Fissue/Volcano and merc?

[det]

Fissue/Volcano and merc?

Help time for a character in an untwinked game again, with the option of continuing alone and twinked after Guardianship around lv 85

Read the guides, yes and found them a bit lacking the info I am looking for. Lets just say a Windy gets a better treatment

Right..so now I have
27 in Fissue (20+7skills)
20 Volcano.

It sort of can eventually cover the Physical and Fire damage output..at least now in act 1 NM (lv 47) everything just dies once they walk on the vents (1200 damage per vent)

Thinking ahead for late NM and hell where you meet FI's, I wondered abou getting the Wind tree as well..but Tornado is just Physical damage (which I can get in the Fire tree as well) and Hurricane's cold damage is nothing to write home about, not even on my Wind Druid (my feeling at least)

So, to add a second elemental skill I was thinking about a Cold merc from act 3. Has anybody experimented with them? Or should I indeed get ..lets say 10 in Hurricane and 10 in Cold armour for chilling, decent duration and some damage..maybe even:

10 Tornado
10 Hurricane
10 CA

which could get a decent duration and some more cold damage, as they all synergize. I would also be only 1 point away from Armageddon, allowing me to have some Cold damage, decent Fire damage and Physical damage.

With

20 Fissue
20 Volcano
10 Tornado
10 Hurricane
10 CA
and maybe 10 Oak

I have 80 points spend (add 5 for Grizzly = 85) so there is litte option for more.

After lv 85 I could have a Reapers Toll available, so suddenly PI's are not a Problem and I could rather max out the Fire tree or invest more there, maybe really only get Hurricane as an extra element to chill monsters and play with an act 2 HF merc.

Oh...and I will be mostly playing in 1-2 player games, so killing power for 8 ppl Hell Baal runs is not required

 

[corax]

max out the fire tree. cept for geddon (takes too many points to get).
also dont put 5 points into grizzly. 1 is enough, either put points into oak sage for party life benefit or dire wolves for passive grizzly life benefit

 

[det]

Thanks..

Was indeed: 5 points to GET Grizzly...worded it badly..sry

So I guess I'll be investing in Boulder and Firestorm next....

 

[Simplus]

also dont put 5 points into grizzly. 1 is enough

I think he ment 4 pre's and 1 in grizz.

 

[Beowulf]

I would also only max the fire and forget the wind and any extra points should be in oak and griz. One thing you could do to increase your killing power is show for a wand or dagger with lower res charges which I have used in the past and it increases your killing speed.

 

[Jek]

I got a dual elemental druid, and he works wonderful (also completely untwinked and hardcore, pure fun). He's mostly a Fissure/Tornado guy - infact zero points in Volcano (will probably eventualy get 1 and 1 in armageddon).

The reason I went with Tornado was to have a spamable attack, everything non-FI dies easily to Fissure. And Volcano isn't dishing out an awful lot physical damage without Molten Boulder synergy, which would cost too many points. I prefer having huge absorb, "holy freeze" (hurricane) and a nice spamable attack.

My plan is:

20 Tornado
20 Fissure
1 Hurricane
15 Firestorm
15 Cyclone Armor
1 Grizzly
1 Oak
5 Pre-Req
Total: 78, after which I'll work on Hurricane, and when it's maxed/high enough I'll get Armageddon, it'd be foolish not to spend one point on a synergy and then get it. When done I'll compare damage and raise synergies as I see fit.

 

[Uzziah]

I would also only max the fire and forget the wind and any extra points should be in oak and griz. One thing you could do to increase your killing power is show for a wand or dagger with lower res charges which I have used in the past and it increases your killing speed.

Why not get some wind skills in the build?? Damage is king but having 3 sources dealing damage at once is much better.

Fire and physical are nice and all but hell has a lot of FI's, get an HF merc they do better than act 3 mercs, especially if you place slowing weapons like kelpie's or woestaff (easy finds I think).

If you go the wind tree route place 10 in cyclone armor for a 30 sec hurricane, then the rest put in hurricane, you really don't need the tornado since you have physical with your volcano. Your hurricane should be able to get into the 1000 range which is plenty for hurricane to be effective against fire immunes while you use physical from other skills.

Oh and unless I am somehow mistaken you only need 4 points to get grizzly.

1 raven
1 dire wolves
1 spirit wolves
1 grizzly

@jek nice build, I am still getting beat down by the charging enemies near pindle with my dual elemental druid, a completely different build but works about the same.

 

[det]

Lv 20 Hurrican is listed in the 230 damage range at AS. Did I miss something?

BTW..the 5th point that you need to get Grizz is Oak Sage

 

[Jek]

Lv 20 Hurrican is listed in the 230 damage range at AS. Did I miss something?

BTW..the 5th point that you need to get Grizz is Oak Sage

With 0 synergies, yeah.

With 20 damage synergy and +10 skills (easily gained now with Spirit and stuff, Fx: Spirit, +3 Elemental Helmet, +3 Amulet, Vipermagic and any other +1), you really don't need damage in that range, but it's easily gained. That setup would yield a 2K tornado, add in Mage Fists and another 20% FCR (rings) and you reach 100% FCR too. More than enough to pull you through most battles, just pure wind - then add in Fissure/Volcano carnage and bing a killingmachine.

