Diablo 2 LOD - The Druid

[Lambeth]

On the "Who's Your Favorite Character" thread, no one really voted for the Druid, so I think I'm going to take the road less traveled and start a Druid.

Now comes the big question: Does anyone have any advice one which way to go with the Druid? I've narrowed it down to two options (but I'm open to other suggestions!).

The Summoner:
Basically, I put 90% of my skill picks into summoning. I figured I'd focus on beefing up my Ravens until I can get Dire Wolves. I'll also more moderately build up my Carrion Vine. I'll put one point into Oak Sage to get its benefits early on, but I'll use it to get to Heart of Wolverine, and put more points later in the game.

As for the remainder of my points, I'll sparingly work in a few elemental spells so that I have something to work with against physical resistance in the higher difficulties. Lycanthropy will be left out.

For Stats, I'll put most of my points into Life and Strength, with a few going to Mana and even fewer going to Dexterity.

The Elementeer:
I start off stacking my skill points into elemental magic, but reserving a couple of skill points to get a Carrion Vine and an Oak Sage. I continue to build up to eventually get Tornado, Hurricane, and Armageddon. Again, Lycanthropy will be left out, and Summoning will be lightly covered (for the vine and oak).

For Stats, I will emphasize Life early on, fairly building up both Strength and Mana, while putting few into Dexterity. Then I'll level off and evenly distribute points across Strength, Life, and Mana, occasionally dropping a few into Dexterity.

Any suggestions or comments?

Also, one question. I found out that you cannot have more than one "spirit" out and either Spirit Wolves or Dire Wolves (not both). What about the Bear? Does it negate the Wolves, or can you have your 3 Dires and 1 Bear?

[GohanSSJ]

The summoner is a bad build, first of all you don't put more points in raven then one... you use Spirit of the Barbs as spirit, it returns damage, and you max your grizzly bear...
The vines are crap, don't worry about them...

Elemental Druids use Hurricane for big group of monsters, and hurricane for stronger monsters that survived the Hurricane.
They also spent quite a bit of points in cyclone armor and Twister, as they are both decent skills and makes Hurricane stronger
You also got a more fire build druids, they use Armageddon and Volcano a lot.

Both builds don't need much strenght, so you should just go for the minimum that you need for your equipment, try to avoid the really high str items if possible...

You either can have 5 wolves, 3 dire wolves or 1 bear.

Now you forgot about the melee build...

You got the Werewolf and Werebear.

With the werewolf you use the skill fury, it makes attacks fast, do a lot of damage, and make 5 hits after each other, like zeal.

The werebear uses Maul normally, it's a single hit attack which increases the damage with every hit, there will be a green "ball" around you which will get bigger with every hit, if you don't hit for sometime then it will dissapear.

Melee druids require a lot of speed though, they do a lot of damage, but you just need a lot of speed to hit fast, so make sure to use very fast weapons for them.

[JohnE.]

The meleeing Werewolf is my personal favorite... I love the sounds he makes when he tears into a group of monsters with Fury. Throw in a few hits with Feral Rage using a Very Fast weapon and you're a near-unstoppable killing machine.

Throw a few points into Werewolf and Lycanthropy to boost duration, attack speed & rating and life when in Werewolf form.

[Thargon the POW]

i dont got it but the werewolf sounds cool.

[Lambeth]

I suppose, then, that the consensus is that a Druid which is NOT focusing on Lycanthropy is a weak Druid? I really like Summoning and Elemental powers, but if either is truly inferior to Lycanthropy, perhaps I should rethink what character I want to play...

[GohanSSJ]

It depends on how you play... if you want to make a elemental druid then go for it.

[Lambeth]

In the Summoning skill tree, would it be wiser to load up points on the Dire Wolves or the Grizzly bear? Since you can only have one or the other, I figure I should emphasize one over the other. I know that all three categories (spirit wolves, dire wolves, and grizzly) all receive bonuses from each other, but is there any one of the three (or two of the three) that should be weighted over the other(s)? Thanks!

[GohanSSJ]

Grizzly is the best one, well if your a summoner anyway...

The problem is that a summoner is done fast, 20 in grizzly, 20 in spirit of the barbs, and then you have lots of points to waste.

A more interesting build would be the shockbear.

What you do is max grizzly bear, max spirit of the barbs or Heart of wolverine, then max shockwave and put the rest in werebear and lycantrophy.

Then turn into a werebear and use shockwave, shockwave does a really bad damage, however it stuns the enemy, which causes your bear to get less hits.

[Lambeth]

I decided to do a Summoner/Elemental Druid.

So far I'm building up Ravens and working my way down the cold side of the elemental tree, occasionally dropping a point into Cyclone Armor.

I think I'm going to invest moderately in Dire Wolves when I get there, not only because it would provide some good help until I reach level 30, but because Dire Wolf points assist the Grizzly. Is this a good idea? How much should be put into Dire Wolves between level 18 to level 30?

I think I have to disagree (at least at this point) with Gohan's argument against Ravens. I've put 7 points so far into Ravens, and I get 5 birds that hit 18 times for 8-10 damage, all for 6 mana a bird. That's 720 - 900 points of damage for only 30 mana!

Understandably, this damage occurs over a relatively lenghty time frame (they hit about once every 2 seconds, so we're talking about roughly 45 seconds of constant melee before the Ravens wear out). But compared to Hurricane's 30 mana, 10 seconds, 670 - 920 damage, the birds seem a good buy, especially in open areas. I've looked at the numbers for 20 skill, and Ravens do like half again more damage than Hurricane in the long run, albeit over a considerable length of time.

Plus, when the Ravens hit an enemy, there's a chance that it will blind it. And once I get Heart of Wolverine, things will get nastier. The Ravens are better for just about everything besides going toe to toe with the big bad uglies at the end of each act... which is why I'll be maxing out Hurricane as well. ;-)

[Dj-Icer]

Maybe, the reason why not many people voted for Druid was because in 1.09 patches, Druid may have a hard time getting through into some diffucult levels.

But in 1.10 patch, Druid receives extra bonuses from synergy, making it an ideal character.

Quotes from Lambeth, there are items that has charges which allows you to cast other characters spells or summons. If you have points on Dire Wolves, with bonus charges of Summon Bear on you specific item (e.g. gloves), it will allow you to summon 3 DW and 1 Bear. It worked but its a kind of hard to find charges at around level 30's.

The new items available; rares, uniques and runewords really helps a lot, especially during Hell difficulties. I think without these devastating items we have here, characters may come very weak and depend a lot on its own skills.