Druid, Shifter and spiritshifts

[Soulmojo]

Hello guys!

 

I've been doing some research on the druid especially Shifter, and Spiritshift as a whole.

I am sure I'm not the only one having problem whit this feature, and how it is lacking.

 

Special thanks to Dunehunter for pointing out wrong data!

 

First of all I will list some stat info I gathered about this what problems I have with it.

Secondly I will go into spiritshift in general, why it is lacking in my opinion, and the one sidedness of it all.

Stats:

 

Spiritshift levels up as you gain new power levels - obviously- but to my surprise it does not level up per power level, but instead every second power level, and the bonuses you get is a little weird.

 

level 1-4:

 

base damage of each spiritsift: 13-20

bonus to accuracy: 0

base penetration: 7

base armor: 8

 

next upgrade: level 5

 

damage: 15-23  (13-20 + 15%)

bonus accuracy: 4

penetration: 8

armor: 9 

 

next upgrade: level 10

damage: 17-26 (13-20 +30%)

bonus accuracy: 8

penetration: 9 

armor: 10 

 

next upgrade: level 15

damage: 19-29 (13-20 +45%)

bonus accuracy: 12

penetration: 10

armor 11 

 

next upgrade: level 20

damage: 21-32 (13-20 +60%)

bonus accuracy: 16

penetration: 11

armor: 12

 

Now if you can look at the numbers alone, there are serious oversights here.

 

• You gain an upgrade to the form every 5 level which foreshadows that except the very first few levels you being in spiritshift your character will be disadvantaged. The last bonuses you get at level 20.
• While spiritshifted you lose all the bonuses from gear, weapons. That would be fine, if the gained bonuses would outweigh the lost bonuses. I think a basic item quality level of increase of stats just don't cut it. You can get much higher armor, penetration, accuracy bonus much earlier with other classes.
• I want to see a progression of stats similar to the monk transcendent suffering, meaning +1-2 damage +2 accuracy +1 penetration +1 armor  / power level
• both armor and penetration should be lowered to 6 so it is more in line with the power level progression

 

Now I want to move on to the second part of issues with spiritshift and the signature abilities of animal forms  which are a bit more focused to shifter subclass.

 

You cannot acquire special form based and generic spiritshift exclusive abilities. Well you have one which you can cast once per form, but that is not much an improvement. And as a shifter you are locked out from using spells. So basically if you are a druid and only in for the shifting you either choose spells you wont really use or you multiclass and end up improving on exclusively on the other class.

 

Now I though about fixing this a bit. A druid does not have power source points. So how?

 

The answer is so blatantly obvious:

 

• You insert spiritshift exclusive abilities tied to each form you can put point into which comes available when you assume your form. 
• You get to gain uses similar to as you gain spells, meaning if you put point on to the ability you will get one then it goes up to two. per combat.
• You ad a lot of form specific, and flavour abilities. If you have one form as a generic druid or lifegiver or fury you can dive into that one forms abilities, if you are a shifter you can choose to put points into each forms abilites and select only those spells which are really benefiting your character.
• This is really not that different from casting spells in animal form.

Thank you and I hope these issues will be addressed before the game goes live. If not the second part then at least the issues with the power level progression of spiritshift.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Soulmojo

[Boeroer]

Some things to consider:

 

You forgot that the damage of your natural weapons that scales is base damage. While normal weapons with quality enchantments fine/exceptional/superb also gain +4/+8/+12 Accuracy and +1/+2/+3/+4 Penetration, they only gain +15%/+30%/+45% additive damage bonus while your natural weapons gain the same, but as multiplicative bonus since their base damage is raised. Plus: you'll have elemental lashes. If you combine that with a class that has additional damage bonuses like rogue or cipher it becomes pretty obvious that this is more powerful than mere weapon quality.

 

With your armor: you'll get the equivalent of fine/exceptional/superb via scaling, but your AR/recovery penalty ratio is better than that of normal armors.

 

Also don't forget that it's an advantage if you don't have to spend resources for enchanting in order to keep your gear up to date. You can give good stuff to other people in your party because you won't need it.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Boeroer

[dunehunter]

Some things to consider:

 

You forgot that the damage of your natural weapons that scales is base damage. While normal weapons with quality enchantments fine/exceptional/superb also gain +4/+8/+12 Accuracy and +1/+2/+3/+4 Penetration, they only gain +15%/+30%/+45% additive damage bonus while your natural weapons gain the same, but as multiplicative bonus since their base damage is raised. Plus: you'll have elemental lashes. If you combine that with a class that has additional damage bonuses like rogue or cipher it becomes pretty obvious that this is more powerful than mere weapon quality.

 

With your armor: you'll get the equivalent of fine/exceptional/superb via scaling, but your AR/recovery penalty ratio is better than that of normal armors.

 

Also don't forget that it's an advantage if you don't have to spend resources for enchanting in order to keep your gear up to date. You can give good stuff to other people in your party because you won't need it.

 

I think the damage OP shows is a bit misleading, acutally the base damage of Spritform is not changed at all. It's always 13-20. The OP included bonus damage into its data.

 

But yeah I feel a bit boring while playing shifter because I cannot gain benefit from gears. It seems to be a better class for companion than MC.

[Boeroer]

I assumed it worked like in PoE where base damage got raised. If natural weapons only get additive quality the OP has a point.

[Soulmojo]

Some things to consider:

 

You forgot that the damage of your natural weapons that scales is base damage. While normal weapons with quality enchantments fine/exceptional/superb also gain +4/+8/+12 Accuracy and +1/+2/+3/+4 Penetration, they only gain +15%/+30%/+45% additive damage bonus while your natural weapons gain the same, but as multiplicative bonus since their base damage is raised. Plus: you'll have elemental lashes. If you combine that with a class that has additional damage bonuses like rogue or cipher it becomes pretty obvious that this is more powerful than mere weapon quality.

 

With your armor: you'll get the equivalent of fine/exceptional/superb via scaling, but your AR/recovery penalty ratio is better than that of normal armors.

 

Also don't forget that it's an advantage if you don't have to spend resources for enchanting in order to keep your gear up to date. You can give good stuff to other people in your party because you won't need it.

 

 

Damage:

Each time your damage levels up every second power level you get 2-4 bonus damage. What I want is to break that 2-4 into two, and get 1-2 each power level.

I really don't want a damage increase, but to break that bonus in half and give it every new power level instead of two.

Accuracy: 

Same with damage, I don't want an accuracy increase but breaking the bonus to two, and give the druid every level.

 

Armor and penetration:

I suggested the +7/+9 with a lowered base number. I don't care if the lower the base number even further, to be in balance, I just don't see the point of this current version.

This is not progression, what I wrote down, this is nonsense. This is pillars 1 mechanic put into an entire new system.

 

And please don't forget, that there will be a multitude of items, which will give penetration, extra armor, damage, recovery and other bonuses you will lose when you shift.

You don't see the problem because in at this level in the beta characters are more or less geared the same. Later in game when you will have access to end game gear, weapons, armor enchants there will be a big difference in power.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Soulmojo

[Soulmojo]

 

Some things to consider:

 

You forgot that the damage of your natural weapons that scales is base damage. While normal weapons with quality enchantments fine/exceptional/superb also gain +4/+8/+12 Accuracy and +1/+2/+3/+4 Penetration, they only gain +15%/+30%/+45% additive damage bonus while your natural weapons gain the same, but as multiplicative bonus since their base damage is raised. Plus: you'll have elemental lashes. If you combine that with a class that has additional damage bonuses like rogue or cipher it becomes pretty obvious that this is more powerful than mere weapon quality.

 

With your armor: you'll get the equivalent of fine/exceptional/superb via scaling, but your AR/recovery penalty ratio is better than that of normal armors.

 

Also don't forget that it's an advantage if you don't have to spend resources for enchanting in order to keep your gear up to date. You can give good stuff to other people in your party because you won't need it.

 

I think the damage OP shows is a bit misleading, acutally the base damage of Spritform is not changed at all. It's always 13-20. The OP included bonus damage into its data.

 

But yeah I feel a bit boring while playing shifter because I cannot gain benefit from gears. It seems to be a better class for companion than MC.

 

 

 

Yes it was misleading, the base damage of the character didn't increase it got 15%. I will correct the OP immediately.

 

 

# corrected the OP, it should show the real numbers now. Thanks Dunehunter! 

Edited February 20, 2018 by Soulmojo

[dunehunter]

 

 

Some things to consider:

 

You forgot that the damage of your natural weapons that scales is base damage. While normal weapons with quality enchantments fine/exceptional/superb also gain +4/+8/+12 Accuracy and +1/+2/+3/+4 Penetration, they only gain +15%/+30%/+45% additive damage bonus while your natural weapons gain the same, but as multiplicative bonus since their base damage is raised. Plus: you'll have elemental lashes. If you combine that with a class that has additional damage bonuses like rogue or cipher it becomes pretty obvious that this is more powerful than mere weapon quality.

 

With your armor: you'll get the equivalent of fine/exceptional/superb via scaling, but your AR/recovery penalty ratio is better than that of normal armors.

