Tree's Complete Revamp of Primalist Tree

[Tree]

I know you devs already have a lot on your plate getting your other classes and content ready, but hopefully you will take some considerations to make sure the Primalist continues to get some love. There are already multiple Primalist builds posted that can do quite a bit, but in my opinion, the majority of passive nodes are either completely worthless or “just there for the sake of being there.” This thread’s purpose is to add some additional flair to most of the passive nodes, making it feel that each node is worth putting in the grind to get those levels and bonus points. Since this is a large effort and I can only post here and there, I will use the first post to provide my proposed passive trees, and use the remaining posts to explain the ideas behind each node.

I’ve done my best to either consolidate or remove entirely the most useless nodes such as those that just give Health Regen or flat health. If Health Regen or Dodge becomes more viable strategies, you can sprinkle them in to some of these other nodes, but in my opinion, nodes should be packed with goodies. Nodes like Woodlore that give both raw stats like Vitality and additional damage bonuses or protection should be the norm for all nodes

Primalist Nodes

• Natural Attunement [0] (x/8): 1 Attunement per point, 4 Elemental Protection per point
• Primal Strength [0] (x/8): 1 Strength per point, minions get 5% increased health per point.
• Thorn Bond [0] (x/5): Increased damage by 4%. This value doubles when you have an active minion (reduced requirements).
• Wisdom of the Wild [5] (x/6): Increased Spell Damage per Point, increases DoT effects by x%
• Primal Medicine [5] (x/5): Using a potion heals your minions (same as before).
• Ancient Remedy [10] (x/5): Increased potion find and health restored on potion use (same as before).
• Survival of the Pack [10] (x/10): Increased melee damage and leech (same as before).
• Dirt on Wounds [10] (x/6): Has a x% chance of inflicting Poison if Enemy has Bleed Effect
• Towering Bravery [15] (x/5): You and your minions have increased armor and Void protection when using a 2H weapon.
• Ancient Call [15] (x/1): +1 Maximum Companion. Your minions cannot leech health. (Minions have 100% Regen and 0% Leech, compared to the current 50% Regen and 50% Leech).
• Partner [15] (x/5): Increased damage and protection per point if you control exactly one minion (moved from Beastmaster to Primalist).

Beastmaster Nodes

• Ursine Strength [0] (x/8): Increased Strength + Health (same as before)

• Savagery [0] (x/10): Increased Melee Damage - reduced maximum points

• Caustic Brew [0] (x/5): Increases Health Restored on Potion. Increases Poison Damage after Potion use.

• Claw Guard [5] (x/5): Reduced damage taken, same as before.

• Talon Warrior [10] (x/10): Increased Physical Damage and Bleeding Chance (same as before)

• Aspect of the Ox [10] (x/5): Increased Health Regen and Protections when you are slowed

• Aspect of the Lamprey [10] (x/5): Increased Health Leech (same as before)

• Writhe [15] (x/10): Increased Dexterity. You and your minions have increased dodge rating

• The Chase [15] (x/10): Minions have increased Attack, Cast and Movement Speed (same as before)

• Deep Wounds [20] (x/5): Increased Bleed Effect (same as before)

• Circle of Life [20] (x/5): You and your minions have flat Health on Kill

• Envenom [20] (x/10): Increased Poison Chance (same as before)

• Partner [20] (x/4): If you control only one minion, defensive bonuses from skill nodes are also granted to the player at X% efficiency. (Comfort is just really weird and pointless since you’re giving small Attribute bonuses to precisely one minion)

• Steel Teeth [25] (x/5): Flat Physical Damage and Armor Penetration for you and pets

• Pure Blood [25] (x/10): Increased Vitality, Increased Armor, and Increased Poison Protection

• Forager [25] (x/5): Increased chance of finding potions, increased health on hit for you and minions

• Primal Strength [30] (x/10): +1 Strength and increased melee damage for you and minions (same as before)

• Savage Bond [30] (x/1): +1 Maximum Companion. Minions do half damage unless you hit an enemy with Melee Strike (same as before)

• Lumierra’s Salve [30] (x/10): Potion restores greater health, increased movement speed after potion use (req reduced from 45 to 30)

• Serrated Claws [35] (x/10): Minions with increased Crit Chance (same as before)

• Emanation of the Hare [35] (x/7): Increased %Dodge rating and %Glancing Blow for you and minions

• Adrenaline Rush [35] (x/5): You have increased Physical damage and attack speed if you have a DoT applied to you.

• Serrated Teeth [40] (x/10): Minions with increased Crit Multiplier (same as before)

• Berserker [40] (x/5): Increased movement and attack speed for minions. (Increased damage to the player seems harsh, maybe make it a 2H requirement?)

• Cornered and Wounded [45] (x/10): Massive Increased Physical Damage and Bleed Effect under half health or when reviving a companion

• Agile Pack [45] (x/10): Increased flat Dodge rating per companion (something like 5 dodge rating per point if you have 1 companion but 8 dodge rating per point if you have 4 companions). This applies to both you and your minions.

• Feeding Frenzy [45] (x/2): Moderately increases Health on Kill for player. Dramatically increases Health on Kill for minions.

Shaman Nodes

• Invigoration Totem [0] (x/5): Grants flat heal when a Totem kills an enemy.

• Shamanic Infusion [0] (x/8): Increased Attunement and Mana (same as before)

• Ancient Stones [0] (x/8): You and your minions have 15% increased Elemental damage and Stun Avoidance (Stun Avoidance seems extremely pointless, but I don’t know what else I can put here, maybe increased health?)

• Tremor [5] (x/3): Moved from Druid Tree. Instead of activating under a random enemy, Tremor does Lightning damage at a X meter radius around the player. Damage and Area of Effect is doubled when using a 2H weapon.

• Frozen Fields [5] (x/5): Flat cold and %Cold damage (same as before, but with higher values).

• Totemic Fury [5] (x/5): Increased Attack and Cast Speed if you have a Totem (same as before)

• Thunderous Roar [10] (x/5): Tremor gains increased damage per point of Strength (same as before)

• Static Slash [10] (x/5): Melee Shock Chance + Strength (same as before)

• Silent Protector [10] (x/8): 15% Armor if you have an active totem (same as before)

• Storm Bringer [15] (x/10): Minions have increased Lightning Damage and increased Stun Avoidance

• Wind Bringer [15] (x/10): Increased Physical Damage and Dodge Rating (same as before)

• Hail Bringer [15] (x/10): You and your minions have increased Cold Damage and chance to chill

• Maelstrom [15] (x/10): Increased Elemental Penetration and Protection (new to 0.7.1 - this is a great ability)

• Fist of Stone [20] (x/10): Increased Physical Damage and Stun Chance when you have active Totem (same as before)

• Static Crunch [20] (x/5): Your minions have Melee Shock Chance (requires Static Slash)

• Unstable Ground [20] (x/3): Tremor has X% to summon additional 1 Lightning Bolt per point

• Dervish [25] (x/5): Increased Elemental Melee Damage (same as before)

• Rune of Awe [25] (x/5): Increased Spell Damage for you and minions (new to 0.7.1)

• Frostblade [25] (x/5): Minions have Cold Penetration, and increased damage to chilled enemies

• Storm Shaker [25] (x/5): Minions have Lightning Penetration and chance to blind

• Stormblade [30] (x/5): Increased Melee Damage per active Totem

• Lodestone [30] (x/10): Increased Armor and Protections if you cast a spell recently (same as before)

• Ascendant Circle [30] (x/5): Increased Spell Damage per active Totem (moved req. from 50 to 30)

• Protective Circle [30] (x/10): +Attunement, Increased Protections per totem

• Ball Lightning [35] (x/5): 8% Chance to summon lightning every 3 seconds per spell cast / melee hit

• Eternal Storm [35] (x/5): Cooldown Reduction, %Health and %Mana (new to 0.7.1 - great job on this passive)

• Eye of the Storm [40] (x/5): Increases protection against projectiles by 25% - 50%. Increases protection against melee hits from -10% to 10% (I assume basing damage on distance from enemy is very hard to do, so I propose increased defenses instead).

