wrath is good upgrade for the merc if you have the higher end mats to make it. As I had stated earlier, the posted build was a lower level and budget version of a hybrid summoner. I appreciate the variations and input players have added to this thread
Wrath (ranged runeword)
Pul,Lum,Ber,Mal
30% chance to cast level 1 decrepify
5% chance to cast level 10 life tap on strike
+375% damage to demons
+250-300% damage to undead
85-120 additional mag damage added
41-240 lightning damage added
20% chance of crushing blow
prevent monster heal
+10 energy
cannot be frozen
As you can see it is a great upgrade vs EDGE it does take some harder to get stuff though to make such as a ber. If you can afford it, it would be nice choice for the act 1 fire merc
What I did was go full summoner with 1 point in the wolf side of shapeshift tree all the way to fury. Gearwise I use Pride, Beast, and use a Might merc with HOTW. That’s 4 +damage auras for a total of +849% damage, and I can also go wolf form and dash in and help melee as well. My fury is only 3800 but that is enough to be noticeable. It’s fantastic for both team play and solo, and pushes over bosses, even dclone and ubers. The damage is good enough I can solo p3/p4 TZ’s. It still isn’t fast, but it isnt slow either, and is very very safe. And its fantastic for teams because the glass cannons don’t have to dodge around and have a giant ball of enemies to target, and the melees love doubling their damage. Posted my build elsewhere in the Druid forums.
Thank you for sharing.
I think a summoner needs to be a summoner… otherwise he’s a Hybrid (Summons with Wolf/Bear/Wind/Fire etc…), and, I understand the benefits of the 1 point Wolf tree and elemental tree… been there… it’s amazing… Agree.
I have been totally loyal to my Act1 Merc… but pushing for level 99 (currently 97.7) as a pure Summoner was getting really tough/slow.
Well, it pains me to say… I retired his faithful and devoted Act1 Merc… and hired a despicable Act2 Merc with Might… and Pride.
I was really stalling out… but this Act2 merc just might get me to lvl99.
Again, thanks for sharing.
There is a better option for hybrid with fury and reapers toll main hand. definitely faster than maul and shockwave and good sustain due to life leech. 1 point only in raven and max wolves, bear, fury and remaining points in heart of wolverine rest is 1 pointers. If u want to go the expensive merc anyway i suggest u stay with the act 1 merc but switch to using faith bow, cure helmet and maybe a hustle armor to get the max breakpoint of 2.5 att per sec. Main reason i use this is fanaticism lets me hit my max ias breakpoint on fury + the fact that might aura does nothing for ur spirit wolves since they deal cold damage and ravens do not benefit from auras at all but spirit wolves do benefit from the ias from fanaticism and if u look at the numbers on lvl 15 fana vs the might aura the difference is actually not that great when u consider the fact that ur wolves get 33% ias on top of the 144% damage from fana. Now since this is the only source of ias ur wolves get at all this is a straight up 33% more dps and the ias actually benefits spirit wolves too, might does not. Besides using the reaper’s toll urself lets u proc decrepify which lowers Target’s Speed, Damage and Physical Resistance by 50% which makes ur wolves survive better and deal more damage. Using ravens is a noob trap in my opinion since they dont benefit from any auras and hits pretty slow and the points are better spend somewhere else late game (fury) . Ravens will however carry u through normal and nightmare with ease however they will fall of pretty drastic on hell difficulty since u cant really scale them any further
Btw if u are looking for pure summoner and wielding a beast urself and using the act 2 pride/might merc u should really try switching his body armor to bramble with lvl 21 thorns aura. This is by far the best option for pure summoner
Agree, I have a Wolf/Zoo hybid, and he is a pure monster.
Eth Death Decapitator, Sunder, and a Eth Reapers/Zod’d for areas hith lots of PI’s.
Most Interesting.
I do not use Beast, I use Faith so I can add a little damage from a safe zone.
Act2 Might/Pride Merc is currently wearing Eth Fortitude, because I had one on hand.
Going to go look up Bramble now… have a few Armors with OS, but no Eth Armors with OS, and no Larzuk’s left.
Thorns Aura looks awesome.
50% FHR… very nice.
Poison skill, whatever.
300% Defense… yes please.
Mana, Coldres, whatever.
30% Fireres, oh yes, he needs constant watch running Travincal.
100% Poison, works, he wears a Cure lid now.
13 Life after each kill… currently he has no life leach, so, yes please!!!
Spirit of Barbs is silly…
Friend has a Larzuk, and I have an Eth Archon Plate… which larzuk will add 4 if I am not mistaken.
I have the runes.
If I am not mistaken, when a Merc wears +skills gear, it applies to his Aura’s… that’s a question…
So, I love the Cure helm on him, but in my stash I have a;
Nightwings (+2)
Shako (+2) and life.
Delirium (+2) and all the comedy that comes with it.
Crown of Ages, with 2 open sockets.
