Let's Make Shred Druid Way Better In Diablo 4
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- I'm Raxxanterax and I make Build Guides, Leveling Guides, Tier Lists and More for Diablo 4, Last Epoch, Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2. Shred Druid really hasn't ever lived up to the hype in Diablo 4. Here are some of my ideas after testing on how we can make it more viable and fun to play while crushing the endgame.
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#diablo4 #druid #season5 #raxxanterax #maxroll
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more more more of this PLEASE . More content creators need to talk about stuff like this instead of just clickbaiting everything thats broken. PTR is for bugs and overtuned things yes, but I think a lot of weaker builds get overlooked simply due to the ammount of other game breaking things. We absolutely need more build diversity in the game, and this is a great way to go about it. Thanks for all the effort you put into these videos and write-ups
Would love to hear your take on companion druid, as that build has some of the worst clear I have ever seen in the game. Somehow its just infinitely worse than minion necro and needs some serious love. Hell, ravens dont even have a dedicated aspect, and poison creeper barely has one
Darth microtransactions already made a companions druid that did like a trillion damage lol
The new andariel poison damage and target area will make poison shred wolf viable imo
@@bungmonkey2295 yeah because blizz isnt going to nerf that build into the ground B4 next season lol
@@G1NG_54 as they should. Nothing should be that broken it defeats the whole purpose of the fun of building your character
@@bungmonkey2295 tell that to whatever blizz dev gargles barb
Regarding the spirit boons don’t forget you still need to teleport to the town and go down to the ritual side (additional 5 sec) each time in order to change your spirit type to be able to choose 2 power up for that spirit. Other classes can change anything instantly.
Well, apart from earth druids, kinda all builds use Eagle as the chosen spirit animal and never need to change XD I know that's not your point, but still that's what it is.
Yup - and it's not like Druids have movement ability to ignore the ladders. Again - Blizzard devs arrogance and stubbornness at it's best.
10:29 You don’t just have to ‚acquire‘ 400 Spirit Offerings, you haven’t pick them up manually! Why not make them auto/pet pickup?!
This! They are so annoying to pick up. If they were picked up automatically, it would be such a quality of life change.
Agreed! Auto pick up would easily help.
And they are white items!! By the tine you unlock your class quest, you arent even looking at white items on the ground at all!
Spoken like a true Druid 😢 lol, I look at the gather essence events and think why isn't the druids quests like this?
raxx is one of the few content creators that are actually doing something useful, when i search diablo 4 PTR on youtube i only get videos like "WOW 1 TRILLION DAMAGE BUG OP SUPER STRONG BUILD" bullshit.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s the main reason I watch his videos. There is a huge gap between true content creation and reading the brochure from Blizzard.
Hey DM finding a bug with Poison Creeper was worth a video.
Great analysis and suggestions. Now hope devs take a look at this and fix it
Making shred storm skill is my dream, we can use shred to proc landslide or boulder, also permanent earthen bulwark using symbiotic aspect. The new unique gloves can be added to the build as well, focusing on lightning damage
An excellent analysis. I enjoy playing shred a great deal, but never leveling with it. These suggestions will help the Druid class across the board.
Very good. Ive been asking for stormclaw to be a storm skill since season 2
I hope raxx gets a lifetime of free blizz content for the work he does to improve their company
There needs to be a way to make companion skills either nature or shapeshifting skills to better work with all of the Druid skills. I love druid, but it is by far the weakest of the classes. It is 3 classes in one that don't work well together. LOVE YOUR VIDEOS btw.
Thanks a lot for the effort
I love Shred!
Diablo listen to this men !!!!
Anything is a good thing for Shred at this point.
Raxx I’m seeing two different thumbnails for this video for some reason
I'm waiting to comeback to D4 until they make shred viable. Anything. Please. I want to be a werewolf that slashes and infects. Not a werewolf that spawns tornadoes and lightning
To me shred druid is the most fun idea of any class I wish they take a look at this.
I think you missed one critical issue with the aspect of the blurred beast specifically, at least you didn't mention it explicitly. The playstyle against single target becomes extremely clunky if you want to benefit from this aspect. The Aspect of the Blurred Beast states "While dashing...". Against single target boss, with Shred playing normally, you are constantly in the melee range, just spamming Shred. When Shred is used in melee range, it doesn't DASH, it just hits the boss. If you hit enemy with shred WITHOUT dashing, Blurred Beast aspect doesn't trigger. In order to benefit from this aspect against a single target monster, between EVERY dash cast, you need to move away from the target, outside from melee range, so that your Shreds actually dash. This makes the playstyle extremely clunky, carpal tunnel inducing and not fun at all!
Good point should’ve talked about that
I have hated this aspect from the onset. This is one of the worst-played mechanics from a design that *sounds* cool. But completely fails at implementation. Really makes me question if they ever even test this stuff or if they just think it up, code it in and call it day.
This aspect's another problem is that it is practically unplayable on controlers🙄
@@lynxxYaRly Sometimes it feels like they just added Druid to the lineup and didn't really give a shit about it. It just filled out the lineup for launch. It has consistently been at the bottom of the class rankings for pretty much every stage of gameplay. Other classes have fallen off and then gotten buffed to make them relevant again. Kinda feels like they should have had a different class.
Requiring a dash gave the old Blurred Beast a certain finesse to it. You call it "clunky," but this helped balance the skill.
I’d like to see shred apply rabies on every 3rd hit as a pathing option, fix rabies to make it worth taking, and agree on dash to be built into baseline of skill.
100% agree with all of it. I feel like Druid was an afterthought and rushed. No real time put into making it feel as good as the other classes.
I always felt that Lacerate should be a shred ultimate, but with a twist. It could have a legendary power that makes each strike from lacerate give some sort of stacking poison debuff. The final strike would then DETONATE all stacks for X amount of damage. It could work against groups and single target.
I love shred, so please help with this.
Its S tier for speed currently- did Season 5 PTR ruin it that badly?
@@Zalchops S tier in live server season 4? And what setup specifically? Because I tried many version they are all bad
@@chuckles9767 gotcha thanks friend
@@chuckles9767 This is kinda of the problem. It's only good early to mid game. The moment you hit higher tier pits of NM dungeons etc, you simply do NOT do enough damage.
Thanks for everything you do! Subbed!
Druid class quest redux: Now every Druid unlocks their spirit boons by completing TUR DULRA, full stop. To bind with any spirit for 2 boons; THEN you go get 100 offerings out in the world, to permanently unlock this feature!!!! Done by level 18 at latest, problem solved. Now on par with every other class quest.
Even just unlock in Tur Dulra and then run underroot picking up offerings within the dungeon.
The biggest issue with shred is that it was already a synergistic nicely flowing build and in a good spot with single target damage and AOE. Blurred beast gave you single target and area damage, it removed the dependency on the shred 3-hit damage fluctuation, it caused you to hit 2 times on a single target so you would heal twice, get spirit from lust for carnage twice and cycle lupine ferocity quicker. It even tied rabies and toxic claws properly into the shred build tying crit and poison since blurred beast scaled off of poison damage and could crit. Now there is no reason to invest in dot and crit, you spread damage too thin. Most important of all, blurred beast elevated the shred gameplay to something that took some thought and skill to play, and it was fun.
Now, after the blurred beast rework, only the "lightning shred" dashing remains. Shred gameplay is degraded to holding down the key and dashing around without anything interesting going on. Any enemies that survive a few hits instantly reveal the gaps left by blurred beast rework. AOE is quite weak and there is no good plan to kill elitepacks that can survive longer, since you are forced to standstill to do any dps. You also frequently miss dash hits that would have been reliable hits with blurred beast as anything near you that was poisoned would get damaged while dashing. Dashing with shred is cool, but it is so one dimensional in comparison to before with old blurred beast.
In my opinion the best fix to shred is to revert blurred beast rework and fix the double dipping with similar approach to victimize on ptr and then continue balancing from there.
For leveling, I have found dire wolf (grizzly rage) aspect to be important. You can temper GR duration and 2h rampaging werebeast for pretty much permanent ult. It does fall off lategame but fun midgame and farming build.
You completely hammerheaded this and this was one the MOST satisfying pieces of content I have seen in awhile. I have played all the classes extensively and what most players fail to do is put themselves in other players shoes when asking for changes. For example, I have been at the WB by myself this season as a druid main and it was ROUGH. Using your voice in unselfish ways is always hard, especially as gamers when you always want more. I haven't seen many taking time to not only shine a light on under-served classes but also builds. Since I don't have a pc that can support playing the ptr my voice is essentially silenced. This is VERY important and appreciated. I wish other creators would follow suit.
Rax you should take a look at items too, there’s a bunch of uniques that are unplayable garbage that I would like to work. For Druid for example you have hunters zenith and fleshrender for example. Would be cool to get ideas on how to buff them or rework them into viable items
I'm a max level shred build. All of these problems are spot on. I run all the aspects that buff it storm claws ect. My skill bar is Trample,shread,blood howl, hurricane,poison creeper,and petrify. Spirit shortage, lack of damage are the biggest problems by far. survivability for the reasons you mentioned are spot on. I have to get in to do the damage. Then either get surrounded, or cced and die. Even with some good gear sans uber unique. As well as a fairly good paragon i have 6 glyphs at lv21. I feel like the game makes it to where they want you to play another style for the toon. while i think pulverize, or landslide, and twister are more powerful. Shread is by far the most fun skill druid has.
Shred and lacerate is super fun but does 0 damage 😭
The new unique glove where you have unlimited spirit plus a mulitpler on damage while catalysm is active would alleviate some of the issues with shred but still wont be enough.
@@henrynguyen4315 o for sure im having trouble with teer 45-50 pits i highly doubut ill make it much further with it
@@josephcotter6654 I have done 70 maybe 80 on my shred druid replace creeper with cyclone and petrify with the storm one and those gloves and the new helm and I don't use blur beast never like it there is an aspect that gives you spirit when you kill an enemy with shred and damage increase solves most of my spirit problems well that and starless skies ring
Raxx doing gods work. Blizzard should be paying him for this.
I vote for Raxx to become a paid dev consultant from Blizz to help the odd dev team make the odd numbered Seasons interesting and fun.
He already is, and he’s independent, which is the value of content creators. He doesn’t need to work for Blizzard.
I strongly agree
1. Totems/Focuses should be small objects so Druid can wear 3 totems and Sorc can wear 3 Focuses - this should be a starting point.
2. The second point would be to increase multiplicative damage (especially with Key Passives and Legendary Nodes) for these classes. And I mean drastically.
3. Remove all nonsense like damage when the enemy is on the left, was not frozen for the last 4s, but is Vulnerable and you have not hit him yet.
4. Stop buffings things that don't have to be buffed (Druid Bear DR, etc) and stop Nerfing things that shouldn't be Nerfed (Teleport CD, etc)
These would be great changes, I really want them to make the class inherently have wolf/storm synergies and bear/earth synergies. This would help with a lot of the damage multipliers and really let you add more into each build early without locking each build to require tempest roar or nature’s savagery.
1 more thing you missed out regaridng thr Spirit Boon. We'd have to go to Tul Dulra whenever we want to change the boon to have the 2nd passive unlock.
First lets acknowledge storm=werewolf and earth = bear. So with that lean into the storm aspect of the wolf, and give a legendary aspect that makes every dash of shred to cause static build up, upon the third dash the static build up is discharged doing aoe dmg, or empower the dash to where when you dash you become electrified and enemies dashed through are take dmg (so you could empower lacerate at same time to buff it as well and make it a viable skill). Similar to the werewolf mob form that dashes and leaves behind fire trail. Also going with the idea of the storm wolf, buff the unique chest (mad wolf's glee) to where instead of poison reduction, buff storm dmg and change description to something along the lines of the "unable to contain the storm you become one with it) and give the werewolf form a unique visual with lighting crackling through its fur.