• Sky Armor [40] (x/10): Increases Armor and Movement Speed (reduced req. from 45 to 40).

• Lightning Rod [40] (x/2): Each totem has a 10% chance of summoning a Lightning bolt at a random location 2m from totem location

• Conflux [50] (x/1): Lightning from passive nodes increases by 30%

• Fault Lines [50] (x/6): Increases the AoE of Elemental Melee attacks by x% (The old Fault Lines is now already covered by Avalanche’s skill tree)

Druid Nodes

• Healing Bond [0] (x/10): You and your minions have increased poison protection and health regen - reduced maximum points.

• Soul’s Attendant [0] (x/8): Attunement and Mana efficiency (same as before)

• BearSkin [0] (x/5): Increased armor by flat amount. Increased Bleeding Chance by %

• Eterra’s Blessing [5] (x/5): Each spell has a 5% chance per point to heal X amount for 4 seconds.

• Healing Totem [5] (x/4): Chance of spawning Healing Totem increases by 5% per point

• Wily Lumbering [10] (x/8): 1 Dexterity and Dodge Chance per point. Additional +1 Dexterity and extra Dodge Chance per point if using a 2H weapon.

• Rejuvenation Totem [15] (x/5): Largely increases Healing Effectiveness and Rejuvenation when near Totem (requires Healing Totem)

• Blossoming Vines [15] (x/8): You and your minions have increased healing effectiveness (same as before)

• Return to Dust [15] (x/10): Increased damage over time and flat health on kill (same as before)

• Strengthened Bond [20] (x/5): Increased Damage and Armor if you control exactly one minion (moved Natural Duality to Strengthened Bond)

• Primal Shifter [20] (x/5): Increased Damage 10 seconds after shifting form (same as before)

• Deep Roots [25] (x/5): Increased Elemental Protection and Health Regen (same as before)

• Woodlore [25] (x/8): Increased Vitality and Poison Chance for you and minions (same as before)

• Rabid Bite [25] (x/5): Increased Health Leech and Bleed Effect in non-human form

• Ferocity [30] (x/10): Increased Critical Strike Chance (same as before)

• Hideskin [30] (x/10): Increased spell damage, %Glancing Blow and reduced stun duration.

• Acquired Instinct [30] (x/5): All minions take less damage when you are in non-human form

• Forest Fervor [35] (x/10): Increased Physical Damage if you have critically hit an enemy recently (same as before)

• Regrowth [35] (x/5): Significant Ward, Increased Mana regen on returning to human form

• Sprouting Vines [35] (x/5): Reduces all cooldown on abilities that summon vines by 20-50% (Affects skills like Serpent Strike, Summon Spriggan, maybe one of the thorn abilities can sprout vines?)

• Defense of the Heart [40] (x/5): Increased Armor and Protections if you critically hit an enemy recently (same as before)

• Eternal Nature [40] (x/10): +2 Increased Attunement per point; minions have increased protections

• Lusted Instinct [45] (x/5): Added stats [Vitality, Strength, etc] from transforming into non-human form are increased by 40% each point.

• Protective Roots [45] (x/5): Increases Vitality and Attunement for you and your pets by 2 X number of vines on the field for 10 seconds when a Vine is summoned. Creates a Healing Nova when a Vine is summoned.
  *Soothing Slaughter [45] (x/8): Increased Crit Chance, Health on Crit, and Healing Effectiveness (same as before)

• Fetid Gouge [45] (x/5): Increased Crit Multiplier if an enemy is Poisoned

Short summary: I’ve made it so that all classes can benefit from all the “Only One Companion” nodes (Hybrid builds can use all the help they can get), Beastmaster benefits more from Physical and Bleed while taking advantage of having the most pets (the class is called Beastmaster, after all), Shaman becomes not just a Totem hoarder, but can also make huge Lightning or Cold melee attacks, and Druid plays into the role of Caustic poison dealer, shapeshifting, and using Vines / Trees for offensive and warding.

Patch 0.7.1 update: Updated to include some of the new nodes from the patch. Most of the new nodes are welcome additions - definitely have more ideas like those.

[ReimerhArts]

I agree with quite a few of these ideas

[Zikkar]

I would love to see more lightening melee based nodes in Shaman myself.

The chance to poison after potion use I hate to my bones. I don’t think they would change it anyway but I would never ever want to see poison chance tied to potion use. Also as to the +1 companion making them not regen at all we just had this changed to something less punishing and it is still bad. Why on earth would we want it changed back to the horrible version.

Poison needs a lot more representation then it has anyway I agree but again never ever on potion use.

[Tree]

I personally like the potion use mechanic as it makes potion use a viable strategy instead of something you grab and then instantly forget. I’ve seen multiple buffs dispersed along other classes based on potion use, so I wanted to beef up the potion use mechanic itself. I end up finding more potions than I can use when I play Monolith, but if my suggestion causes such a visceral reaction, I’d be open to hear what other uses we can make of this mechanic.

As for the +1 companion mechanic, instead of 50% regen and 50% leech or the horrible alpha version of 0% regen and 0% leech, my proposal is 100% regen and 0% leech. Leech tends to overpower any other form of regen no matter which game you’re playing, and I’d like to see alternative forms of regen be viable so that a player has to put real thought into creating a minion build that’s not “stack offense and then stack more offense.” I acknowledge that multiple people have commented that pet regen is at a rough spot right now, but between Spriggan healing, Healing Wind, Health on Hit, Health on Kill, and improving potion use, I hope that these forms of healing could be improved enough that losing leech will not be an issue.

If there are any suggestions that anyone does like, please bring it up so we can rally around putting them in the passive grid. I’m sure I have some bad ideas, but I’m equally sure we can get some of the good ideas out there too.

[Ayranjie]

I like some ideas. In particular:

Beastmaster nodes. Feeding Frenzy and Cornered Wounded actually give a Feeling of “being at max on your passive”. They feel gameplay-changing in a way that feels “grown”, and not “mandatory and overpowered”. Beautiful

I like Tremor as it is. Don`t know how I feel About Lightning added, as in Shaman is the melee-lightning tree and Tremor scales with strengh.

About Minion Damage: Playing Spriggan and Storm totem without entangling roots buff and frenzy totem, but them “plain as they are”, I encourage the +15% elemental damgage to minions node! I feel it could be 25% wih 8 Points (200%) and it still would feel underwhelming in some cases. My shaman has 75 attunement and 400% Minion Damage increase, which is About 700% increased minion Damage in total. Also having unique necklace that grants 20% incs crit and 140% incr. crit Multiplier to minions.

Spriggan barely crits for 200-300 with his vault orb (not having the +200% more dmg to bleed/poisened enemys) … entnangling roots and the vines sit at the same or much less Damage…- storm totems Blizzard node starts with 60, and builds up dmg to 90, 120, 160 - sometimes eventually 200/230, if it survives Long enough.

In contrast, my wolve crit for 900-2000 with their Lightning retiliation. Their melee is above what spriggan/storm totem crit for.

Since minions dont particularily are easily split able between Lightning and say, Cold Damage (or are they?), Splitting Cold Penetration + dmg and light Penetration+dmg feels like a burden. Since taking one will Benefit Maybe one half, taking the other Benefits the other half. e.g. sabertooth is Cold, wolve is light, spriggan is something else, storm totem is either/or. Thorn totem has Cold potential but no light. Bear neither/nor. It feels halfbaked to call for a split here. Shaman itself has Cold and light Damage in melee, for which the split I dont see much Purpose either because it is so Little.

Putting a elemental % and elemental % in one node, and taking the other node for something completly new would be more pleasurable. Or make them much stronger each so that it feels more impactful for what they actually do. Reason: Shaman is already based on so many different accordes at once (melee+spell+minion) in its potential usage of skills, it Needs different Approach than wasting so many Points in so small an effect for only one small Thing, because it discourages wide use and mixing of its skill-potential (see storm totem or spriggan all by itself as a non-pure-minion or pure-totem build!).

