hardcore druid

[winmar]

hardcore druid

Im playing an untwinked druid (perhaps i can find some decent items with my lvl 76 trapsin though) and i just want some input on this build:

20 oaksage
20 grizzly
1 werewolf
20 lychantropy
20 fury

Would this be a good hc-druid?

Is a shield a must in hc? If so, what shield and weapon should i get? (need cheap ones since im poor in hc).

How much str/dex is recommended if you dont know your final gear?

Thanks in advance.

 

[IRoK]

It seems like your making a tank sort of build and it looks pretty good to me with oak sage helping you while you go in for the kill but i'm still sort of new to hardcore and other people from this forum could probably give better advice...

I don't use a shield in hardcore with my barb it's not a must but it's probably good to have one...

Not sure about a good weapon/shield combo...

Str should be a good amount cuz you'll have to find good gear sometimes...
Dex isn't that required but you might want to get it high for some weapons have dex requirements...

That's my input but the others will probably help you more than I...

 

[Ankeli1]

For a melee char that's going untwinked a shield should be a must. Try getting a whitstans or making a rhyme in a grim shield. Get max block. Not knowing final gear is kind of a problem on a melee char, but you could go with 130'ish to be secure to wear nearly anything. One good idea might be to save up the stat points and save pgems for IK boots, belt and gloves. Those boost your str and are very nice for something like a fury druid. Grizzly will do fine with less points, 1 to 5 should be enough. Might add the spare points to something like Feral Rage or more wolves if you want to be a tad bit more original. Also, you only added 1 point to WW, whereas more points there give you more IAS. Might wanna pump that up to at least 5 as well. The more the merrier, but after around 5 points the IAS returns diminish.

edit: for the weapon, anything with decent damage + life leech and if possible crushing blow will do. You might find getting yourself in trouble due to low damage in Hell, but all untwinked melee'rs do...

Good Luck with the druidy :wave:

 

[Matt]

I agree with Ankeli. Definitely go with a shield, whitstans or mosers would be my suggestions, both have high block, making it easy to achieve max blocking. The mosers has a bit lower blocking than whitstans, but has an extra socket and some resists. Dual Pdiamonding it would be my suggestion, given that you're playing through the game, resists will be crucial.

Beyond that, I'd say save up those Pgems and try to trade for items with crushing blow. Theres an IAS calculator somewhere stickied on the top of the druid forum here, that should help out a bit with that. Priorities in terms of killing speed (though I'd say survival is the overall priority...) would be speed and crushing blow. If you're going untwinked, going for straight up high physical damage will be very difficult if not impossible, whereas crushing blow should be at least somewhat achievable.

-Matt

 

[PhatTrumpet]

Agreed also, but for slightly different reasons.

Druids have horrible block rates, and there are far fewer viable one-handed weapons for a Fury Druid than there are two-handed weapons. The only cheap one-handed weapon I can think of (end-game-ish) would be 'Shael' Baranar's Star. For two-handed weapons there's upped Steeldriver, Ribcracker (upped or not), Hone Sundan (same), IK Maul, even a crappy Tomb Reaver.

The problem is you're untwinked. This raises a couple of issues.

You'll need all the resists you can muster; the shield slot is the easiest place to load up on resists. PDiamond Ward, PDiamond Moser's, even 'Ancient's Pledge' would do you very well here. Whether you get max block or not is really secondary to having good resists.

You'll also need all the AR you can muster; for this reason I'd suggest dropping the 20 pts in Grizzly and use them in Werewolf. 1 pt Grizzly is enough for a recastable tank whereas you'll most likely need the speed and AR from higher lvl Werewolf.

 

[winmar]

Thanks for all the great feedback, i will probably do some NM Baal-runs with my assa and try to get some decent start/mid-gear. I will also take your advice and only put 1 into grizzly and put those points in werewolf instead.

The biggest problem will probably be to get a good 1h for the end game, can you trade baranars with pgems?

 

[Ankeli1]

Thanks for all the great feedback, i will probably do some NM Baal-runs with my assa and try to get some decent start/mid-gear. I will also take your advice and only put 1 into grizzly and put those points in werewolf instead.

The biggest problem will probably be to get a good 1h for the end game, can you trade baranars with pgems?

You should be able to. If not pgems, a rune like amn or so should do. Nothing that aint achievable within 30 mins =)

 

[Matt]

Yeah, you most definitely can get a baranars star for Pgems. I'd actually not reccomend a baranars star, its not a bad option, but not my first choice in this situation. I'd really suggest crushing blow. Without it, you're really going to lack killing speed in nm/hell. Fleshrender should be a good choice, and should be very to easy to get with a couple pgems.

 

[winmar]

I got him to act5 normal today (lvl 30) and he is doing ok, need a better weapon soon though. Found rockstopper+peasants crown with my assassin.

Im a little unsure about dex though, i have only played caster chars before and im wondering how much dex you should have at lvl 30/60/80 - approx. I got 18 lych, 5 werewolf, 1 grizzly, 1 fury, 3 oak (stupid to put points in oak before lych is maxed i figured) and i got 700+ life.

The plan right now is to max fury first, then put the 2 points in lych to max that, then alternate between oak and werewolf until they are maxed, sounds good?

 

[Wooobe]

A good weapon for werebear/summon druid is ribcracker. lv31 staff with some nice mods and will last you nicely for most of nm. got 1 lying around that you are free to have if you are on euro hc.

if you are new to hc/untwinked, I would recommend playing elementalist rather than melee druid though. windie is almost designed for untweaked hc, and the flaming druid isn't too bad either, although you sacrifice CA(cyclone armour), freezing ability of hurricane, for higher general damage of a druid who goes down the left side of the elemental tree. quite a few more fire-immune monsters in hell than cold immunes too.

an untwinked but synergised windie with 60pts in ca/tornado/hurricane can spam tornadoes that does 1500pts of dam, 90sec of hurricane that does 1k pts of area damage that freezes non ci monsters, and ca shields you around 1200pts of elemental damage excluding poison. 20pts into twister will increase the bonus further. 10pts into grizzly+oakie and you have a very viable build that's a lot more survivable than any meleer druid IMHO.

tornadoes can be a pain to aim but nothing remotely like the masochistic exercise of playing a hammerdin :grin:

hope this helps.

woobe

 

[winmar]

Thanks for the kind offer Wooobe, message me in game, my account is *winmar3.

The reason to why im playing a shapeshifting druid is that im tired of caster-chars right now I have played a ton of casters (in softcore, and a trapsin in hardcore) but the only meleechar i've played was an avenger paladin a long time ago (softcore aswell).

He is doing fine so far (lvl 35 act5 normal) and i will probably go with a 2h-weap through NM aswell and switch to 1h+shield in hell for the added resist.

Not sure which armor i will try to get though, Lionheart is nice but to expensive right now. Perhaps a Smoke if i can find a Lum, Duriels Shell would be nice aswell - but im extremely poor in HC

 

[abbithedog]

Not sure which armor i will try to get though, Lionheart is nice but to expensive right now. Perhaps a Smoke if i can find a Lum, Duriels Shell would be nice aswell - but im extremely poor in HC

I've gotten some nice gear from some very generous people on these boards, I'm sure you'll get some help eventually! Also, this late in the season there are some "free" games that, if you're quick enough, can score you some low-level uniques.

 

[winmar]

Im not getting any responses on IRC or the trade forum so im just going to try to ask in this thread.

NEED:
Fleshrender
Mosers blessed circle
IK gloves/belt/boots

OFFER:
Pgems

acc: winmar3