Reworking Sap/Druids

Wobou

I've been working with a few players to see what could be a viable way to do away with sap. Sap is destined to at least be changed in cure if nothing else because one of the goals of the overhaul is to do away with the cleanse cure. Now that ectoplasm is not cured by cleanse, sap remains the most important affliction still on that cure. Sap has also historically restricted the evolution of druid combat because any potential change had to be viewed through the prism of whether or not it could assist in a saplock which most things can.

We've been working on a google document. This is a view only link, if you want permissions to edit shoot me a message either here or ingame with your gmail and I'll add you. 

Sap Rework Document

Please let me know what you think. I'd say right now that options 1 and 2 are the strongest ideas. Option 2 has the advantage of being small enough that it could possibly be implemented in one report (and a draft of such a report is provided). I think option 1 would require a mini special report (either officially or several envoys using their slots). I think such a large change to the core mechanic of a whole archetype is worthy of that consideration though.

Paging six druids/former-druids I can think of off the top of my head >.> @Enyalida, @Crek, @Lehki, @Avurekhos, @Dylara, @Saz. If there's someone you can think of that I've forgotten bug them so they know this conversation is happening.

Danquik

I like solution 2, but then I am biased.

Also I would like to thank all the people who helped with this document. Self nerfing is always a tough thing, and to do so proves you are truly the Silent Heros.

Enyalida

My concern with solution 2 is that it's either going to be a fast enough build up to kill or... not, and the simplified curing system means that there is less the user or victim can do to to affect those rates via tactics/strategy. That's why I'm not very keen on the 'primary' method of gaining dustlashes being a straight "if they have a dust aff, they get dustlashes check". What that means is that you either have sufficient passives that deal ticking dust effects that you can trigger/alias on to immediately deal a stack of dust, or you do not and too bad. Things like the 'lashcurse' option inject some strategy, but it still seems awfully straightforwards and spam-to-the-finishline to me. 

Dylara

I'm at work now, I'll give it a look over later, either when I'm home or on the drive back to the office.

Deichtine

I really hate the concept of option one, its introducing a new attrition based system if I read it right. Hang around against a druid long enough and you die so you need to run from their demense every now and then to avoid the death.

Option 2 seems kinda clunky, I'd mostly agree with Enyalida there it seems like its just going to be a case of spam cast it in the meld to build seeds, throw beast spit at them and cast etc. Either it'll build seeds too quickly or it wont build at any reasonable rate. 

I love the concept of Option 3 Sapcurse. Although its is a bit too eh for being able to be cured off pretty instantly.  Just make it a set time thing, sapcurse lasts 20 seconds. 

Sapcurse is basically there to try and set up tert instant kills. Ecology will need some love here then.

Option 4 thorn rend, I'm not sure about this one. I don't totally understand how your planning on it working? Your basically saying if I spend power I'll build thornrends on the target but if I dont build power I'll still be able to cast it every other balance on the target to maintain the rend level on them while also forcing them to constantly writhe off?

Option 5/6 isn't explained either?

Wobou

Enyalida said:

My concern with solution 2 is that it's either going to be a fast enough build up to kill or... not, and the simplified curing system means that there is less the user or victim can do to to affect those rates via tactics/strategy. That's why I'm not very keen on the 'primary' method of gaining dustlashes being a straight "if they have a dust aff, they get dustlashes check". What that means is that you either have sufficient passives that deal ticking dust effects that you can trigger/alias on to immediately deal a stack of dust, or you do not and too bad. Things like the 'lashcurse' option inject some strategy, but it still seems awfully straightforwards and spam-to-the-finishline to me. 

Yeah I think under the way we have it now in option 2 seedcurse would be the thing that actually gains you seeds in the long haul and the regular seed syntax would basically be maintaining stacks by using the dust affs from meld/terts. That does mean that you can't just spam it directly because it consumes and requires an aff, so you'd be presumably timing it with the meld tick or a tert passive (like a fused rune). I'm not sure if that actually makes it any better but it should mean that spamming the ability and nothing else is suboptimal. However I take your point that for any given tert setup that an optimal pattern is going to emerge and that could make things boring.

