I do actually agree that making druids inherently far faster at melding would mess lots of things up. I'm not sure that giving druids one step (10 more rooms) to max demesne side would have such a enormous impact, and it's thematically appropriate, but it's not by any means a necessary change.

Generally, I would prefer simply improving the druid demesne/primary itself, instead of changing demesne mechanics (as much as those base mechanics could stand to be changed to make up for the much much diminished size and scope). Fixing the sap problem is a priority for me also, it's the point that all of these discussions hinge around. Some changes are too powerful in context with sap, but without changes, it's... very lame. One way to help in this direction is giving us some sort of unique skill. This could be in the form of a brand spanking new tertiary, removal of a tertiary (like DW) from another guild (this is a pretty undesirable course of action), or a copy/paste splitting of skills that already exist, like changing 'Druidry' into 'Naturalism' and 'Wyrd.....onomics' Crow and Stag druidry, make up what names you will. It's been often suggested, but it would allow for a divergence and specialization of strategy between the two mostly druid skills in future reports. Some form of Ecology in the same vein, a third spec of hunting, could work to the same effect.

A few tangential changes I may end up just envoying are:
-A skill similar to other IRE's druids, that slows (gravity/rubble style) entry and exit from a demesne only. That is, you can move around inside as normal, but it takes a second to leave the edge of the demesne or forest terrain. If thornlash is changed to make it more viable, this will help more, as leaving the forest autocures lashes.
-A map/exit confusion/obfuscation skill.
-Some sort of passive or semi-active stacking mechanism, in some form. I have a written up suggestion for this to accomplish the above, but have discarded it. This could go into a new sap mechanism, buffing sap if you've done x,y,and z thing. Having some method which forces an enemy who is standing still, camped, in a druid demesne to either run away or eventually be at risk of dying would be nice.
-Some sort of new meld with the forest type mechanic would be cool. Tree ent summoning has been a popular idea in the past, as well as various form of cudgel based buffs. Loads of those ideas are terribly overpowered, but the heart of them are cool. I'm not sure how open to this sort of suggestion this entire report is.

Enyalida:

A few tangential changes I may end up just envoying are:
-A skill similar to other IRE's druids, that slows (gravity/rubble style) entry and exit from a demesne only. That is, you can move around inside as normal, but it takes a second to leave the edge of the demesne or forest terrain. If thornlash is changed to make it more viable, this will help more, as leaving the forest autocures lashes.

This is kinda what path twist used to do before it's current incarnation, I think it bumped you into another adjacent room in the demesne.

-A map/exit confusion/obfuscation skill.

Could be handy though these feel widespread now (don't three of the mages guilds have something like this)

-Some sort of passive or semi-active stacking mechanism, in some form. I have a written up suggestion for this to accomplish the above, but have discarded it. This could go into a new sap mechanism, buffing sap if you've done x,y,and z thing. Having some method which forces an enemy who is standing still, camped, in a druid demesne to either run away or eventually be at risk of dying would be nice.

I don't really like sap, it has the potential to be the "choke, we're always going to complain about the ability" ability.

-Some sort of new meld with the forest type mechanic would be cool. Tree ent summoning has been a popular idea in the past, as well as various form of cudgel based buffs. Loads of those ideas are terribly overpowered, but the heart of them are cool. I'm not sure how open to this sort of suggestion this entire report is.

However it works would probably remove you from combat temporarily, so no being an active participant and a second druid would be needed to pick up that slack, though I was curious if it would allow you to use dream body abilities safely for a few moments.

What about returning druid (and NOT mage) melds (partially or totally) to how it was before the nerfs on effect range (i.e. have the effects hit entire meld again)? Given comments regarding how druids should remain tied to demesnes, it seems like it might help =x

I considered suggesting that. While it would help the druid be a bit more useful in a group, it doesn't actually solve any problems and protection scroll would just turn it into demesne wide paralysis with a little bleeding, and we'd be blocked from some better changes.

@Enyalida
While I can't comment on the meld damage of any other Aquamancer, and can't directly comment on my meld damage, when I last fought Sidd, I took about 500 damage, before the tsunami damage boost, I was doing >300 damage and after the boost, 400 damage, with about 280 drowning damage between demesne hits. So in comparison to Sidd, I'm doing maybe 100-200 more damage than Sidd, with 1 affliction, but I believe he also has bleeding from demesne, which also affects mana. Whirlpool/Currents mean nothing while the opponent is within the room and they are not trying to leave.

I'll comment the effect of whirlpool/currents on groups later.

Currents can work when they are in the room, but speaking to the Hartstone demesne, I do about 400 damage (total, undeffed, against 4.8k health) with 19int, three trans Mysticism skills (the pool of Druidry), and one trans Communion skill.
I additionally do an average of 16 bleeding per ten seconds on the ground (squirrels is 33% chance to do about 60 bleeding), 150 bleeding per ten seconds in trees.

According to report 620, aquamancers pre-change were doing about 740 damage at the very max. Which was increased by 200.

Whirlpool/Currents does indeed do something while in the same room (can you say ubercarcer?), and currents can be set to adjacent rooms and off-timed with demesne to snip groups using enemy list cleverness. Aquamancy is one of the more defensive melders. People always mention how treelife is excellent for defense, and I agree- Treelife is very clearly our best stand alone demesne ability. You've got treelife that actually moves you out of the room, not to mention passive curing, lots of hindering, and whirlpool being able to pull away from break rooms with cleverness. Manage to beckon someone into a room (one of the main focuses of combat being splitting lone agents away from a group to gank them) and there is a huge chance they won't be able to leave due to your demesne, even lacking actual hindering. This is better movement hindering then a geodemesne (gasp).

Even better, you can avoid splitting your own group! For a druid, either you fight in the trees with your group, the target has nothing hardcoded that can stop them from climbing down (or from being knocked down by various knock downs, some of which are common skills or enchantments) but if you fight on the ground, you have to forgo your increased demesne effects and sap. On the contrary, Aquamancy's pulling/moving can be set to pull into your group, as in the treefighting scenario, but unlike the druid, you have an effect stopping them from walking back out. However, unlike the groundfighting scenario, you can set currents (with momentary, balanceless, free setup) to either pull away from you into an adjacent room, or to you, erasing the problem of messing up your own group. Because currents is on DEMESNE (right), you can fairly easily code a little widget to unenemy the target and enemy all other baddies in the room right before it ticks so that everyone but the target is swept away. Conversely, you can pull single people using currents and the same method reversed. You can do the same thing with treelife, but unfortunatly, it's not as good of a split, and returning is faster and easier.

Don't know if this argument has been brought up, and not really stating an opinion on if druids need to be fixed, but I will say using the argument that "druids need to be viable outside the demesne" is not a very good one. We all know that each guild has it's place in the game, and each class as well. Like being a bard 1v1 isn't very good, and monk group fighting isn't the best. Druids are one of those classes that maybe they were made for demesne fighting. If we think everyone should be viable in all situations, then all guilds should be looked at. I doubt they will change druids so drastically, just like they will never change Choke.

The problem lies in that mages bring all of their outside utility into their demesne and in that way outstrip druids. I've mostly given up on making druids able to do anything at all outside of demesne. I would like to make druids good enough in demesne to keep up with mages in demesne, considering that mages have additional mobility.

At this point, it may be best to wait and see if this will be an actual topic, and if so, come up with a few strategic changes to help, which should keep in mind that sap is the biggest issue for druids and any change will have to include compensation for sap, or involve a change in the sap mechanic. I'm kind of out of suggestions, but I can post up a few I've made over the years in a bit.

Morshoth:

Don't know if this argument has been brought up, and not really stating an opinion on if druids need to be fixed, but I will say using the argument that "druids need to be viable outside the demesne" is not a very good one. We all know that each guild has it's place in the game, and each class as well. Like being a bard 1v1 isn't very good, and monk group fighting isn't the best. Druids are one of those classes that maybe they were made for demesne fighting. If we think everyone should be viable in all situations, then all guilds should be looked at. I doubt they will change druids so drastically, just like they will never change Choke.

This is the argument that is reflexively brought up any time anyone every tries to make any changes to druids.
Even in this case where much of the talk is about keeping druids in their demesnes.

The problem with that opinion is that, if you truly feel that the role of melders is inside their demesne and nowhere else, then this is a strain of logic that must be applied universally, to both druids and mages. While I would be unable to object from a balancing perspective were that the case, I must ask you if that is the direction you truly wish to see this archetype move - only one demesner may control a room at any given time, and if you make all six of the demesne-centered guilds require their demesne to be effective, you will be further advantaging whichever side manages to meld first or bring with them an Affinity-powered ascendant to dominate the area's terrain. Furthermore, you would incentivize cities and communes to never have more than one notable druid/mage combatant, for even within the same organization only one person may meld a room at any given time.

