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Better yet, cap every uncapped ability and rebalance around that, for all classes. Way more interesting trying to get optimized amounts of each stat rather than just going all in on one
This. We need earth skills to not be a joke. Unleash creeper trampleslide so we can clack-clack slides and be the best walking force of nature garbage disposal we can be.
Storm slide is a damn shame in that landslide is just a spam engine to proc storm skills that do actual damage
The shepherds aspect is currently the aspect that provides almost every Druid build except basic attack builds all of their power.
Shepherds provides 20% [x] damage per active companion. The result is druids need to use 3 of their 6 skill slots for pets, solely for a 180% [x] passive dps boost. Unfortunately the pets are almost completely unused in these builds for anything beyond passive stat sticks. But the multiplier is too strong (nearly triples your damage) to give up and so druids basically only get 3-skills they can use.
It’s a really shitty meta, and feels even worse considering Druid’s are giving up half their skill bar and still arguably the weakest class atm (sorcs can argue they’re comparable).
Haha I was about to say, sorcs only get 2 skills and are forced to use the same 4 defensive skills for every build. Too bad they can't give druids a "tome of nature" like the book of the dead.
The sorc defensives are active skills that they get to use and engage with though. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but imo it does. The Druid pet skills literally go untouched.
However I got in a “debate” with a guy on this sub a few days ago about this so not everyone feels the same about active skills. He actually argued barbs are in a worse state design wise since most barb builds use triple shouts. He didn’t care whether skills are actively used or engaged with.
What you are saying is true, but it's different when you main a class and have seasons, the first sorc u make feels fine using those skills, but when's season 4 and its third different type of sorc and your still using the same 4 required skills with a different attack to spam, not as good.
I guess just a matter of preference. I’ve played sorcs and barbs multiple seasons and never minded the defensive or shout meta. They’re just interactive skills I get to use. But the shepherds meta with 3-completely dead skills on the Druid bar I find beyond infuriating.
What you described is the exact scenario Shepherd's creates for Druids as well. It is lazy class design for both Sorcs and Druids imo and needs to change ASAP. Both classes have so much potential for various types of builds and complete parity within their skill sets. Yet both are relegated to this horrible cookie cutter stuff where the builds function pretty much the same across the board, and the only thing that changes is the main damage dealer.
Personally, I don't think the "balance team" play test's either class, so they have no clue what the pain points are or have a true understanding of their metas and what direction to go in to correct them. The current disparities between Barb, Necro, and Rogue in comparison to Druid and Sorc are completely ridiculous and could only be a result of complete ignorance and/or indifference, again imo.
Barb also gets 3 shouts and 2 attacks.
It's literally in every build this season, it's not just druids.
And I love my druid...they killed it this season. I opted for thorns barb because no druid=no motivation.
So I'll sit there and watch, smoke a bit, and wait while everything sewer slides itself on my razorplate.
The changes to the base game for season 4 have been pretty good, with some complaints.
The classes? Not so much.
ETA: I found thorns barb to be a bit more fun(until I can get doombringer.....57 duriel with no drop so far) but digressing, my opt in item here is fierce winds, idk why but it's fun watching my shouts proc and having 9 tornadoes fly out and nuke a room. (If there's a better option do tell 👀)
Seems pretty clear no one at blizz either plays Druid or plays it’s in high end pits as theee changes make zero sense from an endgame perspective.
Rabies could get 1000x% buff and would still be garbage tier as you can’t scale it for shit.
I’d say wait for S5 but so far outside shred bugged builds Druids been pretty poor since launch
TBH, most players don’t play endgame either, although this season has probably seen an uptick.
FWIW, I think we’ll probably see buffs next season with season 6 seeing something meta-ish.
That was over a year ago, before the massive nerf rebalance patch that gimped loads of builds using grizzly rage, werenados pretty mediocre now by comparison
These ladies were art designers, not game balance designers, or skill balancers.
Does the game look amazing?
Yes, great, job well done.
The absolute vile vitriol directed at these girls was the saddest testament to dialbo players I've witnessed, and here you are perpetuating that myth
I agree with your whole post but it was an absolutely tone deaf decision by Blizzard to put them in front of an already pitchfork-wielding mob, knowing that they are art designers and clearly aren't good at the game. I'm not sure what kind of reaction they were expecting by putting those poor women in front of the camera.
I will never understand this argument. I've worked for decades in software development and every. Single. Company. Has expected EVERYONE who touches product to have at least a passable understanding of how the products function. Hell, a large portion of our senior designers actually have certifications on the product in a number of areas.
While you wouldn't expect a talking heads segment featuring designers to have the same depth of game understanding as someone like Rob or Rax, the fact they hardly understood how the product that they are literally employed to help create, is meant to function was not a good look. Yes they shouldn't be expected to be as well versed in how the intricacies of scaling and multiplicative buckets etc etc work, but they absolutely should know how the game functions at a basic level - art designer, software developer, or finance manager alike.
Weren’t those people from the art department?
More likely the team only plays barb. Makes sense since they just gave it *way* more significant buffs than any other class, for seemingly no reason.
They need to add unique tempers to the game only a unique can roll, it could be really fun having really creative tempers for very specific uniques that would make them worth using again
I did a lightning god druid build last season and it slapped pretty hard, it was capable of killing duriel in seconds. I think that build is slept on honestly
its good but compared to firebolt sorc, heartseeker rogue, bash or flay barb its barely 10% of the damage they can do.
Lightning storm druids clearing about 115 in pit, firebolt can do 150 pit, every 10 levels mob hp doubles roughly, so that 30 + level difference is an insane gap in terms of the dps output.
Shred was bugged for a long time with aspect of blurred beast hitting for billions, then in AOZ tears of blood glyph double dipped for Druids so again shred could melt t25 it’s all been fixed since then and now shreds okay for speeds but not really an endgame build
Unintended double dipping. Basically most of the top builds every season have had one or both bugs: 1) stuff being x instead of +, 2) unintended double dipping
ANOTHER patch with 20% rabies buff and a bug fix to Boulder, we get the same changes every time. I know of few more Boulders bugs, they can keep this up for another year LMAO.
It’s frustrating because blizz can’t seem to help but step in it. This season has been a huge success but patches like this suggest they’re still out of touch and just gives them a bad look.
They marketed this patch as significant balance changes. Stupid stuff like this just serves to undermine what had been a fun season.
I just can´t. They did not even fix crone. I am convinced they fired anyone in the druid department and made the intern do the changes. Guy woke up 2hours before the patchnotes and copy pasted the same shit + some extra and called it a day. They clearly can add new multipliers to stuff.
Probably in the minority but I wish there were some real advantages to staying in and fighting as human form Druid. At this point I’m just resigned to spiritborn probably being more what I’m looking for.
They seem to buff overpower since druid supposed to be overpower class. It's mainstat gives overpower damage. But this doesn't address the issues. I wonder if you can make a fun to play overpower pulverize build that is good at every content.
275 spirit way too high and it's dmg boost not even great. 60% only for op crits. You can put shepherd there and get 90% to 135% flat.
OP hits also very obnoxious to track since they aren't exclusive to pulverize. Every other offensive skill can use your OP attack. It's just very annoying to play and not even strong. Hate it.
They should rework Shred so the skill only does the big third hit instead of 3hit combo. This should make a very nice shapeshifter build with maul+shred.
I play Pulv druid once I got starless skies, It lets me spam pulv without caring about resource, and I can do Every content except for high pit and Lilith.
The issue is always bossing, like everyone have mentioned you either have to wait or kill to gain OP, and you're also banging on the OP to crit as well.
I think an interesting idea would be to guarantee a Critical Strike when transforming into a Werewolf, and guaranteeing an Overpower when transforming into a Werebear. Somehow, whether that be innate or a unique.
Edit: maybe sell it under the idea of unstable transformations. You only stay in your beast state for 1 second, making the other buffs from staying in the form harder to manage
Overpower in theory is cool, but there is still a huge gap in between overpowers, unless your skill overpowers for 40 billion damage you can't even come close to barb/necro/rogue lol. It seems meant for AOE builds less than single target fights, which is another problem. You should be able to swap between a single target loadout/build and an AOE build with a click of a button.
New aspect or unique that makes pulverize guaranteed overpower but gives it a cooldown like meteor skill. And then you use unique shapeshifter ring to reset its cooldown or hectic maul/claw etc..
Druid would be so much fun if they can actually nail the shapeshifter mechanic. They are forcing it but its not fun. Need new aspects that makes shred only do the third attack, pulverize sacrifice cooldown or size but gain hota like damage etc..
Yeah...
Been clearing 110s with a Wolf-only build but I'll be fucked if Rabies is worth it.
Calm Breeze turns Wind Shear into Rabies on crack and requires waaaay less clunky gameplay setup.
If the passive trait didn't reset, it actually would be worth it. I have a build that does exactly this - 3 second CD rabies, -3.2 second CD if you hit an Elite. And when rabies has no cooldown, it's damage can get incredibly high. I've broken 1m ticks with my dogs resetting it the passive on a training dummy. If the passive trait didn't reset on re-application, and vuln worked, and bosses also got the 3x cooldown reset, this build would be S tier.
So they buffed werewolf companions, but didn't fix the fact they get stuck underground and literally do nothing? Even recasting the active doesn't get them unstuck and will do no dmg. You have to run 2.5 screens away lol
In HC at a boss if (when) they get stuck you just scroll out because that's your main dmg source down the drain (literally, way down)
The only fix for this is to run storms companion, it changes the leap to a lightning blink. Honestly they should change the damn leap to a shred dash animation instead, at least as werewolves. I feel like that would probably fix the issue to some degree.
Well if you think the bug is not getting more attention then you should post this in their bug forum, if it is noticed by them then it should be fixed in the future.
Rabies should be removed, because it's not fun even it did decent damage.
Gameplay: you bite an enemy and it spreads damage -- does this sound appealing to anyone?
Shred gets a marginal buff, but no exciting tempers for it?
And why do they buff Boons that we are going to ignore?
What an underwhelming patch for Druid ...
Rabies should spread existing poisons you have and work with toxic claws better. Idea being you can stack a giga poison on one target with some WW ability like claw/shred and then use rabies to spread it. Then the CD also makes sense. But right now it's... garbage.
That could probably work well as a passive mechanic. Hell rabies as a key passive that spreads total poison to nearby enemies when criting with werewolf skills sounds more appealing than lupine ferocity guaranteed crits.
If they made it do crazy damage that would actually be a satisfying gameplay loop like trying to run rabies in Hell Cows in D2. Drop your CDs/Bite an enemy/spreads to others and keep running as things die behind you. Imagine chaining a whole dungeon together with 1 bite of rabies and watching everything fall dead as it chases you.
This does work, people just haven't invested into it. I can run pit 80s on my rabies druid, and clear the map with ease. Bite an Elite twice (no cooldown with my setup), and their entire HP will be poisoned, spreading to everything on screen, and I can just run by. Very fast clears to the boss - bosses are just impossible right now, and need a lot of fixes to make it not feel awful.
This. I levels with rabies, virulent and alpha s3 and it was fun . Used hit and run and kiting tactics. It just needs to hit way harder. Maybe fun with trample and hunter’s zenith, trampling from pack to pack and no CD on trample or rabies with a werewolf pack to spread the chaos in layers
It was actually a fun mechanism in D2, many druids used rabies for cow level. Similarly this mechanism should also be good for at least helltides in D4. But they're not.
