Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

MonkeyFace

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Mar 15, 2008
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Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

Hi. I'm planning to build a summoning/shape-shifting Druid, but I'd like some help/recommendations. At the moment, I'm planning on this:

Shapeshifting:
20 Werewolf
20 Lycanthropy
20 Feral Rage/Rabies/Fury/Fire Claws

Summoning:
20 Summon Dire Wolves/Summon Grizzly
20 Heart of Wolverine

I'm leaning on Werewolf rather than Werebear because the Werebear is too slow and its attack seem to miss an awful lot when I'm transformed... I'm not sure which extra skill I should use for the werewolf -what are your suggestions?

Concerning the Summoning skill tree, I haven't yet made a decision as to whether I want a Grizzly or three Dire Wolves. Note that I'm playing PvM if that will affect recommendations (but if it turns into a Wolves vs. Bear argument then please don't).

I figure leftover points will be for prerequisites... is it advisable maxing out 5 skills?

Thanks,
~MonkeyFace.
 
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Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

You don't need 20 points in WW really so max both Griz and Dire >.>.
 
Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

You don't need 20 points in WW really so max both Griz and Dire >.>.
Seconded. Dire wolves for your grizzly's hp, and in some situations they work better than the grizzly, like the ancients and keeping more monsters busy, although grizzly damage >>>>>>>>>

I'm not an expert but recommend putting lots of points into or maxing Feral Rage and Fury, charge up your life steal and then epic dmg with fury. Leave fire claws (you save some prereqs there) and rabies?


 
Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

yeah no need for rabies or fire claws.

and for the most part, if you use a dmg calculator for the druid summons, you will find that if you have 5 spirit wolves, 3 dire wolves, and 1 grizzly, that their damage output is virtually the same. (if they are all say level 10)

this is not to say that if you have 1 spirit wolf vs 1 grizzly that the damage output will be the same, nor will it hold true if your spirit wolves are level 5 and your grizzly is 20. But if you are comparing lvl 10 spirit to lvl 10 dire to lvl 10 grizzly, the differences are almost negated. This is even further true if you put 10 into each skill (not just 1 into spirit and 10 into dire and 10 into grizzly), as the synergies help the other skills as well.

In addition, i agree with hubb, dire wolves come in handy when you are getting mobbed and need more animals to occupy more monsters (kind of like more decoys or something) the total life of your dire wolves combined will be almost the same as the total life of your one grizzly.

let me know if you need clarification on any of this.
 
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Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

and for the most part, if you use a dmg calculator for the druid summons, you will find that if you have 5 spirit wolves, 3 dire wolves, and 1 grizzly, that their damage output is virtually the same. (if they are all say level 10)

I've always thought the grizzly does more, so I checked in-game and I beg to differ :p level 12 grizzly does about the same damage as 3 x level 18 dires. As you level up I'd put 2 into spirit, 3 into dire (so the majority of your <30 skill points into shapeshifting), and then into grizzly. If your grizzly's hp is dropping low too often, put some more into dire.

I still agree that wolves are very handy, but I'd still max grizzly first.

I'd also get a offense (blessed aim) act 2 normal merc for attack rating. I went with a defiance merc, and had to pump dex and sacrifice vit in order to hit things :<


 
Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

i was strictly saying that damage per second (in other words total damage output per second), based on the attack rating, max number of animals, and damage/per animal.

when comparing, the animals in comparison must be the same level, and high enough to have max animals.
 
Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

Using that calc with all three skills at lvl 10, I still get that the bear does about 30% more dps than dires (210 vs 274), even with enraged enabled, and at lvl5 the bear almost does double. As you put lvls into both the difference does seem to get smaller.

Maybe our idea of "virtually the same" is different?
 
Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

Okay, thanks for replying.

If I'm not maxing WW, how many should I put in there?

I've got this at the moment based on your replies:

Shapeshifting:
6(?) Werewolf
20 Lycanthropy
20 Feral Rage and Fury (10 each?)

Summoning:
20 Summon Dire Wolves
20 Summon Grizzly
20 Heart of Wolverine -----> Is this still advisable?

That leaves me with 4 prerequisites (Rabies, Raven, Spirit Wolf, Oak Sage) and so 6 to put in to WW. This is looking to be awkward :p
 
Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

for hybrids, i would try and half WW (10 pts), at level 10 it gives a decent ar bonus as well as life.

Feral Rage only needs to be about level 5 after +skill modifiers and is only used to get the added life steal from the skill. basically hit a monsters with it until you max your Life Leech orb, and become really fast (also from the orb), then use fury for crazy damage and IAS. You can feral rage here and there to refresh your LL orb, and if it disappears, max it out again. If you have draculas grasp (life tap gloves) i would only other putting 1 point into feral rage, as the life tap will far exceed the life leech from feral rage. and you probably won't even need to user feral rage. besides, if you have +skill modifiers, feral rage gets a decent enough boost for its LL purpose as is.

in regards to HoW vs Oak Sage, its all dependent on how well your animals AR and damage is as well as your AR and damage. If you can kill things in hell and don't need the AR and damage, I would totally suggest going with Oak Sage for life boosts.

so in short
~10 Prereqs

WW 10
LYC 20
Fur 20
Dire 20
Griz 20
Rest in HoW or Oak Sage
 
Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

A strategy I once tried with a similar build was to use Bramble armour on my merc to increase the killing power of my Wolves and Grizzly in hell.
If you can make it with a high enough Thorns aura it makes using your wolves more useful in some situations, like allowing you to block multiple packs of monsters.
 
Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

Another such aura that would help in addition to that would be an infinity, for conviction. That is going to significantly increase your minions chance to hit and Damage, as well as your chance to hit and Damage.

Bramble is always nice if you and your minions are taking melee hits.
 
Re: Help with my Summoner/Shifter plan

It's going pretty well. I've just finished Act 1 (I've had exams at school, so I've had little gaming time) and the charatcer works great. I;ve encountered no big problems so far.
 
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