I might move option 3 down and try to come up with a variant of option 2 that addresses these concerns (if I can come up with something). Or I might give in to our option 1 overlords.

Crek

Honestly I'd rather just see us delete sap and tweak effects to lead toward thornrend without (what seems like) a complete overhaul of things and adding all these new conditions.

Crek's possibly OP dream druidry:

1) Delete sap.

2) Overhaul allergies.  Allergies are given as a one level affliction through pollen demesne effect or through seedcloud ability. Pollen demesne effect is blocked by scroll of protection (if not already. Cannot check right now). Change to small chance to sneeze disrupting balance for .2s on each balance/eq using action and increases thornlash ONLY writhe time by half. Allergies are removed with sneeze or leaving presence of druid for 8s.

3) Thorns now hits on ground and tree elevation. Chance of either: light damage + light bleeding, moderate bleeding + haemophilia, thornlash ARMS only. Guaranteed thornlash on tree elevation.

4) Murder/Squirrels effect hits on all elevations 100% of time.

5) Roots becomes recurrent demesne effect. Chance of either: prone with thornlash of LEGS only, stun or light blunt damage.

6) Storm effect has chance to give epilepsy or confusion. Damage slightly nerfed to compensate.

Ideally this will give focus to druidry demesne effects as an afflicting and hindering demesne. Goal will be to lead in to thornrend or bleed/damage kill. Note this still leaves thornlash head COMPLETELY up to the druid to cast.

Sluelugh

Obviously, if you make changes to pollen such that they're cured by sneezing, you need to add Handkerchiefs to tailoring. Also should have an artifact called Hoaracle's Hoary Handkerchief which never gets full of boogies and reduces the balance knock from sneezes.

You're welcome.

Crek

Or just let SNEEZE cure allergies (and ideally cause a short balance loss). Boogies for everyone!

Wobou

Veyils said:

I really hate the concept of option one, its introducing a new attrition based system if I read it right. Hang around against a druid long enough and you die so you need to run from their demense every now and then to avoid the death.

Option 1 has a lot but I think the idea is that the druid is using your allergies like a resource. So it's not quite that if allergies build up then you die, but it enables them to spend those allergies to do some interesting effects. So sensitize is arguably the most powerful thing there but how powerful it is depends on your allergies and it costs a lot of allergies to cast. So basically once they cast it the druid has to balance between afflicting you with things you are sensitized to (for the kill) and increasing your allergies so you can't cure as quickly. One of the best tools in there for them to increase your allergies also involves curing the victim as well so there's a little see-saw action going on here.

Veyils said:

I love the concept of Option 3 Sapcurse. Although its is a bit too eh for being able to be cured off pretty instantly.  Just make it a set time thing, sapcurse lasts 20 seconds. 

Sapcurse is basically there to try and set up tert instant kills. Ecology will need some love here then.

I'm glad you like it, I wrote sapcurse as a one off spitballing sort of thing. So it definitely hasn't had as much thought put into it as the others. Sapcurse is definitely a weaker version of sap and so I agree that other things would need to be buffed to compensate. I'm unsure about the timer idea, maybe this is because I'm coming from a sap-as-it-is-now frame of reference but it feels like that's taking something that druids used to have to work to maintain (to stick sap or in this case sapcurse) and giving it to them for free but for 20 seconds. On the other hand it would also mean that you could buff the curse or buff things around druidry and its terts because you no longer have to worry about an indefinite lock that is for all intents and purposes a kill if it can be maintained.

One disadvantage sapcurse has to sap in relation to terts other than ecology is for poor shamanism (which needs a lot of love anyway). Sapcurse as written does not hinder health sips, nor does it hinder clotting like current sap does. I think herb bane would also need to be nerfed if we went with this option because otherwise sapcurse dust + herbbane = you're going to have a bad time.

