Spellcasting

[Liberator]

Spellcasting

I'm not a big fan of Shapeshifters and am currently developing a druid with summoning skills and a little earth magic for spice(don't use it alot because most of my points are in the summoning) and I have a couple of questions.

1)How useful are the ravens at higher levels and does their blind curse affect boss types? I currently have a flock of five, BTW.

2)What elemental branch should I persue? I currently have a couple of points in firestorm(literally 2) so I can go either way.

My druid is currently lvl 17.

Also, for a less substitive question, why is the druid's elemental tree so nerfed? A max level elemental druid, especially given the fact that all their spells have a cast delay, has nowhere near the kind of damage level required to complete Hell difficulty and from what I've read have some difficulty with Nightmare. Why is this? Because his other 2 tree are much more powerful than the equivalent in the other classes, especially shapeshifting?

 

[Skelly]

Ravens are very good at higher lvl for blinding enemies which is a very good thing vs. packs but i wouldn't put any points in them.Let the +skills get the ravens to the desired lvl.I think u need lvl 15~ ravens to blind enemies that are same lvl as u are (at 100% chance that is) so u shouldnt have much problem geting ravens to that lvl (summon GC are rather cheap).
As for fire skills i would go with Fissure and max one of its sinergies (preferably Volcano) because its good for dealing with packs which is a thing that druid summons are weak vs.
Build u are doing (summons+fire skills+bow) is called Huntermentalist and Beowulf is very experienced with him so u should ask him, but i think he will be posting here soon

 

[Beowulf]

You seem to be looking at a huntermentalist, that is if you added a bow. I would max volcano and fissure on the elemental side and max bear with either oak if you want more life or HoW if you want more damage. I would also get a might merc for more damage for you, your bear and you merc. As for ravens I am not a big fan as they can overwrite better cureses like amp or lower res which help you more.

 

[Liberator]

Okay, thanks!

 

[Liberator]

I hate to double reply to my own thread but no one ever answered my OT question. Why is the Druid's Elemental tree not as powerful as the Sorceress or Necromancer at high levels?

 

[Weltkriegpally]

I hate to double reply to my own thread but no one ever answered my OT question. Why is the Druid's Elemental tree not as powerful as the Sorceress or Necromancer at high levels?

really, its every bit as powerful as a necros, maybe more so. as far as sorcs go, he isn't meant to be the pure caster that they are. he can go melee, he gets summons, with the summons he can get nice tanks, or a life bonus, or anything like that, and really, a druids elemental tree has a lot of nice things about it. A lot of the attacks are sort of random, but do just fine once you learn how to aim them. Druids have different advantages. The fire attacks mix damage (physical/fire) although every one of them has a timer on it. Wind elementals can do more physical damage easily than even the best geared melee can do, and he can spam his pretty quickly. He has less immunes, he can tank better, and some of his spells last a good deal longer than a sorc or necros (ok, only geddon/hurricane, but still). And really, don't underestimate the spells. For instance, volcano seems like a little crap spell that most don't use. Upon closer inspection, you get this:: lets assume a 1k damage partially synergized volcano (its about right, no biggy if it isn't) you can stick it under a target and it does good there. It releases 42 little balls, assuming even half of them actually hit, thats 21k damage, half physical, half fire. I don't know many sorc spells that can match that. Lets take a look at a wind elemental. You get a tornado going at 3k damage. Doesn't seem like much, and it hits in a semi random path. On the flipside, thats a lot of damage, it has no timer, and it hits multiple targets, or if the target is big enough, twice there. If it hits one twice, its 6k damage (and if its an act boss, it can hit thrice, for about 9k damage...per spam). thats 6k very hard to resist automatically piercing damage that of all the necro and sorc spells combined, only bone spear can match, and he has more immunes to his. Maybe you should rethink your position on a druid's elemental tree. Its really very powerful.


--welt

 

[Liberator]

Perhaps, but it appears to me as an outsider who plays for fun and doesn't get bogged down in the numbers and such(some of the abreviations here are as cryptic as Kanji(one of the several written languages of Japan) is to a non-speaker(like me) it appears to be unreliable. The spells that need spammability, like firestorm, have a rediculously long timer on them(a full second for a 1st level spell? I mean WTF?!?!?) and the spammable spells are highly unpredictable, often requiring the caster to get up in the face of the Boss they are trying to use them on to hit them(which is suicide in Hell). Fissure, while the best of the fire spells vs. a boss still isn't a guaranteed hit. And while it's cool that all the fire spells have per second duration damages(it's quite cool to watch the low level enemies lifebars tick down while their standing in a firestorm) they don't have "instant" damage like other offensive trees thus giving the agile enemies time to get out of the area of effect before they die or in some cases before they take any damage at all.

