Problem:
Druids are not as viable as mages when fighting outside their meld and rely too much on sap, an affliction that swings from overpowered to not that great. They also share their abilities with other classes, making it awkward to buff them up without unnecessarily buffing another class.


Potential Solutions (Updated 10-21):

Out of meld viability:
-Allow beasts to throw single motes/runes/fetishes.
-Allow single banes/fetishes to function off their own balance.

Sap:
-Add another .25s delay
-Reduce casting balance by .5s
-Reduce power cost to 3-4p

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Please make your suggestions and discuss.

Just a ramble from an old Druid player here with an idea I once had a long time ago, just basically reiterating what I once thought:

I think that one potential way to help Druids would be to split Ecology, which belonged solely to the druid class to begin with, and split it to make it different for a Druid than it is for a Bard. (And, by "split", I mean it in the sense that Blacktalon and Hartstone have "Druidry", they're similar but different, and can be altered without affecting the other. )

On that token, it's also a possibility to give commune Commune Bards a new/replacement tertiary skill entirely and let the Druids have at ecology themselves...which could be worked on tweeking it to give Druids a purpose outside of melds in the sense that Telepathy/Telekinesis provides Mages a means of offense that can potentially be potent even on it's own in a way that Dreamweaving/Runes, which are universally shared between melder-classes (and when used properly, amazing within melds but not so much without), cannot.


Currently, the Ecology skillset in itself is more utility than anything else:
o Familiars with stat buffs when deepbonded and 10p same-plane rez.
o Defensive charms.
o Non-sentient animal influencing.
o Bond Unite.
o Making Hunting Pathfinding pathways
o Animal growth

I've never seen a druid use their fetish for poisons in combat. Nor have I even anything else than shielding their familiar, Familiarberserk, haven't seen druids use smudge sticks, ect ect..

In fact, it might even just be best to scrap a good portion (smudges. fetishes.) of the Ecology skillset for Druids (If split from bards), put familiars into the Druidry skillset to give the entire class a stat-buff of some sort that doesn't involve "herpderp! stand in my meld!", and work on making it a "standalone" (quoteunquote) tert like Telepathy/Telekinesis.




...It'd also be really cool if you had to do a short quest to be able to SKILLCHOICE SELECT ECOLOGY in the way you have to find the archway to get tele(pathy/kinesis), but that doesn't help balance them in combat :x

Gracielle:

I think that one potential way to help Druids would be to split Ecology, which belonged solely to the druid class to begin with, and split it to make it different for a Druid than it is for a Bard. (And, by "split", I mean it in the sense that Blacktalon and Hartstone have "Druidry", they're similar but different, and can be altered without affecting the other. )

On that token, it's also a possibility to give commune Commune Bards a new/replacement tertiary skill entirely and let the Druids have at ecology themselves...which could be worked on tweeking it to give Druids a purpose outside of melds in the sense that Telepathy/Telekinesis provides Mages a means of offense that can potentially be potent even on it's own in a way that Dreamweaving/Runes, which are universally shared between melder-classes (and when used properly, amazing within melds but not so much without), cannot.


Currently, the Ecology skillset in itself is more utility than anything else:
o Familiars with stat buffs when deepbonded and 10p same-plane rez.
o Defensive charms.
o Non-sentient animal influencing.
o Bond Unite.
o Making Hunting Pathfinding pathways
o Animal growth

I've never seen a druid use their fetish for poisons in combat. Nor have I even anything else than shielding their familiar, Familiarberserk, haven't seen druids use smudge sticks, ect ect..

In fact, it might even just be best to scrap a good portion (smudges. fetishes.) of the Ecology skillset for Druids (If split from bards), put familiars into the Druidry skillset to give the entire class a stat-buff of some sort that doesn't involve "herpderp! stand in my meld!", and work on making it a "standalone" (quoteunquote) tert like Telepathy/Telekinesis.

New terts are out of the question, I believe. Reports also show that splitting the skill isn't that huge of a possibility either.

The familiar is only particularly useful for the stat boost, I found the rezz from deepbond to be more of a hindrance then a boon in all cases.
Animal influencing is cute, no more. Useful (in a tiny, limited fashion) for increasing the damage your beast does. Same with animal growth.
Unite is okay for getting past Gpent and pits, but that's it. It's better for tracking bonds, who can track to items and people.
You never want to be in combat with your familiar, so for the most part you never bother with fetish armor clasp except when doing reconnaissance with the bond.
I've seen fetishes used a lot. I'd go as far as to say this is the single most useful thing ecology has to offer, period.
I've never seen or even heard of familiarberserk being used by anyone, druid or bard. It's quite power/opportunity cost heavy for what it does, as is normal familiar sting (imo).
Smudges are used a lot by both bards and druids. Only mountain really contributes well to sap locking, and if 701 dosn't go through, they aren't really dependable to the druid, who has to make sure you are on the same terrain level as the smudge when it decides to fire.

I don't particularly like Ecology offense-wise, and scrapping parts of it do appeal to me, but I also don't think druids should get a tertiary only boost. (Dreamweaving also only generally useful to druids, except for a few nasty strategies, like memoryloss/chasm. No one else can capitalize as well on all of the mote afflictions.)

I'm about to go do classly things, but when I'm done with that, I'll summarize some of the things I and other people have come up with in conversation.

I thought unite couldn't get past GPent anymore?

thisismydisplayname:

I thought unite couldn't get past GPent anymore?

It shouldn't, it got changed last year or so... Can't find the specific announce that says it but it was along the lines of "nothing gets past GP anymore, or it's a bug".

What about if the druid-specific pets (Hart and Crow, iirc) could use the druid tert abilities? By that I mean say you're a runist Druid, you can doublesling and then your pet can doublesling (including the power cost and such). Or if you're a dreamweaver, you can fling a mote and the pet can fling a mote, you can drop a smudge while your pet banes, etc. etc.

That way, the tertiaries wouldn't be buffed. If this is really way too powerful, then maybe add an additional power cost to the pet doing anything/very long balance?

Quorre:

By that I mean say you're a runist Druid, you can doublesling and then your pet can doublesling.

ACK! That sound horrifying. Quad-Haegl.

Quad slinging runes is definitely a bad idea, and double-slinging motes or allowing pets to bane doesn't solve the problems that those two tertiaries face.

Gracielle:


It shouldn't, it got changed last year or so... Can't find the specific announce that says it but it was along the lines of "nothing gets past GP anymore, or it's a bug".

Correction, no physical movement gets past greater pent. Magical movement such as teleport, moonbeam, flow, unite, etc does.

foolofsound:

ACK! That sound horrifying. Quad-Haegl.

Quad slinging runes is definitely a bad idea, and double-slinging motes or allowing pets to bane doesn't solve the problems that those two tertiaries face.

Quad-haegl is pretty scary from a single druid, what if at least in the case of runes it was limited to non-power abilities? So yes, a Druid could then triple haegl. But out of demense, would this let a druid have a chance or push them towards OP? As for motes and baning, those were just examples. Double smudge would be available in eco, illusion+mote in dreamweaving, and so on, it wouldn't have to be the same ability twice.

At any rate, this is just an idea. From what I took from the conversation, the issue was balancing tertiaries for Druids without making them super awesome for other classes that had them available. I vaguely recall someone mentioning doing this by focusing on buffing the core druidry stuff, I figure stuff along this line (buffing the tertiary specifically for druids) is one way to go. Can this idea be refined at all?

I actually thought the idea is quite interesting, Quorre. There's been precedent before when runes could be used in one instance and not another (eg. slinging as opposed to totem/statue affixing), so certain runes like haegl could altogether just be phased out from the allowable list of runes a totem critter can sling.

Likewise with motes, and I think this'd be an interesting proposition, though a bit limiting still considering they'd be working off of the typical 10s beast balance.

Runes on beast balance? That would certainly simplify DeathProphesy a whole other level.

What about adding a skill into Ecology that allows druids to use banes and single shot fetishes (not berserk) and putting them on their own balance. Exclude this from bards, something about druids have a deeper understanding with the land and thus can control their banes and fetishes better. Berserk would have to be excluded I think but make it a balance time of 5-6 seconds or so and one added poison every so often isn't that bad. It would give druids just a bit more affliction power and I don't think it would be too unreasonable. Just an idea, feel free to post thoughts.

That would be a nice alternative (one that's of actual use) to familiarsting, and make it more equitable with psychicdagger.

I like the ideas so far, but what about sap? I see that there haven't been really much talks about it. Should something be done, or what?

I'll edit the suggestions in soon.

I think sap could use adding a bit more delay, an additional .25 seconds, and reduce balance time of casting it by half a second or so, maybe reduce powercost to 3-4p per sap, druid's a powerheavy class.


I know these may seem like minuscule changes, but it's definitely a fine line between too weak and too strong, it's pretty close right now, a little nudging should make it a bit easier

Sidd:

I think sap could use adding a bit more delay, an additional .25 seconds, and reduce balance time of casting it by half a second or so, maybe reduce powercost to 3-4p per sap, druid's a powerheavy class.


I know these may seem like minuscule changes, but it's definitely a fine line between too weak and too strong, it's pretty close right now, a little nudging should make it a bit easier

Would it be an issue to raise the delay time back to 1s?

Raeri:


Would it be an issue to raise the delay time back to 1s?

I don't think so, but I'm sure people would complain a ton

Alright well. If I had my way, I'd rework druidry to make it not based on sap at all, but requiring it. It would go something like this:

~Remove aeon ability from sap.
~Reduce power cost of sap to 2-ish.
~Make sap be somewhat resistant to curing.
~Perhaps multiple levels of sap, deathmark-ish, Or the sap gets worse the longer you have it on you.
~Make sap empower thornlash in some way: make it harder to writhe off thornlash. Perhaps require/take eq and balance to do so?
~Up the number of lashes required to kill, scale effects (multiple lashes per limb).
~Let ignite still remove multiple lashes, but change it to strip up to 50% of the lashes, but more then two with the ignite backlash based on how many you have on you, not how many are burned off.
~Change the way multiple druids can lash you: make it slower for people not in their demesne.
~Make thornlash autokill if you lash after you have the max lashes on someone.
I would note that this change would make the afflictions of the demesne useful for slowing down lash writhing (paralysis does this?) and supporting that, but that a move away from being an affliction (soft)lock class would mean that druids could get afflicting powers added in to help them out of demesne (or even in demesne) with less chance of suddenly unbalancing them when sap is taken into consideration.


That sort of change aside, I would suggest doing something like this to sap:
~Change point cleanse and point ignite: I suggest making them not work if the druid is still in the room (on tree or ground terrain). A group can either kill the druid or move the druid to cleanse their ally, but they can't just stand in the room making their entire team immune to sap/thornlashes. This is a BIG one.
~Lowering the power cost of sap slightly so that a botched attempt doesn't set you all the way back. Because there really is little setup that can be done (read: Nothing much but burning a smudge and hoping or blacking out), I don't buy the argument that messing up here is entirely your fault.
~Timer kill aspect of sap. If we don't get a finisher elsewhere, as much as I hate the idea of keeping sap on for a long time (as it generally is possible to outpace the druid's affliction potential even in sap. By affliction, I mean entangle/offbalancing.) you could make sap automatically kill after a certain amount of time.

One thing that might be cool but wouldn't really solve the main issue of sap (and would get out of hand fast now that I think about it) is if you could stack saps on people. That runs into the problem of multiple druids walking in and stacking a bajillion saps on you until you can't do anything.

I have to go help a friend avoid doing things for his parents by bumming around his house looking pretty, but I'll be back with some... less outrageous ideas. Hopefully I'll be more awake then.

Remember, simpler is better because it's more likely to be accepted. Revamping an entire class really isn't an option at this point.

I can get behind the point cleanse mechanic changing based on if the druid is in the room. I think that's great actually.

I also think the power reduction falls in line with my proposal, increase delay time by .25 seconds, reduce balance by .5 seconds and reduce power cost by 2 power to 3. I think if you mess up the timing it is your fault, but the timing as it is right now is pretty precise, do it at just the wrong time and they can scrub before the meld hits etc.

I don't like the timer kill aspect, I think that's too much and incredibly unneeded.

Well, part of the problem with sap currently is that against a large number of people, you have to spend all of your effort trying to keep up the saplock and can't take the time out to work on a kill condition at the same time. If I get lusted during that time, and reject the person, they have more then enough time to cure out of the afflictions that actually stop them from getting out of sap (entangle, paralysis) and I have to hope that my various periodic effects (Assuming I've been able to stick those, not always a given) stop them. Even if that goes off without a hitch, taking a long time to kill someone can mean they have more time for the cavalry to come and save them.

Comparing this to other locking classes/guilds (like Moondancers), they are buying time with their lock to get in their not-technically-an-instakill, with either a passive mana drain, or a passive aeon-locking ability. Someone mentioned getting a finisher for druidry, this may be one way to do it, though an active one would be nice.

EDIT: Blah, this is ramble-y.
One finisher could take the place of unleash... please?