12-04-2004, 01:22 PM
All Druid Guides that members have put together can be found here.
If you have a guide organize it and pm it to a mod and it will be added and you will be given credit for the guide
This build works best for PvP, but it can be tweaked for an average mf runner. I don't take credit for ingenuity (as far as the skill allocations are concerned) cos this build isn't new, but as I haven't seen it posted around, I thought I'd give it a go. Realise that the elementalist tree was one of the weakest builds in 1.09 but since the synergies came out, its become a lot more fun to play...and a lot more powerful. In fact its one of the strongest, if not the best all-round PvP build that exists for 1.10. So here goes:
Skills:
Arctic blast 1
Cyclone armour 20
Twister 20
Tornado 20
Hurricane 20
Oak Sage 20
Max Oak Sage last
Stats:
Strength: put 40 stat points here
Dexterity: put 165 points here*
Vitality: Everything else goes here*
Energy:base (20) put no points in Energy
*If you are thinking of leveling up past lvl 90, you need to put points in dex again to keep blocking rate at 75%, also if not using Hoto and Annihilus (see below) you will need an extra 30 dex points.
Equipment:
Heart of the Oak Runeword (set in a normal flail for min. requirements)
4 Socketed Staves/Maces* Ko + Vex + Pul + Thul
+3 To All Skills
+40% Faster Cast Rate
+75% Damage To Demons
+100 To Attack Rating Against Demons
Adds 3-14 Cold Damage, 3 sec. Duration (Normal)
7% Mana Stolen Per Hit
+10 To Dexterity
Replenish Life +20
Increase Maximum Mana 15%
All Resistances +30-40 (varies)
Level 4 Oak Sage (25 Charges)
Level 14 Raven (60 Charges)
+50% Damage To Undead
* Maces = Mace, Morning Star, Flail, and Exceptional/Elite versions ONLY
Harlequin´s Crest (socketed with um or p.Topaz for mf)
Defense: 98-141 (varies)
Required Level: 62
Required Strength: 50
Durability: 12
+2 To All Skills
+ (1.5 Per Character Level) 1-148 To Life (Based On Character Level)
+ (1.5 Per Character Level) 1-148 To Mana (Based On Character Level)
Damage Reduced By 10%
50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 To All Attributes
Enigma Runeword (set in Mage Plate)
3 Socket Body Armor Jah + Ith + Ber
+2 To All Skills
+45% Faster Run/Walk
+1 To Teleport
+750-775 Defense (varies)
+ (0.75 Per Character Level) +0-74 To Strength (Based On Character Level)
Increase Maximum Life 5%
Damage Reduced By 8%
+14 Life After Each Kill
15% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+ (1 Per Character Level) +1-99% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based On Character Level)
Stormshield (socketed with a -15%req/15%resist jewel or with hel rune)
Defense: (136-504) - (151-519) (varies)(Base Defense: 133-148)
Required Level: 73
Required Strength: 156
Chance to Block: Pal: 77%, Ama/Asn/Bar: 72%, Druid/Nec/Sor: 67%
Paladin Smite Damage: 12 To 34
+ (3.75 Per Character Level) 3-371 Defense (Based On Character Level)
+25% Increased Chance Of Blocking
35% Faster Block Rate
Damage Reduced By 35%
Cold Resist +60%
Lightning Resist +25%
+30 To Strength
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 10
Indestructible
Reasonable alternatives are the runewords Ryme and Sanctuary which provide decent blocking with amazing mods. Also possible although inferior is Whitstan's Guard from the Orphan Set which is the best blocker in the game at the expense of having any other good mods:
Defense: 154 (Base Defense: 47-55)
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 53
Durability: 64
Chance To Block: Pal: 97% Ama/Asn/Bar: 92% Druid/Nec/Sor: 87%
+175% Enhanced Defense
Half Freeze Duration
40% Faster Block Rate
+55% Increased Chance Of Blocking
+5 To Light Radius
Using the formula:
Total Blocking = (Blocking * (Dex - 15)) / (Char Lvl * 2)
Where "Blocking" = A total of the Blocking on all of your items
and substituting 75 for total blocking (our target), 87 for Whitstan's stat and a high level of say 90 we get that we need : 75*90*2/87+15= 171 total dex points for 75% block. With Stormshield we needed 75*90*2/67+15= 217 total dex points, so Whitstans saves 46 dex points at lvl 90. Sanctuary runeword also gets a special mention with its +20 dex bonus, HUGE resistance bonus and Slow Missile charges which are sooo funny against Bone spells, fireballs and guided arrows (again you don't need to resort to lame tactics to win with this build).
Trang-Ouls's Claws or Magefist
Defense: 67-74 (varies)(Base Defense: 37-44)
Required Level: 45
Required Strength: 58
Durability: 16
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Cold Resist +30%
+30 Defense
+25% Poison Skill Damage
+2 To Curses (Necromancer Only)
Natalya's soul/ Silkweave/ Aldur´s Advance/ Sandstorm trek
Defense: 112-169 (varies)(Base Defense: 37-44)
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 65
Durability: 66
+75-125 Defense (varies)
+40% Faster Run/Walk
Heal Stamina Plus (0.25 Per Character Level) 0-24% (Based On Character Level)
Cold Resist +15-25% (varies)
Lightning Resist +15-25% (varies)
Arachnid Mesh
Defense: 119-138 (varies)(Base Defense: 55-62)
Required Level: 80
Required Strength: 50
Durability: 12
16 Boxes
+90-120% Enhanced Defense (varies)
Slows Target By 10%
+1 To All Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Increases Maximum Mana 5%
Level 3 Venom (11 Charges)
Stone of Jordanx2
Required Level: 29
+1 To All Skill Levels
Increase Maximum Mana 25%*
Adds 1-12 Lightning Damage
+20 To Mana
As this druid build has 80% FCR for an 12 frame cast rate (68% break point), it is a viable option to use 2x rare 10% faster cast rate (with other good mods) in order to reach the next 11 frame cast rate break point at 99%. Alternatively, you can play around with Wizard spike, FCR head gear and amulets to try and reach 99%, up to you...
Mara´s Kaleidoscope or +3 Elementalist skills amulet with mod or crafted/ rare +2 to Druid skills with FCR and mods
Required Level: 67
+2 To All Skill Levels
All Resistances +20-30 (varies)
+5 To All Attributes
The best that you could possibly get would be a Crafted caster amulet:
Reg. Mana 10%
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+20 mana
+20% resist all
+2 to all Druid Skills
+25% Magic Find
Good luck finding one or crafting it though...
On weapon switch (for mfing):
Gull blade or Double ist alibaba and Rhyme Runeword
Charms:
Annihilus charm (goes without saying...)
9x 5% resist with + 20 life or faster hit recovery or faster run/walk mods.
Note: Your cyclone armour absorbs elemental damage before resists apply, so its not the end of the world if you don't have 75% resists cos it only affects the damage that spills over your cyclone armour. Don't worry about trading resistance gear for other mods if you find them more suited to you.
Use 7% mf suffixe for mf build (duh)
Use as many + Elemental skill GCs if u can but realise that synergies are not affected by + skill items, even so, you should use as many as you can get (10 is most and best).
Mercenary:
Best I think, is act 2 nm defense merc (holy freeze)
Give him a perfect eth Tomb Reaver (socketed with Jah, 2x 40/15), or a Reaper´s Toll (33% decrepify is awesome with physical damage Tornados).
eth Stealskull/Shako/Crown of Ages (with 2xP.Topaz)
eth Skullder´s Ire (socketed with p.Topaz)
Lol...I wish I had half these items... But its the idea that counts.. :p
Enigma is essential for Teleport (some consider it bad manners to use teleport in PvP, but if everyone else is using it and Bone Necros are exploiting the Marrowwalk bug, I see nothing unfair, of course if they don't use teleport then you shouldn't and don't need to).
Otherwise the mods you are looking for on other items are +skills and faster cast rate mainly. Bonuses to resistances, +life, damage reduction, strength and dex are always nice if it allows you to liberate some stat points to go into vitality.
I put 40 strength points because it allows you to equip the mage plate straight on, but you could in fact get away with putting only 7 points, or none at all if you wanted, in strength. For example at lvl 73, when we can first equip Stormshield, Enigma gives a bonus of 54 strength + 30 from Storm itself + 20 from our *godly* annihilus charm + 2 from Shako +5 from mara + 15 from base strength = 126 strength bonus!!! Needing only 7 strength to equip Stormshield (Str req is 133 cos of -15% req jewel or hel). At level 82 with Enigma bonus of 61 str, you no longer needed to have used any strength points, however, it means you have to wait for ages to equip Stormshield. If you want to move your shield around, you will need to keep a few +str charms in your stash in order to re-equip Stormshield.
With all this you have max resists in hell, 75% block rate (max), 50% damage reduction (max), over 3000 life, plenty of mana, +13 to all skills (+23 to elemental skills), a 2828 damage absorb Cyclone Armour, a 2530-2645 cold dmg Hurricane and a 5612-5900 physical dmg Tornado... as I said, one of the most powerful PvP builds that exists. Enjoy!
