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As of late I don’t have much time to put into D2 and have burned out of doing the long grinds for runes and items with my trapper. I do have a large base of items to play around with, so I figured I’d try to experiment with some builds and gear that I hadn’t previously given much thought to. This is where Pooh was born. I originally had intended this to be a Werebear druid (hence the name), but I respected to Werewolf at about halfway through Normal and never looked back.
The idea behind this build was to combine the innate attack speed and power of Fury with the nice bonuses that come with the IK set. Using 5/6 items from that set gives Pooh the ability to deal out high amounts of physical and elemental damage very quickly, which means there are no enemies this build cannot handle. Massive life leach and AR means that as long as you are connecting, there are very few enemies that can hit you hard enough and fast enough to be a serious threat. All in all, it was a rather enjoyable experience, and highly recommended to those who are looking to build an effective boss runner on the cheap.
Skills
This is your usual Fury druid, so nothing special here. I like to spend my extra points pumping my bear's life, though there are probably other equally valid uses.
Fury 20
Lycanthropy 20
Werewolf 8
Feral Rage 3
Heart of Wolverine 20
Werebear 1
Dire Wolf 20
Gear
As the name of this build would suggest, Pooh used 5/6 IK Set, which accounted for most of his gear. Even while not able to take full advantage of the set (that would just be ridiculous), it has quite a lot to offer a Fury druid. It may not be the ideal setup, but it performs pretty well for the relatively cheap cost of most of the gear.
Weapon: Immortal King's Stone Crusher + ETHETH
Let me be quite up front about this- I really dig this weapon on a Fury druid. When using the 5/6 setup this bad boy packs up to 1500 extra elemental damage per hit, along with 40% crushing blow, and an additional 200% ED to undead and demons. To make things even better, the Druid has an extremely high native speed with maces, and coupled with the bonus from Werewolf and the gear it's pretty much automatic reaching the max 6 FPA breakpoint. I elected to socket it with 2 eths to reduce enemy defense by 50%, which I felt was more cost effective than dropping a Jah. Given the high AR of the build, hitting things was never an issue and damage was more than enough to shred the vast majority of things Pooh came across. Oh, and it's also indestructable, a must unless you want to be running back to town every 3 minutes.
Armor: Immortal King's Soul Cage + 40% ED Ruby Jewel
Adds a ton of resists and a nifty little Enchant proc to boot. I decided to socket a Ruby jewel and eat the Strength requirement as I was already getting quite a bit of Strength from my gear and didn't really need the additional life.
Belt: Immortal King’s Detail
Great belt with a 20% DR and a big strength bonus. Also extra HR and resists.
Gloves: Immortal King’s Forge
Some IAS, and nice stat boosts, but the real key was the 10% Mana leech, which was useful for when mana burners appeared. Obviously the extra life leech is nice too.
Boots: Immortal King’s Pillar
Probably the least useful of all the IK gear, but still has enough nice boosts such as AR and life to make them acceptable. That and I need them to get the most out of the other pieces of gear.
Helmet: Jalal’s Mane + Um
This was the hardest piece of equipment to decide: Guilliame’s face meant more CB, but 40% was already working well enough. I didn’t need the extra protection from vamp’s gaze, so I decided to use the old mainstay and Um it to make sure resists were covered. Not a very creative decision, but I couldn’t see a better option here.
Amulet: Highlord’s Wrath
I didn’t need the IAS, and the +1 level is really not that important. All in all, it was really only adding deadly strike, which was useful considering I wasn’t able to use Gore’s for my boots. Not really sure what else would be useful here.
Rings: Ravenfrost + (Wisp Projector or Dwarf Star)
Ravenfrost was already a given, so the question remained what to do with the other Ring. Wisp projector essentially cancels out all lightning damage assuming your resists are maxed, so I used this for most areas of the game since lightning is probably the most dangerous element. Dwarf star was used in Act 4 mainly.
Charms: 3 +15% Resist all charms and a handful of random vita small charms. This character would have been pretty much unstoppable with proper vita charms in place. No torch or anni needed here!
Switch: Call to Arms and Lidless Wall
Honestly, I never used CtA as it has to be cast before you morph and it’s a pain to do over and over. Maybe if I can find that eth Ribcracker this would be a good place for it.
Merc Gear:
Weapon: Reaper’s Toll
Armor: Leviathan + Um
Helmet: Vamp’s Gaze
Used the typical Might merc. All in all he did fairly well, and his decrepify helped make quicker work of some of the boss PI’s, though it wasn't necessary.
Gameplay:
After respec to a wolf, I trudged through the game until I could throw on a Ribcracker, which took me through nightmare rather easily. I then grinded Pindleskin at P7 until I hit level 76, at which point I geared out my wolf and merc.
The jump in performance was downright ridiculous. I pretty much one-shot everything all the way until Act 4 of Hell, and even then two Fury attacks were enough to bring down anything, including the rather sturdy Venom Lords and the occasional PI. Bosses went down rather quickly as well. There might have been one or two areas in Act 5 that presented real danger for Pooh, the Serpent Magus/Burning Soul multi boss packs made things interesting for a bit.
Obviously there is no such thing as a full-proof build, and this build had its moments where I had to retreat momentarily due to getting mobbed, recast my bear, and then attack. Archer skeletons posed the biggest threat as you can’t leech off of them, as do Stygian dolls, especially when cursed. As long as you keep the PI’s down to manageable numbers and let the merc handle the dolls, there really isn't much else to worry about with this build.
The damage isn't ridiculously high, so it probably isn't realistic to for high player settings in Hell. Still, most of the items are relatively cheap and you get pretty good bang for your buck. Not one death or near death throughout the whole run, which is pretty remarkable considering how aggressive I was playing with this character.
