… but be way stronger!
Well, technically, there’s also lich form. And yes, before you say it, it’s not the exact same since it doesn’t replace all your skills. But it IS a transformation.
So you have at least 2 transforms that aren’t druid, much like the point @Llama8 was making in regards to necros: even though necros are always associated with the “minions build”, there are more builds with minions.
But I think we all understand what I meant. From a game design stand point, the only transformation available to nondruid primalists is spriggan. which for anything other then thorn totem and I guess solo bear, has very little use to pick. if you want to make use of vines, casting roots/vale spirits etc, going druid is just the best choice.
So the only reason that anyone is picking spriggan for thorn totems is because its straight up just BiS. its not really a “synergy” so much as a “if you want to scale thorn totem, you are spriggan.”
I agree with you there. I think thorn totems should be valid on their own and spriggan should be valid without thorn totems. Same goes for almost everything else. I don’t think skill synergies should make them mandatory to run together, since that sort of ruins and limits the builds you can make. Though that is very hard to balance.
The point @Llama8 was making, and I was agreeing with, was just that the “Tranform is a druid thing” isn’t a valid objection.
Is this an issue strictly with Spriggan and Thorn Totem, or do all transformation skills with the “uses XYZ skill tree” have this same over-synergy, that makes using them without the transformation skill less desirable? I honestly haven’t looked at them all close enough…
I don’t know if it’s exclusive to spriggan, since I’ve never tried swarmblade, but one of the strongest bear builds is cold dot earthquake. There are more bear builds, though and there are strong earthquake builds, like TheCurse’s one, that don’t use bear.
I think the problem is that the synergy of both thorn totems and spriggan is just way stronger than normal and you don’t really have a way to boost either of them separately in a way to be competitive.
Human form is woefully underpowered with totems to the point you can only play Rotten Core end game and Spriggan hit based Ferebors eclipses it easily
I did Thorn Totem Shaman to 97, I changed from Rotten to hit crit based Ferebors at some point and had 100% crit
Spriggan gets infinite Rage (mana) from various sources but the easiest was just specing into Garden of Rage.
So you get 9x totems, Spriggan bonuses, infinite mana, 100% crit, pretty sure I used Serpents Milk so you have another damage scalar and can drop totems and not be in danger, you can also get Vessel of Strife going
Human gets 3 totems and poison, no Armor bonuses and has to use the totem refund node to sustain (which is the same anyway as Spriggan) but has essentially infinite mana for its main skill but you also have to spam the skill so its far more dangerous to play
I think the bigger question is wtf is Druid better than Shaman for a totem build
Yeah they get ‘free’ procs of skills or extremely easy sustain
Bear gets free Maelstroms, Spriggan can get ‘xx Rage per totem per second’ so having any totems just sustains more totems, it self feeds itself endlessly. Thats why I play these builds as you dont spend mana basically and can just enjoy other mechanics
Also the transform skill trees are trying to do to much so when you focus on 1 section you get ALL the nodes without compromising hardly anything else. You end up allocating your last 3-4 points on anything as you got everything you wanted
pretty much, its much easier to get rage then mana. because you always summon 3 totems with spriggan regardless of taking the points that let you summon all your totems at once, you dont have to take that big mana cost increase. so for human shaman to summon 3 totems, they need to spend way more skills points AND spend more mana.
It’s a primalist thing. Thorn Totems are a basic skill available to all masteries so it’s fair game. The only reason why everyone is picking Spriggan is the fact that Shaman is ass.
