Grove Keeper - A Wilder Subclass

[Recaiden]

Typos:
Bark guard "is increases" => "increases" or "is increased"
Verdant Song "begings": => "begins"
Rhytidome Rage missing space "fist.Every"

[nsrr]

v1.2.10
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Updated for new removeEffects handling.

Fixed a few typos (thanks Recaiden!)

[nsrr]

v1.2.13
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[Spore Shot]
Spore Sown effect is now compatible with the new dispel mechanic.

(Also had to upload a couple of versions with no changes to get Steam Workshop to actually update the original item instead of creating a new one )

[astralInferno]

Had a bug show up on a rare today. Think I'm up to date.

[nsrr]

Ah, whoops

When I updated for the removeEffects change I made a bad reference to 'eff' inside of a merge function. All sorted out now, thanks for the report!

A new version has been uploaded with the fix

[Hrafnskald]

I've been playing with Grove Keeper and I greatly enjoy the work you've done on this class, very interesting feel which sets it apart from the other Nature based classes. Great job

One question: What is the intended melee usage for the Tree Kin tree?

Mud Slinger has slings (and possible bows for some talents?)
Bark has Mindstars

Both of these work really well, and make for an interesting experience where you can almost play both styles on one character, kind of like a Temporal Warden.

But Tree Kin is confusing. The description makes it sound like you either go barehanded in both hands, Brawler style, or you use a one handed weapon with nothing in the other hand. I don't have much experience with the former, and the later style seems odd, as with Melee, I would either want two handed, or dual wielding two weapons, or weapon and shield. Weapon and empty hand seems strange.

Maybe I'm misreading the intent or description? Because this seems like it would be a big nerf to the combat effectiveness, compared to dual mindstars or using a sling. Any suggestions or clarifications would be welcomed

-Hraffy

[nsrr]

Glad you are enjoying the class

Treekin is indeed intended to support a 1h weapon (or 2hand if you're an Ogre) with an empty offhand; the talents won't work if you're entirely unarmed. It's true that this means you can't use another weapon or shield in the offhand, but the talents are meant to compensate for that. You get the unarmed hit whenever you attack with your weapon, which also means you get the procs from your gloves with every attack, and that alone is significant. On top of that, it allows you to use the talents which buff your plants summons and gives you the Rhytidome Rage effect which effectively gives you a Stun with 75% or better uptime.

Mud Slinger is basically in the same boat. You *could* have a shield or a Mindstar in your offhand, but the talents are meant to make up for the fact that you have to keep your offhand empty. You get the nature-slow on-hit and the ability to proc Moss with your ranged attacks, pretty strong effects.

Bark supports offhand Mindstar for those who wish to forgo the sling or melee style and go all-in on the caster style. If you use Mindstar Mastery and Floramancy, plus Symbiosis and Botany, you have enough mind powers to fill a rotation without using weapon attacks at all, and with good Mindpower it'll do decent damage and debilitate enemies pretty effectively.

[Syovere]

I would also point out that 1h/empty isn't something unique to addons, Writhing One works the same way.

Been a bit since I rolled a Grove Keeper but I've enjoyed it. It's nice to have a physical nature class that's not tied inextricably to dragons, just for flavor variety.

[Zizzo]

If you use Mindstar Mastery and Floramancy, plus Symbiosis and Botany, you have enough mind powers to fill a rotation without using weapon attacks at all, and with good Mindpower it'll do decent damage and debilitate enemies pretty effectively.

Since you raise the subject, out of idle curiosity, is there a reason Grove Keepers don't start with the Mindstar Mastery tree? It seems like an obvious fit, especially considering they start with mindstars.

[nsrr]

If you use Mindstar Mastery and Floramancy, plus Symbiosis and Botany, you have enough mind powers to fill a rotation without using weapon attacks at all, and with good Mindpower it'll do decent damage and debilitate enemies pretty effectively.

Since you raise the subject, out of idle curiosity, is there a reason Grove Keepers don't start with the Mindstar Mastery tree? It seems like an obvious fit, especially considering they start with mindstars.

They... did at some point? I've rebalanced the start so many times on this, I can't even recall why I took Mindstar Mastery away. I've gone back and forth between locking the weapon trees, unlocking them all, switching starting generic trees around, mostly trying to decide the best way to handle the presentation of the choice between caster, ranged and melee builds. I must have decided it was a good idea at some point, for some reason, but who knows?

Anyhow, I decided to go back and take a look at options for the start on this class after spending some time playing a new Summoner rework that hits some of the same chords as Grove Keeper. It seems simple enough now, so I can't say why I didn't take this route before, but I have decided to simply present the build choice to the player from the start. Weapon trees are locked, but you start with a free category point with which to unlock one, and the character creation text now makes a note of this. If you really wanted to, you could use it for a free inscription slot or something really whacky like a mastery boost, but I'm not going to put too much effort into this to stop people from making things less fun for themselves.

v1.2.15
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Rebalanced start.

You now start with a free category point and the following categories have changed:

Mindstar Mastery is locked
Treekin is locked
Mud Slinger is locked

Fungus is locked
Call of the Wild is unlocked

[Seventeer]

make Projectiles pass through friends please

[nsrr]

I'm not going to do that.

If they had a pack of summon who wandered about, I could see a case for it, but they only have two summons, you choose the placement, and they don't move. Working around their positioning is an intended part of the class design.