MF Druid Guide (suitable for Hardcore)

Zax-11538 · April 17, 2022, 9:40pm

Hello, this is part of my Item finding guide project where I focus on character walkthroughs to make viable builds to finish game and then focus on finding items. I already finished sorceress and decided to focus Druid as next. More Character playthrough for other classes will follow in future, it just takes a lot of time for me

INTRODUCTION

There are many builds suitable for finding items. Some people prefer different builds than others. I am not saying my prefered builds or even character playthrough will be best, but it is something I played in past and used for MF so I know its working. This guide/walkthrough is for druid

My Guides will also be suitable for hardcore and solo players and I think that my playthrough is quite detailed for that to increase odds of survival. Lastly I would like to say that not all characters are same as good at certain things. Barbarian might excel at something other class struggle or sorceress can easily kill bosses with teleport while some other characters have to take different approach.

Also there is difference in playing online or offline and I will mention difference to reflect that. You have to understand that every new path with character is different as Diablo 2 loot is very random, but I will try my best to increase your chances to make it to hell and have some decent start for finding items.

DRUID

Druid was never really considered as one of the better characters for finding items, mostly because all his builds faced various issues. Some issues are being adressed in 2.4 patch and many druid skills is currently already improved and there is also major change in summoning tree where you can now use wolves and Grizzly together. Before 2.4 patch was mostly used Wind build for item finding because melee builds werent able to kill that many enemies fast enough while also having more trouble to gather enough MF equipment to not lose attack power.

My suggestion for playthrough is to start as Summoner because summoning skill tree has major improvement, making new summoer druid very good choice for not only playthrough, but also for hunting items. It is not great boss killer without certain items, but you will be able to clear some area 85 locations after you will finish playthrough. Summoner is exceptionaly great for Hardcore players. You will also not need to use skill/attributes reset whole playthrough.

If you play offline/single player, you can use /players X command. I suggest using /Players 3 setting for more loot and experience for normal difficulty. If you play online, try to do quests and leveling with others so its faster and easier.

I will be providing useful tips for every act from ACT I Normal up to ACT V Hell and then at the end of every ACT sections are videos with my own test run following this guide so you can see everything no your eyes as What I have here are not just theories but fully tested stuff. My walkthrough might be quite massive for a lot of players as it is a lot of reading so i also made very short version for those who dont want to read a lot of text. Its of course a lot less detailed.

SHORTER LESS DETAILED WALKTHROUGH SUITABLE FOR ONLINE SOFTCORE PLAY

SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES

Skills and attributes

Attributes:
Your playstyle will be most of the time passive so dexterity for high block or for hitting things is not really required, your summons will provide enough protection together with some additional life from Oak Sage so you will need just strength to equip items and rest will go to vitality. If you will get to higher level and will be in position to make elite runewords, then it might be usefull to redistribute some points to dexterity to make hybrid werewolf or werebear as your summons should be fully maxed around level 77.

Skills
I would like to talk about skills you will be using as Druid summoner:

Raven - Your main damage dealing skill. Ravens are very unique as they are not afffected by stuff like enemy curses, freezing and many other negative effects. That means that they are also not affected for example by Heart of Wolverine. They have limited number of hits and then you have to recast them. I suggest to recast all 5 at once always. Raven will attack closest target in place where you summon them so you can decide who they will attack as first.
Poison creeper - only 1 point here so you can use next skill in line.
Oak Sage - Oak Sage provide Health buff to you and your summons, we will use here only few points. Rest can be leveled up on higher levels.
Summon Spirit Wolf - pretty much meat shield for majortity of game, because damage of spirit wolves is not that impressive, unless they are fully skilled up and improved by plenty of +skills on equip.
Carrion Vine - Only one point but keep the vine up always as it will destroy monster corpses to heal you. 1 point here is enough as you can summon Carrior Vine with skills shrines at level 3 or or higher with +skills on equip.
Heart of Wolverine - You will not level up this skill in the playthrough but you can use it after for more specialized build. It does not improve damage of Ravens and spirit wolves.
Summon Dire Wolf - They are strogner than Spirit wolves and do more damage so they will be third main skill to level up.
Summon Grizzly - Grizzly is amazing tank with very high damage, he is just little bit slow so i suggest to recast him close or behind enemies if he is still not in action.
Lycantrophy - Passive skill increasing your life and length of tranformations.
Werewolf - Shapeshifting into Werewolf, increasing life and attack speed.
Werebear - Shapeshifting into Werebear, increasing Life and Defense. Not increased speed but it has higher Life bonus than werewolf.
Feral Rage/Rabies - just 1 point to get access to last skill Fury. But Feral rage can be used to get some life from monsters
Fury - Multiple hits with one usage of skill, work similary as Zeal from paladin. Can be used to proc certain effect on your weapons quite effectively.
Maul - 1 point to get access to Shock Wave skill.
Shock Wave - Very useful skill to stun groups of enemies.

Here is prefered skill/attributes sheet how to invest points:

Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Normal Difficulty

ACT I+II

Keep joining public games and level with others if possible.
Use topaz gems in armor and helm to increase your MF.
save any 2 white druid pelts you find on your playthrough. I will get to that later.
Keep one topaz for Gem shrines if you find them and keep upgrading it.
You can keep joining Tristram runs to level up to 15 with others or join games with players and level up solo there by doing few Countess runs (Black Marsh).
Do not use Imbue yet.
Identify all amulets and rings you find, some can have +%MF bonus.
Hire ACT II Combat mercenary with Prayer aura.
In ACT II kill Radament, grab the cube and complete horadric staff, kill Summoner and then level up to atleast 18. Usual place where to level up are Tal rasha Tombs, in group or solo in game with more players. You can also level up well in Lost city and ancient tunnels.

ACT III+IV

Main quest in ACT III cannot be skipped in 2.4 patch so you have to hunt the organs.
Try to buy Staff with teleport charges from Ormus (you can do it later if you dont have enough gold)
Kill Council in Travincal, complete Khalims flail to open entrance and kill Mephisto. Dont forget to do Lam esen tome quest and first quest to get +20 life potion.
In ACT IV kill Izual and do hellforge quest but preferably solo or with people you know. Keep only the flawless and perfect gems from now on, sold the rest with exception of topaz gems. Keep upgrading them together as you will need them later.

ACT V

You need level 25 to get experience in ACT V so level up to 24 or 25 in ACT IV or III.
If you are not playing at start of season, it should be possible to find people doing “cow runs” where you can leech XP from 20 to 24 and then do Ancient quest in ACT V to get 25. Look out for white Crystal or Broad sword in cow level as you can use it to add 4 socket by Larzuk and make Spirit RW in it.
In ACT V kill shenk, save Barbarians to get Ral ort tal and make Ancients pledge in Large or Kite shield (can be bought from Fara ACT II sometimes)
Save anya but DO NOT TALK TO HER AFTER YOU SAVE HER, not until level 48
Use gamble to buy heavy gloves and boots with MF bonus on it, vendors can also sell boots and gloves with MF.
Keep checking socketed helms in ACT V, 3x socket helm can already drop there.
Join or create baalruns to level up to 40.

Nightmare Difficulty

Look out for any 4 socket sword to make RW Spirit.
Also look for 3 socket helm and 4 socket gothic plate and use perfect topaz gems in it as soon as possible to significantly boost your MF. If you dont want to wait for perfect gems, use Flawless ones as its only 4% MF loss per gem.
You can run Countess few times to get some runes.
When you make level 48, use NM imbue on one of your white druid pelts, talk to anya after you save her and do both these things on Normal also, that way you will get 4 rare druid pelts with item level 48 and chance to get +2 skills on them.
Try to rush Nighmare as fast as possible, your goal is to make it to ACT V NM baalruns where you can level up fast to 70.
When someone is teleporting down to throne of destruction,you can use the time before people will go down to get some XP from killing rectifier/shenk at frigind highlands WP or by killing pindleskin from red protal in town.
Keep killing Baal with others, he can already give you some decent items on NM, but dont dont waste time on him if others leave as you are not strong boss killer.
It is best to level up to 65-70 at NM baalruns, then you can go Hell. If your items suck and you really struggle, do few baalruns solo or few NM mephisto runs to get some items. You can also use vendors and gamble to get some items.

Hell Difficulty

If you want to kill certain monsters on battle field, you can cast Grizzly at them and then keep casting ravens on top of their head so both grizzly and ravens will focus same target and kill it fast. This trick is great against elite monsters who are causing troubles with Holy freeze or with monsters who revive others.

If you play solo, you will need ACT III mercenary so you can kill monsters with physical immunity.
Try to finish Hell difficulty as soon as possible and preferably join others to do so.
Your goal on Hell is to get to get acess to good area85 places to farm and to Baalruns hell where you can gain some more levels. Level 77 is enough to max your summons, but you will need more levels to get some additional skill points for shape shifting skills to improve your build.

There is really not much to talk about on Hell, its same as previous difficulties, just harder. Group play will provide significant advantage but if you for some reason are forced to play solo and struggle, I suggest to check longer guide below, there are demonstration videos for all important fights and whole hell difficulty and tips how to beat it.

~~--------------------------------------------------------------------~~

LONGER MORE DETAILED WALKTHROUGH FOR HARDCORE OR OFFLINE PLAY

SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES

Attributes:
Your playstyle will be most of the time passive so dexterity for high block or for hitting things is not really required, your summons will provide enough protection together with some additional life from Oak Sage so you will need just strength to equip items and rest will go to vitality. If you will get to higher level and will be in position to make elite runewords, then it might be usefull to redistribute some points to dexterity to make hybrid werewolf or werebear as your summons should be fully maxed around level 77.

Skills
I would like to talk about skills you will be using as Druid summoner:

Raven - Your main damage dealing skill. Ravens are very unique as they are not afffected by stuff like enemy curses, freezing and many other negative effects. That means that they are also not affected for example by Heart of Wolverine. They have limited number of hits and then you have to recast them. I suggest to recast all 5 at once always. Raven will attack closest target in place where you summon them so you can decide who they will attack as first.
Poison creeper - only 1 point here so you can use next skill in line.
Oak Sage - Oak Sage provide Health buff to you and your summons, we will use here only few points. Rest can be leveled up on higher levels.
Summon Spirit Wolf - pretty much meat shield for majortity of game, because damage of spirit wolves is not that impressive, unless they are fully skilled up and improved by plenty of +skills on equip.
Carrion Vine - Only one point but keep the vine up always as it will destroy monster corpses to heal you. 1 point here is enough as you can summon Carrior Vine with skills shrines at level 3 or or higher with +skills on equip.
Heart of Wolverine - You will not level up this skill in the playthrough but you can use it after for more specialized build. It does not improve damage of Ravens and spirit wolves.
Summon Dire Wolf - They are strogner than Spirit wolves and do more damage so they will be third main skill to level up.
Summon Grizzly - Grizzly is amazing tank with very high damage, he is just little bit slow so i suggest to recast him close or behind enemies if he is still not in action.
Lycantrophy - Passive skill increasing your life and length of tranformations.
Werewolf - Shapeshifting into Werewolf, increasing life and attack speed.
Werebear - Shapeshifting into Werebear, increasing Life and Defense. Not increased speed but it has higher Life bonus than werewolf.
Feral Rage/Rabies - just 1 point to get access to last skill Fury. But Feral rage can be used to get some life from monsters
Fury - Multiple hits with one usage of skill, work similary as Zeal from paladin. Can be used to proc certain effect on your weapons quite effectively.
Maul - 1 point to get access to Shock Wave skill.
Shock Wave - Very useful skill to stun groups of enemies.

Here is prefered skill/attributes sheet how to invest points:

Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Imgur: The magic of the Internet

NORMAL DIFFICULTY

NORMAL - ACT I

Scepter is great starting weapon if you raise your strength to 25.
Skill shrines are very important because your summons stays on level you summoned them so you can come back to one of Skill shrines spots to repeatedly raise your skill level to summon your army on higher level.
Staves, wands and scepters can be sold for a lot of money if they have +skills.
Keep all gems, Runes, Jewels and Rejuvenation potions you find.
Keep as much +Life charms as you can, because they will have greater effect with Oak Sage on you.
Keep checking all druid helms to possibly find one with summoning skills. Also keep 2 white druid helms for later.
Switching to higher player setting offline before you open chests can greatly increasse number of items dropped from them.
Finish Quest 1 to get +skill reward and 1 free skills/attributes reset (do not use that one yet, you have only one per difficulty).
Finish second quest so you can hire Rogue mercenary at Kashya and buy her Long bow at Charsi or Gheed. Buy the fire version of Rogue btw.
Socket your helm and armor with 4 topaz gems as soon as possible to increase your Magic find bonus.
The countess in Black Marsh Tower can be great source of runes early in game. Several runs on her can get you many useful runes, farm her on players 1 or her rune drop will be worse.
Cast your summons into unknown open rooms first so you will not be suprised by monsters when you enter first.
Tristram runs are great place to level up from 6-13, dont forget to save Deckard Cain there.
If you will find druid Pelt with 2 sockets and good +summon skills, keep it for runeword Lore which you will be able to make early on Nightmare.
Complete Horadric malus quest but do not use Imbue reward yet.
Keep checking all magic and rare one handed sword with +5% chance to cast amplify damage on striking, you will need them later for act 5 mercenary.
Use antidotes to increase your poison resistance when you go fight Andariel.
Consider killing Andariel for quest completition solo to get quest drop without others taking it.
You should be atleast level 15 when you finish ACT I.

NORMAL - ACT II

Look out for 3 socket Large shields, 2-3 socket Breast plates and 2 socket helms. You can buy all of it from Fara with little bit of luck.
Keep one Antidote potion in inventory, it helps if you are poisoned by Mummies or Greater Mummies.
Look out for items with lightning resistance, its very usefull in ACT II against Scarabs releasing charged bolts.
Items with +Faster cast rate will help you to execute your casting animations faster, you can check various breakpoints here: Breakpoints - Diablo Wiki
Keep checking Runewords to see what options yo have with your equip, Tal Eth is prefered Runeword from level 17. Diablo2 io is great for checking runwords with runes you have All Diablo 2 Resurrected Runewords • diablo2.io
3 socket Breast plate can give you several options, you can use topazes for MF, rubies for life, Sapphires for more mana or emeralds for increased chance to block with
shield
2 socket helm can be used for same as armor, MF, Dexterity, Life or Mana.
It is possible to buy Large shield of deflecting from Fara with quite high chance to help with Duriel Fight at the end of ACT.
Greater Mummies have strong physical and magical attacks, facing several of them at once might be very dangerous. Try to always kill them first.
You dont need more than 45 strentgh in ACT II, dexterity is optional. 15 points in dex might help with act boss Duriel to increase your block chance.
Vendors in ACT II sells better mana and health potions than in ACT I.
When you are level 20, you can try to buy Heavy Gloves and Heavy boots with 15-25% Magic find bonus.
Hire ACT II combat mercenary and equip him with polearm or spear, vendors can sell scythe for example which is good. If you have one with sockets add skulls in it for life
leech. Combat mercenary has prayer aura so it will be healing you and him constantly over time.
With little support with potions is you mercenary capable of killing most monsters in ACT 2 on his own.
First Quest in ACT II is to kill Radament in sewers, reward are better prices in town and Book of skill with +1 skill point. So sewers should be first place to visit.
Lure Radament´s undead army from him to destroy it outside of his range so he cant resurrect them, kill him after that.
Visit Halls of the dead in Dry hills for Horadric Cube and combine all gems (3x chipped to flawed…) to higher levels and also 3 Rejuvenation potions to Full rejuvenation potions in Horadric cube.
Right Tal Rasha tomb sign can be found in quest log, but also by checking floating symbols at Summoner platform. Right symbol with true tomb is always missing there.
Tal Rasha tombs are great source of loot and experience and can be often seen in game lobby as “Tombruns”, they are usualy run up to level 22-24.
You can gamble Pike from level 21 so buy one for your mercenary, preferably Rare one.

