Playing d2 since release and the only character/build that can utilize defense in a way that he can rely on it is a concentrate barb that has concentrate itself + shout and iron skin.
Other than that its an nice to have that might save you some pots.
Indirect Shock wave nerf is the nail in the coffin for bear. Strongest CC spell in game thrown into the sh1tter. Before 2.4 i tempted to just put at least 10 points into it for stun duration, one of the few CC/defense spells worht to do so in this game. Shame
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You are correct, bears got nerfed hard.
Ive tested bear aswell with 6sock shaelPB+treachery+highlords+nosferatu belt+20% ias gloves.
Wich is basically 120%ias on weapon + 95% from OIAS and +55% from maul wich is 150% from gear+maul. (Think maul skill was close to 30?) and yeah i still only got like 7-8 frames.
I even used a Faithmerc for the fanaticsm auraā¦ Still 7-8 framesā¦
Likeā¦ It does not matter if they made the attacks uninterruptable and added some ED to bear/maul.
The fact that you now have to wear treachery instead of fortitude means that the ED they added is almost obsolete (Since fortitude grants +300% ED).
So yeah in the long run they just got nerfed IAS wiseā¦
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Yepp, i calculated that they could increase animation speed all the way up to 563 without touching the 1 fpa bugged attack on bearsin.
Some somewhere between 456 and 563 animation speed could bring bears back to viable.
What realy makes me mad is that they gave WW everything a melee character needs. Thereās AS and AR bonus on the WW skill itself, WB has to use Maul for more AS and only get AR from itās attack skills. Itās not a slow but steady fantasy, if you canāt hit anything because your slow AND canāt land a hit. Iām not even mad about WB being slower, but than give it more AR god damn it, so I can atleast hit something more than 3 times out of 10 swings.
And make it cheaper skill points wise. Why isnāt Lycantrophy and Fire Claw an independent skill? Those are used by both forms, why do I have to waste point in the WW tree to be a Fire Claw WB? And vice versa, I have to put points into WB tree to be a Fire Claw WW, though not that much. Is like haveing to put points into the Wind tree inorder to get to Armageddon, it just dosenāt make sense.
Rant over thank you.
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They need to buff Werebears for sureā¦ Right now its meme build!
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I think bear is pretty strong now one shoting most mobs with the use of maul and even able to to do ubers , while I think they should change molten boulder to Armageddon now as one of the synergies for fireclaw. As your not going to use molten boulder while being a bear, and Armageddon is better then it use to be as well as not having to go down cold tree. I also agree some damage reduction would help to capture the were bear fantasy. Other then that, I really do think most of the issue people have with werebear could be sorted out by improving high str two handers.
Why would i play fireclaw now with bear having the lower attackspeed instead of wolf?
Build is dead - if ya go fireclaw you play wolf.
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higher physical damage component when you build maul charges and really good CC. Itās a trade off you want IAS go wolf, Bear is safer bet in HC. Shock wave is such good CC. Also simply becuase they are different styles of play, and offer different build options. Try building a werebear differently then werewolf druid. The only build this has nerfed to the ground is probably the bearsorc, which sucks but Iām not sure what other changes would help there.
Fireclaw is a build dependent on fast AS to do as many hits as possible - physical damage is irrelevant cause you dont have the points to bring it to impactful level - a bit of CB on gear will deal more damage than a lvl 20 maul and cb triggers more often with more attacks.
Cant hear that its safer argument anymore. More damage is more safety, a dead enemy wont damage you.
Guess you havent gotten the news on how CC will work in 2.4 with diminishing returns (thats what we have in d3 and i cant think of a game where cc is more irrelevant than d3) - shock wave will go from the strongest cc spell to pure garbage.
Only reason to play bear is as funbuild cause you want to walk around as bear - everything bear does is done better with other druid builds.
They shafted bear, no arguing around that.
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Itās not really, when you one shot mobs with maul charges, I do however think fireclaw needs AOE fire damage like explosive arrow, currently its not any different then enchant and just worse version of holy fire paladin. At least enchant can be a support skill, and holy fire paladin has zeal as a support skill. A aoe on hit would make it a lot different from the two above. It would indirectly help bear druids especially if they allowed the werebear Damage % effect the aoe damage in the calculations.
CC has diminishing returns in PVP not PVE. It shock wave still works super well in pve, I have leveled wear bear druid on test realm as well as tested possible end game setups, Iād had the most fun when I didnāt focus on IAS as much, just tried to get as much weapon damage as possible.
Wrong. You now rely on using treachery armor instead of using fortitude like you did beforeā¦ The loss of the 300% ED from fort makes it almost the same as before considering they buffed maul/Bear EDā¦
All in all now they just have slower attackspeedā¦
And no, bears are far from one-shotting anything at all as a mauler
unless its an act 1 devilkinā¦
Also i saw you wrote: " Iād had the most fun when I didnāt focus on IAS as much" <āYeah, everything you just wrote in your previous posts just now became invalid
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I am sorry you disbelieve the amount damage you can deal as a werebear, I saw it first hand in my testing. The rest of your argument is a jumbled mess, that I canāt make heads or tails what your trying to argue.
Previously you had instant 5-6 frame attack with 300% ED from Fortitude and maxed out FC.
Now you need to keep your maul charges up to actually reach the āfasterā slower frames.
And you will constantly lose those charges and just spend time charging up with weak ā stronger attacks before you can start slapping with FC again.
It would be cool if someone could time themselves clearing the cow level and chaos with the optimal build and doing the same with the new (perhaps trying some differerent setups, like eth Reapers, Beast, BotD, Grief) and see the actual differance.
Iād love to see a proper video with this. Heck - Iād even look at a couple of Eldritch pack clear speed comparisons in true Dbrunski fashion.
Not that these scenarios/areas show the loss of Maul charges that well for normal gameplay.
For me it just feels a lot slower and more tedious (Maul upkeep) overall.
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I just dusted off d2 and am leveling a good old werebear fire claw when I came upon this post. Wow, they really killed the attack speed making this build go from easily counter-able in pvp to not viable at all.
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