What's going to go wrong with my druid?

[Sir_Juveli]

Right, I've owned Diablo 2 for a few years but I managed to get the expansion pack only recently. So what comes to druids, I'm a complete newbie.

Anyway, I've been thinking about the following build:

Elemental: 20 Hurricane + prereqs
Shapeshifting: 20 Werebear, some points in Lychantropy and Maul
Summoning: 15 points in Oak Sage, Heart of Wolverine and Summon Dire Wolf.

The reason for this build... Well, it just seems like a cool idea to have werebear who has this fierce hurricane spinning around him, with three dire wolves assisting. Spirits give nice boost to life or to damage and attack.

But those couple of years with classic D2 have taught me that cool sounding ideas rarely work in practice. ;) So, my fellow Druids... How long would this kind of druid survive in PvM? Would it be viable all the way through Nightmare, which is the main difficulty for me (I play Single Player)? If not, what should I change?

[~Kazama Fury~]

hello,

this build would actually be quite interesting, however, you must know that you cant cast hurricane in werebear form and the summons wont be strong enough to survive later on. unless you decide to fully dedicate your skills and charms to boost the summons.

i can see the build to be interesting at the early stages, but you may encounter problems due to the lack of damage later on. hurricane needs to be synergized to do decent damage in nm/hell, even that, hurricane fully synergized is just a secondary attack.

if you really want to use hurricane, then go for a wind druid.

if you want to make a werebear, then use Heart of Wolverine instead of Oak Sage, dont put anything in elemental, concentrate the rest of the points into something more useful. (be sure to put 1 point in shockwave atleast, the stun is very helpful).

if you want another type of werebear other than maul, try a fireclaws bear.

wind druids, fireclaws, there are guides in the sticky section, be sure to check them out.

[Sir_Juveli]

Ah yes... It seems I have to choose between elemental and summoning, can't have both. :( So I'm now thinking two builds:

1) Firebear with points in Firestorm + Molten boulder + Fissure and Fire Claws.

Tactic: Burn! With fire spells from a distance and with fire claws in close range. If it doesn't burn - run. :p

2) Lord of Beasts with points in Werebear + Maul + Shock Wave in Shapeshifting tree and Heart of Wolverine, Dire Wolves and Grizzly from Summoning tree.

Tactic: Summon beasts and turn the battle into chaotic mess, where everybody gets hit but nobody too much - except the enemies of course. :)

Better?

[Uzziah]

Well actually you can have all three worlds if you set it up right.

check out AE's fire summoner guide for an elemental summoner set up.

for a shapeshifter your forced to stay with armageddon the other elemental skills don't work while shifted.

oh and if you want hurricane while shifted you have to put alot of points into cyclone armor so the duration is much larger. You hurricane then shift and shift back to hurricane again. Remember duration spells don't go away when you shift, but they sometimes can only be cast in nonshifted form.

Right now I am playing a pure elemental build that uses wind, hurricane, and fire skills. my firestorm is at 1000 damage per second and my hurricane is over 1000 damage my tornados are still weak but by clvl 80 they should be fully maxed at slvl 20. I have no clue what their damage will end up being at.

my build is:
20 firestorm
20 twister
20 tornado
20 hurricane
10 cyclone armor
1 arctic blast

any extra point will go into cyclone armor until its maxed.

I am wearing stone armor and am looking to wear +3 elemental skills club of fissures and a pelt with +elemental skills + armageddon that may allow me to have armageddon and hurricane out at the same time with over 1000 damage on each if I have calculated it out correctly. firestorm damage will also jump with the club on. at 23% the charges of fissure give a substantial boost, the +2 skills and a slvl 3 fissure charges are about equal in boost with my total +skills. and the odd thing is I have no skill charms for this build yet, in total I have about +4 to all elemental skills. I am hoping to get that to about +12 or so in order to go through Hell.

[Ed_MarloZon]

If you want an intresting Shifter/Elemental/Summoning druid then you should check this thread out:

http://forums.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=273060

The only problem of course is the equipment you have to have to make the character work. The Axe is nothing really rare and pretty easy to come by and depending how youe trading skills are a Stone is fairly easy to come by too.
Anyhow just check it out it is very fun build also.

[Sir_Juveli]

for a shapeshifter your forced to stay with armageddon the other elemental skills don't work while shifted.

Yes, my planned tactic with Firebear is to soften enemies with fire spells before they get to melee range, then shapeshift into a bear and finish them with Fire Claws. Thus, I don't need that much points in Lychantropy, since I'm not supposed to be in the bear form for long time periods.

oh and if you want hurricane while shifted you have to put alot of points into cyclone armor so the duration is much larger. You hurricane then shift and shift back to hurricane again. Remember duration spells don't go away when you shift, but they sometimes can only be cast in nonshifted form.

That was my original intent with Hurricane: Cast it in human form and then transform into a bear. However, I didn't notice that Hurricane's duration depends on Cyclone armor only, which means I'd have to pump points in all Wind spells in order to make Hurricane work. I might still try it later. :)

That Cyworg build seems interesting too, but it's perhaps too item-dependant for my taste...

[Uzziah]

Yes, my planned tactic with Firebear is to soften enemies with fire spells before they get to melee range, then shapeshift into a bear and finish them with Fire Claws. Thus, I don't need that much points in Lychantropy, since I'm not supposed to be in the bear form for long time periods.

That was my original intent with Hurricane: Cast it in human form and then transform into a bear. However, I didn't notice that Hurricane's duration depends on Cyclone armor only, which means I'd have to pump points in all Wind spells in order to make Hurricane work. I might still try it later. :)

That Cyworg build seems interesting too, but it's perhaps too item-dependant for my taste...

You are looking for hurricane to just stun not be a powerful damage hurricane is a prereq for armageddon so if your using that you have 1 point in hurricane but the duration is a problem. the cyclone armor adds hurricane duration and an effective shield towards elemental damage adding point there is a good way to go, then you can use a merc other than a HF merc since crowd control is taken care of.

There are ways to get around the prereqs for hurricane and armageddon yes staffmods only give you up to + 3 but with +skills you can get slvl 10-20 skills with just a simple staffmod using synergies and the charge synergy bug you can get enough damage out of staffmods to work in Hell.

Your build should work it just takes some prep time thinking about where to place your points if you using armageddon for damage I say add some points to cyclone armor and use a slvl 1 hurricane for the cold effect.