Suggestion Druids and HOTs stink, give me shields!

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

The secret is out; HOTs are shit. Most classes deal a ton of damage in a short period of time which really makes putting a HOT on someone semi-useless.

We've all seen the usefulness of Invul and Guardian Angel. Everyone loves running into a team fight and being invulnerable from damage for 3 seconds, yum yum yum. There should be a class (maybe Druid can bow out) that specialises in shielding itself and team members from incoming damage. Naturally it would have either a Guardian Angel or an Invuln with a long cooldown. Aside from that it could have varying degrees of damage prevention skills. Something of the like of 'for the next 8 seconds your target is shielded from 250HP of damage'.

Perhaps even a defense/offense hybrid spell called Shield of Thorns or something silly:

For the next 5 seconds all incoming damage is reverted back to the original source.

I realise that paladins have a couple of similar skills that aid both the paladin and its party members. This class however will focus more on damage prevention for its party rather than being a super tank. The best part? This class won't have Layhands, which is obviously the most balanced skill in the game.

@Delfofthebla if you're not too busy defending dungeons and what-not, can you at the least see it in your heart to simply reply with a stern 'No'?

Thanks in advance.

 

[0ysterb0y]

delf doesnt code you should know that

but if anything i think the time in between each heal tick for the skill needs to be shorter so its still a hot but it also heals faster maybe double the speed?

 

[malikdanab]

Anything to vary up the "Support" role is a plus in my books. Currently, if you are "support" all you do is heal.

 

[comfyfutons]

So i'm a 45 druid and I agree That hots are shit but I don't think druid should be changed to a shielding class...

Obviously herocraft took a slight "cough huge" influence of the Druid class from WoW
ex.
nourish = soothe
rejuvenate = rejuvenate
wild growth = healing bloom
regrowth = regrowth

So I think like WoW, rejuvenate & healing bloom should be instant cast to make druid a mobile HOT healer.
While also keeping any heals that do direct healing (soothe and regrowth) with a small cast (warm up) time like they already have.

What do you all think?

 

[malikdanab]

So i'm a 45 druid and I agree That hots are shit but I don't think druid should be changed to a shielding class...

Obviously herocraft took a slight "cough huge" influence of the Druid class from WoW
ex.
nourish = soothe
rejuvenate = rejuvenate
wild growth = healing bloom
regrowth = regrowth

So I think like WoW, rejuvenate & healing bloom should be instant cast to make druid a mobile HOT healer.
While also keeping any heals that do direct healing (soothe and regrowth) with a small cast (warm up) time.

What do you all think?

I think Druid is UP in terms of it's heals, but I don't mind classes (Future and current) to have "Shielding" skills as suggested.

 

[comfyfutons]

I think Druid is UP in terms of it's heals, but I don't mind classes (Future and current) to have "Shielding" skills as suggested.

I just think that there are other ways to improve druid and shielding type of skills suits the cleric/disciple name better

 

[0ysterb0y]

shaman should be shields and we could copy wow or eq for ideas but thats no fun

 

[hux0]

some kind of shield or whatever would just reduce the need for you to heal as a healing class, leaving you with more time to do nothing instead of heal. probably healing classes should have more crowd control to make them valuable? I could think of a single target snare with the same effect given to the person casting the snare. this would obviously work as a snare and a good benefit to team fights, but wouldn't make healers 1vs1 op.

 

[0xNaomi]

I'd add in the skill idea from Chronomancer: You have 5 seconds of no damage and it's applied at the end.
If it's a class dedicated to shields then it would certainly have a use with other allies' skills.

 

[malikdanab]

I just think that there are other ways to improve druid and shielding type of skills suits the cleric/disciple name better

I never said that Druid should get "shielding" skills. All I said is that I would be fine with classes getting shield skills in general.

 

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

Well I too got my idea from WOW's Discipline Priest. Popping a bunch of shields on your allies and hoping for the best.

 

[malikdanab]

Not directly related, but sticks to the unorthodox style of support. Say a skill that marks an ally with a glyph. If they receive a certain amount of dmg during the duration, the glyph explodes and deals AOE dmg. While the skill doesn't work on it's own, it will act like a deterrent making it that you won't attack the person unless you wish to get hurt.

On the flip side. A skill that returns a portion of the damage dealt back the target after the duration. AKA (Lets ignore this guy since he will just get his hp back/ Burst him down before he can regen all his HP.)

 

[Solidze]

The secret is out; HOTs are shit. Most classes deal a ton of damage in a short period of time which really makes putting a HOT on someone semi-useless

Thanks in advance.

The only reason hots are shit on this map is due to the warm up require to use it. They should revert back to old map and make Rejuve and HealingBloom instant cast, if they want....increase the mana cost, regardless it NEEDS to be instant cast or it isn't worth using. How I think of Hots in terms in balance is I look at them as a "Damage Negating" ability. Lets say ....Bob has Healing Bloom AND Rejuve up, they are both ticking for eh.....lets say 43 every 2 seconds. Bob meanwhile takes 323 damage in 2 seconds (seems to happen on this map), so Bob took 280 damage in total thanks to the hots. You can't just expect hots to heal someone to full, you hot someone up to help mitigate a bit of damage and use your single target healing spells to keep them up.

Fix:

-Rejuve make instant cast, if you want raise mana cost.
-HealingBloom, would be great to have instant but lower warmup to 1.5sec.

Then enjoy your balanced class.

 

[Dakinara]

Not directly related, but sticks to the unorthodox style of support. Say a skill that marks an ally with a glyph. If they receive a certain amount of dmg during the duration, the glyph explodes and deals AOE dmg. While the skill doesn't work on it's own, it will act like a deterrent making it that you won't attack the person unless you wish to get hurt.

On the flip side. A skill that returns a portion of the damage dealt back the target after the duration. AKA (Lets ignore this guy since he will just get his hp back/ Burst him down before he can regen all his HP.)

I was going to recommend a cleric skill that works like the second - seems pretty common in fantasy games anyways. Basically a short duration buff that triggers healing any time the target is damaged, generally making a target switch favorable until the buff expires. maybe buff duration 4-5 seconds, 30 second cooldown ish

 

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

I played Mystic last map and Druid on test recently and the difference is night and day. I'll agree that Soothe's cooldown and 0.5 second warmup last map was stupidity, that needed a nerf. Yet, to give EVERY one of a Druid's heals a warm-up was just poor planning. As much as it doesn't fit with lore at all, a Druid more or less needs blink if it can even hope to get away with casting one of it's weak HOTs. I attempted a 30 agility Druid just for shits to see if kite/heals would work but I'd STILL get interrupted over and over again. Druid's current state is to Entangle it's opponent and run in the opposite direction.

 

[Jack_Reacher]

yum yum yum

lewl

@Delfofthebla if you're not too busy defending dungeons and what-not.

double lewl

 

[Keache]

I'm pretty sure the idea is that Druids are the disciple of the caster classes, if you know what I mean. I say this because their design is to be the middle of the road as far as damage and healing goes; similar to how Disciple works. Disciple is not the best healer, but it has its utilities and it deals some damage. Certainly not the best healer, certainly not the best melee, but provides utility and usefulness through other means.

Druid should be exactly like that. They shouldn't be the best healer, nor should they be the best damage dealers. They should be in the middle of the road, whilst providing other utilities unique to their class.

What am I trying to say here? Well, I want to say that I partly agree with you, STDs. I don't like giving the Druid a guardian angel, but maybe in keeping with the druid theme, give them something similar to your idea. If I read your op correctly, you suggested a guardian angel that, at the end of its duration, dealt damage proportionate to what other players tried to hit you with during its duration. I don't particularly like that idea, doesn't seem like it really fits with the druid theme. What I DO like, however, is the idea of giving druids an ability like "thorns" from WoW, like you/others suggested. Give them ability that has the same aoe as guardian angel, that when used gives everyone thorns. If someone punches someone with thorns on, they'll take some damage. It's similar to a shield reflect, but it deals a flat damage value. I would think that fits with druid's theme well, gives them a unique defensive utility, and lets cleric keep their arguably most unique and class defining ability.

Back to Druid in general, though, it seems like druid lacks a lot of unique abilities that Disciple does. Not to be comparing them, after all they are two separate classes, but my point here is that Druid have a lot of copy/paste abilities. They get bolt, they get replenish, they get entangle, they get camouflage, they get port. Not that these are bad abilities, but I don't personally like it when classes are comprised of other classes. What's unique about Druid? Rampart Vine. Great ability, cool, offers utility. Earth Wall... Can be useful, never used it or seen it in use before, so I won't comment on it. Might. Also great, but not very unique. And that's it folks. Three unique, "class defining" abilities. I purposely left out the HoTs, because they're generic heals but are over time. Arguably, they are what defines them as a class and makes them powerful, because you can have multiple HoTs on you at a time. If someone gets regrowth, healingbloom and rejuvenate at once, you get healed upwards of 500 health over 20 seconds (roughly. Regrowth heals over 15 seconds but gives you an initial heal) with a decent amount of wisdom. These calculations are rough and not really including regrowth properly, but that's 50 health every 2 seconds. That's pretty big. But that's not my point.

My point is that Druid seems lacking. Powerful, arguably, but seemingly a class comprised primarily of copy/pastes. In a perfect world, I'd love to have it have more unique abilities, but I know that's easier said than done.

 

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

Well, I wasn't saying to make Druid a shield wielding class since that doesn't fit with lore. I was going with the approach of removing the class in its entirety.

 

[Keache]

Well, I wasn't saying to make Druid a shield wielding class since that doesn't fit with lore. I was going with the approach of removing the class in its entirety.

oh

 

[Keache]

Well, I still made a wall of text for you. That post wasn't entirely done. Now it is.