Diablo 4 - Druid Season 5 PTR Patch Notes Breakdown! Is This Enough?

[@tasandmnm69]

Good breakdown. I am new here so I am unfamiliar with your content but I subscribed because I have been looking for good Druid content (besides Ace of course) and would like to ask you something/make a suggestion. Macrobioboi just did an amazing video on the Necro changes using tables and doing all the math behind the Necro changes (they got hit pretty hard on some things). I dont know how in depth you get with numbers but it was a very compelling video and I would absolutely become a member to see a video like that on the Druid changes!

[@NikoWrex]

I appreciate your support! I don’t really have the time to make content like that. I’m a family man. Maybe if my channel takes off I’ll be able to devote more time to making more complex content.

[@tasandmnm69]

@@NikoWrex I totally get it, it's still really cool that you take the time to go over the changes and reply to comments.

[@d4mephisto]

thanks for your comments on Druids. always tune in to see your takes and see what you've been cookin'. hoping for more iteration on the Druid class as a result of PTR testing and feedback. it's not hopeless yet! :D

[@NikoWrex]

Not by a long shot. We can get the class in a good place and create a competitive meta.

[@allday6772]

Just sad to see druid and sorcs in such a bad state

[@grabhermelons1320]

#DruidOverhaul. if only Blizzard is listening. this is the changes I want. remove Rabies and replaced it with Lacerate as a new Werewolf Wrath skill. attacks every enemy on the area for 10 sec. and poison them. instead of 10 attacks. so the attack numbers depends on attack speed. since Lacerate is removed as Ulti. Grizzy Rage can now be switch to Feral rage anytime. for werewolf skill as the player preffer. and will have the effect of Dire Wolf aspect. dire wolf aspect is now removed. and both can use companion,storm and Earth skills with no restrictions. Heightened Malice paragon now also adds damage when you poison a Boss. still so many changes I would like not only for Druid. and will take the whole comment page if I will mention in all.

[@NikoWrex]

Just be vocal during the PTR. Whatever you feel post it in the PTR forum.

[@Langaslangas]

Make Rabies as a passive skill

[@PostprandialTorpor]

They need to rework The Basilisk to include chance to cast landslide twice and the legendary ability needs to proc more than once per enemy - maybe a percentage or once every 15 seconds per elite or boss . Landslide / creeper trample slide deserves a season as A/S-tier with viable bossing

[@NikoWrex]

I wish they would include “on boss” mechanics for every thing. So many skill/affixes/Nodes/Aspects are just not used because they don’t affect bosses.

[@PostprandialTorpor]

@@NikoWrex agreed. Earth being cc hamstrung for damage modifiers really limits them to AoE. Need boss conditional lines like petrify has

[@kennyhouser3467]

Druid Players: "Hey, I think it would help a lot if you uncapped Earthen Devastation like Thunderstruck. The only semi-viable Druid builds are Storm based because of this." Dev: "Hmmm... Interesting point." Also Devs: Caps Thunderstruck at 40 and buffs Barbs. These Devs never fail to disappoint 😂.

[@NikoWrex]

Yeah… the cap on Druid and I believe Necro really hurts the classes in this meta. Hopefully they’ll balance everything better for S5. If things were balanced I’d be fine with caps. Let’s get into that PTR and test everything. Give them to choice but to admit they’re ignoring us.

[@AllThingsFascinate]

​@@NikoWrex Don't worry - they also nerfed sorc ice defense. In case they were playing honestly instead of with infinite flame shield. The team is basically just saying "play barb or fuck you"

[@NikoWrex]

Same with Necro too.

[@alejandrolazo3213]

At a glance it looks like shepherds and uncapped thunderstruck are gone. Our 2 biggest dmg multipliers.. and they mini buffed skills so Druid looks even weaker than in season 4 unless I’m missing something ?? I’m mainly talking about high tier pit push capacity

[@NikoWrex]

With the loss of both Shepherds and Thunderstruck it does look like a noticeable power loss. However, this is a PTR and we need to test everything possible and let them know if it’s underperforming in the new meta. Hopefully they’ll listen and if necessary buff the damage more.

[@daveysquier]

my thought exactly, and they nerfed our only good defensive skill. we are dead in the water. this is a joke. Theres no way they change any of this thru PTR. this just shows they have no idea what they are doing with druid. gg

[@NikoWrex]

I don’t agree with the Debilitating Roar nerf. However, Earthen Bulwark is significantly better and we have tons of DR buffs in multiple passives.

[@blrrich1051]

More survivability buffs for druid is meaningless, when the biggest thing the character needed was damage. it's also frustrating when the druid used to have 5-8 viable builds, but was nerfed down to tornado. Nerfing thunderstruck ends that build and now they left us with landslide. Is it too much to ask that every build the druid has, including shred, pulverize, tornado, bulwark, boulder, ect. do at least 80% of barbarians damage? I would rather have 8 builds be genuinely useable, than 1 build for druid do billions of damage.

[@PostprandialTorpor]

Looking at the implicit weapon affix simplification and weapon type per class increase - kinda feel like Druid got a raw deal. We get crit damage on swords which is good but besides rogue, we are the only class with two weapons with same affix - DoT damage (staff/Axe) - which usually sucks because poison still sucks. Rogue has two weapons that give crit damage. Guess we will be leaning on swords and pole arms for most non dot and non overpower builds. Sucks axe no longer has damage to healthy- would really make basilisk staff, rakanoth boots and landslide hit like a truck with s5 changes. Druid changed always feels like the bicyclist with stick meme- we improve one thing while screwing something else up royally. So all other staffs will be DoT but basilisk will remain Cc damage ? 🤔 curious if they f’ed up that affix table they presented

[@NikoWrex]

Axe should have been changed to Damage while Healthy and not DoT damage. Staff should have been left alone. At least we also use daggers for Damage to Close.

[@PostprandialTorpor]

@@NikoWrexoh we get daggers too? Thought it was just polearms and 1h swords

[@PostprandialTorpor]

@@NikoWrexmost hilarious implicit aspect to give axe would be chance to knock down…tim-ber, bitched!😂

[@tasandmnm69]

Very weird, this is my first season playing Druid and all I've got for drops are 2h axes/maces/staffs and 1h axes/maces....I had no clue we could use swords. And I'm in the pit 110s.

[@NikoWrex]

Season 5 PTR. We can’t use Swords just yet.

[@Siphr0dias]

Always great, to hear your thoughts on changes. Thanks for the ultraquick reaction! 😊❤ *Werebearroar*

[@NikoWrex]

Absolutely! Werebear/Earth skills are looking pretty good. Werebear Landslide might be top tier.

[@Zombgetsu]

All i see is massive nerfs to druid here... idk where yall see buffs? To shitty abilities? That will be even worse? Whoa soo cool they did a thing!

[@NikoWrex]

There are legitimate buffs to the survivability of the class. Landslide looks way better. However, it does look like a pretty hard hit to our damage. Thankfully it’s a PTR and we can test everything and provide feedback if it isn’t up to par.

[@Zombgetsu]

​@NikoWrex at this point I'd say just rework the class totally. They've gutted the core of the class already... now pummeling it further? kicking a dog while it's down - pun intended

[@cityboy908]

After the PTR , they might nerf it even more from 40 cap to 25

[@Zombgetsu]

@cityboy908 yea like we didn't notice they gave sorc infinite scaling and invulnerable like we had... wtf blizz do better... it's absolutely special Olympics lvl dev goin on.

[@NfinitGr8tness]

Damage was what we needed the most and what we lost the most of. If you want to scale damage for a hurricane build and not use the clunky doleman how do you do that now? The problem with druid wasn't simply that it was having too many buttons taken up by useless companions but moreover that we were FORCED to use shepherds BECAUSE most of our damage is USELESS! No matter what you can't overcome the fact that more damage slots in other classes means more damage. Most of which scale better than druids who have to use an absurd amount slots just to synergize a build BEFORE getting into scaling damage. They simply capped multiplicative, gave additve freed up more buttons to press that will do menial damage that you will never have the slots to scale even if now,...you do have more free buttons tooo,...?

[@apeckx5090]

Blizzard confirms druid hate once again. Season 5 is looking to be even worse for druid players than season 4. No way we're keeping up with the other classes in any way or form with these changes

[@NikoWrex]

Just remember this is a PTR. Let them know exactly what YOU think should be changed to make the class better.

[@eabrannan1]

They were very vague about the buffs as an offset to the shepherd performance. They could ve very good

[@NikoWrex]

@@eabrannan1 I wish we had more info about the Unique changes. Could be a big part of it too.

[@apeckx5090]

They should have changed shepherd to "gain 8%x damage for each active companion" This way it's not giving way too much of a buff that you need to use it, and all of your skills would benefit from it including companions. It would slightly nerf the duo of stampede + shepherd so you could swap out stampede for a different 30%x aspect to gain a bit more damage, or keep stampede if you're running a companion focused build. My big problem with the nerf is that the companion skills don't have anything good to replace them. If I already have my basic skill, main damage, and stun breaker, then there are no other skills worth taking over the utilities that companion skills provide (minus wolves). I agree that shepherd was totally mandatory for any serious druid build before, but what they did to it just totally train wrecked the class. Maybe they should have a team working on druid who actually likes the class because it seems like they just let the Barb team come up with changes for the druid at this point

[@NikoWrex]

That’s the problem. The fact that we don’t have better skills to fill our bar is ridiculous. Also, needing a 180x multiplier and still being the lowest dps class is pretty awful. They need to fix the fundamental issues with the class and one of those is incredibly underwhelming base skills.

[@KidlatWheeler]

I checked your channel 15 mins ago to see if you made a ptr vid. I like that they got rid of shepherds and thunderstruck.

[@NikoWrex]

Me too. I’m just a little worried, with the current meta, if it’s too much at once. I’ll definitely be giving them my feedback.

[@PostprandialTorpor]

They needed to buff earthen deviatation while capping thunderstruck, overall it’s a net loss of power

[@daveysquier]

and the innate benefits from two handed staff and axe are now both DOT damage?? tf?? so we get no innate benefit on a two hander for things like lightning or tornado because mace overpower doesn’t help either. am i correct?

[@NikoWrex]

You’re not incorrect about the Axe and Staff changes. Not sure why they did that to the Staff. However, we can now use Polearms which get Vulnerable damage and is way better than losing staff and axe.

[@PostprandialTorpor]

@@NikoWrexyou aren’t wrong as well but only negative I’ll say is with the rise of polearm 2H supremacy, we will miss out on the sweet axe transmogs

[@NikoWrex]

@@PostprandialTorpor We need to be able to transmog any similar weapon types with like attack animations like in D3. Free the transmog!

[@tasandmnm69]

Wow the implicit changes really show what their true feelings are about the classes. Druids are not a DoT class yet most of our 2h weapons will have DoT implicit what a joke.

[@ciprian.a3]

It makes sense for thunderstruck node to be capped. Earth skills like landslide are capped and because of it the only usage right now for landslide is to trigger storm skills, which kind of sucks.. I was hoping to see a rework for bestial rampage, the most useless key passive right now. It would've been cool to trigger it every 5 shapeshift to bear/wolf instead of being for 2 seconds in 1 form.

[@kennyhouser3467]

Useless? No, it is part of many top tier Druid builds and is great in concept. Annoying? Absolutely! It shouldn't even have a set number of shifts as a conditional. It should just be, if you shift, BOOM! You get the buff for XX amount of time.

[@tomtomkowski7653]

Yeah, Blizzard... let's buff Barb where Flay is doing 1.500.000.000 bleeding dmg per second and can Rupture for 150.000.000.000 and let's nerf Necro and Druid - Hahahahahaha 9 (4 ravens, 2 creepers, 3 wolves) companions (with +1 companion) even on amulet (+20x% per companion) = 180x% damage and they just removed it - Hahahahahaha But they will buff skills by 2x% to compensate - Hahahahahaha This is Barblo iV and not Diablo IV. To make Druid work they should have: 1. Add 2x 1H weapons (if so tiny Rogue can handle them then such a big boy as Druid can wear them too) - this means 2 more gems, 2 more offensive stats, and 2 more offensive aspects 2. Reduce spirit cost of Core skills by 30% so Pulverize from 35 to 25, Tornado from 40 to 30, etc 3. Remove some useless stats from Uniques (Insatiable Fury, Wildheart Hunger) and add Spirit per second because regular Chest and Boots can have it. 4. Add native spirit generation like Sorc has mana generation by default 5. Enhanced Pulverize should make Pulverize Overpowers every single time. Too OP? Pulverize can hit for 400mln while Barb's Flay bleeds for 1.5 billion per second! 6. Remove "up to" from Legendary Nodes like Earthen Devastation so Druid would have some "infinite" scaling as Barb has After all these changes Druid still would be way worse than Barbarian but at least from some D-tier, it would become a solid A-tier and 130+ PIT pusher.

[@NikoWrex]

1. We should just have a dedicated 2h slot . 2. 30% would be too much. Maybe 10-15% 3. Unique overhaul is going to happen. A lot of them need way better affixes. 4. ABSOLUTELY HARD AGREE! 5. If they don’t do anything about Barb then nothing is off the table 😂. 6. Again, if Barb isn’t nerfed then all classes should be buffed to Barb level.

[@Zombgetsu]

​@@NikoWrexbruh... your missing the key point here.... Sorc has EVERYTHING DRUID HAD. WHAT THE PHUGG. And sorcs clearing 170s.... if we had OLD druid back we'd be at 200 by now be honest brody. It's barb nation and we fkin get it. 😂 no 👎 they just hate druid cus hes a lil over weight.

[@WesleyRodrigues-cx4zd]

Hello Niko. What about boulder with hurricane?

[@NikoWrex]

It looks like they completely forgot to buff boulder damage so it’s not looking good from these patch notes. However, I believe it was probably an oversight that will be corrected. Hopefully Boulder will get the same love as Landslide in S5.

[@Killswitch1986]

Make poison creeper like Diablo2 with the cool down immobilization and make them a bit more aggressive .. ravens more skills into it the more ravens u have to a max of 12 on lucky hit they blind hard casting makes then swarm giving them 100% attack speed for 5 seconds some shit like that.. hurricane needs to have slow on it inherently and the radius needs to me 3x what it is .. and fix the boons ffs

[@Joker-uw2ul]

My man my SHRED IS FINALLY GETTING BUFFEEEEEDDD LETTTSS GOOOOO 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@NikoWrex]

Shred and Lupine look really good together. We’ll see how much the buff Gibbous. I would love to see Shred top tier with no bugs!

[@ValentinGomezSP]

No, sorry. Still bad, still a mouvement skill

[@Zombgetsu]

​@@ValentinGomezSPstill a tickle monster 😂

[@Joker-uw2ul]

@@NikoWrex I would love gibbous buffed I stopped using it because two handlers just do more damage 🤷🏻‍♂️ it’s just not enough to sustain good damage so I’m hoping they buff gibbous and lupine looks really good hopefully things work out like I hope

[@Joker-uw2ul]

@@ValentinGomezSP shred can be pretty good honestly if they do it justice it was a huge beast mode skill back in the time so let’s hope it’s at least somewhat close to it or at least good damage maybe not overly drastic but at least drastic enough it’s viable

[@andresantana5112]

Noo. Pls help us! My Wind Shear build dies with the thunderstruck capped.

[@NikoWrex]

It doesn’t look good for Wind Shear but we’ll see how everything turns out after the PTR and everyone gives the Devs feedback

[@brianmarotta937]

It’s the same for Stormclaw. Massive loss of damage, and no buffs mentioned. Cronestaff bugs still not acknowledged either.

[@tasandmnm69]

I am kind of glad Wind Shear won't be top dog any more, I loathe basic skills beating out what are supposed to be your real damage spells plus Wind Turd is the ugliest spell in the game.

[@brianmarotta937]

I can not speak for wind shear, as far as I knew it was only scaling due to a bug. Stormclaw on the other hand is completely built around basic skill. Thunderstruck allowed it to push tier 100 to 115. The Greatstaff of the crone has been bugged for a long time, the storm strike casts do not scale properly and do not benefit from almost all multiplication damage. Thunderstruck made up a little for crone not working properly, now it will be a meme build without attention.

[@NikoWrex]

@@brianmarotta937 They are buffing uniques so let's hope Crone gets a big bump.

[@user-wo9jj6ii6t]

Im totally confused by the wording of the Grizzly rage nerf: "Shapeshift into a dire wearbear for 10 seconds" ...ok cool.... "kill extend duration by 1 second" ...ok cool... and then "duration cannot go above 10 seconds?" WTF? why not just say become dire wearbear for 10 seconds and leave it at that ?

[@NikoWrex]

Because they can’t help themselves. The skill needs a buff back to what it was on release. Not this nonsense.

[@jasonlucia6682]

Man i couldn't disagree more about uncapped scaling. It feels like a knee jerk worried reaction. Your gear is capped, so the node is capped. Just balance it imo. Now it's just another boring stat to cap like armor or res.

[@NikoWrex]

I definitely think the Legendary Nodes need to be far more transformative. Capped or uncapped, it’s very uninspiring.

[@jasonlucia6682]

@@NikoWrex yeah completely agree. There isn't much build flavor as is, this feels bad.

[@tasandmnm69]

Always being able to chase more damage to close/distant felt like I could keep making at least minimal improvements to builds even when I had mostly best in slot gear. Like you said now it's just another boring thing to easily cap and forget about.