Veyils said:

Option 4 thorn rend, I'm not sure about this one. I don't totally understand how your planning on it working? Your basically saying if I spend power I'll build thornrends on the target but if I dont build power I'll still be able to cast it every other balance on the target to maintain the rend level on them while also forcing them to constantly writhe off?

Option 5/6 isn't explained either?

Option 4 was coming from the mindset of changing as little as possible and coming up with a viable instakill. It has several problems which I don't know how to solve. It should work as written but the issue is that the way that it works is extremely boring and has no relation to any of the terts. Basically as written the most optimal thing for you to do is to lash -> shieldstun -> lash peppered with some powered lashes to build until you can kill someone. Kind of like a warrior without body part choice and the parry mechanic. The meld doesn't really matter and neither do the terts in this scenario which is why, among other reasons, it's fallen in the list. It would also require adding an exception for writhes to not take balance for it to be remotely fair to melee users, unless we want druids to just stomp all over melee users for no real reason.

Option 5/6 were ideas that either got fleshed out into something else or we couldn't find a way to make them interesting. 5 was basically what gave rise to option 2. I thought it would be neat if the combatstyle/instakill turned your victim into a plant. I was thinking of it as invasive mold but we changed it to seeds/internal lashes.

Option 6 was so titled from @Shuyin describing how an Achaean insta worked. I tried to think of a way to rip it off in a lusternian style and failed. The furthest I got was the idea of a timed insta which required a paralyzed opponent to start (to plant the seed without resistance) and if the target was still in the room x seconds later they become a goreflower.

Lehki

I only skimmed through that doc quickly, will read later, but I'm going to echo Crek that my preferred Solution would be reworking Thornlash into a main kill without overhauling everything with new mechanics.

Shaddus

I've got no skin in this fight, and I haven't even read the document. I'm voting for whatever makes Sap something you can spam to (after repeated use) leave an amber-covered statue of your target there when they die, like preserve.

Elryn

Are the envoys open to alternative ideas, by any chance? Only partially because goreflower seems similar to something I was hoping *woods could use as a new skill 

Of the options in the document, I kind of like Option 4, mostly because it doesn't delete sap/thornlash entirely. Thematically I still like the style of the two abilities, even if mechanically they need to change.

What about just changing sap into a stacked affliction, (although that might be adding too many stacked things to druids). For example:

• Applying sap for a few power coats a target in 1-2 stacks of sap, going up to 1-3 in friendly forest and 1-4 in trees.
• You can then CRYSTALLIZE the sap instantly into amber, causing damage and immobility based on the number of stacks
• Each stack might causing increasing balance loss (but minor) from changing tree/ground elevation

Alternatively, is it possible to change sap into more of a support skill than a skillset-defining ability? For example:

• Targetted sap on a victim with lashed limbs (3 power) - all vines expel sap fluids and become "sticky vines". This has the following effects:
  •  Sticky vines now require two writhes to release, however this cannot be stacked (ie, casting sap on a sticky vine that has already had one writhe will not reset the writhe counter)
  •  Allergic reactions will accumulate faster while lashed with sticky vines.
• Targetted sap on a victim without lashed limbs but in tree elevation (no power) - simple affliction fairly easily removed using one of the new cures. Maybe effect is to cause APPLY commands to have a 50% chance of failing because the salve/ice mixes with the sap
• Untargetted sap in a room with trees (or a friendly *wood?) (5 power) - for a limited time, droplets of sap rain from the canopy onto allies and enemies alike following whichever room the druid is in.
  • Each ally and enemy in the room will have a droplet of sap fall on them at a random interval (ie, 6-11 seconds), providing a consumable defence that does not stack.
  • Allies get enchanted sap, either shortens the next cure balance by 50% (only applies if actual cure occurs), or shortens the next ability balance cost (equilibrium, balance) by 25%.
  • Enemies get cursed sap, either lengthens the next cure balance by 25% (only applies if actual cure occurs), or lengthens the next ability balance cost (equilibrium, balance) by 50%.

Wobou

Crek said:

Honestly I'd rather just see us delete sap and tweak effects to lead toward thornrend without (what seems like) a complete overhaul of things and adding all these new conditions.

Crek's possibly OP dream druidry:

1) Delete sap.

2) Overhaul allergies.  Allergies are given as a one level affliction through pollen demesne effect or through seedcloud ability. Pollen demesne effect is blocked by scroll of protection (if not already. Cannot check right now). Change to small chance to sneeze disrupting balance for .2s on each balance/eq using action and increases thornlash ONLY writhe time by half. Allergies are removed with sneeze or leaving presence of druid for 8s.

3) Thorns now hits on ground and tree elevation. Chance of either: light damage + light bleeding, moderate bleeding + haemophilia, thornlash ARMS only. Guaranteed thornlash on tree elevation.

4) Murder/Squirrels effect hits on all elevations 100% of time.

5) Roots becomes recurrent demesne effect. Chance of either: prone with thornlash of LEGS only, stun or light blunt damage.

6) Storm effect has chance to give epilepsy or confusion. Damage slightly nerfed to compensate.

Ideally this will give focus to druidry demesne effects as an afflicting and hindering demesne. Goal will be to lead in to thornrend or bleed/damage kill. Note this still leaves thornlash head COMPLETELY up to the druid to cast.

I added this list verbatim as solution 7, not because it's worse than any of the other suggestions (particularly my crappy 5 and 6) but because I've been referencing things by number in this post so I didn't want to renumber things.

Just to clarify, in #2 you're talking about the pollen effect increasing writhe time, does this last for as long as you have allergies? Until the next tick?

I think stun in #5 would be too much. Druids can already do 2 hindering dust affs passively, stalling those cures by another 0.5-1s would be a marked increase in passive hindering in addition to all the extra writhing by passive lashes.

So in the most favorable interpretation/situation you have a target in the trees, they are getting their arms lashed every 10s and have a 50% chance of getting a leg lashed and the druid themselves can cast 2-3 lashes with their own balance. So if someone's unlucky that's 4-5 lashes in 10 seconds, if a 50% increase is 6s (which i'm not sure about) then they would only be able to cure almost 2 lashes in that time. That does sound like it would build to a kill in the course of two unlucky demesne ticks. This does seem a bit OP and makes druids fairly run-or-die imo while also being somewhat gated by RNG. Due to how balance works all of these extra writhes are going to impact balance users more than eq users (like the con for option 4). Eventually I think the solution to that is to eliminate balance stacking but I think we'd have to change sacrifice in necromancy first.

Deichtine

Crek does make a good point do we actually need to replace sap with something.

I mean its a fair point just delete sap and tweak other things accordingly?

Crek

Wobou said:

I added this list verbatim as solution 7, not because it's worse than any of the other suggestions (particularly my crappy 5 and 6) but because I've been referencing things by number in this post so I didn't want to renumber things.

Just to clarify, in #2 you're talking about the pollen effect increasing writhe time, does this last for as long as you have allergies? Until the next tick?

I think stun in #5 would be too much. Druids can already do 2 hindering dust affs passively, stalling those cures by another 0.5-1s would be a marked increase in passive hindering in addition to all the extra writhing by passive lashes.

So in the most favorable interpretation/situation you have a target in the trees, they are getting their arms lashed every 10s and have a 50% chance of getting a leg lashed and the druid themselves can cast 2-3 lashes with their own balance. So if someone's unlucky that's 4-5 lashes in 10 seconds, if a 50% increase is 6s (which i'm not sure about) then they would only be able to cure almost 2 lashes in that time. That does sound like it would build to a kill in the course of two unlucky demesne ticks. This does seem a bit OP and makes druids fairly run-or-die imo while also being somewhat gated by RNG. Due to how balance works all of these extra writhes are going to impact balance users more than eq users (like the con for option 4). Eventually I think the solution to that is to eliminate balance stacking but I think we'd have to change sacrifice in necromancy first.


