Fury WW extra points question

[protoman108]

Hey all--

So my two younger brothers and I are going to make three characters together and play the whole game through. The idea is to make an all-physical team that can overcome any situation, despite being completely untwinked:

1. Necromancer w/Skeleton Army, utilizing Amp Damage to help with PIs (and Decrepify with bosses)
2. Paladin w/Fanaticism and Zeal (Fanat spreads to army as well as helping self)
3. WW Druid w/Fury and HoW
4-6. Assorted Mercs--Defiance, Might, probably Holy Freeze

We've got the point breakdowns all set--what to max and in what order--but we're running to problems with the Druid. He's obviously going to do this:
- MAX Lycanthropy
- MAX Heart of Wolverine
- MAX Fury [not necessarily in this order]

The question is, what to do after that? We could...
[gameplan 1]
- MAX Werewolf
- MAX Feral Rage
and try to do the most damage possible

or we could...
[gameplan 2]
- MAX Grizzly
- MAX Dire Wolves
and add another fighter to the team.

Thoughts?

Here are things to bear in mind:
1. I've heard that Fury doesn't take into account "foreign" IAS. Therefore, it won't be helped by Fanaticism. Is Werewolf a must, then? Otherwise, Werewolf seems pretty...shoddy. He'll already be getting AR from HoW, Fanat, and Fury.
2. The new summons will be benefiting from probably 4 auras--Fanat, HoW, Might, and Defiance...so they'll be pretty good, even when they're low
3. I've heard Feral Rage isn't worth investing more than 1 point into--it's just sort of a sink, since it might not be worth investing anything extra into a summon that can't be synergized
4. We're not bothering with the Rabies/Poison Creeper combo, since the idea is to dominate with all-physical (besides, we can Corpse Explode/Vengeance if we hit those Stone Skin PIs...those require less points as a team than maxing Rabies and its synergy)
5. or another possibility is some hybrid, with just a couple points into the summons, but honestly, there will already be 9+ Skeletons and x many Revives around, on top of the Mercs and Golem...we don't really need more meat shields.
6. I keep hearing '1 point into Raven', but our Necro won't be happy if Dim Vision overwrites his Decrep against a boss like Duriel or something

Input? Keep in mind, this is untwinked--we're going to play straight through in a self-contained world. We'll only mule out good items we find...we'll be muling nothing in. The idea is to play the game as it was intended, I guess--three warriors on a quest or something. So, thoughts for WW/FR vs. Grizzly/Wolves?

[Veilside]

i reckon maxing the wolves and bear is the better option simply because with all the auras you're going to be having the bear will do huge damage and will tank extremely well. 1pt in ravens is fine, they can't override a curse if they haven't been summoned it's just a prerequisite for other skills and they are useful in duels which is why people use them.

[xpumafangx]

Um try this out. Instead of maxing feral rage max out hunger. It is a anti iron maiden skill. It will keep you alive and kill off some of those monsters when your fighting with iron maiden casted on you. But it is not a 1 point wonder thats my only problem with it. I would not max out the bear I never use them any more. Not only that but you said you have a necro in the team I belive they are a skelemancer. That or they're one of those really really old school deathknights, dought it tho. Any ways since I belive you have a skelemancer on your team theyre skeles, merc, and golem should be good enuff as is for little tanks. You are playing the game with 3 tank builds in the first place as it is. So you wont need no bear crawling around smacking things. Wouldn't it go looking for a bees hives or something?

[protoman108]

Anybody else got advice on this? Currently, we're leaning towards just maxing out Werewolf and Feral Rage, simply because we don't need another summon. Anybody else see Hunger as something to look at?

[AnimageCGF]

Max Werewolf and IMO for a pvm fury, max dire wolves.

WW for yourself, and Direwolves adds that juicy life bonus to a grizzly, which not only will do lots of damage and stick close to your druid, looks freaking awesome. Nothing like that grizzly. IF you're bored with the grizzly, just summon 3 dire wolves out. With them maxed, they arent that bad at absorbing damage from you once they eat a corpse.

Just my $0.02, but I love my grizzly on my old fire/summoner.

[MasterX]

Grizzly might be good with ALL those auras but here's how you got.

Good thinks for going with druid he will, along withy your army be a very good tank with high life. For a PVM druid YOu go...

The way your thinking you'd never have anough points for all your skills. Since you have all those summons already just go...
Max: Fury, Lan, and oak for extra life on your summons. You'll have all these auras but none up the life of your minions.

With that you may want to put points into bear and wolfs or you may want to max WW. Don't use creepers as the nerco with be pissed.

A very nice idea by the way. You ganna play over lan?

[protoman108]

We decided to pass on Oak Sage in the preliminary stages, honestly. On one hand, we were trying to push the envelope as far as physical damage goes, by combining the effects of Might, Heart of Wolverine, and Fanaticism with both (1) a giant army of skeletons and (2) characters using already-abusive-skills like Zeal and Fury.

Could our summons use the extra life? Sure. But there are other defensive precautions in place:
1) Holy Shield for the Paladin
2) Lycanthropy for the Druid
3) Defiance Aura for everyone
4) Salvation available from the Paladin
5) Decrepify available from the Necromancer
6) Attract available for ranged/magic users
7) A ton of recyclable meat shields all the time
8) Holy Freeze either constantly from a Merc or "flash-able" from the Paladin (it's either Thorns Merc or Holy Freeze Merc for slot #3, behind Might and Defiance)

Besides, playing 3 people softcore, it's not that big of a deal if someone accidentally dies. So we're not worrying about Oak Sage. If this were hardcore, we'd be all over him, but I don't think I'd ever play hardcore. And honestly, from what I've seen on other posts, people seem to say HoW for softcore--and those are for Druids who won't even be aiding a gigantic skeletal army.

I agree what you're saying about the points. We shouldn't really worry about what to do beyond maxing 3 skills until we get there, because we can probably finish the game before that. I'm thinking we just worry about maxing Werewolf when the time comes, and if extra points are sitting around, we'll figure them out then. As you said, we've got summons already.

I live 2 hours away from home, so we'll be playing on Open Battlenet I think. It's going to be fun! Finally, a game where we can beat up everybody and pretend like there aren't those stupid PI's ruining the game :cool: