The Rabid Hummoner?

[junglejim]

The Rabid Hummoner?

Good day to you all!

I played D2LOD back in the 1.08 days & got moderately rich. In Jan. my brother talked me into playing again. Since I did so well with my Fury Druid in 1.08, I naturally returned to that subclass.

I discovered the sins of my ways when I got to Hell :surprise: !

During one of my numerous NM Baal runs, I ran into a Wind Druid. While taking out Baal's minions together we chatted about the merits of Wind Druids and the nerfing of melee Druids.

Well he hooked me and I started building one. Fenris' guide came out when I was about lvl 30 and that helped me a lot with figuring out my gear. Anyway I've got a successful 87 lvl Wind Druid in US East ladder and am looking for my next build.

Well I looked at the skill trees and though the Summoner would be fun. :idea: Remembering my melee Druid lessons I looked for alternative damage and found Carrion Wind & Rabies that look like a good bet.

So making a long story short I've read all the guides, followed the forum religiously for 3 months. Now I've got a 18th lvl Summoner and am looking for guidance on equipment & strategies for PvM maybe someday moving to PvP but don't bet on it.

Current equipment is Sigon Set + Angelic Set (no armor) + 1 Cathan ring.

Anyway:

Main stat goals:
Str: 86 (103 - 17 from my annihilus)
Dex: 208 (225 - 17 from my annihilus)
Vit: rest
Enrg: 20 (base)

Main skill goals:
Raven: 5-10 ?
Spirit: 10
Dire: 20
Bear: 20
Oak: 1
SoW: 20

WW: 1
Lycan: 1
Feral: 1
Rabies: 20

The Dex is for a Storm Shield (should I ever find one) but why not use this stat to equip a ranged weapon too.

This way I've got ranged & summons most of the time but I've got a weapon switch & rabies for Phys Immune. A Reaper's Toll on a Might merc. will help a lot too.

My skills allow this but what about the equipment! I've lost the link to the Hunter guide so I can't compare/contrast that equipment to the recommendations for the Rabies builds!

I'm a mixture of poor & rich. I've been mfing with my Wind Druid for a while and am starting to find good stuff (I found an Ali Babba 2 days ago that brought my mf up to ~370 :winner: ). I don't have anything close to BotD, Enigma, or other super elite stuff.

However, I do have eth shaftstop (on my Wind Druid's Merc), Reapers Toll (on my Wind Druid's merc), Griswold's armor, Wiz Spike, 1 SOJ, 1 Nagelring (29%!), 1 Annihilus (17 Stat, 14 resis, 8% exp), 1 Gheed's (38%!), Wind Hammer, all of Tal's but the ammie, plus a lot of other comparable stuff.

Other than close friends I really haven't gotten into the Trade scene but I probably could trade up for better if I don't have anything close to the recommendations. Maybe I should start trading?

Please let me know what your equip recommendations might be for this tri-subclass character might be!

 

[Pent]

you are going to be using carrion wind for the free poison creeper synergy right?
it would make this build 100% easier

 

[Bob_TheMadCow]

Sounds like a reasonable plan, my man :thumbsup:

I think weapon speed (and AR) will be your main priorities for your rabies "casting" switch... And I do think you should be looking at rabies as "a spell that requires a mele attack" as I've seen it put before. A hit and run attack on PIs. It won't be the fastest thing, but it should work Get a fast low damage weapon (6sheal Phase comes to mind, but might be overkill)

You will need the Carrion Wind ring, but I get the feeling you realise that already

I'm not sure you'll need many points in Ravens, with enough +skills and (hopefully, if you can afford them) summoning charms you should have them at a reasonablly high level.

Link to a site for calculating attack speed. Remember that TD uses the negative of the WSM found on the AS, eg: phase = 60 WSM, not -60

Although that seems to bring it out at a 3fpa with lvl1 WW and a 6sheal phase...
4 sheals + 2Eth's would give 4fpa and -50% enemy def :idea:

 

[Salo]

Sounds like a reasonable plan, my man :thumbsup:

I think weapon speed (and AR) will be your main priorities for your rabies "casting" switch... And I do think you should be looking at rabies as "a spell that requires a mele attack" as I've seen it put before. A hit and run attack on PIs. It won't be the fastest thing, but it should work Get a fast low damage weapon (6sheal Phase comes to mind, but might be overkill)

You will need the Carrion Wind ring, but I get the feeling you realise that already

I'm not sure you'll need many points in Ravens, with enough +skills and (hopefully, if you can afford them) summoning charms you should have them at a reasonablly high level.

Link to a site for calculating attack speed. Remember that TD uses the negative of the WSM found on the AS, eg: phase = 60 WSM, not -60

Although that seems to bring it out at a 3fpa with lvl1 WW and a 6sheal phase...
4 sheals + 2Eth's would give 4fpa and -50% enemy def :idea:

an excellent build. however, i have a question.

you cant pre-buff bears and dogs. now what happens if you have a hoto and lidless, you have +5 rabies sword thing with stormshield, you go in, whack around some poison, run out, hit W for your summoner switch...

does it go back to pre-buff +4 all skills? or once you go down to the 0 all skills rabies switch does it never come back to having listed bear life and damage?

 

[psuedoenviro]

I'm currently on ladder east working on a very similar build and I hoping to convert it to PvP also. Difference is only 1 point to raven and max spirit wolves. I think for public dueling Im going to use a Lacerator for the amp charges and open wounds. It just seems ashame to waste the HoW doing nothing but recasting wolves when you could add damage from poison charms, cb, ow, amp. For cleaner duels with no amp Im going to use either Gimmershred or the Scalper for the ow. good luck keep us informed about how you build goes.

 

[Bob_TheMadCow]

an excellent build. however, i have a question.

you cant pre-buff bears and dogs. now what happens if you have a hoto and lidless, you have +5 rabies sword thing with stormshield, you go in, whack around some poison, run out, hit W for your summoner switch...

does it go back to pre-buff +4 all skills? or once you go down to the 0 all skills rabies switch does it never come back to having listed bear life and damage?

There is an easy way around that:

Rabies switch: phase+SS
Hunter switch: Big *** bow

neither set of weaponry has +skills so you don't have to worry about it

Although the Lacerato could make a good weapon... but you would have to have a spare in your inventory at least... so maybe a bow would still be better. I'm not sure what a good hunter bow would be, in a mid price-range...? WWS maybe?

 

[junglejim]

As a summoner, do I really need that much faster cast? Would 20, 30, 50, 63% fcr be enough?

So how about some equipment ideas, “**†means I don’t have this item yet:

Helm:
Jalal’s
Cerebus Bite
Ravenlore**
Harlequin Crest**

Armor:
Skin of the Vipermagi
Wire Fleece/Archon Plate Enigma**

(Rabies switch)
Weapon
4 Shael + 2 Eth Phase Blade** (shouldn’t be hard to make)

Shield
Storm Shield** / Whistan’s Guard**
Other ideas?

(Hunter / Summoner switch)
Weapon
Buriza**? (precludes use of shields)

Shield (if no bow is used)
Lidless
Rhyme

Gloves
Trang Oul’s ‘nough said

Belt
Verdungo’s**
IK

Boots
IK
Aldur
??

Ammie
Mara**
??

Ring1
Carrion Wind**

Ring2
Ravenfrost** / SOJ / Bul Kathos**


Charms
Summoning GC**
Annihilus
+50/100 poison SC**
+Life, r/w, AR SC


Any thoughts about other equipment?

BTW, I'm now lvl 20 and in Act 3, so far no problems.

Although my summons were barely able to scratch him, even Duriel wasn't tough. I just kept recasting Spirit wolves and wacked on him myself. For this fight I switched back to Feral Rage because the Rabies poison didn't hurt him much.