Tree's Complete Revamp of Primalist Tree

Primalist
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9

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.

10

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 :slight_smile:

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

11

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.

12

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.

13

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.

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

+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.

14

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.

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15

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.

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16

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.

3 Likes
17

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

18

Poison for Primalist isn’t going anywhere.

19

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?

20

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

21

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.

22

I haven’t had the chance to look at what the patch did until earlier this morning (after spending last night taking 5+ hours to download the 6 GB patch) - I appreciate you popping in and letting us know your intentions. It would have been demoralizing to have gone through that without so much as a response.

Would you mind giving us a preview as to which ideas you really like and which ideas don’t have much of a shot? I’d like to see whether I can get some further ideas going to differentiate the classes to be more defined while keeping in the spirit of what you have.

So far, I’m going in the lines of giving Beastmaster more Dodge, Dexterity and Glancing Blow as it focuses on being the most Physical damage while being the most agile (as it is the most Primal of the Primalists). I have not played a Totem Shaman, but I do know that Swipe is a fairly mundane and poor AoE melee attack that doesn’t compare well to other melee abilities. Druid I want to see more protections and healing, as the Healing Nova passive you get is just sad considering you’re leveling up through mid-50s or 60s just to get the ability - the real killer is that it only activates on melee attacks, which is awful if you’re looking to play as a petmancer Druid.

Other universal suggestions:

  1. The “every 3 seconds your next melee attack does X damage” really serves no purpose, especially if you’re striving to cap your attack speed and want to hit with consistent damage. I had not realized how pervasive this node is until I started leveling a Paladin and saw that Sentinel also has these nodes as well. They really can be replaced by much better ideas.
  2. When you’re reaching much tougher enemies as a level 50-60 player, gaining only 1 Attribute a level sets you further back from how tougher the enemies get. Especially when these Attribute nodes take 20 levels to fully cap, it just becomes a trap. If you’re going to give Attribute nodes at the Base 20 - Class 30 range (so at least level 50), definitely go for 10 nodes with +2 Attribute bonus instead of 20 nodes with +1.
  3. Other players can provide better details about how much %damage bonus per node is worth it, but the same principle applies - if you’re going to the top of your class after putting the required 20 points in your base mastery, the bonuses really better be worth it.
23

I can’t really give any more details about what we’re planning with the tree. Sometimes things are in the game as experiments that don’t work out. This is the time to try them. Some nodes are still placeholders and others don’t really make sense until some skills arrive.

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24

Okay my thoughts to the druid:

1st row

Summary

Blood Claws: okay but 90 amrmor pen seems to be to little to invest points in here because you don’t need the leech from the skill because you are allready maxed out for sure.

Barkskin: Good one.

Soul’s Attendant:Good but generic. Wish we had mana efficiency on this one to maintain the bear longer or even to have a chance to be permabeared.

2nd row

Summary

Vale Warrior: Nice node if you work with pets and have sources of healing. 50% dmg and healing effectivness for a build with only one pet or none pet makes this node worthless.

Tremor: You are kidding right? The whole Tremor thing must be kind of a joke. No dmg no utility not worth to consider taking at all. More to this at a later point.

Eterra’s Boon: Useles. Only pet skills are expensive and everything else isn’t. a 40% chance to get 50 hp from casting Entangeling Roots has to be another joke in my eyes. 40% chance for a double cast would be very intresting and far better in my eyes.

3rd row

Summary

Spirit Claws: Generic but usefull.

Thunderous Roar: Another part of the Tremor joke.

Healing Totems: Lackluster at best. 10% chance is enough if there are many enemys hitting you. If you fight a single boss the proccrate is bad. Minions health on it is fine and makes the node worthwhile. 5 Sec CD is is a lot when I think about how little it heals. Maybe worth after some numbers tweaking.

4th row

Summary

Return to Dust: Good one!

Unstable Ground: The last part of the Tremor joke… wasn’t a good on ;).

Blossoming Veins: With pets worthwhile without not so much.

5th row

Summary

Strenghtend Bond: Good if you have only one companion TOTALY useless otherwise.

Primal Shifter: Not enough bang for the buck. Maybe with 20% because you only have arround 50% uptime on this node.

Vital Boon: Okay while using minions totaly worthless if you use only one or none Companion. I was NEVER able to get my darn Spriggan to stand in this thing ^^.

