Asking a serious question here, as I can’t seem to find a niche for the druid. Every class is great at something… but why druid?
Zealot/ Smiter - Ubers hands down.
Shout/ Frenzy Horker - Trav runs
Javazon - Cows, cows and more cows.
Sorc - Probably top MFer class regardless of spec
Necro - Can solo entire game while poor.
I’ve never played an assassin, so I’m not sure where they shine, but I’ve tried to put a druid together, and while I like the idea of a Nado/ Hurricane druid… the unaimable nature of the nados and the lack luster damage of hurricane seem like a deal breaker… where does this character shine?
Even the melee versions seem to be weaker then the other melee classes. And if I wanted to play pets, why wouldn’t I just use a necro who has all the curses and doesn’t need to worry about any immunities ever.
I also don’t get the durid players, but for other reason. It doesn’t matter who’s good and bad or whatever.
To me the hero is just kinda boring. Like after you cast all prebuffs and whatnot there are kinda too few buttons to press. On a wind druid it’s just tornado. On a wolf, you have feral rage and fury, still kinda gets boring really quickly.
On a bear you get hunger\maul\shock wave, which is already a progress, so i acutally consider playing some more of the bear. But it’s kinda too low tier of a hero tho.
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I get you, but I don’t actually mind not having lots of buttons to press… hell, my necro just has to cast amp damage most of the time… but at least he has a place where he shines.
I’m trying to find that for a druid (if there is one) that I’m missing… like, it seems to be cool to just run around and everything dies from Nado in normal if you’re farming chippies… but a holy fire pally does the job better.
He can do ubers as well as werebear.
Can farm entire game as wind druid since it does physical and cold dmg, tho positioning is mandatory since tornadoes are hard to land, need a serious fix on that, and as fire can farm places like stony tomb easily .
Now i main druid but tbh is a second class in general since every other class outperforms him on at least, one thing.
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I will say one selling point on Wind druid… Nados do physical damage… and almost all physical immunes can be broken with just decrep. Makes for a pretty easy to setup caster that can clear basically everything pretty easy.
Between 1 point pets, cyclone armor, and hurricane slowing, they are also very survivable.
Windy druid, properly equipped (Eni, HOTO, Nat’s Peace, etc.) used to be the premier Nili runner, back when that was a challenge. This build was my usual second character each ladder, as I ran him to trade D-Keys to generate quite a bit of wealth.
The build is also quite good at Shenk/Eldritch runs, which can generate some decent gear, even HR’s.
I’d say the Windy Druid is more of a “generalist” that can farm almost anything, while some of the other builds you mentioned in OP demonstrate more specialized builds.
Plus, he’s a blast to play, even if he’s not the most-efficient farmer in the world. At least, IMHO… 
He’s actually surprisingly good for chaos if you want something other than a pally/light sorc. Can afford to stack MF pretty heavy too with cyclone armor. If you are looking for things like Spiderweb Sash.
You can get Nados above 6k damage AND scale their damage up with Decrep from merc.
They might actually be the best spec to make use of the new act 5 mercs tbh. You can get Decrep procs from Lawbinger and have a lot of options with the other hand.
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We have always keep in mind PVM doesn’t matter. With that said, wind druid has good uses vs hammerdins and some other casters.
I started as an elemental druid and regretted it. Went back to sorc as I typically start with and I am so much happier. I basically agree with your listing, but would add Assassin to the same sort of thing as the Necro. They can handle anything pretty well, even without great gear.
The old woof Druid, and the previous broken woof Druid was super fun to play. Good use of an ik maul to get started. I heard it’s not as good now?
Hardcore. One of the most reliable characters that can clear the whole game and not die. Also easy to build on a budget, such as for a ladder reset 
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Cause its got…
Five Spirit Wolves,
Five Angry Pigeons,
Three Dire Wolves,
and a Very Hangry Bear.
I like summoners who don’t need corpses.
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14 vs 30 is not a really good trade off… just my opinion… nevermind the curses that put’s them over the top.
Oh, for sure necro is stronger, but I enjoy druid more.
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This may not be the case anymore but I remember back when I did pvp in this game i had the most success with druid. teleport on top of any glass build and spam nado they are dead. or if facing a strong melee class, play more defensively and they will have a hard time getting through your hurricane + tornado spam to attack.
Other than that, it’s a bit of a role-playing class for the players who … enjoy fur and tails… won’t say much else on that 
as other posters said they are a great budget farmer for any area. if you prefer to clear basically the full game vs speedfarming the niche 85 areas, and you can’t afford an S tier class build, druid will get the job done. a little slow but i’d argue more fun than spamming hammers.
My summon druid beat hardcore hell this ladder with all self found stuff and has no problem soloing everything, it’s just slow.
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one thing i learned is that druid is quite effective at mass crowd control of the battlefield in 2.4 with a pure petbuild gloams in worldstone can do literally nothing but staying stunned the strategy is to max out bear both types of wolves, ravens, heart of the Wolverine. have one point in arctic blast cyclone strike and twister, dump rest of the points in arctic blast the new synergy for twister from arctic blast increases stun duration. with the build I describes You’ll stun anything that isn’t uberboss, boss, unique or a champion, even ‘minion’ type monsters get stunned for the full duration on hell but with a 10% success rate compared to regular monsters (according to one of diablo wikis). if you spam twisters everything stays stunned and get’s stunned continously, and at the same time your zoo chews the mobs down. though to beat ubers with this build one needs to either hit the uber with prevent monster heal by himself, or have a merc with high open wounds chance like 60%+ in order to succed ( with constant zoo recasting as pigeons wear down quicly, and wolves are usually 1 shotted, although they make as a good meat shield for the merc.
I made my attempt at beating the ubers with summon druid in single player, but it wasn’t easy, although i’ve succeded after fighting for half of the night, and half of estate heard my swearing at attempting to do so . this was my first attempt at ubers ever, as i wasn’t fond of using PluggY back in the day, and the constant character and acount deletion after not playing for several days, discouraged me from playing on the original battlenet, anyways to answer OP question on the Druid. Druid is sort of a Jack of all trades, and master of none, he can do basically anything in the game, although he’s not the best at anything.
Oh yeah the merc I used:
frenzy barb with:
chest: duress runeword in sacred armor
helm: guiliamme’s face soxed witch cham rune
weapon hand Last Wish runeword ( the life tap proc and might aura are a must)
shield hand ( offhand weapon slot) Kingslayer runeword.
On the Contrary to Skulm video on the PTR frenzy merc, blizz must’ve toyed with this merc a bit, and now only open wounds and crushing blow from the weapon offhand (shield slot) count towards beeing used in combat. ( though it might be just my case, that’s what i’ve found out inspecting advanced stats.
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I play dual spec
Werewolf/summons
My summons augment my damage as that they do a total of the same DPS as I do solo.
I run past a pack of mobs which shoves my Summons into their face while I flank the rear. Summons are essentially the tank.
I take very little damage if any and the kill speed is modest. Fun play style to play as the alpha wolf in a pack of wolves
Who doesn’t enjoy tail??? Tee-hee… 
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How if they added a female druid with a werekitty form… Let’s go.
Worst part of playing a D2R druid… is he kind of looks like that guy you walk around at the bus stop.
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