Skip the ravens and go with reapers toll on ur druid and go WW with fury. This works pretty good since reapers has ignore target def + decrep. No accuracy needed and a merc with crushing blow will help u on bosses
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So how viable is summ druid as first ladder char?
Few things about summoners that is being glossed over or ignored…
Well geared properly speced summon druids CAN DO ALL CONTENT IN THE GAME. Keys? Yes. Bosses? Yes. Chaos runs? Yes. Baal runs? Still Yes. Cows? Yes…but slowly to be fair lol.
So that by itself is pretty darn useful. Never underestimate being able to do ALL GAME CONTENT. Now what summoners are good and bad at in more detail…
Trash AOE. I mean its garbo. Its pretty much non-existent. You can help this by getting a bramble merc for thorns aura and a few other options, but honestly its bad.
On flip side of that coin is top tier AMAZING single target damage. Its really that good. My geared summoner does 5.6 raven dmg x 5 / spirit wolf 1.2 k cold dmg x 5 / 2.5 dire wolf dmg x 3 / 5.5 k bear dmg. Unbuffed damage without auras. Total all that up. Now telestomp with it. I rip through bosses really quickly no joke…
Now get a might merc, some decent gear and some auras and your single target is top freaking tier. On paper its more damage than a hammerdin by far…
So to sum it all up, Terrible AOE, amazing single target. Plus you get to do all content in the game. Even physical immunes with the cold dmg wolves and reapers toll. All content…
Saying summoners are useless, dont have a place, they suck ect ect is just showing people are clinging to the past unable to adapt. Druid summoners are amazing, sure more work could be done ( give us a summon that does real AOE ) but for the most part in a great place.
Thx for reading. TLDR Summoners dont suck you suck =)
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funny how thats always the argument…“Hurrr you dont know how to equip him or play it or what skills durrr”…
Yet you can never list out what you wore, what skills you took or how you play it.
Actualy great. You can even run him solo and he can deal with anything on his path. You can farm certain area 85 zones after.
He is very safe char for hc, unlike other builds you dont have to fear ancients hell.
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Very well written post with good info. I totaly agree as player who tested him in playthrough. You have also various ways to play him. You can be telestomping with enigma, or running around as were wolf with Brand as i did to cast amplify damage :). Or running as bear stunning monsters with shock wave.
I think he is one of the best builds now if you get good equip. As was said, he struggle to deal with bigger groups of monsters, and its not good against bosses early on without proper equip . He can kill them, but slow.
But i did:
Also some of it is in this topic lol, just read the first post lol. Informations are there, you just ignore it.
The info in this thread doesn’t match actual 6 p games. You can use it yourself and see how dog water slow sumon druid is in comparison to almost all other classes
What do you mean by 6 players games? Why 6?
If you get decent gear you can farm stuff on p7 solo dude. You can do clone, even ubers. Not many builds can do all this.
I am literally testing it out right now with the things said in this thread and it DOES NOT MATCH.
You need really good gear to be able to even remotely get close to the clearing speed of Trapsin/Pala/Sorc
Its a fun build if you like to afk and watch summons kill stuff, okay?
Hammer pala even with sub par gear early on way better.
Sorc way better
Trap sin way better
Fully geared up? We will see this season I suppose but so far testing its kinda clunky. The aoe is god awful but single target is pretty good if u can tele stomp but without enigma its just bleh
I was able to clear area85 in fex minutes with gear after solo untwinked playthrough. Most builds with except sorc struggle with that or its far slower.
Is summoner better for MF than sorc? Of course not as he doesnt have teleport. Does that mean he is bad? Hell now.
Every build has certain advantages and disadvantage. Hammerdin is powerfull but very expensive for example.
Summoner has now advantage as his skillers most people consider garbage so they are cheap.
Summoner is great build but not for everything. Like every other build.
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Been playing since D1
Pala doesn’t struggle fresh
Sorc doesnt
Trap sin doesn’t
I am not saying its bad I am saying its not even remotely close to those classes and you’re trying to say it is cause you can clear 1 lvl 85 area…
If this build was AS GOOD as you claim lots of people would play it and the skillers WOULDNT be cheap lol
People who wanted them already have them cheap as this nonseason is out 7 months?
I am saying its better than most of them for clearing 85 zone. You have to take into consideration hardcore too. And this build rocks on hc. You cant afford to do dumb stuff on hc as you fo on softcore.
If you play SC, you can pick your garbage hammer and die every third chaos and eventualy grind good equip. And then say how is hammer best, yeah sure except you kept dying so it maybe is not tha great for start char.
I take into consideration both game modes and summoner definitely wins on hardcore as one of the best starting chars now.
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If you realy want to compare it to a build, compare it to another class, that has a summoner build. And bare in mind you’re talking about pure summoner, so no back up from other skill trees.
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I tested playthrough too 
works great a little slow but very safe . Going reapers toll WW with fury really did change the clearspeed to the better. Even a non eth reapers do wonders and its pretty cheap
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I love taking both ups and downs for solo play (albeit not HC for now) its doing good job i think i died once in 60 lvls even by using firemerc since 3rd city normal 
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I only play HC and Im leveling one up again, last one ripped in Hell act 3 lvl 76 to a FE/LE/Bramble Hulk Explosion.
But I was running full summoner on that one and OMG the Maggot Lair was miserable. This time around Im going to try a Edge bow with Hurricane with Summons. Im going to get a Act 5 Frenzy Merc with Lawbringer / something else(lightsabre maybe) and Ill max HOW. I think it will be balanced well and kill ok…
Its not a Paladin but very fun and I like druid builds…
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RIP to your last summoner.
I am playing HC SSF with a pure summoner too. He is level 81 in Hell Act 2. Strangely I am very happy with how he did in the maggot lair (and tight spaces in general). Compared to necro summoner, the druid can simply summon anywhere he wants. The SWs can kill the wasps. The ravens also fly pass all my summons to attack from above. I find the druid summoner playthrough so smooth.
I use Act 3 fire merc. He has been a great help too.
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There are some pretty nice variations you can do with Summon Druid late game to make it more exciting
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I play HC and I can run a Hammer pala in okay gear through chaos.
But then again HC players are MILES better than SC. Deaths happen tho and thats part of HC.
Blizz sorc can literally MF hell naked there is no other better starting character than a toon that can teleport and do what blizzy sorc can do with crap gear and do it faster than any other starting toon.
Nothing beats fissure build for leveling bro. Fissure is mad broken OP now that you can weave in other skills while on cd. It slows down in hell sure but leveling wise you will carry full tomb groups at 12+ and keep carrying all the way through night mare the way a Trap sin does at the start of ladders.
Hardcore Diablo players are like Vegans, you don’t have to ask if they are one, they will tell you, lol. It takes a different type of skill. You aren’t any better for enjoying soy milk so to speak.
I am a grandmaster at Starcraft multiple times(1,000,000 x harder than hardcore on D2R), and I haven’t touched hardcore on D2R yet. I’ve yet to die even once with my summon druid so technically I’ve been playing hardcore the whole time. But I won’t select it.
I don’t have all day to play and don’t want to lose a character I spent 150 hours leveling just because my screen glitched or the server disconnected/lagged or I made one mistake. You can still learn from a mistake and be a better player after memorizing it, without losing everything.
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