6th row

Summary

Woodlore: Pretty generic. Good for a poison centered build, lackluster if not or with only one or none compainions.

Deep Roots: pretty generic and not worth 5 points in my eyes.

Restoration: Pretty good with HP reg builds and HP reg forged on items, lackluster without heavy investment.

*7th row

Summary

Ferocity: OMG! First I thought I had issues with my eyes but after double checking this node and the ones it is linked to I was pretty much sold on getting it. Pretty much generic node but with the additions it’s priceless!

Hideskin: Okay node but to far up in the tree for my taste.

Briarsklin: Is the L in the skillname intended? Another one of this medicore dmg when hit abilitys. Not even good vs a lot of enemys because the dmg is meh. Same problem with the proccchance against single enemys.

8th row

Summary

Forest Fervor: Nice! Maybe 20% steps would be better because in the end it’s only for phys dmg.

Healing Nova: To little output to invest points.

Regrowth: Pointless for me because Swipe is right now my bread and butter skill and I can use it anyway.

9th row

Summary

Defense of the Hearth: I drooled all over this skill. To be honest it may be to much but I love it dearly!

Eternal Nature: Good if you go for attunement. The 5 HP each time are a nice little addition but it still hurts every time to put a point into it so far up the tree.

Natural Duality: Good with one companion TOTALY useless with more then one or none.

10th row

Summary

Soothing Slaughter: To little outcome to invest points here. When you are that far up the tree Crit Chance is a none issue. If you change crit chance into 5% Crit multi the node would be worthwhile.

Sprouting Veins: Good one! Very good with all the healing effectivness we can skill if we invest into it.

Healing Waves: Bad addon sorry.

So I may sound harsh every here and there but I want to voice my displeasure in a polite way and I hope I succeded. Now for some Ideas how to change up things to make them more intresting… at least for me :).

Starting at Treamor… The idea behid the skill is good, no problem! Just make the Tremor a bit bigger so you have some spread and overlapping. “Unstable Ground” should be a armor reduce in 10% steps and a chance to miss or glace in about 5% steps because if the ground is shaking you can’t concentrate on your defence and offence that much. Thunderous Roar is a bad choice in my eyes… 4% more dmg for each point of strength would be worthwhile if it costs only 1 point to achive that. On the other hand we could spice things up like:
“Prey On The Weak” Enemys suffering from Tremors are slowed by 5% Slowed Enemys take 10% more damage (0/4). You have another source of increasing dmg that can interact with other skills. Just a spontainious thought from the top of my head.

For all the “if you control only one companion” nodes in the tree. I would realy love it to change the druids tree nodes to “One or none companion” just because I would love at least one Primalist tree that is petless and on top of it you can’t use the pet active skills anyway that were implement a while ago. So rather you come up with new pet mechanics or a different werbear setup :p. With the option to play the bear as some kind of tanky frontline DD and the spriggan as group support later on when MP is a thing. It would be great to have at least an option for it because you still don’t have the “benefit” caughcaugh of having a pet with you that does whatever pets do.

On top of that I hope for a node in the Wearbear aktivskilltree that makes you able to switch bear skills vs human skills (like “A Human After All” Switch out Werbear skills vs Human skills) because some of the normal skills are far better then the bear skills… at least right now. All in all I’m happy with the Druid tree so far and I don’t see any big reasons to change things up drasticly.

25

I’d like some “when you are out of mana” nodes for the druid, related to this feedback on the discord: Discord

Some ideas:
Added Strength/Attunement
Increased Protection
Reduced spell mana cost
Drain mana from nearby enemies
Chill enemies around you
Summon Withered Vines (X sec cooldown)

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26

Noone else has to add something? Come on guys and gals give the devs some input :). I cant belive there a so little Primalist players that want some changes :).

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27

I’ll give primalist a go when the next patch comes.

28

In case anyone was wondering, there was no change to the Primalist Tree this patch. I was hoping there would have been some changes due to the Wearbear tree, but nothing was touched.

My main pet build is a Druid because I was hoping I would get more defensive buffs / healing for pets, but the only heal Druid has is that 15 second healing nova and you need to use melee attacks to use it. :pensive: In fact the only benefit pets have when you get post 25 Druid is the Poison node. :slightly_frowning_face: Hopefully Druid can get more pet protections to differentiate it from Beastmaster’s more offensive style.