This is far from the most optimal build for a Fury druid, but it definitely is one of the more cost effective and versatile setups for PvM. If you can stand the grind up to 76, you'll definitely be rewarded with a fun, fast paced killer.
The idea behind this build was to combine the innate attack speed and power of Fury with the nice bonuses that come with the IK set. Using 5/6 items from that set gives Pooh the ability to deal out high amounts of physical and elemental damage very quickly, which means there are no enemies this build cannot handle. Massive life leach and AR means that as long as you are connecting, there are very few enemies that can hit you hard enough and fast enough to be a serious threat. All in all, it was a rather enjoyable experience, and highly recommended to those who are looking to build an effective boss runner on the cheap.
Skills
This is your usual Fury druid, so nothing special here. I like to spend my extra points pumping my bear's life, though there are probably other equally valid uses.
Fury 20
Lycanthropy 20
Werewolf 8
Feral Rage 3
Heart of Wolverine 20
Werebear 1
Dire Wolf 20
Gear
As the name of this build would suggest, Pooh used 5/6 IK Set, which accounted for most of his gear. Even while not able to take full advantage of the set (that would just be ridiculous), it has quite a lot to offer a Fury druid. It may not be the ideal setup, but it performs pretty well for the relatively cheap cost of most of the gear.
Weapon: Immortal King's Stone Crusher + ETHETH
Let me be quite up front about this- I really dig this weapon on a Fury druid. When using the 5/6 setup this bad boy packs up to 1500 extra elemental damage per hit, along with 40% crushing blow, and an additional 200% ED to undead and demons. To make things even better, the Druid has an extremely high native speed with maces, and coupled with the bonus from Werewolf and the gear it's pretty much automatic reaching the max 6 FPA breakpoint. I elected to socket it with 2 eths to reduce enemy defense by 50%, which I felt was more cost effective than dropping a Jah. Given the high AR of the build, hitting things was never an issue and damage was more than enough to shred the vast majority of things Pooh came across. Oh, and it's also indestructable, a must unless you want to be running back to town every 3 minutes.
Armor: Immortal King's Soul Cage + 40% ED Ruby Jewel
Adds a ton of resists and a nifty little Enchant proc to boot. I decided to socket a Ruby jewel and eat the Strength requirement as I was already getting quite a bit of Strength from my gear and didn't really need the additional life.
Belt: Immortal King’s Detail
Great belt with a 20% DR and a big strength bonus. Also extra HR and resists.
Gloves: Immortal King’s Forge
Some IAS, and nice stat boosts, but the real key was the 10% Mana leech, which was useful for when mana burners appeared. Obviously the extra life leech is nice too.
Boots: Immortal King’s Pillar
Probably the least useful of all the IK gear, but still has enough nice boosts such as AR and life to make them acceptable. That and I need them to get the most out of the other pieces of gear.
Helmet: Jalal’s Mane + Um
This was the hardest piece of equipment to decide: Guilliame’s face meant more CB, but 40% was already working well enough. I didn’t need the extra protection from vamp’s gaze, so I decided to use the old mainstay and Um it to make sure resists were covered. Not a very creative decision, but I couldn’t see a better option here.
Amulet: Highlord’s Wrath
I didn’t need the IAS, and the +1 level is really not that important. All in all, it was really only adding deadly strike, which was useful considering I wasn’t able to use Gore’s for my boots. Not really sure what else would be useful here.
Rings: Ravenfrost + (Wisp Projector or Dwarf Star)
Ravenfrost was already a given, so the question remained what to do with the other Ring. Wisp projector essentially cancels out all lightning damage assuming your resists are maxed, so I used this for most areas of the game since lightning is probably the most dangerous element. Dwarf star was used in Act 4 mainly.
Charms: 3 +15% Resist all charms and a handful of random vita small charms. This character would have been pretty much unstoppable with proper vita charms in place. No torch or anni needed here!
Switch: Call to Arms and Lidless Wall
Honestly, I never used CtA as it has to be cast before you morph and it’s a pain to do over and over. Maybe if I can find that eth Ribcracker this would be a good place for it.
Merc Gear:
Weapon: Reaper’s Toll
Armor: Leviathan + Um
Helmet: Vamp’s Gaze
Used the typical Might merc. All in all he did fairly well, and his decrepify helped make quicker work of some of the boss PI’s, though it wasn't necessary.
Gameplay:
After respec to a wolf, I trudged through the game until I could throw on a Ribcracker, which took me through nightmare rather easily. I then grinded Pindleskin at P7 until I hit level 76, at which point I geared out my wolf and merc.
The jump in performance was downright ridiculous. I pretty much one-shot everything all the way until Act 4 of Hell, and even then two Fury attacks were enough to bring down anything, including the rather sturdy Venom Lords and the occasional PI. Bosses went down rather quickly as well. There might have been one or two areas in Act 5 that presented real danger for Pooh, the Serpent Magus/Burning Soul multi boss packs made things interesting for a bit.
Obviously there is no such thing as a full-proof build, and this build had its moments where I had to retreat momentarily due to getting mobbed, recast my bear, and then attack. Archer skeletons posed the biggest threat as you can’t leech off of them, as do Stygian dolls, especially when cursed. As long as you keep the PI’s down to manageable numbers and let the merc handle the dolls, there really isn't much else to worry about with this build.
The damage isn't ridiculously high, so it probably isn't realistic to for high player settings in Hell. Still, most of the items are relatively cheap and you get pretty good bang for your buck. Not one death or near death throughout the whole run, which is pretty remarkable considering how aggressive I was playing with this character.
This is far from the most optimal build for a Fury druid, but it definitely is one of the more cost effective and versatile setups for PvM. If you can stand the grind up to 76, you'll definitely be rewarded with a fun, fast paced killer.