Powers Discussion: Nature

The Shapeshifting tree only has one power that causes direct damage upon cast - Roar.
How many Nature Damagers have you seen that use no powers from the Plants tree?
Is it feasible to have a loadout that only contains Shapeshifting tree powers?

Maybe they could add an option with each Form to include a direct damage power that could be added to any loadout:

• Canine: Grants access to Canine Form & Summon Canine (use existing Canine form as pet)
• Insect: Grants access to Insectoid Form & Swarm (existing power from Plants tree)
• Pterosaur: Grants access to Pterosaur Form & Screech (existing Pterosaur power)
• Wolf: Grants access to Primal Wolf Form & Feral Combo (existing Wolf weapon combo)
• Gorilla: Grants access to Gorilla Form & Gorilla Rage (existing Gorilla weapon combo)

This would allow a player to be able to build a loadout using only Shapeshifting tree powers without any Form changes.
Players that like Form changes would still have access to those forms. Players that don't have access to other active powers.

I've always had it as an advantage. If I use blossom and have to be fast and re do spores I can't clip with sg but I can with meta. Well the other nature healer can use sg when I use blossom to keep spores out. If we both use sg or meta the large ticks do not override. The only thing that does is the little hots that no one cares about. I've only ever had an issue when playing with idiots who spam but play in league or maybe good pugs and its a non issue. There will always be a pi. Two sorceries have it harder and electric is mostly single target burst.

I disagree about 2 sorcs having it rougher, but this isn't the place to get into it lol. There is a huge issue when I run with someone with a few hunndred less resto than me and they're using up my blossom. This is my concern. I can try to explain and delegate all I want, but some people don't listen. Two nature work very well, but they have to understand the mechanics. It hurts the group badly when someone doesn't get it. I am very picky about the nature healers I will run with. Sure, I can clip and keep up, but it makes my power in look terrible while they get all the heal numbers by spamming blossom. Healing isn't a competition and people who underhandedly manipulate the board by doing that make me really upset.

Nature is probably the most balanced out of all the power trees so far.
Only things I see that needs drastic change is:

Chaotic Growth 100%. Reduce to 50%, Increase damage. Right now, at its current state, even if it was reduced to 50%, I would not use it with the pitiful damage it does.

Carnivorous Plants: 100% useless. Scrap it altogether, and make a new SC. Maybe add something similar to Sorcery. It summons 8 MOVEABLE plant creatures. Similar to swarmthings. Maybe have what they do change on role. On DPS, they attack. As healer, they help heal/shield, take damage for players isntead ala Earth interaction

Peterosaur and Canine need to be revamped, or removed altogether, they were fun gimmicks in the beginning, but I think its time to update these or remove altogether.

Carnage and Hive Mind could also use an update. They were beastly when everyone's max was like 300-400 precision & 1300might. But now with things 3-4x that much, there use as buffs aren't as useful.

That's kind of my point, I haven't played with blossom spammers in a long time becuase I don't pug that much.

I don't pug either, but I have had a couple times when we have had to get a non-league member in and it has been a problem. Many people who haven't healed as nature don't necessarily get why I'm so touchy about it. One time I basically got told oh look at the scoreboard and they're only CR 90. They solo heal all the time on their main. Made me look terrible and my resto was over 1000 more than that healer's. Yeah, I get that works for soloing, but it's detrimental when running 2 nature.

When I spoke with the devs, it sounded like overrides between players don't happen by design. It's just how the system happened to evolved. They're open to the idea of fixing overrides between players in a manner that all powersets would benefit.

This is one of the best posts I have read in a while! I hope they can develop a fix!

I would just like to see Nature's damage a bit more front-loaded to match some of the other powers. When running with an adequately geared team, mobs typically die before I can finish a dot rotation - maybe get 2 tics of damage at most in some of the content. Agree with whoever mentioned burst damage in PvP too -- whenever you really have to get that troller or healer down, the team dps has to unload. That's easier to do as an electric dps than Nature or Sorc.

I love the healing as it is - the HoT's and big heal are good enough to allow you to pack shields and buffs, which makes for a nice variety in play styles.

I know how you feel before t5 people would say I was a bad healer after the first room of gates, but people really don't need healing there and if the other healer is going to spam power to heal next to nothing I should just save it when I have to. I've even been told, "why aren't you using power. Might as well use it since its there." after that and a few comments I can't say here, I got on the mix and gave them a tongue lashing. Which I ended up solo healing both the second boss and last one.

Don't worry I know exactly how you feel.

Exactly! I'm comfortable with healthbars dropping because I know how to appropriately heal so I get the most out of each heal. I'm not a fan of "topping off". Save the power for the dps. Sometimes I do get a little trigger happy when things get rough, but I prefer to dish damage instead of top people off constantly. Nature is all about the fast clipping for me. All in all I think if changes were made in regards to overwriting, it would make it more clear to those unfamiliar with how nature healing works who needs some more work. As I always tell non-healers, don't look at the healing out, look at the ratio of healing out to power in and damage in to death count.

Yea, if they do remove override for all powers that would be nice, but two years too late. If I remember correctly they did have that originally but changed it after people were doing the bat caves with 5 sorcery characters. As for topping off, I only do it If I clip a weapon combo with meta, or feel like throwing an add in the air with sg. Because lets face it, there's almost no power cost for sg.

I know I'm in the minority, but I'm a fan of Cross Pol. It reminds me of Galv which I miss so much. I just wish it hit more targets. I don't like SG, but as you said, it's quick a cheap.

