Here's a challenge to the forum community. Can you retool druidry to be an effective primary skill without sap with fewer than four changes to the skillset?

Rules!
The class cannot work off the same principle as any existing class.
Any new skills cannot be replicated in any other skillset.
All three tertiary skills should be considered.

I'm going away for about two hours. Have fun!

Nothing? Well, here're my thoughts.

Treant: 500m, 3p, 6 sec eq--Animates a tree to fight for the druid. Does base 1200 damage (so 500-800 with defs) every three seconds, 30% chance of doing no damage but entangling instead. Shields with low health, can break shields. Immobile, forest terrain only.

Cyclone: 250m, 4 sec eq--Damages all enemies in rooms adjoining the druid as if they had all been hit with a cudgel after a two second delay. The skill would not work in the druid's room. Everyone in the adjoining rooms would see the attack begin. Not terrain dependent.

LivingWall: 100m, 4 sec eq--Raises a living wall of trees, brush, and vines around the perimeter of the demesne. Cannot walk in or out from ground or tree elevation. Leap and mountjump have a 50% chance to fail. Tumble, roll, and somersault's delay increased by 100%.

Abscond: 100m, 3 sec eq--Entangles the enemy with non-thorny vines. Stacks separately from thornlash/vines. While entangled, the opponent will be dragged with the druid wherever he moves. Requires the opponent to not be otherwise entangled when writhing free. Prevents actions like other standard entanglements. Not terrain dependent.

WyrdenBeast (Blacktalon): 6p, 1000m--Infuses the shadow of an enemy with a life-giving Wyrden essence that requires blood to survive and materialize. If the target bleeds for 1000 health while afflicted, the creature gains the strength to manifest the shadow and immediately eats the victim. No effect if not enough blood is lost. Affliction fades after 45 seconds.

Purify (Hartstone): 3p, 1000m--If the target is below half mana, the target loses all non-vitae defenses and gains the affliction "forcibly purified," which prevents replacing defenses and doubles the balance of health/mana/bromide vials, herbs, and purgatives for two minutes.

Thornlash vines changed to require the opponent to not be otherwise entangled when writhing free.

Treelife changed from a demesne effect to an active skill, like roots, that works either demesne-wide or targetted at one person in the caster's room.

Pollen repaced with a haemophilia affliction.

---
This makes druid combat about mobility, controlling distance, and stacking bleeding.

Problem is that that's two months worth of druid envoy submissions. So. Fix it or come up with something better!

...

Yeah, uhhhhh. That's a bit much.

And I agree.

What's the better way to pull it off? We don't have mage group support (cyclone), mage or guardian movement control (abscond, livingwall), mage or bard damage, or any way besides sap to slow healing. Sap fills the void for damage, movement control, and slowed healing all by itself, so there's really three completely different holes left behind.

Treant is a flashy way to break shields where you happen to drop your opponent, since I think a class based on mobility is cool.

Thornlash hasn't been viable since the (much needed) nerf.

But yes, your turn!

I don't really hear of much of a demand for sap to be replaced.

Well, I can't say I have much better. As it is, I can kill almost anyone with sap. Then again, I'm also a dreamweaver, and I guess that makes it considerably easier.

But moves like that seem a tad overkill. Over 1000 bleeding and you're dead? :S

Why are you trying fix something that is not broken? I hate when people do that. No one has been crying for a druid nerf. I haven't heard any druids complaining about their combat (minus you). The druid class seems happy with what they have. Stop trying to change it. I'm perfectly fine being a legless turtle out of demesne in exchange for being a pvp monster in it.

... I take it you've missed nearly every other Druid posting. Ever.

Yeah, I think you're the only person who -does- like that. Which is cool, I'm glad someone likes playing them the way they were designed.

I just hated getting killed first in every raid, not being able to jump people, not being able to defend against getting jumped, etc, etc.

The horrible hunting is a negative too. I think Cudgel vs. denizen damage needs to be increased, to make up for our horrible tankiness.

There's nothing wrong with sap by itself.

What's problematic is that 1) the envoys refuse to give druids another kill condition because of sap, 2) sap promotes very linear combat, where an opponent is either able to deal with the first stages of a saplock and are thusly immortal, or where an opponent is not able to deal with the first stages of combat and the only person who can mess up the fight is the druid, 3) druids are 100% inviable out of demesne, to the point where they can't even out-afflict novices or, most importantly, can't threaten or hinder an enemy mage long enough to break the demesne, and 4) druids can't jump or survive being jumped. (Ok, well, I can. It's called TOUCH CUBIX.)

Always dying first has caused me many a keyboard smashing...but in the end I'm okay with it. Crappy bashing, can't fight out of demesne, always targeted first...I happily accept all of that for being able to sap lock 95-99% of Lusternia where they have literally no way to cure out of it. I love druid.

At any rate, the only two active druid combatants seem okay with it. <3 Alianna.

edit: and if you can't survive being jumped, you are doing something wrong. Running is not class reliant.

You really haven't read any other druid posts then, as others have said. Pentu, I hope you speak up here, as I've heard often enough from you that the only reason you stayed BT for so long was leadership, but that the class/skillset was painful. That's where I'm falling in - it's not enjoyable, in any form or means. I hate druid combat. It really needs some fixing. I'm glad you like it as it is, but the combat is one of the top deterrents from becoming a druid. In all honesty, if I had known it would be like this, I wouldn't have chosen BT.



Agreed.

Follow up:



It's a problem when there -are- only two druid combatants.

