Thoughts On Ancient: Needs Small Buff....

[Stardusk78]

I have been playing the Ancient a fair bit, based on the concept alone it is my favourite Druid but I feel the +1 Plant/Beast PL does not justify the penalties the subclass receives. Increased damage from veil piercing and extra damage from vessels is fair and fits the subclass from an RPG perspective but I think a +2 PL to Plant/Beast spells would be justified given the disadvantages. Does anyone agree with me?

[Exanos]

+2 can be an idea, but it won't fix the major issue of ancien druid : invocation of monster (beast or plant) don't scale with PL (except duration).

You can already acces very early to a +2 (or +3) Pl Beat/Plant PL weapon, so more Pl (even if it's always good) is not the priority fix for me.

 

 

What i would love for druids :

-> Make invocation (healt/damage/resistance/Pen) scale with PL (not their armor).

-> Give the druid a PL 8-9 corrode spell (like the PL9 wizard)

-> add more +PL corrode gear (only one in the game...).

 

This won't break the game or make the druid op, just make summons build enjoyable.

[Stardusk78]

+2 can be an idea, but it won't fix the major issue of ancien druid : invocation of monster (beast or plant) don't scale with PL (except duration).

You can already acces very early to a +2 (or +3) Pl Beat/Plant PL weapon, so more Pl (even if it's always good) is not the priority fix for me.

 

 

What i would love for druids :

-> Make invocation (healt/damage/resistance/Pen) scale with PL (not their armor).

-> Give the druid a PL 8-9 corrode spell (like the PL9 wizard)

-> add more +PL corrode gear (only one in the game...).

 

This won't break the game or make the druid op, just make summons build enjoyable.

Yeah, isn't that an issue with summons in general? Only duration is affected by PL, same with Chanters? I might look into it and create a small mod or something once the patch goes live.

[Exanos]

 

Yeah, isn't that an issue with summons in general? Only duration is affected by PL, same with Chanters? I might look into it and create a small mod or something once the patch goes live.

 

 

With the difference that hight lvl chanter summon are still usefull. Dragon have some damaging ability in AoE and swords are a bit differents than normal invoc (if i remember right) giving them some punch.

 

I remember a post with a screen  comparing dragon (100-150 damage in aoe) and aspect of galawain (20-30 on single target)...

 

But yeah, summoner's build are underwhelming, except if you build around cheese, like the grave calling build (summon imp while killing low skeletton) or spark the soul (priest spell) with mass invocation. It's fun the first hour, but get tedious after.

 

Another way to up ancien druid can be boosting the wildgrowth spell giving not only robust but +damage/pen/healt too. Can be easier to patch and will give ancien a nice touch.

Edit : a (big) boost of wildgrowth may be the best thing to do, it will cost you (need to cast the spell so : spellslot + cast time + recovery), but if it give +%healt, +%damage, +pen, scalling with Pl (you can even change the robust inspiration by a raw damage DOT on the invoc -> you turbocharge it, damaging it while it stand, so it can fit RP), it may be worth it going for a summoner build with ancien.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Exanos

[MaxQuest]

I have been playing the Ancient a fair bit, based on the concept alone it is my favourite Druid but I feel the +1 Plant/Beast PL does not justify the penalties the subclass receives. Increased damage from veil piercing and extra damage from vessels is fair and fits the subclass from an RPG perspective but I think a +2 PL to Plant/Beast spells would be justified given the disadvantages. Does anyone agree with me?

Yes, do agree with you.

+2 PL with plant and beast spells sounds fine to me.

 

P.S. If needed that -10 defenses vs veil-piercing attacks can be increased to -15, to compensate for the extra PL.

[Boeroer]

Just remember that the best beast/plant spells have nothing to do with summons and profit from PL a fair bit (Plagues for example - awesome beast spell).

 

And even if you can get +3 PL to beast and plant early (with the Spine of Thicket Green): additional Power Levels are always good and do not have diminishing returns in any way. More is always better. Power Level increases dmg multiplicatively and also increased other important stats.

 

Summonings do only partly scale with PL, but they do: only their duration increases. But here it's also the base duration which means that with high INT you can achieve very long summoning times.

 

By the way: Ranger's Binding Roots has also plant as keyword and profits from the increased PL.

 

+1 PL in exchange for weakness against veil piercing attacks and vessels doesn't seem to be too powerful, I agree. But doesn't the Ancient have additional pros? What about his sporelings and Wild Growth?

 

I haven't tested him a lot, but isn't that an advantage as well?

Edited December 10, 2018 by Boeroer

[Stardusk78]

Just remember that the best beast/plant spells have nothing to do with summons and profit from PL a fair bit (Plagues for example - awesome beast spell).

 

And even if you can get +3 PL to beast and plant early (with the Spine of Thicket Green): additional Power Levels are always good and do not have diminishing returns in any way. More is always better. Power Level increases dmg multiplicatively and also increased other important stats.

 

Summonings do only partly scale with PL, but they do: only their duration increases. But here it's also the base duration which means that with high INT you can achieve very long summoning times.

 

By the way: Ranger's Binding Roots has also plant as keyword and profits from the increased PL.

 

+1 PL in exchange for weakness against veil piercing attacks and vessels doesn't seem to be too powerful, I agree. But doesn't the Ancient have additional pros? What about his sporelings and Wild Growth?

 

I haven't tested him a lot, but isn't that an advantage as well?

At mid-low levels the sporelings are great + WIld Growth. It is THE selling point. I still would advocate a +2 PL for it but it really is fun. Always wanted to play this type of Druid so I am not entirely unhappy. Just hope it goes live with +2 PL.

[Exanos]

Just remember that the best beast/plant spells have nothing to do with summons and profit from PL a fair bit (Plagues for example - awesome beast spell).

 

And even if you can get +3 PL to beast and plant early (with the Spine of Thicket Green): additional Power Levels are always good and do not have diminishing returns in any way. More is always better. Power Level increases dmg multiplicatively and also increased other important stats.

 

Summonings do only partly scale with PL, but they do: only their duration increases. But here it's also the base duration which means that with high INT you can achieve very long summoning times.

 

By the way: Ranger's Binding Roots has also plant as keyword and profits from the increased PL.

 

+1 PL in exchange for weakness against veil piercing attacks and vessels doesn't seem to be too powerful, I agree. But doesn't the Ancient have additional pros? What about his sporelings and Wild Growth?

 

I haven't tested him a lot, but isn't that an advantage as well?

 

Issue is : summoned creature (who are keyworded as Beast or Plant) are trash (in highter difficulty). Longer duration don't bring anything usefull to the table (i'm a bit hard, sporeling have good health, so they can serve quite well as meat shield early). Actual wildgrowth on trash invoc don't turn them in good invoc, so it's not an actual impacting bonus.

 

If you compare lifegiver and ancien, the con of lifegiver are non-existent (trash invoc)  and the bonus are non-negligeable (+2 to +7 Pl on rejuvenation spell Oo), while the con of ancien are a bit hard for the bonus.

 

Plague spell (keyworded as beast) are... beastly, totally agree. 

[uuuhhii]

add a few swamp themed massive aoe ability at powerlevel 8 or 9 will be nice

since pl are almost useless for summons

Edited December 10, 2018 by uuuhhii

[Boeroer]

 

Just remember that the best beast/plant spells have nothing to do with summons and profit from PL a fair bit (Plagues for example - awesome beast spell).

 

And even if you can get +3 PL to beast and plant early (with the Spine of Thicket Green): additional Power Levels are always good and do not have diminishing returns in any way. More is always better. Power Level increases dmg multiplicatively and also increased other important stats.

 

Summonings do only partly scale with PL, but they do: only their duration increases. But here it's also the base duration which means that with high INT you can achieve very long summoning times.

 

By the way: Ranger's Binding Roots has also plant as keyword and profits from the increased PL.

 

+1 PL in exchange for weakness against veil piercing attacks and vessels doesn't seem to be too powerful, I agree. But doesn't the Ancient have additional pros? What about his sporelings and Wild Growth?

 

I haven't tested him a lot, but isn't that an advantage as well?

Issue is : summoned creature (who are keyworded as Beast or Plant) are trash (in highter difficulty). Longer duration don't bring anything usefull to the table (i'm a bit hard, sporeling have good health, so they can serve quite well as meat shield early). Actual wildgrowth on trash invoc don't turn them in good invoc, so it's not an actual impacting bonus.