Having have made 3 level 30's, all Nature, all Plants oriented, I can only talk about the Plants Tree.
First thing: Swarm should not be in the Plant side. Most plants don't like bugs first off, and it doesn't seem to fit with the plant motif.
Second: I feel that Carnivorous Plants is great for Iconic NPCs. Not actual players. I feel like something else could be placed there instead.
Third: Chaotic Growth doesn't scream 100% Supercharge worthy to me. I feel maybe 50% is good, but not 100%.

I used cross poll when everyone melee'd in T4 and when T5 ops first came out. I then switched to electric to have some fun but I feel slower to heal groups as a solo healer. Its annoying. But yea cross poll and galv are the same. I also was having fun using harvest for almost a year.

Swarm Shield does what it needs to do SHIELDS ppl. If you heal T5 raids you see how good it is.
As for metab. I hit 2k+ crits with those baby heals as you want to refer to it, so yet again why are you trying to take out a good power.
For most of nexus I can keep up an entire raid with just metab and SG. Spamming Blossom is wasting power, and the more power you waste the less you have if you really need it.
Keep metab and dont mess with Swarm shield. That will hurt nature healing a ton.

Couple of disclaimers first:
1) I honestly didn't read very far into this thread. I'm sure the advice, ideas, and fixes suggested are all great, but I just don't want to play catch-up for the first 8-9 pages
2) I haven't played this game in roughly 4 months, so some of my suggestions could already be implemented, or be confirmed to not happen, I'll take those hits as we go I suppose.
3) I was purely a DPS Nature Player, so I will try to avoid any suggestions to improve Healing, since I have almost no experience with it.

Now for my ideas!

General Nature Input

1- Nature is extremely dependent on the Plants tree. The Shapeshifting tree provides little actual attacks and acts solely as a "support" style tree with the shapeshifting forms and buffs such as Carnage and Hive Mind. What I would like to see is a change to the Shapeshifting tree that expands on the idea of changing forms to make each one versatile for every role, and give players a reason to change between the forms. One idea for this is to make the shapeshifting forms interchangeable like the HL powers chain together with clicks. Perhaps lunge in as a wolf, but then do a different click to swap to the Insectoid form and unleash the AoE ground slam of vines(the animation similar to Savage Growth), followed up with another switch to Pterosaur form to unleash a roar across your frontal cone. This concept would drastically improve the "flashy-ness" of Nature, but would give the Shapeshifting tree more of a reason to be used other than point drains to get to Carnage and Hive Mind. Understandably though, this would take a considerable amount of time and resources to change in Nature, so I could see it being a little over-the-top.

2- I am very fond of the DoT style fighting Nature comes equipped with. I like the method of stacking the DoTs and spreading them with different attacks, as it provides a lot of options for the different kinds of fights that exist in the game. I would opt to keep this mechanic within the heart of Nature's fighting style, and possibly tie it into the combo mechanic mentioned above. Although upfront damage is lacking in Nature compared to other classes, I feel that the DoTs certainly make up for that long term.

Plants Tree

All in all, this tree is pretty sound from a DPS perspective. I really like the multiple DoTs included in the tree, and attacks like Harvest open up decent burst damage when mixed with weapon combos.

Swarm is a big concern. Since release I have never seen it as a useful attack(although 90% of when I played the attack was completely broken anyway). I've heard that now it is a little better and almost acts as a 4th dot. However it still seems faulty, and may just need to be replaced with a new power altogether(I'll let others decide how best to approach that).

The Supercharge powers in this tree are another concern. Carnivorous Plants rarely ever encases targets in PVP, and in PVE the encasements can hinder group damage by soaking hits. The other one does decent damage, but at 100% supercharge, it seems "weaker" when other power sets have 50% supercharges with similar damage. It would be nice to see one of these powers replaced with another defensive option for Supercharges.

Shapeshifting Tree

This tree deeply bothers me, but most of my concerns were addressed earlier. I would really just like to see a reason to use Shapeshifting in DPS outside of the Crit Bonus granted in Wolf Form. When I played, the Shapeshifting tree was used solely for getting Hive Mind/Carnage, and I never touched the different forms. From my experience, it tended to be better DPS than other Nature players who used Wolf Form. I would like to see them put on a more even playing field and let Wolf have similar utility in its attacks to the other weapons that exist in the game.

Forms like Pterosaur and Dog Form are practically useless outside of their cheesy power regen that only really becomes an irritation to enemies in PVP matches than actually effective in the fight. It would be nice to see some more in-battle usefulness out of these forms.

Understandably Insectoid Form is used for the Healing Role, but it could be an interesting idea to give it more Ranged weapon combos and allow it to be used more in the DPS Role. That way you have Wolf Form as a Melee option, and Insectoid Form as a Ranged Option? Just spit-balling there.

In the end, a lot of this could already have been covered earlier in the thread, but I just wanted to put in my two cents since Nature was the heart-and-soul of my time playing here. I'm excited to see what the Devs put in place when the Revamp is ready, so I'll be watching!

Whatever you do with nature, please make these brand new nature healers quit spamming blossom as it's a strain for the entire group.

Someone else posted an idea I had last night to make wolf form better. Giving Wolf (and Bug or Gorilla) form a power or two that were INNATE to that form, much like how stealthers get to sleep and crit attack from stealth. I would suggest that those powers would be optional (i.e. removable) from the loadout, but def should be useful.

Totally agree owl. I always thought is was weird that I can't make a viable DPS loadout using just the Shapechanging tree. A good argument for why canine and Ptero forms should go away IMO. Give us two attacks based on animals-A CONE crow/eagle attack that sends dozens of birds from your arms in a cone in front of you (slightly better range than Roar), a cone or AoE dog attack (call it Pack mentality) sending a wave of 3-6 dogs to attack a target or targets; and rework ROAR so its more useful than Freeze Breath in the Iconics.