This would be awesome, imagine a blue lightning crackling effect around your werewolf and doing big lightning aoe hits with the dashes. Loving this idea.
If druids require every ability to have two tags from the werewolf, werebear, storm and earth categories, they should instead make it so you can customize what the second tag is on your ability. Its far too limiting right now compared to most other classes. That could maybe even replace spirit boons, selecting a second tag for each ability
I play Shred with Andariels visage as a poison type shred. I DO NOT want to forced to play shred as lightning, I'd much rather have options. Give us a choice between physical/poison and lightning druid archetypes. I absolutely despise the way Recent diablo games remove CHOICE from the player by making specific stuff usable ONLY if you play this way. It stifles creativity, and makes the overall experience super unfun to me.
@@sdfghhhsghhghtg how good is shred with andariels? Whats the highest lvl pit u can do?
@@Pokdemon I quit before i perfected rolls and my ammy was not very good at all, but 75-80 if you're very careful. So far from the best, but I love shred.
I remember playing in the pre-release with my friends.. The Barb and sorc literally completed their class mastery while I was still waiting to do a level 35 stronghold and collect spirit orbs lol😂
-------------------->> LOVE YOUR CONTENT RAXX.
I've been watching quite a bit of your content for the last few months and I have to say I pretty much agree with 80%-90% of your comments, fixes, idea's, morals, etc. I can definitely tell you've got a solid head on your shoulders. Your a true gamer advocating for all types of gamers and who honestly knows what they are actually talking about. Appreciate you brotha!
This is just another form of proof of how idiotic the people running blizzard are....i mean seriously it feels like they are trolling all of us, it's players and have been for some time now. Just by the sheer amount of common sense missing in the game all around, builds, items, systems, the current untestable PTR is embarrassing and unreal. As a player who has 100's and 100's of hours into D4, and Diablo games prior I am feeling extremely disrespected and honestly just shit on, by the lack of common sense put into the game, blizzards "pride" about making its own changes to their liking is a major issue, when they should be listening to the knowledgably players and testers like Raxx here, or it's past developers, because for some time now they have proven time and time again and currently (along with all the years of D4's development) have shown they have NO IDEA how to make a functioning, fun, nor even kind of barley sorta balanced game at all. I've also spent over 40 hr's since the new season 5 PTR went live and am flabbergasted on it's all around lack of quality, broken gameplay/bugs (bugs that did not and do not currently exist in the live server), the PTR's total lack of allowing good players/builders to efficiently test the games new functions/additions, items/builds etc, instead make us the players farm for (with really low drop rates and items that are absent of a working ability to efficiently farm them) lack of codex, no new tempers with their drop rates being insultingly low and inconsistent, just to name a few big issues and all this considering it's only live for 1 week and not all of us have 8 hours or more a day like our 9-5 to test this whatever the hell this is supposed to be that they released to us (we aren't paid blizzard employees) it honestly feels like a trolls disrespectful slap in the face. I've participated in many different beta testing's and PTR's over my 30 years of being an avid gamer, a tournament player, etc and this PTR is by far one of the worst insulting new game content tests I've ever participated in. I've known the company "Blizzard" since the days I was playing warcraft (yes the very original, and probably long before a large % of current players were even born, Im 43 btw) had warcraft 2 in the same week it was released, played for many years both Starcraft and Starcraft 2, also participated in Starcraft 2's Beta testing, WOW OG, WOTLK, Diabo, D2, D3 etc. What I'm trying to say is I've been with Blizzard since almost their very beginning, sadly the "OG Blizzard" honestly a legend of a company is and has been no more. Yes I know they were sold and bought it's just truly disgusting and disheartening to see a legend of a company who has been a major pioneer in the gaming world having it's name stepped all over and destroyed. I'd welcome anyone to respond with their feelings, experiences, even if its only about their great memoires of playing OG Blizzard games.
Well everyone expect all you self-hating trolls, with no life and nothing but garbage to vomit. Yes those I've watched Raxx have to read comments from along with the rest of you trolls hiding under your rocks, bridges or wtf ever you use. Just know that everyone doesn't want to hear or read whatever the hell you want to say and that everyone really hates you :)
To all the other normal non-troll people, have a great day! :)
Shred bad at leveling and resource issues? Are we playing the same game? Don't get me wrong I totally agree that it's damage is abysmal compared to any other core skill build on druid and it completly lacks modifiers to scale it. But for leveling it was definitly the fastest one for druid for me and I played 5 druids to lvl 90-100 this season. Unsatiated aspect solves all the resource issues you ever had no need for umbral aspect or anything else. Put shred crit chance on weapons and werewolf critchance on weapons, gloves and jewlery and you end up with ~70% crit at lvl 35-40. Makes you blast through the tier 3 capstone and the same later with tier 4. When you start facing ~120lvl enemies it starts to suck dick but just leveling is a blast
Dude a Shred leveling build that’s actually good - I’ve been hoping for that since season 1 😭
Back in Diablo 2, when the expansion was released, turning into a werewolf was one of the coolest things, aesthetically AND it was fun to play.
It's finally back in D4 and it's easily one of the worst ways to play the game.
I like Raxx's idea for the stormclaw allowing shred to be a storm skill, but that doesn't do anything for the leveling process.
Dash on all hits, poison on third hit, an aspect where poison creeper makes anyone already effected by poison take the full dot of poison upon casting :)
I did the same thing with ice shard…. It was awfull… I did was not able to clear capstone t3 at lvl 35… when you could do it easily at lvl 30 with other class (depend of the build)
Shred is my go to every season, and every season I am forced to level another class instead. The coolest class fantasy, that hits like a damp squib. Make Rabies Great Again
Give us attack twice instead of 8% crit chance temper!! please!