Conversely, if you are suggesting that druids should only be effective within their demesne while mage combat should continue to be viable both inside and outside of their demesne, I would ask what you would consider a fair balancing point to this rather glaring restriction. Remembering that only one person can control a demesne, it seems logical to conclude that there will almost always be druids fielded but forced to fight outside of a meld even if their side controls the terrain. If you believe druids should not be viable in this condition, what do you expect their role to be? I fear that binding druids more tightly to their terrain risks drawing Lusternia one step closer to the classic IRE druidry fallacy: The only way to not make druid combat inferior in every way to their counterparts would be to make them unquestionably overpowered within the debilitating restrictions placed on them, which only leads to further complaints from each side and an "I'm just going to sit here and wait until you leave your demesne" mentality.

Enyalida:

Currents can work when they are in the room, but speaking to the Hartstone demesne, I do about 400 damage (total, undeffed, against 4.8k health) with 19int, three trans Mysticism skills (the pool of Druidry), and one trans Communion skill.
I additionally do an average of 16 bleeding per ten seconds on the ground (squirrels is 33% chance to do about 60 bleeding), 150 bleeding per ten seconds in trees.

According to report 620, aquamancers pre-change were doing about 740 damage at the very max. Which was increased by 200.

Whirlpool/Currents does indeed do something while in the same room (can you say ubercarcer?), and currents can be set to adjacent rooms and off-timed with demesne to snip groups using enemy list cleverness. Aquamancy is one of the more defensive melders. People always mention how treelife is excellent for defense, and I agree- Treelife is very clearly our best stand alone demesne ability. You've got treelife that actually moves you out of the room, not to mention passive curing, lots of hindering, and whirlpool being able to pull away from break rooms with cleverness. Manage to beckon someone into a room (one of the main focuses of combat being splitting lone agents away from a group to gank them) and there is a huge chance they won't be able to leave due to your demesne, even lacking actual hindering. This is better movement hindering then a geodemesne (gasp).

Even better, you can avoid splitting your own group! For a druid, either you fight in the trees with your group, the target has nothing hardcoded that can stop them from climbing down (or from being knocked down by various knock downs, some of which are common skills or enchantments) but if you fight on the ground, you have to forgo your increased demesne effects and sap. On the contrary, Aquamancy's pulling/moving can be set to pull into your group, as in the treefighting scenario, but unlike the druid, you have an effect stopping them from walking back out. However, unlike the groundfighting scenario, you can set currents (with momentary, balanceless, free setup) to either pull away from you into an adjacent room, or to you, erasing the problem of messing up your own group. Because currents is on DEMESNE (right), you can fairly easily code a little widget to unenemy the target and enemy all other baddies in the room right before it ticks so that everyone but the target is swept away. Conversely, you can pull single people using currents and the same method reversed. You can do the same thing with treelife, but unfortunatly, it's not as good of a split, and returning is faster and easier.

In the report the caster(Nydekion) had 24 int and has a magic rune. If a Hartstone or Blacktalon had the same things they'd have nearly the same damage, though slightly less. Most Aquamancers never break 18. I currently do max 400, but that's contributed by the damage type. And I said they do nothing in the room if the target isn't trying to leave, currents only pulls people toward the center of the demesne, if deluge is up and they don't have protection up, and whirlpool pulls people towards the Aquamancer, requiring deluge to be up to pull. It is only in "ubercarcer" mode when deluge is down, meaning neither will pull if the person exits the room.

Why would anyone purposely stand in an enemy demesne for any period of time and either not engage them or break?
Pulling single people out of a group is for stand-offs, in which no one is in the demesne of the other side. If there's an enemy group in my demesne and they're not breaking for some inexplicable reason, my side can just go after them, use beckon to pull, no need to enemy/unenemy/renemy, no terrain requirement, no waiting if the pull fails, or pull the entire group, as we have the advantage of a demesne. If I want to push someone out of a room, gust is far more reliable. And if for some reason we're having a stand-off inside my demesne and beckon is not available, as they're not breaking and have protection/icewalls up, I can just use phantom spheres. If I'm moving a group out, they only have to wait a second and simply walk back into the room.

A long long time ago mages and druids suffered from getting jumped outside their demesnes and having no way of really fighting back due to all their offense being in their demesne. Thus ecology and psionics were born. So the notion that druids arent supposed to fight outside their demesne is false. Problem is that now there is no way to buff ecology reasonable to help druids since it effects harbingers and spiritsingers. And people focus more on their companion than on using fetishes.

