yiuman
Diabloii.Net Member
new build/guide - the windhammer wolf
This build is inspired by the
Windhammer Ogre Maul
Two-Hand Damage: (215-254) To (296-349) (255.5-301.5 Avg)
Required Level: 68
Required Strength: 225
Durability: 60
Base Weapon Speed: [10]
+180-230% Enhanced Damage (varies)
50% Chance of Crushing Blow
60% Increased Attack Speed
33% Chance To Cast Level 22 Twister On Striking
+50% Damage To Undead
This build has the possibility of good elemental absorption, good physical damage, good cold damage and complete uniqueness and coolness value. It also has the option to go into caster mode with a viable tornado if things get a bit hairy. This is a PVM guide as I don’t really play PVP but my guess is that this build has possibilities against casters and has a mix of physical and cold damage and the possibility of poison damage so should be hard to resist against. If anyone wants to add a PVP section please feel free.
The idea behind thus build is to make the most of the 33% Chance to cast a lvl 22 Twister. With a lvl5 or above WW this weapon hits a 5 frame fury, and lets of a twister every 1 in 3 hits. That’s a lot of twisters. A lvl 22 twister only does 78-83 damage, but when fully synergised it does a more useful 390 to 415 and stuns for 0.4 secs.
The Skills would look something like this.
Fury (max)
Hurricane (max)
Tornado (max)
Cyclone Armour (max)
Oak/HoW/Twister/rabies (max one or distribute the points between one spirit and twister)
Prereqs (6-8 including lycanthropy and raven).
As you can see this build requires 106-8 skill points and so can’t be finished until lvl 95-7. My advice is to max Oak/HoW/Twister/rabies last, but if you go with a spirit you can put up to 5 in early on to make the spirit a last a bit longer. If you go with rabies, you have to wear the carrion wind ring to synergise it.
Variants
Max wind damage (my personal favorite)
This build maxes twister as a synergy to hurricane, tornado and CA. With this set up and 15 + skills
Tornado: 4179 to 4416 Physical Damage
Hurricane: 1941 to 2056 Cold Damage
CA: 2329 Elemental Damage Absorbed
Fury: 3.5k
Complete at lvl 95
Max Fury damage
This build has HoW to boost the damage of fury. With 15 +skills this means
Tornado: 3062 to 3236 Physical Damage
Hurricane: 1219 to 1291 Cold Damage
CA: 1733 Elemental Damage Absorbed
Fury: 4.5k
Complete at lvl 97
Max life
This build maxes Oak sage for the life bonus. With 15 +skills this means
It has Tornado: 3062 to 3236 Physical Damage
Hurricane: 1219 to 1291 Cold Damage
CA: 1733 Elemental Damage Absorbed
Fury: 3.5k
Life: +200%
Complete at lvl 96
Rabies
I’ve never tried this build, but it could work. Using the carrion wind bug to synergise it, 20 points could go into rabies to throw a lot of poison damage into the mix.
This build would have Tornado: 3062 to 3236 Physical Damage
Hurricane: 1219 to 1291 Cold Damage
CA: 1733 Elemental Damage Absorbed
Fury: 3.5k
Rabies damage: 4k
Complete at lvl 95
If you are using the max wind damage or rabies build you might want to consider putting one point in Oak/HoW and letting plus skills boost it to a viable level, you might find yourself having to recast it often though. This obviously adds 1 or 2 levels to your completion lvl though.
Order to max skills/levelling.
It depends on if you want to play as a caster or melee in your early days. If melee, max fury first, then CA, then hurricane, then tornado, then your final variant skill.
For low/mid level melee weapons see Electric Blues Hybrid Wolf guide, but add in the khalims will flail and remember that Bonesnap and Steeldriver can be upgraded to mean mid level weapons. Good starting armour is the sigon’s set once you have the strength. I also like cathans rings and amulets for extra str/ll and fire damage.
If caster, max tornado and hurricane first, then mix CA and fury so that fury is reasonable (preferably maxed) when you hit level 68, and then your variant skill last.
I’ve never levelled a wind druid so can’t really offer advice, but I guess fast cast is a must such as sanders wand, rings of the apprentice and maybe a rare circlet.