Example: my beastmaster crits for 5-7k with entanglings roots Upheaval in a straight line. He crits for 2-3k with every swipe. He is pure 2H melee physical, and Nothing else. Everything he chooses to put Points into directly Benefits him everything. My 2H melee-caster-summon shaman doesnt have it so cheap. So taking a +5% Lightning Damage to you and your minions feels like the Last Epoch God putting a middle finger to my face, saying “there is no other choice for you but to waste your Points into something that will Benefit you so slightly a shit”, followed by satanic laughter from the Last Epoch God (or Devil). My second Shaman can barely/hardly dish out as much Damage as my PLAIN melee physical shaman. My physical Shaman has 50 less in main Attribute. The rest of the Equipment is worse the same amount as he is missing main Attribute. He dishes out 3 times more Damage than my 700% minion dmg, 75 attunement, everything-built-on-attuement melee-spell-summoner. And it also doesn`t add up. Because you Need to build several stats high to get the same, thereof they Need to be much higher, or more effective. Otherwise plain-builds will Always be more effective (only totems. Only summon. Only melee. Only caster. Only stack one or two stats… e.g. strengh and melee/physical as melee. Minion dmg as summoner. Spell dmg as caster. If you choose even 2 instead of 1 of these, e.g. caster AND summoner, you are already in a much worser place.

So one node +% elemtnal dmg and % elemental Penetration for minions, and another node could be +15% crit +10% critmulti for minion spells (0/5) or something.

Extra-thoughts:

More discernment between totems and minions. More Damage to minions, alright. But totems and companions PLAY differently. To add the same to different play-mechanics or styles feels odd.

Nod idea:

The Single Chief node: If you have only one totem active at a time, that totem has 20% increase of your minion Damage (0/5). (ultiplicative. so maxxing it would double the minion Damage from e.g. +300% to +600%.) = single totem becomes viable and strong. And changes the way it can be played

Shared Power: Having 2 or less active totem at a time increases totems minion Damage by 6% (0/7). (same as before, so maxxed it would increase a 300% flat increase to a 426% for both totems, which is 42% multiplicative).

Have to go now. These my thoughts so far

[Tree]

I admit I had a hard time following your train of thought, a TL:DR would have been really useful here, lol. I haven’t played around with Storm Totem enough to see how strong it could get; from what I’ve seen, Spriggan and Storm Totems are more supporting nodes while Thorn Totem + Wolves / Tiger / Bear are the real damage dealers. Having a level 65 Druid myself, Spriggan is great as a supporting healer + good AoE capability by taking the nodes that give it 4-5 orbs.

Some further observations from playing said Druid (I can’t wait until Monolith saves every session so I can play more than just the first 5 Timelines):

1. Druid tree needs Strength post-lock. Shaman gets plenty of Attunement pre and post-lock, Beastmaster has Strength post-lock. Druid only gets 20 points of Attunement, but I don’t see it getting much use. I would definitely add a Strength node after the mastery lock so it can take advantage of both Melee and Spell usage.

2. Druids Summoning Vines are useless if they are on Enemy kill. If you’re killing an enemy with Serpent Strike or Fury Leap, your Melee attacks have enough AoE to kill off anything the Vines can target. I propose putting them on hit, and the Tree pet I proposed can use the Vines to provide additional protections or more Poison to take advantage of the Vines’ Poisoning.

3. Druid’s end nodes could use a lot of work. Something as a mandatory node for shapeshifters, one for Poison users, and one to make Healing Nova more than a mediocre healing area. I’ll have to dig deep and think of some ideas, but I couldn’t think of much.

4. I’m not sure how much Spell damage you can stack or what Avalanche will look like when it gets a tree, but I wonder how much bonuses you’re really getting if you’re not spamming totems. Especially since there’s Fire Tornados, Avalanche, and Lightning spells, you can get set up as an Elemental caster, but I doubt it’s worth it.

5. Melee Shamans can definitely use more damage and survivability. It is much, much more of a hassle than going pure pets, and having to spam totems for those benefits really can’t help from a melee point of view.

[Ayranjie]

OK a TL:DR

• Pure Melee Shaman is fine. He deals huge DPS, has huge survivability. That is because he is simple to make - get strengh, get physical Damage, get leech, get survivability. Go
  In Contrast, Shaman Needs more diverse Things. He may Need attunement, Minion Damage, physical Damage, Lightning Damage… to make best use of his build and skills. Now a beastmaster “5% physical Damage increase” nod doesnt do the same for a shaman getting a “5% Lightning tree nod”, because the beast master nods help 3-5 of his skills, while shaman nods help 1-2 of his skills. They are too specific, and they are too low, therefor too weak (in comparison). This means that a beastmaster deals MASSIVELY more Damage with MASSIVELY the SAME Investment in his tree, having significantly much worser Gear! While Shaman has to build MUCH more complicated gear, gets MUCH less out of his specialization tree (if he DOESNT go “pure”), and is hence much weaker just by being not pure. This kills diversity later on
• if you go anything that is not “pure” (pure summoner, pure melee, pure caster, pure totems), you get weaker. this lowers your freedom of choice.
• Spriggan deals vastly unspectacular Damage even with 75 attumement, 400% minion Damage, and Spriggan specced only for Damage (e.g. orb, or orb and entangling roots). Any other companion is valid on its own, even with less Investment. Using the companion buff for spriggan through entangling roots (100% cast speed, 100% dmg buff nods on that tree) shouldnt be that mandatory for it to be viable later on!
• back to “pure is best” - playing mixed style brings out the “lacks”. e.g. playing melee-summoner-caster with a single totem, even when shit is stacked high, is not worthy later on.

Suggestion:
Nodes for totems. “Having only one totem active at a time increases that totems Damage potentially” - e.g. increase minion Damage for that totem by 20% (0/5 nods). So it has its Damage doubled, given there is only one active totem.

-Some nods are useless. Splitting Cold and Lightning Damage, for it only gving 5%, while attunement gives 4%, is useless. Especially when you have to stack multiple Sources anyway. Especially as shaman, having “elemental Damage” instead of “Cold” and “Lightning Damage” nods, and “elemental Penetration” instead of “Lightning” and “Cold Penetration” nods. Or make those light and Cold Damage % and Penetration nods stronger, significantly stronger.

[Tree]

Okay, that makes a little more sense. I looked through the weapons and didn’t realize until now that every single weapon has a primary Physical Base with no means of conversion. Someone should definitely bring that up as a new thread so that you can have more viable melee options such as having a huge 2H Lightning melee.

“Pure is best” is going to happen regardless of what game you’re playing because tweaking things around so that a melee/caster style is possible usually ends up breaking pure melee or pure caster due to the investment you brought up. There’s not much you can do to get around that outside of making the caster skills more diverse in terms of options. Entangling Roots is the best example of that, giving you the option to either go full damage with Upheaval or as a buff to you and your pets. It would be nice to see the debuffs get stronger so you can feel the damage difference between using it and not.

One other point I want to make is that the defensive summon nodes (Bear getting +Armor, Spriggan getting +Elemental Protection and Armor) are nodes nobody is going to grab unless they’re in the way of better offensive nodes. It would be nice to see passive nodes in the line of “If you control only one companion, nodes that grant the pet additional Armor and Protections are also given to the player.” It might end up spreading the skill nodes too thin so that the pets can’t do damage and protections, but it would at least give the defensive nodes a little more purpose, as otherwise any lack of protections can be made up through offense and healing.

[Ayranjie]

But I feel that shaman is designed to use multitudes of stuff. Have a pet, cast a totem, cast spells. Or be melee with totems. Or melee with summons. Or any combination. There are worthwhile considerations how single nodes could enable certain playstyles viability without making them the new “necessity” or the most “viable” one. E.g. my Totem node Suggestion, that would considerably increase the totems Damage IF it remains the only active totem on field.

