fury druid guide

[a_brick]

well, i haven't seen this guide anywhere, so here goes...

pro: a fury druid i found to be very good for pvm and a lot like a zealot or kicker in pvp, but my build is pvm. a fury druid, or ss druid, is like a zealot but has the ability to do twice the damage.

con: for my druid, it cant block

STATS:
str: enuf fro gear
dex: same
vit: a lot, you will be hit a ton and will need to survive it, but, if built right, you can have a ton of life too.
enr: what do you think? its a melee char


SKILLS:
fury: 20
lycan: 20
werewolf: 20
wolverine: 20
1-5: feral rage
5: cyclone armor
rest into grizzly or wolves


GEAR:
helm: jalals(w/ cham or 40/15)
armor: coh(fort would work good)
wep: ebotd thunder maul(i know, unexpected, but i do 13k thanks to this baby)
wep#2: cta(your life will be awesome, but you have to do this before you are a wolf)
shield#2: lidless(spirit would work, but i dont have spirit)
rings: angelics
ammy: angelics
gloves: soul drainer(or steelrend)
boots: sandstorm(or gore riders)


HOTKEYS:
f1: bo
f2: bc
f3: werewolf
f4: heart of the wolverine
f5: feral rage
f6: grizzly if you have


i hope you find my guide useful, and i know you'll think im an idiot, but how do i put this in the druid guides, stop laughing. anyways, as i i said, you'll do like 13-14k(twice as much as zeal) with 2k+ life and two times before you can die.

this guide brought to you buy some huy named a_brick on us west...

[Freedom-Fighta]

Well, beacause this thread was feeling lonely, i have to say good job. I Always like the aspect of another zeal-like charcter to try, as my first successful cahracter was a zealot. I've tried a kicksin and nearly every variation and/or hybrid-knockoff there is, and if nobody wrote a fury druid guide, i was gonna.

Hmm... Maybe you are neglecting a bit too much going for pure damage... In my experience, shields are on of the best sources of extra defense, pdr, and resists you can come across.. maybe youre not quite giving a complete thoguht to it, but zealots are Weapon and Shiled because they need the defence. Besides, relying on pure defense isnt the most intelligent thing to do. Monster AR grows too rapidly after nightmare act 3, and all but Pure Zealots and Conc/Iron barbs have some serious issues staying below 40% to get hit.
Remember - Blocking is based on you alone, Defense is where you and the monster in front of you get involved .

[xenn2600]

If you'd use those eyeball things and look down a few threads you'll see that I've posted one recently. Your recommendations for skill point allocations as well as items need a bit of adjusting...

You don't need an eBoTD T-Maul to do good damage; Mine uses eBoTDz and does 7.5k damage and is able to hold a shield, which blocks 3 out of 4 hits (and, in my case, reduces damage by 43% as well as gives some good resists). Soul Drainers are horrible; if you're going for leaching you should be using Dracul's Vampirebone with 10% life leach. They give a 5% chance to cast Life Tap which is like life leach on steroids, as well as a 25% chance of open wounds; like poison, except it works well. Gore Riders are ideal over Treks... unless you're really into saving points for vitality. I can't see why you would use Jalal's over a Cerebrus' Bite, either. The Cerebrus' gives +4 to Shapeshifting skills, 10% life leach, 120% bonus to attack rating which more than doubles your AR and negates the dependancy on Angelics, as well as a 33% chance of open wounds and +2 to Feral Rage! That helmet is a Shapeshifting Druid's dream, in my opinion. In place of the Angelics you can go the leaching route, as I did, and use a perfect Eye of Etlich amulet and two Carrion Wind Rings (if they are 9%), or you can use two BK rings and a nice Mara's. You were right about the CoH, in my opinion, because it gives good resists and 8% life leach, but Fortitude is to be preferred over it.


I agree with you on the main skills but my ideas differ on the minor skills and the amount of points that should go into each. After maxing out Fury, HoW, Lycanthropy and Werewolf...

(In this order) Place points into the following...

1 Cyclone Armor (This is utter crap if you're a Shapeshifter (you can't max the synergies). One point is enough, let +skill items do the rest.

1 Raven (Once you get a lot of +skills you'll be able to summon five Ravens that serve as good distractions, basically, add to what I call the "meat shield")

1 Spirit Wolves (Five of these tend to be a great addition to your meat shield and they also buff up other summons)

1 Dire Wolves (Pre-Req for Bear and gives bonuses to other summons)

1 Bear (Useful to have in certain situations, bonuses to other summons)

1 Poison Creeper (pre-requirement for Carrion Vine)

1 Carrion Vine (Adds to meat shield, gives occasional life if you don't have adequate leaching)

All remaining points go into Cyclone Armor. Or, you can keep Cyclone Armor at level 1 and put all remaining points into Feral Rage to use as a right-click skill.



