Best expansion character

[WarBlade]

If you are a shifter, then you have no access to one whole tree, and you can only really use half the shifting tree, so you are really looking at one-and-a-half trees' worth of skills, about ten of which are worthwhile (after substracting Raven, Poison Creeper etc). This means that the number of different were-Druid builds is quite limited. Basically, you can do the Fury wolf, you can do the Maul bear, with slight variations on each.

Using half a tree is nothing new. If fact many builds only really focus on particular skills at the bottom of a tree and simply invest in half a tree to get the pre-requisites. I personal opinion of the Shape Shifting tree is that is has some design flaws, but focusing on one side or the other is not one of them.

The elemental druid, in my view, is much more interesting - I think it's the shift tree that needs fixing, not the elemental one - however, the real problem tree for the Druid is Summoning. It's (usually) a support tree but there's almost no synergy with the other two. Compare it with the Necro's Curse tree, or the Barbarian's War Cries - they have skills that combine  with, and cover the weaknesses of, skills in other trees - eg War Cry's stun compensates for Berzerk's DR=0 effect; Lower Resist makes Poision Nova, BS & CE more effective, while AmpD helps out Revives and boosts CE's damage.

What I would like to see are spirits that would enhance spell damage (as HoW enchances physical), or perhaps spells that transfer some of their effects to minions, so that a character with, say, maxed Arctic Blast, can get a Grizzly with high built-in cold damage.

Funny . . . The Elemental Tree is the one that everybody wants to see fixes for . . . Not to mention that the Elemental tree is truely a one side or the other affair with the sole exception being one horrible skill that demands all others in the tree for it's pre-requisite. :blink:

The problem tree is summoning???

The Summoning Tree is actually fairly well implemented IMO. Perhaps not entirely well thought out in concept, but well implemented anyway, which is something of a surprise reversal in this game. Well ok, Spirit of Barbs is a little silly compared to its predecessors, but otherwise Summons are fine.

The non-melee Druids have one thing that other casters lack: Castable tanks, any time, anywhere. And that's the benefit of the Summoning Tree. On top of that, Solar Creeper is fantastic for covering mana expenses, Oak Sage ups the survivability and you want to compare one Druid Tree with Two Necromancer trees, then complain that the Druid lacks something?

True, the Elemental Druid has a comparative deficiency against other casters at high level. The fix would be better if it remained inside the Elemental Tree alone though. I mean, just look to the Sorceress travelling close to a Conviction Paladin for a clear example of a really bad game feature and take that into consideration when you imagine a Sorceress benefiting from the same minion aura as your Druid . . . :blink: