Tree's Complete Revamp of Primalist Tree

Primalist
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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.
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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.

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

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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.

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there was a buff to all summoner classes, since summons now have twice as less HP but take twice as less damage. this makes all methods of restoring their health twich as effective. This includes regen, gain (on hit or otherwise), leech, healing. This means minions should now be able to survive twice as much incoming DPS as before.

Here are healing options I remember for Druid:
Skills (aside from obvious heals): Spriggan Form, Summon Spriggan, Entangling Roots, Werebear Form (+20 minion regen node)
Passives: Healing Totems
Yeah, not much in the Passives department.

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I don’t get it so enlighten me pls :). Shaman = totems, Beastmaster = Companions, Druid = all over the place. I was hoping to have a beefe non summon dependendclass with Druid and I’m a bit confused by the state of the druid right now.
Yes we get Swipe benefits for Bear Swipe what is nice but outside of this you gimp yourself while in bear form outside of some % resis here and there and buffed dmg that don’t make up for the skillable steroids from roots and jump as well as placing a frenzy totem.
I think the classes should have their own idendity the main class and be a bit outstanding. Druid should get Werbear early and skilltrees for the bear skills in my oppinion. Giving it 50% dmg here, some resi there and interact fully with swipe… feels like a swift kick to the nuts ^^. It’s playeable and more usefull now and not as bad as prior but I still think it’s flawed :).

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I’m pretty sure bear form bonuses and swipe more than make up for loss of Roots buff.
From Swipe you get aspect of the panther (35% attack speed, 100% crit multi), and there’s “4% damage per point of Attunement” node.
The bear form itself gives 140% increased damage (100 flat and 10 str), and 150 to all protections, more if skilled into.
And if I understand it correctly, Werebear Swipe has 150% added damage efficiency, on top of all the benefits fromSwipe. Which is literally 50% more damage.

Werebear can also be skilled into having a chance of spawning a totem you are specialized in, on a kill with Ravage. Frenzy Totem might be the best option, when it gets it’s specilalization tree.

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It is possible to play Shaman with 0 totems now. They are simply wasting time, you need to stop and cast them. I am rolling with spriggan+wolves+leap+tornado and avalanche(both follow me). All I need to do is cast avalanche 1 time every 10 seconds, rest is running around.

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You can actually skill werebear into casting roots for 6 mana with 4 seconds cooldown (Woodland Bear + Ursine Wisdom nodes), for huge melee AoE, and have your steroids too.

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It is possible to play Shaman with 0 totems now

do you rely on your minions/spells to produce totems?
With zero totems on the board, what’s the point ascending as Shaman?

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Found it but thetooltip is pretty missleading :D.

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Sadly there’s not too much synergy in the Elemental abilities that doesn’t revolve around totems. For Lightning, there’s Tornado Lightning strikes, Leap Smash, and you’re likely choosing between Swipe and Tempest Strike for melee. Cold is even worse, as you only really have Ice Thorns and Avalanche. It forces the player to have to decide between increasing minion damage (which includes pets and totems) and spell damage for your own abilities, and whichever one you don’t increase you end up wasting one of your skill bars.

I’d like to work out a revamp of the Primalist skill trees similar to what I did for the passive nodes. It would be a large undertaking and I don’t want to steal anyone’s thunder by monopolizing the Primalist mastery, but at it’s current state, there are several mandatory routes and several useless nodes and I want to help make the useless nodes more useful.

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Primalist over all is till all over the place skill tree wise I feel. It is the weakest of the classes by a good margin because of this. Tree I for one would love to see what you have come up with and spit ball ideas with you.

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My ZooKeeper Beasmaster was 13th in the SC arena ladder, last time I checked

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Awesome and glad to hear it. That doesnt mean compaired to the Sentinel or Acolyte that he is on par with either of them because he isnt. Streangth of a class is more then what Arena they can get to.

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Hey guys, just popping my head back in to let you know that we are still working on passive changes. I know you were hoping for some passive changes this patch. We’ve got some fairly big changes across the board coming. It will have some pretty big implications for the passives in general and we didn’t think that making the changes twice was a good use of our time. Our goal will be to make mastering for all classes feel more impactful and focused. This will also come hand in hand with the new respec system.

I’ll make a big dev blog explaining it when we’re ready to talk specifics. I’m writing one on shatter strike and the next community skill tree right now.

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42

That is so cool to hear, Mike! Keep up the fantastic work.