Fury hybrid questions

[alkranin]

So i read the PVM guides and see most fury guides going pure fury

Something like
20 Fury
20 Lycanthropy
20 Werewolf
20 Feral rage
20 Oak/HOW
at end game

I was thinking of making something with a little summoned support and wanted opinions.

1 point Werewolf
20 Lycanthropy for life and duration
20 Fury
20 HoW
20 Dire wolves (life to summons)
1 grizzly
1 point in vine of choice

Might merc

Since werewolf has diminishing return in increased speed let +skills bump that up. Put all remaining points towards feral rage.

So i am sacrificing some attack rating by not maxing werewolf, and Feral rage will be at a lower level as well, in exchange i get ravens, a vine, and dire wolves or a bear, with a lot of life that can survive in hell and be a meat shield. Also with HoW and a might merc they will do reasonable damage.

So do you think the trade off is worth it? I think the druid is more fun to play with the summons, but is the loss of attack rating from werewolf that significant in light of the boost from HoW?

Any input appreciated.

Alk

[NitecryXI]

I personally dun think its worth it. I've tested it and my conclusion is you would do fine w/o the summons.

1) do you have nice gears? if you play twinked, you don't need the summons at all and your gears would let you survive quite well. if you play untwinked, then it really depends on how good your weapon is (IMHO, high dmg = high leech + high killing speed = high survivability). if you play untwinked and don't have a good weapon (I usually just gamble rare items 2h weapons and upgrade exceptional items to elite items if they have high %enhanced dmg) then you may need some meat shields.

2) I tend to max WW for the sake of attack speed + AR. if you can't hit anything then no matter how many meat shields you have won't help.

3) druid summons just arent THAT great compare to a valkrye or a bunch of skeletons.

my 2 cents only... but I think wolves are offense-oriented and I like to max my killing power and sacrifice my safety (well other than high life a wolf isn't as safe as a barb or pally anyways)

[Verashiden]

I disagree:

1) It's not necessarily about killing speed. Even for a Twinked Wolf there are some situations where you're "le boned" (Frenzytaur mob with silly mods). Summons don't detract anything from the core build and make for great tanks when the situation goes from manageable to "RUN! RUN LIKE A COWARD!"

2) The AS from maxed WW doesn't help your FPA if you have a decent weapon. The only thing you would be maxing it for would be AR. For PVM, ~10k is enough AR to hit everything consistently, which isn't terribly hard to get.

3) Um, what? Unless you let the Zon roll the Valk for an amp weapon the Bear will out damage it and has a higher hit point pool. Valk gets gear which can put it over the top but even then it's not necessarily heads and shoulders above the bear. Wolves have ~the same DPS as Bear, eat corpses (vital in untwinked), and cover more ground, protecting you better in open areas.

4) Que? What makes a Barb safer than a Wolf? WCs?