Patriarch BearlyThere – Earth Shifter Hybrid Druid (1.13)

TheNix

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Jun 23, 2003
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Patriarch BearlyThere – The “this build looked better on paper” Druid

Level: 83

St – 236 (281)
Dx – 26 (49)
Vt – 223 (267)
En – 20 (45)

HP (human): 925
HP (bear): 2054
Mana: 274

Resists:

Fire: 75
Cold: 75
Ltning: 75
Poison: 75

Skills:

Cyclone Armour: 20 (33)
Twister: 20 (33)
Tornado: 20 (33)
Cyclone: 20 (33)
Werebear: 10 (23 On Switch)
Lycanthropy: 1 (14 On Switch)
Maul: 1 (9)
Prerequisites: 1

Attacks:

Tornado (when I could use it!): 3820 – 4044
Hurricane (Ditto!): 1794 – 1904
Maul: Don’t care!
Standard: Care even less!

Defence: 1474
Elemental Absorb: 2204


Equipment:

Weapon 1:

“Shael” Earth Shifter

Weapon 2:

“HotO” Flail
“Spirit” Monarch


Jalal’s Mane with Silver Jewel of Fervour
“CoH” Archon Plate
Laying of Hands
Gore Rider
Verdungo’s Hearty Cord
Mara’s Kaleidoscope
Raven Frost & Manald Heal


Merc (Act 2 – BA)

Eth Rockstopper
“Duress” Archon Plate
Eth The Reaper’s Toll


Random musings:


Who would have thought that making a melee character that has no blocking ability, bugger all hit point and moderate defence would be a pain in the arse? Right? Certainly not me when I planned this monstrosity. My plan for this build was simple, put my early game points into Shape Shifting and thump things until I had a reasonable Windy Druid. I planned to keep the Windy going until I could equip the Earth Shifter and go back to thumping things again in human form, but this time aided by the Hurricane and Cyclone Armour and I’d still have Tornados available for tricky situations. On top of that I’d have a big ol’ bear as backup for bosses and big superuniques. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, pretty much everything! Okay, the Werebear with the Hurricane and Cyclone Armour worked well for bosses and superuniques; I’ll give it that. The writing was on the wall even before I was able to equip Earth Shifter. 250-odd points in strength meant sacrifices elsewhere, primarily Vitality (a few miss clicks when assigning stat points didn’t help the situation either!). Low hit points lead to a number of deaths in Nightmare, primarily to Bone Fetishes. Yes, those little explody guys would run into the Hurricane and die, taking me with it. Things only got worse in Hell where any missile armed monster would peel away my hit point faster than I could theirs. On top of that, any cold immune monster could walk through the Hurricane and be up close and personal with me very quickly. If I was under the Amplify Damage curse, forget it! Deaths everywhere! The Decrep on the merc kicked in enough for physical immunes to not be too much of a problem but unbreakable PIs and CIs, I had to park. I tried spending more time is bear form, for the extra hit points, but I lost a lot of flexibility without even being able to recast Hurricane and Cyclone Armour (let alone a ‘Nado or two!). In the end I had to alternate between bear and human on pretty much a pack-by-pack basis: And that got old really fast!

I like to plan everything about a character in advance and I determine how successful the character is by how closely I stick to this plan. A successful character follows the plan pretty much precisely, a “soft” fail is when I have to alter the plan to complete the character, while I “hard” fail is where I have to respec and change the character in order to complete it. This is the closest that I have come to a hard fail in a very long time!

Screenshot050.jpg
 
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This is the closest that I have come to a hard fail in a very long time!
Thats too bad. Perhaps subconsciously you knew it would be a struggle when you named him? :unsure:

I had a lot of fun with my Geddon-Shifter Hybrid Druid. I'm planning on making a Wind Hybrid, but using CtC wind effects. Guessing he will have trouble with CI/PI as well..
 
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Congrats!? 😅

Normally Earthshifter Druids go Armageddon and Wolf, but you totally went the other way, so props!

But Earthshifter + Bear + being decrep @ Throne.... 😲
 
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He was obviously lucky to be softcore, then :).

I think the build is a good idea, it is a cool thing to have a fighting druid aided by hurricane or armageddon working in the background.

Without knowing too much about the charms, which I will assume needed to provide life first and foremost, the equipment seem to be pretty much all about offense. It's not that unreasonable that a character dies to physical damage when he has almost no protection from it. Exchanging hat and amulet for PDR and resistance gear and changing the armour to Smoke to use weaken charges might be a solution, at least to the missile barrages you mentioned. Gore rider could likewise be replaced by some resistance boots to compensate the loss of resistances from other armour replacements.
 
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@Maltatai every available space was taken up with AR and Resist charms with life, except a couple of lines with extra fat purples. It is the quick swapping between the two fighting styles that my ageing mind has trouble with. I don't mind a glass cannon, so long as they can snot the monsters fast, but this was more of a glass pea-shooter (well, not really!).
 
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