Why does it have to be 1 or the other?
That is a terrible attitude to have.
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We’ve discussed this previously and I know we have differing opinions on this topic, so I’m not trying to get into a heated debate with you.
In my experience, the summoner is best played as a tactical caster. Casting wolves directly into combat and repositioning them throughout. The summon-on-demand aspect of the Druid is a stark difference from the Necro who relies on a limited and immovable battlefield resource - corpses. It is far from boring - except for the fact that they do too little damage and are useless against Phys immunes (both issues of which have had viable solutions discussed at length in these forums).
The four skill trees you named are almost entirely passive skills - completely or nearly unable to function by themselves. By contrast, all of the summon skills are active skills. They each have the potential to be useful by themselves (although currently the numbers are too weak on most summons, but that doesn’t change the type of skill it is).
I believe most Necros, Barbarians, and Assassins would welcome buffs to those skill trees. I’m not sure how Defensive auras could be buffed in a useful way with the current state of players, but I’d certainly be open to it.
Respectfully, it sounds like Summoner druid simply isn’t a playstyle for you - and that’s ok! I hate Hammerdins - they are super boring to me. Doesn’t make them invalid.
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Besides the fitting theme of a druid summoner (or elementalist as mage, shapeshifter as warrior), ironically, I think the build is fun because it really sucks. It requires a lot of effort to just stay alive. I wish the summons get buffed to be viable, not overpowered.
Whenever I played the summoner, I was so busy casting ravens to blind key mobs, creeper to stop regen, and bear or wolves to reposition, all the while me running around to save my skin. I didn’t get werebear shockwave because, well, it’s boring. What’s the fun watching everything around you stunned indefinitely?
Of course I am only talking about SSF. Once you have top gears, maybe it will become boring. That’s exactly the reason I am opposed to give the druid more necro skills/effects than the dim vision. The necro is boring even playing SSF.
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It seems like Blizzard might be listening now. PezRadar hinted at more changes to summons.
Scroll down to see his comment. The OP there prepared a guide for summon druid in 2.4 and Pez said to “be prepared for a new guide” implying more updates.
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This was allready linked yesterday. But thanks anyway 
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Yeah you are right, same with me. i barely can progress on Act2 on Hell without exp gear,
I barely can keep up, it takes so long to clear something. So you arent alone ;p
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Ahh, didn’t see it. Haven’t been on here much, but was kind of excited to see they might be doing more 
I wish we could see the updates allready. I’m realy excited about this.
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Yeah it takes so long yet again.
At least to have some insight of what to expect.
Summoner hype!
My dream of Ravenlord druid is so close!
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i like the idea of the “zoo druid”, but the idea to make the wolves VERY VERY BROKEN, its not a bad option… and you can have 1 spirit, the 6 wolves OR the 3 or maybe 4 dire wolves, AND the bear at the same time, and the crows of course, or maybe choose between the crows or bear… That way we conserve the essence of the original summon druid.
Yeah, if the concern is that allowing all summons out will be too beneficial for shapeshifters and elementalists as 1 point wonders, many of us have suggested to allow coexistence only when 20 hard points are invested in both summons.
20 SW + 3 DW + 1 G = same as now
20 SW + 20 DW + 1G = both wolf types active or 1 grizzly active
20 SW + 20 DW + 20 G = all 3 types active
Essentially you have 1 type in most of normal, 2 types in most of NM, eventually 3 types in late NM and all hell difficulty. This will only benefit the dedicated summoners.
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we did it!!! All summons together
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We did it gents!!!
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Well done fellow druids!
Thank you devs. I am so happy with these new druid changes that I can even accept the rocket ravens.
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Yeah now a decent build tree has been unlocked, no one will be against with this change, quite happy to see my wolves and bear cuddling at the same time
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Great job, they heard our feedback! I’m definitely going to be making a zoo druid.
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Great, hopefully summon druids can stop complaining now, and we can launch ladder…
It’s still going to be one of the most boring, low skill-cap, and passive builds in the game…
Builds that rely on human intelligence will always be more powerful than builds that rely on artificial intelligence. You could make the druid’s summons 1-shot any monster in the game, and they’d still suck versus any other build. Because, other than deciding where you teleport, there is no other real user-input that can make the build more effective…
Anyway, hope summon druids are happy and will let the devs move on to more important tasks…
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Thank you for your support guys. Really
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So you wanna say Java, Blizzard Sorc and Hammerdin (1 button click required) are so powerful because human intelligence is required?
Sure…
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