Rabies/Summoner hybrid idea ...

[Ridder]

Howdy,
Let me introduce myself:
Im a long time lurker. Been using these forums for guides and info at least 4 years but never signed up. Im always looking for new and untried/underpowered builds to play and Ive always been partial to the Druid. Im still proud of the wind druid I built in .09 before the tree was considered viable. Id like to think I was the first but im sure thats not the case:)

Anyways, I'm thinking of building a summoner/rabies hybrid and looking for ideas/feedback or anything that might help the build.
It will take 106 skill points to get a fully synergised rabies, fully synergised summons with 1 point in lycanthropy and 1 point in HoW. Thats lvl 93 if Im correct.
The idea would be to stick and move laying rabies down while my wolves/grizz attack.
I would use bramble, a faceted shield and trang gloves to increase poison damage and concentrate the rest of my gear towards summon skills and damage. Beast for the aura, jalals or a nice summoning pelt for + skills and a summoning ammy and charms.
Basicly I want a summoner who doesnt hit a wall in hell because it cant kill well and I dont want to make up the lack of damage with fury or a weak elemental attack.
My summons would have the benefit of fanatacism, thorns and might(merc) auras and my poison would be nothing to sneeze at.

Can any summoners tell me if it would be worth it to maybe sacrifice 10 points in spirit wolves to put in HoW?
Will the built in AR of rabies and WW be sufficient in hell?
Thoughts, ideas, suggestions ....

Thanks

[Ed from Russia]

Rabies is not a great skill in PvM. It kills too slowly and I believe it tends to crash games if it contaminates too many monsters.

The easiest shapeshifter/summoner is a Werebear using Maul and Shockwave; see the guide for the Town Dump Werebear in the stickies. A Fury wolf is another option, but you lack the safety that Shockwave provides. If you want to move away from physical attacks you might want to combine summons with Fireclaws (werebear); this will work quite well I expect.

The minimum you should invest to have a good summoner is 20 in Dire Wolves and 20 in Grizzly. I wouldn't put points in Spirit Wolves (except for 1 as prerequisite), because your Dire Wolves will do fine without it. I'd rather spend the points on Heart of Wolverine. Obviously, if you go with Fireclaws I would not do this; I would stick with a 1-pt Oak Sage and put remaining points in Fireclaws synergies.

[Jary]

I'd been talking about making a build like that to Oiler and Porky for quite a while... never got around to it lol, just sorta lost interest.

Mine was gonna be sorta hybrid shocksummoner/Rabies pvp

20 Rabes
20 vine
---
20 HoW
20 Griz
15 Dire
1 prereq.

Equip:
Jalal
Doom/SS ::cta/spirit cast
Enigma
trang gloves
arach
Aldurs
Maras
ravens

9 Summon GC, anni, torch, lifeys/light resistors.

That was sorta the idea. I like the idea of Doom if my bear or I need to land a bite on a melee character like barb or zon. Also, I have bramble in case I want thorns vs barbs or smiters. I was only looking at ~25-35k rabies at most since it'd be mostly summon and ~7-8k Griz damage. I never tested though :\ But it looked like it had the means of doing pretty well, it'd be sorta a tele-stomp + Rabies lol, so same formula but an extra punch having rabies even though I'd lose shockwave.

[Ridder]

Thanks for the reply Ed.
Im aware that rabies is slow pvm, unfortunately. My major motivation in choosing rabies is not to be a shapeshifter but to stack as many helpful auras on my summons as possible, mainly fanatacism. My question is how to do this and still have a secondary skill to help them kill?
As a rabid wolf with a might merc I could potentially be using 5 auras and still have a helpful secondary {rabies}
Fanatacism
Thorns
Might
Concentration
Redemption? Does redemption heal summons?

A maul/fireclaws bear needs a faster weapon and better armor than beast and bramble, as would a fury wolf. Focusing on elemental attacks would require a gear setup that would not allow me to stack half these auras.
It's the ias from fanat plus the ed from might and concentration that has me excited.
Is there a fundamental flaw to the build? Am I better off picking up a bow and casting volcano/fissure.

The gear is too expensive to just dive in without thinking it through.

Jary: I'd like to see it in action

[superjayson]

this kind of build could be interesting for pvp. for pvm no.