Druid State 2.4 and Future 2.5

Hello everyone, I wanna share on my thoughts about Druid’s builds. And pls remember it’s just my point of view and you can’t agree with that.

First let’s start about Patch 2.4 / Ladder 1:

  1. Fury - my favourite Build in entire game, it’s solid and giving so satisfacting. I like use Hurricane for control AoE (especially on Cows is crazy and help so much), I get only 1 point on Feral Rage, cuz I think eq + charms is enough). Then I have 20 Fury, 20 Werewolf, 20 Lycanthrophy, 1 Hurricane and rest into Cyclone Armor for Duration. Fury is good state.
  2. Fire - before 2.4 unplayable already on Nightmare and whole Hell mode, but with additional physical damage on Armageddon, Volcano and Molten Boulder he’s actually awesome (maybe a Chaos Runs are a bit slower but others area just wow). It’s nice state and maybe I just would see a bit more physical damage on fire skills.
  3. Wind - two sources of damage, Hell is gonna like Normal, a lot survivability cuz Cyclone Armor and Oak Sage maxing as 5th skill. But the fun is ending when we have to aiming Tornado. It’s so slow Build, even with many +skills high density are bad for us and killing it lasts hours. Hurricane doesn’t help, cuz the ticks of this skill, even 2k damage on that is not enough. I was trying this Build 2 times, but I hate it. I can just use Wind Druid from 30 lvl through Nightmare and Hell, maybe a bit exping of Ball and that’s all, after that respect it out and forget.
  4. Summoner - nice to have zoo, but all the rest in here are ugly.
  5. Werebear - for me it’s just one problem, no AoE.

Now let’s talking about what changes I would in future (probably patch 2.5 / Ladder 2):

  1. As I said, Imho Fury and Fire are good position ingame.
  2. Wind - Tornado is bad aiming, so maybe try to improve Twister? The gameplay will be the same: uses Hurricane, spam Tornado, but currently use also Twister to clear much density. The increase damage of Tornado / Hurricane won’t help at all.
  3. Summoner - the numbers of forest friends it’s not main problem. What I see (of course I have to use vs Summoner Necro) not Amplify Damage and no Corpse Explosion. Okay, let’s say we have Wolverins instead of Amplify. What I suggests? Increase of numbers minions - yes, but the more important rebuild of one vine. There are extremely useless. So vine would use Corpse Explosion (and wait, before you gonna hate me for that look at Death Sentry on Assassin, if other class already can have CE not only Necro, why we can get on other? Imagine if Poison Creeper jumping around and not using poison to enemy, but CE against them, of course skill would required maxing it to get good dmg / range, maybe a frequency of using on some time ingame). I think only that thing would resolve problem with this Build.
  4. Werebear - shortly, add AoE, I suggest the attack in the form of a cone, just that, of course reduce a defense a bit on this for balance.

Thx for reading, and share your opinions and future changes to would see. See ya :slight_smile:

Just FYI - you need telestomp with enigma, wind dru is one of The best self sufficent pvm builds (also really strong for pvp). You can farm all places ingame.
And again you need enigma to play it :wink:

Windy is in a fine spot. I think the only thing that needs adjusting would be the “randomness” of nado. perhaps funnel it a bit more.

But I’ve ran Windy as a starter in both normal and HC for a decade or longer, it’s in a fine spot. Even the randomness of Nado isn’t really a thing if you learn to work with it.

I do agree that summons still needs a bit more. They could buff vines, such as adding damage to them, period. Poison creeper could just have better poison damage outright. Carrion and solar could lay down damage fields similar to an assassins shock web.

Cold for carrion and fire for solar would be solid choices, and add to what the summoner druid has to juggle (giving him more to do). And instead of having them with a sucky health pool so they die immediately, just make them last X seconds.

But I think the best solution for summons is to have better synergies in the shifting tree, and Bear is the best one for that. Examples would be: Increased damage from Summon Bear, increased attack rating from summon dire wolf, etc. That way you could shift to bear and not suffer from a lack of melee stats, while still keeping summons as your main focus. The summoner druids biggest weakness right now is faster clears + boss fights. Having better damage from bear form could help out allot, and it would be something very druid-y, rather then just another “CE” clone.

And I agree bear needs better AoE and design. Maul should be a spammable with the damage buffs and shockwave just needs to be bigger. if you add that to the synergy changes it would make a summons bear shifter potent.

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I’m running summon druid as main this ladder and it’s totally playable, been doing solo CS runs in acceptable time and killing dclone without trouble.

Not every build must be able to compete with meta. Enigmadin or Infinisorc are IMHO not the scale for balancing.

If there is one change summon would need, it’s the cold damage of Spirit Wolves, it should be physical converted to cold, so that it’s affected by HoW, might,…

With which merc do you play? Did you tested different mercs? How many +skills do you have?

