Hunter Druid

[librarian]

Heiho,

some months ago I've restarted playing D2 with a standard MS/FA bowie in SP. She managed quite well, mostly because she could find a Riphook just in time before gambling bows would've became to boring and frustrating. However, I always preferred the challenge of playing a class slightly outside their predetermined routes, so as soon as she entered Hell I additionally started a Druid who should rely on his wolves and ranged weapons. This is a conceptual subclass I had played already a long time ago, I think it was still during patch 1.09 (back then with Volcano supplement). It is by no means a build to rush through the maps with monsters falling apart at the sheer sight of him, but this never was appealing to me. My satisfaction during the game comes from playing through each and any map and clearing it from the forces of Evil, no matter how long it takes.

I really would love to take the five wolves as pack, but this would need items completely beyond reality. The character is almost completely untwinked, in a sense of he can use stuff the bowie found on her way to Hell, which is obviously not that kicky - especially since the Riphook and any other stuff the bowie's actually wearing isn't available to the druid. Some of you might remember that I've dug a bit into the modding scene, but I wanted to get the 'real' D2 feeling back, and nothing of that 'put a key and a scroll into the cube and get a <insertwisheditem>' stuff, so it's a bare D2/LoD 1.12 without any fancies.

The druid is now in his late 50s and has entered Act3/Nightmare. He is always played with 'players 6', because I think this is a reasonable setting for an experienced player, where the monsters are just strong enough without becoming too tedious.


The skill setting by now looks like this:
Shape Shifting
- none
Elemental
- 1 into Cyclone Armor and the prerq
Summoning
- 20 into Poison Creeper
- 1 into Raven
- 10 into Spirit Wolf (slightly too much, but I kept them as long as possible ^^ )
- 5 into Dire Wolf (they'll need more)
- 20 into Grizzly
- 1 into Oak
- 1 into HoW

status points
- about 65 str (some from items)
- about 250 dex
- nothing in vita/ene
- 50 spare

- switched the Cold Rogue to a Mighty Guy recently

The mercenary wears an IceBlink, Undead Crown, and I was lucky to find him an awesome pole at the vendors', otherwise I'd have used the Savage Pole cube recipe.
Annotation: I've read about it some (long) time ago, and I can confirm that hirelings don't leech in SP; AFAIK this is true for 1.11 and 1.12, not sure about 1.10. They have a pretty high regeneration, so this doesn't matter as long as you're aware of it and willing to spend 'em a drink more than you'd do at bnet. So despite the annoying effect of IceBlink destroying valuable wolf food every now and then I'll stick to that safety shirt until there's a really kicky alternative.

The druid himself used gambled throwing axes (I really like throwing axes) and some gambled bow/xbow until I got very tired of him being just a show-off. Unfortunately, with a bowie occupying RipHook with her nice buttocks, the other stuff available lead to him using HellCast by now. For those who won't remember, it is that Heavy Crossbow (normal unique), which shoots Explosive Bolts.
He's still just a show-off, but at least he can now illuminate dark dungeons :-P I'm looking forward to try some blood-axe-crafting soon. Despite my loathe of trigger stuff he has a shopped weapon to cast AD on striking in Slot2, because in Arcane Sanctuary I met the first PI bosses; Poison Creeper is almost useless in that map. Other equip involves complete Hsarus Set (complete only at Slot2, obviously), a rare druid circlet with +1 and some slightly better stuff than the +1 pelt from Anya/Normal offered (which had additionally +1 Solar Creeper and IIRC something like +5mana or anything of that scope), TwitchThroe, and some gambled jewelry which is good enough at the moment. Because of his awesome damage output I don't need to keep an eye on leech properties here, so it is a +1 druid amulet and some resistance and life replenish from the rings. BloodFist is recently changed to Magnus' Skin, the Orphanage Set gloves.

I'll badly need to work on my Poison Creeper tactics, since this one is my inbuilt PI solution. I doubt I'll find some high-elemental-damage-weapon just in time.
The threesome Wolves do quite good, and in emergency cases I reluctantly switch to the Grizzly. Yet there's no decision if I should push Oak or HoW, but I heavily tend to HoW (especially regarding the druid's AR issues otherwise). Nevertheless I've used Oak in some tight situations where even the Grizzly's HP were brought down irritatingly fast. I don't play HC, but still I don't like my chars to die ;-)

So you may already have noticed that this build is very low in life, and be assured this won't change dramatically. If there happen to come some suitable throwing axes around the dex-as-dex-can idea will still pay off because of the damage multiplier for throwing stuff, and if there's a nice shooting weapon on the way it will of course do as well. For the record, (x)bow-wielding chars in endgame with less than 400dex are either very specialized (aka no-leech-no-pierce Magezon or ITD-special-effect-Snipers) or very misplanned, and to my opinion mostly the latter (anyone remembering the ridiculous Jah-Windforce-Zons in .09? That misplanned).