[@Killswitch1986]

Grizzly rage lucky hits apply bleed and add 2 seconds to the duration not exceeding 20 seconds boom

[@daveysquier]

niko? your happy about this? what? i dont wanna get ahead of myself but this is horrible. Blizzard: we removed sheperds the only way you could increase your damage then buffed them to slightly less than what they could have been with it and oh by the way we nerfed the only good legendary node, thunderstruck. we heard you guys complaining about having to use those things so we totally f'd them up and left you with nothing, thanks."

[@NikoWrex]

I’m definitely happy about Shepherds. It wasn’t good for the class. I didn’t expect Thunderstruck to be hit in this meta but, overall, it puts the class in a good place for proper balancing. I’m definitely going to be testing as much as I can on the PTR. If the damage increases aren’t good enough then I be posting about it. Currently, it does look underwhelming. All the more reason to be as vocal as possible during the PTR.

[@daveysquier]

@@NikoWrex bro you realize we are just going to have to use things like edgemasters and retaliation instead? and what skills are you even going to use besides the companions anyway? have 2 core skills you need tibaults and starless to run 1 of ? a wrath skills that didn’t get buffed? this class is so dead.

[@NikoWrex]

Shepherds was just covering up a lot of fundamental issues with the class. We just have to use the PTR and ask for what is necessary to bring our class up. I’m definitely going to be doing what I can to get our class in a good place.

[@Zombgetsu]

Class is ass

[@allday6772]

Facts druid and sorcs got the shaft yet again

[@pennyspage668]

Good morning Niko

[@NikoWrex]

Goodnight 😂

[@TheButcherGorr]

How’s my shred looking? I’m having doubts before watching… sigh

[@NikoWrex]

It’s definitely in a better place with these changes. I think there’s a legit combo Shred and Lupine Ferocity that might work really well. Now we just need to test everything on the PTR and ask for buffs if we’re not up to par with the other classes.

[@nuke_looter5174]

I’m not exactly sure how companion damage is better than core and wrath skill damage? You’re getting 2 buffs in one aspect.

[@NikoWrex]

It’s not that it’s better. Shepherds made every build incredibly bland. Plus, it was covering up the problem that basically all Druid skills are weak and need massive buffs. Now the Devs can properly buff the class and we can make more creative builds.

[@mercuryroberts3252]

Oh oh barrier builds are back tuned in.

[@NikoWrex]

Yes sir and barrier gen is super easy to get with tempering

[@mercuryroberts3252]

@@NikoWrex yes it is. Oh I responded back. Check it out. Beating Ubers now. Tier 103 beat

[@NikoWrex]

Nice!

[@bigdogang]

Druid don’t need balance if needs reworks an buffs an the barb need to get none they me boosting them an they hit billions like nothing smh

[@NikoWrex]

How they are so conservative with every class and Barb gets everything and the kitchen sink is very puzzling.

[@AllThingsFascinate]

​@@NikoWrexIt's interesting that they truly can look at barbs hitting, literally, hundreds of times the damage of other classes, hitting nearly 500k (!) hp, and only think to nerf other classes defensives (sorc), damage (druid), and in general, fun things (like perma dire bear). In general, nerfing things that no one uses like. . .why?

[@yixuanwang3774]

Finally Shepherd hijack is gone!!!!!!!

[@NikoWrex]

Now we just have to make sure they buff our skills properly so we can be competitive in the new meta.

[@bigdogang]

It’s never enough fr

[@bigdogang]

Druid big nerfed lol

[@NikoWrex]

Play the PTR. Post ALL of your concerns. We need to be as vocal as possible.

[@bigdogang]

@@NikoWrex it’s up to yall fr I’m on Xbox and don’t have a pc this is literally up to every Druid player that cares

[@Zombgetsu]

Same bud I'm on xbox aswell. Druid needs a massive rework the core of the class has been totally gutted now hes just a whimpering puppy.

[@trayrob57]

Hi niko

[@NikoWrex]

Hello!

[@Andre-mw8hf]

It allows you to loose 180 % multiplicativ Dmg and you feel it xD do you realy think they will give you something equal ? xD Crit / Vun DMG are total useless because you would loose close/distant 4 it and thats again Multiplicativ on every storm skill . Have you ever played a Druid in D4 ? E.g you got 34 % more Dmg on Lighting Storm, how should that fix 180 % Multi from Shepards? Thunderstuck also killed? Omg thats it for any Storm Variant so let`s all Play Barb again at S5

[@NikoWrex]

I’ve stated multiple times it’s not looking like enough of a buff. I didn’t expect them to cap every legendary node with all the classes but now we can actually get some meaningful buffs for the class. It’s a PTR so test everything out and post your concerns in the forums. We can definitely see more buffs in the official patch notes of S5.