No one focuses on using the companion, it's fairly useless, and it actively is a hindrance (whoo, transmigrate and binding up your fetish or being dangerous).

EDIT: And by fairly useless, I mean that familiar smudge is useful and that's the only thing the familiar is remotely used for. Familiarsting is kind of pathetic for the cost and limitations, especially when you compare it to say... psychicdagger. Ecology in general is really meh.

-The smudges are okay, though obnoxiously random, and very slow. Most of what they do is really niche. Valley, for instance is good for avoiding ganks. It gives concussion if you have no way to fly and don't have levitation. Unfortunately, druids have no way to strip levitation. Most of what the rest of the smudges do is replicated elsewhere or in fetishes, except on group. Unfortunatly with sap, protection and love potion the way they are, the druid should be focusing on one or two people at a time (and can only be really effective against one), so the group aspect is generally wasted on druids. Quickburn was not a good patch here, IMO. Four power for an instant burn is only useful for say... swamp and a runner. In general, the druid wants to be on balance any time a passive effect hits when trying to stick sap, and after sap is stuck, you usually have better things to be doing then spending 4p on broken legs.

-The banes are alright if you can capitalize on them. Herb bane, I've got like... 0 affs that can't just be focus-minded and are herb cures. Snake bane is necessary or your fetish drops a lot of its usefulness. Batbane does literally nothing for a druid.

Ecology is alright (I prefer dreamweaving for blackout, offbalancing/offeq-ing, two sleep sprawls/intterupts, passive amnesia, and void if you can get it in) for a druid in their demesne, and has a few tricks that can be quite nasty when trying to saplock. Does it in any way allow us to have a ghost of a chance out of our demesne, nil no.


EDIT2: And when we poke admins, we get the response that we are supposed to be tied to demesne more then mages.

Some corrections:

- Ecology was not designed as a way for a druid to fight outside a meld.
- No phantomsphere for you, its horrible game design to make run or die mechanics. You should never have a full reset button.

Some minor ideas, and these move psionics away from being all powerful and move druids toward having some more capacity.

- Make hyperhidrosis work in the same conditions as cleanse (cant be prone and such) since you can stand off psi balance this should actually make psionics users equally apt to death from such things.
- Raise the balance loss of psi shatter, why make a shield you recover from breaking faster than we cast? This was a half arsed method of "balancing".
- Change saps base action to cause a stun or similar of say 2s to give a window for passives/effects to hit.
- Improve "underperforming druid passives".
- If needed we can create commune specialization bonuses. For instance if a dreamweaver is in hartstone they get "Dreamer" based on Hoaracle. Similar to how phantasms got a mana drain skill based on city. These skills should vary but be divine themed and try to fill a hole in offense.

I think we could really get away with just a few minor changes (or as minor as you consider the above) to give a better baseline. Its also possible instead of enhancing passives we just add a new one if a meld does not otherwise serve the purpose.

These assume we want druids to remain meldees. If we want totally portable that will take some changes...

This could be the new Dreamweaving instakill:

You sneer, casting a protective shield over yourself to mitigate the damage of the whirling blossoms as you stalk through the storm after the frantically-scampering figure of Elana. You allow your consciousness to wander as your dreamform briefly parts ways with your physical body, arcing through the air before entering Elana seamlessly. In possession of her, you comb her mind, discovering that she is a corrupt councillor, in league with Hallifax. With the barest of thoughts, you still her heart before your dreamform snaps back to your physical body.

Yes... ecology was designed for a druid to fight outside their meld...

Jayden:

Yes... ecology was designed for a druid to fight outside their meld...

You are confusing "to fight outside their meld" with, "having an effect outside a meld".

Ecology has never been able to allow druids to solo outside their meld, with reallllly bad curing it might get you somewhere but even then, still no.

Morshoth:

Like being a bard 1v1 isn't very good, and monk group fighting isn't the best. Druids are one of those classes that maybe they were made for demesne fighting.

Bards are commonly touted as a great cheap archetype to get into, because you can be effective and fight without getting your specialisation. They are not lacking 1v1, and they got that way precisely because people didn't want to fall into the role of being "support only". With all the argument that went into bards, I think it's silly to say druids must be, "demesne only".

Malarious:

Ecology has never been able to allow druids to solo outside their meld, with reallllly bad curing it might get you somewhere but even then, still no.

That may be true, but it was still released under the guise of being, "psionics for druids". It just never delivered the same results. The argument is the intent, not what the skill actually accomplished.