Druidy Wolfy Fury

[shavenlunatic]

OK, I started my first Druid. I thought, mmMMmm, a Werewolf might be nice.

Bumped all my points into werewolf and a couple into Lyc. (oh, and put one in Oak too as when i've been reading up on Wolves this would seem to be wise to either have Oak or How)

Im at about clvl 16 atm and all of a sudden I had a panic wondering if my Druid would be able to survive in Hell.

My original plan was/is going to be as follows:

Max WW
Max Lyc
Max Fury
Rest of the points in Oak Sage


So im pondering 2 things:

1) Will this Build be good enough to survive without dying every 5 minutes in Hell? (in a fairly small party at max)

2) For this build, do we reckon Oak or How would be best? OR 10 in each?


Ive scoured the internet but for some reason my feeble little mind cant find anything as specific as what im looking for so any experience Druidian advice would be mucho appreciated

Thanks :)

[Caaroid]

Ok, so a few advices:

Use a two handed weapon. Preferrably IK maul or faster (giant treshers, etc...)

Pump str to needed (225 for maul), if you use polearms pump dex to needed (for maul no need).

Put rest to vit, with maxed lyc and sage you can have silly amount of life.

If I were you, though... I'd go like:
20 lyc 20 fury 1-5 werewolf 20 sage and the rest either to bear or feral rage.
Get a 1-point carrion wine too, it works WONDERS with your 3k+ life.

And use feral with fury at all times

[shavenlunatic]

Ok, so a few advices:

Use a two handed weapon. Preferrably IK maul or faster (giant treshers, etc...)

Pump str to needed (225 for maul), if you use polearms pump dex to needed (for maul no need).

Put rest to vit, with maxed lyc and sage you can have silly amount of life.

If I were you, though... I'd go like:
20 lyc 20 fury 1-5 werewolf 20 sage and the rest either to bear or feral rage.
Get a 1-point carrion wine too, it works WONDERS with your 3k+ life.

And use feral with fury at all times

I thought (and 90% of the time i AM wrong..lol) that it might be wised to have a shield, being that I've never used a shield really before and I thought the extra resists and +skills might come in handy. But if maul is generally the way to go, when using a pure werewolf (I wanted to stay away from having a bear) then so be it, I'll use the bonesnap 'till i manage to find an IK maul.

I do have a 1 handed mace that has decent physical damage + a little fire +2druid skills +a few various shapeshifter skills, this is the other reason why I was leaning towards a shield, it's all very confusing for a newb like be :D

I am curious about the 1-5 in werewolf, I would have thought that to have a decent WW i would need to max werewolf and lyc, wouldnt I? Please enlighten me (because god knows I need it! lol)



Or is the point you're trying to get at is that werewolves arent really Hell viable and I should have opted for a bear?


Anyways, advice much appreciated and taken on board, I need moooore though :D

[shavenlunatic]

Sorry, also I forgot to ask. With FR and Fury, if i hit something with FR until the light starts spinning round me, then Hotkey switch to Fury, will I maintain the bonuses which FR gave me for the duration of the 20 seconds even though I am now attacking with Fury?


EDIT:

LOL, also:

How is the damage calculated, i.e.

If FR bonus gives me +100% Damage, and I am "Raging" while attacking with Fury, and Fury will add on.. say 400% Extra damage, are both the percentages from base or from current?

I kinda know the answer to this is Base, but I was just looking for confirmation

[ShadowDragon]

First, to answer your questions (note: this is all from experience with my lvl 78 WW Druid in SP), with charged up FR only the life steal stays when you switch to fury.
For my WW I pumped strength early to about 100 then vit went up for a while then strength to 225 for ogre maul then rest in vit. For skills put about 5 in to both lyc and ww early on then put a few in oak sage (definately the best for a ww) and do whatever you want after that till lvl 30, after that you max fury asap.
My ww has maxxed lyc, ww, fury and sage and is busy putting points into Carrion Vine for insanely fast life recovery. He used a Bonesnap from lvl 24 to about lvl 50 then I upgraded it and he used that until he could use IK Maul. He currently has 3500 life, hasn't died yet and has never had problems with bosses.
Hope this helps B)

[shavenlunatic]

sweet info, much appreciated, thanks

One thing, how far should i go with the dex? its pretty low at the minute, i think ive only put a few points in it (mainly str and vit), but how high should i be looking to get it?

Oh, and mana, at about lvl 70 where should my base mana and dex be?


Again, thanks from the newb :D

[TheDragoon]

I'd suggest you go check out my Werewolf Guide. It covers some of what you're looking for, I think. It was written for 1.09 but is perfectly valid for 1.10 (for the most part). :)

[Caaroid]

When it's the melee druid, you got to read Dragoon's guides (and they are a good read anyway).

With my fury druid I went no-dex. Fury gives a lot of AR, and there is no other need for dex for a build like this.
Key is the speed, and most one-handed weapons are too slow (ok, there are insanely pricy fast one handed weapons but just forget them, it'll make you sleep easier).

About ww, I am not entirely sure that you need to max it. In most cases it "feels" that around 5 is enough in it (you primarily want to have it for the increased attack speed).

Ah well. Read the guides.

ps: Dragoon, how is the elemental druid guide coming along?

[shavenlunatic]

Sweet guide, im reading it and soaking it in, cheers :)

And yeah, good point about the dex, consider it ignored.


Incidentally, back to one of my original points about the one handed weapon + shield.

I have the following, is it worth using with a shield? (when i get to clvl 33, currently 20)

---------------------------------
Fleshrender
Barbed Club
---------------------------------
One Hand Damage: 73 - 124
+2 Shape Shifting Skills
+1 Druid Skills
+35-50 Damage
20% Crushing Blow
20% Deadly Strike
25% Open Wounds
Prevent Monster Heal
+50% Dam to undead
---------------------------------


Or should i stick to bonesnap then IK?

[Sir_Die_alot]

Fleshrender despite giving +3 shapeshift is one of the crappier druid weapons IMO. It's too slow slow slow. :angry: The only thing I have ever used one for is as an alternate weapon to shapeshift and summon with.

[Caaroid]

Check out the attack speed part of the guide. You need around a 5-frame fury to be happy with yourself. Fleshrenderer is just awful, I have never ever used one (for over 2 swings that is).

[shavenlunatic]

Aye, good point. Well, i'll use the old bonesnap once i get to lvl 24. I am relatively a D2 newb so I dont have a massive arsenal of mules with every elite item under the sun but I'll get there.. one day :D

Incidentally, fyi, the Wolf (well, im calling him a Dog) is doing pretty well, i got rushed through act3 (I don't know why but i can't stand act3 at the minute, I used to love it too) and with a combination if Sigons, FR, life/mana steal rings and mauls, I bimbled through the quests in Act4 at clvl 20 all on my lonesome with barely guzzling a single Potion (to my recollection) and Duriel couldn't hurt me.

I think I may like this WW business, can't wait till i start Furying.



Oh, quick question about Fury, is there much of a problem with dying mid-fury attack? Can you guzzle potions mid-fury?

[Ferengi]

I made a Fury wolf in 1.09 who killed anything in Hell. I used polearms thruout his existance, ending with a Silence Giant Thresher. Grims Burning was pretty good prior to that. I had thought that I might use an IK maul and had the str for it, but IK maul is not a good choice (being popular is not always smart). The GT is a maximum range weapon, the maul is not. With a GT, the majority of monsters were killed without them hitting me. Monsters stop when you hit them and if they have a range 3 weapon and I've hit them at range 5, I take no damage.

I also had a lot of life leech on the Druid, and thus I did not need high life. I learned to 'ride the leech' long ago. I kept putting points into Dex and Str and only a little into Vit. Monsters that are stunned do not hit you, and if your Chance to Hit is high, again you defend yourself thru offense. Since offense was the key, I had HoW. I had many +20 HP charms too, since I didn't have much else in the backpak.

People I played with generally made positive comments about the character's effectiveness, especially if they stayed alive if I was around.

So max HoW, not Oak and put the left over points into Rage. Keep Rage up while killing with Fury. I used a Might merc, setup for heavy leech, since his function was to give me, the killer, a nice aura. Get the CubeMod from AB and try out your ideas before making crippling errors on the Realms.

[shavenlunatic]

Thanks for that... Sounds Like a nice build, it is a little too late for me now as ive pumped a few points into Oak but I think I might get this WW up to about lvl 80 and then create a new WW character and take him to the same level and see how i feel they compare.


Also, one other question I just thought of, i take it you can only have EITHER Oak or HoW summoned at a time?

[electricblue]

well its more of a 1.09 fashion druid.
I advice you the ik set. put 2 shaels in the weapon.
(without the helm).
it gives you a fast and damaging weapon, dr, resists, leech, mf, cb
nice gear.

I have some guides that you might be interested.
www.geocities.com/welett/pvp.htm <-----------1.09
www.geocities.com/welett/index110.htm <---- 1.10

welcome to the druid style of playing.

[shavenlunatic]

Sounds lovely, all the calculations for weapon speeds kinda lose me but I think I get the jist of it


This druid is becoming quite addictive.. i was half addicted to my Orb Sorc as i saw her mince through Normal and Hell as if the minions didnt even exist, then hit hell and She has now retired other than to do the odd MF run in NM :D

Druid Dogs rock, mines gonna chase cars and everything

[TheDragoon]

ps: Dragoon, how is the elemental druid guide coming along?

Slowly. :( I was busier than I thought I'd be over break and now school has started. I'm willing to bet that I'll make NO headway until one day when I sit down the finish it completely. I'm funny like that. :D

[TheDragoon]

Yeah, only one spirit can be summoned at a time (same goes for the vines and you can only have one type of summonable from the Spirit Wolves, Dire Wolves and Grizzly subset out at once, too).

[TheDragoon]

I'm pretty sure that you can drink potions during a Fury. For the most part, if you play carefully then you won't have trouble dying while in a Fury-lock. However, the chances go up dramatically if you choose a slower weapon (which is one of the reasons people advocate faster weapons). :)

[Caaroid]

Polearms have a greater reach and potential higher damage, and if you're lucky, better mods than an IK hammer. However, EVERYONE has an IK hammer (just last night I got two), and I have yet to see a vex to make a silence giant tresher for myself. If we're about to suggest overpriced items I'd go with a Doom poleam, and I think I'll get it just as soon as a silence one :(

Of course if one's rich, gogo polearm!

(you need your riches to get the charms as well; the dex you'll need eats up a ton of life)