Spike Growth, Entangle, and Vine Mine

[weasel423]

also, there are some pretty good spells in the druid arsenal that some ppl never use, and if druids were all that powerful for command i think i'd see more.

That is because SL doesn't get Druid

[Bargeld]

Autoquicken: not all casters get this. I have a number of wiz/melee'rs and clc/melee'rs that have between 7-20 caster levels depending on what you want. They are dispel bait. They have to run out of combat in order to cast/rebuff their short duration spells. Seems like a waste if you solely rely on group buffs. And when there is a friendly group buffer around, it makes you wish you hadn't taken your minor levels. The best thing you can do is say to yourself 'well at least he can give the fighter my buffs, cuz he's more effective than me when he is buffed.' Which brings me to my next thought...

Druid dragons have the obvious advantage of hard-to-dispel buffs they can self-cast. Even the basics such as max stat bonuses, concealment, minor, but stacking, +1 ac buffs here and there, UV, neut poison, blah blah (the list is long, cuz there are a lot of good spells < lvl4); individually they may seem wimpy, but all stacked up it can make a difference.

I'm not trying to fight change here or keep someone's dreams down, but I'm a firm believer that if anything in the druid realms deserves time and attention, it should be devoted to nerfing the %$^ out of the cheese hips, ED, crit immune, sneak immune blah blah mixes that are available. If I remember correctly, everyone who gets some form of shapeshifting (druids and RDDs) gets something like +11 natural weapons? Give that to an arcane shapeshift caster and see what happens.

I raised my voice about lack of variety in SL previously. Druids as a base class have sooo many options it's just disgusting. Now as a viable caster? I just don't that is their place here on NS4. Bring back the days when shifting was just plain broken and you couldn't even do it for fear of crashing the server. Then I'll agree that they need some attention. Druids have gone farther than any class out there IMO and they still need to be reigned back in a bit.

[Eldaquen]

Thought better .. sry posted this specific post. Not the thread, tried to say something here that is not coming across as intended...so giving up on re-wording.

[Bargeld]

To respond to your first paragraph (which you removed, and asked, basically why I was talking about things totally not on topic), we share the Devs equally (I hope!) and I don't want you clouding my portions up with silly druid spell nonsense when they should obviously be spending every waking moment pondering how to successfully nerf them. I will make an exception to this if they are pondering how to beef up my assassin.

Then you asked for detailed thoughts as to why I thought these three were broken... but I have no clue. My first thought was a memory of Laufer, pre-wipe, dancing around in your uber-stacked Creeping Doom and taunting you. Then I remembered that it was only nerfed to a 1x cast along with grease, SoV and the like. Which made me realize I had absolutely no thoughts on these the spells that you are talking about.

[Rainswept]

A claim has been made that druid casters are powerful enough as they are. I am hard pressed to think of any caster druid (pure or multiclassed) regularly used in PVP.

Actually the claim is that druids in general are powerful enough as it is. This notion of increasing the capabilities of a particular style of playing one class is absolutely artificial. There's no separation or special rules for "caster druid".

Let's compare pure druids to say... Pure rogues. A pure rogue would have a large sneak attack, the same base AB as a druid, UMD, and some bonus rogue feats combining with Epic Dodge. He would have little to no versatility, no speed above blinding, no hips, any buffs he could put on himself would be instantly dispelled by any opposing caster, and I say "would" because the notion of actually playing one isn't attractive to most anyone.

A Druid on the other hand might be a Dragon, might be an elemental, will certainly have a repertoire of spells and shapes so powerful that they could choose the method by which they wanted to kill the rogue. The druid would have his AB bumped up by his spells, could shift into a cat if he needed haste and had none, could choose to stack hellball upon greater ruin on top of people standing or laying around after an earthquake or storm of vengeance, and in the event the rogue did get close enough, simply shift into a form immune to sneak.

That's just one class as an example. Another base NwN class that most factions have access to. Druids have a GIGANTIC range of possible builds, styles, and flavors, which grows beyond reason when you start adding in shifter levels for TC toons. Asking for more on top of that reminds me of a saying my grandmother loved... "You'd complain if you were in heaven, sitting on a log"

[Eldaquen]

To respond to your first paragraph, we share the Devs equally (I hope!) and I don't want you clouding my portions up with silly druid spell nonsense when they should obviously be spending every waking moment pondering how to successfully nerf them. I will make an exception to this if they are pondering how to beef up my assassin.

As for my thoughts as to why they are broken? I have no clue. My first thought was a memory of Laufer, pre-wipe, dancing around in your uber-stacked Creeping Doom and taunting you. Then I remembered that it was only nerfed to a 1x cast along with grease, SoV and the like. Which made me realize I had absolutely no thoughts on these the spells that you are talking about.

Sorry Bargeld, what I wanted to say was not coming across politely or as intended. You must have read during one of my many attempts to reword. Please disregard.

[Bargeld]

Understood... hopefully the nonsense I posted was a good example of how I didn't have a good answer anyway

[Eldaquen]

Any class that has a part of it disabled that it had before would want to see something implemented in its place. I am not asking for additional, but that what was taken away redone and given in a new balanced implementation with the offending part or affect removed.

Either in game or in a different thread someone once told me that vine mine hamper movement was a powerhouse that decided outcomes. Now that is completely gone, without anything in its place.

If sneak attack was disabled, would not a pure rogue player seek something to replace it?

Is there something specific about the numbers I proposed?

[Rufio]

Any class that has a part of it disabled that it had before would want to see something implemented in its place. I am not asking for additional, but that what was taken away redone and given in a new implementation with the offending part or affect removed.

This is true. I think many of us (including me) have lost sight original post a bit. It wasn't a "druid spells need to be better" proposal, it was a "these spells were removed because they were broken, so lets try to replace them with something that fits" post.

If anything this is a nerf to druids because vine mine was awesome and even shifty types could take advantage of it.

[OpalimTeGolim]

Re: Opalim; Quillfire is like *an* arrow.

I thought you guys already have ecl 0, SR 45 epic dodge hipsers with hide around 120 and ac in 70ies (Hello CoN Moi), I don't think you play so poorly that you need extra 12 hide for them (aka -12 spot for enemy spotter). And if you think that spot is of the same importance to defenders and raiders.. well, you know it is not.

I'd like to clarify something here, these toons get a maximum of, what, 9d6 sneak attack, poor saves, poor damage, poor AB when not HiPSing, no usage of scrolls and rods in combat, high vulnerability to mages that have spot.
I'd far prefer to take a rogue/monk/sd like Diego, or a rogue/x/sd like Mcninja.

This is a joke, right? Let me try again, maybe you didn't get it first time. A mage that can spot and kill properly buffed shifter hipser with hide around 120 during the fight and with -12 spot penalty, as proposed in the initial post can not be build in a reasonable way. That is why -12 spot is an overkill. With that, you can just rename shadow legion to blind legion, because that is what their spotters will be like when all other factions start to spam that spell on every raid.

RE: 306 damage, thats like me saying mages are uber because they can spam 420 damage around with EMP. IGMS.
As to EDodging fire elementals w/ crazy AC and good AB, I managed 82 AC, 56 or something AB. Compare that to the edodging PMs that can be made now, with ~60 AB, 80+AC.

Are you again comparing a long term stable AC/AB with a dispell bait that used 6 +2 books, whose ab lasts for one min and does 20 dmg on average because his str is like 8?

Eldaquen, my last post might have been bit rough. Sorry for that. I like that you think about fixing spells. However, I still think that what you proposed is overpowered. IMO, dragons should not be able to set up mines of total 6 different types of dmg and an effect to movement rate. We have traps already. And if you want to use them, you need to invest some skill pts and choose certain classes. That is a realistic cost for traps. You also need to collect items to make a trap and spend gold and xp to actually manufacture them (oh and you also need to invest some skill pts in proper skills to be able to make traps in the first place).
Also, dragons should not be able to lower spot of anyone by 12.
My point is that you need to look at the bigger picture when introducing new features. And the bigger picture is that hipsers are already in advantage (they don't need more help) and that a good melee toon that is easily capable of slowing down or stopping enemies (druid dragon) would be overpowered.

[burrahobbit]

Just for eldy, a caster druid build....

I was making a conjuration druid rogue for vine mine and scroll casted mords but after the vine mine ax i stopped, it would have worked well. Hopefully vine mine will be back and fixed eventually, but considering how long WoF has been sidelined i wouldnt hold your breath.

And just for frog, ROGUES FOR NC!!

[Rufio]

Is there anything that can be done with the spells that helps out druid casters, but aren't necessarily usable for shifting builds? (Harm comes to mind as a good example. 1 time damage that you have to get up really close to use. Good spell, but suicidal for a shifter to try to use)

[Sneakypie]

(Hello CoN Moi)

Hi!

[Eldaquen]

A druid in a shape, is unable to cast additional spells. I do not know of any way to make a druid dragon that in druid form would be resistant to KD. So if vine mine was set to 1 cast per caster per map, having 1 mine go off should not be so determental to raiders or opponents. If the dragon in question deshifts to cast another, chances are the raider will just kd the dragon.

As far as SD's with 120 hide. I have never achieved such a number, and do not see how it is possible. Not saying isn't just I can not fathom how to achieve that number when everyone has the same number of skill points able to spend in a skill (42 for lvl 40). Yes with epic skill (10), stealth (2), skill (2), job bonus (4), one with the land (4), racial (going to say 2 here don't know all races to estimate with 100% accuracy, excluding ghostwise) gives 76. Dex modifier assuming starting dex stat of 20, 10 ability increases, +4 tome, 6 greater dex feats, +8 dex boots; so total of 48 which gives a dex modifier of 16. That gives total for hide of 92. Perhaps the issue with elementals with 120 hide is the items with hide/ms are overpowered and need to be scaled back!!!

Items with hide or MS:
boots
cloak
rings
shield
armor

Perhaps only boots should have a hide/ms boast.

Well guess I could fathom how it is done after all. Sigh tried so hard not to be pulled into the shifter/elemnental/ dragon discussion and stick to vine mine, entangle, and spike growth.

[Eldaquen]

Well since off topic now ...might as well throw this out there. Bard curse song is overpowered in that there is no save. There should be a save.