Stats
Str: Enough to get 225 with equipment
Dex: base
Vit: Everything else
Energy: base
Equipment
Weapon1: Well duh! Socketed with a 40dmg/something useful jewel
Weapon Switch: CtA, +druid skills club, demon limb, earth shifter (+7 ele skills and you have the str already)
Shield switch (if not using earth shifer): Sigons/lidless/Spirit(if on ladder) (for the +skill)
Helm: nightwing/jalals/shako/delirium* in a nice pelt/whitsans
Armour: Enigma**, CoH, Shaft, Vipermagi, Duriel’s, Stone, Duress(if on realms)
Belt: Verdungos, Arachnids, String
Gloves: any elite unique/crafted
Boots: Gore Riders, War Travellers, Waterwalk/crafted
Ring1: Raven
Ring2: BK/SoJ/Carrion
Amulet: Atma’s/Highlords/Mara/crafted
* If you are using a delirium pelt, you might like to look for +grizzly and +Oak/HoW (if you don’t use one already), then you can get the benefit of these without putting points in them and with enough plus skills they can become very helpful skills.
** As you need 225str it might be worthwhile putting enigma in a high str/high def armour to get the most defence possible instead of the usual low str armour(especially if you are going with a defiance merc), bear in mind though that you may be relying on enigma to give you a lot of str, so make sure you can put it on in the first place!
Possible set combinations are the IK Gloves, Belt and Boots, Angelic Ammy and rings (if AR needed), but I think that the combination of uniques/runewords above is much better.
Charms: +SS and +ele skillers, anni, +life, +res, max dmg AR etc. you know how it goes.
With the proper selection of gear you can get close to or above 100% CB and DS. Giving a 7k (9k with HoW) fury and 100% CB, letting off a 0.5k twister every 0.5secs (approx.) with a 1.2k (2k with max twister) hurricane hitting everything around you just over once per sec and a CA absorbing 1.7k (2.3k with max twister) elemental damage and a reasonable DR. Now I think that that is not bad at all! And then, if you are getting your ass kicked, you can switch to caster mode, stand back and cast 3k (4.5k with max twister) tornados at them whilst your merc and gizzly (if you got it on a pelt) tank them.
Resists are not so important, as you should be casting CA every 50 secs or so which will absorb 1.7k (2.3k with max twister) elemental damage, but having them will improve your survivability if anything does penetrate your CA.
Merc: well as your hurricane is doing the freezing for you, a HF merc is out so you either want a defiance or a might merc. It’s your call as to defence/offence. I choose offence, but that’s just me.
Tactics.
Simple really, use CtA/demon limb if you have it, cast CA and hurricane with your plus ele skills weapon switch, shift into a wolf, charge up feral rage and then fury away, hitting feral rage every now and then to keep it up. When hurricane wears off (even with max CA it only lasts 50 secs), disengage ASAP, shift back to human, recast hurricane/CA (if needed), shift to wolf and repeat. Although it is a bit of a pain to be shifting back and forth all the time, don’t be tempted to just use fury until you shift naturally as you will lose a lot of your killing power and the enjoyment of the build.
NOTE: I have just assumed +15 skills as a reasonable number for people to get. It is possible to get more thus increasing the damage. It is also possible to have a separate elemental/SS gear selection with charms, ammys, pelts etc, but as you will be casting hurricane every 50s and in melee the rest of the time, that just seemed like too much switching in and out so you would never kill anything! So I thought it best to have earthshaker on switch, CtA (and demon limb if you really need the AR) in your inventory/cube/stash to use when necessary and then a mix of skillers in your inventory to taste.
Whilst doing some research, I came across this:
Horizon’s Tornado
One-Hand Damage: (9-11) To (264-304) (136.5-157.5 Avg)
Required Level: 64
Required Strength: 100
Required Dexterity: 62
Durability: 65
Base Weapon Speed: [-10]
+230-280% Enhanced Damage (varies)
+50% Damage To Undead
+50% Increased Attack Speed
Slows Target By 20%
20% Chance To Cast Level 15 Tornado On Striking
Requirements -20%
It strikes me that with some minor modifications (such as maxing twister instead of tornado) this build applies to this weapon as well using the 20% chance to cast a lvl 15 tornado. With max synergies a lvl 15 twister would do 1.2k damage and would fire slightly less often. Because it is a one hander there is the possibility to add a shield to the build making it a more durable build, but with a corresponding drop in damage. Still, it might be viable, but as I don’t have this weapon I can’t test it.
Damage calculated using Kerygma’s CDQ calculator (fury) and Natures Storm (hurricane, tornado, CA). Fury attack speed calculated using the calculator at Wereform central.
Any comments, suggestions more than welcome.
This build is inspired by the
Windhammer Ogre Maul
Two-Hand Damage: (215-254) To (296-349) (255.5-301.5 Avg)
Required Level: 68
Required Strength: 225
Durability: 60
Base Weapon Speed: [10]
+180-230% Enhanced Damage (varies)
50% Chance of Crushing Blow
60% Increased Attack Speed
33% Chance To Cast Level 22 Twister On Striking
+50% Damage To Undead
This build has the possibility of good elemental absorption, good physical damage, good cold damage and complete uniqueness and coolness value. It also has the option to go into caster mode with a viable tornado if things get a bit hairy. This is a PVM guide as I don’t really play PVP but my guess is that this build has possibilities against casters and has a mix of physical and cold damage and the possibility of poison damage so should be hard to resist against. If anyone wants to add a PVP section please feel free.
The idea behind thus build is to make the most of the 33% Chance to cast a lvl 22 Twister. With a lvl5 or above WW this weapon hits a 5 frame fury, and lets of a twister every 1 in 3 hits. That’s a lot of twisters. A lvl 22 twister only does 78-83 damage, but when fully synergised it does a more useful 390 to 415 and stuns for 0.4 secs.
The Skills would look something like this.
Fury (max)
Hurricane (max)
Tornado (max)
Cyclone Armour (max)
Oak/HoW/Twister/rabies (max one or distribute the points between one spirit and twister)
Prereqs (6-8 including lycanthropy and raven).
As you can see this build requires 106-8 skill points and so can’t be finished until lvl 95-7. My advice is to max Oak/HoW/Twister/rabies last, but if you go with a spirit you can put up to 5 in early on to make the spirit a last a bit longer. If you go with rabies, you have to wear the carrion wind ring to synergise it.
Variants
Max wind damage (my personal favorite)
This build maxes twister as a synergy to hurricane, tornado and CA. With this set up and 15 + skills
Tornado: 4179 to 4416 Physical Damage
Hurricane: 1941 to 2056 Cold Damage
CA: 2329 Elemental Damage Absorbed
Fury: 3.5k
Complete at lvl 95
Max Fury damage
This build has HoW to boost the damage of fury. With 15 +skills this means
Tornado: 3062 to 3236 Physical Damage
Hurricane: 1219 to 1291 Cold Damage
CA: 1733 Elemental Damage Absorbed
Fury: 4.5k
Complete at lvl 97
Max life
This build maxes Oak sage for the life bonus. With 15 +skills this means
It has Tornado: 3062 to 3236 Physical Damage
Hurricane: 1219 to 1291 Cold Damage
CA: 1733 Elemental Damage Absorbed
Fury: 3.5k
Life: +200%
Complete at lvl 96
Rabies
I’ve never tried this build, but it could work. Using the carrion wind bug to synergise it, 20 points could go into rabies to throw a lot of poison damage into the mix.
This build would have Tornado: 3062 to 3236 Physical Damage
Hurricane: 1219 to 1291 Cold Damage
CA: 1733 Elemental Damage Absorbed
Fury: 3.5k
Rabies damage: 4k
Complete at lvl 95
If you are using the max wind damage or rabies build you might want to consider putting one point in Oak/HoW and letting plus skills boost it to a viable level, you might find yourself having to recast it often though. This obviously adds 1 or 2 levels to your completion lvl though.
Order to max skills/levelling.
It depends on if you want to play as a caster or melee in your early days. If melee, max fury first, then CA, then hurricane, then tornado, then your final variant skill.
For low/mid level melee weapons see Electric Blues Hybrid Wolf guide, but add in the khalims will flail and remember that Bonesnap and Steeldriver can be upgraded to mean mid level weapons. Good starting armour is the sigon’s set once you have the strength. I also like cathans rings and amulets for extra str/ll and fire damage.
If caster, max tornado and hurricane first, then mix CA and fury so that fury is reasonable (preferably maxed) when you hit level 68, and then your variant skill last.
I’ve never levelled a wind druid so can’t really offer advice, but I guess fast cast is a must such as sanders wand, rings of the apprentice and maybe a rare circlet.
Stats
Str: Enough to get 225 with equipment
Dex: base
Vit: Everything else
Energy: base
Equipment
Weapon1: Well duh! Socketed with a 40dmg/something useful jewel
Weapon Switch: CtA, +druid skills club, demon limb, earth shifter (+7 ele skills and you have the str already)
Shield switch (if not using earth shifer): Sigons/lidless/Spirit(if on ladder) (for the +skill)
Helm: nightwing/jalals/shako/delirium* in a nice pelt/whitsans
Armour: Enigma**, CoH, Shaft, Vipermagi, Duriel’s, Stone, Duress(if on realms)
Belt: Verdungos, Arachnids, String
Gloves: any elite unique/crafted
Boots: Gore Riders, War Travellers, Waterwalk/crafted
Ring1: Raven
Ring2: BK/SoJ/Carrion
Amulet: Atma’s/Highlords/Mara/crafted
* If you are using a delirium pelt, you might like to look for +grizzly and +Oak/HoW (if you don’t use one already), then you can get the benefit of these without putting points in them and with enough plus skills they can become very helpful skills.
** As you need 225str it might be worthwhile putting enigma in a high str/high def armour to get the most defence possible instead of the usual low str armour(especially if you are going with a defiance merc), bear in mind though that you may be relying on enigma to give you a lot of str, so make sure you can put it on in the first place!
Possible set combinations are the IK Gloves, Belt and Boots, Angelic Ammy and rings (if AR needed), but I think that the combination of uniques/runewords above is much better.
Charms: +SS and +ele skillers, anni, +life, +res, max dmg AR etc. you know how it goes.
With the proper selection of gear you can get close to or above 100% CB and DS. Giving a 7k (9k with HoW) fury and 100% CB, letting off a 0.5k twister every 0.5secs (approx.) with a 1.2k (2k with max twister) hurricane hitting everything around you just over once per sec and a CA absorbing 1.7k (2.3k with max twister) elemental damage and a reasonable DR. Now I think that that is not bad at all! And then, if you are getting your ass kicked, you can switch to caster mode, stand back and cast 3k (4.5k with max twister) tornados at them whilst your merc and gizzly (if you got it on a pelt) tank them.
Resists are not so important, as you should be casting CA every 50 secs or so which will absorb 1.7k (2.3k with max twister) elemental damage, but having them will improve your survivability if anything does penetrate your CA.
Merc: well as your hurricane is doing the freezing for you, a HF merc is out so you either want a defiance or a might merc. It’s your call as to defence/offence. I choose offence, but that’s just me.
Tactics.
Simple really, use CtA/demon limb if you have it, cast CA and hurricane with your plus ele skills weapon switch, shift into a wolf, charge up feral rage and then fury away, hitting feral rage every now and then to keep it up. When hurricane wears off (even with max CA it only lasts 50 secs), disengage ASAP, shift back to human, recast hurricane/CA (if needed), shift to wolf and repeat. Although it is a bit of a pain to be shifting back and forth all the time, don’t be tempted to just use fury until you shift naturally as you will lose a lot of your killing power and the enjoyment of the build.
NOTE: I have just assumed +15 skills as a reasonable number for people to get. It is possible to get more thus increasing the damage. It is also possible to have a separate elemental/SS gear selection with charms, ammys, pelts etc, but as you will be casting hurricane every 50s and in melee the rest of the time, that just seemed like too much switching in and out so you would never kill anything! So I thought it best to have earthshaker on switch, CtA (and demon limb if you really need the AR) in your inventory/cube/stash to use when necessary and then a mix of skillers in your inventory to taste.
Whilst doing some research, I came across this:
Horizon’s Tornado
One-Hand Damage: (9-11) To (264-304) (136.5-157.5 Avg)
Required Level: 64
Required Strength: 100
Required Dexterity: 62
Durability: 65
Base Weapon Speed: [-10]
+230-280% Enhanced Damage (varies)
+50% Damage To Undead
+50% Increased Attack Speed
Slows Target By 20%
20% Chance To Cast Level 15 Tornado On Striking
Requirements -20%
It strikes me that with some minor modifications (such as maxing twister instead of tornado) this build applies to this weapon as well using the 20% chance to cast a lvl 15 tornado. With max synergies a lvl 15 twister would do 1.2k damage and would fire slightly less often. Because it is a one hander there is the possibility to add a shield to the build making it a more durable build, but with a corresponding drop in damage. Still, it might be viable, but as I don’t have this weapon I can’t test it.
Damage calculated using Kerygma’s CDQ calculator (fury) and Natures Storm (hurricane, tornado, CA). Fury attack speed calculated using the calculator at Wereform central.
Any comments, suggestions more than welcome.
