Good morning bar. It's -10F in my part of the world, so warm coffee is all I'm after today.
I have some time each evening these days to get some D2, so please allow me to ramble whilst the steam from my coffee rises and cools the beverage ever so slightly to the perfect temperature.
Last evening over a dark beer I was contemplating my D2 moves. I've got one primary goal, get to 99. I'm 130M away with a very safe character, a light sorc. Safe as in SS + max block + .07 Arkaine's safe. And every once in a while while running with her I get a little sidetracked with a pat to make.
And there are a few characters I have generally given short-shift to that I'd like to get around to putting together. Druids are king among the classes I have ignored. I've made a Bear mauler, a couple Windies (and one or two HC windies, the oldest was deeded by NM Meph's orb), and a Wolfbarb or two. But that's about it. I've ignored fire skills and summons. And so I got intrigued about both.
My Bear summoner, basically pure with the character only using Shockwave as support, hit clvl 65 yesterday, and I promptly threw on my Enigma and went out to kill Eldritch and Co. a time or three more. Life had been all-melee until clvl 42, when skillers, Jalal's, etc. went on. And then it was all summons, killing at a respectable speed. Act 4 NM things got harder and wolves started to get killed in normal battles, and CS was tougher.
So back to Act 5 NM. In my druid noobishness, I failed to realize you can't teleport whilst in wolf/bear form. /Smacks forehead. So I may just do something else with the guy and go full-on fire druid using a re-spec, as I don't want to walk through hell with the guy. After playing the guy through, it is clear just how much superior Fishymancers are at summons. What does a druid summoner have for crowd control? Fire skills and go fire/summoner (a la AE's HC guide from years ago), shockwave to stun (great, but slow), and hunter (I have a useable Faith bow, but then you can't use Shockwave and lose up skills and res from losing HotO/Spirit (my faith is only +1...)). Basically, anything a summoner druid can do a Fishy can do better. Amp/LR + CE = dead everything. Add in Infinity and it just gets better. What mass-killing skill does a Druid have (that doesn't adversely affect strength of summons)? Nothing.
When I set out to think through the summoner, I realized that I needed to use Reaper's - I had hoped to go full-on Aura summoner with Might merc + HOW + Pride polearm + Beast Fanat (need Ber...). But then you're without a way to kill PI without going Fire, and then what to do with FI/PI's?
Is a summoner viable? Yes, of course. It is ridiculously underpowered and unbalanced relative to other casters? Yup.
***drinks and ponders what to re-spec into next***