OK. So I decided while I get some form of party to help kill Diablo with theFury, I decided on making a werewolf purely designed on Fury.

This is what I plan at this moment:

20 Lycanthropy
10 Feral Rage
5 Werewolf (50% more speed, I decided "That's about enough there")

20 Fury
20 Oak Sage

76 points. You gotta add 1 to Rabies to get to Fury.

My questions follow on here:

1> How fast can this kind of druid go in terms of Fury? Does he swing faster with Fury or is it just 5 normal attacks with increased damage?
2> I've had someone suggest that I max Feral Rage to get Fury's best benefit. But seeing it only boosts 10% per level and Fury does a lot of damage anyway, is 10 points "enough" or even "too much" consideration?
3> From 17 to 35 I hope to have a crapload of points in Oak Sage since I'm typically fixing an error on theFury (which I INSIST is a support who relies on others' Oak / BO buff to boost life more). Does the life bonus listed on Oak Sage affect the spirit's life as well?
4> Carrion Vine or not?

Discuss:

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Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

the 10% damage from feral rage per point is a waste of a skill point. You get pretty much the same benefit from +3 strength as you do with 1 in feral. The only good thing about it is the life leech so you may want to invest in it abit just to raise its ar and leech ability. The leech has deminishing returns though so you may want to just leave it as a 1 pointer.
The speed boost on werewolf is pretty worthless in comparison to weapon IAS. its handy for the first 20 or so levels but afterthat weapon IAS takes over and the speed from werewolf wont make much impact on your attack speed. I would instead max Heart of Wolverine for when you are in a group with another druid. Pretty much every druid has oak so when you come along with a maxed HoW to throw in the mix it`ll be a welcome addition. Obviously max oak though for times when there is no other druid to team with. Fury is 4 fast attacks, abit like zeal. Obviously avoid it in Iron Maiden areas.
Get one in carrion vine for undead areas. the rest of your points can go to whatever you fancy, perhaps dire wolves for a bit of crowd control. If not then max feral lastly for the added leech and the small boost to overall damage.

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You may throw some points in Maul. It's a good damage booster. Some Maul hits to begin , then 1 hit in about every 20 sec or so.

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Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

agreed

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Okay. I'll ditch the idea of adding points in Feral Rage, since it's quite correct that strength will add more damage. But as far as Werewolf goes, is 5 enough? I've only 3 points in Feral Rage and I don't really want any more if it's not going to benefit Fury.

I don't know if I want to do Maul at this moment (+21 points) because it just boosts damage and you have to keep it alive (I've had a LOT of trouble keeping Feral Rage alive when using Fury in vanilla) if you want that benefit.

So I am looking at now:

5 Werewolf
20 Lycanthropy
20 Oak Sage
1 Carrion Vine (+1)
20 Fury (+1)

68 points. I can fancy another 10-15 but that would be more or less halfway when I max Fury.

EDIT: skill point tally

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

would put a few into maul the added damage is decent plus the stun can be helpful at times.

Or just max grizzly for a decent summon.

You should max HoW too, if you're going with a party with another druid that drui will have max Oak, then How will be an awesome addition (and very few dru bother with maxing HoW).
Also add a few point to Maul. It should be easy to keep it alive even with Feral too, and the benfits are really good (just have to hit once with each in like every 20-25 secs).
And you should note that Maul and Feral helps greatly in IM areas.
About Carrion Vine, it's good in areas with lots of undeads (basically almost in every area) for an alternative way of life regen.

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Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

Level 22

This is my current setup:

5 Werewolf
10 Lycanthropy
3 Feral Rage
1 Carrion Vine
1 Poison Creeper (A prereq)
2 Oak Sage
1 Rabies (A prereq)

I should be able to get Oak Sage to 16 if I purely concentrate on that throughout Act 2 (I will get one from Radament). But I am currently considering adding more time and life to my Werewolf until I can slap Tancred's on him, so my predicted setup at 28 would be:

5 Werewolf
16 Lycanthropy
3 Feral Rage
1 Carrion Vine
3 Oak Sage (+1 from Radament)

Then from 28 to 35, I can boost Oak Sage to 10.

From there, I can at least do some sort of switchoff between Fury and Oak to boost the life capacity for everyone a little more (and make Oak more survivable).

Question: Will this prediction do well? Or should I boost Oak Sage first, then tradeoff between Fury and Lycanthropy instead?

