Zookeeper Druids

[Nightwind]

I'm reading the materials on zookeepers posted in the past year, and finding it rather skimpy.

And narowing that to just 1.10...

So far it's 5 points of raven, and one in ghost wolves.
I'm going to put one into cyclone for the sake of defence, once I've payed the pre-reqs.

One point into creeper, to help on the regeration of uniques, I think.
Is spirit of barb's a good way to do yet more dammage, concidering how hard pets get hit?
Or should I go the other dirrection, and hope to find wandering enchantresses to help my pets and give them the life to live....

i don't even know where to put my points, beyond running out dex for blocking....
unless I put some points into lycanthropy, and run with the pack, then I want a maul or something, don't I?

Too much conflcting advice...

What do you concider the truth?

Thanks for any assistance you can render.

[Nomad_oWn]

I have a 70 Summon druid just starting hell so I can't say I'm an expert on the topic but I doubt you'll find a great many that far in 1.10 yet either.

Here's my build from memory:

1 raven
1 Bear
1 Lycanthropy
1 Cyclone armor
20 Summon Spirit Wolf
20 Grizzly
20 Heart of Wolverine

I may split the rest in lycanthropy and shockwave.

More than likely even with summon damage maxed out in skills, maxc plus skill items and using a Might Merc hell will be difficult even in a solo game. Primarily 2 weaknesses :

1) Damage seems too low

Much better than 1.09 certainly but in comparison to hell monster hitpoints not enough it seems. I'm not sure the skill screen adjusts to HOW and merc/party buffs though. There's a small chance it will surprise me.

2) No resistances

Its possible that they bult in resistances in 1.10 similiar to the way they handle merc resistance- by level. I've seen nothing conclusive towards this end though and there certainly is nothing like the necro's summon resist or a documented synergy to address resistances.

The good news is that they are easily rebuilt but the bad news if they are dying they arent killing and you won't be effective.

The character was kind of a struggle early in normal as I chose not to invest in spirit wolf and relied on plus skills and my characters weapon to advance. My feeling was that HOW was a better investment for AR and damage and spirit wolf synergy simply increase AR for the same investment. Its possible I'll need that AR in Hell but I'd sure hope I wouldnt need to invest 20 points just so my wolves or Bear can hit something given my maximum use of HOW.

He did very well in Nightmare though as he was an excellent party player with Max How, minions and repeated use of shockwave to control mobs.

One last thought. I glanced at carrion vine but frankly I'm not sure how beneficial it would be because the returns are confusing. Is life returned based on damage ie leech or is life returned as a replenish life buff? My impression was that its the latter which to me seems rather worthless. If its the former (leech) then I would have jumped all over it. Perhaps someone can enlighten us as to how exactly Carrion vine works? I heard poison vine works very well though my glance at the statistics contradict that word of mouth. I'll keep an open mind about it and perhaps try maxing it on another druid.

[Assur]

Hi

I don't know if you are playing HC?

Ravens are good, put most of your points into Dire Wolf and Oak Sage, I think there is aruneword giving you thorns aura, or you can hire an act 2 merc (NM) with thorns aura, so no spirit of barbs.

For Act bosses you can use plus-skill items, but you are going to have a problem with PI monsters.

good hunting

[Nightwind]

SC, I reinstaled clean for 1.10 because I had quit completely, full deletion.....

I've realised that it's going to be more then a little hard for the PI, they stoped my paladin for a while too... It's now being rebuilt into an avenger... (first PI was NORMAL, Stoneskin, Ghost, something else, met in a false toumb of tal rasha)...

So I am thinking I will, very early, have to go off pure summoning.. and put some in to back myself up, possibily rabies. How many PI Poison Immune's could there be?

Bramble? I think is the thorns aura. So wolverene, and bramble runeword... and Prayer merc?

If i dualtree into wolf, then i want to use heavy weapons, right?

[Caaroid]

Every corpse it consumes gives you (YOUR LIFE)*(VINE %).
So you get as much life as you'd leech hitting for the same damage as your life and having a leech percentage of your vine.

This skill works best on 2-3k shifters for obvious reasons, and a low-life summoner would not benefit that much (say 700 life, 4% leech = 28 life/corpse)

[Brista]

2) No resistances 

Its possible that they bult in resistances in 1.10 similiar to the way they handle merc resistance-  by level.

Now bear with me because I'm not an expert when it comes to reading the text files

In skills.txt for each type is reads
aurastat1 = fireresist = "min(In78,85)"
similarly for cold, lightning and poison

Param7 = resist = 0
Param8 = resists per level = 5

Think that means 5% resist per level you have in that particular skill, capped at 85%. (ie skill level 17). (Originally spotted by Tiamat over at the Basin)

Now that's interesting because a traditional tactic has been to use a Grizzly bolstered by points in Dire Wolf. Looks like in this version you'd want points in Grizzly so that it gets the resists

Skills items should count so 12 in Grizzly with +5 skills should hit the max

Another interesting thing is that they get the itemarmour_percent bonus to defence from points in Spirit Wolf. Zath said elsewhere that this bonus multiplies the skill_ defence bonus given by Shout and Defiance. So maxxed Spirit Wolf plus a Defiance merc might lead to some pretty durable minions, especially if you party with a Barb and give them 85% resists too

Edit: afterthought: I'm not sure how their poison resist works. Maybe it works like monsters or maybe like players

Eg 1000 poison over 10 secs

1) resist works likes players => 150 poison over 10 secs
2) resist works likes monsters => 22.5 poison over 1.5 secs

Has anyone noticed if the poison length seems short for a well-developed Summons?

[Nightwind]

so you find yourself using pack s of spirit wolves, except when you need the grizzly to tank...
I seea lot of people leaning heavy into dire wolves. But your woulverine seems to let you take care of dammage.


I have to ask....

PI's?

[Darkling Glory]

Hi Nightwind,

Go over to www.theamazonbasin.com. When you get there, go to the Diablo2 forums. Once in the forums, go to the Strategy Forums. In the Strategy Forums go to the Druid Room. After having finally reached the Druid Room, the third "Important" thread title will be, "Got Questions". Open this thread and you will find 10 guides on various druid builds. You will also find 2 guides on equipment, 5 guides on skill dispersement, 3 guides on pvp (dueling) and even a "Wereform Attack Speeds Calculator". Hope that helps.

--DG

p.s. If you're looking for a fun druid build, give FenrisWulf's "Hunter" close attention. Both of mine hold their own, in 8 player games just as well as they do in one or two player games. This build, played properly, survives very well in HC too.

[Nomad_oWn]

Very informative discovery Brista. Perhaps this is more common knowledge than I assume but I've seen nothing on it to date. I can't be certain regarding poison length but my summons held up well against Andy and Radament in Hell and I didnt notice a need to resummon when it came to poison.

The comments regarding PI are well taken. My first thought was fire claws as a complementary skill to handle PI. As a hardcore player that chose HOW I feel the need to boost life and transform duration with lycanthropy though.

My next thought was charges as a weapon switch. I could see life tap being useful in this regard but still no impact against PI. Perhaps lower resist in combination with a very high elemental damage weapon. I think you could easily cube a fast magic weapon with multiple sockets and inheritted elemental damage. I'm sure there are uniques out there that might serve the same end. Vengeance charges might be useful and I believe there is a runeword with high level Poison Explosion charges that could help (my guess is that this is a less effective alternative). Another possibility is to give your merc a high elemental weapon and perhaps combine it with the use of enchant charges. Unfortunately, a merc isn't easily controlled in game situations and getting him to attack a specific monster in a mob isn't real practical.

I took my summon druid trough most of act 2 hell in a small party today (hc btw) and made some personal observations.

- High level Summons hold up well against elemental damage
- High level Summon Bears KICK Arse

I summoned a bear in a pack of about 15 hell lightning bugs in rocky waste. Among those were champions. It took some time but he demolished all of them by himself without the aid of my merc or his might aura. The stats read about 5k life and about 2k damage for the bear. My wolves couldnt handle this pack but the Bear handled it with flying colors. I think most of the time wolves are a better option as they give you a bit more control over mobs and a bit more protection. The Bear is certainly a powerful ally though in tough situations.

- PI's are a show stopper

I cleared the DEN of evil and of course the unique there happened to be PI. I tried creatively to kill him, first with my very weak fire claws and then with some poison pots. Neither had much affect if any. Ultimately, I bailed and called a friend in to finish the final monster and gain the quest. I think there are alternatives to handle PI. Hopefully at least a few of them are effective and I'm able to come across them. It certainly would have been a nice option to add fire claws as a synergy to summons and have it add fire damage to summon attacks.

- Best point I invested most likely is shockwave

Level 1 shockwave has a very nice stun duration. I want to boost this but realistically I'm getting great utility from it with very little cost right now.

- Thus far my neglect of spirit wolves (its actually 15 with plus skills... I realized late that it doesnt boost damage but had already assigned a number of points) hasn't seemed to adversely impact the summons. Its possible that ar/defense (per Brista) may be a greater factor in acts 4 and 5 but thus far it seems that I could have invested less.

- With the exception of PI I believe I could solo Act1 and Act 2 hell which I think speaks highly of summon druids now. I think the most difficult part will be the tombs in Act 2. Revivers pose a serious problem for summoners in that its really impossible for your summons to kill as fast as they can revive. Will Dire Wolves/carrion vine be able to feast on corpses fast enough... i doubt it. Perhaps CE charges are an option here to help eliminate revived monsters. I experienced this with my necromancer though he had tools in his arsenal to handle the situation. it will be interesting to see how this scenario plays out for sommon druid.

Sorry this post is so long. I guess it reflects my enthusiasm for the character and how much fun I've had playing him.

[AtomicKitKat]

Teleport a Dire Wolf(if using one) or Spirit Wolf behind the revived monsters and let that one take care of the reviver. Should work somewhat.

[Deadpan]

My 1.09 summoner variant is still surprisingly effective considering 1.10 nerfed all his party tricks:

Maxxed Oak, HoW, Poison Creeper, Grizzly. Lightning no-hose merc.

I thought I'd miss my old Oak Healing trick but being able to instantly switch from attack spirit to defence spirit still gives room for tactics. I keep a selection of bows for my cold rogue depending on circumstances, including a big lightning bow and a Kuko on my druid. Grizzly and Creeper work wonders as tanks. I just keep recasting the vine on top of revivers and archers and they forget about me.

[Nightwind]

amazing amount of information there...
a lot of it 1.09, but the essentials of stratagry are never outdated....

it's made me descide to include some cyclone armor and hurricane in my mix, while seeking a deamon machine as a swap weapon... but still going to go high dex block, and a goal of cruel phase blade... i think.... bramble armor (though getting the 27th? rune... hrmp.. )

20 ravens/20 spirit wolves/20 dire wolves/20 grizzly
remainder into armor and cyclone, thorns merc until i get bramble...
intersting guides on poison creaper, perhaps that's my PI killer.... *tinker, tinker*

[Nightwind]

Do you think fireclaws could be effective if the synergy from the elemental tree was done to the upper limits? Armagedon/fireclaws WB?

[Nomad_oWn]

Its likely with synergies fireclaws is about as effective as any other skill. The problem lies in the commitment in skill points to attain that synergy. Characters are forced to really be specialists now or risk being ineffective. Being an effective summoner requires about all the points you can afford on a character. The question regarding skills becomes do you want to be weak to pi and have strong summons or strong vs pi and have weak summons? Since PI are the minority I think the former is more acceptable. I think the best solution will probably be in the equipment of you or your merc.

I found a merc weapon last night that had base damage but did about 300 lightning damage. Solo hell Act2 I found that he pretty handily took care of PI's given he wasn't overwhelmed in numbers. Using shockwave was very beneficial in giving the merc and summons time to dispose of the tricky pi in the mob.

I can certainly see finding (or making) a much better weapon than what I used. In addition putting Najs circlet or something rare with ele damge on your mercs head with some ele dmg jeweled armor could really boost and diversify his elemental damage.

[Nomad_oWn]

Why are Ravens good? What am I missing. They certainly are more useful now that they blind but the damage even at max seems hardly worth the skill investment. Is there some passive benefit they offer thats not documented? If not I really don't see putting more than a point in it and letting your plus skills do the work.

[Nightwind]

a batch of 5 of level 20 adds up tp more then 3k dammage.
fire and forget, low cost.

beyond that... no clue

[Nightwind]

perhaps, the answer is on the same page.
Poison creaper?

And maybe I'll stick with act one mercs. Inner sight from them seems to make the ravens and other summons hit more often. Anybody point me at a thread on IS?

[War_Master_Ares]

I believe the Summoner can only suceed as a pure summoner. Here is a build that I believe to work.
20Ravens.
20 Oak. (Or HoW if SC.)
20 Spirit Wolves
20 Dire Wolves
20 Grisly
Rest whereever you want.
Stats.
Str: Anywhere between base and 120(I like to stop between 60-75 depenind on my items.)
Dex: Base
Vitality: All the rest
Energy: Base.
The bear does phenomincal amounts of damage at higher levels and tanks extremely well, they only problem you will encounter are physical immunes, and there are two main ways I deal with them. Either have a wand with Amplify Damage seeing as that can, and usually does break P.I, or, a Merc with a high amount of elemental damage. I personally prefer the Valkyriezon to this build though this can be a lot of fun.

[Nomad_oWn]

at lvl 20 ravens do about 20 dmg per hit and do 31 hits which presents a few questions about effectiveness:

1) how long does it take to score 30 hits?
2) how does that convert to damage per second?
3) Is that damage focused on a single target or distributed in the mob.

In my opinion each hit doing such low damage in hell means that it will barely counter thet heal rate. As a hardcore player I would much rather invest that into lycanthropy for life and transform duration to supplement my use of HOW.

In addition, in regards to the post regarding "pure" summoning to be effective. In addition to my questioning the benefit of large scale raven investment I'd also question complete commitment in spirit wolves. Currently my Summoner is in A5 hell and doing very well at slvl 15 in spirit wolves with plus skills. Perhaps I'll feel differently about it after playing A5 but right now it really seems like I could have invested less in that skill. AR and defense at least from a players perspective seems primarily based on level differential between player and monster. I suspect the same phenomenon exists for summons making the added defense and ar only really useful when at a 10 or more level disadvantage.

For hardcore players, transforming and gaining the benefit of shockwave are huge gains towards longevity. Those for me came at the expense of ravens and spirit wolves and so far i'd say its a great tradeoff. I'm certainly open to strong arguments against but thus far I've really seen nothing to convince me otherwise.

[Brista]

I believe the Summoner can only suceed as a pure summoner.

I dunno, he casts a pretty mean Firewall ;)