I feel like it’s a mistake to go all in with so many skill points into wolves and ravens and you would get more damage output from using them more as support and using a core skill like landslide or pulverize alongside pets instead.
My build is a mix of pets and pulverize, I’ve maxed poison creeper only and only put one point into ravens and wolves plus their enhancements, took the points also for extra ravens and a point for extra fortify from the wolves. I’ve stacked my points into pulverize plus other passives to help sustain my spirit, increase fortify and do more damage when shapeshifting.
I’m running the same builder m, storm strike, the three pets, debilitating roar with a +3 chest piece to the skill and pulverize. My equipment load out is essentially the pulverize build but I’ve changed retaliation to extra core damage for active pets. On an amulet you will get 12% core damage per active pet and 5 will always be up at minimum with a max of 8 if all your wolves are alive. That’s 60-96% damage to core skills, Retaliation maxes out at 60%.
Additionally I run the stampede aspect in place of the one that extends grizzly rage since I’m not using an ultimate. Due to changes from the pulverize build I have to spec for a bit more speed and react to keep myself out of trouble instead of bulwark or grizzly rage. It’s a much harder way to play the game. It also doesn’t hit as hard because it’s missing the grizzly rage portion as well.
There is other nuance to it also I’m looking to add life on kill still to save on potions but for the content I’ve run at T4 so far other than endless chain stuns I don’t guzzle many potions in succession. I’ve also taken a different path through paragon to this point picking up damage I’m the early going and balancing out with more sustain, armor and health as I go.
Final note I have to bring my own crit damage to the table because I’m running ursine strength, that means I have to always watch my health bar as well to make sure I’m getting the most out of the 30% damage. I’m considering a switch to natures fury however because my bread and butter is storm strike and pulverize which also functions as an earth skill.
It’s not a true pet damage build in that sense, but pets aren’t really there for the damage as much as for the support. I’m. It sure if my wolves are boosted by my fortify, barriers or health but they seem pretty robust to everything except when they get CCed, take a heavy attack to the face or stand in poison which are the same things that would kill almost any of us!
Almost like… This is blizzards intention and dedicated companion build are called “necromancers”
Yeah I had all the legendaries and found the unique pants so I was excited to try them. The wolves were just constantly dead. There was nothing I could do to keep them alive.
The fact that wolves are this bad while necro skeletons are soloing mobs and elites is just… wrong.
Blizzard needs to fix this bs, now.
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piss poor excuse for having an entire build not function.
There was no problem with demon hunter companion builds in d3, and it was even a top endgame build.
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what xD my werewolves can tank the butcher forever without even coming close to dying. How are people this bad??
What I do is place the ravens behind the target and Trample them into the ravens. It seems to work pretty well. Though most people don’t use Trample, I have found it quite fun, like hitting pins in a bowling alley. Or I drop them on ranged targets I can’t get to.
Any other things that didn’t happen you would like to tell us about?
You are right that is wrong… wrong because necro skeletons are also trash. They have the exact same problem 50+ that wolves do. They just die.
Someone’s salty he doesn’t understand pet AI. It has happened multiple times, and my wolves rarely die period. Maybe itemise better. I get the game is really hard for you when you don’t have some streamer or youtuber to regurgitate exactly how to play something for you, but at least try, you know?
Still making stuff up. Its kind of impressive that a 5 year old can type that well though.
I’m going to have to call out that butcher comment as well. He will not aggro to your pets, same as necro minions and if they stand on front of him they are more than likely going to die.
What you can do as a savvy player is face tank the butcher your self and turn him so you minions do t take any damage and they can gnaw on him for 15 minutes until he dies, or you could just kill him yourself so that you don’t die.
I say this as someone who has beaten the butcher 6 times across multiple world tiers who has been running the wolves for every fight and still has to kite the butcher at various points of the fight to kill him.
cute, thanks for proving my point xD
wow bro, 6 times? 
holy hell, you must be a top tier player!
But for real, did you think that was an impressive number or something? I literally don’t need to kite him, and the wolves don’t die. I get that you really desperately need blizzard to give you buffs because of your skill issues (but still, DAMN 6 whole times? what the hell how did you ever get so good?) but lying about stuff is just not the way.
The only companion that needs a buff is the ravens, and if you truly think otherwise you need to go play animal crossing.
I don’t think any of the companions need a buff. Just wanted to point out that the Butcher does not aggro to companions.
But go ahead and troll some more because clearly you are the #1 Druid in all the video games. The rest of us are not worthy…
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The biggest issue with wolves and ravens is that their cooldowns are way too damn long for what those skills give you.
Poison Creeper is OP as hell, pretty much a no brainer on every druid build. The cooldown is warranted there.
But Ravens? I can literally just cast Landslide once and do more damage in a shorter amount of time. What is that active even for?
And the wolves active? A single target attack with a 15 second cooldown would have to be insanely deadly before it’s actually worth anything.
The ONLY use I got out of ravens was for the guaranteed Vulnerability debuff you can take on them.
Pop down the active on a SMALL group, and then hit them with landslide (or similar for 3 seconds).
Any enemy that is so beefy that I need vulnerability to take it down I can also apply it with my Wind Shear since I’ll end up having to hit it with basics a bunch of times anyways to get the spirit for all the Landslides.
I think they need to seriously buff the Ravens. Maybe change them so it’s 2 ravens base, +1 raven with the passive, and then you get one charge of the ability per raven. Then it’s a choice between 2 charges with vuln, or 3 charges without, and when you get Aspect of the Stampede it becmes 3 or 4 charges.
Ive got 2 ravens with the unique that adds +1 companiones
It doesnt help
An extra 150 or so damage every 5 seconds (at level 50 on wt1) is a joke.
The passive raven attack should apply vuln or blindness or SOMETHING by default. Its damage is so bad that it should have a very high utility aspect instead (which it currently doesnt)
So here is the build I have landed on early in WT4 using pets more as support with pulverize being my main damage dealer. Yes I already know it’s weaker than the pulverize build itself, however at this stage it is still viable enough to clear content at a decent speed. My main goal is to see how far pets are still useable into the game.
This is console play so ravens targeting can be wonky at time and literally throw the skill 20ft behind the enemy you are looking at, but it’s something we live with on our platform on all classes along with our movement based skills stopping short or just going the wrong direction sometimes.
The wolves hang on m there pretty good 90% of the time. It’s only things like poison, big attacks from large enemies or groups of enemies all hitting them at once that seem to give them trouble.
There is still work to be done with gear and paragon before I am ready for a serious push. That going to take a little bit of grinding still. Anyway here is a link to the video. Boss fight to start, Helltide game play next, followed by a 3 elite mob fight, and ending with the gear and skills.
Druid Pets + Pulverize
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Yeah i’m the troll, not the guy thinking ravens are in a good spot rn. hahahahha