I'll be honest, I see no problem to adding what was listed above -without- removing sap. As far as I'm concerned every class should have access to more than one (viable) kill condition. Versatility is what lets a class deal with the variations in opponents.

That was one of the things I love most about the Celestines. They could kill in several different ways, depending on circumstances.

Because using those things in conjunction with sap would be ridiculous. (Even more ridiculous than those are alone, that is...)



Yeah, but only inqui-soulless was ever really viable against the top tier.

Nah, people just don't want to make the sacrifices that druid requires. I hated demesnes. I hated being the first target as a Geomancer. But now, as a druid...I'm totally okay with it. Druids were designed this way..it's painfully obvious they were. I think Druids are the top PK guilds in the game(in demesne). You aren't going to make druid a mobile class, with pk abilities out of demesne without some EXTREME changes...4 skill changes won't do it. Change 4 skills and get rid of sap, you won't do anything but make druids less effective at what they are good at now. Instead you'll just have a terribly untanky and less effective mage. Druids could use some minor tweaks, but for those willing to sacrifice what druids have to, and utilize their skills....druid is insane. Utterly insane.

speaking for dreamweavers...I dunno anything about runes.

Then change some of the setup so that the two are less feasible together. Have them develop differently, so that switching from one to the other would incur a setback in progressing to the kill.

Regarding Soulless-Inqui, that could very well be true these days. Back in the day, though, I got more Absolve kills than anything else. I even preferred working towards Judgment kills. Regardless, I do think that each guild should have more than one viable direction to work towards for a kill. One of the lasting complaints about druid combat is that they kill in one way only.

My numbers might be off, but how about...

Bladegrass: Druid demesne effect, not blocked by protection scroll. Causes 20 bleed on demesne tick if person is standing, 50 bleed on demesne tick if person is proned, 80 bleed on move. Only works on ground elevation, no effect in tree, sky or burrowed elevations. Levitation defense halves the bleed amount. Wearing shoes reduces bleed amount by 5.

Ambertrap (2p): Traps the targets legs in a thin shell of hardened amber, requires tree elevation. A single damaging attack targetting the amber (which will appear as a room object) will destroy it. The target cannot move locations while active (except by tumbling), and attempting to shift elevations has a 50% chance of breaking one leg, and causing 200 bleeding.

Awaken (4p, 1p on Ethereal): Castable on an allied dryad tree/sapling, causes the tree to become mobile and follow the druid. The tree has a very large reserve of health but can be attacked like a normal mob. It has no attack, its main function is accessed via ORDER ROOT HERE and it will set down roots, anchoring itself as a large tree. This will create a tree elevation in the location if there isn't one already, and every 10 seconds shower the ground elevation in petals, brushing away protection auras.

* Earthfount (5p, Hartstone): Creates a fount object in a forest location that causes enemies in any elevation to gain a 10% increase to their next balance/equilibrium recovery whenever they cure an affliction (stackable), but also cause their next balance/equilibrium usage to consume another balance at random (herb/salve/focus/arm/leg/etc) which is also stackable. Allies gain a 10% increase to their next balance/equilibrium recovery whenever they cure an affliction.

* Bloodthorn (5p, Blacktalon): Creates a thorn object in a forest location that causes enemies in any elevation to have their bleeding reduced by 10% each tic, but this amount is doubled and subtracted from their mana and ego. Allies have their bleeding reduced by 20% each tic. The object remains for 2 minutes. (Edit: Actually, thinking about it, maybe this is too focused on the manakill. Maybe the reverse? Mana usage is reduced by 10% and applied as bleed?)

* Sunstone (5p, Ackleberry Druid): Creates a stone object in a forest location that causes enemies in any elevation to gain 50 health whenever they are struck by a damaging attack, but also decreases resistance to physical cutting/blunt by 20% for 3 seconds (maybe just an affliction that increases these types of damage by a percentage, if that is easier to code). The reduced defense affliction can be applied multiple times. Allies gain 80 health when struck by a damaging attack. The object remains for 2 minutes.

Just happened to be in the mood to give it a shot, carry on!

THIS IS NOT OK.

Second tier combatants can kill second tier combatants all day. Yes. I and every druid who has come before you acknowledge this. It does't mean it's balanced. Top tier druids don't kill other top tier combatants. This is also something that's been pretty well established. I'm glad you can kill people with minor combat experience with ease. Now go fight Xenthos. He's not the best fighter in the game, but you will not kill him. I guarantee this here and now, you are incapable of killing Xenthos. You will kill Geb before you kill Xenthos, and I don't think many people will say Xenthos is the better fighter. No amount of practice on your part will change it, because he knows how to cure the beginning stages of a saplock.



"The sacrifices that druid requires?" You've been a druid for a week. Reference the above posts.

I even like demesnes. I be the only person in Lusternia who does. I still don't think sap is ok. Either you can cure it, or you can't. There's only one best way to accomplish a saplock per tertiary skill. You learn it and use it over and over. There's no variance. There's no dynamic strategy. Skill matters only about up to mid-tier, and then it stops mattering, because there's just not that much depth to it. Demesne, tertiary affliction, 1, 2, 3, 4, invoke circle, 5, 6, 7, 8, forestcast sap, 9, 10 (demesne), 11, 12, nature vines, 13, 14, 15, 16, begin tertiary lockdown. Look. There it is. That's 16 seconds of forever unaltering mid-tier druid combat. Yes, it works. It works very well. That doesn't mean it's ok.