Duriel

Duriel is quite strong melee fighter with Holy freeze aura. If you want to increase your chances of surviving focus on Defense, High block chance and cold resistance. Cold resistance can be increased by drinking few Thawing potions. Before you go to Duriel Lair, drink thawing potions, prepare mana/health/rejuvenation potions, hire and equip mercenary, go find Skill shrine and recast all your summons, Ravens too so they have higher level before fight. All this should be enough to kill Duriel quite fast and easy, you can see me doing it below by following this guide:

Druid - Duriel Normal - YouTube

You should be atleast level 20 before you go to ACT III.

NORMAL - ACT III

Ormus can sell even better Mana and Health potions.
You can raise your strength to 60 so you can equip some items which can drop in late ACT III, rest points goes into Vitality.
It is possible to buy Staff with teleport charges from Ormus in ACT III so keep checking his offer, teleporting staff will be really usefull in higher difficulties.
If you dont have high fire resistance, avoid Fetish Shamans like a plague. They can drain your Life very quickly with inferno. Fire resistance and magic damage reduction on items really helps against that.
It is really important to have high Fire, Cold and Lightning resistances for ACT III so definitely focus on items with resistances if you play hardcore.
You can use 3 socket Large shield and insert some Rals/rubies and Topazes/Ort in it to get higher resistances. Or you can also use Diamonds to increase all resistances at once.
Do not go close to Thorned Hulks, they can stun you and then channel multiple attacks with frenzy and you will have hard time to get out.
You need to find Spider Cavern in Spider Forest for Khalims Eye and Flayer Dungeon in Flayer Jungle for Khalims Brain. Both have entrances without Waypoint outside so if you see waypoint, you are in the wrong place.
The Gidbin quest can be completed in same place as Flayer dungeon entrace, it usualy is somewhere near in Fetish village. Upon activation it spawn elite Fetish who will drop the Gidbin dagger. Take it to Ormus to get rare ring as reward.
Flayer Dungeon, Swampy Pit, Sewers and Durance of Hate can have Stygian dolls inside, these explode upon death dealing damage to you when you stand close to them. It is not a big deal on normal but they very dangerous on NM and Hell as explosion effect is much stronger.
Great Marsh can have Gloams, Lightning shooting partialy invisible monsters, proceed with caution.
Find Lam Esen Tome book in Ruined temple to get +5 attributes reward from Alkor.
Lower kurast objects and sewers level 2 super chests can be run on higher player setting for some items if you are missing charms, runes and gems or other things.
You should have some fire resistance when you fight council members in Travincal, if you dont, try to avoid too much heat from Hydras.
Council members can be good source of gems as they tend to drop third level of gems sometimes.
Vampire lords in Durance of Hate are very dangerous and deal a lot of damage if you dont have high fire resistance, dont stay in impact zone of their Meteors and avoid fighting too many of them at once or you will easily die.
You should have high cold, fire and lightning resistance when you reach Durance of Hate level 3.
Third level of Durance of Hate can have plenty of Vampire lords and there is also Bremm Sparkfist council member, propably second most deadly monster in ACT III. If your lightning resistance is low, stay away from him.

Mephisto

Mephisto
Mephisto is formidable enemy with strong physical attack at melee range and plenty of high damage spells. High Lightning, Cold and Poison resistance is important against his
spells. You can raise your poison and cold resistances by drinking several Thawing and antidote potions and for Lightning you need some items or shield with lightning resistance.

Before you engage Mephisto, I highly suggest to check act 1 maps and find skill shrine to increase your level of summons. Fight itself should not be hard as Mephisto will focus your summons mostly. Mephisto can cast Lighting, Frost Nova, Charged Bolts, Poison Clouds. He can also cast blizzard with pretty high damage but its quite rare. His last spell is Skull Orb. It deals partialy Physical and Cold damage and it can be blocked by shield with good block chance. When you kill Mephisto, dont forget to open Super Chest at the end of room but be carefull, there are Vampire Lords around usualy.

You can also be attacked by invisible entity in the middle of Mephisto room. It cannot be attacked and killed and it occasionaly manifest in few places and can strike you so keep that in mind as this can happens even when Mephisto is dead or in middle of fight with him.

I have recorded Travincal, Durance of hate and Mephisto fight so you can check it below:

Duriel - End of ACT III Normal - YouTube

NORMAL - ACT IV

When you go to ACT IV, you should be atleast level 23, but if you didnt skip content, you can be here also easily around level 27 and if you for example also played on higher player setting, you can make even level 30+ before you face final ACT Boss Diablo. Level 30 can be very helpful in with fight him because you can have Grizzly. ACT IV has quite strong monsters with a lot of Health so try to stay away from group of monsters at close range.

Jamella sells fourth level of potions replenishing even more health of Mana but they are not cheap.
Venom lords have deadly Fire Inferno like Fetish Shamans from ACT III so high fire resistance is required when facing them, or stay away from their melee range all the time.
Izual has a lot of health so it will take some time to take him down. Dont forget to pick up +2 skill point reward from Tyrael after you destroy Izual.
Ort runes sometimes drops in ACT IV so you can make runeword Ancient pledge in 3 socket Large shield if you also already have Ral and Tal. You can also combine 3 Ral runes in cube to get Ort.
You can complete Hellforge quest in River of flame, reward will be few gems and 1 Rune. Hephasto the Armorer has to be killed for Hellforge hammer and as he is strong melee fighter so let your summons to deal with him.
You can encounter range version of Doom knights in River of flame and City of the Damned. They shoot various elemental projectiles and if they are in pack with elite, they can do suprising amount of range damage when they hit you all together so watch out.
You will encounter Oblivion knights in Chaos Sanctuary, they use variety of curses making your life miserable: Weaken, Decrepify, Amplify damage and Lower resist so be very carefull. Lower resists is extremely deadly in combination with Fire inferno from Venom Lords.
If you dont like monsters spawning their smaller versions like Maggots who are hell to fight against, you can leave game and start new one to possibly get different monster setup in the map. This works on many places.

Chaos Sanctuary

In order to spawn Diablo, it is required to activate 5 seals in Chaos Sanctuary. 3 seals also spawn super unique monsters you have to kill and this cannot be avoided. Grand Vizier of Chaos is spawned by seal on the left side of Chaos Sanctuary (closer one to pentagram in the middle) and he is easier of all 3 because finger mages are quite weak. But still be carefull to not end up in middle of pack because it might be tough to get out.

Infector of souls will be spawned by seal on right side and he and his pack is one of the most dangerous encounters on normal difficulty. His pack is extra fast and if they surround you its game over because even with high fire resistance is their Fire inferno super strong. What can be hard for majority of builds will not be so hard for your build tho because you can kill them from distance with summons and mercenary, but you will probably have to be recasting wolves as they will die fast.

Lord de Ses will be spawned by seal in the middle section. He has always Fanaticism aura and because he can also cast Amplify damage, this can be pretty dangerous. Just keep distance from his group.

Diablo

Diablo
You need high fire and lightning resistances against Diablo and damage and magic damage reduction helps a lot against his two most strong spells. If you already can, make Ancients Pledge runeword in shield or place gems or runes into shield and helm to increase resistances. You can also try to make crafted Crown “Safety recipe”, it has damage reductions and Lighting resistance. You need perfect Emerald, magic Crown, any Jewel and Ith rune. For armor I suggest 3 socket breast plate with best Rubies you have so you can have more life to survive Diablo Spells. Diablo can cast Ring of fire, Fire wall, Bone Prison and his most dangerous spells Firestorm and Red Lighting hose. Firestorm is doing Fire + Physical damage and Lightning hose is doing Lightning + Physical damage.

That is why damage reductions can improve your chance of survival significantly together with high resistances because both firestorm and lighting hose apply their damage in frames.

