While I'm here I may aswell post another planned build, The fury druid.

The Skillz:
Max Lycan
Max HoW
Max Fury
Max Feral
remaining points undecided, The 2 options Im thinking are werewolf or maul.
With maul it takes while to charge up but once you are fully charged you only need to swing once again with it to reset the timer so this could be a nice option. The main idea behind maxing werewolf is for the added ar more than anything else but with a maxed HoW, will it be worth it? Time will tell I guess.

The Statz:
50 or so base dex 100 or so base str and the rest in vita

I had thaught about doing a 50/50 split between vita and str but with no oak that could be risky on hc, especialy as there aint always someone with oak around.

The Equipz:
pretty self explanitory really, nice fast death craft weaps most of the way, ik maul at 86 eth reapers later.
Armour will be war/tyraels late game, until then i`ll use a shaft more than likely as im a big fan of damage limitation over leech and this build already has huge life leech anyway.
gtoes/gores
blood craft rings
blood craft gloves
metalgrid amu late game and leech/res amus early/mid game
druid helms as they become available and ravenlore endgame
wsg belt late game, string of ears mid game and so on.

The Merc:
Im split between a1 phys and a2 might, chances are it`ll be a2 might with faith and a full sorb/dr equip setup.

any input welcome and i`ll start updating this thread soon with his progress

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I'd advise against maxing HoW for HC. Your damage will be high enough without it. You will need oak, maxed. Yes, maxed.
I'm building a fury druid myself. And i plan to:

Max lycan
Max oak
Max fury+maul
10 or so ferral
get the 1 point wonders

For str in the early lvls (28+) i'd advise to get at least 60 points from off-gear (ie: hard points+charms) to wear some sigon's gear which you can then further str bug. I'd aim to have about 70-80 in str from off-gear by lvl 55. And about 100-115 or so by lvl 80+.

For the attack rating issue there are some cures: ar charms later on, amethysts in the wep, .
Early on keep some dex charms in the inventory + angelic ring/ammy combo.

I'm still debating over getting more than 1 pt in grizzly.
Realistically, if i'll be going carefully I shouldn't attract more mobs than i can handle (maybe day dreaming here...). In the boss fights i'd be recasting oak instead of grizzly.
Only time when he'd be of any use is when entering new areas (i.e hot wp's, or hot passage ways), but in this case casting all the summons (ravens, oak, the 3 vines (ye, i put 1 pt in solar vine, sue me!), 3 wolfs+grizzly) beforehand should be enough to take the edge off for long enough to decide on the outcome.

For merc i'd consider a A3 cold one, for the aoe slow thingy and some needed elemental damage, end game executioner's axe will be used for further slow decrep awesomeness.

Other notable pieces i got my eye on include ravenfrost ring for cannot be frozen (gotta get out of death's combo eventually...), atma's ammy for the nice amp, leviathan's for the nasty cursed areas (wsk lvl 3 + the mob pack before the ancients summit entrance springs to mind); that armor + SoB +werebear feral/maul could even be used in IM areas. Cta + absolute zero on switch will be nice too.

i have a number of druids with maxed oak and every other druid on hc maxed oak anyway. i want to do HoW for the def and ar just as much as the damage. My old pala had no self lifebuffs and was up around 27k life endgame. I`ll have lots of space for life charms etc and my equip will mostly lean towards damage reduction. I found on the pala that having a pure dr/sorb setup you dont even have to leech at all to be able to take bosses down. Having every druid with maxed oak is abit daft even if it is hc. if you team with another druid with higher oak than you do (summoner etc.) then you are running a crappy low level spirit that contributes not much at all. enough casters have whisp for sob so i see an opening there for a HoW druid to fill nicely.

I got hit to level 43 atm and he is over 5k life with no oak, so all is well so far

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Indeed, party play would change things up quite a bit. And HoW will be more useful in that case.

With this new info i'd get the A2 merc, since A1 merc was mainly for trash mop-up. Party will take care of trash and the might merc will be more useful.

That being said, i'd still max maul and put some points in feral rage.
It's not a big problem to keep up, and it typically ups your damage (and therefore leech) by 1/3 or so. You would also charge up feral (1 hit usually is enough) for the extra special hard packs.
Maxing werewolf for the attack rating bonuses doesn't yield the best results. 1 pt werewolf +your own +skills should take it up nicely.
Heck, throw some holy craft for a merc with a blessed aim aura if you are that worried about it (altho mercs don't make it through boss fights..so that's debatable)

You will however sacrifice 1 pt SoB if the casters you play with don't have the ring to cast one yet.

yeh i always have sob that i can pulse if needed, so far he is working nicely, i crafted him a nice axe with 48ias that i added 2 20 ias/max damage jewels into for a 4 fpa fury along with 2 30ed jewels, its around 300 max damage iirc.

Level 50:
So far with equip he is at 185 str, 4k life with lycan only and no bo, around 5k ar (going up nicely now I have finished lycan and HoW). I've moved onto buffing fury now, output is 3.8k feral and 4.6k fury with maul charged. maul and feral are still 1 point wonders. So far its just, strike once with feral, hit 5 times with maul to fully charge it then fury to destroy the pack. striking once with maul and feral on each pack before fury to keep them both charged. I wont be maxing werewolf now after some consideration, it`ll be maul, lycan, feral, fury, HoW instead.

My merc is lacking at the min (level 30 or so) and i just dumped full tancreds on him with sigs gloves and belt and some res/leech rings. i`ll catch him up tonight maybe. I've had a change of mind on his weapon too. I wont be needing fanata as i can hit 3fpa fury without to much trouble and i'd rather have 3fpa myself without fanat for when the merc dies. Instead i`ll give him a pride cryptic axe as most necs have a faith anyway so that`ll be all 3 offensive auras running in my party, along with HoW that`ll provide the others act 1 mercs with some serious stopping power and give me a major damage boost for sub bosses (whare the merc will survive).

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Fanat doesn't work for fury anyway. I would avoid werewolf as it just adds AR, not damage and def like werebear.

Max grizzly is an excellent companion. It's like a damage reduce item as the griz takes the heat off you. Don't bother with dire wolf, too much hassle to recast them.

So whats the order of points. I have put one point into most of the abilities and have maxed Oak.

Should I pump fury first then lycan or should I max lycan than fury? Also I am have a bear when should I be pumping points into the bear?

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iz a secret

how does fanat not work for fury? does it not affect its damage/speed/ar?

also, wolf does add defense, only 5% though per hard point and i think 50% base

last question: does anyone consider using shields for shifter druids? im building one myself and thinking about what benefits i would gain from a shield or from a stronger 2hander.

I'm just happy to see someone want to use the awesomeness that reaper's toll. I've preached this in vanilla for a long time. I know things don't generally port well to this mod from vanilla, but I have often used

lycanthropy
werewolf
HoW
Fury
Grizzly

Absurd AR, damage, life (well for no sage at least...and I have always felt that a mutt relying on sage is a death sentence) and a really good blocker of ranged attacks, as well as an aggro whore.

I haven't really gotten deep enough into this mod to tell if it really works well, especially HC.

and to mule: The length of the blocking animation for shifted druids is horrid.

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The reader should not be discouraged if...he does not have the prerequisites to read the prerequisites. P. Halmos

i thought that was only on bear... seemed fine for me so far in normal... doesnt really seem to be having any issues with blocking speed.

i agree on the reapers... the decrep proc is so awesome and was widely underused in vanilla (slap that on a holy freeze merc for a hammerdin and watch everything go in complete slow-mo)

From my old days of D2:LoD, I remember up'd Ribcracker being a good choice of weapon. When I compared Ribcracker in a d2 database to Critterkiller here, I noticed that you massively nerfed the crushing blow (from 50 to 10%). Is this intentional, and does this still leave Ribcracker as a viable weapon (especially with the added def)?

Is it also possible to up it on this server?

1) Yes, the decrease in CBlow was intentional. CBlow is part of the reason Vanilla D2 was so easy for melee. HU is meant to be a challenging mod, so things like CBlow had to go. Similarly, Static Field no longer reduces monster HP by a %.

2) Ribcracker is a fun item to use, but for a Fury Druid a faster weapon would be preferrable. Most phys-dmg melee in HU prefer to use life leach as a means of regaining life, rather than using defence as a means of reducing life lost. It's not necessarily better, just more popular. You will find better items than Ribcracker, but at the level you can use it, Ribcracker is fun. In HU, it is almost always stronger to get a nicely rolled Rare or Crafted item, and then quad-socket it with nice gems, jewels, or runes.