Right now A1 Fire, for Inner Sight, improves Ravens (which can get no auras) chance to hit. Tried A3 Fire before for enchant, which runs nice too. But IMHO Inner Sight is the biggest damage boost, and the rogue can also handle the phys / cold dual immunes. First thought was obiously A2 might, but the aura doesn’t apply to raven or spirit wolves so… :confused: Nice thing is A1 and A3 fire both profit from Flickering Flame, and the aura makes the pack fire immune (i read somewhere about minions don’t got resi caps, though not 100% sure if it’s correct). And A1 merc can wear Edge bow which has thorns and Stop Monster heal, which is a must have against Clone. Mist might be best in Slot, 100% pierce is always fun on exploding arrow, and the aura is sure nice too have too.

+14, main skills are 34. Jalas (topaz), Skullders (topaz), Hoto, spirit, anni, torch, one skiller. Little more then 300 MF.

Thank you sounds really nice. I‘m thinking about summorer build, too. Should be chilled for xbox time from bed. :slight_smile:

I would really like to capitalize on the shapeshifting aspect of druid. I tried a werewolf but there was just no AOE and the damage was luckluster. The best skill IIRC was fury but even that was very limited.

Idk, I’m just very let-down with druids.

I’m not sure what you mean - my summoner rocks. Can kill anything, I run cows, wsk, chaos, dclone, etc. with it. Sure its not as fast as a hammerdin or a LF javazon but most things aren’t.

Between HoW, might merc and decrep (from reapers) my damage output overall is pretty good. I was considering wielding a mist bow for concentration aura but ended up with an eDeath ettin and the CB helps me kill bosses quick - don’t even need the concentration aura in the end. 1pt in Werebear, maul and shockwave is all you need.

Getting CE is just making it too easy. Every played a sin? Most sin build just ends up using Death Sentry CE making them quite boring. Bladesin, kill some stuff with blade fury then CE, light/fire sin kill some stuff then CE, kicksin kill some stuff then CE, riftsin kills some stuff then CE, and on and on. It gets boring. We already have sins and necro if you want CE, go play those if you want CE.

Both Fury and Rabies are AoE. They’re not Lightning Fury but they still work well. Rabies will have a greater range than Fury. You could probably do a decent hybrid of the two if you really wanted to.

I don’t disagree with the disappointment though. Maybe they can make Fire Claw more fancy in a future update. Make it explode on impact or something lol

U forgot to mention rabies. Rabies seem like its totally forgotten by most people because in its current state its completely useless and just a 1 pointer to get to fury. Even with bis gear and an inventory full of shapeskillers u wont reach much more than 50-60k poison damage and with a max lvl rabies ur looking at a 20 sec duration which ends up being equal to 2.5-3 k dps. This is far from viable compared to other builds and no where near useful on hell difficulty. The duration would have to be cut in half if not more like max 6-8 sec if this skill should ever have a chance of being used at all. Btw i can agree that the clearspeed on summon druid compared to necro summon is much slower however i dont think the solution should be just another corpse explode skill. I would rather they gave the druid summons aoe like splash or something similar instead of CE or simply buffing damage. This would improve clearspeed without making boss damage way too insane.

All great suggestions.
Concerning the summonner
There is still a lot which could be improved I agree and even with those improvements he still wouldn’t be on the level of meta S tier builds. I don’t think he needs to be.

There are other threads in the Druid category where people myself included suggest improvements to spirit wolves , dire wolves, the Grizzly and the vines.
I also honestly don’t know why a druid couldn’t summon more than one spirit at a time.

Again even if all those buffs were applied today a summonner wouldn’t come close to S tier meta builds and that would be totally fine. Speaking for myself I dont need the summonner to be as OP as a hammerdin I just think there are still obvious weaknesses and/or obvious limitations the build has which could easily be adressed.
For example it shouldn’t be the case that an oblivion knight instantly cripples my whole level 45 zoo with decrepify.
How about making spirit wolves immunes to curses?
That would give them a specific quality the other two don’t have.

How about we give dire wolves immunity to freeze effects and a chance to cause open wounds ?

Also it shouldn’t be the case that my bear can get surrounded and stunned. He’s supposed to be an unstoppable killing machine.
How about making it that he can’t be stunned, pushed back or interrupted?
Even give him an aoe mini stun if he takes too many attacks in a short period of time( like when he gets surrounded for example?) With a chance of crushing blow?

How about making those buffs accessible only once 20 HARD points have been put into each? That way only dedicated summonners benefit from those perks?

None of those suggestions would make the summonner OP , not even close. However they would definitely increase clear speed, make each summon more unique letting them shine in specific situations and also seperate and reward dedicated summoners as opposed to druids using them as supports. The HARD point limitatiom especially would prevent druids from getting those buffs if they use + skill items.

But I agree that the main let down right now is the vines and also spirit of barbs which in my opinion could serve as an equivalent to the necro’s curses.
Like one vine could turn an ennemy into a suicidal ally of the druid who runs into ennemies and blows up same way some ennemies in act 5 do it ( with maybe cooler visuals lol)