When you summon Diablo by clicking on last Seal, run into middle of chaos sanctuary where Diablo will spawn oon pentagram. Its usefull to be close to it so your summons and mercenary can have fast access to Diablo. He will most likely kill your mercenary and other summons quite fast. But your Ravens cannot be killed so just keep running around diablo with enough distance so his spells wont do much to you while your ravens kills him. Dont forget to summon your Oak sage as it will keep dying often.

Here is video I made with demonstration of clearing Chaos Sanctuary and killing Diablo:
Druid - Chaos Sanctuary + Diablo Normal - YouTube

NORMAL - ACT V

You need to be atleast level 25 before you go to ACT V, because you will not level up there if you are lower. If you are being rushed , lvl 20 is enough to make Ancients quest and gain one level, but you will have to level up rest levels to 25 in ACT III or IV. Doing Secret Cow level is often used to level up fast from level 20 to 24 or 25, but you need someone who can carry you there and kill cows, or you need enchant sorc and preferably Raven Claw Long bow to kill Cows with it yourself. If you are level 25 already, you can level up in ACT V just fine and you will gain here quite a lot of levels.

ACT V has big maps and it will take time if you decide to clear everything. Most people who play online just do first quest, save Anya and then join Baalruns (runs on final boss) to level up very fast. That is preffered way if you play online to be able to MF as soon as possible. I usualy level up to 40 in ACT V, but you can even push it to 45 if you play hardcore. That means more skills and attributes points to survive Nightmare better.

You will get +Socket reward for completing first quest, Larzuk will add 1 socket to Unique/Set/rare items, 1-2 sockets to Magic items and 1-6 sockets to White items. Number of sockets depends on level of item, for example certain items you find on normal will have enough item level to get 4 sockets if you find them from high level enemies.
Crystal, Broad and Long Sword (requires also dexterity) found in secret cow level on normal will get 4 sockets from Larzuk.
Polearms found in secret cow level on normal will also get 4 sockets from larzuk.
Complete second quest and resque Barbarians, reward will be chance to hire them as mercenary and also getting Ral, Or and Tal rune. If you dont have it already, make runeword Ancients pledge(Ral+Ort+Tal) in Large shield. Kite shield is also possible option.
If you will be lucky with runes and get Shael, you can make excelent runeword in shield Rhyme (Shael+Eth) to have something even better than Ancients pledge RW. But it has lower resistances.
If you find Sol and have also spare Ort, you can make Runeword Lore (Ort+Sol) in helm.
Keep checking all grey helms you will see because they are able to spawn with 3 sockets in ACT V and you can socket them with 3 perfect Topaz gems eventualy to gain big MF boost.
Big minotaur like creatures can be found in dungeons over ACT V, they have frenzy attack and are considered as one of the most dangerous enemies in Diablo 2, if you see elite pack of them, dont let them get close to you by any chance or you will most certainly die.
ACT V has new Gargantuan type monsters and they have stun attack, dont get close if there is more of them or you will have hard time to get out of stun.
Evil Urns spawn elite packs or Champions based on type of monsters you can encounter in map you are in, so consider danger vs benefit (XP+loot). Its not fun to spawn minotaur Lord elite pack with Fanaticism aura on top of your head.
Hell tempress and other sucubuss creature types can cast curses to lower your defense or amplify damage.
Frozen River is required to visit to save Anya. After she is saved, Malah gives you scroll with +10% resistances.
When you save Anya, dont talk to her in Town unless you have level 48 already because her reward is based on your level and you can get better rare Druid Pelt at level 48.
You can use new Frenzy barbarian Mercenary and give him Gladius if you find one. He will do decent damage even with that and he can take a lot more hits than ACT II mercenary. You can also make Runeword Strength for him in 2 socket Gladius so he can deal some crushing blow.
Check your Tome of town portals if it is full, casting Town portal at Arreat summit it is only way how to stop fight with Ancients with exception of using save and exit.

You can check fight with Ancients and rest of ACT V here:

Druid - Ancients+Baal Normal - YouTube

Ancients

Killing 3 Ancient Barbarians is biggest challenge in game, but dont worry. They are not hard on normal unless you are seriously underleveled. When you click on Altar, their statues become alive and will attack you. They have various quite high resistances but no special powers like other Unique monsters. They will get 1 special power on Nightmare and another one on Hell.

3 Barbarians are Korlic, Talic and Madawc. Korlic is mainly using Leap attack so you can easily avoid it just by moving around. Talic is using Whirlwind and can deal a lot of damage with it. Madawc will buff others with shouts and is using Double throw so it can be avoided to some extent too. Ancients will be busy with your summons, so fight should not be hard, just keep an eye on Korlic to not jump on you and keep distance from Talic´s whirlwind.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Ancients and Baal
Druid - Ancients+Baal Normal - YouTube

When you kill ancients always go find Waypoint to Worldstone keep level 2 or you will be forced to fight ancients again to get pass them in next game.
Worldstone keep is also decent place to level up if you are weak to deal with Baal waves in throne room.
Watch out for Minotur Lords as they are in Worldstone keep 3 and Throne of destruction.
If you play hardcore, keep in mind that Player killers exists so dont go to portals leading just outside of town or to portals made by unknown players before others test the safety.
Common place where player killer try to kill people online is cow level. They like to surround the red portal with hord of cows so everyone who goes in will die.

Throne of Destruction

Throne of destruction has usualy Imps and minotaur lords so stay away from them if you can and kill them from distance. After you clear main room with Baal on throne, Baal will start spawning his 5 waves. Baal will be also casting decrepify on you and your group. If you stand close to baal and your summons and merc are infront of throne, he will be casting decrepify only on you but you might block yourself by baal waves there so its kind of risky on HC.

Wave 1 - Collenzo the Annihilator with Dark ones - weak and easy to kill group.
Wave 2 - Achmel the Cursed with pack of Greater Mummies and bone skeletal mages with ice bolts - easy to kill but they can poison you so you might visit town after you kill the wave to heal yourself or use Antidotes.
Wave 3 - Bartuc the Bloody with pack of Council members - can be dangerous because he is lighting enchanted and also cast a lot of hydras so you will probably have to recast volves few times.
Wave 4 - Ventar the Unholy with pack of Venom Lords - just dont let them surround you, it is better to lure them from throne so you dont have to deal with decrepify from Baal.
Wave 5 - Lister the Tormentor with pack of Minions of Destruction - Minions of destruction are quite dangerous if they get close to you with their stunning attack and knock back. Try to summn ravens on top of enemy your grizzly is focusing so they can kill them one by one faster or fight will take way too long.

Baal

Baal itself is not that dangerous boss and you will more hate him than fear him because of his abilities. But be carefull anyway as he can hit very hard at close range with his melee attack and can suprise you with his damage. He can cast curse to lower your defence and Blood mana curse if your mana is higher than Life. And he has plenty of spells: Incineration Nova shooting fireballs in radius, Hoarfrost dealing cold damage with knockback effect, Mana rift doing magic damage and draining 50% mana and Teleport. Baal can also fully clone himself, that can make encounter a lot more dangerous if you get between two of them. His clone has only 50% HP and you can notice him by his name as “Demon” under baal is more far on left than on original Baal.

Summoner is not exactly that good at killing bosses, because you lack abilities to take out big portion of his life fast and bosses have a lot of life. You can repeat baalruns to get some loot and experience or you can try to level up somewhere in act 5. If you clear whole ACT V, you should be around level 40 when you make it to end of ACT. You can of course go nightmare early. It is not such a big deal as it would be with other builds as you are not in contact with monsters.

Preparation for Nightmare

It is better to have level 40 before you go nightmare and have some decent equip so your resistances are 75% on Normal. If you didnt find better armor, you should keep using breast plate with flawless or perfect rubies. If you are missing some decent charms or runes, you can farm Cows on normal serveral times. Cow king also often drops some low level sets.

You should definitely do cow level to find white Crystal Sword or Broad sword and use reward from Larzuk to add sockets in it to make runeword Spirit(Tal+Thul+Ort+Amn) as soon as possible, because +skills is improving a lot of your summons at once. You can also make runeword Rhyme (Shael+Eth) if you find Shael as it has nice MF bonus so you can keep it on switch for additional bonus MF before boss kills.

