Pure bear builds?

Druid
1

[TLDR] Any builds that only use Bear or Earth skills out there? Even if they aren’t uber-meta?

I love the diversity of the druid that can delve into 2 different were-forms and also involve various elements, and…

I love that there can be builds that mix and match a number of these sources of power for flexible synergies. I was using one pre-season, but…

For this season, I just want to be a bear.

I’m not necessarily feeling the need to follow the latest “ultimate meta” build right now. So, I’ve been trying to make a completely bear-focused build and seem to have run out of steam. I’m happy to keep “rolling my own”, but if there are any focused bear builds out there I can mine for ideas I’d love to see them.

Yes, I realize that I could just follow one of the multi-faceted meta builds and have great power, but…

I just want a bear. (For fun, not profit)

Most of the builds out there seem to include at least one werewolf skill and even the few that don’t dabble in wolf at least use lightning and poison for a good part of their power - and those are not typically associated with natural bears in my book. I’ve seen videos of what they can accomplish and it’s awesome, but doesn’t really look like the vision that I’m aiming for.

So, I’ve tried to build a Druid around only Werebear and Earth skills - which would follow a theme of a nature-connected Druid having a focus on the bear species. Since there aren’t enough bear skills to go around I feel that Earth is a better match than Storm or Poison to fill it out - and knocking aside the earth in its rampaging seems somehow fitting to me. I do have 4 paws, right? And they’re connected to the earth most of the time (unless I’m trying to act like a hairy human or scratching my back on trees).

Part of my running out of steam is that I still haven’t had the “landslide per trample” affix drop yet and that may boost my build quite a bit. Currently I’m not even using Landslide (manually), nor doing a lot of Trampling, as I am more focused on pulverizing which can be pretty amazing if I don’t push the levels much. When I get that affix and my tramples can trigger landslides I’ll add them to the mix and use them more offensively. For now Trampling is more of an evade/escape skill than an offensive skill as my pulverize does pretty good work with the right boosts.

It’s not like the build is pathetic, but it pales in comparison to the more mixed build I was using before this season.

I’m lucky to have had both Vasily’s and Insatiable Fury drop so I’m feeling very bear-ishly boosted on those fronts. I even have an Earthbreaker ring, though low level, that I’m waiting for the landslides (and/or a higher level version) to use.

To this end, I was wondering if there are any builds out there that also follow this kind of theme? I don’t see any on maxroll or some of the other major build sites.

Or any “here’s some bear/earth synergies you might be missing” suggestions (other than the obvious landslide which I will hopefully incorporate before too long).

2

That’s one of the largest problems with this class right now, imo. You can’t really go pure anything. The class needs a heavy rework to pretty much everything, it just doesn’t feel very well thought out.

3

With bear you can play a three basic attack build.

There are two ways:

  1. Aspect of Nature’s Savagery and Nature’s Fury Key passive. This will make Maul trigger both Storm Strike and Wind Shear.
  2. Vasily’s Prayer and Nature’s Fury Key passive. This will make Earth Spike a bear skill and trigger Storm Strike and Wind Shear. You can use Aspect of Seismic Shift to cast Earth Spike in a line.

In previous seasons I played this myself. I always find it very relaxing to play. There are a lot of aspects to boost your damage. This seasons two new uniques were added that benefit these builds: Shard of Verathiel (1&2) and The Basilisk (2).

4

So both of those involve some storm stuff. I don’t really associate bears with storms (nor, I guess, werebears at that rate, but since wolves are full-moon related they are at least somewhat associated with sky phenomena). Trampled Earth throwing out Landslides when I Trample feels more like a bear in a china shop (a china shop full of demons and monsters).

I may have to embrace storm stuff and convince myself that bears don’t go hide in caves when storms brew. But, my principles! :wink:

1 Like
5

You really embrace the fantasy behind the game, thats nice to read.

I hope you give the build a try. Like you I wanted to play bear, but didn’t like Pulverize.
The triple basic attack uses the Maul animation, so it feels very Bear. I think the animation is even better than Pulverize cause it lunges / has reach.

So your right that technically its also a bit Storm.
But when playing you wont notice it that much.
But it has some nice perks: fierce storm strike gives vulnerability and Fierce Wind shear gives up to +20% movement speed.

You could try a pure Maul with Ursine strength. Havent tried that myself, but it might lack oomph cause your very limited in the talent tree and paragon boards.
Another option would be to go all out on a pure trample build without the aspect. Then you need to get a lot of cooldown reduction. But there’s a lot on several uniques.

Hope you have fun and would be nice to read what you end up with :slightly_smiling_face: