Druid summoner in 2.4 - My feedback

General Discussion
53

Awesome idea dude,real neat!

1 Like
54

I love the changes on my Bow Summon Druid, even though it’s budget with Harmony Bow, it still does great (even greater now that all summons are available). People underestimate the move speed of vigor helping not only you but your summons reach their targets faster as well (and just general group play its nice too). Harmony Bow also does good damage and decent elemental damage with very fast attack speed due to a few IAS items on gear, and HotW increasing damage and AR, it’s a great and fun interactive option to support your summons from afar. I don’t know why they freely allowed for example Wind druids have all the summons with 1 skill point investment though (+skills). Seems sorta like the rich getting richer for no reason. That’s why I always thought the elegant change for summons was to allow them to be out together but only with some hard skill point investment (gained synergy) at 10 or 20 hard points. This way you’d actually have to earn the right to have all the summons out. Which summoners could complete easily and hybrids would actually have to hybrid a bit if they wanted those summons together.

55

I like your feedback, Zax. It has such deep details for almost all skills together with the difficulties. I’m the one who doesn’t like to just standing and let my minions (zoo) do an offense.

I’ve found so many Druid summoner guide like these followings;

  1. Summoner + Shapeshifting (But I don’t like to play as a melee player, so this is a no for me…Although this one is quite popular).
  2. Pure summoner with focusing on Raven first (I don’t want to just stand still, though I’ve to recast Raven, but it’s still not considered as active playtime for me).

So, I’ve decided to keep my style (since Diablo II LoD) which is

  • Summon Grizzly & Fissure (Alas, I can use all summons now for this current patch 2.4, so I go for All wolves & Grizzly + Armageddon. Because I can use Armageddon in this patch while I don’t have to put a single point in cold tree skills).
  • I also put huge points to Oak Sage though many players recommend me to use Wolverine
    Anyway, I “also” found many guides suggested that too, but for me, I like the safe team more than fast clearing team. And Armageddon requires me to run around (because the skill is followed the movement of player), so it has so much chance that my Druid will lose his HP.

I’ve searched and dig into many guidelines because I’m not sure that I should input some more Raven skill or not. But I think…It will be more fun to play the way I want (and active). :))

1 Like
56

I m always thinking should i go fire merc + summons+hurricane or Act 5 merc summons + armagedon!

57

WHY? Why do most people think if you’re a summoner you HAVE TO stand by doing nothing? Makes no sense. Summons are there to fight ALONGSIDE you not INSTEAD of you. Jeez…

58

This topic was just inital feedback, I made whole walkthrough guide here:

you can maybe find there more infromations.

It has recorded full hell playthrough.

Ravens are pretty much strongest from your army.

59

Zax would this work with ravenlore and 1 skill in hurricane or not and having lawbringer merc ?Or is +2 to all skills better than ravenlore for general summoning skills?

1 Like
60

Hmm i completely forgot Ravenlore, I have to add it as suggested equip to my guide :slight_smile:

the difference of raven damage would be ±1000 with all skills equip from like 4000 to 5000 with ravenlore

Damage of Hurricane would not be that good i think.

61

I still think they should have added spirit wolves to deal pure magic damage since damage isnt great and its easy to resist.Or make spirit of barbs -% physical which would actually make it viable or give us all 3 spirits at once which would be dope.

2 Likes
62

Yeah I think so same, they should deal magic and not cold damage.

63

Problem with cold or Magic damage is that it doesn’t scale with physical damage buffs…

The wolves need a skill like Berserk that converts physical damage into element/magic damage.

Otherwise we still have the same lack of scaling as we do now with spirit wolves and ravens.

Also, 80 points is extremely high cost for a lackluster skill like Ravens.

Btw, try try poison creeper + rabies for early game leveling.

64

What are you talking about? Ravens are his strongest skill.

It sucks, ravens demolish everything and cannot by touched by anyone, frozen, cursed anything.

1 Like
65

Ravens are garbage. The fact that the skill is the best damage in the summoning tree is just a testament to how bad the tree is still.

It’s the only level 1 skill that is more powerful than the rest of the skills in the same tree. No other class/tree has such an arrangement.

Yes, summoning is infinitely better than it was prior, but it’s not even a B tier build.

This tree isn’t even viable for hybrid builds. 1 point wonders for support is all its good for when playing either elemental or shapeshifting.

1 Like
66

You say this because you lack knowledge how to properly build the summoner. I was testing it and he is viable even on /players 7. With different equip setups too, based on what you are doing.

You are completely wrong about ravens, fully leveleled summon tree and high skills level are ravens doing 5000 damage with single hit.

1 Like
67

though as a disclaimer its good to note that you need to get them over level 20 to really shine. I didn’t realize this until it was brought to my attention. They were lower on my “totem pole” than the dire wolves and bears before I learned how much they go up AFTER lvl 20 skill

68

When I was doing playthrough, i did mistake putting points in spirit volves instead of leveling ravens to 20 as first skill.

This is Ravem skill if you are at end of ACT II (if you take skill shrine before boss fight)

Thats quite high damage for having 5 ravens doing that amount of damage.

Imgur

69

Everyone, literally everyone already knew that summon druid is garbage. Fun to play? Okay. It’s still trash compared to the meta classes.

Fissure is the way to level if you’re trying to be competitive. If you’re just playing for fun then you can smash Norm and NM with literally any build class in the game.

Its sad because they could have made summon druid viable if they wanted.

First D2R season as expected. No change in Meta at all. Palas > everything else

1 Like
70

Sounds like raven is OP. See they’re taking away skill from the game and in this case the early game. How does letting your ravens do all the dirty work when they’re invincible make summoner Druid a fun build?

Isn’t Raven supposed be used as a crowd control skill by poking out your enemy’s eyes and making those targets blind?

71

All Summon druid needs is a Harmony for Revives… and an infinite supply of gold. :stuck_out_tongue:

72

Been saying forever the only way other builds are ever going to be functional is to nerf pally and to a less degree sorc.

Instead they buffed pally sorc and zon…