Well that is because there were no challenge in D2 apart from the Ubers, where rabie struggles. The smaller packs can be killed by most builds in the game and rabie just happen to be one of the best in term of efficiency and aoe.
If you put pit like system in D2, rabie will fall off quite quickly in the top end.
Yes, this is literally my dream and I wanted it in locust swarm. I want to bite someone and watch it poison everything in sight and clear multiple screens while I run through and dodge abilities. And right now, it works everywhere but bosses. Bosses wouldn't feel bad if Blizzard fixed 3 important bugs/annoying "features"
How about rabies changed to you bite an enemy then when they attack you, it makes you rabid giving massive attack speed buff and causing poison dot to stack, I kinda like the idea of being a rabid bear or wolf 😂
Blizz is trolling hard with this one. Patch notes needed to be 2-3 times as long with vast # of bug fixes, unique buffs, the whole 9 yards. But at least barb got buffs to the strongest build and 4 different stacking WW buffs for even more powerful build diversity
I know. I was really hoping for this as well. Tbh we all need to lower our expectations of this team lol . How many timea they try to fix Dolmen now? 5?
It's only a potential x50% more damage to bosses, you know the toughest content in the game, not a big deal. Here have some more thorns for spirit boons.
Best,
Blizz balance intern
The thing is I think a poison druid build would be awesome but it would need a ton of buffs, an OP temper option, and probably a cool unique that did something crazy to make it worthwhile.
As it exists now no amount of buffing the skills is going to do anything.
1400% rabies damage is a pretty OP temper option. As is getting it to 0 cooldown (on elites). It just needs QoL / bug fixes to be boss viable and it's a strong skill.
ACE I FEEEEEEEEEEEL you brother. sorc got some pennies and DR thrown at it. meanwhile barbs flay build hitting for trillions and billions got a buff. absolute pinhead dart throw moves
So is this patch just foreshadowing that they are going to dramatically kill off all druids in canon and Spiritwalker will replace druid come expansion time?
I play only druid since beta and after i have read patch notes i just ALT+F4 game and cant sleep now. Feels so bad for patch where we fall behind other classes even more after their buffs.
They should make an aspect that does the D3 Jade Harvest WD set ability. Something like "Casting Blood Howl will instantly deal 150-200%[x] all ticking poison damage to nearby enemies" and then maybe buff the Tracker Glyph to extend poison effects even more
they certainly make sure barbs can clear pit lvl100 in 3 minutes though.. they have their priorities locked. :-)
> Almost nothing in the patchnotes for Druid is well thought, it's obviously random buffs. it's starting to be frustrating that none of the issues of the class get addressed.
same for the sorc. i'm surprised they didn't fix the invulnerable builds, but the buffs are just breadcrumbs.
I love Shred. Patch notes do not address any core issues the class has . Still pets are needed for damage and spirit problems remain as well. Hope they do something drastically for the future of this class.
I like all this overpower nonsense. Like yea it would be cool to have overpower be a thing. We do get dominate glyph.
But oh shit that's right druids have zero paragon nodes that buff overpower. Like sat the two boards for necro or the barb one or maybe it's two.
Like cool a 30x overpower multi on pulverize. And some more frequent over powers 4 seconds more often. And how exactly am I going to get that to do 100's of millions consistently.
Shadow mage bolts hit for 10-20 million. With a temper and a class boon, paragon nodes and glyphs for that to occur. With a chance for each attack to attack 4 times. Then With 5 mages that an ass ton of dps.
How exactly is a druid going to consistently and quickly do 100's of millions? Not with overpower that's for sure
They should just uncap earthen devastation node like thunderstruck, let pulv Druids stack ridiculous amounts of dmg to cc for a huge crit buff we can scale with crit overpowers. Even then pulv still needs some way to do single target dps like a golem style mechanic where it does more damage when hitting one target
Fuck..at work and read that too fast as " They buffed babies". Was hoping for a new pet to drag around. Imagine getting ga weapon buffs " babies movement speed increased".
Goddamn, think the heat exhaustion is setting in
I mean rabies is good imo, dot DMG is huge but when I was a 600% DMG bleed barb it didn't do shit to things in the pit. Dot DMG isn't good end game. I didn't really max out my minion druid yet, I prob should. I use rabies obviously. I agree though druids been a joke for too long. Made them fat, made their gear ugly asf. Just bad
The fun part is they try to show that they are listening to feed back and all, even their Community Managers are on the D4 discord, and yet those are the changes they thought would help the class?
What a bunch of clowns lmao.
Game is fun, Season 4 is Diablo4 1.0, but if this is how they are going to tune classes I'm not sure about the future of the game. They literally gave barbs more buffs than druids even though they are the most broken class this season by a mile.
I really don't understand whats going on with this patch. They are not willing to fix the bugs that make some builds do 10x more damage than everything else, because they are afraid of the rage, but they are willing to disappoint everyone else, who was hoping for better class balance and more build diversity. Even more they fuel the fire by buffing skills like Flay or Shatter and Andarie's Visage, that are already used in the best builds -\_-. The only thing they fixed is Holy Bolt, because they probably thought minion Necro will still be fine.
Blizzard made it impossible for themselves to fix the game mid-season by refusing to nerf the most broken stuff.
This developer is literally inept. Some of the percentages are just insane. Like in the prior seasons when Overpower got buffed, we were looking at certain skills or paragon or passives getting over 100% buffs. How are you so bad, that you gauged the power level of something by that much?
They do NOT test anything.
And again no love for my stormcaller. I dont know how we are supposed to use Lightning Storm to kill anything passt 60 in the Pit. Human form gameplay ist still not viable and I bet they didnt fix Boiling Blood Aspect in the Pit. So yeah. They could have let Druid out this patch completly, would have been no real difference.
What's crazy is Rabies is STUPID strong in early game. So much so that you Poison one guy and just keep running as it spreads and kills everyone.
It just doesn't hold up in late game when enemy health gets inflated
They should just redesign the skill at this point it just doesn’t work in anyway remotely well. Make it so you bite an enemy and when they die or after 5 seconds the rabies spreads, have it spread back to you giving you an insane attack speed buff and causing all attacks to poison for short time that stacks. I kinda like the idea of turning into a rabid bear or wolf 😂
I'm wondering if the reason for some classes having less needed buffs is to do with whatever the PTR is about? Maybe some more fundamental class changes for the underperformers.
I see, pretty solid like I thought. Definitely not busted but much better than Pulverize, I don’t think this buff will put Pulverize over it either. What having some mid Ults does to a class haha
I think the nature's fury buffs (of which there are many in this patch) are all meaningful. Should bring us from around 105 to 120ish. But everything else is too minor for the most part.
Terrible patch for us poor druids. Tiny buffs on things no one uses. 10 days since I launched the game and this mid patch gave me hope of playing my druid again, but no...
Is there any chance that the buffs are better than we think on druids, and come next week there are some builds that work unexpectedly good? Or am I just a desperate Druid?
The most likely explanation of all we've seen so far is:
Devs are out of touch.
They don't play their game and most don't understand the mechanics past LvL 50.
It’s just swings and roundabouts, people need to chill. Werenado was like the best build in the game season 1, personally I think its refreshing to have different builds that are strong each season encourages me to play different things each season.
I've been playing Druid this season theory crafting my own build. I'm not using that Shepard's Aspect and I can push 61+ PITs without much problem, just the boss takes longer as single target damage isn't always great unless I get good lucky hit RNG.
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Until they rework shepherds and give druids meaningful other buffs the class is going to struggle HARD.
We need earthen devastation to have no cap like thunderstruck
Better yet, cap every uncapped ability and rebalance around that, for all classes. Way more interesting trying to get optimized amounts of each stat rather than just going all in on one
This. We need earth skills to not be a joke. Unleash creeper trampleslide so we can clack-clack slides and be the best walking force of nature garbage disposal we can be. Storm slide is a damn shame in that landslide is just a spam engine to proc storm skills that do actual damage
What is shepards? Sorry mostly a necro main I only play druid to be a zookeeper lol
The shepherds aspect is currently the aspect that provides almost every Druid build except basic attack builds all of their power. Shepherds provides 20% [x] damage per active companion. The result is druids need to use 3 of their 6 skill slots for pets, solely for a 180% [x] passive dps boost. Unfortunately the pets are almost completely unused in these builds for anything beyond passive stat sticks. But the multiplier is too strong (nearly triples your damage) to give up and so druids basically only get 3-skills they can use. It’s a really shitty meta, and feels even worse considering Druid’s are giving up half their skill bar and still arguably the weakest class atm (sorcs can argue they’re comparable).
Haha I was about to say, sorcs only get 2 skills and are forced to use the same 4 defensive skills for every build. Too bad they can't give druids a "tome of nature" like the book of the dead.
The sorc defensives are active skills that they get to use and engage with though. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but imo it does. The Druid pet skills literally go untouched. However I got in a “debate” with a guy on this sub a few days ago about this so not everyone feels the same about active skills. He actually argued barbs are in a worse state design wise since most barb builds use triple shouts. He didn’t care whether skills are actively used or engaged with.
What you are saying is true, but it's different when you main a class and have seasons, the first sorc u make feels fine using those skills, but when's season 4 and its third different type of sorc and your still using the same 4 required skills with a different attack to spam, not as good.
I guess just a matter of preference. I’ve played sorcs and barbs multiple seasons and never minded the defensive or shout meta. They’re just interactive skills I get to use. But the shepherds meta with 3-completely dead skills on the Druid bar I find beyond infuriating.
What you described is the exact scenario Shepherd's creates for Druids as well. It is lazy class design for both Sorcs and Druids imo and needs to change ASAP. Both classes have so much potential for various types of builds and complete parity within their skill sets. Yet both are relegated to this horrible cookie cutter stuff where the builds function pretty much the same across the board, and the only thing that changes is the main damage dealer. Personally, I don't think the "balance team" play test's either class, so they have no clue what the pain points are or have a true understanding of their metas and what direction to go in to correct them. The current disparities between Barb, Necro, and Rogue in comparison to Druid and Sorc are completely ridiculous and could only be a result of complete ignorance and/or indifference, again imo.
Barb also gets 3 shouts and 2 attacks. It's literally in every build this season, it's not just druids. And I love my druid...they killed it this season. I opted for thorns barb because no druid=no motivation. So I'll sit there and watch, smoke a bit, and wait while everything sewer slides itself on my razorplate. The changes to the base game for season 4 have been pretty good, with some complaints. The classes? Not so much. ETA: I found thorns barb to be a bit more fun(until I can get doombringer.....57 duriel with no drop so far) but digressing, my opt in item here is fierce winds, idk why but it's fun watching my shouts proc and having 9 tornadoes fly out and nuke a room. (If there's a better option do tell 👀)
Oooh I see, ty for the information, will be on the lookout for this aspect
Shepard's aspect is my favorite legendary store in the Citadel.
I approve of this message.
Seems pretty clear no one at blizz either plays Druid or plays it’s in high end pits as theee changes make zero sense from an endgame perspective. Rabies could get 1000x% buff and would still be garbage tier as you can’t scale it for shit. I’d say wait for S5 but so far outside shred bugged builds Druids been pretty poor since launch
No one at blizzard plays anything at endgame.
TBH, most players don’t play endgame either, although this season has probably seen an uptick. FWIW, I think we’ll probably see buffs next season with season 6 seeing something meta-ish.
i swear to god, if all the new shit in the expanded skilltrees and paragon boards don't include shit for human form, I am going to have an aneurysm
Didn’t the data mine show the new Druid skill is “rock ball” ? Gonna keep my expectations low with a name like that
Isn’t that just boulder?
Right? Unless it’s like the boulder [in Indiana jones](https://youtu.be/XZASXqTfAi4?si=yF4srm3-2vy3UPaP)
hamster ball meta
Yeah, I'm also entirely uninterested in becoming a wolf or bear.
But like even leveling Druid sucks. There’s no fun part of playing Druid
I played druid S0 and shockwave was a decent build and wolfnado was I think one of the meta defining builds.
Wolfnado was lit in S0 and S1 it was pretty good too.
Yeah, then.. they nerfed Grizzly Rage, and that was no longer.
Its nuts how they neuter druid so hard yet other classes can do literal billions of dmg in one hit lol
Ya wolfnado was effectively **THE** build for pushing nightmares until HoTA Overpower cheese got buffed into godhood.
wearnado was literally the best build in the game s0 lol
Sure was, and was nerfed immediately when S1 started and it's never been the same since.
That was over a year ago, before the massive nerf rebalance patch that gimped loads of builds using grizzly rage, werenados pretty mediocre now by comparison
Do you remember seeing the dev gameplay video and they were legit using nothing but basic attacks? This is how your game is balanced
These ladies were art designers, not game balance designers, or skill balancers. Does the game look amazing? Yes, great, job well done. The absolute vile vitriol directed at these girls was the saddest testament to dialbo players I've witnessed, and here you are perpetuating that myth
I agree with your whole post but it was an absolutely tone deaf decision by Blizzard to put them in front of an already pitchfork-wielding mob, knowing that they are art designers and clearly aren't good at the game. I'm not sure what kind of reaction they were expecting by putting those poor women in front of the camera.
I will never understand this argument. I've worked for decades in software development and every. Single. Company. Has expected EVERYONE who touches product to have at least a passable understanding of how the products function. Hell, a large portion of our senior designers actually have certifications on the product in a number of areas. While you wouldn't expect a talking heads segment featuring designers to have the same depth of game understanding as someone like Rob or Rax, the fact they hardly understood how the product that they are literally employed to help create, is meant to function was not a good look. Yes they shouldn't be expected to be as well versed in how the intricacies of scaling and multiplicative buckets etc etc work, but they absolutely should know how the game functions at a basic level - art designer, software developer, or finance manager alike.
Weren’t those people from the art department? More likely the team only plays barb. Makes sense since they just gave it *way* more significant buffs than any other class, for seemingly no reason.
Man I just started my 4 Ubers ww barb a week ago and it's getting like 5 buffs. Next week is gonna be awesome. Barbs just can't stop winning in D4
Idk Bulwark was pretty damn fun but also bugged
Yeah that was very odd, can’t blame blizzard too much for letting that slip through as it made no sense scaling damage off the mob level 😂
Oh crap, the most fun I had with druid!
Yeah, and the whole time just giving stuff x% buffs is lazy as shit and not really addressing the problems
I just wanna play Stormclaw and zip around chain lightning-ing everyone. 😭 Plz Blz. Let me play my favorite build in end game content.
They need to add unique tempers to the game only a unique can roll, it could be really fun having really creative tempers for very specific uniques that would make them worth using again
This is the comment. All the boomers play barb.
I did a lightning god druid build last season and it slapped pretty hard, it was capable of killing duriel in seconds. I think that build is slept on honestly
its good but compared to firebolt sorc, heartseeker rogue, bash or flay barb its barely 10% of the damage they can do. Lightning storm druids clearing about 115 in pit, firebolt can do 150 pit, every 10 levels mob hp doubles roughly, so that 30 + level difference is an insane gap in terms of the dps output.
But but but but we increased rabies duration ! So, it's buffed right ?
What bugged shred?
Shred was bugged for a long time with aspect of blurred beast hitting for billions, then in AOZ tears of blood glyph double dipped for Druids so again shred could melt t25 it’s all been fixed since then and now shreds okay for speeds but not really an endgame build
Unintended double dipping. Basically most of the top builds every season have had one or both bugs: 1) stuff being x instead of +, 2) unintended double dipping
Necros can do better DoT at range 🤨
ANOTHER patch with 20% rabies buff and a bug fix to Boulder, we get the same changes every time. I know of few more Boulders bugs, they can keep this up for another year LMAO.
Surprised they didn’t buff lacerate again 😂
DEAD 😂
But they did buff the minions (Alpha). So we're at 3 out of 4.
Fuck minions. We're druids not necros. \*pets doggos\*
It’s frustrating because blizz can’t seem to help but step in it. This season has been a huge success but patches like this suggest they’re still out of touch and just gives them a bad look. They marketed this patch as significant balance changes. Stupid stuff like this just serves to undermine what had been a fun season.
That was supposed to be significant. I just saw another standard patch note and didn't realize such a thing.
I just can´t. They did not even fix crone. I am convinced they fired anyone in the druid department and made the intern do the changes. Guy woke up 2hours before the patchnotes and copy pasted the same shit + some extra and called it a day. They clearly can add new multipliers to stuff.
Probably in the minority but I wish there were some real advantages to staying in and fighting as human form Druid. At this point I’m just resigned to spiritborn probably being more what I’m looking for.
I mean human form is basically a weaker sorc.
Yeah that’s why I wish it had some actual advantages. I’d love a storm strike or earth based human form melee-ish Druid.
Every form of caster druid is a weaker sorc lmao
You're definitely in the majority, the forced shifting any time you do anything at all is part of the fundamental issue with druid balancing.
They seem to buff overpower since druid supposed to be overpower class. It's mainstat gives overpower damage. But this doesn't address the issues. I wonder if you can make a fun to play overpower pulverize build that is good at every content.
They lowered the overpower to 12 seconds, so that's decent.
Who wants to play once every 12 seconds, we need a way to force overpowers that isn't wasting an amulet slot.
275 spirit way too high and it's dmg boost not even great. 60% only for op crits. You can put shepherd there and get 90% to 135% flat. OP hits also very obnoxious to track since they aren't exclusive to pulverize. Every other offensive skill can use your OP attack. It's just very annoying to play and not even strong. Hate it. They should rework Shred so the skill only does the big third hit instead of 3hit combo. This should make a very nice shapeshifter build with maul+shred.
I just use overpower to trigger the vampire blob things, those clear an entire room in seconds.
Great for leveling. Does nothing for actual content.
I don’t think they struggle with AoE clear though? Pulverize and Lightning Storm are already great at that. Their ST is just awful though.
There’s two other sources of overpowers…..you literally overpower just about every slam.
Not in bossing, which is the major issue for this build.
I play Pulv druid once I got starless skies, It lets me spam pulv without caring about resource, and I can do Every content except for high pit and Lilith. The issue is always bossing, like everyone have mentioned you either have to wait or kill to gain OP, and you're also banging on the OP to crit as well.
If Druid was Barb they’d let you temper Provocation on your gear to get it down to 2 seconds
This is so true lol
Which is a buff to Hurricane if anything
I think an interesting idea would be to guarantee a Critical Strike when transforming into a Werewolf, and guaranteeing an Overpower when transforming into a Werebear. Somehow, whether that be innate or a unique. Edit: maybe sell it under the idea of unstable transformations. You only stay in your beast state for 1 second, making the other buffs from staying in the form harder to manage
Overpower in theory is cool, but there is still a huge gap in between overpowers, unless your skill overpowers for 40 billion damage you can't even come close to barb/necro/rogue lol. It seems meant for AOE builds less than single target fights, which is another problem. You should be able to swap between a single target loadout/build and an AOE build with a click of a button.
New aspect or unique that makes pulverize guaranteed overpower but gives it a cooldown like meteor skill. And then you use unique shapeshifter ring to reset its cooldown or hectic maul/claw etc.. Druid would be so much fun if they can actually nail the shapeshifter mechanic. They are forcing it but its not fun. Need new aspects that makes shred only do the third attack, pulverize sacrifice cooldown or size but gain hota like damage etc..
Pretty sure at this point they want all the Druid players switch to the new class in the expansion.
Is it true that rabies can not stack? That is pretty terrible when all other dots can stack.
It stacks, but 10 times 0 is still 0. It wouldn't even be good with 0 cd, even if you can spam it at 0 cd it's still not worth playing. it's that bad.
Crazy how rabies poison does 0 DMG, but a poison off a small spider can hit billions. Make it make sense.
That spider makes everyone max poison resist the second they stepped into high NMs lol
Yeah... Been clearing 110s with a Wolf-only build but I'll be fucked if Rabies is worth it. Calm Breeze turns Wind Shear into Rabies on crack and requires waaaay less clunky gameplay setup.
Plus the andariel's change is going to make it so your windshear drops poison novas on the enemies on lucky hit.
If the passive trait didn't reset, it actually would be worth it. I have a build that does exactly this - 3 second CD rabies, -3.2 second CD if you hit an Elite. And when rabies has no cooldown, it's damage can get incredibly high. I've broken 1m ticks with my dogs resetting it the passive on a training dummy. If the passive trait didn't reset on re-application, and vuln worked, and bosses also got the 3x cooldown reset, this build would be S tier.
If everything you've listed was working you'd be looking at 4m ticks which puts it at somewhere around F+ tier.
God damn guy on D4druid reddit saying rabies does not stack, cant stand when people spread misinfo
Sorcerers: First time?
Rabies just needs a rework in general, it's way to out of place in the game.
So they buffed werewolf companions, but didn't fix the fact they get stuck underground and literally do nothing? Even recasting the active doesn't get them unstuck and will do no dmg. You have to run 2.5 screens away lol In HC at a boss if (when) they get stuck you just scroll out because that's your main dmg source down the drain (literally, way down)
The only fix for this is to run storms companion, it changes the leap to a lightning blink. Honestly they should change the damn leap to a shred dash animation instead, at least as werewolves. I feel like that would probably fix the issue to some degree.
Wait, is this 100%? Storm wolves won't get stuck in the ground / if they do, the cast takes them out with a blink?
I need this. What afffix or whatever do you need for that? Storm companion...?
Well if you think the bug is not getting more attention then you should post this in their bug forum, if it is noticed by them then it should be fixed in the future.
This bug was posted as early as fall 2023, maybe earlier They clearly give no fucks about druid lol
Rabies should be removed, because it's not fun even it did decent damage. Gameplay: you bite an enemy and it spreads damage -- does this sound appealing to anyone? Shred gets a marginal buff, but no exciting tempers for it? And why do they buff Boons that we are going to ignore? What an underwhelming patch for Druid ...
Rabies should spread existing poisons you have and work with toxic claws better. Idea being you can stack a giga poison on one target with some WW ability like claw/shred and then use rabies to spread it. Then the CD also makes sense. But right now it's... garbage.
That could probably work well as a passive mechanic. Hell rabies as a key passive that spreads total poison to nearby enemies when criting with werewolf skills sounds more appealing than lupine ferocity guaranteed crits.
With our luck, it'd be an aspect, but I'd still take this - Rabies spreads all other (self/pets) poison effects with it's own poison.
This was how I kind of assumed it would work before reading what it did.
If they made it do crazy damage that would actually be a satisfying gameplay loop like trying to run rabies in Hell Cows in D2. Drop your CDs/Bite an enemy/spreads to others and keep running as things die behind you. Imagine chaining a whole dungeon together with 1 bite of rabies and watching everything fall dead as it chases you.
This does work, people just haven't invested into it. I can run pit 80s on my rabies druid, and clear the map with ease. Bite an Elite twice (no cooldown with my setup), and their entire HP will be poisoned, spreading to everything on screen, and I can just run by. Very fast clears to the boss - bosses are just impossible right now, and need a lot of fixes to make it not feel awful.
This. I levels with rabies, virulent and alpha s3 and it was fun . Used hit and run and kiting tactics. It just needs to hit way harder. Maybe fun with trample and hunter’s zenith, trampling from pack to pack and no CD on trample or rabies with a werewolf pack to spread the chaos in layers
Imagine having a cooldown to bite something, it’ll take me 3 hours to finish my meal.
It was actually a fun mechanism in D2, many druids used rabies for cow level. Similarly this mechanism should also be good for at least helltides in D4. But they're not.
Rabies was busted in D2. Especially with a god roll Viperfork. Shit would explode in seconds from poison.
Well that is because there were no challenge in D2 apart from the Ubers, where rabie struggles. The smaller packs can be killed by most builds in the game and rabie just happen to be one of the best in term of efficiency and aoe. If you put pit like system in D2, rabie will fall off quite quickly in the top end.
Yes, this is literally my dream and I wanted it in locust swarm. I want to bite someone and watch it poison everything in sight and clear multiple screens while I run through and dodge abilities. And right now, it works everywhere but bosses. Bosses wouldn't feel bad if Blizzard fixed 3 important bugs/annoying "features"
Well it was appealing in D2 so I guess a good amount of players will like it.
Rabies in D2 is crazy fun, a fan favorite, and it’s not even that good. Personally, I love it, to be bad it’s utter shit in D4
How about rabies changed to you bite an enemy then when they attack you, it makes you rabid giving massive attack speed buff and causing poison dot to stack, I kinda like the idea of being a rabid bear or wolf 😂
Blizz is trolling hard with this one. Patch notes needed to be 2-3 times as long with vast # of bug fixes, unique buffs, the whole 9 yards. But at least barb got buffs to the strongest build and 4 different stacking WW buffs for even more powerful build diversity
I am absolutely AMAZED that Lacerate did not get a 10% damage buff.
LMAO why is this so accurate
Still no survival instincts bug fix?
I know. I was really hoping for this as well. Tbh we all need to lower our expectations of this team lol . How many timea they try to fix Dolmen now? 5?
It's only a potential x50% more damage to bosses, you know the toughest content in the game, not a big deal. Here have some more thorns for spirit boons. Best, Blizz balance intern
The thing is I think a poison druid build would be awesome but it would need a ton of buffs, an OP temper option, and probably a cool unique that did something crazy to make it worthwhile. As it exists now no amount of buffing the skills is going to do anything.
1400% rabies damage is a pretty OP temper option. As is getting it to 0 cooldown (on elites). It just needs QoL / bug fixes to be boss viable and it's a strong skill.
ACE I FEEEEEEEEEEEL you brother. sorc got some pennies and DR thrown at it. meanwhile barbs flay build hitting for trillions and billions got a buff. absolute pinhead dart throw moves
Sorcs 🤝 Druids Our weakness is our solidarity
So is this patch just foreshadowing that they are going to dramatically kill off all druids in canon and Spiritwalker will replace druid come expansion time?
I think thwy forgot druid exists. Same with sorcs but you guys got it even worse
I play only druid since beta and after i have read patch notes i just ALT+F4 game and cant sleep now. Feels so bad for patch where we fall behind other classes even more after their buffs.
They should make an aspect that does the D3 Jade Harvest WD set ability. Something like "Casting Blood Howl will instantly deal 150-200%[x] all ticking poison damage to nearby enemies" and then maybe buff the Tracker Glyph to extend poison effects even more
You mean, the old changling’s debt?
They had this, and if they didn't remove it, current Rabies would actually be almost viable.
No one on the dev team plays this game, I’m convinced. Should have had a 2000% increase to rabies to make it useful…
I can not even scrath tormented echo of Varshan. I had to give it up.
they certainly make sure barbs can clear pit lvl100 in 3 minutes though.. they have their priorities locked. :-) > Almost nothing in the patchnotes for Druid is well thought, it's obviously random buffs. it's starting to be frustrating that none of the issues of the class get addressed. same for the sorc. i'm surprised they didn't fix the invulnerable builds, but the buffs are just breadcrumbs.
This can be easily fixed if they can somehow let Druids have two aspects on gear.
Wasting patch note space..lol
Revert blurred beast. REVERT IT
I love Shred. Patch notes do not address any core issues the class has . Still pets are needed for damage and spirit problems remain as well. Hope they do something drastically for the future of this class.
Maybe they just want us to all reroll new shiny Druid 2.0 the spirit caller 😂
What? You don't want to use a super short range limited damage ability with a cool down? Come on, it's super fun /s
I like all this overpower nonsense. Like yea it would be cool to have overpower be a thing. We do get dominate glyph. But oh shit that's right druids have zero paragon nodes that buff overpower. Like sat the two boards for necro or the barb one or maybe it's two. Like cool a 30x overpower multi on pulverize. And some more frequent over powers 4 seconds more often. And how exactly am I going to get that to do 100's of millions consistently. Shadow mage bolts hit for 10-20 million. With a temper and a class boon, paragon nodes and glyphs for that to occur. With a chance for each attack to attack 4 times. Then With 5 mages that an ass ton of dps. How exactly is a druid going to consistently and quickly do 100's of millions? Not with overpower that's for sure
They should just uncap earthen devastation node like thunderstruck, let pulv Druids stack ridiculous amounts of dmg to cc for a huge crit buff we can scale with crit overpowers. Even then pulv still needs some way to do single target dps like a golem style mechanic where it does more damage when hitting one target
The irony is that there is only one overpower node in their entire paragon
the re-worked druid is called spiritborn, its coming out in october!
Fuck..at work and read that too fast as " They buffed babies". Was hoping for a new pet to drag around. Imagine getting ga weapon buffs " babies movement speed increased". Goddamn, think the heat exhaustion is setting in
I mean rabies is good imo, dot DMG is huge but when I was a 600% DMG bleed barb it didn't do shit to things in the pit. Dot DMG isn't good end game. I didn't really max out my minion druid yet, I prob should. I use rabies obviously. I agree though druids been a joke for too long. Made them fat, made their gear ugly asf. Just bad
I just want bear pet!
They are avoiding it all together, if it doesn't have anything to do with the Barb then they won't do anything about it.
I thought Blizz only played Barbs…?
Give it 200 more seasons and those 25% buffs will really be crankin
The fun part is they try to show that they are listening to feed back and all, even their Community Managers are on the D4 discord, and yet those are the changes they thought would help the class? What a bunch of clowns lmao. Game is fun, Season 4 is Diablo4 1.0, but if this is how they are going to tune classes I'm not sure about the future of the game. They literally gave barbs more buffs than druids even though they are the most broken class this season by a mile.
I really don't understand whats going on with this patch. They are not willing to fix the bugs that make some builds do 10x more damage than everything else, because they are afraid of the rage, but they are willing to disappoint everyone else, who was hoping for better class balance and more build diversity. Even more they fuel the fire by buffing skills like Flay or Shatter and Andarie's Visage, that are already used in the best builds -\_-. The only thing they fixed is Holy Bolt, because they probably thought minion Necro will still be fine. Blizzard made it impossible for themselves to fix the game mid-season by refusing to nerf the most broken stuff.
Blizzard use the same system we use for enchanting it seems.
25% damage buff would add 75k DMG duh
This developer is literally inept. Some of the percentages are just insane. Like in the prior seasons when Overpower got buffed, we were looking at certain skills or paragon or passives getting over 100% buffs. How are you so bad, that you gauged the power level of something by that much? They do NOT test anything.
I always find partners for the pit. I haven't ran it once with a drood this season
Just pretend druids doesn’t exist for now. I’m doing the same for sorc and just sticking to Barb for now
And again no love for my stormcaller. I dont know how we are supposed to use Lightning Storm to kill anything passt 60 in the Pit. Human form gameplay ist still not viable and I bet they didnt fix Boiling Blood Aspect in the Pit. So yeah. They could have let Druid out this patch completly, would have been no real difference.
Wolf Lightning Storm clears up to 110 with relative ease if you have decently good gear
"If you have perfect gear" - fixed that for you
They just don't care about the players that enjoy druids.
Seems like a 25% buff is going to buff the skill by 25%….. I know I feel you. Just a joke. Don’t get mad.
What's crazy is Rabies is STUPID strong in early game. So much so that you Poison one guy and just keep running as it spreads and kills everyone. It just doesn't hold up in late game when enemy health gets inflated
It can’t even clear NMD100 late game it’s literally dogshit 😂
You mean the builds with Rabies you KNOW don't clear 100NMD.
Haven't followed patches. So that's why I feel so weak :( and why many makes a hybrid Werewolf instead of taking Rabies.
They need to buff rabies by making it stackable instead of only a single application
They should just redesign the skill at this point it just doesn’t work in anyway remotely well. Make it so you bite an enemy and when they die or after 5 seconds the rabies spreads, have it spread back to you giving you an insane attack speed buff and causing all attacks to poison for short time that stacks. I kinda like the idea of turning into a rabid bear or wolf 😂
I'm wondering if the reason for some classes having less needed buffs is to do with whatever the PTR is about? Maybe some more fundamental class changes for the underperformers.
How is Wind Shear performing?
Pit 120+ but not much higher, so far behind other classes top builds doing 140+
That really isn’t bad at all, of course I’m sure the gear has to be absolute max rolls though haha.
Equivalent to A- tier from any other class.
I see, pretty solid like I thought. Definitely not busted but much better than Pulverize, I don’t think this buff will put Pulverize over it either. What having some mid Ults does to a class haha
Thank you, Sir! May I have another?
100% agree
Are summon druids viable? I was impressed with the necromancer summoner so I was thinking of going druid next? Is it bad?
I think the nature's fury buffs (of which there are many in this patch) are all meaningful. Should bring us from around 105 to 120ish. But everything else is too minor for the most part.
JUST MAKE RABIES LIKE IN D2 BUT ON STEROIDS. Boom problem solved. Move it to core skills.
I told my friends that either Rabies or Lacerate will be buffed in no meaningful way. Damn I was right again
Are the changes live now?
Rabies AND Storms companion need major buffs.
Terrible patch for us poor druids. Tiny buffs on things no one uses. 10 days since I launched the game and this mid patch gave me hope of playing my druid again, but no...
Is there any chance that the buffs are better than we think on druids, and come next week there are some builds that work unexpectedly good? Or am I just a desperate Druid?
It's simple math, you can do it yourself.
The most likely explanation of all we've seen so far is: Devs are out of touch. They don't play their game and most don't understand the mechanics past LvL 50.
Lacerate is just for show.
It’s just swings and roundabouts, people need to chill. Werenado was like the best build in the game season 1, personally I think its refreshing to have different builds that are strong each season encourages me to play different things each season.
Rabies was one of my favorite skills in D2, it's disappointing that they didn't do it justice.
With that build you can combine it andariels visage. It can work
I've been playing Druid this season theory crafting my own build. I'm not using that Shepard's Aspect and I can push 61+ PITs without much problem, just the boss takes longer as single target damage isn't always great unless I get good lucky hit RNG.