Is it just me, or are you completely missing out on the fact that if you throw aspect of the changling's debt on a 2h you get a 100x dmg multiplyer basically all the time? The 1 point you put into neurotoxin means that ANYthing that is poisioned is simultaniously crowd controlled? I just leveld shred on the PTR 1-57 and killed curator in like 2 hits? I haven't even found blurred beast yet, and I ditched stormclaw after 2 minutes because it was shit.
i love the Druid, I started S4 at the same time as my son and he quickly leveled passed me. I stuck with it, reached end-game, and tried 3 Builds. While I found the class fun, mostly because of its shapeshifting, I could see it was far behind that which my son was playing with.
Midway through the season I switched to the Barb and was blown away. It was so much fun. It felt right. The leveling was a good steady, quick, pace. The damage was insane with little to no build and it left me wondering what the heck happened to the Druid.
Raxx you've come up with some great ideas. The class should be faster to level up. The damage and the movement speed needs to be increased. Nothing saps the fun out of a class more than it taking forever to enjoy to the low movement speed and low damage. Anyway, thanks for the video and I'm looking forward to Blizzard implementing some if not all of your ideas.
Buffs for Druid all around levelling endgame it’s all a messy shred should make you dash as standard move. Spirit generation should be standard like mana for sorc. Movement speed isn’t the best. Power is lacking the most. Lacerte is a useless ultimate move that needs big rework. Passives are still not in a good state and boons need a rework
Absolutely LOVING this content. Chain lightning, Shred and Rabies are the types of playstyles I absolutely love to play, and I wish they were a bit stronger. I actually played a Rabies build for a chunk of season 4, and it was a really fun playstyle, just REALLY bad for single target DPS which is extremely necessary in recent seasons where boss damage is crucial. Anyway, super detailed coverage and I'd imagine documents like these are incredibly helpful for the devs to see. Keep up the amazing work.
Crazy about Werewolves... I've been wanting, trying to be a friiggin strong, fast, agile and bloodthirsty werewolf in D4 with Shred but I kinda gaveup on it... Just wanna play William corvinus in a game or just wanna be Van helsing version of werewolf but looks like the game wont let me.. I sincerely hope the werewolf build in POE2 will be diffewrent and im sure it can be strong coz its wont be limited. Currently playing Companion werewolves and running lvl 60-80 pit..
Druid has been in bad state since D4 launch as soon as it got strong in s2 so man nerfs. Druid as a whole class needs reworking and buffs. More content on Druids/sorcs please we need this resolved
Yeah great ideas! I think Lupine could even go a little extra tbh and drain HP from enemies on the 3rd hit as well. Probs not required, but just a little something extra to make it pop. Definitely underwhelming as is.
Build does lack AOE outside if Stormclaw. Have more options
Crit Dmg is viable at End game and you can stack near 100% chance and +700% easily.
4 of the best Boons, are all on spirit group (Eagle)
Lupine Ferocity buff was needed, as some shred users don't shape-shifting into bear enough to use other passives.
*try buffing toxic Claws more, or making poison explode without having to use equipment. Tweak/rebuff blurred beast.
Ps. You can already make wolves/Werewolf pets very strong/tanky, which helps AOE.
-ETHOS
As the official druid Ambassador, I aprove of this 100%
I've been a druid main since pre-season and have been advocating for better Druid changes ever since. Specifically Lacerate. List below:
Shred:
1) Shred scales very pooly with extra skill ranks. (I'm at +8 currently). The damage is still too low.
2) Primal shred is vastly superior to Rampaging Shred due to the mobility it provides and extra multiplier. We already get a poison application with toxic claws.
3) Stormclaw feels like it does more damage than the actual skill and it's an aspect. It's also basically mandatory to take.
4) Shred, before you can get spirit generation under control, feels just so very bad to use. I've leveled using shred several times now and each time it feels just awful. The damage is bad, the spirit cost is too high, and it makes for a very very poor leveling experience. Guess I'm a masochist.
Rabies:
1) The damage is still too low. The spread is to slow, and dot damage in general isn't supported by fast pace content (no time to wait around for stuff to die to dot's as a melee class)
2) Tested with damage over time rolls on gear - #1 was still not good.
3) Virulent Aspect lowering the cooldown made rabies feel better, but doesn't work on actual bosses (elites only).
4) Rabies should have a chance to apply vulnerable, and while it does with Exploit, the glyph applies to any damage and isn't Rabies specific.
Lacerate:
1) The damage on this ultimate has been awful for a long time now. It feels a little better (not a lot) on single targets, but drops off a cliff if there's more than one. That's because it applies it's damage into a area, and if multiple monsters in the area, the damage is so low it's barely even worth using. Except to maybe escape a crowd control (of if you're standing fire).
2) The cooldown on it feels too long still, and it's lucky hit chance is so low it's laughable. It definitely doesn't feel like an ultimate skill compared to Cataclysm, Petrify, Grizzly Rage.
3) The skill is really just another cc breaker of which the class already has Earthen Bulwark which is vastly superior.
4) Lacerate needs a complete rework. It just sucks, period.
Bestial Rampage (Shifter Druids):
1) This entire playstyle is so clunky it makes my headhurt. I spent more time looking down at my buffs (which doesn't show all of them) to see if my shifter buffs had worn off than paying attention to the actual combat.
2) Time spent in a form is too long. In face paced combat such as this, having to stand around for even 2 seconds feels like an eternity.
3) The buffs that Bestial Rampage received make it feel better, but again, the shifter playstyle of micromanaging is tedious and not fun.
Boons:
Deer: Let's be real - You only take one boon here. 15% DR against elites. The rest are terrible and are never taken, execpt maybe advantageous beast to help with move speed early on.
Eagle: These are all pretty good. Crit, extra life, attack speed, crit damage. Just fill in whatever you're missing here. Eagle is in a real good spot and feels like a good boon bond too.
Wolf: You take pact leader here while leveling because companions are so very strong early on (Or if you want to be a companion druid which is better now). Energize locked behind lucky hit makes it worthless while leveling. Bolster is bad because there are skills that give you fortify on use. Calamity is ok if you rely on heavy ultimate use.
Snake: Every one of these feel bad. Especially after masochistic got nerfed into the ground. Granted it felt too strong before, but locking it behind lucky hit was too heavy of a nerf. Overall putting boon procs behind lucky hit just feels terrible.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I love shred druid, but it just doesn't, and hasnt, kept up with the other classes these past few seasons.
I saw your shrew-D vid. And honestly, since I level one myself rright now -why the f do you still rely on companions? I did not take a single point in them in live server where they provide some bonus to damage and you took them while the boon is only aimed at their damage (ake making you rshred Druid a Minion build with some shred added).
I have fun with trample, rabies, storm armor (the permanent thingy, might have butchered the name) and an Ultimate of choice as flanking skills and it works really nice.
Pro:
- Quiet Tanky. Can take butcher +15lvl without issue.
- straight forward to play, also lots of options to GTFO
Cons:
- Leveling is a bitch (I'm with you there). Druid is for me the worst class to level.
- lacks AoE/Room-clearing potential. It's good, but far from blizzard sorc or HS-rogue
- get the impression, that rabies might be more important then just be flanking skill
So since you followed a build that I consider not ment for the S5 enviroment I can't in every point follow your conclussions. Some are valid (the Ulti-passive, Dashing beeing optional), but some are not (I thinkg rabies is great, since I gets you poison&CC - given you put one point into the passive).
Still liked to watch you endure the pain of following a build that is not working anymore :-) (yeah, I'm a bad person)
Regards,
BA
PS: I had real luck with my gear, got about 5+ spririt/second and about 15% RR. But then again: I use the Maul as my RGen and with the Bestial Rampage that gives me 50%+ damage, So win-win.
The first thing I Allways talk when thinking about Druid:
Stormclaw Druid build encapsulates the all the fantasy that Werewolf druid invokes.... a vert fast attacking machine with skyrocket attack speed
and is a mediocre build at best AND is Unique dependent.... so... no leveling, only EG
I think that the Unique SHOULD be a Legendary aspect, so stormclaw would be a viable Leveling build for druids.... the the leveling could be junt a mash of Shred + Claw+StormStrike the damage output would be nice
At least I'm happy that the Shepperd Aspect got changed so I could take OTHER skills that the companions to buff my damage output.... S4 it Raven Wolf and Poison Creeper with one skill and not even the upgrade passives was just playing Borring
the thing is.... blizzard hates the druid for some reason
let's see if the Spiritborn encapsulates some of the Fantasy that druid should bring.... (For me it's clearly a Tropical kind of druid than the ussual Celtic/european druid that Blizzard adopted for their druid), so some of te "Nature" aspect of the fantasy that druid should encapsulates possibly will be present on Spirtborn.... at least from a Aestheic point in my opinion
In general I think if we're going to have bricking then all tempers should be 3 per category. The UI has enough space for that that. At that point the probability of hitting both tempers is 1/9. A 2GA item gets 9 rolls. It basically means you can expect to successfully hit your 2GA item. You're still going to brick items but the probability supports you getting it. Like it's exciting because you know it's likely but still dangerous. Especially if you're gambling with a 100 mill+ purchase. Unlike when it's a 1/5 * 1/5 where your outcome is just bricking like 3+ 2GA items before succeeding. At that point it's like fuck it, why waste my gold.
I really wish they would change Obsidian Slam in the Boons for Druids. Something like every 10 sec your next Earth skill Overpowers, or like every 5 casts, I don't know. But every 10 kills really just sucks for anything beyond AoE, and kills a lot of builds Single Target capability.
Added this to the PTR feedback. I think this would make some awesome synergy between shred and rabies. Shred druid is my favorite play style. Thank you so much for giving support to the struggling specs no matter the class.
Virulent Aspect->Attacks from Shred reduce Rabies cooldown by 1 -2 seconds.
Blurred Beast->Shred does 60% increased damage to enemies infected with Rabies and each attack from Shred extends current Rabies duration by .2 seconds. Change name to Rabid Beast.
D4 has a lot of fundamental problems with skills and their design from the jump, and I don't think enough vocal feedback has concerned just how disconnected the skills are from one another(despite being literally connected). Nothing in a kit, barring some minor exceptions, influences anything else in that same kit. The abilities don't really do anything together. Barb shouts literally buff the character, but they don't do anything specific to, say, Whirlwind. There's no synergy overall and there's no Synergies in the D2 sense. So "Builds," in this game are "here are the 6 disconnected skills you're going to use, here are the Aspects that make the whole thing function, and here's what the Paragon board looks like." You know how the internet hates D3 and its Set-based Meta? That's what D4's Legendary Aspects have become. It's the same god-damned thing, just without the green color. Anyway. This is why skills like Frenzy, or Shred, or Chain Lightning don't work; there's nothing else in the kit to support the build, so it all comes down to "are the Aspects overtuned or not?"
Mark my words: D4 is going to have horrible balance and a stale, "this skill has the most overtuned Aspect this patch so it's the one to use," meta until they come in and totally revamp the skill trees, or the game dies.
Secondarily, whoever did the Skill Tree UI should be, shall we say, moved to another project. Because they look like ass.
I don't agree that Rabies is the way to fix Shred, and I can see absolutely no way for these 2 skills to synergize in any way. Shred is simply too quick and when you cast Rabies you're always dashing ahead of the spread. So, unless you're playing some extremely high tier Pit or something, there's no way for this interaction to work. Probably why I never like Blurred Beast either.