 

If you compare lifegiver and ancien, the con of lifegiver are non-existent (trash invoc) and the bonus are non-negligeable (+2 to +7 Pl on rejuvenation spell Oo), while the con of ancien are a bit hard for the bonus.

 

Plague spell (keyworded as beast) are... beastly, totally agree.

You forgot that the Lifegiver suffers -5 Power Levels after Spiritshift wears off. This impacts all healing spells that are still active (still pulsing like Moonwell). On PotD fights are often longer than the duration of Spiritshift.

So that's an additional disadvantage that shouldn't be swept under the carpet.

 

Druids's summons are indeed not the best in the game - but still it's not correct that PL doesn't affect summoning. If you can summon a creature that can live for a long time because of PL you can for example withdraw it and block a chokepoint or block a boss from advancing. The +1 PL doesn't do a lot for the druid's beast/plant summons. But we should still be objective and not omit things just in order to make a point. The point is valid without doing that - maybe even more so.

 

As I said: the good thing of "+1 PL for beast and plant" is not the summons but the other beast/plant spells like Plague of Insects, Venombloom, Pollen Patch and so on. Those get a lot better with additional power levels.

 

I can't say if +1 PL is too low because I just started with the Ancient - but I would still like to discuss it with as much objectivity as possible.

 

Since Obsidian already lowered Wellspring of Life from +2 to +1 PL I fear we will not see +2 PL for plant and beast for the Ancient - but we can hope.

 

On paper the weakness against veil-piercing attacks seems to be bad - all gunshots are veil-piercing and those are the things a caster can be filled with pretty quickly at the start of a fight. Are there any veil-piercing vessels? I'll see...

Edited December 10, 2018 by Boeroer

[Exanos]

You forgot that the Lifegiver suffers -5 Power Levels after Spiritshift wears off. This impacts all healing spells that are still active (still pulsing like Moonwell). On PotD fights are often longer than the duration of Spiritshift.

So that's an additional disadvantage that shouldn't be swept under the carpet.

 

Druids's summons are indeed not the best in the game - but still it's not correct that PL doesn't affect summoning. If you can summon a creature that can live for a long time because of PL you can for example withdraw it and block a chokepoint or block a boss from advancing. The +1 PL doesn't do a lot for the druid's beast/plant summons. But we should still be objective and not omit things just in order to make a point. The point is valid without doing that - maybe even more so.

 

As I said: the good thing of "+1 PL for beast and plant" is not the summons but the other beast/plant spells like Plague of Insects, Venombloom, Pollen Patch and so on. Those get a lot better with additional power levels.

 

I can't say if +1 PL is too low because I just started with the Ancient - but I would still like to discuss it with as much objectivity as possible.

 

Since Obsidian already lowered Wellspring of Life from +2 to +1 PL I fear we will not see +2 PL for plant and beast for the Ancient - but we can hope.

 

On paper the weakness against veil-piercing attacks seems to be bad - all gunshots are veil-piercing and those are the things a caster can be filled with pretty quickly at the start of a fight. Are there any veil-piercing vessels? I'll see...

 

 

You are right. I may have been a bit overdramatic on Pro/Con ^^ (still, except in boss fights were you have to be very carefull with it, i rarelly feel the -5 PL of lifegiver malus, most threat are done or undercontrol when it expire. It can still be a huge con that i forgotted, mea culpa ^^ ). Druid DoT spell are amazing even without the +1PL from ancien (so every scrap of PL is very welcome).

 

Question : Does hellwalker bonus (+10 might/int) better than + 3PL on those DoT spell?. The way i see it, going hellwalker/ancien, from a DoT (damage) / HoT (heal) aspect, seem better than pure ancien.

-> you lost PL8 spell (i don't found them that great. not bad either, just nothing exceptionnal)

-> you lost PL9 spells (pollen patch is a big loss, tempest can be crafted with scroll)

-> you gain spell more slowly

-> you get really squishy (you still have beetle shell, or BDD if a priest is in the party)

-> you get huge bonus to DoT and HoT

-> you get monk bonus (blade turning at max int is fun, + all the others)

-> flagellant path with the skull of decay weapon can be fun.