Why use Spirit wolves and not a single Bear? Five Spirit Wolves can keep more enemies off of your back than one Bear can. They can't tank as good as one Bear can, obviously, but these can spread out and cover a large area, serving to distract more enemies while you go about killing them. Five Spirit Wolves works just as well as one Bear when facing a single Boss (Hell Baal, whatever). When combined with your HoW, their five weaker hits will balance out as if you had a single Bear, but they will hit more often, thus, interrupting the creature more often. If you really would rather use a Bear, you'll have the same amount of points into it as you will in either of the Wolves, so you can choose whichever you wish to use.

Why use Ravens? They don't do much damage, but monsters will attempt to hit them. They can't take damage, however, so they add to your meat shield, and will continue to attack until they are spent (in terms of attack limit). Five Ravens hitting at once will also interrupt a monster's attack, which proves very useful at times.

Why use a Carrion Vine? It adds to your meat shield, heals you a bit and destroys bodies. It doesn't give you any massive advantage, but one skill point is worth it, by far.



These are just my opinions. Of course, it is all based on experience... none of it is theoretical. There are many paths a Werewolf Fury Druid can take, which can't be said of a Zealer. This is why I think more people should get into this build...

[Freedom-Fighta]

(In this order) Place points into the following...

1 Cyclone Armor

1 Twister (Gives good bonuses to Cyclone armor once you have a lot of +skills)

1 Tornado (same as above)

1 Hurricane (same as above)

1 Raven (Once you get a lot of +skills you'll be able to summon five Ravens that serve as good distractions, basically, add to what I call the "meat shield")

1 Spirit Wolves (Five of these tend to be a great addition to your meat shield.

1 Dire Wolves (Once you get +skills, this skill point will buff up your Spirit Wolves)

1 Bear (same as above)

Um, + Skill items have absolutely no synergetic bonus, only hard points in a skill provides andy form of synergy bonus.

If you'd use those eyeball things and look down a few threads you'll see that I've posted one recently.

I Didn't see it, sorry, must've fallen off the front page. I tend not to check beyond this page.

Ya wanna cookie ?

Why use Ravens? They don't do much damage, but monsters will attempt to hit them. They can't take damage, however, so they add to your meat shield, and will continue to attack until they are spent (in terms of attack limit). Five Ravens hitting at once will also interrupt a monster's attack, which proves very useful at times.

Aside from blinding enemies, ravens serve no purpose, and i would like to add that ravens acant even be attacked, they are considered unmousable, and cant become the target of any form of damage, sheesh they dont even take up pathing!

And i would also like to add that ravens do serve as a good form of stun early on, but as enemy monster's hp goes up, more and more damage is required in order to get the same 'stun effect'.

-Freedom

[xenn2600]

1. Yes, I want a cookie. My topic was three topics down from yours. >=(

2. Ravens are swung at by enemies, even though they can't be struck. You have to put one point into them to get to the greater summons, anyway, so why argue about it :p

3. You're right about the synergies and plus skills issue. I'll go fix that in my guide ; P

Oh yeah, and you'll want to swap your BC and BO hotkeys. You should always BC before you BO... dur... : )

[Freedom-Fighta]

Now that that's cleared up, maybe we could further dscus using a shield... In my experience making druids, i tend not to like shields, druids have bad blocking numbers.

However, if it is a must good shields include -

Sanctuary - Ko Ko Mal - Pavise (64% CTB)
Stormshield Monarch - Excellent Melee Shield. High CTB, PDR, Resists, MAx resists... the list goes on. a good bit pricey, and has a moderately high strength requirement. Ideal Socket Item - +15 all resist/-15% all requirements Jewel, AKA 15/15.

Whitstan's Guard -A Cheaper shield with Excellent blocking, easily comperable to using a holy shield. If all you need is blocking, this is your item. Good Socketing Choices (we can make 2 ) - 'Eld + Um'
Cranks the CTB of this shield to a base value of 94%! Adds some much needed all resists too. 'Eld + 40/15' - 40% ED, 15% IAS, and a 94% CTB, very very good... 'Eld-Eld' - Cranks blocking up to 101%, even better than 94%, as mentioned above. 'Um-Um' - Used only if in dier need of resists...

Basically, you can pick up whatever mods you honest to god need off of this shield.

And if you really think about it, the only thing that you can control easily is blocking. No matter how high enemy AR gets, you can always block 75% of the time if you have the dexterity to. This has to be the best reason to use a shield, if only to gain those extra resists and and extra 3/4 less chance to get hit.

[HokageIzlude]

Jalal's works pretty well over Cerebus bite I think, it's got +2 to Druid skills and +2 to Shapeshifting, so your gonna get +4 total points in your Shapeshifting skills, which is better than ending up with a Cerebus' Bite with less than +4 to shapeshifting. The +1-2 to Feral age isnt too important ethier, its only a few extra points in one skill that isnt even your main attack.

Cerebus' may have Jalal's beat in the AR and leech department, but Jalal's also has the very helpful resistances, FHR, nice STR and ENR bonus, and it gets huge defense if you upgrade it. You should have more than enough leech and AR anyhow to not really require Cerebus'.

