HC Wind/Summoner Druid

[Rohar]

After playing my first few Hardcore characters, both of which who were Sorcies who died in early-mid Act II Normal,
I decided to start playing a hardcore wind/summoner druid, and seem to be doing reasonably ok. I was hoping for some advice/comments on my progress so far, and maybe some equipment advice too.

I'm going for an Arctic Blast/Tornado druid, and probably getting synergies around those two skills.
I also plan for some minion support, probably from DireWolves mainly, and some Oak Sage to increase my life. I've also got some minor support from Ravens, not so much for the damage, but for the blinding effect

So far I'm at level 25, in early Kurast with the following main skills, with all required pre-regs @ 1

Arctic Blast @ 10
Cyclone Armour @ 4
Raven @ 4
Direwolf @ 3
Tornado @ 2
Oak Sage @ 1

Opinions on my skill distribution so far, and advice on how to proceed, as well as good equipment would be much appreciated.

[Minionman]

I'm guessing you're going to mostly put points into tornado, arctic blast, and dire wolves with some in oak sage, hurricane, and cyclone armor. I've omly played a softcore druid that's only in act 3 nightmare, but so far the trouble spots seem to be against ranged physical attacking monsters like slingers, but dire wolves may help take care of that. At least get 1 point in hurricane, the cold is helpful for slowing down monsters from behind your minions, and if hurricane has a high enough level, the hit recovery caused by it will keep monsters off you. Oak sage worked fine for me at 1 point, but you may want more because of the hardcore, and it will help the dire wolves. Arctic blast isn't as powerful as hurricane or tornado but this is your character.

Thats just my advice. Other people will probably have better ideas.

[Wyrm]

Multi-tree builds don't really work well in 1.10, especially in HC since you need the synergies to be able to damage enemies in hell. If you want to multi, you're going to need to really be careful with skill points. I'd max Oak, Grizzly, Hurricane, and Twister, and put spare points into Twister for the synergy. Arctic Blast doesn't co-synergy with Twister, so it's not a very viable option if you want both to be able to deal damage. To be honest, I'd recommend using Grizzly as a 1 point skill and maxing Cyclone Armor instead for it's synergy to Tornado and Hurricane.

If you want to use Arctic Blast as your main skill, then you're going to need to max both its synergies for the damage, and you're going to need a Holy Freeze merc (unless you're rich, in which case just get the guy a Doom weapon). You're also going to need to not travel alone. Find someone else to take care of cold immunes that you can travel with.

As for equipment... Dark Clan Crusher is good (and cheap), Jalal's Mane, Skin of the Vipermagi (or a 'Stealth' if you can't find/get one), Sig's shield or an 'Ancient's Pledge'/3 diamond shield will all work fine.