You also made the assumption that a Druid would diverge his skills into one of the other trees, thus becoming a shapeshifter or a summoner. But what if I wanted to stay a "perfect" elementalist? The elemental tree doesn't have enough reliability to power ratio for me to be able to complete the 3 levels of difficulty without investing significant time and character points in becoming a powerful melee fighter in the process, which is the opposite of why you become an offensive caster, to keep from getting up close to those enemies in Hell that can kill you in a single swipe. Even with bonus skill points from enigma(+3), the spiderweb sash(+1), that +2 unique amulet, the +2 spired helm and wall of the eyeless(+1) that's a total of +9 to skills, I've never managed to find a Stone of Jordan(no wisecracks, I play SP for fun and don't actually see the point of magic find runs, they're not really any fun and become quite dull after the second one) and most of the easily found good melee weapons don't have any +skills on them.

 

[Forcefeedback]

Hi!

I have to say fire elementalists are pretty hard to master, they need loads of skill points to maximize their offence(80 hard points) thus oak sage is slvl 1 for a long time and if you aren't venturing into the summon tree at all you will be left without a recastable tank(grizzly). If you intend to have maximum block your life will also be quite low since the equipment that has +skills usually offer no life bonuses.
This means you will have more or less a fragile character with timered spells that are random. It sounds intimidating but there are pros to being a fire mentalist. Since you don't want to stay near the enemies you should max one of the ranged spells first, meaning fissure or volcano. Molten boulder is medium ranged and firestorm does 1/3 of the potential to medium range so you can pick either of them too if you prefer it.

I have to agree that fire spells aren't the best at killing some bosses(diablo for example) but the fissure volcano combination usually is enough for most monsters, fissure all the moving monsters, plant a volcano under any tough monster that is stationary(being tanked by merc or grizzly) repeat, retreat and recast as needed.

I'm currently playing through hell with my wind druid and he is doing fine. Early in hell when I was still doing mausoleum runs I had +1 skill, negative resists and little life coming from gear and still did reasonably against the highest level normal monsters in the game. My merc didn't fare that well though, needed constant reviving and resurrection.
As I said fire druids are tough to build but they are more interesting IMHO, they require tactics to kill and skill of avoiding blows to survive(I think of it as the dance of death, always staring death straight in the eyes but most of time eluding it). Wind druids are easier and safer due to cyclone armors elemental absorb, hurricanes chilling effect and the lack of physical immune monsters.

Good luck with your elementalist! :thumbsup:

edit: Dark clan crusher unique cudgel shouldn't be too hard to find and it has +2 to druid skills. Even I have multiples of it, but since I'm into druids and have many of them I haven't got any free ones at the moment so can't donate one at the moment. Check the giveaways at single player forum if you can't afford to trade for one.

 

[Liberator]

Thanks for the offer but I play SP exclusively and this is more of a rant that the druid elemental tree isn't as reliable as it should be.

 

[Weltkriegpally]

well, I just played an untwinked fire ele through on ladder solo. I was thru hell by level 82 (I did some extra exp runs in nightmare), and frankly, there are some things about him I appreciated a good deal. Fissure does great against moving boss backs, moulten boulder is actually an excellent way of controlling fire immune packs (that you can move), and firestorm is the best darned boss killing skill I have used in a looooong time. My damage is just a little over 2k with my minimal plus skills, but thats 3x2k and it does a number on all of the act bosses. My biggest regret with the fire elemental is getting any of the summons. I should have gone for geddon or something instead. as far as the firestorm skill goes, its timer is 0.37 seconds, not a full second. so you can "spam" them pretty well, far better than most of the fire skills. I enjoy that, myself.

--welt

 

[Salo]

Thanks for the offer but I play SP exclusively and this is more of a rant that the druid elemental tree isn't as reliable as it should be.

i dont get it.

why do you or other people play SP?
yet you can go on the web and chat.

Very strange to me .... ??