That Is A Sticky, For The Noobs That Dun Know Where They Are And Stop Asking Me For A Ele Dru Guide
If you have a guide organize it and pm it to a mod and it will be added and you will be given credit for the guide
This build works best for PvP, but it can be tweaked for an average mf runner. I don't take credit for ingenuity (as far as the skill allocations are concerned) cos this build isn't new, but as I haven't seen it posted around, I thought I'd give it a go. Realise that the elementalist tree was one of the weakest builds in 1.09 but since the synergies came out, its become a lot more fun to play...and a lot more powerful. In fact its one of the strongest, if not the best all-round PvP build that exists for 1.10. So here goes:
Skills:
Arctic blast 1
Cyclone armour 20
Twister 20
Tornado 20
Hurricane 20
Oak Sage 20
Max Oak Sage last
Stats:
Strength: put 40 stat points here
Dexterity: put 165 points here*
Vitality: Everything else goes here*
Energy:base (20) put no points in Energy
*If you are thinking of leveling up past lvl 90, you need to put points in dex again to keep blocking rate at 75%, also if not using Hoto and Annihilus (see below) you will need an extra 30 dex points.
Equipment:
Heart of the Oak Runeword (set in a normal flail for min. requirements)
4 Socketed Staves/Maces* Ko + Vex + Pul + Thul
+3 To All Skills
+40% Faster Cast Rate
+75% Damage To Demons
+100 To Attack Rating Against Demons
Adds 3-14 Cold Damage, 3 sec. Duration (Normal)
7% Mana Stolen Per Hit
+10 To Dexterity
Replenish Life +20
Increase Maximum Mana 15%
All Resistances +30-40 (varies)
Level 4 Oak Sage (25 Charges)
Level 14 Raven (60 Charges)
+50% Damage To Undead
* Maces = Mace, Morning Star, Flail, and Exceptional/Elite versions ONLY
Harlequin´s Crest (socketed with um or p.Topaz for mf)
Defense: 98-141 (varies)
Required Level: 62
Required Strength: 50
Durability: 12
+2 To All Skills
+ (1.5 Per Character Level) 1-148 To Life (Based On Character Level)
+ (1.5 Per Character Level) 1-148 To Mana (Based On Character Level)
Damage Reduced By 10%
50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 To All Attributes
Enigma Runeword (set in Mage Plate)
3 Socket Body Armor Jah + Ith + Ber
+2 To All Skills
+45% Faster Run/Walk
+1 To Teleport
+750-775 Defense (varies)
+ (0.75 Per Character Level) +0-74 To Strength (Based On Character Level)
Increase Maximum Life 5%
Damage Reduced By 8%
+14 Life After Each Kill
15% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+ (1 Per Character Level) +1-99% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based On Character Level)
Stormshield (socketed with a -15%req/15%resist jewel or with hel rune)
Defense: (136-504) - (151-519) (varies)(Base Defense: 133-148)
Required Level: 73
Required Strength: 156
Chance to Block: Pal: 77%, Ama/Asn/Bar: 72%, Druid/Nec/Sor: 67%
Paladin Smite Damage: 12 To 34
+ (3.75 Per Character Level) 3-371 Defense (Based On Character Level)
+25% Increased Chance Of Blocking
35% Faster Block Rate
Damage Reduced By 35%
Cold Resist +60%
Lightning Resist +25%
+30 To Strength
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 10
Indestructible
Reasonable alternatives are the runewords Ryme and Sanctuary which provide decent blocking with amazing mods. Also possible although inferior is Whitstan's Guard from the Orphan Set which is the best blocker in the game at the expense of having any other good mods:
Defense: 154 (Base Defense: 47-55)
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 53
Durability: 64
Chance To Block: Pal: 97% Ama/Asn/Bar: 92% Druid/Nec/Sor: 87%
+175% Enhanced Defense
Half Freeze Duration
40% Faster Block Rate
+55% Increased Chance Of Blocking
+5 To Light Radius
Using the formula:
Total Blocking = (Blocking * (Dex - 15)) / (Char Lvl * 2)
Where "Blocking" = A total of the Blocking on all of your items
and substituting 75 for total blocking (our target), 87 for Whitstan's stat and a high level of say 90 we get that we need : 75*90*2/87+15= 171 total dex points for 75% block. With Stormshield we needed 75*90*2/67+15= 217 total dex points, so Whitstans saves 46 dex points at lvl 90. Sanctuary runeword also gets a special mention with its +20 dex bonus, HUGE resistance bonus and Slow Missile charges which are sooo funny against Bone spells, fireballs and guided arrows (again you don't need to resort to lame tactics to win with this build).
Trang-Ouls's Claws or Magefist
Defense: 67-74 (varies)(Base Defense: 37-44)
Required Level: 45
Required Strength: 58
Durability: 16
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Cold Resist +30%
+30 Defense
+25% Poison Skill Damage
+2 To Curses (Necromancer Only)
Natalya's soul/ Silkweave/ Aldur´s Advance/ Sandstorm trek
Defense: 112-169 (varies)(Base Defense: 37-44)
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 65
Durability: 66
+75-125 Defense (varies)
+40% Faster Run/Walk
Heal Stamina Plus (0.25 Per Character Level) 0-24% (Based On Character Level)
Cold Resist +15-25% (varies)
Lightning Resist +15-25% (varies)
Arachnid Mesh
Defense: 119-138 (varies)(Base Defense: 55-62)
Required Level: 80
Required Strength: 50
Durability: 12
16 Boxes
+90-120% Enhanced Defense (varies)
Slows Target By 10%
+1 To All Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Increases Maximum Mana 5%
Level 3 Venom (11 Charges)
Stone of Jordanx2
Required Level: 29
+1 To All Skill Levels
Increase Maximum Mana 25%*
Adds 1-12 Lightning Damage
+20 To Mana
As this druid build has 80% FCR for an 12 frame cast rate (68% break point), it is a viable option to use 2x rare 10% faster cast rate (with other good mods) in order to reach the next 11 frame cast rate break point at 99%. Alternatively, you can play around with Wizard spike, FCR head gear and amulets to try and reach 99%, up to you...
Mara´s Kaleidoscope or +3 Elementalist skills amulet with mod or crafted/ rare +2 to Druid skills with FCR and mods
Required Level: 67
+2 To All Skill Levels
All Resistances +20-30 (varies)
+5 To All Attributes
The best that you could possibly get would be a Crafted caster amulet:
Reg. Mana 10%
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+20 mana
+20% resist all
+2 to all Druid Skills
+25% Magic Find
Good luck finding one or crafting it though...
On weapon switch (for mfing):
Gull blade or Double ist alibaba and Rhyme Runeword
Charms:
Annihilus charm (goes without saying...)
9x 5% resist with + 20 life or faster hit recovery or faster run/walk mods.
Note: Your cyclone armour absorbs elemental damage before resists apply, so its not the end of the world if you don't have 75% resists cos it only affects the damage that spills over your cyclone armour. Don't worry about trading resistance gear for other mods if you find them more suited to you.
Use 7% mf suffixe for mf build (duh)
Use as many + Elemental skill GCs if u can but realise that synergies are not affected by + skill items, even so, you should use as many as you can get (10 is most and best).
Mercenary:
Best I think, is act 2 nm defense merc (holy freeze)
Give him a perfect eth Tomb Reaver (socketed with Jah, 2x 40/15), or a Reaper´s Toll (33% decrepify is awesome with physical damage Tornados).
eth Stealskull/Shako/Crown of Ages (with 2xP.Topaz)
eth Skullder´s Ire (socketed with p.Topaz)
Lol...I wish I had half these items... But its the idea that counts.. :p
Enigma is essential for Teleport (some consider it bad manners to use teleport in PvP, but if everyone else is using it and Bone Necros are exploiting the Marrowwalk bug, I see nothing unfair, of course if they don't use teleport then you shouldn't and don't need to).
Otherwise the mods you are looking for on other items are +skills and faster cast rate mainly. Bonuses to resistances, +life, damage reduction, strength and dex are always nice if it allows you to liberate some stat points to go into vitality.
I put 40 strength points because it allows you to equip the mage plate straight on, but you could in fact get away with putting only 7 points, or none at all if you wanted, in strength. For example at lvl 73, when we can first equip Stormshield, Enigma gives a bonus of 54 strength + 30 from Storm itself + 20 from our *godly* annihilus charm + 2 from Shako +5 from mara + 15 from base strength = 126 strength bonus!!! Needing only 7 strength to equip Stormshield (Str req is 133 cos of -15% req jewel or hel). At level 82 with Enigma bonus of 61 str, you no longer needed to have used any strength points, however, it means you have to wait for ages to equip Stormshield. If you want to move your shield around, you will need to keep a few +str charms in your stash in order to re-equip Stormshield.
With all this you have max resists in hell, 75% block rate (max), 50% damage reduction (max), over 3000 life, plenty of mana, +13 to all skills (+23 to elemental skills), a 2828 damage absorb Cyclone Armour, a 2530-2645 cold dmg Hurricane and a 5612-5900 physical dmg Tornado... as I said, one of the most powerful PvP builds that exists. Enjoy!
That Is A Sticky, For The Noobs That Dun Know Where They Are And Stop Asking Me For A Ele Dru Guide