Druid help me Please!

[ploves]

hey all!

i need help please! I have never played druid-mostly sorcs and hammerdins. I am trying out a werewolf!But dont know where to go. I have read the sticked Threat,but didn't help me. Someone pleas help with skill allocation and gear(again,please). This would be only PVM non ladder.thanks guys

[Ed from Russia]

Look again in the stickies, at the Fury Wolf Ribcracker Uber guide. This isn't for untwinked but you'll get lots of help there about skills, stats and strategy.

To get you started:


SKILLS

max Fury, Werewolf, Lycanthropy and either Heart of Wolverine or Oak Sage. Untwinked I think the extra life from Oak is quite useful.


EQUIPMENT (some cheap / untwinked suggestions):

Armor: Smoke in Mageplate or Archon plate, Duriel's shell

Helm: If you don't have Jalals try to find a nice pelt and socket with Lore runeword

Weapon: you need Crushing Blow; Strength is a cheap runeword with (I think) 25% CB. Black would do fine as well. Best take a 2-handed weapon for extra damage because your block rate is pretty bad as a wolf.

Shield: If you must, Rhyme is a good choice because it gives you cannot-be-frozen.

Boots: Goblin Toe for the 25% CB would be great. Otherwise any rare boots with good resists and FHR

Belt: You could craft one for Open Wounds and life leech. String of Ears is very cheap. Or a rare with resists and FHR

Gloves: Bloodfists are cheap, and you can up them for more defense. Or craft some gloves for CB and life leech.

Rings & Amu: Angelics are easy to get and cheap. Raven Frost is cheap and gives you much-needed cbf (unless you use Rhyme). A ring with mana/life leech is great as well.

Charms: anything you can find with resists, strength bonus and FHR. Consider adding a few charms for cold damage and poison damage (slows and stops life replenishment).


STATS

Very simple: enough strength and dex for your equipment, nothing in Energy, the rest in Vita.

[KellKheraptis]

Puma's PvM Fury might be a good one too if you can swing a grief, plus you'll never worry about Iron Maiden from Oblivion Knights. Skill layout is almost identical, other than 1+ in Hunger and it's prerequisites (and mine might even have 1 in shockwave, since it's only one extra point and it's so bloody handy).

[ploves]

thanks guys! My next question is,Can I get a Bear?and would the bear be strong enough to really help in Hell?

Kellheraptis- Yes i have a grief,But holding it off for my Smiter. However if my werewolf really benefits that much from it,so be it. I will just have a friend do my Ubers.

gear: Jajal,Metalgrid,Coh,Grief,Spirit,Raven Frost,magefist,Verdungo's,Treks?

[BAMFSpecialOps]

Spirit is not a good shield to use, swap out for Stormshield. Magefist don't offer much either use dracs for the lifetap or bloodfists for the life/fhr. Treks can work I would swap out for gores/aldurs on a wolf.

[Queen Mebd]

Kellheraptis- Yes i have a grief,But holding it off for my Smiter. However if my werewolf really benefits that much from it,so be it. I will just have a friend do my Ubers.

Why not just run Ubers yourself: http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=517606&highlight=guide?

[Ed from Russia]

thanks guys! My next question is,Can I get a Bear?and would the bear be strong enough to really help in Hell?



Sure you can! After you've maxed Fury, WW, Lycan and HoW, you have plenty of points left. Use them to get yourself a Grizzly. Your Grizzly is not going to be very powerful, but he'll make sure you're not swamped with monsters and he won't die quickly. Best is probably to put only one point in Grizzly and the rest in Dire Wolves, so he'll be a stronger tank. But if you go with 1 pt in DW and the rest in Grizzly that's fine as well. He might die now and then (so you recast) but he'll do decent damage.

[Kirah]

Welcome to the wild, wild world of Wolves!

You may not have to max out WW, consider putting in around 5-10 hard points into it and you're attack rating will still be pretty good (this is PvM after all). The extra points can be used for a decent summons or maybe a few hard points into feral rage if you're planning on ubering since that will allow you to focus an attack on a single enemy. There is a decent amount of leeway you have in style of your build depending on your playing tactics. Ed's pretty much right on with the rest of the stuff.
I will say that you can get a pretty hard to kill wolf in PvM with a stormshield / good 1hander with pumped up dex and have that hefty 2 hander on switch. With a cheap string of ears that'll give you about maxxed DR and with a fury / vita type of build you'll be very difficult to take down in PvM. Even Titan builds will have thousands of hit points too. I'm running up another wolf in ladder right now (nightmare only at the moment) and found a simple bonesnap maul which for us untwinked pups is quite good for now. I took Ed's advice and cooked up a 'Smoke' and am happily pounding everything in sight with maxxed resists. Awwooooo!!!! I'll be doing another fury/summons type of build with a hefty bear sidekick. (skill layout lycan 20, ww 10, fury 20, oak 20, bear 10 with the usual prereqs and necessary 1 point wonders - should finish build in the low 80's or so). I tended to use my one point of feral rage early in the game as primary attack (dumped points into lycanth early on and necessary 1 point wonders) until I could get fury then focused on fury until maxxed. Let us know how you enjoyed playing your wolf!

good luck and good hunting!
Kirah

[ploves]

hey guys!
Thought ill give a progress report!

I am at level 57 right now, with 231 stat pts remaining!And so far,for gear,im using, Hoto(35),Jajal(no socketed),Moser's shield,(2 pdiamonds),Magic Amulet-25 all resis,waterwalk,raven frost, and a unique ring-11 all resist. And i found my first Shapeshifter Gc!!its plain tho.

With your skill suggestion-you guys all say differently(????)What Ive got is 1 Oak sage,20 werewolf,14 lycanthropy,1 Feral rage,1 Rabies,20 Fury.
Now Kirah, says not to max werewolf...well, What can I do now?That's too late..So What should i do next?

btw: my resis even in hell is 75-80 but can't kill a zombie!:))

[KellKheraptis]

hey guys!
Thought ill give a progress report!

I am at level 57 right now, with 231 stat pts remaining!And so far,for gear,im using, Hoto(35),Jajal(no socketed),Moser's shield,(2 pdiamonds),Magic Amulet-25 all resis,waterwalk,raven frost, and a unique ring-11 all resist. And i found my first Shapeshifter Gc!!its plain tho.

With your skill suggestion-you guys all say differently(????)What Ive got is 1 Oak sage,20 werewolf,14 lycanthropy,1 Feral rage,1 Rabies,20 Fury.
Now Kirah, says not to max werewolf...well, What can I do now?That's too late..So What should i do next?

btw: my resis even in hell is 75-80 but can't kill a zombie!:))

Put the Hoto on weapon switch with a Spirit monarch for precasting summons and shifting, and slap a big fat 5 frame beatstick on main. It's pretty cheap to up a high ED Ribcracker, and you should have the stats for it. Kirah had a good idea with Smoke, since it's got massive resists, Treachery is another good one for the Fade and Venom, and Lionheart is a contender with even the upper end runewords for it's sheer amount of stats/life/res. With the ribby swinging at 5 frames and 30-50 res all, you'll be nigh unstobbable.