I agree with the other stuff. Aspects are bad/incomplete. Spirit Boons are brutal too. You missed to mention the reworked Changeling's Debt which is probably the best dmg increase for Shred right now, given the change to Shepherd's.
All in all, I'd like them to take a look at the bigger problem, which is the vast access to Multiplicative Damage. Remove it from Legendary Aspects across the board for sure, and maybe from normal Uniques and Skill Tree Passives too. It will help with overall Class Balance, it will reign in the Power Creep/Gains, and it will promote greater Build Variety.
Once they've done that, it will be a lot easier to fix individual skills/builds such as Shred.
I'm a casual player, but a Druid exclusive one, and that's how I see things. there's no making Shred competitive when Barbs walk around with exponentially more power due to having 4 more multipliers on their gear than anyone else...
I'm an endgame shred druid right now. Lupine greatly increased my damage over Ursine or Beastial. Because I have my attack speed so damn high I get my 6 strikes so quickly.
I use that unique ring that sucks monsters in, so that handles AOE really well.
My resource and build is 100% dependant on uniques though. Tibalts is needed, flickerstep for petrify damage vs bosses, and metamorphosis amulet. Without those I don't think I'm going past pit 60.
I really really love the play of shred so I've been ok trying to figure out how to make it viable. I'm pretty much stuck at pit 80 for solo play. I have to put so much paragon into damage that I sacrifice some DR and Max life causing the pit bosses to one shot me if I'm not super careful. Challenging as a melee build
There is so much wrong with this PTR. It's simply not worth spending time to try to give solutions to Blizzard. I don't even know if they have manpower to just get it stable in the next month - cause all hands are on deck for expansion. Balance will be all over the place and shows everyone how they are just totally unable to do basic math to scale things properly. This is NOTHING new and imagine if Blizzard had listened pre-launch and FIXED the horrendous leveling balance and actually did some real tests to balance endgame after that. Nope... Stubborn, arrogant and totally clueless Blizzard ignored every comment.
As i main Druid, in every game that has Druid class, Druid in D4 feels so bad, simply as that, i played this season WolfNado and i barely reached lvl 60 Pit, i said to my self, not gonna do this again to me, And i lvled up a Barb, and manage to clear lvl 100 pit with 1/4 effort from Druid..!!!!!
Druid needs more aspects like Dire Wolf aspect, cause it literally changes the way Druid is playing.
Druid ,IMO, also needs MORE skills, 1 wolf spender, 1 Bear spender???? Really?
Shred for me isnt that great since is a combo of 3 attacks BUT with gibbus weapon in S2 was so awesome to play it!
As i see it, Druid will always be a shadow of the other classes, will never reach what other classes can reach, cause is slow, is boring, is weak, has limitation in everything!!
The offerings are lame. Just give them a quest like every other job
I think one of the best thing blizzard can do is make uniques designed for leveling and other for endgame that way people get to enjoy variety at different power points with their characters. What makes it hard to balance is it’s all geared towards the end game.
Thanks Rax, only Druid I played and would play again is shred. Concept is so cool, dashing around as werewolf…and you do not have to look at either an obese Bear or chunky Sumo Wrestler. Unfortunately Shred just sucks since season 2 with waxing and stormclaw double dipping. But even then, boss damage was an issue. But at least you could farm with it. What you also didn’t touch was the ridiculous, high damage and worthy of the name „ultimate“ lacerate 😂. That ult really fits the theme but is absolutely bs!
Shred should be a strong single target skill. To accomplish this it does need more damage. If you are running pulverize, you one shot entire rooms. To make up for it, one dash should kill one elite. You still need to dash around and are slower then pulverize. And pulverize isnt even the strongest build...
Idea for stormclaw: every third hit of shred calls down a lightning strike, which damages the target. Maybe a small aoe but thats not important. I do think off at least season 2 hota barb damage numbers.
Or combine it with the unique pants "storms companion": attacking an enemy with shred makes you leader of your storm Wolfes and this enemy takes increased damage from your wolves storm howl. And maybe "makes shred a storm skill and deals additional lightning damage."
Lupine ferocity: guaranteed crit is nice. Add sth like a 50% chance to overpower or a lucky hit to restore ressource/reset cooldowns. Of course higher chance against bosses.
An option if dash goes to the main skill: "Shred covers you in a cloud of poison, poisoning surrounding enemies." Or poison the enemies you dash through.
And if Blizzard wants us to dash around shredding everything, why not give us the option to use a second 1- hand weapon instead of an off hand and boost the attack speed while using shred? (And +% movement speed for x seconds?!)
Things that would make Diablo 4 more attractive: - non-class-specific skin system, skill skins, hideout system These little things would become more attractive to players who don't want to buy a skin because it's not intended for their class, for example, or even have a character that's completely different from the others. -System for corrupting map regions with the use of Soulstones. As we know, Soulstones have the souls of Evil trapped inside each one. A system that allowed corrupting map regions and modifying enemies would be interesting (even with helltide active). Skill modifiers: Spells could have more modifiers to have more play styles, for example Blood arises from the necromancer could be a poison skill becoming a new poison skill Or hydra permafrost for the sorcerers
Keep doing these for everything. You're giving them some great criticism.
As for Shred, I agree with everything you said. Their legendary powers are boring and the teleport should absolutely be baseline. When I imagine the werewolf fantasy with Shred in particular, my mind immediately goes to the idea of bloodlust. Using Shred when it teleports makes you feel like a furious, enraged, blood lusted werewolf, and I think they should double down on that.
Blood Lust could be a special buff for Shred that simply mimics Barbarian's Berserk. Blood Lust could be something that gives you stacking increased attack speed and life steal, along with some kind of debuff you can manage, like losing life per second while blood lusted.
Shred could have a reworked aspect that ties into Wolves as an Alpha pack leader. When you shred, your Wolves shred with you.
If they don't want to make the teleport baseline, make the other choice something worth taking, like REALLY high increased attack speed each time you shred. When you shred, increase your attack speed by 20%, stacks up to 5 times or something like that. Make the skill choice alleviate something you otherwise really want in your items. Provide insane attack speed so you look for other stats on items, etc.
There are temper affixes that just need removed period. Not only to reduce the # of tempers overall, but some of these end up being a punishment as they "brick" the gear. We want to have fun with our gear so why punish us by having affixes no one wants to use, can't build with, or utilize? IF they want to increase the mats used in the rolls, fine. Doing this would remove the calls for a re-roll option, make us happier as players, let us have more fun, increase engagement, etc.
Also, I dunno why it took you so long to get all the Spirit Boon currency. I was leveling a Druid and I have mine maxed out before 30. Helltide boss runs drop sooooo many.
Either the lucky hit chance on rabies needs to be increased baseline, or the lucky hit chance on Xfal’s needs to be increased. Stacking lucky hit % does not feel rewarding with this skill, it does not go off anywhere nearly as often as it should. I’m giving up tempers and an aspect for this, it should be powerful.
I love watching rabies spread, it’s fun, but yes, it does drop off a lot as you get higher in power. It just isn’t scaling well. This is a slow acting dot in a game designed for fast action combat, so it’s already at odds with how the game works fundamentally. A way to make rabies feel like it flows with the rest of the game (and while playing with other people! Rabies in multiplayer involves a lot of running around doing nothing because everything is dying too fast and your dot isn’t spreading, it sucks) is to make explosions pop off often, giving high instant damage. Xfal’s solves that, but the frequency is too low to really address the issue. Another solution is to just make the 50% increased spread speed skill point baseline, and then add an upgrade node that causes explosions on dot ticks that ALSO spread rabies on contact.
In addition to that, lacerate is not a good skill. Either buff its damage dramatically, or turn it into something else.
What if, Shred gets a legendary that converts it's poison into lightning dmg to synergies with the storm claw's AOE as well as an rabies variant to rabies. Seeing as lightning gets so many bonuses but poison can spread so quickly it could be a good mix.
That or give poison dmg heal per tic that scales by an %. Mix that with some attack speed to have lupin proc. Should make an decent build but personally if Werebear is Fortify and Dmg, Werewolf should Life steal and attack speed.
I just want Rabies to be a dash that poisons enemies you pass through or something. Idk but i hate dashing around and then going for a stationary C H O M P. It looks dumb, feels bad and just looks lame. Give me a mini-lacerate poison dash. Would be epic. Make werewolf this "spectre" on a battlefield. Make me feel like an apex predator.
You might get these improvements in season 40 because right now Blizzard is on a......buff the basic skills phase.Why ? because they have no idea how to improve core skills, or they buff them 1 season, then instead of tweaking them, they nerf them to oblivion.
That is every class not just druid.
This shifting the meta BS doesn't mean they have to nerf other build options to the ground like they have been and are currently doing.
Very good breakdown. I have always since launch played Boulder/Shred with natures savagery and that route. Cause Shred does (did at least some point) need the initial dash to make the impact dmg better (in season two some one on the poison shred builds said so). So the boulder is a catalyst for knocking back the enemies and shred's one shot potential, finishing them of.. But like you told in this video, even if it should work in theory, it just doesn't. I have tried my build with landslide too, but even though the dmg would be some what helpful it just lacks in every way. Maybe in season 5 I should change for Poisoning and pulverize wombo combo.
This game continues to migrate closer and closer to the same mistakes of D3.
Damage numbers are too high
There is very little thought to the game.
Mythic/uber uniques are not super rare, so they become part of a build plan when they should be more of a "holy crap, this is awesome" moment. This makes them similar to D3 sets.
We've lost any ability for choice, and we just grind the same 1-2 builds per class just to feel like you're doing any damage.
Case in point, I just grinded out Iron wolves across multiple characters to get a Shako and Tyraels Might because I want to enable my characters to compete beyond a casual.
Make skills interesting.
Don't make me put points into skills that I don't want and won't use just to get to the next tier.
Lower damage number so you can't delete everything. It's okay to delete trash and maybe even delete elite, IF you have a good build, but no boss should be able to be one shot or its danger mechanics ignored.
Good video, like the sorc one, but, like that one, I feel like it's just the start of what needs to be done. Shred needs to apply Rabies and Rabies needs an extra 0 to actually do dmg. Shred applies Rabies could be the extra option that you mentioned would be freed up. This way, you can maybe get two choices of pathing: Going down on Lightning Shred with the aspect turning into a storm skill, or going down to Poison Shred....We used to have something like this in season 1 if you remember..
Please please please do more of this and keep doing it over and over till they change these trash builds that should be fun. WE NEED DIVERSITY
I'm waiting for the Shred druid build to be good since season 0. When they buffed pulverized, I was screaming "how about shred?!"
50 is even way too much. The class quest alone takes SO much longer than it takes every other class. Other classes do so little in comparison, and they're just done as soon its over. Sure Barbs have to level weapon expertise, but that's all passive, you don't have to pay attention to it at all. Barbs take off SO much faster than druids do. I'd argue, just don't make people collect spirit boons at all, have them do the reglar quest line, and you're done, this would in turn make it so you don't have to return to that stronghold with the totems or whatever. The quest is still going to take longer than any other class this way, but it STOPS THERE.
One Hooded Rax with his quality content is worth more than 10 ginger Robs with tons of "best dis, best dat" BS spam. Love your work dude
I’m a Druid main, Shred from the malignant season was my most favorite build throughout any point in this games history.
Airidiah’s Inexorable Will came with the power that made this build so powerful, but it just doesn’t work out. I wish they’d take another look at it.
Druid has just been rough man.
I’m a Druid main, Shred from the malignant season was my most favorite build throughout any point in this games history.
Airidiah’s Inexorable Will came with the power that made this build so powerful, but it just doesn’t work out. I wish they’d take another look at it.
