Druid Concept Class (hopefully a better one)

This druid's a little bit different from some of the others.

Background
Druids are the masters of nature, servants of the woods, and speakers of the plants. They achieved the Titles of "Poison User" and "Natural Stalker"

Basic Stats
Max Health - 480
Max Energy - 35
Max Armor- 65 (+15 while under the effects of an enchantment, +5 energy while above 25% health)

Favored Weapon- Wand/Staff
Specialized Focus- Grass Totem (+12 energy requires 12 nature magic, +20 health)

New Stuff
Plant Spell-
a type of magic that has an inherit visual effect of vines or plants. Can also include certain animals. These spells work at half power while targeting a creature under the effects of a fire spell or on fire. Some plant spells cannot end until the target does a certain thing and therefore become very powerful.

Growth Duration-
a spell that has Growth duration takes a short period of time to flower and bud before inflicting damage on a foe. Some buds will grow Directly into the Skin, so the foe cannot escape, some will Grow into the Ground which will make it so that the foe can evade if he moves quickly enough. (specified by Skin, or Ground)

Attributes
Nature Magic- (primary attribute)
For every point in this attribute, your plant spells and druid skills recharge 3% faster. With 5 points you get 1 energy when a plant spell is cast in your area.
Plant Empathy-
Includes many plant spells and powerful long term damage skills.
Venomous Insight-
Includes many spells and plant spells that inflict poison. Most are secretive or cunning.
Natural Defenses-
Includes many enchantments and spells that protect the Druid from harm. All are plant based.

Sample Skills
Nature Magic
Natural Mind- 5 energy 1 cast 20 recharge
(Enchantment) for 5...40 seconds. Whenever you cast a plant spell, you gain 1...2 energy and 5...20 health. Whenever you suffer fire damage, you take 110...95% as much.

Plant Empathy
Dancing Magnolia Vines- 15 energy 1/2 cast 8 recharge Growth Duration- 4 seconds Ground
(Plant Spell) 1...4 vines sprout and inflict 5...20 blunt damage each to target foe.

Rose Dance- 5 energy 1 cast 12 recharge Growth Duration- 1 seconds Skin
[Elite Plant Spell] 1...30 rose petals swarm around target foe. Each petal inflicts 1...4 slashing damage. (max 120 damage).

Vine Wrap- 10 energy 1 cast 12 recharge Growth Duration- 2 seconds Skin
(Plant Hex) for 2...3 seconds,target is knocked down and cannot move. All damage target foe suffers while under the effects of this hex is increased by 110...125%. This hex ends if that foe is struck for fire damage or set on fire.

Parasitic Vine- 5 energy 1/2 cast 24 recharge Growth Duration- 2 seconds Ground
(Plant Hex) for 5...20 seconds, target foe moves 40% slower and suffers -1...4 health degeneration. If you are not under the effects of an enchantment, you gain +1...4 health regeneration. If that foe moves more then 10 ft away from his original position, this Hex ends.

White Fang- 10 energy 1/4 cast 12 recharge
(Spell) two fangs strike target foe on either side. These fangs can be dodged or blocked. The first fang strikes for 5...20 damage and inflicts bleeding for 5...15 seconds. The second fang strikes for 5...20 damage and inflicts weakening for 5...15 seconds.

Spiked Vine- 5 energy 1 cast 20 recharge Growth Duration- 1/8 second Ground
(Spell) a vine appears out of the ground and strikes target foe for 5...14 piercing damage. 3 seconds later target foe is struck with poison for 5...15 seconds. If the foe does not move or cast a spell, this vine continues to grow and refresh.

Venomous Insight
Poison Needles- 5 energy 1/2 cast 12 recharge
(Spell) send out 5...15 needles at target foe. These needles spread out and hit all foes adjacent to target foe for 1 piercing damage. All foes struck by the needles also suffer poison for 1...5 seconds for each needle that hit them (maximum 20 seconds of poison).

Venomous Rain- 25 energy 2 cast 30 recharge
(Spell) create a Venomous Rain a target foe's location. All foes within the area of Venomous Rain are struck with poison for 5...15 seconds, every second for 10 seconds. Any foes already poisoned inside venomous rain are struck for 5...20 damage.

Shaded Infection- 5 energy 1/2 cast 12 recharge Growth Duration 1/4 second Skin
(Spell) create a vine in target foe's back. 2 seconds after growth, that vine strikes for 5...20 damage and inflicts poison on target foe for 5...15 seconds.

Venom Needle Storm-10 energy 1 cast 20 recarge
(Spell) send out 5...40 needles at target foe. These needles can be dodged or blocked but cannot miss by stray. Each needle inflicts 1...2 damage and poison for 1/2 a second (cumulative).

Shaded Venom- 5 energy 1/8 cast 12 recharge
[Elite Spell] target foe is struck for 4 damage. That foe also suffers from an incurable poison for 5...10 seconds which inflicts the maximum poison degeneration.

Toxic Flower- 10 energy 1 cast 24 recharge Growth Duration- 2 seconds Ground
(Plant Spell) create a flower behind target foe, this flower sprays out 5...20 drops of poison at target foe each one striking for 1...2 damage.

Cartiac Toxin- 5 energy 1/2 cast 12 recharge
(Spell) inflict target with poison for 4 seconds. When this poison ends that foe is knocked down for 1...3 seconds.

