My concerns:

- How high can you stack writhe? If base writhe is 4 and you add 2s to that its 100% to kill with little effort. Increasing someones writhe times is badddddd.
- Allergy levels should naturally cure away from the druid but you should be able to focus mind (at a higher than normal focus time) to remove them if you are not with the durid.
- Any summon they can use should definitely drop allergy levels, as it is you are asking for a monster by allowing a guild who will stop attempts to escape to also have shamanism which can stop tumble. This looks almost 100% locked down. In the rare event you escape they can summon.
- NO to having another skill stop tumble. It is supposed to be a leave all, we do not want it shuggable, its bad enough shamans can stop it without a heavy cost.
- I dont like the mucous idea for allergies either, a passive cleanse cure with sap and its yet another form of you cant leave. I know you want to keep people in meld, but that does not mean add a summon, 6 effects to stop escape, and then some.
- Make sap cause ignite to fail, but not create "hardened sap".

Right now I am looking at the following:
- You are taking the machete instead of the scalpel. Make fewer changes with others on the board in case thats not enough, too many changes at once will be a nightmare to balance afterward, and I am betting no druids will envoy nerfs right away, citing "pressing other matters". Theres only 2 druid envoys and thanks to the new policy you cant envoy anyone elses skills (good intent, bad execution on that one).

Saran:

shock seems a bit odd.

Does it increase the recovery time of the next level (little underwhelming) or all (kinda strong)?

In my head, it increases the time it takes to remove allergy levels for x seconds. So say you have 5 allergy levels, it'll normally take 25s to get rid of all of that. With shock, it'll take 37.5s,

Malarious:

My concerns:

- How high can you stack writhe? If base writhe is 4 and you add 2s to that its 100% to kill with little effort. Increasing someones writhe times is badddddd.
- Allergy levels should naturally cure away from the druid but you should be able to focus mind (at a higher than normal focus time) to remove them if you are not with the durid.
- Any summon they can use should definitely drop allergy levels, as it is you are asking for a monster by allowing a guild who will stop attempts to escape to also have shamanism which can stop tumble. This looks almost 100% locked down. In the rare event you escape they can summon.
- NO to having another skill stop tumble. It is supposed to be a leave all, we do not want it shuggable, its bad enough shamans can stop it without a heavy cost.
- I dont like the mucous idea for allergies either, a passive cleanse cure with sap and its yet another form of you cant leave. I know you want to keep people in meld, but that does not mean add a summon, 6 effects to stop escape, and then some.
- Make sap cause ignite to fail, but not create "hardened sap".

Right now I am looking at the following:
- You are taking the machete instead of the scalpel. Make fewer changes with others on the board in case thats not enough, too many changes at once will be a nightmare to balance afterward, and I am betting no druids will envoy nerfs right away, citing "pressing other matters". Theres only 2 druid envoys and thanks to the new policy you cant envoy anyone elses skills (good intent, bad execution on that one).

1. It's not very little effort if the opponent can still attack while thornlashed and ignite (ignite balance is short) if needed. That's why I'm trying to tweak it so it's pretty much impossible to kill without putting at least some allergies/sap on.

2. I'm down with that. I share concerns that allergies might be too easy to put on but too hard to remove. I'm taking more opinions here.

3. Yeah, I have that issue too. Need more opinions here.

4. Nothing here stops tumble. I was playing around with the idea early on in my draft, but quickly dropped it. It's just quicksand that will stop tumble.

5. Actually, I think the mucous idea is clever for allergies and the affliction itself helps both with the cleanse based nature of druids and the ability to being able to run away from them. I agree that both a summon and a way to prevent running seem strong, but like the early choke ideas, if you're gonna delete aeon (which is what we're doing with sap), you need to get other powerful affs in return.

6. Not sure about that, I kind of like the idea that a specific affliction mixed with another creates a new affliction that helps with your offense. In my head, the hardened sap won't actually hinder you. It's more like grapples/thornlashes vs. web/ropes. Need more opinions here though.

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RE: machete - the intent is to create a new mechanic and repurpose druids to be something other than sap based. That means you're going to need to change quite a few things about sap, rend, and add a new mechanic. By design, I'm afraid you kind of need to suggest a lot of ideas all at once.

I think what's important is the idea.

I'm up for the machete. Sorry, the archetype needs it.

A few notes on things:

-The cure should speed up if you leave the druid's demesne entirely/leave forest terrain, imo. This is mostly thematic, but it gives you an emergency way to cure out, by leaving the demesne entirely.

-I'd possibly even put in a slower decay even in the room of the druid. Have each one of the demesne effects be perfectly enough to cancel out this effect. That way if you don't strip protection, they don't passively build it, but hold steady at the same level. That way you can't really build it on a bunch of people from adjacent rooms or anything.

-I'd change the shock ability to do something else entirely, closer to the suggestion for unconscious. Perhaps afflicting/burstdamage/something based around allergy level? I'm not sure what sort of thing is appropriate, but throwing someone off cure balances based around how much they have on them seems hokay.

