I am playing a Cold DOT Spriggan build
I use Summon Spriggan for its buffs and abilities
HOWEVER, it’s main use… the healing aura cannot be turned on at all while in Spriggan form
Which for me, means I NEVER get to use it
Now I have taken pretty much every defensive option possible for my “Companion”
It just dies… all the damn time
It’s unenjoyable as hell to invest heavily in defensive options for this summon, and watch it be useless as hell in Empowered Monos
It’s also useless in boss fights and always dies
I feel like overall this summon is not good, not being able to use the healing aura in Spriggan form is awful… and overall just a complete let down for all Druid players
My Suggestions are that
#1 - The Spriggan should automatically cast the aura
This allows players who stay in their Primal Forms to get defensive usefulness and something from the Sprigg
Even if it dies, you will REALLY want this companion back up
#2 - Make the Spriggan VASTLY tankier… if you’re not gonna let me use the healing aura ever… while in a Primal Form… then at least let him be tanky… the nodes that make him defensive don’t make him defensive enough
Till either is addressed, I don’t see a reason why anyone should bother using this skill… it’s a let down
I came on here to say as much. They should have a node in Spriggan form that triggers the aura automatically on hit, or add a set of nodes the Spriggan tree that allows Spriggan to trigger aura on hit (similar to wolves’ “Howl” ability).
I think these companion abilities that “when you use X skill” when in any Druid transformation should go like Swarmblade’s
It’s costly to invest points in it and you get “random” ability cast which doesn’t feel right. Ofc this is not an issue if you only have 1 companion. But I do play Druid minion build with Summon Wolf and Summon Spriggan. I said “costly” because I also think Swarmblade’s tree in general feels all over the place, anyway that’s another problem not related in this topic.
Anyway I think we should have a dedicated button for companion skill instead to have more control over companion abilities. Maybe a dedicated additional UI for druid too that shows available companion skills, etc… But ofc, this may introduce more balance issues which I don’t really have much say in it. Just having to rely on RNG to proc these companion skills seems clunky to me.
Also playing same build, have problem with the spriggan dieing constantly in all content I do
I feel like its a little bit of an oversight that builds which invest heavily into minion stats will also have some minion life/armour/regen and have a decently tanky pet. But builds that are using all their affix slots for player character damage instead of minion builds… Get basically a minion that has zero defenses and it instantly gets 1shot and has to be resurrected constantly, especially against bosses or high arena its useless and always dead.
Iirc this topic is aas old as the druid class. i was very dissapointed to see the old druid beeing forced to be played very specific ways. At the moment things are far better and I understand the wish of people to make xyz possible with Shapeshifts.
While I’m a bit sad about it I still think there is a need to have certain restrictions for class builds so build diversity is a thing and masteries don’t get obsolate. Shapeshifting centered builds that can make full use of minions would make Beastmaster mostly obsolate.
Do I wish to have more freedom with the druids skill choice? Well yeah for sure but I think LE already went to far in giving people options that hurt build diversity and class idendity. There should be some pros and cons to the mastery choices. On the other hand I have no idea why summon spriggan is in the Druid mastery when the Druid mastery excludes minion skills from working fully however you want to play the game.
Then again it’s a me problem as well because I want to play single shift builds wihtout swapping forms at all so I restrict myself from using certain skills to their full potential.
But then all aspects from beastmaster should only work with melee skills. I would realy hate it if all Beastmasters end up running spriggan form. I think that’s a slippery slope and should be carefully done or only for the mastery centric spriggan minion.
Swipe can be specced to use the closest companions ability (also with a full heal). Pretty sure that means the Werebear has the ability to trigger companion abilities. As said above, Swarmblade form has a way as well.
You need to build it to survive otherwise it just won’t by default. That means making it tanky enough to survive some spike damage and enough recovery that its health isn’t chipped away.
For max health I think you need at least one good T5 minion max health roll on gear+Natural Duality (Druid) or Natural Bond (Beastmaster). If you’re running multiple companions then you can’t take these nodes, but you should probably be gearing more heavily towards it anyways (e.g. turquoise rings and more life rolls).
For recovery, you need to either (1) get him to have a lot of regen (2-3 T5 prefixes), (2) if he has enough damage, use a living seed relic base to give him leech or (3) use something like reach of the grave. In my past builds I found option #2 was the easiest.
If you do the above he should be able to survive empowered 300+ (although he’s not going to be a damage sponge like the Acolyte Bone Golem).
While I disagree in that there are ways to build into making him survive, I agree whole heartedly that the “activate” ability is trash not being able to activate it while in a transformation. If the activate ability on spriggan could be used you could build into healing effectiveness giving you another possible option for recovery.
Maybe you should read and understand the whole post you answer to. I’ll say it again: Other masteries that use pets have no such restrictions. Why should the druid have such restrictions who needs his shapeshift forms to be as strong as other masteries?
There are so many possible places where a “Spriggan uses active skill” node would make sense in the druid masterie. For the bear it could be used with roar, roar for healing so to speak ^^.
It could be in the Entangling Roots skill somewhere that if you cast ER you can also procc the Spriggan form skill.
It could be always on in a waeaker form if you are in Spriggan Form because of synergy or you put a node here and there that proccs the skill if you use whatever skill or hit with whatever skill.
There are a ton of options that would work realy well and wouldn’t be half bad and offer more choice to the class.
I’m against making this work with other pet skills because the BM should have the best pet interactions of all primalist classes because he’s focused on them. Give the Druid all the spriggan stuff would be nice thou because it comes with the druid class as well and you can make it optional and use it if you want.
I realy don’t want the druid to be the beter BM at the end of the day.
No other minion-summoning skills have the summoning skill replaced with another skill that does something else (regardless of whether that companion skill is awesome or not). Unless I missed the point of your comment.
Using pets without a pet centric build is bad anyways so it’s no benefit to have a weak spriggan running arround while your summon skill is all of the sudden another skill.
The whole druid mastery is centered arround shapeshifting and the benefits that come with it. On top of the benefits there are downsides as well like having no direct controll over minion skills.
So you need to be shapeshifted to do copareable dmg to other classes and you get a lot of tankieness from shapeshifting but you loose the pet active. Other classes with minions have their minion skills AND are able to fight at their full potential but the Druid and this seems kind of unfair to me.
I’m no fan of minion builds and I’m not hurt by the current state of the game but I still think the design flaws of the Druid that are talked about since release of the mastery should be taken care of already. Then again I hope EHG restrict it at the same time because it would be a shame if the Druid will be the stronger minion class then the BM.
I don’t know how to point out the issue more clearly but having one button changed into another button isn’t the real issue here ^^.
