I got a lvl 87 fury druid and am stuck on nm baal... I can easily kill minions and what not, but baal himself destroys me every time. What kind of gear should I be wearing? Res, Damage reduce, Max damage, absorb or a combo? I am currently using double ss amethyst bonehew, spirit keeper with 2 open soc, 2 soc atmas, High lords, sigs boots and gloves, disciple belt/ string of ears, and various rings. I have all kinds of gear for res damage damage reduce etc. so what combo do you think would be best? Also anyway to get a reapers toll in nm?

Amp damage is crucial so you need something like atma amulet or a crafted weapon with chance to cast amp damage.

Baal is mostly fire and cold damage so if your res is low, put Rals or Thuls in those open sockets.

Try a crafted thresher with a moonstone skull. It will be way faster than bonehew with more AR and other possible mods. 4 socket it and use amethysts.

Run the ancients way for better gear. You want stuff like gore riders and shaftstop armor.

Also, when baal casts tentacles use those to leech life and mana quick. Just hit them enough to refill and then don't kill them. But you might want to kill the icon of evil as it gives baal fanat aura.

Crushing blow is crucial, and so is a dmg curse. Preferably amp but decrep can help just as much if you have trouble with the dmg he is dealing to you. An easy way to attain a high level decrep is to make a lawbringer as it has 33% ctc lvl 16 decrep.

If you can get your hands on a cranium basher(ctc amp on striking aswell) or IK maul that would suit you extremely well and so would gore riders.
Bloodcraft gloves, wear a ravenfrost for the cbf, glassglare/corpsemourn would be much better than atmas armor and keep the string on unless you got a nos coil.

He may attack with fire&cold spells more often but they haven't got shit on his physical attack in terms of raw damage(nor his godly poison javelin, oh dear). I'd feel much safer stacking DR% than cold&fire resists/abs, especially as a melee character. People put too much emphasis on elemental damage when it is really only a threat in such a small number of bosses. Physical damage(and magic to an extent), is what you really need to look out for most of the time(as a melee character, anyway). I can only think of a few bosses off the top of my head that actually require stacking resists and absorbs.

drrod... that is correct "takes off shirt" (payback for about three years ago if you remember ) But anyway you are right I had around 50 fire and cold res and decided to use the shaftstop and i saw a HUGE decrease in baals damage.