I'm about to fight nightmare mephisto on P8, need to finish off Trav first, but my Cyclone Armor along with 60% block, Grizzly and about 1.5k life merc (with Oak) should make it a breeze.
--And no, I don't got +10 skills yet, so far only close encounter I had was two bosspacks that spawned close to each other with auras, extra fast and the stuff.

 

[det]

If you go the wind tree route place 10 in cyclone armor for a 30 sec hurricane, then the rest put in hurricane, you really don't need the tornado since you have physical with your volcano. Your hurricane should be able to get into the 1000 range which is plenty for hurricane to be effective against fire immunes while you use physical from other skills.

Well, I was refering to that part, where no snergies are mentioned (only 10 CA for duration). It sounded too good to be true.

Unfortunately the part that makes it now kind of hard to decide is that I have placed 20 points in Fissue and Volcano...The +skills are indeed easy to come by.

Thanks for the ideas...I'll keep trying it out...

 

[Uzziah]

Well, I was refering to that part, where no snergies are mentioned (only 10 CA for duration). It sounded too good to be true.

Unfortunately the part that makes it now kind of hard to decide is that I have placed 20 points in Fissue and Volcano...The +skills are indeed easy to come by.

Thanks for the ideas...I'll keep trying it out...

My point was you wouldn't need to use tornado for damage so master it last. you have 7 +skills that puts you in the 300 range with hurricane and no synergies, a few twister or tornado synergies will take that damage up also a few more +skills will boost it up, without fully synergizing it you should be able to break the 1000 damage mark which is the mark for hurricane to be effective in hell at players 1-2.

I was also stating that it is a cast and forget style skill unlike te tornado spaming skill.

Oh and at the oak sage comment you're already encompassing it if your going hybird dual elemental.

and maybe 10 Oak

so grizzly is 4 extra points.

If you want to rebuild I suggest Jeks skill placement, or my guide on here to build a dual elemental druid, my guide on the druid forum has 2 different builds and another forumites build. All of which are very effective.

@ jek just out of curiousity how do you handle the charging enemies like those around pindle? My dual elemental is having a heck of a time getting by them, they hit for too freaken much melee physical damage for him. My clay golem and merc barely hold them off and I can't tank with them charging, is there anyway to slow them down or avoid them?

 

[Jek]

Against Pindle I throw up a Grizzly, in front of them then lay a fissure, then run up and spam Tornados while recasting Fissure as much as possible.

Fissure will often times stun the skeletons and halt their charge, 'least on P1.

 

[det]

Nope..no rebuild...Our team is in act NM and we are around lv 51...So it will have to be a Fissue/volcano build and now I can decide where to invest the remaining 40-odd points that are coming up...

 

[psuedoenviro]

I have had good success with a fire/summoner using a might merc 20 fissure/volcano/grizzly and 10 oak/firestorm. I think that is an 84pt build. Anything that wasn't fire/phys immune went down quickly. Fire immune alone was taking more than 2k damage from both merc and bear. Yeah it sucks waiting for minions to kill the 1/3 of monsters that are fire imm, but if your merc is decently equipted they do go down fast.

If you want to go wind skills along with fire may I suggest you put one pt to Armageddon. It would already have max duration from fissure and one synergy maxed. Though it won't do amazing damage it is one more source of stunning enemies and it is cast and forget. You could go 20 fissure/volcano/hurricane, 1 Oak/Grizzly/geddon, 10 tornado, and 5 CA for a 85pt build with a Holy Freeze merc. I just don't know if hurricane will be worthwhile investment if you don't have at least one damage synergy maxed.

I never put more than one pt to Oak until I get to hell since it is phy/poison immune in NM. Undead archers and gloams are about the only things that kill it in NM.

 

[Uzziah]

Against Pindle I throw up a Grizzly,

I figured that was my problem, my build is 100% pure elemental skills, it's a challenge to play but has been extremely fun. no casting Grizzly though, so no chance to block with another minion.

 

[Jek]

I figured that was my problem, my build is 100% pure elemental skills, it's a challenge to play but has been extremely fun. no casting Grizzly though, so no chance to block with another minion.

Hmm, I haven't tried this myself, but have you tried Molten Boulder, it should knock the skeletons away allowing you for some relative safe tornado ownage?

 

[Uzziah]

Hmm, I haven't tried this myself, but have you tried Molten Boulder, it should knock the skeletons away allowing you for some relative safe tornado ownage?

I only have 80 charges of slvl 16 molten boulder, My build is quite unique, the only problems I have ran into were physical immunes in the early part of act 1 hell (which I can now take care of, and these charging enemies) of course the normal FE and fantasicism ranged attacker boss packs.

My build is simple

20 firestorm
20 hurricane
20 tornado
20 twister
1 arctic blast
11 in cyclone armor now at clvl 81

for equipment I have a stone armor for molten boulder charges (synergy bug) and a pelt with +elemental skills + armageddon.

This leaves me with a ~1000 damage per stream firestorm, 1100-1400 hurricane, 2000 tornado, and about 1000 in cyclone armor; a merc and a clay golem for support. Its worked quite well until act 5 Hell. then its been a pain to get going past the frozen areas and pindle.