Here is video I made with demonstration with some preparations for Nightmare and some farming at Cows
Druid - Cows Normal - preparation for NM - YouTube

NIGHTMARE DIFFICULTY

Nightmare should be quite easy with summoner. Just dont go too close to monsters and keep distance vs nasty aura or enchanted enemies. You will have enough summons so they cover all enemies well, but keep an eye on monsters so someone wont sneak up to you. You can also keep using terrain, summon your monsters around the corners and use safety behind walls.

Focus on getting items with all skills, resistances and Life. I suggest to make spirit, but if you want to keep socket quest for later, 4 socket sword should eventualy drop on nightmare if you dont skip majority of content. Mercenary can be used from ACT II or V, both are pretty good. I highly suggest to hire ACT III fire merc, because he can deal with physical immune monsters which are issue for your summons and he can also enchant them. If you will not use ACT III merc, you will have make something with Open wounds so physical immune enemies will die over time.

ACT I NIGHTMARE

If you want to run with high MF, use equip with + skills to summon your army and then switch to +MF items.
Look for 3 socket helms and 4 socket Gothic plate, they will be your first serious high MF equip if you use Perfect topaz gems in them.
If you already made spirit, ACT III merc will need one too and he will also need Lore to increase his skill levels.
Buying wand with Life tap curse charges can be bought from Akara, its usefull against bosses so your summons can leech life in fight.
You dont have to pick up all gems anymore, gather only flawless gems. Also third level of topaz gems to combine them because you will need more topazes for MF.
Perfect gems can be used to make some Crafted items or to reroll magic items. Players mostly use them to reroll Grand charms to get skillers (charms with+1 skill tabs).
Certain maps like for example Forgotten Tower levels are bigger on nightmare so be ready for that.
Unique monsters are getting one more ability on Nightmare so they are more dangerous.
Fire enchanted monsters have more strong explosion so stay away and take extreme caution against fire enchanted monsters with big health pool like Grisworld, Radament, Coldworm and even regular high HP unique monsters.
Lightning enchanted monsters are even more dangerous with combination with Cold or Fire enchanted as bolts will carry often bonus cold and fire damage.
Keep combining rejuvenation potions into full rejuvenation potions and always have them ready in belt.
If you are mising resistances, you can try to make prismatic amulet or resist rings with cube recipe, check arreat summit Horadric Cube page for learning more about that.
Identify all magic rings and amulets as they can provide good bonuses. I for example found magic ring with +115 mana on my playthrough (you can also combine 3 of each to get new random ring or amulet)
If you find some decent 2 or 3 socket light type armor, keep it for later.
In ACT I do Den of evil, save Cain, bring back Charsi Horadric Malus and Kill Andariel. Eveything else is optional.
The Countess can be farmed for better runes if you need some. Dont forget to do her at /players 1 setting so your chance to get runes from her is not lower.
If you already have some MF equip prepared, switch to it before final hit on Andariel.
Andariel NM can be repeatedly farmed but she have worse loot table than Baal normal so you will be better continue next ACTS.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Andariel NM
Druid - Catacombs lvl 3 + Andariel Nightmare - YouTube

ACT II NIGHTMARE

If you want to keep using ACT II mercenary, you have two new options, Holy freeze or Might. Merc with Might will be increasing physical damage of your summons and Holy freeze can help with crowd control and some physical immune monsters.

You should already be level 48 or very close to it at this point. When you are, take your 2 white druid pelts you found before and use Charsi reward to imbue it on both difficulties, then go speak to Anya on normal (remember when i told you to not speak with her yet?) to get another rare pelt. There is very high chance atleast one of them will be upgrade for you. After you do this, go back to ACT II nightmare.

You need to kill Radament and complete Horadric staff again in ACT II, rest is optional and you can skip it.
If you want to speed things up, move around edges of outside maps of ACT II to find exists to next locations.
If you play hardcore, be extremely cautious in Maggot lair and at any circumstance do not go close to unique Scarabs and their minions, always kill them from distance.
Maggot Lair and Arcane sanctuary might be little bit challenging because there is not enough space for summons. Just keep summoning Ravens on top of enemies if your other summons struggle to find path. Also grizzly is great if you cast him behind enemies or infront of you so you have protection.
Duriel should not cause any issues, just drink thawing potions again and cast Life tap and wait until your summond will kill him.

I recorded Radament, Maggot Lair, Arcane sanctuary, Tal Rasha Tombs and Duriel fingh so you can watch if you want to see how to deal with certain situations
Druid - Radament ACT II Nightmare - YouTube
Druid - Arcane Sanctuary Nightmare - YouTube
Druid - Maggot Lair Nightmare - YouTube
Druid - Tombs + Duriel Nightmare - YouTube

ACT III NIGHTMARE

You can hire Fire mercenary in ACT III who will be enchanting your summons. He can use sword, shield, helm and armor. Items with +fire skills also increase his skill level.
Do golden Bird quest, Lam esen tome, and take Gidbin to Ormus. Then you have to do Khalims parts completition.
Be very careful in Great Marsh, because Gloams can spawn there. If you dont have atleast 60% lighting resist and decent Life, try to make some equip to get higher lightning resist and take it slow. Keep avoiding lightning from gloams and let summons to destroy them.
You will most likely encounter Stygian dolls in Sewers, Swampy Pit or Durance of Hate. They are a lot more dangerous than on normal. Your army should destroy them without issues, just keep an eye on them so they dont get close to you.
Travincal should not be hard, but stay far enough from Fire Enchanted and Lightning Enchanted council members. Try to lure council member from temple one by one.
Durance of Hate will be much bigger on nightmare and you will truly “Hate” it.
Strategy against Mephisto is the same as on normal. Thawing potions and high enough cold and lighting resistance. Cast Life tap and let your army to kill him. He might occasionaly cast something towards your direction but you should have high enough life to survive it just fine.
Bremm Sparkfist at third level of Durance of Hate can be very deadly so be carefull.
Mephisto NM is actualy worth farming because he can drop plenty of usefull exceptional unique items.
If you play offline, maps always stays same unless you change difficulty so you can keep reseting map until you will get entrance to Durance of Hate level 3 very close to Waypoint.

Here is video I made with demonstration of Travincal, Durance of Hate and Mephisto

Druid - Travincal Nightmare - YouTube
Druid - Durance of Hate+Mephisto Nightmare - YouTube

ACT IV NIGHTMARE

Plains of Despair can have Souls (Gloams) so be very carefull here as map can be full of them. If your lightning resistance is low and they spawn there, leave game and try to get better monster combination next game. You can keep using this trick in many places because most locations in Diablo 2 have more than 3 different types of monsters but usualy only 3 types are spawning.
Dont forget to kill Izual to get +2 skills reward.
Make Hellforge Quest to get rune. It is valuable quest so do it alone or with people you trust as max rune drop on Nighmare is Um.

Diablo Nightmare
Diablo on Nighmare has bugged Lighting hose skill so it does zero damage to summons directly in his face so only his firestorm will probably kills you army but you can always summon it back.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Diablo NM
Druid - Chaos Sanctuary + Diablo Nightmare - YouTube

ACT V NIGHTMARE

ACT V is special in a sense that majority of maps can have new guest monsters from previous acts. That might result in very dangerous new monster combinations.

Dont forget to finish first quest but its practiacly unavoidable.
First two maps on Nightmare have plenty of new ranged type monsters making these locations quite dangerous so watch out.
Frozen River might be dangerous because of new hosting monsters like gloams so keep using terrain to block their lighting while summons kills them. Also do not click Evil urns as they might spawn gloam boss packs.
Minotaur Lords are still Extremely Dangerous so keep up your army so they suddendly dont kill all of your summons and then go after you.