ETA…
And an Andariel’s (+2) with all it has, and Bramble offsets the Fire res
Hmmm…
Oh, he’s active, so he runs a Bow… Crusader with Faith… so he can plink, I may have eluded that point previously…
im actually not always wearing the cure on the act 2 might merc since he need some souce of life leech. For pure summoner i use Pride/Bramble/Andy or Gaze for the act 2 merc. Act 1 merc on the other hand for the hybrid fury/summon druid dont really need life leech since this merc always try to stay out of trouble and actually has better AI than the act 2 merc and actively moves away from danger. Besides this she has a lot of wolves to hide behind and if u choose the freeze arrow merc she actually provides decent cc with 2.5 att per sec with my setup. Faith matriarchal bow for the highest att speed, Cure helmet for removing curses and reducing poison length which really comes in handy in chaos sanctuary. And last but not least i use hustle armor for the act 1 merc, this combined with the matriarchal bow faith and the fana aura get her to the max 2.5 att per sec breakpoint. Now before anyone suggest using treachery i might aswell tell u why hustle is better for act 1 merc. 1. she dont get hit much compared to act 2 merc which reduces the chance of fade proc. 2. she dont really need the res from fade since she will cap out somewhere around lvl 90 anyway with my setup. 3. she gets a lot more movement speed from hustle which helps alot with keeping up and moving away from danger. And last but not least 4. +6 evade. Now if u look at the comparison of lvl 6 evade vs fade which is very unlikely to proc on this merc the choise is ez. Fade at lvl 15 gives u 15% phys damage reduction on top of the res which i already said she dont really need + it almost never proc. Lvl 6 evade on the other hand gives a flat 40% chance to dodge any attack with zero downtime. I think it should make it pretty clear why hustle is the winner here
Ya, my guy certainly likes to “Drop-In” on Elites/Unique’s and Boss’s… with the insta death (most of time) you noted he doesn’t need to worry about a shield, and if they do survive the Zoo is the best shield in the game ;), and I’ll take a step back and wail down some arrows… LOL… makes me feel like I’m doing damage.
Agree on the benefits of the Act1 Cold Merc. Up until recently she has been the go to for all my Characters.
Have never tried Hustle on her, always run her with Eth Forti and roll until I get high all res… she just keeps on keeping on like that… old habits die hard I guess.
I still run Act1 Cold Merc with Zealot, Tesladin and Wolf/Zoo hybrid… and up until recently (9 days ago) ZooDruid.
Well old habits do die hard but dont underestimate the power of +6 evade with 40% chance to dodge any attack + the fact that she will fire more freeze arrows when hitting the higest att per sec breakpoint. Just remember u need the matriarchal bow to hit 2.5 att per sec, the grand matron bow will only hit 2.27 att per sec due to the slower base att speed. As for the zoo druid bramble is a great way to get a bit more dps since the mobs will deal damage to them self when hitting ur wolves or ur merc. U can also get a bit more boss damage by switching pride with infinity and provide some crushing blow for ur might merc. This might actually outperform pride since lvl 12 conviction lowers enemy defence by 83% and provides -85% enemy elemental resistances. Now since the pride concentration aura only really benefit half of ur army because spirit wolves deal cold damage this might actually be the best option for the zoo druid. Pride is just another die hard habit from my summon necro days i guess gonna have to test this. Edit almost forgot this but ravens dont benefit from auras but they will land more succesfull hits with -83% enemy defence
Hmmm… pretty sure I have an Infintity on a mule, or could share with my Javazon…
Since I made a Bramble, I’ve not really gotten a good feel for it until just now…
Earlier, TZ was Nihla, and, with CE that’s a hard place to judge a Merc.
Then TZ’s were terrible, so was running Baal runs, where, DoDo basically is only there to Stomp tough dudes on the clear then is essentially a spectator once the waves start rolling.
Just had a chance to roll solo in Dry Hills TZ’d… and… thank you, yes, Bramble is a nice addition/swap.
Barracks is TZ’d, may solo that for a bit, then go check my mules for Infinity.
Appreciate the conversation.
ETA,
Thanks for the edit, I am a sucker for the Ravens… LOL!
OK, so I had a Eth Giant Thresher Infinity on a mule with 290%ED -48LR…
swapped with the Amazon Merc’s;
Eth Giant Thresher Infinity with 321%ED -55LR… now, I have an extra Dream helm… hmmm not sure it’s worth swapping Cure tho.
Going to run Merc with Pride for a bit and switch to Infinity… just Barracks TZ’d now, so, might not see any gains… oh well, putting in time :).
OK, I’m not doing the math or running a stop watch or anything like that, but it’s pretty clear to see after just 1run with Infinity in the Barracks… this is the answer.
I’ve gotta believe this will completely change the experience in heavily occupied PI zones along with BoneBreak and Atma’s… which I always swap to for heavy PI areas.
One run was so convincing, I’m going to go enjoy a cigarette… LOL!
Put the Faith Bow on your DoDo, and run Hoto and Spirit on swap for casting, or going places quickly.
No need for CTA when you have Oak and HoW on tap.
I have never ran TZ’d Frigid Highlands and Abaddon as a ZooDruid so fast and so easy… dang.
Abaddon was even filled with Dolls, which, many times I would simply abort… crazy.
i usually would pick beast and spirit and just telestomp the boss mobs. Usually they die instantly then
but dont underestimate the power of +6 evade with 40% chance to dodge any attack + the fact that she will fire more freeze arrows when hitting the higest att per sec breakpoint. Just remember u need the matriarchal bow to hit 2.5 att per sec, the grand matron bow will only hit 2.27 att per sec due to the slower base att speed. As for the zoo druid bramble is a great way to get a bit more dps since the mobs will deal damage to them self when hitting ur wolves or ur merc. U can also get a bit more boss damage by switching pride with infinity and provide some crushing blow for ur might merc. This might actually outperform pride since lvl 12 conviction lowers enemy defence by 83% and provides -85% enemy elemental resistances. Now since the pride concentration aura only really benefit half of ur army because spirit wolves deal cold damage this might actually be the best option for the zoo druid. Pride is just another die hard habit from my summon necro days i guess