Will this work in hell?

[Trueblood]

It's a build I came up which greatly influent by Ed's fire huntermentalist. Only thing this guy rely more on volcano to deal with FI rather than faith bow with strong minions. His main attack will be volcano, fully sync.

20 Fissure
20 Molten Boulder
20 Volcano
20 Dire Wolves
1 Grizzly
1 Hurricane
with remaining point in Cyclone Armor

I'm currently playing in NM, and he has no problem soloing so far. It's my first character, so I am literally untwink. I choose to max Molten Boulder because it is a nice substitute for Volcano in tight area. And with the combine power of an Act 2 Holy Freeze Merc and Hurricane, hopefully I could slow things enough.

Still, I'm worry if this character is able to survive in hell. I'm not sure 1 pt Grizzly is strong enough to tank given how summon resist work for Druid. Should I split the point between Dire Wolves and Grizzly?

A few question....
1) Why is Dire Wolves consuming corpse around them? It's almost like they're casting corpse explosion.
2) Will plus skill from equipment in Cyclone Armor extent the duration of Hurricane?

[scottydoubleohsix]

idk about the build but as for your questions

1) Dire wolves eat corpses, this doesnt do any dmge explosions like CE but it increases their attack for a period of time and stops the monster from being CE'd/Ressurected

2)No it won't, synergies only work for hard skill pts aka points you allocate by leveling and skill quests except for some rare cases (druid summons i think?:scratchchin:)

[wrpyo]

the build works fine in hell but you might wanna put some point in oak sage & carrion vine

[Trueblood]

Thanks for the reply.:)
I already had 1 point in Oak Sage, but it die very often during boss fight. After a while, I just don't bother to recast it. I'm aiming at getting +10 skill from item eventually, so I don't know if I should put more point in Oak Sage. Carrion Vine, I really don't see the point because I shouldn't be getting hit very often with summons around. Even if they do get past my summons, Hurricane and Holy Freeze should slow them enough for me to get away.

[Verashiden]

Hurricane won't do anything in Hell just so you know. The reduced freeze duration combined with the freeze resistance of monsters makes it a waste of skill points.

1) Dire Wolves have an Enrage ability that allows them to consume a corpse and gain 100% ED for a certain amount of time.

2)Aside from the summon tree, +skills will not synergize. Only hard points will.

[toastersauce]

I think your gonna have a harder time in hell than people are leading you on. I built a similar character a while back and i ran into a few problems.

First, your summons aren't going to be very effective killers, unless your merc is whereing some godly gear. To make them better you would need to invest a huge amount of points into HoW, which would really weaken your elemental attack. Don't get me wrong Volcano properly synergized is a BEAST of a spell, but it really only works as a single target killer, and can't be cast often enough to deal with mobs. The splash damage is to infrequent to be any real asistance. Fissure is great but FI won't care, and your summons are gonna have a tough time actully killing them as you pick them off one by one with volcano.

Chaos will be the hardest of all, with tons of Fire and PI walking around its gonna be a challenge keeping the correct attack on the correct Immunities, all the time while taking missle hits.

I reccomend 2 things:
1. Carrion vine and HoW, Vine heals, and you will NEED it.
2. Invest in a great merc, i mean a really insane merc. act2 Holy freeze for sure, slow them down and allow volcano to do its thing, Make sure hes whereing Guillems, and Duress 50% CB which will help for bosses, but that limits his weps to BOTD pikes, Tomb reaver, or Bonehew with some Amns.

Either way man, your in for a really really interesting time. All beat it still kinda fun, if you like a challenge.

[Trueblood]

Well, Have you tried MB? It seem like a good spell for tightly pack FI? Those that scatter, I can pick them one by one with volcano. My summons are good for tanking only, I don't think using HoW instead of Oak would work. That might required a whole different build. I probably had to max both grizzly and dire wolf for them to be effective killer. On top of that, I need a faith bow which is inaccessible for newbie like me.

PS: I thought you are building a wearbear?

[toastersauce]

lol, I am. I have just tried a very very similar build to yours, with moderate sucess at best?

What helm are u using? Try to find a spirit keeper.

[Trueblood]

A rare druid helm with +2 to elemental skills and some other skills that I can't recall atm.

[Ed from Russia]

I would have gone for 20 pts in Grizzly and 1 pt in Dire Wolves, and played with a Grizzly. It's true that you will only have one shield (vs. 3 wolves the way you invested), but your Grizzly will actually do a huge amount of damage and will rarely die.

[Trueblood]

Thanks for the reply Ed. That's the part that trouble me the most. I did some simulation with druid's pet calculator before

With +10 to all skills, Dire Wolf 1, Grizzly 20
Grizzly will have 2600 hp and 85% Resistance, doing average 2400 dmg
as compare to, Dire Wolf 20, Grizzly 1
Grizzly will have 5600 hp and 50% Resistance, doing only 371 dmg

honestly I can't decided if 3k more hp is better than 45% more resistance.
If I manage to keep Oak Sage alive, which probably hard, I get 80% hp bonus, which further the life different to 4680 against 10080

[Ed from Russia]

It's not really the resistance that matters, but the difference in damage. A source of physical damage (besides your merc and partly Volcano) will be very welcome.

If your Oak Sage dies, simply recast him. In this build you don't have enough points to invest more than one point here.

Check out my Fire Druid guide. It's not stickied yet but you can easily find it by either using the search function or by browsing through the last 50-ish messages in the Druid forum. It's quite extensive and should give you a lot of useful tips.

[Trueblood]

Yes, Ed, I had read your guides, both of them, before I start making this character. They're really helpful, and thanks to them, I learn a lot about druid.
Back to the point, if another physical damage from pet is so important and hurricane is pointless in hell, perhaps I ought to change my build a bit.

20 Fissure
20 Molten Boulder
20 Volcano
20 Dire Wolves
20 Grizzly
1 Oak Sage

Which mean I also need to change my holy freeze merc to a might merc for better result. That's pretty much a standard summoner/elemental build. But I think I will stick to the plan, and see how far I can go with the current setup. Because I don't like depending on pet for dmg.

[Ed from Russia]

Both setups will work fine.

[Trueblood]

Both setups will work fine.

Honestly, I really wish I could use the first setup(1 DW, 10 Gizzly) you suggested. But it's too late for me, as I already sink 10 point in DW before I read your comment. Right now my Druid had:

20 Fissure
20 Volcano
10 Dire Wolves
1 Grizzly
1 Oak Sage
1 in Hurricane as well as all it's pre-request

[toastersauce]

Sense you have hurricane put a point in armagedon! ull get a few looks that way.

On a side note, why the hell did blizzard make the skill "armagedon" so nerfed. Its more like a bad tuesday afternoon. Not the end of days! I would really had like to see an addition 50% of its damage in physical form, i mean you ahve to invest A HUGE amount of skills just to use the danm thing!