Your node that suggests +15% elemental minion Damage also does the same by increasing spriggans and Lightning totems Damage (and the Cold Version of the thorn totem). It`s the Little Things that will enable valid new Options. And its do-able. Thats what Im Talking About basically

I think in this case, especially with the Shaman, you can have both. Pure viability, and mixed viability. Not so with other classes though, but its inherent to shamans design IMO. And it can be built upon

[ReimerhArts]

I feel like the current state of Shaman is too much all over the place. Many of the other trees are focused around 1 or 2 things, some maybe 3 (with good synergies). And I think Shaman should be the same way.

I like that the idea for Shaman to go with Totems, or Spells/Melee attacks. Maybe there should be nodes which creates synergies between melee and casting or totems, like some nodes from the Spellblade, that gives your increased spell dmg or cast, if you have attacked recently and visa versa.

There are nodes that gives you increased physical dmg, which I don’t think fit the Shaman very well. Maybe if they were coupled with some lightning, or cold dmg, or conversion. I also think there should be nodes that buffs your totems alone. Or nodes with “You and your totems…” etc. Or nodes that buffs you with stats, per active totem.
I would also love to see nodes that make your totems tougher, as they are quite squishy.

[Ayranjie]

Exactly what Im Talking About. We could be Brainstorming some nod ideas around these ideas! Theres lots of potential to enrich the possibilities of Gameplay for shaman IMO.

Some ideas

Altar of Fury - (0/5) - requires 25-35 nods into shaman specialization tree

After having cast a Totem, you gain “Thunderclash” for 1 second. While “thunderclash” is active, hitting an enemy with a melee attack will cast a lightning on that enemy. Cooldown for the Lightning is 1 second.

Every Point into that nod will add +1 second to the Duration of “Thunderclash”, up to a maximum of 5 seconds.
(This nod will also go well with the last nod in the shaman tree, which increases damage of all Lightning strike effects from nods by 15%, and it makes totems synergice with melee builds).

Gods Pact - (0/5) - requires 10-15 Points into shaman specialization tree

Channeling a pact with the gods grants the shaman greater powers. Dealing Damage with a totem increaes the shamans melee damage by 15% for 3 seconds. Dealing Damage with a melee attack increases the totems Damage by 15% for 3 seconds.

Every Point into this nod increases Damage by 15%, up to a maximum of 75% Damage.

The Elders Wisdom - (0/7)- requires 40-45 Points into shaman specialization tree

Having minimum one active totem and minimum one active companion grants you 10 additional melee Cold Damage. Every Point into this nod grants +10 additional melee Cold Damage, up to a maximum of +70 additional melee Cold Damage.

[ReimerhArts]

@Ayranjie

Altar of Fury - (0/5) - requires 25-35 nods into shaman specialization tree

After having cast a Totem, you gain “Thunderclash” for 1 second. While “thunderclash” is active, hitting an enemy with a melee attack will cast a lightning on that enemy. Cooldown for the Lightning is 1 second.

I like the idea of this, but in general I think having buffs that only last 1-2 seconds feels bad and not useful. I think it would be better to have a longer base duration, and then people can spec deeper into it if they want more out of it. It should be useful when you take it, and 1 second isn’t very useful. I think.

@Ayranjie

Gods Pact - (0/5) - requires 10-15 Points into shaman specialization tree

Channeling a pact with the gods grants the shaman greater powers. Dealing Damage with a totem increaes the shamans melee damage by 15% for 3 seconds. Dealing Damage with a melee attack increases the totems Damage by 15% for 3 seconds.

Synergy nodes like these are great! You could even have a similar one for spells too.

@Ayranjie

The Elders Wisdom - (0/7) - requires 40-45 Points into shaman specialization tree

Having minimum one active totem and minimum one active companion grants you 10 additional melee Cold Damage. Every Point into this nod grants +10 additional melee Cold Damage, up to a maximum of +70 additional melee Cold Damage.

+10 added damage to anything per point is A LOT of added damage. Normally nodes like these gives +2-4 on the passive trees.

You could also have a node which gives your totems added damage if you have attack or cast a spell recently, creating more of these synergy builds.

[Tree]

Nodes like what you are referring to are better suited for the skills themselves. Storm Totem, for example, gives 15 flat Lightning (or Cold damage if you pick the Cold modifier) to melee players and pets. Cluttering the passive tree with niche applications just makes the screen cluttered with things most people will ignore. That, and you can only add so many nodes to the passive tree before it becomes a giant mess where the vast majority of the nodes are useless to your particular purpose.

The fact that both totems and companions are covered by minion bonuses helps cover totem / pet play styles. That being said, you should leave niche nodes like this to discussions about the skills themselves. There aren’t many spells fleshed out yet (Tornado is listed as rather weak, Thorn Burst only hits with one thorn, and the remaining spells with potential don’t have skill trees yet), so it could be that caster Shamans are weaker.

If you want to suggest certain ideas, Use the Skills and Synergy thread to list which skills you want to have together and why we should change the passive nodes to accommodate for these types of builds.

[Tree]

Revamp version 2.0 is up. Most notable points include increased Beastmaster nodes so that they match the number of nodes Shaman and Druid have, removed the healing nova from the Druid line (I’ve tried it on my Druid and it’s horrendous) and increased it with more nodes for Shapeshifters and Poison users, and took a few suggestions from this thread and the other thread and placed them here.

My hope for these classes is to give each of the Primalist classes several unique paths that can open multiple build ideas:

• Beastmaster is the hardest class to give multiple build options. There’s the obvious zoo-keeper where it has access to the most pets, but I don’t want to pigeon-hole it into merely a pet class. I also want it to be a viable Physical / Bleeding user without the need for pets, but there are so many nodes you can use that gives Physical damage and Bleed effects. I admit I need more help fleshing out the Beastmaster class.
• Shaman can go for either totem attacker, Lightning melee, Cold melee, pets or no pets. With the amount of lightning passives and the level 50 node that grants increased damage to all the lightning passives, I think there’s enough variety for multiple Shaman options to be viable.
• Druid has very good options for Poison and shape-shifting, and can also go for a more supportive route if you want a more defensive pet build. I wish Beastmaster had more viable ways to go no-pets like Druid’s Critical Strike nodes, but that doesn’t take away from Druid’s capabilities.
• As I mentioned before, I wanted to make sure that all classes had access to the “only one companion” nodes as you can go for ice tiger, physical / bleeding bear, maybe Scorpion can be useful as a Poison ally once its tree is fleshed out.

I hope this is more refined and that all of the useless nodes are removed, but I’m up for further suggestions.

[EHG_Mike]

Hey there, you may have noticed that we didn’t really do anything to the passive trees this patch. I just wanted to poke my head in and say that I’ve been lurking this thread for a couple weeks and I am paying attention to it. We will be referencing it during the next Primalist passive tree revamp. Not that everything will be used but you’ve got some really great suggestions in here that I like a lot.

[Zikkar]

@EHG_Mike

Hey there, you may have noticed that we didn’t really do anything to the passive trees this patch. I just wanted to poke my head in and say that I’ve been lurking this thread for a couple weeks and I am paying attention to it. We will be referencing it during the next Primalist passive tree revamp. Not that everything will be used but you’ve got some really great suggestions in here that I like a lot.

Long as I can still do my Poison thing in BM. Also a Dex node or two in the tree wold be nice.

[EHG_Mike]

Poison for Primalist isn’t going anywhere.

[Zikkar]

@EHG_Mike

Poison for Primalist isn’t going anywhere.

Oh Mike you know just what to say to get to my heart. Maybe if there was a Dex node or two the Scorpion could benefit from it like SS does with dmg and chance to poison?

[Zikkar]

How about a life on melee hit node since leech is bleh now as well and we cant only add that to weapons.

[Macknum]

What to say here… I wait for the revamps to get to my point, right now the balance of the classes is all over the place and I have no real idea how to make things better.