[guildwriter]

Sporelings are awful past midgame.  They absolutely explode against end game or max level enemies.  They may have 195 hp but their deflection is like 19 or so iirc and pretty flat defenses.  Wild Growth just scales with duration it seems (or I couldn't tell because the sporeling just died more or less instantly).

 

I like the concept of a more summon based druid but they're pretty underwhelming.

[Boeroer]

I think a Helwalker/Ancient will do a lot better DoTs with the high MIG and INT. He will also gain more ACC and PEN with Dance of Death and Thunderous Blows. Both is quite awesome. I think it's a great combo.

[guildwriter]

Personally I think Helwalker/Lifegiver would be much stronger.  You give up a throwaway summon, a mediocre summon boost, and a single PL for the ability to supercharge not only your dots, but all your heals as well.  Not hard to work around the Lifegiver downside either.   Shapeshift to go into heal mode, wait out the penalty and spread AIDS to everyone else.

[Stardusk78]

Sporelings are awful past midgame.  They absolutely explode against end game or max level enemies.  They may have 195 hp but their deflection is like 19 or so iirc and pretty flat defenses.  Wild Growth just scales with duration it seems (or I couldn't tell because the sporeling just died more or less instantly).

 

I like the concept of a more summon based druid but they're pretty underwhelming.

There should be a few others. Maybe a level 5 or 6 summons for bears or panthers? Just an idea. I think only having sporelings is limited.

[guildwriter]

Summons need to scale their stats with PL.  Period. End stop.  

 

Unless you're specifically using them for some sort of twisted Frostfall dispersed suffering sacrifice scheme.

[Boeroer]

Power Level adds base damage and duration to DoTs which both works very well with the bonuses from MIG and INT. Works for both healing and damage obviously, but the increase in dmg is nice. I could argue that that heals from an Ancient are also very good and that he does more DoT damage while he could always throw in some distraction buoys. Of course it would be a better argument if he got +2 instead of +1 PL.

 

I played both a single class Livegiver and a single class Animist and I can't say which one performed better. So I'd say a marginal difference in performance here or there between Livegiver and Ancient might be less important than the "vibe" you want from your character.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

It would help if Aspect of Galawain wasn't complete trash (a notion that has been brought up several times to no avail.)

[Boeroer]

Summons need to scale their stats with PL.  Period. End stop.  

 

Unless you're specifically using them for some sort of twisted Frostfall dispersed suffering sacrifice scheme.

They scale their stats: with char level.

 

It wouldn't make that much of a difference if they scaled with PL instead. It would make more sense though.

 

But I think the scaling has to be improved. It's not powerful enough so they keep falling behind. Exception seems to be the Essential Phantom: I find it very useful even at lvl 20, its stats are always good enough. Should be the case for all summons. 

[Exanos]

I like the concept of a more summon based druid but they're pretty underwhelming.

 

Druids have so much possibility for rp :

- Caster connected to the world calling the power of elements in battle : Fury

- Inside beast calling for blood : Shifter

- Protector of life : Lifegiver

- Guardian of forest, calling beast and plant to war : Ancien (-> sadly, summoning is underwhelming)

- Rotten soul hanting swamp and draining life from animals and travelers : ? (class with +PL corrode / + accuracy vs sickened/weakened , can't cast heal)

- etc...

Edited December 10, 2018 by Exanos

[Harpagornis]

The "Embrace your Inner Beast"-Shifter is what we are working on hard for more than two months now. Its still evolving even though balancing gets harder with every new spell/talent.

 

I agree that most Druid summons - maybe except for the triple Oozes - are suboptimal. It shouldnt be too hard to mod this but it would be even better if Obsidian would take care about them a bit more...

[Stardusk78]

The "Embrace your Inner Beast"-Shifter is what we are working on hard for more than two months now. Its still evolving even though balancing gets harder with every new spell/talent.

 

I agree that most Druid summons - maybe except for the triple Oozes - are suboptimal. It shouldnt be too hard to mod this but it would be even better if Obsidian would take care about them a bit more...

I like your mod a lot...but it is too powerful for me to use tbh. It is a great mod nonetheless.

[DozingDragon]

A “small” buff you say? How about this:

 

Small, but Mighty. Once per rest, the Ancient reduces their size by half and receives an additional +1 Power Level to all Beast and Plant abilities for 60 seconds. In the tooltip, the effect from the ability can be referred to as “Munchkinized.”