For weapon choices, I think The Cranium Basher is pretty awesome, does huge damage, and its got huge crushing blow, resistances and STR. The Reapers Toll is quite nice too, good leech, ignore's defense, casts decrepify, good deadily strike. Tomb Reaver is equally awesome too offering nice big resistances, leech IAS, MF and up to 3 sockets. Plus with the Tomb Reaver you have a 10% chance of making a resturned minion, which can save you putting points in summons and put them towards more shapeshifting skills or Oak Sage.

I dunno about one-handers+shields though, I like using two handed weapons for Werewolf Druids since they have such insane leech with Feral Rage and Hunger, not to mention very high life, they don't have much to worry about.
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[Freedom-Fighta]

I WOuldnt ever use tomb reaver for the exact reason you stated - reanimates monsters.Why?

A) This consumes corpses your vine could use
B) The Revivdes die quickly in areas above where you would find that monster
C) The Monster's Stats are based on Normal Difficulty stats, no higher. Basically, nott level appropriate damage and hitpoints.

If you MUST have a 2 hander, id reccommend a low strength build, involving draculs grasp, Tyraels might etc... This would save you Loads of strength to use in vitality whrre, in my opinion it is most important.

[HokageIzlude]

Well I don't use vines, ever, or wolves for that matter. I just rely on pure leech and my merc. But I see the revives from Tomb Reaver able to hold out for awhile, enough for me to clear a few mobs, although you really shouldnt even need them or any summons since you should be powerful enough to take on almost anything. Those points in vines, wolves and summons would go better into giving your werewolf an aresenal of attacks, namely buffing Feral Rage+Hunger.

This is one thing I like about Werewolf Druids over Pallies/Zealots - They can tank, tear shit up, attack fast with two handed weapons, and they got awesome life leech skills (Hunger is my favorite), and they don't even really need a shield.

If your gonna use two handed weapons though, your gonna need pretty high STR, a low STR build just won't cut it. If you can get a Levi with 50 STR or so, you'll be in pretty good shape and may have enough to hold a T-Maul, and Maul's don't require any DEX, so you can dump everything in VIT. I try to get at least 180 base STR and let my equipment do the rest of the work. Ya don't really need like 400 base VIT, especially since your gonna have insane life anyways transformed, along with Oak Sage and maybe BO if ya got a CTA.

[Freedom-Fighta]

Well I don't use vines, ever, or wolves for that matter. I just rely on pure leech and my merc. But I see the revives from Tomb Reaver able to hold out for awhile, enough for me to clear a few mobs, although you really shouldnt even need them or any summons since you should be powerful enough to take on almost anything. Those points in vines, wolves and summons would go better into giving your werewolf an aresenal of attacks, namely buffing Feral Rage+Hunger.

Well, as Druids tend to finish with several extra points, summons cant hurt. We dont truly rely on them for damage, just to prevent us from getting mobbed by, oh i dunno, 3+ packs of Boss Balrogs? How fast can you say, "Crap i gotta get all that experience BACK!!!" Another benefit is the fact that the nasty Abyss Knights will oftentimes target your minions with IM, leaving you free to Fury them with reckless abandon. They also let you know when a particularly nast monster is nearby.

This is one thing I like about Werewolf Druids over Pallies/Zealots - They can tank, tear shit up, attack fast with two handed weapons, and they got awesome life leech skills (Hunger is my favorite), and they don't even really need a shield.

Almost laughable. Put a druid up against a zealer and see who wins. Sure, it may come down to who has the AR, but if that pally has HoZ, he already has 20-30% on you, and if he uses fanatacism (who don't?) you're already behind. Add in a nice 400-500% from zeal, well, you get the picture. And you dont have a shield? He does, a 75% CTB one too. His Block rates are Guarenteed to be 2 or 1 frame(s) and it's nearly impossible to block lock a good pally. ON TOP OF THAT he also has a massive 5 attacks at a cost of 2 mana. We have to click him each time and lose mana each time, even though we 'Zeal' it is nothing compared to the perfectors. Who do you think will win?

If your gonna use two handed weapons though, your gonna need pretty high STR, a low STR build just won't cut it. If you can get a Levi with 50 STR or so, you'll be in pretty good shape and may have enough to hold a T-Maul, and Maul's don't require any DEX, so you can dump everything in VIT. I try to get at least 180 base STR and let my equipment do the rest of the work. Ya don't really need like 400 base VIT, especially since your gonna have insane life anyways transformed, along with Oak Sage and maybe BO if ya got a CTA.

I COuldn't let ya go without criticicizing that las bit eh?

You NEED a high base life or you dont get any life transformed. Thats the point of not having much strength, having LIFE OUT TO YIN YANG. The only way the above cited battle would be decided is who can take the bigger hit. I prefer the pally as his first attack may get 8-7 frames, and his Zeal will get like 6-5 frames. