I feel like this is a pretty common suggestion for summon druids. I appreciate them buffing the damage of summoners with the new patch but I feel like it won’t be enough.
Please allow all summons out at the same time assuming your heavily invested in them and make summons more aggressive. We want a furry army! (The none sexual kind)
YES,
I saw today 3 youtubers, including Rhykker and Dbrunski, both said that summoner since he has limits wont be anything special again.
Rhykker was hosting a D2 analyst, he said that atm summoner Druid ISNT even in any build tier list and it BARELY will be since the changes are only life and dmg which it was needed BUT Sum Druid needs more summons. Example, give more summon numbers the more skills we put to a skill like Necro’s, for example if we put 20 basic skills to Dire Wolf, from 3 wolves make them 8. That way we will have an army next to us and summoner druid will be strong. OR give the option to summon all of them, 3 DW+ 5 SW+ 1 bear.
Using 1 bear ONLY without any cleave, i know is boss killer summon but is only that. now it will have 30k hp and will be again boss killer, no use beside that because it is ONLY 1. I mean look necro’s summoning options, 10-15 skeletons, 10± Mages, 15+ Revives, 1 golem which can take an aura (iron golem with an item) + aura from merc, Corpse explosion, AD curse, and Druid wil have 3 wolves OR 1 bear and thats it.
Is sad to see dev team from a company NOT playing the forgotten specs only to see whats the problem. Is even more sad to see Mods being better THAN REMASTERED games!!
I’m thinking to go a werewolf/hurricane/summon hybrid build. Just thinking about how to most effectively allocate skill-points and stats. Subject to change with the ptr having just released yesterday
Based on what I’ve been reading, hurricane werewolf build could focus heavy on summons. You just can’t max out the entire elemental tree, but most of it, only need a moderate amount of points into lycanthropy, and the rest is summoning (you can’t max but will still pump points, hybrid build)
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I think the A3 fire merc with enchant is really useful if you pump points into dire wolves so their melee attacks deal additional fire damage. Also + to fire skills effects the A3 fire merc so the Flickering Flame runeword is quite good for them for lowering enemy fire resistance and buffing their spell damage
I think A1 fire merc (with proper gear just like A3) could be a good choice for this build
(Is this cheating?) I deleted my mules and restarted the game a few times which gave me fresh runewords to use for both myself and my merc so we both have spirit shield and enigma armour. The new obsession runeword seems like a great choice for this build as well. Plague runeword works great for A3 fire merc
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At level 99 you can still fully max out skill points into full hurricane damage with maxed out twister and tornado. You probably can’t fully max out cyclone armour (I don’t think you need to anyway). You can’t put more than (obviously) 1 point into werewolf and as many as you like into lycanthropy, which with you should have 1 raven, 1 spirit wolf, pump points into oak sage and dire wolves, and 1 grizzly
You can just forget about shape shifting till they decide to fix IAS issue they’ve caused with this new patch - aligning human and shifted form frames.
Actually wanted to try something. Maxed summons except ravens, maxed Heart of Wolverine. Merc Might + Reaper. Then took… Harmony (rolled 6 on Valk). With PTR gear ended with lvl 15 Valk (early on Harmony + Peace will do the same and lvl 15 Valk > NM). With Valk, Merc and 3 Doggies and Spirit, kinda run over CS and few other areas (not Hammerdin/Sorc style, but quite effortlessly). Vigor is actually pretty awesome for Summons, and secondary tank is great. With Ani and CtA Valk can actually reach lvl 17 also.
I am not sure if comparing a druid summoner to a necro summoner is appropriate.
The necro summoner is simply too powerful and broken. You can finish the whole game naked and kill essentially everything (expect those blood lords and poison vipers) that comes at you.
The druid summoner isn’t (and doesn’t need to be) anywhere close to that.
If you play with just what you find in the game (which is maybe +7-10 skills depending on your luck. This is also end game, not when you enter hell), your wolves can’t really kill anything in hell because of low damage, and your bear can’t really tank because there is only 1 bear. Try the fallens in hell act 1 with such settings and see. You wolves can’t keep up with the shamans reviving the fallens. They are only distractions for you and your merc. You bear will need to be resummoned right next to the shamans to kill them first, which often leaves you being chased by the fallens. If you invested heavily in ravens (the old ones, not the 2.4 new ones), you can use them to blind the shamans, which was very fun. But unfortunately all single players need a second damage type for hell, and you as a summoner druid have no spare points for ravens…
I tried a mod (not in D2R) which allowed all wolves and the bear to be active. I went all in with 20 dire wolves, 20 grizzly, 20 heart of wolverine, 20 raven, rest in spirit wolves (nobody every needed them for any reason, but since I could have them active, they were used extensively as distractions and scouts), act 1 fire rogue, ironman, no shops, no merc revive. It was still very challenging, but it was also such a great experience. The bear killed, the wolves tanked, the ravens blinded the everything they pecked at (the tactical value of the ravens was astonishing). Unfortunately hell Baal killed the me because I ran out of life potions (my merc survived the whole game thanks to the pets).
Now with the tentative 2.4 changes (I admit I have not tried it yet), a druid summoner will have a built-in physical immune handler, the new spirit wolves. The new build will be 20 spirit wolves, 20 dire wolves, 20 grizzly, 20 heart of wolverine (or 20 raven, but the new ravens lasts only 5 hits, which sounds very tedious to keep around, let alone the idea of a raven does nearly as much damage as a grizzly). If the fundamental of having only 1 pet type active in unchanged, it is essentially the same when your druid faces the fallens in hell act 1 for the first time.
Having already experienced all wolves and the bear active at the same time, I believe that’s the simplest and definite fix to our issue.
I don’t understand why you telling me that since i already said these things.
Maybe you didn’t read the topic from start?
We never asked to be necro, i just pointed that necro is the jack of all trades when druid is just bad.
I have played ptr, i have played pd2 and on ptr this spec is better than live but still underperforming.
On pd2 this spec is strong, summons all at once with even more dmg from ptr, and still is balanced.
I agree with your suggestion of allowing all wolves and the bear active at the same time. But the reason druid summons need a buff isn’t because the necro has this or that. The druid is very unique, so are other characters. That’s why Diablo is such a great game.
yeah, all it needs to work well is all summons at once.
All 8 wolves + bear will add good dmg and meat shields.
All vines will add slightly more survival (the vines are garbage anyway, so all 3 won’t be a big buff)
All spirits benefits the summoner more than any other build; it only slightly buffs shapeshifting, and it does nothing to wind.
I still wonder if they will revert things like this back to the original design after trying them out. The restriction always seemed to me as being something key to the character and how his points were spent, items chosen, etc
As long as druids have been in the game, I’ve wanted nothing more than a summon druid to be viable. I found hope with adjustments, but they still don’t do nearly enough damage. They’re just so slow in Hell. I’ve only been waiting for two decades. They didn’t even make them a thing in D4 to my huge disappointment. Well, the entire game is. Maybe one day…maybe. I’m not sure I’ll ever see it though.