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

With this char I would max Oak asap then max lycan then go for fury. Just my 0.02$

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Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

I always max oak first on a druid. Im a party man

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Alright, so it shall be. My character will probably have suck damage for a bit until I get a hold of something good to hold him over until I can fit him with Tancred's. Once that happens he'll be good to go for the most part.

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

Currently lv.28. Now wearing Tancred's set. Got a 20% ED jewel on it with +3 max damage, some other mods on the jewel; an Amethyst... I had to break the Flawless Amethyst off the Halberd part (which also meant breaking the Shael too) so I am currently hunting for another Shael.

Need suggestions on gloves/belt at the moment. Should I continue with Death's set, or should I try to find something else now?

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

deaths for the leech, res and most importantly CBF

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So it is, I will continue using Death's combo for the moment.

Currently lv.31 with:

5 Werewolf
3 Feral Rage
10 Lycanthropy
11 Oak Sage
1 Carrion Vine

and two prereq's, Poison Creeper and Rabies. Everything seems to be going as planned...

The question is this: Why does it seem like my druid is swinging a little faster with Feral Rage than a normal attack (Been noticing this when facing leechless trash)?

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

Lv.33

Now in act 3. I'm beginning to notice that I'm beginning to get uncontrollable at times especially against those flayers. I tend to move in one direction, but I accidentally click on one of those brats running and soon I'm off in the unintended direction. Can't wait for Fury.. but I must!

Now about that Steeldriver I have at lv.40... Would this be a bit faster on the werewolf? It was kinda slow on the werebear (theFury).

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

It should be some 7fps fury and 13fps maul.

_________________
Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

HoW unless on a pure summoner is best left at a 1 pt, ur lvl 30 or so HoW is not that big of a boost to your own dmg to justify 20 pts spent better off with maul or summons. The help it provides to the party is okay, but better off adding some wolves or a grizz for cc..

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“Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism”

If I were some other druid I'd be using HoW.. but afaik Oak works well at this moment, I'm lv.38 and starting Fury, perhaps trading off 1 point towards Lycanthropy for every 3 points I put in Fury, while also using a 2:1 Vitality/Strength allocation..

Anyhow, I'm making sure I get leveled and boosted up a little before grouping up to face Mephisto (I'm still in act 3).

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

max HoW is best on pure summoner yes, or if you have permanent party with another dru running Oak.

_________________
Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

10% ed from furys synergies is = to just over 3 str. I'd rather have a maxed HoW instead of an attack synergie due to the fact it buffs damage, def and most importantly AR

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Yes Rage you're right, but if you have no other dru in party probs everybody will want Oak rather than HoW.

_________________
Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

im not saying max rage instead of HoW im saying a summon or something, the AR boost from lvl 15 HoW will do just fine in such a situation that you already have an oak sage. As far as I see it if you can't depend on having HoW (if ur the only druid) you might as well not focus points into it. But whatever you do don't fucking skip it, i cant tell you how many times i facepalm when druids don't have SoB, which personally I find a more useful second spirit when oak is already up since it removes all the annoying curses in wsk and on, makes a bigg difference when you got a bunch of summons ect.

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“Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism”

most other chars have sob from bramble, metalgrid or whisp. Its refreshing to see a melee druid with a decent secondary option when there is another druid. Even if the other druids oak is lower I would still want the maxed HoW and a slightly lower level oak in order to rip through stuff alot faster and increase your ar.
Neither option is wrong, just 2 alternative routes for him to think about. I personally found I always ran HoW on my fury druid, was hitting about 24k fury at level 80. Didnt need the lifebuffs against trash and found I could leech against some bosses alot better and tank more effectively with HoW running. some bosses like diablo and baal etc. I used oak since there was no other druids around. For soloing I liked How to buff my mercs damage and help me clear areas faster.

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I agree there is no wrong way, however I can't say most characters have SoB first run through or untwinked where removing the curses is going to help the most and where chances of having 2 or even 3 druids in a party is higher.

Forgive the armor, it was just after I got it and wanted to put something in it while i made some ethers and bloodstones, and the gear is sub optimal since i was using soulmancers and that uniqu lanqured plate for mf'ing in tundra at the time, however the realm was hacked and I never got a chance to do so. That was my maxed HoW I can't remember what the dmg was without it, but on the old forum bob had a very good post about diminishing returns on trash, I cant remember how it went, but basically your 'hits to kill' in relation to how much dmg you deal, i just attempted to explain what i could remember but i did such a bad job of it i stopped. I will agree that it was a huge buff for everyone's merc tho.

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“Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism”