Currently running a frostbite bear thru, so far not too bad with one exception. The new feral rage. I can understand the reason behind it but, it leaves bears out cold. 1% per hard point? If that's the case bears need some love. Fury mutts max feral so they see no real change and they have it better than a biter/claw druid with this change.

Perhaps shift maul to bear only and give it a soft leech say 10% at lvl 1 and 1% per 3 soft points. Fury only needs 40 points to max out (fearl+fury) hurts the rest of non fury shapers. Before the change I was at 40% total with feral charged.

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"The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits" Albert Einstein

Thing is though some people were actually actually one pointing feral for a fury druid (as crazy as it may sound). Then there's also the fact that a charge up that's fully maxed literally takes over a dozen swings to crank up (which some people didn't know and presumed it charged up with only one hit giving them 11% LL).

Even if there were fury druids that actually maxed it and properly charged it all the way up it didn't max out at as high a value as the skill description indicated (your 40% on description was really more of a 25% actually when fully charged). The skill was really too much of a one point wonder to begin with.

I do know a lot of people 1 pointed it. I'm just saying though this issue came to light a bit more after a fury druid and hell Andy. The fact is, a fury druid will max this skill so he will see a negligible change. On the other hand my biter 60 point to max main skill and synergy, 20 in HoW and points into pre-req's won't have much left over. So now the bear must choose, a bit of extra leech from a few points in feral, or go for more points in bear/lycan. With current skill tree synergies a fury druid can easily max fury, feral, HoW, Wolf, and lycan. Those skills there are 100 points. Not a fan of the nerf stick being waved around like it has been. Was maul changed to a bear only skill? I doubt it (skill description wasn't changed) so they can 1 point that for some big dmg boosts as well. Once again, the cure is worse than the disease. Stop taking an approach that because one build had it good with feral (maxed it 10% dmg per point in it) the rest take a hit too.

When I said my screen showed 40% LL that was my total leech. 10% from Athena's (MS skulled), 9% from crescent moon ammy, 6% from String. Rest was from feral at full charge.

All I see this change doing is making fury the primary druid build played, next would be windy.

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"The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits" Albert Einstein

Considering a lvl 40 feral rage under the old progression gives 34% LL I'm not exactly sure where you are getting off on calling the leech nerf for someone who maxes feral negligible (especially given how charms can give +11 skills and the 95 unique helm gives 5 more making roughly that skill level reasonably attainable). It's an end game potencial nerf of encroaching on 50%.

What isn't helping matters is the build you are complaining of getting hit too hard is a melee range caster of sorts. Melee casters have always had extra complicated balance issues due to their nature unfortunately.

I think you miss-understood. When I said "negligible" I was referring to the fact that feral is a synergy to fury plain and simple. Fury itself is a 40 point build. I know exactly what the build I'm talking about is, but facts are facts. With the same points spent on a biter/claw druid maxing main skills the same fury druid can max werewolf , fury AND feral rage. All for the same 60 points. I do know the balancing concerns for the "melee caster" saw the imba of Geddon and Valor last patch. Those got ironed out. In truth, it's not as much complaining as it is pointing out facts. Facts are biters are 60 point builds with no leech skills as synergies. Fury is a 40 pointer with a leech skill as synergy, one nerf they can overcome with no effort as it's part of their skills. Simple as that really.

Perhaps then consider giving frostbite and fireclaw some leech as part of the skill. Or even let feral work off soft points and cap it at 20%.

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"The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits" Albert Einstein

These kinds of complaints do nothing for balancing. Kwikster you make no sense at all. First of all, you're playing a Frostbite/Fireclaw druid. The build you're playing while is a melee type of build it heavily relies on caster gear to be successful. In order words you're playing a caster in melee form with the benefit of much more life.

Now wouldn't it be awesome if such builds could also get DR and more ABS? Let's maybe say higher defense too? Wouldn't it be great if casters could get DR more ABS and let's maybe say again higher defense too?

The point I'm making is what you're complaining about is completely senseless. It's like saying Melee Fury druids don't get enough mana from gear to leech effectively so let's give melee weapons high energy.

Your build heavily relies on elemental gear as I will reiterate. The physical damage of your build is not going to be that high. No where near as high as a fury druid or a maul bear. Your gear is not going to be melee/phys based either.

A fury druid and Maul bear also have other sources of LL other than Feral because of gear.

