Tree of Savior Forum

Druid Shapeshift Idea

Class and Rank Cleric
#1

Just had some ideas on how to improve the shapeshift ability of the Druid class to make it actually useful or viable even and give the Druid more flavor.

Instead of having shapeshift and transform as Druid abilities I think they should replace shapeshift with a skill called “study”. They would also add a journal to the druid class where you could go out and “study” all the plant, insect and beast type monsters and they would be added to your journal. (We would give up the ability to use Chortasmata to shapeshift into all types). From here, you would be able to see the skills each form has and you could select one to then use your transform to turn into.

You could easily switch the form out with another through your journal whenever you wanted. It would almost create like a little mini game (almost like pokemon) where you go out and collect all the different form.

As for the forms themselves, they should be buffed to at least let them be useful when it comes to leveling and their attack speed, AOE and damage. Let there be some basic shared abilities across forms (like scratch or growl) but let some have unqiue abilities that make them special and useful.

Just some idea, not totally fleshed out but at least a solid framework I think. Would really love to see shapeshift be a useful ability tothe druid class.

3 Likes
#2

back in the day transform/shapeshift is a unique skills because if you transform into certain race of mobs you will get stat bonus. this skill even make druid capable become a huge sponge tank, mdef tank, crit boost and one less impactful effect that i forgot. which kinda make people jealous and think this skill op because back then in transform mode you can still use your skill as well.you can even prolong the duration with melstis back then which also make people jealous so this is obviously nerfed as well. they decided to nerf transform/shapeshift and instead boost overall stats of druid in form of awoo mode to calm down druid lovers like me because they already change our favored beloved full wolf mode. they even remove chortasmata extra duration because they think everyone will grab a diev in their build or always party with one. chortasmata been through a lot, carnivory current effect also sucks (unless they decided to add plant capsule like zombie capsule and everyone pick exorcist in their build just for the sake of gregorate and suck-mechanic-seed-bomb)
now transform/shapeshifting is just for the sake of cool. but still druid is still a meta class to pick.
i would want they buff this class, but only if noone gonna jealous about it lol.but, but i doubt it hahaha
at least remove useless seedbomb and change it into something else better and another carnivory rework.

1 Like
#3

Shape Shifting/Transform fell out of use due a combination of issues related to the mechanic and class progression.
1 - It isn’t possible to keep multiple transformations/stances active at the same time, unfortunately they gave druid two. IMC didn’t wanted basic transformation skills to be better than Lycantrophy (as the high buff), resulting them to be completely outclassed.
2 - There are hundreds of monsters in game, with a minimum of two skills each, making it troublesome to balance at least. The skills also lack tooltips, making it hard to play around, as you don’t know how or what you can do without a lot of try and error.
3 - The key mapping is poorly implemented. Many players will allocate their core skills on the farther left side and won’t have access to these while transformed (when they could just replace the basic actions on ZXCV-Space).
4 - Monsters skills have to be insanely good for your class skills to be locked, at the same time they can’t trivialize your classes. In opposition, if they don’t have value enough you won’t use them at all, regardless of your ability to use regular skills or not. That’s even worse when they decide to change to the skill locking policy, [dis/en]abling non-transformed skills to be used every couple of patches.
5 - Inability to use class based skills assigned to monsters, likely a poor attempt to keep classes relevant by not stealing their skills (limited only by scrolls).
6 - There were some particular cheesy strategies available with monster transformation that made Druid damage higher than top geared DPS in the past, IMC won’t want it to be a thing again.
[Edit 1] 7 - Monsters skills were designed for AI attacks, with either weird targeting mechanics rules or slow execution time (if not both). They work to some degree for monsters but feel terrible to use as a player.

They have to address at least half of these issues for it to be player friendly, it’s not a priority now and won’t be in the near future. Sorry to say this but it may be gone when/if they rework Druid, again.

#5
  1. to boost shapeshifting, remove the demi-wolf attribute
  2. make demi-wolf a feature that happens by chance when using Lycantropy so people use Lycanthropy for the basic effect rather than the demi-wolf since none uses the original lycan anymore and appreciate demi-wolf when it happens every 10 or so transformations
  3. reintroduce the transformation attributes that boost stats based on size and race of the target mob and make new arts to create different interactions with the plant skills Druid has, mainly Carnivory and Seed Bomb, to make them better
#6

That’s because the damage it deals is nothing compared to the cost of its uptime, which isn’t even 100%.

On that note, one of the bigger reasons why transforming into monsters is such a bad idea is because most monster skills scale entirely off that monster’s attacking stat (100% sfr). This might have been fine when skills generally did less damage, but since 1k%+ scaling has become common, monster skills have become very weak by comparison. The only worthwhile transform these days is the rabbit that gives a good movespeed boost, but it’s only useful outside of combat.

Who would want to appreciate doing less damage 90% of the time?

1 Like
#7

Demi-wolf would just allow you to use skills while keeping all original lycan stat boosts.
They obviously need to upgrade lycanthropy wolf SFRs a bit.

At the current state, the demi-wolf just makes both original lycanthrope and other shapeshiftings worse.

If you get rid of the 100% demi-wolf, transformations will become the replacement because of the stat boosts they would provide via attributes while still allowing to use skills.
with 50% uptime, you could still play full uptime transformed if you wish to (50% as lycanthrope and 50% as another monster), or you could skip either or even both.

Maybe they could create a class art that boosts the plant skills if you don’t learn lycanthropy and transform. Anyway, Druid needs to become more versatile, currently it’s the one-trick pony of demi-wolf and nothing else, which is sad.

#8

Not before a better class simply replaces Druid itself.

1 Like
#9

Why is Druid a good class?
-Chortasmata is a decent healing skill, boosted to incredible levels by its Art
-Sterea Trofh applies a strong critical damage buff for when your burst damage skills go off cooldown
-Both of the above skills benefit the whole party
-Human Form provides an overall improvement to the caster with few drawbacks
-Thorn works decently as both a damaging skill and crowd control, so it’s good to have on most Druid builds
-Druid’s natural stat scaling provides a lot of damage to magic focused builds, but it can be inverted to suit physical focused builds better, letting Druid fit well in almost any build

Would buffing Werewolf and monster transformations negatively affect how good Druid is? No. I wouldn’t mind if even Carnivory were buffed (or at least reverted to how it used to work). A class should have compelling reasons to take every skill it offers. Transform and Werewolf are definitely in need of a buff, but nerfing one of the best parts of a class would nerf the class as a whole.

2 Likes
#10

All top dps cleric use druid…

Nerf it would be nice too…

#11

You got it backwards. They actually nerfed the best part of the class. Both Lycanthropy and Transform were way better than currently, and were replaced with demi-wolf because IMC didn’t bother balancing everything that comes with Transform and Lycanthropy.

Demi-wolf shoulv’e never existed in the first place, it was a bad band aid that was put in place so IMC doesn’t have to balance Lycan skills, monster skills and transformation stats/attributes.
It was the easy way out, and a lazy solution.

Now Demi-wolf is mandatory because of the extra crit rate, the extra permanent damage boost and the free extra recovery.
Those aura-based damage boosts like Crusaders Chant and Demi-wolf are the sources of unbalance and bad game design in the Cleric tree. They force people to build meta, because you simply get free 40% damage or free 30% damage and 50% crit rate boost from a single skill that costs only 5 skill points.

If I remember correctly this is a self-buff only.