Hopefully this was not too boring to read, I just wanted to spice up the D2 section a bit ;-)

[ShadowHM]

*waves to the Librarian*

Hunter Druids have been some of my favourite characters. :) I found them a bit difficult/tedious in the latter sections of Hell for soloing, due to the lack of significant elemental damage. May you find it otherwise. B)

But throwing axes garner significant style points, even if you have to run with eight of your inventory slots used by the spares needed to swap in the field. (I admit, my thrower was a Paladin, but the same issues are bound to apply.)

Just for fun, if you have some spare time, the story of HardlyAble may amuse you too. He was a lot of fun to play with, when I was learning tactics for a Tankzon. :whistling:

*sets out a bowl of peanuts, in case you feel the need to throw things at the screen while you read*

[Archon_Wing]

On b.net ladder, the runeword harmony would be quite a boon to this build and somewhat reasonable to get. Not only does it have elemental damage to help with PIs, but it may let you add some summons.

Actually I think harmony may be suitable for non-zons, due to the oskill valk.

Unfortunately, with a bowie occupying RipHook with her nice buttocks

That's quite an odd image that I got from reading that.;)

[librarian]

Heiho,

Hunter Druids have been some of my favourite characters. :) I found them a bit difficult/tedious in the latter sections of Hell for soloing, due to the lack of significant elemental damage.

I'm aware of that :-)
The better side is, /players x makes the monsters stronger, and maybe it adds a tad to population seed, but it's by no means the population seed you'd get in a game with six actual players participating. And clearing the maps completely means you'll have almost anytime enough space to retreat - even with worst case of running ahead, tp-ing and walking the way again from last WP.
Last resort is of course to reduce /players x, and use an IthElEth pole with the hireling.

But throwing axes garner significant style points, even if you have to run with eight of your inventory slots used by the spares needed to swap in the field.

nothing more annoyant* than having to retreat from an otherwise balanced battle just because of lack of ammo. That's why there'll be a shooting or refilling weapon in alternate slot. Highly doubtable that there'd happen to come several sets of sufficient axes along ;-P

*sets out a bowl of peanuts, in case you feel the need to throw things at the screen while you read*

much appreciated, though at the moment I could murder a curry ... :-)

On b.net ladder, the runeword harmony would be quite a boon to this build and somewhat reasonable to get. Not only does it have elemental damage to help with PIs, but it may let you add some summons.

it's only a flag in a spreadsheet editor to switch. But again, I'm afraid I start this and end up with cube recipes granting me a blizzard cannon and any other equip imaginable. Why bothering with Harmony when I could use any item and any property on items as well with just adding some lines to CubeMain ...
Using stuff the Zon found on her way is one thing, and probably I'll stretch it to using her near 80 cLvl for doing some gambling and some crafting, but that's it.

That's quite an odd image that I got from reading that. ;)

Heh, this time it was intended ...
Every now and then I can't resist to translate a metaphor directly just for the fun of seeing it written in English :c)


* well, except of dying. Or bad drops. Or stupid pets/hirelings. Or some other stuff I might've forgotten

[Hammerskjold]

re: leech not working for hireling in SP 1.11 and 1.12.

I tried this and while the red swirl animation did show, my barbarian hireling didn't seem to gain any life from his blood helm. I didn't do a super scientific test, and I didn't do hundreds of thousands of gajillions tests, and I don't have the ability to look at the code.

But it does seem like your confirmation is right. If it is, I gotta say for me this is a very
unwelcomed bug\feature for SP.

it's only a flag in a spreadsheet editor to switch. But again, I'm afraid I start this and end up with cube recipes granting me a blizzard cannon and any other equip imaginable. Why bothering with Harmony when I could use any item and any property on items as well with just adding some lines to CubeMain ...

I have the runeword txt mod on my SP game, and I personally haven't felt the need or 'temptation' to go any more than that.

Then again, having used the cube mod (obviously only in SP setting where I can't negatively affect others) to test out various builds that ranged from using minimal gear, to affordable and realistic gear to absolutely ridicilous stupidly expensive gear, my curiousity is I'd say, permanently satisified.

Not to mention I really don't like how bliz treated SP for D2 like a red headed stepchild at times, eg: "the 'real' game is online". I sort of understand their angle, but I don't like it much. But YMMV and all that.

(And if I had any skills to make significant changes to the code or mod the standard game. I'd probably be more inclined to make different styled changes simply due to my own bias.

Setting aside if it's even technically possible, I'd be inclined to do something like include a built in crushing blow variables to all blunt weapons. Do away with the rarity=quality mentality and go back to something more like D1. Missile weapons would take distance into account for their accuracy check. De-emphasize gear dependence by buffing skill sets and using a rock paper scissor model for gear instead of garbage-good-godly, but most important of all.

All Zombies, all the time!:lol:)

[librarian]

Heiho,

re: leech not working for hireling in SP 1.11 and 1.12.

I tried this and while the red swirl animation did show, my barbarian hireling didn't seem to gain any life from his blood helm. I didn't do a super scientific test, and I didn't do hundreds of thousands of gajillions tests, and I don't have the ability to look at the code.

But it does seem like your confirmation is right. If it is, I gotta say for me this is a very
unwelcomed bug\feature for SP.

I didn't specifically test this, and neither me can look at code stuff, but the second SP character with hirelings not even showing the swirlie plus that vague memory of someone having annotated it some earlier time is close enough to me. Usually Undead Crown would be sufficient enough in Nightmare to keep an Act2 guy alive on itself with that pole he wears. It isn't. He recovers health very quickly, so as long as he's on top of things there's no real problem. If he gets crowded things become a hairy mess quickly without pots. With the Zon I thought his weapon would be too slow, so he maybe would be stunned too often, but this explanation isn't true by sheer observation.

I have the runeword txt mod on my SP game, and I personally haven't felt the need or 'temptation' to go any more than that.
... And if I had any skills to make significant changes to the code or mod the standard game. I'd probably be more inclined to make different styled changes simply due to my own bias.

See, you've installed a mod. You play by the rules the mod offers, which are slightly in your favour, but nevertheless you respect the rules as set. For me it is flipping some switches, and the barrier is just to open another file and 'correct' some stuff.
That said, there is a lot of stuff I could manage to 'correct' during the active HoB development which bothered me far more than just some bnet-only Runewords. Either by fixing typos, by doing softcoded workarounds or by making enemies more interesting*. This was fun to do, and any tiny success made me happy. Well, happier than before.

But blank D2/LoD it is, and I can easily accept the lack of some Runewords in SP. After all, I wanted the original feeling - with any flaws it offers.



* just to keep misunderstanding at minimum: HoB was not intended and didn't end as drop-mod. I didn't stop it out of boredom or saturation, but out of lack of time, skill and motivation. And I've always kept thinking about it, but I also think one needs to know the original flavour of the game to think about changes.

[Hammerskjold]

Heiho,
I didn't specifically test this, and neither me can look at code stuff, but the second SP character with hirelings not even showing the swirlie plus that vague memory of someone having annotated it some earlier time is close enough to me. Usually Undead Crown would be sufficient enough in Nightmare to keep an Act2 guy alive on itself with that pole he wears. It isn't. He recovers health very quickly, so as long as he's on top of things there's no real problem. If he gets crowded things become a hairy mess quickly without pots. With the Zon I thought his weapon would be too slow, so he maybe would be stunned too often, but this explanation isn't true by sheer observation.

After playing with this some more, it seems a bit more complicated at least for me. Granted, there's some tricky factors that makes straightforward observation\conclusion trickier. With another SP char of mine, with a higher level Barbarian merc and a weapon with AMN and a blood helm, he seems to be ok. Then again he is higher level, and iirc barb mercs have a faster life regen. (Base at least, a prayer merc with Insight may or may not be as fast.)

In either case, thanks for the heads up about this potential bug\feature.
If it does turn out to be true, I might have to start looking and save
those DOL runes instead of making the usual bloodcraft helm.

but I also think one needs to know the original flavour of the game to think about changes.

Agreement on that. Gots to know which one's the baby and which is the bathwater and such.

[librarian]

Heiho,

... gambling with the Zon was
best.
idea.
ever.



time to add some of the spare status points into str :-)

[bradsimon]

Heiho,

... gambling with the Zon was
best.
idea.
ever.



time to add some of the spare status points into str :-)

yes it was!!