Help I'm trapped in a quote box!!

Pollen would just give the allergy affliction.

Make roots hit only on ground elevation. You'd have to choose between a reliable thornlash on arms in trees or chance for a thornlash on legs AND arms on ground. As for stun, I just added that because I could not think of any other afflictions that would make some sense for a bunch of roots smacking in to you.

Ignite already cures all of the thornlashes at the cost of some damage and ablaze.

These are just ideas. 50% increase on thornlash cure would probably be too strong but I did put in it is a probably OP set of ideas.

Wobou

Elryn said:

Are the envoys open to alternative ideas, by any chance? Only partially because goreflower seems similar to something I was hoping *woods could use as a new skill 

Of the options in the document, I kind of like Option 4, mostly because it doesn't delete sap/thornlash entirely. Thematically I still like the style of the two abilities, even if mechanically they need to change.

What about just changing sap into a stacked affliction, (although that might be adding too many stacked things to druids). For example:

• Applying sap for a few power coats a target in 1-2 stacks of sap, going up to 1-3 in friendly forest and 1-4 in trees.
• You can then CRYSTALLIZE the sap instantly into amber, causing damage and immobility based on the number of stacks
• Each stack might causing increasing balance loss (but minor) from changing tree/ground elevation

I'm always open to new ideas. My hope is that we can find something with some amount of consensus (which may be hard to achieve in total on the forums).

Re: Goreflower. I just like the idea of having a nature-is-metal instakill for druids in some way shape or form, if that goes to woods instead of main druidry that's fine too. Although Is there a reason that you couldn't have versions of a similar kill for both?

For the sap as a stacked affliction idea: What would cure sap in this case? Keep in mind that we want to do away with cleanse so ideally it would either be an overhaul cure or time-based.

Elryn said:

Alternatively, is it possible to change sap into more of a support skill than a skillset-defining ability? For example:

• Targetted sap on a victim with lashed limbs (3 power) - all vines expel sap fluids and become "sticky vines". This has the following effects:
  •  Sticky vines now require two writhes to release, however this cannot be stacked (ie, casting sap on a sticky vine that has already had one writhe will not reset the writhe counter)
  •  Allergic reactions will accumulate faster while lashed with sticky vines.
• Targetted sap on a victim without lashed limbs but in tree elevation (no power) - simple affliction fairly easily removed using one of the new cures. Maybe effect is to cause APPLY commands to have a 50% chance of failing because the salve/ice mixes with the sap
• Untargetted sap in a room with trees (or a friendly *wood?) (5 power) - for a limited time, droplets of sap rain from the canopy onto allies and enemies alike following whichever room the druid is in.
  • Each ally and enemy in the room will have a droplet of sap fall on them at a random interval (ie, 6-11 seconds), providing a consumable defence that does not stack.
  • Allies get enchanted sap, either shortens the next cure balance by 50% (only applies if actual cure occurs), or shortens the next ability balance cost (equilibrium, balance) by 25%.
  • Enemies get cursed sap, either lengthens the next cure balance by 25% (only applies if actual cure occurs), or lengthens the next ability balance cost (equilibrium, balance) by 50%.

Changing the role of sap to a support-y role would be fine with me overall and if druids are overall for that then it definitely makes this discussion a lot easier.  I would personally like everyone to have some method of killing even if it's not the best method. So for me personally if we made sap a more support-y skill then I would still like a viable insta in there too which is where things become more difficult.

In regards to your actual support idea above. I like many of the ideas although the numbers may be a bit too high. For example I'd be wary of anything impacting eq/bal more than a -10/10 or 10/10 buff would (this is what swiftwind does in aeromancy). Even though randomness makes it untimeable I'm also wary of things that could go off nearly twice a demesne tick for either side.

Elryn

Wobou said:

I'm always open to new ideas. My hope is that we can find something with some amount of consensus (which may be hard to achieve in total on the forums).

Re: Goreflower. I just like the idea of having a nature-is-metal instakill for druids in some way shape or form, if that goes to woods instead of main druidry that's fine too. Although Is there a reason that you couldn't have versions of a similar kill for both?

For the sap as a stacked affliction idea: What would cure sap in this case? Keep in mind that we want to do away with cleanse so ideally it would either be an overhaul cure or time-based.

True, similar skills make sense, and there's definitely a great style to your suggestion!

I guess I don't really see a lack of instakills that we need to make up for with sap. Don't both druids already have insta-kills in their secondary skillsets (gore/swoop), along with potentially an instakill in their tertiary, as well as thornrend in druidry itself? I would definitely like to see thornrend made more viable if it isn't right now, rather than introducing a new insta-kill while leaving an ineffectual one in place.

On the cure, I don't know... I don't really have a good enough feel for the cure-chasing meta to know what would be well balanced. Definitely one of the new cures, I guess ice would be the default because it's an external physical affliction, but then it probably shouldn't be interfering with its own cure?

Wobou said:

Changing the role of sap to a support-y role would be fine with me overall and if druids are overall for that then it definitely makes this discussion a lot easier.  I would personally like everyone to have some method of killing even if it's not the best method. So for me personally if we made sap a more support-y skill then I would still like a viable insta in there too which is where things become more difficult.

In regards to your actual support idea above. I like many of the ideas although the numbers may be a bit too high. For example I'd be wary of anything impacting eq/bal more than a -10/10 or 10/10 buff would (this is what swiftwind does in aeromancy). Even though randomness makes it untimeable I'm also wary of things that could go off nearly twice a demesne tick for either side.

Sure, numbers were just examples - tweak away! The eq/bal negative impacts could be removed entirely, the cure interruption would be enough on it's own, probably?

I also like some of Crek's ideas for other demesne effect changes, like roots doing some lashing, and pollen working towards allergies. A sweep through all the druidry skills might be quite beneficial!

Wobou

Crek said:

Help I'm trapped in a quote box!!

Pollen would just give the allergy affliction.

Make roots hit only on ground elevation. You'd have to choose between a reliable thornlash on arms in trees or chance for a thornlash on legs AND arms on ground. As for stun, I just added that because I could not think of any other afflictions that would make some sense for a bunch of roots smacking in to you.

Ignite already cures all of the thornlashes at the cost of some damage and ablaze.

These are just ideas. 50% increase on thornlash cure would probably be too strong but I did put in it is a probably OP set of ideas.

Being trapped in a quote box happens to me constantly on this editor.

I like the idea of druids having to make a conscious choice about whether they want their target in the trees or not. One immediate idea which I haven't thought through at all would 

I'm a bit concerned about ignite still being a thing in thornlash based druid land. Presumably a druid even with lucky passive lashes would spend some time building up lashes, for one balance from anyone on the other team to remove all that setup is bad times. We could intentionally let lashes be OP at building and intentionally keep ignite as an OP curer of lashes but then we have basically retained sap because you'd need to keep your target prone to stop them from igniting their lashes, although I guess we've also gotten rid of the hated command-delay aff in the process.  Also if we're aiming to get rid of cleanse as a cure as part of the overhaul I'm not sure that ignite should remain as an enchantment cure. 

Elryn said:

I guess I don't really see a lack of instakills that we need to make up for with sap. Don't both druids already have insta-kills in their secondary skillsets (gore/swoop), along with potentially an instakill in their tertiary, as well as thornrend in druidry itself? I would definitely like to see thornrend made more viable if it isn't right now, rather than introducing a new insta-kill while leaving an ineffectual one in place.