Natural Defenses
Pin Needle Armor- 5 energy 1 cast 8 recharge
(Enchantment) for 5 seconds you are enchanted with pin needle armor. All melee attacks on you inflict 5...20 damage to your attacker.

Treant Skin- 25 energy 1 cast 20 recharge
(Enchantment) for 15 seconds all your plant spells are disabled. For each disabled plant spell you gain 5...40 maximum health and 5...10 armor for 15 seconds.

Shielding Vines- 5 energy 1/2 cast 12 recharge Growth Duration- 1 second Your Skin
[Elite Plant Spell] for 5...20 seconds, create 1...3 vines around your body. Each time you would take damage, one of the vines dies instead.

Nature's Gift- 10 energy 1/4 cast 10 recharge
(Spell) remove all druid enchantments and plant spells from you. For each one removed, gain 1...3 energy and 5...20 health (maximum 120 health and 35 energy)

Nature's Barrier- 5 energy 1 cast 20 recharge
(Skill) all foes within the area cannot attack you for 5 seconds. When this skill ends, all in the area are knocked down for 1...3 seconds.

This is kind of the elementalist's competitor?
They have an inherent weakness when teaming or multi classing with a fire elementalist, and is a single target spiker through and through.
They will have the hardest time getting into a team, not being able to multi target to be useful in PvE, and in PvP being a version of a Blood Magic spiker that needs to be healed.

On the other hand; it is feasible this time, spikers work, but are not very original.
Also the overpoweredness is not as much of a dominating feature as usually in your classes.



It deals lots of untyped (armor-ignoring) damage, But uses spikes and vines to do so.
Would you consider to change that all, to piercing damage for spikes and have vines hit a foe with blunt damage?
Making this the first physical damage spell caster.



1: If you are shadow stepping back, why bother to shadowstep!!! it doesn't change anything about the skill, it will only cause lagg.(And cause you to drop the flag)
2: Why are you shadow stepping at all? You are a druid, a patron and protector of all things natural, sworn enemy of all unatural life.
The dissipation into and materialization from shadows is not very natural.



Plant spells are spells with weakness if an ally is using fire magic or burning
(ele's and paragons)
Other than that they are just normal spells, does that really justify a new skill type?



If you are growing vines around yourself, aren't those vines attached to the ground? So if you move you have to pull your self free.



^ That is by the way another place for innovation, as well as a chance to steal another job from elementalists, Ice this time.
You probably already got that:
Vines can slow people, by binding them to a spot.
Vines are plants.
Plants grow.

So what if you cast a spell that grows a vine that doesn't have any effect(yet), it only 'grows' (expires seconds of its effect).
When the creature(in Shielding Vines' case yourself) wants to move, the creature has to pull it's self free from it's leafy prison.
If the creature moves the vine stops growing, for each X second(s) a vine was growing, that creature moves X% slower, for 1 second.

Do not make the foe completely immobile, vines are flexible and stretchy; they do not turn the foe to stone.
Maybe there could be an elite that needs to hit a knock downed foe, and bind them to the ground for 3-6 seconds. That is about as immobile as it should get.



That can be expanded to enrich the effects of other skills as well.
We have a skill that grows a vine, it the target moves, the vine slows the target until broken; How quickly the vine breaks depends on how strong it was allowed to grow.
But this vine also has an additional effect. What if that affect didn't apply from the beginning?
What if the vine takes 4 seconds to grow before it flowers?
This flowering reapplies the effect every second, until the foe has broken the vines.
The above skills flowering would cause 1...4 health degen to the foe and 1...4 health regeneration to you.

This is what I suggest you change plant spells into:
Don't make plant hexes and plant enchantments just 1 obvious type plant spell.
A plant spell is different, because:

• It has a growth duration, and how many seconds of real duration it gains from X seconds of growth duration.
• Some plant spells flower after X seconds of growth duration, from when it starts flowering until it's real duration ends; A flowering plant spell applies a 1 second duration effect every second.
• When a plant spell stops growing it start's it's real duration.
• A plant spell may stop growing on any conditional:
  • All spells stop growing when their growing duration runs out.
  • All plant spells stop growing when the affected creature starts burning.
  • All plant spells stop growing when the affected creature moves out of adjacent range of the plant's roots.
  • Some plant spells stop growing when they start flowering.
  • Some plant spells stop growing when the affected creature, attacks/uses a spell or skill/or is the target of something or another.
• If the affected creature takes fire damage, the duration of growing plant spells on it is reduced by 20%, and plant spells in their real duration are reduced by 30%(maybe the foe should burn for however many seconds worth of duration that was)
• When a foe takes slashing damage the duration of any plant spells in their real duration is reduced by 30%

All the non duration plant spells you have, would of course become normal spells, because that is what they are.

^ rember that is just a suggestion, if you completely ignore me because you think of something better, I can't complain.



While poison in essence is a nice way of dealing additional damage and the way you are inflicting it isn't bad either; you rely on it like a ele relies on burning.
The problem with that is that poison doesn't affect non-fleshy creatures. So against 25-35% of the foes(45% high end) you have an entire attribute that is useless, which can't be good.

You know... not counting the pictures this post is longer than the OP, good thing my boss doesn't know I do this while I should be programming.

Just for the record on this one, you're growing the vines out of your own body, thus improving the image of the natural protector. The rest I'll fix up (But I'm keeping the plant spell skill type, these were just samples and I'm sure ArenaNet can come up with more useful ways to utilize them.)

Ok that's all fixed up.