How about a Flaming Werewolf Poison Vine Druid?

[pimpskinny]

After reading about a lot of different Druid builds, one I haven't come across is a Druid with a primary on Shapeshifting focusing on Fire Claws, with a strong Poison Creeper.

The point of this is to have a strong melee character with two simultaneous forms of elemental damage in order to best be prepared for fighting immunes.

An example would be (at lvl 66 for instance):

Werewolf: 1
Lycanthropy: 1
Feral Rage: 1
Wearbear: 1
Maul: 1
Fire Claws: 20
Rabies: 1
Fury: 20

Poison Creeper: 20

Eventhough I would say Rabies looks more effective, it would be better to diversify your elemental damage with fire. Any thoughts?

[lumpor]

Fire claws has 4 synergies. And without most of them, it's quite useless.

[Queen Mebd]

Fire claws has 4 synergies. And without most of them, it's quite useless.

You don't need to max every synergy to be effective; my fireclaws druid has three syngergies maxed and is pumping out 15k damage. If this were the case we wouldn't have seen Ink and Verashi's flaming-rabies guide for pvp.

However you're not going to be able to kill much in hell with just fireclaws itself maxed. I'd go with at least two synergies maxed at the very least. This still gives you some flexibility. Also, using both fireclaws and fury limits your weapon choices; you can't use a robo phase blade for the sheer speed as it won't do any damage with fury, and the high damage fury weapons are out unless you want to being swing incredibly slow with 'claws. Just something to consider.

[pimpskinny]

Ahh yea - I see what you're saying about weapons and synergies (and I have no interest in spending elemental tree points). I think I might leave out fire damage then and maximize physical and poison. So maybe I'll go for focusing on Lycanthropy and Fury, and Poison Creeper and HoW.

Something about maxed ravens seems fun to try, but I would need an excuse. I'm wondering about a maxed Shockwave and maxed Ravens equaling a bunch of stunned enemies having themselves pecked to death.

[Jary]

I just don't see why ppl think poison creeper works. Honestly, I had a lvl 30 on my summoner and tested it several times in early hell... I might even have the vids still maybe I can find... but anways...

Here's what I tested. I went to Arcane Sanctuary and rounded up a group of wrathes with my shocksummoner (all PI's)
-first test, I shockwaved them all and sat while creeper went to work on them. It has an exponential affect but I timed how long it took to kill the mobs and I remember it was around ~19-22 seconds each time. I did this several times.
-second test, and this is the funny part... I threw on a 6xshael PB & anghellics, rounded up the mob in one clump, and mauled them to death using nothing but the helltorch fire damage... killed them in ~13-15 seconds each time. Either way, it was far quicker.. enough said.

Also, use creeper... after about 8+ mats be prepared for it to drop a lot of games, due to the new restrictions on ping in 1.11. FUnny thing is.. I had to run the first test like twice as many times, 'cause the game kept disconnecting before it'd finish lol.

[pimpskinny]

Here's what I tested. I went to Arcane Sanctuary and rounded up a group of wrathes with my shocksummoner (all PI's)
-first test, I shockwaved them all and sat while creeper went to work on them. It has an exponential affect but I timed how long it took to kill the mobs and I remember it was around ~19-22 seconds each time. I did this several times.
-second test, and this is the funny part... I threw on a 6xshael PB & anghellics, rounded up the mob in one clump, and mauled them to death using nothing but the helltorch fire damage... killed them in ~13-15 seconds each time. Either way, it was far quicker.. enough said.

But Poison Creeper could have been doing its damage while you were mauling them with the fire torch at the same time. And for 8 only mana.

(I'm a noob, so this may or may not be a clever point)

[BAMFSpecialOps]

It doesn't kill fast, but as a passive dmg source I can see someone doing it. Work on your main killing skill(fury/rabies/whatever) first, then dump the rest of the points into the creeper.

[Verashiden]

The reason you don't see Fury/FC hybrids is simple: Neither of those attacks are on a timer.

With Rabies, you only have to bite once every 20 some odd seconds, that leaves 20 seconds for you to use a secondary attack to speed up the process. This is why you can hybrid it. Fury/FC won't work that way because neither can be used while the other is in effect.

[pimpskinny]

The reason you don't see Fury/FC hybrids is simple: Neither of those attacks are on a timer.

With Rabies, you only have to bite once every 20 some odd seconds, that leaves 20 seconds for you to use a secondary attack to speed up the process. This is why you can hybrid it. Fury/FC won't work that way because neither can be used while the other is in effect.

You blinded me with science!

[Jary]

The reason you don't see Fury/FC hybrids is simple: Neither of those attacks are on a timer.

With Rabies, you only have to bite once every 20 some odd seconds, that leaves 20 seconds for you to use a secondary attack to speed up the process. This is why you can hybrid it. Fury/FC won't work that way because neither can be used while the other is in effect.

and because you can max Werebear, get the physical damage bonus to your weapon, while you're fireclawing without having to alternate attacks ^.^ Wolves get "just fire" or "just physical" tee hee

<3 Bears

:coffee:
back to work lol

[Verashiden]

True, but you guys have like, no AR :P.

I'm off to work too -_-

[lumpor]

You don't need to max every synergy to be effective; my fireclaws druid has three syngergies maxed and is pumping out 15k damage. If this were the case we wouldn't have seen Ink and Verashi's flaming-rabies guide for pvp.

However you're not going to be able to kill much in hell with just fireclaws itself maxed. I'd go with at least two synergies maxed at the very least. This still gives you some flexibility. Also, using both fireclaws and fury limits your weapon choices; you can't use a robo phase blade for the sheer speed as it won't do any damage with fury, and the high damage fury weapons are out unless you want to being swing incredibly slow with 'claws. Just something to consider.

Yes, this is why is said most synergies and not all snyergies. With most i meant at least 41 points in synergies. I'm too aware that it's viable without all 80 points spent to synergize it

[pimpskinny]

So far I've gone pure summoning and it seems pretty cool. Has anyone ever maxed out Ravens? For some reason I have the urge to do so.

[Jary]

I only put a point into raven on my Summoner and had lvl 30 ravens.. I mean, it is what it is. They're really helpful at blinding enemies that lay outside your shockwave radius...

It seems it'd be more worthwhile maxing if you "weren't" a summoner... 'cause then your ravens would stay out longer. But since you're already gonna have a gaggle of summoning skills in that tree, it seems pointless having more than 1 pt in it.

More worthwhile options would be putting your last ~20 points in:
-Fury
-Maul
-Oak/HoW (go for both, depending on the situation)
-~5-10 in carrion to reach 11% life/corpse, rest in cyclone.

If you wanna be a "Ravener" 'cause it'd be funny LOL, pick up a ravenlore while your at it then lol. +7 Ravens, why not ^.^