 

Also don't forget that it's an advantage if you don't have to spend resources for enchanting in order to keep your gear up to date. You can give good stuff to other people in your party because you won't need it.

 

I think the damage OP shows is a bit misleading, acutally the base damage of Spritform is not changed at all. It's always 13-20. The OP included bonus damage into its data.

 

But yeah I feel a bit boring while playing shifter because I cannot gain benefit from gears. It seems to be a better class for companion than MC.

 

 

 

Yes it was misleading, the base damage of the character didn't increase it got 15%. I will correct the OP immediately.

 

 

# corrected the OP, it should show the real numbers now. Thanks Dunehunter! 

 

 

And sorry to correct u again... but the damage/accuracy of your natural weapon is not scaled with power level, but your real level. I don't think its your mistake, but because how misleading the info show in beta currently.

 

Natural weapon is considered as a summon weapon when u shifted, so it follows the same rule as summon weapon, which accuracy/bonus damage is scaled by level not power level now.

 

Actually it's kinda weird that summon weapon is scaled with level while monk Transedent suffering scaled with power level. So a single class Wizard has same summon weapon as multiclass one, while a multiclass monk cannot get same fist power as single class one.

Edited February 20, 2018 by dunehunter

[Boeroer]

Yes, meanwhile I did some testing with a shifter (hadn't done so until now) and indeed the scaling bonus is only additive - unlike PoE where is was multiplicative.

 

So forget what I was saying about base damage.

 

It also seems that unlike PoE the two Wildstrike talents do add the lashes to a big one instead of having two seperate ones. This is an advantage over PoE. Although it doesn't matter at all with the new PEN/AR system...

 

My point about armor still stands though: 0 recovery with good AR ratings (that scale - also look at the bear form) is a big advantage over normal armors. Especially because the recovery penalty goes into calculation via double inversion which has a big impact on your attack speed.

 

There's a reason why Goldpact/Bear shifter or Berserker/Bear is so good.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

And sorry to correct u again... but the damage/accuracy of your natural weapon is not scaled with power level, but your real level. I don't think its your mistake, but because how misleading the info show in beta currently.

They seem to scale like all summoned items (which they might be in the end - I mean code wise). So it doesn't matter if you multiclass or not. Edited February 20, 2018 by Boeroer

[Soulmojo]

 

 

 

Some things to consider:

 

You forgot that the damage of your natural weapons that scales is base damage. While normal weapons with quality enchantments fine/exceptional/superb also gain +4/+8/+12 Accuracy and +1/+2/+3/+4 Penetration, they only gain +15%/+30%/+45% additive damage bonus while your natural weapons gain the same, but as multiplicative bonus since their base damage is raised. Plus: you'll have elemental lashes. If you combine that with a class that has additional damage bonuses like rogue or cipher it becomes pretty obvious that this is more powerful than mere weapon quality.

 

With your armor: you'll get the equivalent of fine/exceptional/superb via scaling, but your AR/recovery penalty ratio is better than that of normal armors.

 

Also don't forget that it's an advantage if you don't have to spend resources for enchanting in order to keep your gear up to date. You can give good stuff to other people in your party because you won't need it.

 

I think the damage OP shows is a bit misleading, acutally the base damage of Spritform is not changed at all. It's always 13-20. The OP included bonus damage into its data.

 

But yeah I feel a bit boring while playing shifter because I cannot gain benefit from gears. It seems to be a better class for companion than MC.

 

 

 

Yes it was misleading, the base damage of the character didn't increase it got 15%. I will correct the OP immediately.

 

 

# corrected the OP, it should show the real numbers now. Thanks Dunehunter! 

 

 

And sorry to correct u again... but the damage/accuracy of your natural weapon is not scaled with power level, but your real level. I don't think its your mistake, but because how misleading the info show in beta currently.

 

Natural weapon is considered as a summon weapon when u shifted, so it follows the same rule as summon weapon, which accuracy/bonus damage is scaled by level not power level now.

 

Actually it's kinda weird that summon weapon is scaled with level while monk Transedent suffering scaled with power level. So a Wizard multiclass can have same summon weapon as singleclass, while a Monk multiclass cannot get same fist power as multiclass monk.

 

 

 

Ahh indeed.  got the same bonuses from multiclassing. This means every 5 level you gain an upgrade. wow this makes spiritshift even worse than before. 

I will start editing again. 

If you see something again my man, please post!

 

#edited the OP

Edited February 20, 2018 by Soulmojo

[JFutral]

Right now I'd be happy if my Druid would just shift back to normal and not lose my handheld weapons after a fight.

 

But good points all the same.

 

Joe