3) Yes, there are cube recipes to upgrade items. I forget if you should be checking on Blue's strategy website, or Critter's item website, but one of them has cube recipes.

just to add to Brevan's post - Crushing Blow in b.net's format was also massively more powerful in this mod than it was on b.net due to the jumbo sized life bars of bosses. If you take 1/8th off a monster that has 1,000,000,000,000 HP, you are doing more dmg than taking 1/8th off a monster with 1,000,000 HP.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

I guess I can understand the decision. Would it be possible to give the weapon some extra base speed (stalagmites are 10 wspeed compared to quarterstaff's -10) to compensate for the enormous decrease in CB? Maybe 10 or 20% extra on the IAS so you can hit the 4fpa breakpoint.

Also on that point, is there a reason why my lvl22 Fury shows '4 hits'? I remember Fury being five hits in LoD. I don't really care much for the decrease itself, but since the initial attack has extra frames compared to the follow-up hits, it feels like you've unjustly nerfed Fury.

Weapon is already pretty darn fast for the level. There is no value in upgrading it because at the level of the upgrade, you would have a much better choice of weapon anyways.



You can take my word for it that Fury is not nerfed in this mod. With the availability of IAS beyond the imagining of b.net you can hit great speeds and the weapons here are outstanding for fury.

For example, my rabies druid will often switch to fury for some quick DPS to finish off big monsters. Even with only a few points in the skill (5?), it still does wonders when I use this beast:

Executioner's Justice
Glorious Axe (lvl90)
Damage: 540-1020
+500% Enhanced Damage
10% Chance of Crushing Blow
Ignore Target's Defense
12% Chance to Cast Level 6 Decrepify when Striking
+80% Increased Attack Speed
50% Chance of Deadly Strike
Damage Reduced by 10%
Resist All +50%
+2-3 to Barbarian Skill Levels
+2-3 to Druid Skill Levels
Reanimate Slain as: Returned (5%)

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

Any chance you have a spare of that monster? I don't think tomb reaver can stand up against that

i throw them away all the time /m hunter_AS

PVM for bosses I would definitely consider using gris caddy with an ether stone (giving it 90% ias for 4 frame fury) and 4x ber's. 21% crushing and 4 frame fury is damn nice.

I never cared for gris caddy as a wep on bnet, cause it lacked damage, but they increased the damage on this a good amount.

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The body is but a vessel for the soul, a puppet which bends to the souls tyranny. And lo, the body is not eternal, for it must feed on the flesh of others, lest it return to the dust from whence it came. Therefore the soul deceive, despise and murder men.

Well. Tomb has 3 socks. You still need 1% more IAS on each of these for 4 frame fury. Tomb has more range. With tomb you can use ethereal with an ias jewel or whatever and still have an open socket.

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The body is but a vessel for the soul, a puppet which bends to the souls tyranny. And lo, the body is not eternal, for it must feed on the flesh of others, lest it return to the dust from whence it came. Therefore the soul deceive, despise and murder men.

Here is some observations and possible gear to use for a fury druid. I'm still new to HU but I'm good with making builds.


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Stats: (doesn't include weapons)
All Resists: 440%
Damage Reduced: 47% (50% cap)
Deadly Strike: 55% (100% cap)
Crushing Blow: 10% (100% cap)
Faster Hit Recovery: 100% (86% fhr breakpoint)
Faster Block Rate: 70% (46% fhr breakpoint)




Armor:
Tyrael's Might: 4x Rainbow Facet (Physical: Stun)
Required Level: 95
Required Strength: 232
Durability: 120
+50% Faster Hit Recovery
Magic Resist +10%
+500% Enhanced Defense
+1 to All Skills
Cannot be Frozen
Damage Reduced by 20%
Resist All +50%
+20 to Strength
Socketed (4)
+200 Defense
Increase Maximum Life 10%
Increase Maximum Mana 10%

Really cannot beat that. Just amazing everything.


Ravenlore: 3x Rainbow Facet (Physical: Stun)
+400% Enhanced Defense
Resist All +40%
+40% Faster Cast Rate
Regenerate Mana 60%
-20% to Enemy Fire Resistance
-20% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+30 to Strength
+30 to Dexterity
20% Life Stolen per Hit
+3 to Druid Skill Levels
Socketed (3)
+3 to Summoning Skills (Druid Only)

On bnet Jalals really was best. Cerebus was okay vs chars with really high defense for that extra defense boost, but jalals helped stats and druid skills as well as 30 all res. This helm really seems best. Was tough call between this and cerebus. I chose this cause it has 1 more socket as well as 30 dex and strength and 40 all resists.


Spirit Ward:
+300% Enhanced Defense
Cold Absorb 9-12%
Fire Absorb 9-12%
Lightning Absorb 9-12%
Resist All +50%
+30% Faster Block Rate
5% Chance to Cast Level 5 Fade when Struck
+1 to All Skills
+30% Increased Chance of Blocking
Socketed (3)
Poison Length Reduced by 50%

Wanted to do stormshield at first, but I figure since this has 3 open sockets you could just pop a soul skulls in it for 1000% Thorns Damage and Damage Reduced by 12%, and Ether Stone for 20% Increased Chance of Blocking and 40% Faster Block Rate, and a Celestial Sphere for 30% all resists. The absorb on this shield is great as well.


Gore Riders:
Requirements -30%
30% Chance of Deadly Strike
+30% Increased Run/Walk Speed
5% Chance of Crushing Blow
30% Chance of Open Wounds
+200% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Durability
+25 to Stamina
+3-4 to Amplify Damage (Necromancer Only)
+30% Enhanced Damage
+20 to Vitality

I still think these are the best boots for melee. Deadly strike, crushing, open wound, and even enhanced damage and vita on this. Not to mention reqs are low.


Steelrends:
+300% Enhanced Defense
+30 to Strength
+100% Enhanced Damage
5% Chance of Crushing Blow
25% Chance of Deadly Strike
Increase Maximum Life 10%
Damage Reduced by 5%

We used bfists a lot on bnet for even a fully leveled druid. They really needed the fhr and the life they add gives a great boost. Quite a few still used rends for the extra damage and crushing. I'd say these are best choice on HU cause it adds even more damage, crushing, deadly, max life, and dr.


Worldstone Granite:
+300% Enhanced Defense
50% Faster Hit Recovery
Damage Reduced by 10%
Resist All +10%
+1 to All Skills
+20 to Strength
+20 to Vitality
Cannot be Frozen
Level 25 Iron Golem (30 Charges)
+1 to Golem Mastery (OSKILL)
15% Chance to Cast Level 30 Shock Wave when Struck
+100 Defense

Dungos is a real close second but this adds some skills and resists, as well as more fhr. This + tyraels = 100fhr which hits the 86% fhr breakpoint.


Metalgrid:
+400-600 Defense
Resist All +40-60%
+400-600 to Attack Rating
Level 22 Iron Golem (20 Charges)
Level 22 Iron Maiden (20 Charges)
+1 to All Skills
+1 to Golem Mastery (OSKILL)
Level 22 Spirit of Barbs (20 Charges)
600-900% Thorns Damage

Need to get AR from somewhere. This should help a bit. Rest will have to rely on charms. Resists are nice as well. If you need additional deadly strike because your weapon doesn't give some, go with highlords.


Rings:
Resist All +100%
75-100% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+18-24 to Vitality
+18-24 to Energy
+18-24 to Strength
+18-24 to Dexterity

Stats are insane, plus the resists its great. Wouldn't be ideal for PVP melee duels since no elements are allowed, but this is great PVM. Combined with the other gear it should stack your res really nicely.







Here are some good choices for weapons. I didn't include these in the stats above. Somethign worth stating, shape shift druids take IAS from WEAPONS ONLY! IAS from gear doesn't count towards speed. Unless HU changed that.


Gris Caddy:
+400% Enhanced Damage
+60% Increased Attack Speed
+500% Damage to Undead
Requirements -25%
50% Deadly Strike
Socketed (5)
6% Chance of Crushing Blow

These were pretty popular on bnet for fury druids because it has 5os, base ias, and some ed. Damage wasn't great but with 85% IAS you get 4 frame fury. You use to need a shael and 40-15 ias jewel for it, but u can just use an ether stone on this for 300 to Attack Rating 30% Increased Attack Speed. As for the 4 other open sockets I would put 4x ber's giving you a wopping 21% crushing blow. If your using the armor above that I suggested thats 31% crushing (1 out of 3 hits = 1/8th boss remainign life taken). The 10% aditional IAS and extra damage really makes this a fearsome weapon. Not to meantion the deadly strike capibilites if this was for pvp.


Void (runeword) Fanged Knife:
+3 to All Skills
+10 to Cloak of Shadows (OSKILL)
+475-500% Enhanced Damage
10% Chance to Cast Level 12 Burst of Speed when Struck
+99% Increased Attack Speed
Level 20 Redemption Aura when Equipped
Prevent Monster Heal
Indestructible
Hit Freezes Target

This would be one of your best bets for player vs player. Cruel Fanged Knife of Quickness with a shael and 40-15 ias (75% ias total for 4 frame fury) have always been a favorite of fury druids on bnet. Damage wanst as good as an ebotdz but it gets 4 frame fury and it was something special.


Breath of the Dying (runeword) Berserker Axe:
+66% Increased Attack Speed
+450-500% Damage to Undead
20% Life Stolen per Hit
100% Chance to Cast Level 30 Poison Nova when Killing
+450-500% Enhanced Damage
+33 to All Stats
+450-500% Damage to Demons
12% Mana Stolen per Hit
Requirements -25%
Ignore Target's Defense
+100 to Attack Rating Against Undead
Indestructible
-25% to Target's Defense

This really was the ideal weapon for the majority of melee characters on bnet. I know theres a lot of new runewords and other possibilites, but this reall still is the best. Even more damage than before, and enough IAS for 5 frame fury. Stat boost is nice. Ignore target defense for PVM is ideal for hitting, and -25% targ defense is great for PVP. Also has life leach and mana leach for PVM.

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The body is but a vessel for the soul, a puppet which bends to the souls tyranny. And lo, the body is not eternal, for it must feed on the flesh of others, lest it return to the dust from whence it came. Therefore the soul deceive, despise and murder men.

the above post is why no one on sc has more than 20k life besides 4 of us.

Why is that? Would think a good fury druid would be able to get 30k or so on this. Specially with 3 life per vita, 30x extra sc slots, and 10+ max life more per sc. 10k was common on bnet.

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The body is but a vessel for the soul, a puppet which bends to the souls tyranny. And lo, the body is not eternal, for it must feed on the flesh of others, lest it return to the dust from whence it came. Therefore the soul deceive, despise and murder men.

I'm guessing he's talking about those phys facets, that's just wrong. Rubies and amethyst in gear to boost life and lower your need to actually put points in str.

I am puzzled why there is so much interest in socketting the armor/helm with stun facets. Do they work against bosses?

I agree with Utter - amethysts all the way to take care of your str needs, and otherwise toss in rubies.

I also wouldn't recomend those weapons, there are better options out there. Those look like a solid b.net list only.

For safety, you have exec justice with the ctc decrep.
For pure dmg, you can go windhammer with the massive str boost
For speed, crafted is the #1 choice, but an tomb reaver is also plenty strong.

1H weapons are kinda bleh once you get your speed going on fury since you are probably better off just keeping your leech rate rolling.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

The problem with rubies is they add vita in this, not life. +vita and life per level DOES NOT get added into life bonus. Blood stone (+30 vita) only actually adds 90 life to your druid.

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The body is but a vessel for the soul, a puppet which bends to the souls tyranny. And lo, the body is not eternal, for it must feed on the flesh of others, lest it return to the dust from whence it came. Therefore the soul deceive, despise and murder men.

yep - that is intentional for just the reason you mention. Keeps people's life in reasonable limits. That's why you always go amethysts first (as I mentioned)

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

Ditch the stun facets firstly, rubies are alot better in the long run. You could possibly hit 30k life without them (with decent charms and a pure vita stat placement). If you can do that then Uber diamonds for the damage reduce and big defence gain would be pretty powerfull. Botd is pretty crap for a fury druid, infact all runeword weapons are later into the game. Good death crafts will see you through most of the game.
High damage per hit is fair enough but if you cant hit fast enough you will be dealing pretty crappy DPS

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Yeah learned a lot since then.

I'm using a nice death crafted thresher at the moment. Trying to get some gems for my IK maul to use it.

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The body is but a vessel for the soul, a puppet which bends to the souls tyranny. And lo, the body is not eternal, for it must feed on the flesh of others, lest it return to the dust from whence it came. Therefore the soul deceive, despise and murder men.