Ancients

Ancients are much more Dangerous on Nightmare and will get one random ability. If they will get stone skin, reset them. If you play hardcore, always reset them if they are cursed and visit town to get rid of curse before activating them again. If they spawn as Fire enchanted, dont stand close when they die, it might kill you. If you use Life tap, it should help your army to be alive for majortiy of fight. Summoner druid is one of the best character to finish Ancients on NM and even Hell so it shoud not be hard, just keep avoiding Barbarians if they are close to you. Talic might use whirlwing on you even when he is fighting your summons if you are in his way.

Worldstone Keep

Worldstone keep is pretty dangerous place as it hosts new monster types like Doom knights with Oblivion knights casting curses and various other monsters like Souls. Souls are there quite often actualy. Worldstone keep is good place to level up as monster density there is high. It can be usefull for solo leveling in game with more players and you dont even need to go down to throne room. Based on my experience is here decent chance to drop some valuable runes.

Baalruns are favourite place where to level up on Nighmare and if you are playing online.

Throne of Destruction+Baal

Throne of destruction is also very dangerous place, there can be Souls, Stygian dolls, Sirens, Oblivion Knights and Greater mummies so take it slow and dont rush it and always first discover which 3 types of monster you face here. Also before you enter Throne room, be prepared for instant danger. I have seen souls packs with conviction or dolls with fanaticism standing next to entrance from Worldstone keep 3 in past on several occasions. So be ready to go back fast, drinkg full rejuv potions or even leave game.

Greater mummies are exceptionaly nasty as they can revive killed souls and also stygian dolls. Sirens can also curse you and are immune to cold so be ready to kill them with merc or Fire Wall. Other than that should be anything in Throne room killable with Cold. Baal waves should not cause any troubles. Use same strategy as on Normal. Go to lower end of Throne room before wave 4 and 5 hit the ground and use ravens to kill same on enemy your grizzly is focusing.

Baal is not fun boss for summoner, mostly because of his high block chance and big health pool. You summons also might suffer to hit him so fight will be longer.

Here is video I made with demonstration of Ancients+Baal
Druid - Ancients+Baalrun Nightmare - YouTube

Preparation for Hell

If you play softcore, preparation for hell is not that big deal so keep in mind I wrote all this mostly for Hardcore players. Difficulty from Nightmare to hell is very steep in comparison to Normal–>Nightmare so be ready for monsters doing a lot more damage. Without proper equip will be Hell very hard so consider spending some time on nightmare to get items and runes to be equipped better. Maybe do some more baalruns, Meph runs or worldstone keep runs. Lower Kurast objects on high player setting might be good for finding some mid runes.

Resistances will be probably biggest issue and it will be difficult to achieve high numbers without some runewords. If you didnt find any good armor with resistances, you can try to make Smoke (Nef+Lum), because it has very nice +50% all resistance bonus. Lionheart (Hel+Lum+Fal) is also very good or some rare armor with resistances and various stat bonuses. Lore runeword (Ort+Sol) might be usefull as helm. Very good RW for ACT II mercenary is Insight, but sometimes it is possible to make Obedience. Even Obedience in Partizan can be pretty powerfull. Mercenary can also use Malice or Strength in decent weapon base if you dont have anything else. Malice or other items with Open wound is must have if you dont use ACT III mercenary.

If you by any chance find Lem and Ko, you can use Frezny Barbarian merc and make him runeword Lawbringer so you can deal with physical immune with it as it has decrepify and sanctuary aura. Physical immune undead will be piece of cake for frenzy merc with it. ACT III merc need equip with + skills preferably so spirit, lore and things like that.

HELL DIFFICULTY

Always try to keep distance from monsters and avoid their attacks. Everything is very deadly on Hell withouh very good items and unique monsters will get additional ability. You can use teleport charges staff to skip some places but teleport very carefully and not into places you dont see.

You will face physical resistant or immune monsters on Hell so some situations might become more challenging. Keep adding attributes to Vitality, but you might also consider adding points into strength so you can use Spirit Monarch (req str 156) if you find one. I usualy dont raise strength above 100 and if I manage to find 4 socket Monarch, I use another Attributes/skill reset to redistribute points and then invest the points into strength. Because it would be pointless to lose 50 points you can have in vitality if you dont have 4 socket Monarch for spirit anyway.

If you play solo offline, set game difficulty to /players 1 for Hell. You can stack magic find bonus on equip before you kill bosses for better drops because your summons will keep their level from better equip you summoned them with.

ACT I HELL

White Monarch can be used to add 4 sockets at Larzuk quest reward or by trying socketing recipe in cube. Monarch is ideal for runeword Spirit.
Try to complete Den of Evil for quest reward, rest of ACT I quests can be rushed to Andariel if you prefer that.
Try to not engage too many monsters at once because your summons will do best when facing only few monsters together.
You can cast grizzly and ravens on top of Shamans to kill them as first so they dont revive fallen monsters.
Always target elite monsters with Holy Freeze as first with grizzly and ravens or they will slow your army.
Rule to not run into uknown places is even more important on hell, if you for example open door to some room, summon grizzly or ravens first inside to not get jump on by monsters if you run in first.
Your Oak Sage will be frequently dying on Hell so always keep him active by recasting, preferably close to you, so he is not in fight.
Jail can have Physical immune ghost so you will need ACT III merc to kill them.
Tainted will be most dangerous enemy in Catacombs so keep that in mind and always keep distance from them. Zombies hit hard too but they are slow.
If you can, try to avoid fight with spiders, your summons will struggle against them as they are highly physical resistant.
Summoner can farm The Countess, but path to her is long and there can be physical immune ghosts on all levels.
Fight with Andariel have same rules as on Nightmare. You can use antidotes and just avoid her attacks and let summons to kill her. Try to kill dark ones and their shamans first so they dont bother you while you fight Andariel.

Here is video I made with demonstration of ACT I Hell
Druid - ACT I Hell - Part 1 - YouTube
Druid - ACT I Hell - Part 2 - YouTube

ACT II HELL

Radament can be physical immune, if that is the case, you can make new game to roll different abilities on him.
There can be big groups of skeletons archer shooting fire arrows in Sewers. If you fire resistance is not high, be carefull around them and avoid their shots.
Scarabs are extremely dangerous on hell as their charged bolts often carry bonus elemental damage if they have elemental abilities so always check for elite ones and their minions as they carry bonus damage too.
Rocky waste and Dry Hills can be easily skipped, just follow edge of map until you find entrance to next zone.
Stony tomb is new interesting place to farm as its new area85 zone in 2.4 patch. It can be repeated to find items or gain some levels. Monsters there are not that hard, mostly slow moving enemies but Scarabs can be dangerous.
Far Oasis and Maggot Lair can have many physical immune swarms so it might be little challenging to position well so fire merc can kill them. Teleport staff will definitely help here a lot. Keep casting Grizzly infront of you as shield if scarabs are going after you.
Lost city can be harder because of darkness so try to stick to edge of map and take it very slow untill you find entrance to Claw Viper Temple.
Claw Viper temple is dangerous place and snakes hit hard with charge attack, but they are not issue for your army. Just keep distance from snakes.
Most of the Palace in town can be easily skipped if you aim for entrances to next levels. Palace has some monsters who can deal a lot of damage so take it slower.
Fire eye on third level of Pallace cellar 3 can be very dangerous and is always fire enchanted so stay away from him in far enough distance.
Arcane Sanctuary will not be fun at all, because of Physical immune Spectres and not enough space to fight for your summons. I personaly rushed the place by using teleporting staff but as you can see in video i recorded from ACT II( can be found below Duriel fight later) it can be very dangerous. You can of course take it slow, casting grizzly behind enemies and using ACT III merc to kill specters helps.
Tal Rasha Tomb can also have ghosts, if that is the case and you want to avoid them, you can keep restarting game untill you will have monster setup without them in true tomb.
Duriel should not be hard but fight will be longer because of his Holy Freeze aura.

Here is video I made with demonstration of ACT II Hell
Druid - ACT II Hell - YouTube

ACT III HELL

ACT III will be long, because outside maps are quite big and full of monsters, but majority of them doesnt have such high Health so you would not have issues to kill them with summons. Only Spiders and and monsters in Durance of hate will be more tough because they are physical resistant.

