The Melee Druid

General Discussion
1

I’ve always been a fan of the Druid, but never mastered it. I’m a melee guy and have master the Barbarian in both D2 and D3. I also very much love the Martial Arts Assassin. Playing on the D2 LoD ladder for close to 18 years now I’ve rarely, if ever, seen a melee druid that can keep up with my barbarians, it’s either an odd Werebear spamming shock wave or more frequently, the powerhouse Wind Druid. I’ve been told a few times that melee Druids are not viable in hell, though I have seen some high level pvp werewolves over the years. And by pvp I mean on hardcore at the end of the ladder season when everyone is dueling their ladder characters.

So I’ve set out to build six types of Melee Druids, three werewolves and three werebears, to see how well this character class was developed for the end game. Then, as we learn more about the development of D4, I can share my thoughts and experiences with this character. The six I’m making I plan to have them look like this.

Werewolf

  1. Werewolf with a Bear
  2. Werewolf with Dire Wolves
  3. Werewolf with Spirit Wolves

Werebear

  1. Werebear with a Bear
  2. Werebear with Dire Wolves
  3. Werebear with Spirit Wolves

Spirits, Vines and Crows I’m going to play around with to really get a feel for them and where they are best applied. I am a play through player and my end game play style is clearing all level 93 to 95 areas in a single game. I will be using the Elemental Tree specifically for Cyclone Armour. I will be developing the Shape Shilfting attack skills to see how, when and where these skills are best applied. I’m not going to use any guides as I want to develop the skills as I experience them in the game.

My gear will pretty much be based on Crushing Blow and CS/DS. I am going to try out the Aldurs Set, as well. All that being said, my builds will be completely based around self found gear. I’m not using any mods or hacks, I just want to feel for the first time what the D2 developers felt when making the class.

Here is to hoping I don’t hit too many walls. :clinking_glasses:

If you’re a Druid fan, please share your favourite build and how you want to see the Druid developed in D4.

2

Before Diablo II became a mess… post patch 1.09… Werewolf Druids could decimate Hell mode. They were just the equivalent of Zealadins which could also crush Hell mode at the time…

After the game was patched to 1.10 Blizzard threw the balance out the window and it became all Hammerdins and Blizzard Sorcs running rampant or Summon Necros with Enigma armors… so you know, blame them for that…

Every class and almost every build including hybrid bow/javazon’s were viable in Hell. WW barb was a monster as well at one point… but it all got ruined because Blizzard wanted their game to be impossible to play.

We all saw where that took them in Diablo III… now you have Torment 16 and solo GR130’s because players don’t enjoy a game where every monster explodes in half a second.

If you’re planning to build those Druids in Diablo II, I’m going to warn you right now, you’re wasting your time with it… Melee Druids are trash on Hell mode, it’ll take you forever to kill things and without a group and you’re not going to make it past Act 4 alone.

Every enemy in Diablos lair has Iron Maiden which means you end up killing yourself every time you attack them and there’s no way to circumvent this if you’re playing solo. You have to kill all the enemies surrounding Diablos area in order to spawn him.

You can theoretically play a Melee Druid so long as you have other players playing other classes to get you over those hurdles, which is exactly what those end game Druids did… They didn’t do that by themselves, it’s literally an impossibility the way the game is built currently.

Enjoy yourself but I hope you have a few friends that are active that have Hammerdins or Sorcs to help you with Act IV, otherwise, GG.

Also the Ancients and Baal will probably be impossible for you to beat solo as well… just a heads up. Diablo II was ruined with patches after 1.09.

3

Iron Maiden was removed from the Oblivion Knight about 10 years ago. Thanks for your input.