Caster druid

[Rufio]

If druid spells were improved then it might justify begging for haste or building for blinding speed though.

[Bargeld]

And why is everybody hijacking this thread with suggestions of improved druid spells? Lets keep the spells as they are and just make it mobile as wizard and cleric are. Once we do that we can see if druid spells are really that bad or not!

Because the topic is titled 'caster druid' not 'druids with haste'?

[Daltian]

And why is everybody hijacking this thread with suggestions of improved druid spells? Lets keep the spells as they are and just make it mobile as wizard and cleric are. Once we do that we can see if druid spells are really that bad or not!

Because the topic is titled 'caster druid' not 'druids with haste'?

I hate to admit you are right.

[Mixtli]

You should have asked for both, than give up on better spells when the thread reaches page 3

[Korr]

But my view of a druid is one of defense and protection, not offensive domination. They should be self/party buffers allowing their group to survive better.

They dont really even do that very well. Natures Balance is about the only buff spell they get thats unique. Owls Insight, but thats very situational where its useful, though might be more useful if DCs get bumped.

Aura of Vitality is real nice, but clerics can also get a (weaker) version of this spell.

Awaken isnt that useful considering AoV will already cap out a summons str/dex/con, all you get is a couple AB and wisdom.

Barkskin gets nullified by level 25(?).

Blood Frenzy is basically taking a 1 AC loss for 1 will save, as AoV + items will cap your str/con.

(Not to say you have control over any of this bargeld... just building on your statement).

[Ajantis.]

They need more spells. Give them some pure class tokens that get nullified when shape changing or polymorphing.

[Amoenotep]

Owls Insight has a dc? thought it raised your wisdom?

[Lokey]

He means it makes clerics better. Remember when we were testing the ability cap locations for Zeb and they could throw dc 60 implodes?

[Eldaquen]

*shakes head, sighs, and walks away*

RIP druid class

[mining]

They need more spells. Give them some pure class tokens that get nullified when shape changing or polymorphing.

See why I gave druids scaling extra spells - I guess we could do more, but what's the point, at some stage you're saying "Here, have 50 spells, and win by weight of spam".

[Nocturne]

They need more spells. Give them some pure class tokens that get nullified when shape changing or polymorphing.

See why I gave druids scaling extra spells - I guess we could do more, but what's the point, at some stage you're saying "Here, have 50 spells, and win by weight of spam".

Now you're just being silly.

What's wrong with giving a low lvl spell like Blood Frenzy a movement speed increase that gets stripped if you shift. Similar to the way tenzor's gets canceled.

OR

Make panther shape a 50% speed increase without the shift. So if you try shifting into any other shape you lose the speed increase.

[Korr]

Owls Insight has a dc? thought it raised your wisdom?

He means it makes clerics better. Remember when we were testing the ability cap locations for Zeb and they could throw dc 60 implodes?

Or the items that give good natural AC, some bonus saves/regen but low wisdom. Owls Insight is a 1 stop max magic modifier for the will saves.

They need more spells. Give them some pure class tokens that get nullified when shape changing or polymorphing.

See why I gave druids scaling extra spells - I guess we could do more, but what's the point, at some stage you're saying "Here, have 50 spells, and win by weight of spam".

Fixing a couple of the very useless spells would be better than giving more spells (even take away the current bonus!).
-Elemental Swarm doesnt respect any focuses for bumping those elementals. (Useless 9th level spell...)
-Many of the spells do physical damage which is super easy to negate for nearly everyone, especially when its piercing which is (at least used to be) the most common to wear on your armor so you could either negate some archer damage and/or switch out slash/bludg shield to fight scythe/morningstar respectively. So when creeping doom does piercing it basically means that everyone will be getting their 25% 20/- against this spell.
-Creeping Doom seriously doesnt hurt unless you have 4-5 people in there. My bard took a total of 9 damage when the druid stood in the spell with him...
-Bombardment bumped up to 20d8 max is awesome... reflex save spells almost never get used for good reason though.


Many other things already listed, no reason to list them a 3rd and 4th time here. A few spell bumps could be worth considering though. What good is being able to cast 9 elemental swarms when theyre un-buffed 17 "level" elementals? They all have 30 AC, 2 of them do 1-6 damage (though the other two do 5-30!) but all 4 of them in succession still wouldnt take down a summon 9.


-Natures Balance DOES NOT require an SR check and has NO save which is nice. Not extendable but thats ok (its a nice 8th level spell). Someone updated the wiki on this

[Daltian]

They need more spells. Give them some pure class tokens that get nullified when shape changing or polymorphing.

See why I gave druids scaling extra spells - I guess we could do more, but what's the point, at some stage you're saying "Here, have 50 spells, and win by weight of spam".

You could give a million extra spells to a druid in current condition and it wouldn't make much difference. To go anywhere druid needs to shift to panther and then he looses all those extra spells.

[Daltian]

They need more spells. Give them some pure class tokens that get nullified when shape changing or polymorphing.

See why I gave druids scaling extra spells - I guess we could do more, but what's the point, at some stage you're saying "Here, have 50 spells, and win by weight of spam".

Now you're just being silly.

What's wrong with giving a low lvl spell like Blood Frenzy a movement speed increase that gets stripped if you shift. Similar to the way tenzor's gets canceled.

OR

Make panther shape a 50% speed increase without the shift. So if you try shifting into any other shape you lose the speed increase.

QFT

[Koniption]

And why is everybody hijacking this thread with suggestions of improved druid spells? Lets keep the spells as they are and just make it mobile as wizard and cleric are. Once we do that we can see if druid spells are really that bad or not!

Sorry Daltian I have to respectfully disagree. I have played a number of druids and the only reason I have found to play one is as a Shifter and Crafter and not as a caster.

The issue with Druids is not only a speed issue as you have identified but the spell book. The druid has a very tight scope of spells available with predominately fire and physical damage which, as mentioned by others, is easily nullified. I also disagree that Druids are protectors - a lot of the druid spells are damage spells in comparison to the cleric spell book - hence why I see them as elemental masters.

There are spells as with all caster classes which are under utlised or simply ineffective with the way NS4 has been designed. We have excellent devs and scripters here who have made some wonderful changes to spells such as the Bigby line of spells.

My suggestion was to scale spells such as Call Lightning (currently maxes out at level 10), Barkskin (maxes out at level 13) and Elemental Swarm (summonses are weak and as far as I can tell receive no real big buffs that make it worth a lvl 9 slot). Elemental Swarm would be a good candidate for a spell change - whether it is a comparable damage spell (e.g. level 8 Prismatic Spray random effects), different elemental damage, or even a random elemental damage shield)

For a pure caster a damage shield would help when out of spells or in the middle of combat and varying elemental damage on spells other than fire may make them more useful.

Speed for a caster is an issue however a more delicate problem when you factor in elemental druids/shifters. If there is a way for any movement increase to be stripped on shifting this would be ideal and as mentioned there is always the fall-back position of a serious investment of 25 dex to get blinding speed.

These are my suggestions which some will agree with and others not