Its not a rule but you will probably be forced to be in Great Marsh also, be extremely carefull as Gloams (souls) can spawn there. They are very deadly if your lightning resistances are low. Try to be always on move avoiding their lighting. If you see Gloams on edge of your screen dont ever go directly into their position, start to move around in circles around them.
Flayer Dungeon can have Undead Stygian dolls so try to keep an eye on them so they dont get close to you. Flayer dungeon also cam have physical immune ghosts.
Lower Kurast can be good place to farm if you are playing offline or have access to games with more players doing MF runs online, just click objects there on higher player setting and you have very good chance to get gems, charms or runes and sometimes even unique or set item.
Be carefull around Heirophants casting Lightning and Blizzard, it can deal a lot of damage with lower resistances.
Stygian dolls can be found in Sewers and Durance of Hate so again, stay away from them when they die.
Try to clear path from WP to council members and place surrounding zone infront of temple so nothing will bother you while you fight Council.
Durance of Hate will be long unless you will be lucky with exit to level 3. It is full of monsters with high Physical resistance so your summons will struggle here little bit. You can use teleport staff to get to third level faster, but it is quite dangerous with Maulers and dolls who can spawn there.

Travincal

Elite council members can be rarely physical immunes, but it is actualy not required to kill all of them. One elite one is enough to drop Khalims Flail and that is all you need and then you just have to smash compelling orb with finished Khalims Flail. Be extremely cautious when you fight council as they can do a lot of damage with Lightning, Fire and Cold enchantments.

Mephisto

Try to go to Mephisto from left side of Durance of Hate 3 because Bremm Sparkfist is usualy on other side or in the middle. If he is in your way, you will have to fight him. If he is not, I suggest not going close to him as he is quite dangerous. Once the path is clear, you can fight Mephisto. Mephisto is not exactly easy boss and his spells do quie a lot of damage on Hell. Especialy his Blizzard is very strong but he rarely use it. He will be most of the time casting Lightning and Skull missile. Both can be avoided with some skilled movement but you will not be forced to do that often as your summons will keep him busy.

Here is video I made with demonstration of ACT III Hell
Druid - ACT III Hell - YouTube

ACT IV HELL

ACT IV is probably the worst for druid summoner of all acts because there is multiple monsters with a lot of health and physical resistances. Vile Monthers and Maggots also spawn a lot of their younglings which makes it hell to fight against them. Reseting maps could help, but River of flame have several undesirable monster types so its impossible to get tha tmap without monsters who will not be hard to fight.

Plains of Despair can have Souls and there is usualy a lot of them and nowhere to hide, so if your resistance is not high, consider making new game untill different monsters types will spawn there.
Dont forget to kill Izual to gain +2 skill points from Tyrael.
Do Hell Forge quest, but be carefull around Hephasto because he is very strong on hell. You can get rune up to Gul as reward from HF.
Dont do Hellforge quest with people you dont know as they might take your reward.
If you by any chance find Mal from Hellforge, you can make Runeword Rain (Ort+Mal+Ith)

Chaos Sanctuary
Very dangerous place, so dont run into groups of monsters too fast or your summons will have troubles to deal with too many monsters at once while being cursed by Oblivion Knights. Seal bosses should not be hard to kill, only Invector of Souls will be little bit harder.

Diablo
Diablo on Hell has same issue as on normal with his Red Lightning hose doing nothing at melee range so your summons should survide just fine and you will just occasionaly have to recast some of them when they die. Be ready to cast grizzly next to you if Diablo will block you inside of his bone prison, but it should not happen.

Here is video I made with demonstration of ACT IV Hell
Druid - ACT IV Hell - YouTube

ACT V HELL

ACT V Hell

Pretty much all maps in ACT V hell have new guest monsters, that makes some areas extremely tough and some monster combination can be really nasty. So keep that in mind as you can meet new monsters in places where they werent on lower difficulties.

Bloody Foothils is pretty bad map for your summons as it has many stairs where summons have to get thru to kill monsters so it is honestly best to skip majority of it. You can just run or use teleport staff.
After you make it to first waypoint dont forget to kill the Shenk the Overseer to get quest reward.

Saving Anya
Frozen River can have very nasty monsters inside. What can you encounter here? Souls, sucubuss casting amplify damage and always hitting attacks, vipers with magic damage and much more. Be very careful if you see Reanimate horde as they like to raise from death and then charge you from back. That might be very deadly if they hit critical strike or if you have amplify damage from Succubus. It can even one shot you.

Arreat summit - Ancients

Ancients on Hell is most challenging encounter in game and very dangerous on hardcore for majority of builds, but Druid summoner provide unique set of skills to make fight actualy quite easy. Your summons will keep ancients busy so they should not even go after you. Its best to kill them one by one by focusing your grizzly and ravens on single Ancient and let wolves to keep others busy. Other than that its basicly waiting game with occasional recasting summons which were killed. If ancients spawn with stone skin, reset them with TP and try again.

I suggest to bring some full rejuvenation, health and mana potion with you and try to look out for skill shrine before you go to arreat summit to summons your army on higher level before the fight. Casting Life tap from charges might help your summons to leech some life from ancients so they will survive longer.

Worldstone keep

Its essential to take waypoint in keep 2 before you leave the game. Take it very slow from Arreat Summit so you dont lure too many monsters close to entrance. All worldstone keep levels can have various monsters and guest monsters from different acts. Most dangerous are probably Souls on second level and they tend to be there quite often.

Throne of Destruction+Baal

Clear path to Throne room so you can retreat back in case of being in danger. Throne of Destruction can have basicly worst monster combinations in game, Minotaur lords, Souls, Dolls, Oblivion Knights, Succubus with Amplify damage and more and all this can results in various pretty dangerous combos like oblivion mages casting lower resist together with souls or Greater Mummies reviving dolls or souls.

Wave 1 - Weak and easy to kill.
Wave 2 - Second wave is bit problematic as Greater mummies are pretty durable and skeleton mages will keep freezing your summons, but they should eventualy deal with them. Keep casting 5 ravens on top of Mummies so they kill them one by one.
Wave 3 - It is better to lure council down to lower part of throne room to get away from Decrepify from Baal.
Wave 4 - Venom Lords are not that deadly but they are quite resilient and it will take a while to kill them probably.
Wave 5 - Minions of destruction will be tough because they have a lot of Health. They will keep killing your wolves so keep recasting them so they can keep them busy. Use ravens to attack minions one by one together with grizzly.

Baal fight will be very long because he has very big health pool and summons will struggle to hit him because of his high level. Your wolves will keep dying here a lot. When I was killing Baal, I had to hire ACT 5 frenzy merc with runeword Strength so he could lower his health with Crushing blow.

Here is video I made with demonstration of ACT V Hell
Druid - ACT V Hell - YouTube

I am showing all equip I finished hell with at the end.

And done, you are finished with playthrough, if you have done it, good job Now I will talk a little about what you can do next to get into item farming and what are some of your
options.

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EVERYTHING IMPORTANT ABOUT SUMMONER DRUID

Druid has certainly more builds to play so after you are done with playthrough, you can pick any of them. I will focus only on summonner in this topic tho. Summoner is quite new build in 2.4 because you can have multiple summons active at once and previously it was impossible and build was extremely weak. Now it is capable of farming game even on higher player setting.

There are some people playing melee focused druids with shapeshifting focusing on physical damage with weapons, but they often suffer with balance between attack equip vs MF equip. Most played druid build before 2.4 was Wind druid using Tornadoes and Hurricane. Not bad, but he usualy need decent equip to be good and hit mechanics of Tornado skill is highly unpredictable.

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BASIC INFORMATION

I have never played Summoner druid before 2.4 version and I have been suprised how well the build is now. If you will follow my guide, you will not really have issues to finish game and use build for MF runs. Damage from summons is mostly Physical so ACT III merc is important for playthrough because Spirit wolves deal cold damage but not that much and it cannot be increased by stuff like auras with increased damage.

There is definitely several variants you can use for your final build. Build is pretty much completed at level 77 so rest of your levels will define where you take the build. You can for example focus on defensive abilities and invest in shapeshifting skills or into oak sage to increase your life. Or you can invest in werebear and keep using Shock wave to immobilize enemies. It is also possible to increase damage of dire wolves and grizzly by maxing Heart of wolverine.

Attributtes
Your strength should not go higher than 156 which is required to equip Spirit monarch. Rest of points should go to Vitality. If you will be using weapons to cast some effects or help with fighting, you will have to invest enough dexterity to equip the weapons.

Skills
20 Raven, 20 Summon Spirit Wolf, 20 Summon Dire Wolf, 20 Summon Grizzly, 5 Oak Sage, 1 point Carrion Wine and Poison Creeper. Use Carrion wine because it has quite good healing with enough corpses on ground and it will constantly regenerate your health. Rest of skill points is optional. You can keep leveling Oak Sage or Heart of wolverine based on your preferences. If you want to use heart of wolverine use just 1 point in Oak Sage as you cant have both at the same time. Points can be also distributed to shapeshift skills to get point in Fury with werewolf or in case of using werebear into Shock wave.

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EQUIP

You should mostly focus on items with as many +skills as possible because levels of your summons define their strength. Because your army will be doing most of work, you can use some items with casting curses on hit. I will list various items you can use to have good druid summoner MF char and also your options for budget equip.

Weapon
There is a lot of options here. Best for increasing level of summons is RW Heart of the Oak, but new Obssesion runeword (only in season) can be also pretty good for various reasons. Spirit in sword is budget option. Most of your summons can be made with equip with higher +skills, but then you can use weapons with various effect to help your army. It is possible to use RW Beast for Fanaticism aura or RW Faith for same reason but you will miss bonuses from shield. Unique Lacerator is pretty good for casting Amplify damage on hit and is one handed weapon. Last but one of the best weapons can be RW Brand for 35% chance to cast amplify dmg level 14 when struck. It can be used in Demon Crossbow for very high attack speed for shapeshift tranformation

Shield
Preferably Spirit in Monarch, other interesting options are RWs Splendor and Sanctuary, Unique Liddles Wall. Budget choise are RW Ancient´s Pledge, RW Rhyme, The Ward.

Helm
One of the best choices is Harlequin Crest Shako with Perfect Topaz, but it is also possible to make Helm with higher + skill if you use 3 socket helm with +summons skills you like and make RW Delirium. 3 Socket druid helms can be also socketed by perfect topazes if you dont have anything better. Another MF budget helms are Tarnhelm and Stealskull. Lore is very budget RW possible to make early on nightmare and can be quite in decent +skills 2 socketed druid Pelt. Also Aldur’s Stony Gaze with second item from same set for +50% MF bonus. Circlets with + druid skills can be good too. Raven lore is very good option for higher +raven skill.

Armor
RW Enigma, Skullder’s Ire, Tal Rasha’s Guardianship. More budget choice: RW Rain, Lionheart and Smoke. Gothic plate with 4 perfect topazes or any armor with +skills. Aldur’s Deception with second item from same set for +50% MF bonus.

Belt
Arachnid mesh for +skills or MF belts Tal Rasha’s Fine-Spun Cloth and Goldwrap. Budget options: String of Ears, Nightsmoke belt, Rare belts with Life, resist and FHR%.

Gloves
Chance Guards or Rare Gloves with MF. Magefist or Trangs Oul Gloves if you use Enigma. Laying of hands if you are also fighting together with your summons.

Boots
War Travelers, Waterwalks, Aldur’s Advance or Rare boots with resists and MF.

Amulet
Magic/Rare amulet with druid skills/MF/resist, Mara’s Caleidoscope, Seraph’s Hym.

Rings
Stone of Jordan, Bul Katho’s, Rare wing with MF/resist/FCR, Wisp Projector. More budget options: Nagelring, Magic/Rare rings with MF, Raven Frost, Dwarf Star.

Second Weapon slot
If your main weapon slot is for attack, you should have here equip with +skills to summons your army. Other than that you can use here Call to Arms, Wand with Life tap charges, or just items with high mf to switch to it before boss kills like Blade of Alibaba or Gull dagger with Rhyme.

Charms
Annihilus, Torch, Gheed´s Fortune, 3-7% MF small charms, Charms with Life and resistances.

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MERCENARY

Your mercenary should have something usefull to improve your summons. ACT III mercenary can provide elemental damage your army will miss when leveling up and also will enchant your summons with additiona attack ratting and fire damage. You will definitely need him for playthrough. Equip for him should have mostly +fire skills or +all skills and some faster cast rate on top of that.

ACT II desert mercenary is usefull for his auras. I think best one is Might aura merc. But the one with Holy freeze can be usefull too for some crowd control. You can use various different weaponds for them. Unique spears and polearms, RW insight, Obedience. More expensive RW Pride can be also used for Concentration aura. Interesting option might be RW Infinity as it make monsters more easy to hit for summons and at the same time it lowers their cold resistance for Spirit Wolves. Unique Reaper’s Toll Treasher is also excelent for casting Decrepify on monsters and it really helps against bosses where summons struggle more.

If you want to farm zones with physical immune undeads, you will preferably need ACT V Barbarian Frenzy merc with Azurewrath or Lawbringer who can deal with them just fine.

ACT I mercenary can be also option if you have runes to make RW Faith with Fanaticism Aura.

Generaly speaking for all mercenaries dealing physical damage is best to have items with resistances, high defense, life leech and attack speed. You can usualy get some decent helms with life leech and great cheap armor can be runewords Lionheart and Smoke. More expensive one but great for increased damage is Fortitude.

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HOW TO PLAY SUMMONER

I would say that gameplay for summoner build is quite easy. You will summon everything you have with your +skills equip and then you can switch to your fighting equip or equip with Magic find. Wolves and grizzly are not dying that often, but you will have to keep recasting ravens. Try to cast all of them at once always and they have alot of hits with high skill level. Ravens can be casted on top of enemies on battlefield if you want to kill specific target faster. Grizzly is also great to recast for more strategic position.

Your summons will excel when facing few enemies. If there is too many monsters at once, they will struggle as their force will be separated into multiple targets. So try to not lure too many monsters at once at them. If your Oak sage is at lower level, you will have to keep recasting it often as it will be dying.

Summoner is great build for Hardcore because you can just stay out of danger for most of the time and you can just for example stand behind walls while your summons deal with Gloams. You should be preferably farming area85 zones without undead as they tend to have high physical resistance or immunity to it. Also try to avoid monster with high Life pool. Bosses can be farmed, but you will need Lacerator or Reapers Toll from your merc so summons can take down boss faster, otherwise boss fights will be too slow.

Summoner with more expensive gear is able to farm pretty much anything even on higher player setting. Some people even already made Uber tristram with summoner.

If you want to see how to play in action, I recorded two videos. First is after finished playrun and second is demonstration with elite equip and Runeword Brand in expectional Crossbow to cast Amplify damage. Done on /players 7 setting.

Summoner druid - Farming area 85 zones - YouTube

Summoner druid - Farming area 85 zones on /players 7 - YouTube

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WHAT CAN SUMMONER DO WELL

The Countess
The Pit level 1-2
Stony Tomb 1-2
Ancient Tunnels
Swampy Pit Level 1-3
Lower Kurast (objects farming or Superchests)
Travincal
Eldritch the Rectifier+Shenk the Overseer
Pindleskin
Ancients Hell

Advantages:

Easier solo playthrough
Very safe build and ideal for Hardcore
Able to farm area85 zones on high player setting with good equip
Easy to equip with MF items
Good for group play if you have Oak Sage
No issue with most dangerous monsters
Summons can be easily recasted

Disadvantages:

Worse against bosses
No AoE damage
Struggle when facing a lot of monsters at the same time
It is problematic to fight Physical immune monsters

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excala1-1410 · April 17, 2022, 10:19pm

Druids are hot right now. they aren’t last in line anymore