Damage Shields... Good or Bad Discuss Here!

[Landowyn]

Ranger can be effective.. not farmers, but I've been known to do some damage

I haven't revisited my Ranger since the kiting nerfs. Sorry, I just don't get a thrill from standing toe to toe with a golem who pounds on me for 100-150 point hits while I hit him for 50-65 with my pointy little arrows.

In most games I've played, archers get two to three shots for every one a large monster fires off, so low damage gets some compensation. But the main reason I stopped rangering was that I got 9 in bow and 8 in one-hand slash and 7 in nature, so not really good at anything.

Someone once told me 'well, take warrior to 100 and scout to 100 ... ' Bah.

[thor777]

I do not have a lot of Horizons experience but I have a variety of Mmorpg experience.

Just wanted to ask. If this cloak of thorns is nerfed how will it affect the Druid class Uniqueness.

What I mean is "I wanna play that class because it can do this" factor.

Will the druid have such a factor left after the change/nerf?

Just thought I throw that question out.

[tjl]

it's interesting to read the replies stating CoT changes will remove their need in a group. the only reason people want it now is because it is broken, and does way too much damage. and they are correct, a druid would be less desirable in a group. but you can still heal, crowd control, and detox so I would still invite you .

if a change has to be made devs, i would go with this:

make the current version of CoT self cast only. fix whatever needs to be fixed with it. then change it somehow so a single classed druid can actualy get some use out of it.

then add a new ability, a CoT that can be cast on others. 5 min timer. last's 30 seconds, and does a lot of damage, like the one we have now. group desirabilty increases again.

as an aside: is pulsing spectrum and glaring quills also working "wrong"? or is it just CoT?

[Joaqim]

it's interesting to read the replies stating CoT changes will remove their need in a group. the only reason people want it now is because it is broken, and does way too much damage. and they are correct, a druid would be less desirable in a group. but you can still heal, crowd control, and detox so I would still invite you .

......which would make the Druid class itself complete useless, while looking on the Shaman who can also still heal, crowd control and detox..... and is wearing mithril chainmail instead of essence leather and that even if Shaman is a bad joke, if you look at the power of his debuffs vs. the debuffs a single Dragon can do.

Well I also think it's kind of strange that some Ranger are crying about overpowered Druids - well because of those this bloody heal line - and totally forget that the are suited well in a mithril chainmail armor while a Druid is stuck in Leather armor (if not multiclassed even stuck in lvl 81 hide). Farming as Ranger is not the slightest problems if massive multiclassed - as armor is just about 100 points lower then a platemail user because of Skin like yew. And who needs that "unlimited" healing if you can MC paroxysm (yes also usuable by Ranger)?
Yes CoT is very powerfull, but if that alone would make you that ultimate killing machine, why the heck I have maxed out my Evasion to avoid to take that much hits? Without beeing hit there is also no dmg from CoT....

Oh and right a multiclassed Ranger is one of the the most evil 1vs1 dmg machines ingame. Well dmg outputs of somthing like 1k dmg every single second comes in mind. Ahh or my Guildie, me the overpowered unlimited healing Druid where gathering Thornwood and having some trees camped by Thistleface, sadly while beeing in cargo the healing power doesn't help there as he is able to one-shot me if not in combat gear, well so I asked a Ranger guildie for help as he was htuning around there anyway and well that was about the most broing figght IV'e ever seen, he pulled him out of a Ranger which is about my view distance, I was standing right behind his back and was prepared to give some backup with my spells, but no need as Thistleface were dead before even coming in range of my spells....

as an aside: is pulsing spectrum and glaring quills also working "wrong"? or is it just CoT?

Pulsing Spectrum,....it's quite some time ago at the old Fyakki and I was just going for Wizzard lvl 72 - but back then I told the Druids around "no-thanks" for CoT as the Pulsing Spectrum in my lvls used to hit back harder. Rounding those buggers up, Fusion Burn, MC II, Perfect Spell, Flame Bomb and the stuff died at their 1st or 2nd attempt to touch me. But well that was just me, no clue how high the powers of the Druids around were and well mine was already very high...

[Drevar]

Does it have to always be reduced to a damage adjustment? It is obvious Druids were not meant to be nukers. Can't we strengthen them in other ways? Give them more unique abilities, more group buffs, something more "naturery" than just an updated number in a spreadsheet?

I, for one, am tired of games that reduce classes with great RP potential to nothing more than Damage Over Time with different colored sparklies.

Drev

[Joaqim]

It is obvious Druids were not meant to be nukers.

And for what they were getting stuff like DC?

[awdz]

dark cyclone has a 20 min timer... if you don't take the nasties out with that you're in for a prolonged battle with relatively poor offensive capability, and with being limited to leather armor you'd better be multiclassed healer.

please do not take my cloak of thorns away, or make it less effective.

[Guaran]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Guaran
Think about it. It's Thorns. Example the Thorns on a Rose. You smack someone, with say an axe or other metal weapon no less, who has thorns all around his body, and you do huge damage to yourself?



It's just a name. Comparing it on that basis to a real life equivalent is a waste of time. Nothing else in the game is comparable to real life, why should CoT be because of it's name?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Guaran

3) Toy with the damage output so it seems realistic, but not the overpowered joke of CoT in the current form.



A dragon can take down a blight hound in under 2 minutes, without any trouble at all. As a multi-classed level 100 druid, most of the time, I can take down a blight hound in around 5-10 minutes. The rest of the time I die, even with all the heals I have.

And you're saying I'm the one with the abilty that's an overpowered joke?!



Quote:
Originally Posted by Guaran
Quit your crying and offer real suggestions that contain ideas for a solution, otherwise you are just ranting.


Easy to say this when you play a single class that's more powerful than chars who have to level 4 or 5 schools to get even close to the fighting power you have.

I have a Druid/Healer/Spiritist and I can take down blight hounds in 2 minutes when in the healer class. i.e. no use of Cloak of Thorns whatsoever. Trust me when I say that the LAST thing you want is a blight hound right up on you smacking you around, stunning the crap out of you.


Helcat:
As for the idea to make CoT a group aura buff, there's no reason to think it would conflict with other group aura's. The ONLY other group aura with a damage shield that I know of is Aura of Flame (Flame Disciple). And only having 1 damage shield up at a time is to be expected. If you got Thorns on, you can't put quills on as well. Or as a Dragon, you cannot use spiked scales when you got thorns on. Nor can you use pulsing spectrum and quils at the same time. This is already the way things are.

[Rocinante]

Amon saying that we will be fixing the damage to be normal, instead of unstoppable, doesn't mean that it will be done in a vacuum with no other changes to keep it useful and compensate for who really needs it (e.g. Druids).

For the record, the person (no longer with the company) who set the damage values on Cloak of Thorns and set them to unstoppable damage didn't know that they'd be increased by Power and Nature. He thought he was setting the literal range of damage for them. This is why I call it a fix.

I'd also like to hear your thoughts on this: if the purpose of the ability is to make up for poorer damage output for Druids (and maybe Rangers), why can they cast it on other characters?

Its too bad that something was added to the game that shouldn't have, but now that it has been given to us, you can see why so many are upset that you want to take it away.

My thought on COT being able to cast on others is that this is a multiplayer game, interaction with other players should be encourged, not discouraged. Maybe this wasn't the original intent but chocolate and peanut butter were an accident too.

I feel that if COT is changed its for the worse.

Rocinante

[Sparkinaranthus]

What can they do? If they reduce the damage (by eliminating power bonuses), it will be nigh useless. If you want to see how cool the damage shields are when they're nerfed, ask a flame disciple to join you and activate the aura of fire.

If they remove the damage penetration, the damage shields become nigh useless against the higher level WA undead, most of the eventmobs, and any mob which has high armor for its level (if the player is the same level as the mob and not on a 4th or 5th class). And people will STILL complain because the low/no armor mobs will take gobs of damage when a multiclassed character casts it. You could point out the fact that the ability does nothing to mob X,Y, or Z but people will still crap on your parade.

Removing the ability to cast COT on other toons charges right down the "we don't want people to group" alley. Of course I can't say that has ever stopped TG before.

[Guaran]

Instead of it's damage to mob X based off of the player(wearer)'s power skil, base it off the target MOB's strength. That would scale the damage up and down based on how hard the mob is hitting the player. That would be more realistic.

an initial base damage range is set by the casters nature skill in a sense, because of the cot level. that should be good enough for the initial damage equation numbers. The target mobs strength can also factor in, which would make cot 5 do say 20 dmg per hit to a level 20 mob, but 100 damage per hit to a lvl 100. Even more for higher tier mobs.

Something like that.

[Varraven]

I don't think a fix to the unstoppable damage is a terrible idea. What I don't want to see is another extremely short duration buff that I have to try and remember to throw on every couple minutes. Already have so many of those that most of the time I just leave them off. Please leave the duration as is (or increase it)

[Tarran of Chaos]

It is obvious Druids were not meant to be nukers.

Allow me to show you their official description:
Druids are best known as the guardians of nature. This role suits them well as they have learned to harness the power of plant and storm in defense of their realms. These powers allow them to stop enemies in their tracks, heal their comrades, and deal damage to wide areas.

Now allow me to show you the Guardian description:
Guardians are Druids who have chosen to trade some of their offensive spell ability for more protective and defensive spells. They are better in melee combat as a result, but lack some of the versatility of their brethren.

Clearly Druids ARE in fact Nature's form of nukers. However, they only have 2 AoE's in comparison with Arcanes 3 and dragons 4. They also lack the ability of arcane to fusion burn flame bombs to hit for ethereal damage. Therefore their worth is added to by other things. Do not seek to take away their worth by taking away that. One should be familiar with every class and every ability before pointing at one and saying its over-useful.

A druid can handle multiple mobs of his level if he has multiclassed with healer. But, and I have posted this before, if you throw him in with others ungrouped in a kill zone, he will be able to loot every 20 minutes if he can multicast Dark Cyclone (yes he must also multiclass for the multicast) and then he will only be able to loot if he gets it off before ANY of the warrior classes steps up and uses a critical strike, multistrike, melee flurry, etc.

Druids are a heavily defensive class that kills slowly. Would you want to component hunt in satyr isles as druid? No, because you want the quick kills. Good for hunting WA undead? Nope, because they have healer classes and youll either have to retreat or be at it all day long to solo a healer class mob. Would you want one to farm trophies from the easy mobs of their tier such as wolves, blights, or golems who have no stuns and mezzes? Yes. Druids come into their specialty when dropped in amongst many mobs of a lesser threat, but are at a obvious disadvantage when forced to solo mobs of a tougher caliber that a warrior can just smack down post haste.

[Tarran of Chaos]

Oh, and it goes without saying that Guarans posts in this this thread should be ignored. After all, what we have is a dragon who has more aoes than arcane, the obscenely powerful breath attacks, 3 multistrikes, good buffs and great debuffs, gold shield, tailwhip stun attack, SPIKED SCALES damage shield, etc who got it all in ONE SINGLE CLASS crying for nerfs to a BIPED class.

Think about it... He can AoE, he can multistrike, he cast use a debuff that stops 50% of all incoming hits, he can use a hoard ability that voids the damage of the incoming attacks that do make it in... and he can even res someone. Yet, he is posting for nerfs to druid's cloak of thorns...

[Tarran of Chaos]

Nothing should be taken into consideration with this like this player or that player might also take this school or that school to bolster him because that is just work vs reward dividends and is a variable for any class out there.
So... here is what druids get.

SkillGained/Lv
lNature 10
Magic Evasion 9
Augmentation 7
Evasion 8
Shield 8
One Hand Crush 8
Two Hand Crush 7
Armor Use 9
StatGained/Lvl
Health 18
Strength 5
Power 4
Focus 8
Dexterity 6

[Tarran of Chaos]

Furthermore, Druid fits my playing style. I have multiclassed and the other classes didn't fit my playing style right. This game is COOPERATIVE (blah blah this why Dragons get all their boons with one class splee splee) so leave the druids alone... seriously. If we are paying to play this game to have fun, why are they trying to funkill?

This whole paradigm switch of TG saying "it wasnt meant to be this way so its not really a nerf - we are just changing it to be the way we intended" is complete rubbish. This game may be owned by EI now but the scent of TG is still in the air with these nerfs. They stuck in our backsides as they walked out the door but personal motives remain with those who did.

[Gremblthrg]

Damage shield changes never made it to live, and we have different people in charge now with different visions for the future - debating this topic is a bit of a moot point unless EI opts to weaken damage shields, something they have not once mentioned.

[Phillip]

There is nothing wrong with damage shields. It's the constant lobby from a specific group of players on DS. That's how PulsingS II got nerfed over a year ago.

I don't get all the nerfing rampage TG did while I was gone. I don't get it... Out of all the things HZ needs, they nerf. Haven't they learned that's how they lost half the subs in the first 3 months?

Even crafting got the nerf.

[zayin]

plain and simple sure dragons are the best class. shrug if you envy a dragon so much why not play one? a multiclass bi-ped will kick a ancient dragon's ****** everyday of the week. is it right? i dunno but i think tulga/AE have done a decent job making it worth while playing all classes in istaria