1.10 Elemental druid ^^

[Kharohz]

http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/images/ot...her/druid01.jpg
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/images/ot...her/druid02.jpg
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/images/ot...her/druid03.jpg

Opinions please?

Finally we see something that doesn't just add damage for synergies, as seen in the last screenshot. Rather interesting. That including the mix of Elemental/Phys damage. Looks... useful now

[Nebuul]

*cries* WHYYYYY DID I LET HIM GET NUKED BY BLIZ'S TIME NUKE!!!!

[Wyrm]

Wow, was hoping my elemental would suck less in 1.10, but didn't know that they actually planned on improving the guy. I wonder if with the increased duration on hurricane they'll still let you have it and armageddon on at the same time...

[Nebuul]

IMO this change is going to make elemental druids way too powerful. I already had a guy with level 47 volcano and level 45 fissure. He could clear cow levels in 8ppl hell, plus he destroyed in pvp.

I guess we'll have to wait and see, though.

[Archon_Wing]

Hmmm... I still hate his voice and his fashion sense, but I just might. :D

[Maximus]

Damn, this is great news. Druid is my favorite character, and after 1.10 comes out i can finally make an Elementalist that wouldnt have his ass handed to him in Hell/late Nightmare :lol:

[Raz]

The Question is...

Will the added duration to hurricane caused by putting points into cyclone armor will also add seconds to its cooldown?

P.S. Hope you understand the question, english is not my first language. Tried to do my best, but it just doesn't sound right.

[kandrathe]

Hmmm, interesting to analyze the build, 88 skill points used (~ lvl 76); +13 elemental skills from items

Firestorm 7 Arctic Blast 1
Molten B 20 Cyclone Arm 7
Fissure 1 Twister 10
Volcano 20 Tornado 1
Armagedd 1 Hurricane 20

Molten Boulder (20+13) 924-1038 dmg + 480-539 Fire Damage (on impact) + 474-481 FD/sec (over 3 seconds)
+ 20 volcano x 10%/lvl (= +200% max)
+ 7 Firestorm x 8%/lvl (= +56% of 160% max)
-- he's got 256% bonus of a max 360% ~ 71% full bonus

Volcano (20+13) 639-646 dmg + 233-236 Fire dmg
+ 20 Molten Boulder x 12%/lvl (= +240% max)
+ 1 Fissure x 12%/lvl (= 12% of 240% max)
+ 1 Armageddon x 12%/lvl (= 12% of 240% max)
-- he's got 264% bonus of a max 720% ~ 37% of full bonus

Hurricane (20 +13) Duration: Base 10 + 7 Cyclone Armor /sec = 17 sec (30 max) : Cold Dmg 690-734
+ 10 Twister x 7%/lvl (= +70% of 140% max)
+ 1 Tornado x 7%/lvl (= 7% of 140% max)
-- he's got 77% of a max 280% ~ 28% max

The mirrored synergies between volcano and molten boulder make sense for the 20 skill points invested, and I would guess the secondary focus on a cold based attack for a second element. I think many will be tempted to get higher fissure and armageddon for bigger volcano.

[WarBlade]

IMO this change is going to make elemental druids way too powerful.  I already had a guy with level 47 volcano and level 45 fissure.  He could clear cow levels in 8ppl hell, plus he destroyed in pvp.

In my opinion your opinion of the 1.10 Elemental Druid is based on reference against the difficulty of 1.09d gaming. ;) With monsters getting some nasty boosts and cube recipes getting added to ensure that Unique Weapons will at least be Exceptional early in Nightmare, I'd have to say we are probably going to want every shred of that damage we see listed in the screenshot.

For all we know at this point, those numbers could even be underpowered.

[WarBlade]

The Question is...

Will the added duration to hurricane caused by putting points into cyclone armor will also add seconds to its cooldown?

P.S. Hope you understand the question, english is not my first language. Tried to do my best, but it just doesn't sound right.

I don't any reason to suggest Chill Duration will be effected. That's a separate number.

*ponders*

Back before LoD came out I cooked up an idea in my head of a Polar Bear. It would have been my fist LoD character had there actually been an effective way of doing it . . . I find the increased duration is interesting, although being able to run a storm around a wereform still looks like a dead-end street.

Maxed Cyclone Armor influence =
20 seconds in Normal
10 seconds in Nightmare
5 seconds in Hell

5 seconds. :huh: Well it won't help a bear much, but it does cover some of the Mana expense concerns of an Elementalist. :D

[Kevin]

Maxed Cyclone Armor influence =
20 seconds in Normal
10 seconds in Nightmare
5 seconds in Hell

5 seconds. :huh: Well it won't help a bear much, but it does cover some of the Mana expense concerns of an Elementalist. :D

From the screenshots (kandrathe already broke it down), cyclone armor is L7 + 13 in the screen. Since +skill items don't add to the synergies it is the base 10 seconds that hurricane has plus the 7 from cyclone armor. I am assuming the shot was taken in Hell.

Unless I misunderstood you and you are proposing a difficulty cap and an increase of the base duration from 10 to 12 seconds. But the screen shot does not suggest that. That means you should be able to get a 30 second hurricane, which would actually allow you to use it a bit while shifted, though that is 21 skill points to do it, and then you have a L1 hurricane (+adders) and that wouldn't help a lot. But it does seem to be something that could be used if you get 30 seconds. Still too much shifting in and out for me though.


That does bring up another point. I still don't like the use of skill timers. The claim that they were for lessening graphics could have been addressed much more effectively by changing the graphics (ala FoxBat's little mod). They are used as a skill balancing option and they have some value there, but I still think they hurt strategy. Of course one place where I do think they could work is for shifted druids. If you are shifted, you get hit with a timer and say double (or more) the mana cost. But it would allow you to use them in the few situations you might want them. Ah well, that isn't going to change except in a mod maybe. :)

[unless]

I think he meant cooldown as in Spell Timer. I guess it's a Warcraft word, but I could have sworn D2 used it as well.

Upping the cooldown in addition to the duration would pretty much negate any benefit from the duration increase. You wouldn't be much of an elementalist if you didn't have the mana to recast every ten seconds.

This is the best synergy I've seen yet, since both cyclone armor and tornado are actually useful skills...my 1.09 elementalist was built on these three skills, largely.

[unless]

Maxed Cyclone Armor influence =
20 seconds in Normal
10 seconds in Nightmare
5 seconds in Hell

5 seconds. :huh: Well it won't help a bear much, but it does cover some of the Mana expense concerns of an Elementalist. :D

Hurricane duration does not decrease with difficulty level.

God, imagine how much more it would suck if it did?

[Medicine Man]

If they have suitably randomized what monsters appear in dungeon and overland areas it may well be premature to call a character who does overwhealming fire damage 'powerful'. If there is no bloody foothills or cow level to use as a refuge and a random 25-30% of all foes encountered have fire immunity, a true specialist is going to have some problems. I think we'll have to wait and see the entire patch before we jump to conclusions.

[Brother Laz]

Nope, nope. We can think, and come up with...

Best 1.10 elemental druid: tornado [20] hurricane [20] twister [20] bear [1] wolf [20] oak [20].

Reason: hurricane is still not decent in 8-player games (2K damage? Woot. Level 10 meteor does more) and it does not look like they are nerfing other classes to not be able to play in 8-way either. BUT it interacts with other wind skills.

Tornado is already the best elemental skill, doing 400-1000 damage (depending on target size) and hitting an entire crowd. Yes you need to get close with it, but you need to get very close with hurricane. Adding 100-200% synergy would make it evil. Then, seeing as you need hurricane anyway for the synergy bonus, use that vs phys immunes.

There is a very good chance that tornado gets boosted by hurricane (it's got a lot of variables to play with, including damage radius, and hit frequency). So you need hurricane anyway, why not use it vs phys immunes.

While fire skills only buff each other, leaving you with no alternative element, meaning you will suck against immunes. If you go ahead and totally max volcano or armageddon, it may be able to kill with relative ease, but you'll have no backup skills at all, and not enough points to get a decent one plus the critical oak sage skill.

[WarBlade]

Your entire post is clear as mud I'm afraid. The statement about the wind-Elementalist with some dabbling in Summons being the most powerful Elementalist type came across but after that . . .

'But Hurricane interacts with other wind skills' Does not Volcano interact with the likes of Molten Boulder in a similar sense?

Tornado is "the best" and since Hurricane is used for synergies anyway, that becomes the alternate skill for PI's' Err You did noticed that both Molten Boulder and Volcano are doing both Physical and Fire damage now?

'Fire skill ony buffing eachother leaving you with no alternative element' The left side of the tree now Physical and Fire. The right side of the tree already Physical and Cold . . . I see no difference between them in this regard, other than the wind/cold side is pure damage per skill (probably) and the Fire side looks to have 2 damage form hybrids.

:huh: *completely baffled* :huh:

[Raz]

That was what I was trying to say... :blink:

The increased duration on Hurricane without the increased duration of a Casting Delay may be quite a boost on it; however, if the Casting Delay is increased in parallel as its duration, the spell basically would stay the same, only saving you some points in mana.