Druid has just been rough man.
my first character was a druid (pre-season 4). I was playing through the story first and the character felt so unfun that I almost stopped playing the game entirely. I naively thought the game was like that.
when I saw forb sorc in season 4 I decided to pick up the game again. only then I it wasn't the game, it was just the bloody druid. blizzard really needs to make druid fun.
MRGA! Get this man over blizzards head courters and taking fucking notes Jesus !
Hi Raxx,
Thanks for looking at all the builds. I wanted to get your thoughts on something. Many people on the forum mention that the extra weapon slot is the core issue causing class imbalance. For example, any new unique items benefit from having an extra slot to support them. In the end, any generic unique always benefits Barbarians and Rogues more than other classes, further widening the gap. What do you think the biggest issue is?
Imagine a world where Shred gets the Barb Bash Cleave temper, and Stormclaw cleave crits nuke packs from all the AoE overlap. Far from a great solution, but funny to picture
Yeah them locking bear and wolf skills behind the nature magic is already bad enough. Then let’s makes none of them 100% on their own any good. Druid is so bottlenecked with limited aspect slots and lack of diversity options but crazy options as well.
Werewolf caster builds are potentially in a really tough spot for season 5 with Thunderstruck/Shepherds nerf. Lightning Storm might be a little better off than Tornado due to attack speed *bug fix* but that just might putnit on an equal plating field with Tornado, I am on console so cant test abd Ive looked around and havent foind anyone testing these builds. In season 4 they are very underpowered builds compared to other classes but Tornado was still considered one of the stronger Druid builds but only at end game due to very high resource cost. It would be quitr easy to make a long list of problems with these builds but the biggest problem is having to use multiple uniques/aspects fot synergy and to make skills work like they already should making the build miss out on defense/offense by its very nature (Tempest Roar means we cabt use the best items in the game, Stromchasers aspect gives us no damage it just makes Tornado behave as it already should). There is a long list of other issues like having no real way to scale the damage now that Thunderstruck is gone but this is already a very long comment 😅
I wish I knew what Rabies did in Alpha. Blurred beast is just bad, you only dash maybe 1/3 of the attacks and then have to move away to dash again. It needs to just change completely.
Another minor change that sounds like a no-brainer to me is to simply make all Lacerate hits dash, so that at least it would enefit from Blurred Beast. It could actually bridge the gap against high-health brutes... And even then, I would say it should also have an aoe modifier (2nd passive point) so that it leaves behind a pool of poison. Then we could call it a skill, not just a multiplier to 0 that takes away 5s gameplay time whenever you press it.
Blizzard has to copy the build from d2. That was fun. DRUID was nuts
I feel Ike you covered a lot of what I want changed with shred. Also the paragon board or spect clean up. Having 4 different aspects that change skills to other skills types and no increase to character damage/survival is not great. All the other characters you feel like a god by end game and the shred I do at times but then just can’t seem to hit the numbers I need to. I have the survivability but I can’t seem to do damage because my build is spilt. I see what blizzard envisioned and I want to be this bad ass werewolf tearing through hordes. On the flip side though I have to get close, which means I have to tank up. My build is spilt between survival and damage and then none of my “big pay offs” really feel extreme.
I would like to see the blurred beast aspect changed personally. We only get the damage bonus if we dash at a target. I hate having to constantly disengage to get bigger numbers. That’s the main problem with Druid, it’s scattered. Every other class can focus but the Druid just feels like it’s spread to thin. Like you mentioned with the dash. If we could just get some tweaks like that to the blurred beast aspect. If you changed the dash then the aspect could change to just be flat damage increase towards poisoned enemies instead of only ones dashed at. That aspect is key but just has always felt a bit restricted.
Everything in here dead on. Speaking of dead, Stormclaw druid...
I was saddened by this fact. I got to lvl 100 with my shred while cringing the whole time only to start over and rebuild my shred again just to see if I messed up somewhere..... Turns out it's not me, shred build is obsolete in season 5 werewolf is my favorite so I'm pissed. I didn't want to be a werewolf casting spells I want to shred my enemies 😢
Good changes for sure, but what I feel you need to do as boring and as tedious as it really is, is play nothing but druid and all the ways it can be played for you to truly understand how much of a deficit the class is in. As a druid main tho you did one hell of a job on the shred sliver of the potentiality builds for druid themselves. Good work man keep it up
Edit 1: On wife's account until I can get my TH-cam account back
Great video! This covered every issue I've encountered as a prospective druid main who had to ditch them for my sanity and go rogue instead. From right back in the second beta I wanted to live the powerwolf fantasy but it was always worse than everything else and that's not a great advertisement as one of the supposed pillars of the class.
Oh, there's also the issue where blurred beast doesn't proc unless you actively *run away* from the group and dash back in... 🙄
Twisting blades felt more like shred than shred build.
I enjoyed shred Druid and pushed the pit a bit with it! But definitely true about the early game struggles and spirit. Aspect of the shepherd pushed this build in the endgame
I think it would be great to have the Mad Wolf's Glee just give the lable of "werewolf skill" to everything you use. Would enable some cool interactions and builds.
Day 3 of asking Raxx to hopefully bring up black and white armor dyes. Cheers sir
You didn't talk about the werewolf legendary node "lust for carnage" that only offer 2 spirit with crits and is more used with storm + tempest roar builds to have perma spirit than melee werewolf builds. It needs to increase melee physical damage or something.
I'd love to have more fun playing wolf druid that's not shooting lightning or tornadoes. Blizzard please hire Raxx
Doing gods work out here. thank you for your work on all the games you play, but especially D4 your feedback and thoughts are usually great. Don’t forget how terrible lacerate is as well not sure why this ultimate tickles people and is 10x times worse then a core like shred
Rax, if you somehow make shred good in season 5, I'll love you, brother. We need it so bad, druid is so underwhelming it hurts.