The big picture here is this.

As an elemental type melee if you want survival like a melee you're going to have to make gear sacrifices. It's as simple as that. It's always been that way. Allowing you to have huge amounts of life leech just because you want it on a class that has never had it before doesn't sound too balanced does it?

You're going to need more justification for wanting LL on a build that doesn't even rely on physical damage ( meaning leech effectiveness is going to extremely weak without amp. Wait.. AMP? The curse you don't even need anyway ) I find it hardly believable that extremely high amounts of leech should be allocated to a build that doesn't even emphasize physical damage.

If you want more LL play a melee/physical build.

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"Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."

So I'm guessing a biter stands 1/2 screen away and throws spitballs? No, they are right in the bosses face just like any melee build. Any idiot knows that. Anyone with half a brain would know that crushing a viable source of leech for them will stop most from playing one. Why should they be differentiated in such a manner? They are a melee based elemental build which now has been nerfed on two front, one needed the other not necessary. I'm not saying I should be able to stand in hell Andy's face and not need pots, but I should be able to leech something back in nm at least which, without a total focus on gear to hit massive leech isn't viable. A fury druid will just max feral and no harm no foul. What's next remove all leech from the game? All I'm saying is rolling thru nm, I've seen a huge swing in number of pots needed since the change, yet I added more leech to the weapon. Go do hell Andy on your sp test with less than 30% leech and no feral. tell me what you see. Nerfing feral because of fury, hurts more than just fury.

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"The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits" Albert Einstein

Indeed it hurts more than one build, but there's a special type of balance issue that applies to Life leech. Life leech has a slippery slope type balance where its all too easy for a build to slip down into OPness. It's the same with flat damage reduction. Both these type of mods can totally negate an enemy's DPS.

However, to be allowing life leech/flat DR that totally negates a big boss's DPS is just simply overpowered. We can't allow bosses to be getting leech locked like that, because its bad for the balance. As a result we must balance the life leech by whatever is most likely to overpower it (pure physical melee). Due to this slippery slope nature apparently nerfing a semi OP amount by just 1/3rd is a severe loss by the way you are talking kwikster.

Would you care to explain to me what your melee caster build could possibly have on a werebear that maxes maul, werebear, HOW, lycan, feral and uses a 1 point frostbite for the attack animation to potentially hit a 2 frame attack? Would your melee caster honestly get even 2/3rds the 3k offhand weapon ED% that this build would be capable of? (offhand referring to str stat damage bonuses, skill damage bonuses, as well as edam% bonuses on armor) Would you for that matter be guaranteed to be getting as fast as attack breakpoints or as high of leech % amounts as this build completely dedicated to melee unlike frostbite? It would be no overstatement to say such a build easily has twice your leeching potential if not more.

If you had said some other stat was a problem I'd actually be more concerned. However, melee casters by nature just don't have as much leeching potencial as melees. If we allow some melee caster to comfortably leech with subpar physical damage, LL%, and attack speed then we risk melees dominating with leech lock.

You're missing the entire point. You obviously did not read anything I said as you highlighted one portion of my post and only responded to it.

You're just ranting without making any strong logical points. I haven't heard a single point that should be considered. Vengeance paladins also don't get impressive amounts of life leech. Any melee/caster based on elemental damage is all the same.

Your post is completely over dramatized. As I've said previously if you want true Melee based mods then play a Melee/Physical character. You could also complain about lack of DR, lack of defense and the list goes on but remember the character you're playing.

It is an elemental/melee based build which hasn't been nerfed at all. Life leech has never had any bearing on a elemental/melee based build. You again.. don't know what you're talking about. You again did not read my post at all.

Survival on a physical melee build is ALWAYS going to be much higher then that of a Frostbite/Vengeance/Fireclaw druid. ALWAYS. They are emphasized in one form of damage which allows them to be geared more oriented for survival.

Asking to balance elemental melee amongst melee/physical is never going to work. You can't accommodate physical mods to a elemental type character such as life leech.

It's not even just that. Life leech is much more ineffective on a character more geared towards elemental damage. I had 14-15k tops with a ETH valor weapon. That kind of weapon isn't even the best anymore. Now a phase blade is you're ideal weapon. Do you even know how to gear a frostbite/fireclaw druid? You won't be doing any or much physical damage at all. You're not going to be leeching jack shit with low physical damage especially in Hell.

I've even heard that it's possible the physical damage on frostbite/fireclaws actually goes towards elemental damage. Would require some testing but it may be correct.

I've played Fireclaw/Frostbear druids and life leech is not their problem. The problem is more closely towards gearing for AR while still/damage high. That's the main emphasis of their problem. Balancing them isn't on the table right now as the patch is ready for final release and a reset soon.

And you're playing a character that's more trash/fun based. Standing in a bosses face on a frostbite/fireclaw druid is not the most wise idea. Without any other tanks? Without a necro? It's just stupid. It's never going to work. You just don't have the survival gear of a true melee/physical. Which is why I reiterated my previous point. Make sacrifices in gear if you want more survivability. But trying to kill bosses on such a build is never going to work without 2ndary help or a lot of juvs.

I lost a 99 FrostBite druid with valor on HC trying to kill Diablo in Hell solo after my friend died. It was the most idiotic thing I have ever tried. I went down in fstorm/slight lag very quickly. These builds are not good on bosses without sacrificing some damage gear.

Being that Frostbite/Fireclaw are also 60 pt builds you're allowed to max Lycan and get more life than a physical melee. You also get cyclone armor and hurricane. Firestorm/Armageddon on fireclaw. They are more elemental/caster based. Always have been.

I'm not wasting any more time arguing with you. If you want to waste your time to reply go ahead but you haven't made many points here. It's in your best interest to actually read my posts and listen. Think reasonably and don't read bitterly and you'll realize what I speak on is true.

It's hard to disagree with reasonable logic if you're also a reasonable person.

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"Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."

F Biter uses lots of + skills gear > higher oak/lycan skill levels > around the same hp as a regular phys based build (since they don't need sockets for facets and can use rubys instead). I only used feral on my frostbiter for the FRW boost. Phys damage was so terrible it wasn't worth the effort. You can't really leech vs hell bosses enough for it to matter anyway and vs trash you have your vine cleaning up for you. No amount of leech can help one of those builds due to the low phys damage, phys resist of enemys and lech effectiveness penalty in both monstats and difficulty levels.

I find it more effective to just aim for all damage negating gear for bosses and scrap lifesteal completely (leech is ok is norm/nm but you are set up as more of a phys melee at that stage due to lowish cold damage and weapon choices generally having more melee stats (ED% etc) when you don't have access to the 3-2 fpa attack speed.

I you go for 2 frame attack then you will have to drop leech for the most part and aim for highest DPS possible to bring the boss down quickly. If you drop the speed to 4-3 FPA it's more worth going for leech (tomb reaver on switch is nice for a swift leeching weapon).

TL;DR
I don't hold much faith in lifesteal even on pure phys builds outside of norm and early nm so I can take or leave this change.

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Yeah that's what I was trying to emphasize the most is that physical damage is so low that high life leech is useless anyway.

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"Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."

@purerage, I do agree with a lot of your post as the char I'm referring to is in late NM atm. Currently using Athena's which has decent phys dmg for the lvl I'm at and hitting 4-5 fpa attack since I removed 1 MS ameth and added in a second MS skull. Before the change I had 2 MS ameth and 1 MS skull in it and was at 3fpa. I do realize in hell LL will drop like a stone, I expect this. As I don't have a Tombreaver yet, I'll likely up Athenas ad run it a bit longer. Yes, my phys dmg won't be on par with a fury druid but still, the nerf to feral was a blow to surviving NM.

@Lee comparing a biter to a venger is silly. No matter how hard you try vengance is a slow single target skill like sacrifice That's comparing apples to oranges. A bitter can hit 2 fpa while a venger is lucky to break past 8 fpa. Yes, I chose one area to comment on, since that area showed a lack of understanding on what I'm trying to say here. With a biter I can (and do) roll a higher dmg weapon to have better phys dmg vs cold immunes and have better leech potential. With the nerf to feral it cuts into that survivability in late nm.

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"The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits" Albert Einstein

There is no point in continuing this conversation if you aren't reading my posts. Clearly you're missing the big picture that I've been trying to paint. I'm not going to re-post it either because I explained TWICE and still you aren't listening. I'm trying to help you understand and you either don't want to understand or don't care to actually read what I'm telling you. Baerk, Kevin and I basically all agree in one way or another. That's three people who know what they're talking about. You should listen.

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"Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."