-Are thornlashes going to be restricted to one caster only? I think I'm okay with this, honestly, other druids can stack as they couldn't before by using the various allergy mechanics.

To Malarious: I agree with some of this, summons should drop allergy levels, I'm alright without the mucous aff (though, we NEED something that stops CLIMB UP. All of our preventative measures (all) are stopped by climbing up and waltzing away, mucous would accomplish that), and so on. I'm really confused about some of your comments/justification about these things, as they reference abilities that I just don't see existing or being proposed, but whatever.

1. Right now, I have it as time based that's only cured by leaving the druid's presence. So you're saying you prefer it to be even faster if they leave forest terrain? I'm fine with that. Need to decide whether you prefer forest terrain vs. meld terrain though.

2. Okay, that sounds clever, but I want to make sure you're getting somewhere with the effects if you really focus.

3. Yeah, I'm kind of out of ideas about shock. I'm pretty fine with unconscious, but I was under the impression that you'd just wake up from a variety of meld effects afterwards, so we'll need to look into that. Or some other new idea here. Taking suggestions.

4. They can be stacked right now, even under this idea. Is it overly imbalancing if it is?

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I agree with Enyalida RE: mucous

Actually I took out the the tree req for sap, this means that you don't even really need to care about trees anymore. Unless there's something that you need to do up there.

Now that I think about it, this nerfs treebane/treelife, so should those be repurposed or what?

I can just remove that part of new sap if needed.

You can't be woken from unconscious.

Druids will always have to worry about tree terrain because it's our demesne type! In other words, I can stack a thousand things like mud, quicksand, and ringwalk up in a room, but if we're fighting in my terrain you will ALWAYS have the option of climbing up, a free action that takes you right on past my mud, quicksand, and ringwalk, then you just walk away from my room and I'm donezo.

Oh okay.

Yeah, maybe I'll just keep sap with the tree elevation req. I was kind of hoping to change it so the complaints about an Unnamed Skill go away.

Re: stacking

I would like to see these skills (maybe not the allergies, that being specific to the meld holder?) being able to be stacked by other druids.

Let's face it. If you have five warriors in a room and they all attack you in the same manner, I would hope that they would kill you quickly. If you have five TKs in the room they should be able to burst your vessels pretty quickly. Druids should be able to pull off a thornlash/rend easily with five in the room doing the same action.

At the moment, we can't even pull off a thornlash/rend with these numbers because of the ignite enchantment doing what it does + the incredible speed that some (most?) people writhe.

Oh, I like sap being not tree elevation! I was just saying that it's not really true to say that we won't have to 'worry about it' but in a different sense than you meant. We'll always have to worry about it nullifying our attempts to hold people down, but we can come up with some way to help that, later.

The unconcious is a rather big no no. You can take no action and nothing but time ends it... you are asking for a death wish, especially if there is anyone else hitting you. Even for 5p I think that might be a bit much. Something harsh seems ok, but it also depends how fast allergies build because I am getting more and more worried about group v group atm. Although Enyalidas idea of natural curing in the room ith the druid is very helpful for that.

I was mostly concerned about mass thornlash when they are not easily removed. Sorry but with the change to ignite 6 total eqs (or about 8s) should not be a guaranteed kill. Even warriors wont kill you that fast. Keep in mind its actually 4 seconds because you enter on eq, 4s after entering you can insta with say 3 druids. 8s at 2 druids. etc.

I'm a bit worried about mass thornlashing also. Hartstone has had enough druids to even try that say... once in my time playing Hartstone (What, ~60 ig years now?), but with a revamp, we might see an uptick in fighters. I think that the other abilities suggested (And different abilities we can suggest for a secondary strategy outside of the new one) will allow druids to actually stack in a unique fashion (which they fail to do now) without having thornlashes also stack. The lashes shouldn't be demesne restricted though. One way to do it is restrict the lashes to the person who sapped the target. Not sure if I like that though.

I'd like to point out that neither me or Sidd believe that the archetype needs a "machete".

I like Shuyin's idea. I posted mine, but bad internet ate the response and it got lost. I believe that we should make the current kill method -> thornlashes, that is accessible to everyone, be workable. It should be feasible to fear a group of druids just like you'd fear a group of TK's/whatever else, because obviously enough, by common logic, you should die and etc if you're stuck alone versus them. It should also be doable 1v1. To make enable this, writhing needs to get some hinders that allow the lashes to actually stack.

As a sideeffect, the IronHart team will love this, because it'll help their Nihilists!

I'm not sure why there is worry about more druids being able to land an almost instant kill. If you're outnumbered, and the druid group is organised, they should be able to kill you, just as TK mages in numbers can build vessels quickly and pull off a burst, just as the combined mana drain efforts of a runist druid, a wiccan and bard can pull off a toad in seconds. Really, any group that is organised should be able to pull of a kill quickly.

I see Shuyin's suggestion as something that makes druids powerful in their demesne, just as Kiakoda was powerful in the forests, so should we be powerful in our meld. I'm cool with druids being weaker than mages outside their meld. I'm even cool with them not being able to do much on elemental planes. So long as we are able to do what we're designed to do - be feared in our meld.

Allergies, therefore, should be tied to the meld, with the meld holder giving passives. There might be a few active things that non-melders can bring up, but tbh, I'm not fussed on that.

Thornlashes should be stackable and available to all druids. Restricting this brings us right back to where we are - with one useful druid (I'm guessing that job passes to Enyalida on that side and Vadi on this side) with everyone else just spamming vines and their tert skills. Why should the rest of the guild be exempt from using their primary to any effect? (I say this, because in most situations where it matters, which is most of the time a melder is required, it's important to have a druid who knows how to use their meld, so the best melder who is there at the time will be used for that job.)

Sap, also, with the change suggested, should be open to everyone to land.

I agree with pretty much everything you've got to say Svorai. I just think that Lashes should be the restricted part and Allergies (at least the active parts like the build and shock) should be open to all druids. It could really go either way.

I'm confused about that, though.

Because outside of a meld, in my mind, Allergies wouldn't work. Being caught in the druid's territory means you're being hit with everything they have to offer. Escape that, and you can cure. It gives enemies a reason to break melds instead of tank it, which means there's more work for the melder keep their meld maintained. We (being the secondary druids) can't physically make the meld, we can only infest/break/mulch it to prepare. I see the melder being very focussed on keeping that allergy-inducing environment happening, while the others pull off the kill.

Outside of a meld, do you think that we should have access to Lashes? Because if so, and if you restrict Lashes/Rend to one person casting it, it restricts more than necessary (I think).

Can you explain why you feel Lashes should be restricted to one person, rather than Allergy effects? And what do you see being used outside of the meld, if anything?

Edit: Cleaned up my words. Oh, such a mess. Also - rp-wise it would make sense for us not to be able to use any of this Druidry stuff (including Lashes, excluding Cudgel) outside of forest areas, but I still think that if we're raiding Ethereal Serenwilde, a group of five Blacktalon should be able to attempt Lashes/Rending, as it's forest. And the supporting druids should be able to do something in that terrain.

I don't really see how we'd keep Sap on somebody with this change. Without the aeon effect of Sap, a Druid is definitively not going to be able to keep a target from rubbing cleanse on their own. Extended writhe time will still be good groups, I suppose

Was your intention for the Druid to ignite the person to get hardened sap, 'cus I only see horribly bad people ever doing that to themselves. And also why would you ever bother with igniting when it only does 1 lash, your EQ would probably be better used hindering the druid somehow and then writhing. Maybe make that 2?

I'm still not a fan of the only cure being running from the druid but I guess I can't think of a better alternative.

Svorai:

Stuff

Sorry, I didn't mean 'restricted to demesne' I meant 'restricted to one person'. That is, outside of a demesne you can still use allergies on someone (though without demesne upkeeing the allergies, it'd auto-cure even in your presence, with my idea), but you can't lash because there isn't anything to lash with.

Yes. Part of the plan is for the druid to ignite the victim to harden sap.

You keep sap by building allergies. Passive prone, offbalance from cleansing mucous, longer writhe from vines, etc. Hopefully.

I'm with Svorai here. I don't get to meld in group fights. I just break and replant saplings. I loved being a warrior because of how well we stacked. As a druid, I can only recall one druid fight where we stacked thornlashes, and even though we only pulled off one kill, it was incredibly good fun.

For solo viability, I'd like a stronger cudgel attack, on par with a geomancer staff.

For group viability, I approve of Shuyin's suggestion. Druids are targeted first and the enemy territory deaths are expensive and disheartening. It's the synergy and the necessity of the role that provides the motivation to keep trying.

Our cudgel attack is strong enough, and more damage would be silly. In fact, damage across the board should be lowered. And more damage doesn't increase solo viability, it increases group absurdity.

Svorai:

Outside of a meld, do you think that we should have access to Lashes? Because if so, and if you restrict Lashes/Rend to one person casting it, it restricts more than necessary (I think).

Can you explain why you feel Lashes should be restricted to one person, rather than Allergy effects? And what do you see being used outside of the meld, if anything?

Enyalida:

Sorry, I didn't mean 'restricted to demesne' I meant 'restricted to one person'. That is, outside of a demesne you can still use allergies on someone (though without demesne upkeeing the allergies, it'd auto-cure even in your presence, with my idea), but you can't lash because there isn't anything to lash with.

I got that you meant restricted to one person - I'm not sure I agree. Can you elaborate?

I see Thornlashes/Thornrend able to be used outside of a meld in forested terrain only (like Nature's Vines), and have it stackable (so more than one druid can be landing the lash). This change would increase the number of lashes required to instakill to five, meaning there are six steps in all - something I see extremely difficult for one druid to pull off, even with the Allergies. (To clarify - to land the kill, the target must not successfully writhe even once - every lash needs to stick.)

However, I also see Allergies being restricted to the meld, so that getting that kill via Thornrending is easier - as it should be.

I'm also inclined to say that the active Allergy-inducing skills be restricted to the meld-holder, though I'm not too fussed about it. It gives other druids something to do. The passives would of course depend on whether the meld-holder has stripped protection and are maintaining their meld enough for it to be active.