You raise a good point. On paper druids are absolutely loaded with instakills. The issue as you mentioned with thornrend is viability. Sap is currently a viable way to lock someone down and kill them in both 1v1 and group settings. I personally believe that everyone should have some kind of kill that works on competent curing given enough time/setup/investment. No druid without sap is going to be able to pull off either gore or swoop without quite a lot of assistance and most of the folks who could assist to get them there would be more capable at achieving the kill too which makes the druid's presence somewhat redundant. Now one potential argument is that we shouldn't be aiming for a solo viable kill and if that's the consensus then we can ignore that issue as something weird that Wobou cares about but no one else does.

Wobou

Veyils said:

Crek does make a good point do we actually need to replace sap with something.

I mean its a fair point just delete sap and tweak other things accordingly?

Oops I missed this one in my last post. My response to this is mostly the same as my response to Elryn but I'll also say that I think you're underestimating how many aspects of druids have been tuned around sap. We're talking ten years of skill development that would then need to be tweaked around this void.

Deichtine

Wobou said:

Veyils said:

Crek does make a good point do we actually need to replace sap with something.

I mean its a fair point just delete sap and tweak other things accordingly?

Oops I missed this one in my last post. My response to this is mostly the same as my response to Elryn but I'll also say that I think you're underestimating how many aspects of druids have been tuned around sap. We're talking ten years of skill development that would then need to be tweaked around this void.

Well you say that but it wouldn't take too much work to adjust their terts and tweak other stuff. I mean the druid meld is decent in itself. Plus like On testing a druid in meld with the new dreamweaving can kill solo with ego drain. Similar to how runes has a semi workable instant kill with a bit of luck. So even without sap druids right now are viable.

Enyalida

In the Crek proposal, what is the purpose of allergies knocking people off balance? 

Deichtine

I mean good druids can and do kill without sap now.

Crek

Simulate current sap to give you a chance to "lock in" thornlashes by giving other afflictions without the annoying aeon effect.

Enyalida

I mean, good warriors kill with decap so... 

Enyalida

Yeah. The ostensible niche that sap holds right now that holds together druidry and the secondary/tertiary skills is "cure buggering", forcing the victim to cure afflictions in a restricted manner, where the order of operations is very important and there is a real and clear opportunity cost attached to every choice made. 

The issue is that a) this also totally turns off every other aspect of the game for the victim, not just their curing and b) It's too strong for a single effect. 

Keeping the niche of "Druids mess around with your cure balances" but without being as binary and excessive as sap is the animating principle of the first solution - not the "attrition"* allergies resource. Allergies are associated with that draft of the concept not as a means to 'eventually kill someone who stands there via attrition', but explicitly to slow down the Druid's ability to affect their target, requiring them to either wait or expend balances to generate allergies before using their other abilities. Certainly, it would be a lot simpler if those elements were removed, if that would help clarify and improve that option. 

Another spitbally idea for accomplishing something similar involves in some way tying together two or more balances - directly impacting curing without impacting offense as strongly, particularly once paralysis is changed. That 'tying together' can be done in a greaaaat many ways, such as literally: make it so that using a cure on one of those balances briefly throws the other off (for some value between 0-100% of that balance). It could also be more random or partial, such as the number of affs on balance A creating a fail chance to cure affs on balance B, or the number of affs on balance X extending the length of balance Y by amount Z. In all of those cases, the druid would need to decide when to apply this condition (based on how its cured) and then how to go about pursuing a kill method based on affliction stacking, just like sap now but way less binarys. 

Wobou

Enyalida said:

Another spitbally idea for accomplishing something similar involves in some way tying together two or more balances - directly impacting curing without impacting offense as strongly, particularly once paralysis is changed. That 'tying together' can be done in a greaaaat many ways, such as literally: make it so that using a cure on one of those balances briefly throws the other off (for some value between 0-100% of that balance). It could also be more random or partial, such as the number of affs on balance A creating a fail chance to cure affs on balance B, or the number of affs on balance X extending the length of balance Y by amount Z. In all of those cases, the druid would need to decide when to apply this condition (based on how its cured) and then how to go about pursuing a kill method based on affliction stacking, just like sap now but way less binarys. 

Oh that's right. I didn't write Option 3 Veyils. I stole Enyalida's idea and modified it. I've been talking to to so many people about so many different ideas that I've forgotten what i actually thought of. I think it's safe to assume from now on that nothing original comes out of me.

I do like these aspects about both option 1 and option 3 because I like the aspect where your curing prios matter. I'd say that's more the case for the second class of ideas than the first because with shock and sensitize it's mostly about hindering the druid from afflicting you/building allergies to afflict you more than it is cleverly choosing the order of your cures. Although at least in both of these ideas your offense isn't shut down during this so hindering the druid is actually a possibility which it currently isn't under sap.

I think for option 3 you'd have to somehow include healing balance in there in some way (maybe throwing/extending it for 1s) or possibly clotting somehow to have it truly fill the void that sap fills in now as an offensive tool. I think even if you were to do that (which makes it closer in power to sap as it exists) that some terts would need to be touched up to this idea to effectively use it. That's probably true for any of these ideas though.

Saz

Thanks for tagging me @Wobou, else I was going to miss this.

After giving it some thought, to compensate the loss of sap, i'd rather buff all the terts individually to make them more reliable in single combat. And honestly even with almighty Sap present, you are limited at what you can do with Runes (Just giving an example by the tert I know, not the tert which needs the most care). In terms of single combat, I mean. It'd make more sense to me if the skill that'll replace Sap can be reworked with Darkseed, Allergies* and Thornrend to find more use for the all three of them as a reliable-insta in nature environments.

Nevertheless when it comes to buffing Melds to compensate the loss of Sap:

I understand Crek's proposal. We're losing our aeon on the cure balance, so why shouldn't we simulate a similar effect with adding more weight to our passives? On the bright side this approach will synergize well with all terts... Yet, I don't think this is where we're going in the greater scheme of things

Druids are being targeted first for a reason and it's not sap, it's the meld and we're already looking at potential meld nerfs in close future. Dissolve report was just an early sign, if you ask me. So buffing them beforehands doesn't make much sense, if we're going to eventually tone them down. Druid melds are by no means the most afflicting meld out there, nor they help build up an instant kill with ticks. But their crippling and hindering potential shouldn't be overlooked especially when the druid finds space to do a little bit of prepwork. Druid melds' afflictions are particularly strong against people who rely on momentum to build up kills. So, I don't personally support adding more weight to the Passive-AoE agony of the playerbase. 

ETA: The ideas and solutions on the doc file are generally good and well thought. Yes, it'd work well to nerf Baneherb if we're going with 2nd option, for example. I don't have a Saz's dream set in stones yet. But if that reveals to me, I'll make sure to post it.

Enyalida

There are a lot of issues with that path, though. The most pressing and obvious is that Druids share 3/4 of their tertiary skills with other classes that don't necessarily need any buffs. Shamanism could be buffed up (and would need to be, it's still really awful) but eehhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Saz

Enyalida said:

There are a lot of issues with that path, though. The most pressing and obvious is that Druids share 3/4 of their tertiary skills with other classes that don't necessarily need any buffs. Shamanism could be buffed up (and would need to be, it's still really awful) but eehhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I think we can reserve the change for Druids only, instead of making it an overhaul for the entire skillset. This isn't an actual suggestion but just a demonstration of the example. We can create a skill in Druidry with passive buffs like, "If you're specialized in Runes, then your masked runes get %20 chance to ignore the cure-attempt against their specific affliction." 

Edit: I just thought it's a better method than creating a pseudo-sap, buffing melds. It might not be easily applicable, it was just an idea 

Falaeron

Druids sans sap being worse than mages is a myth btw.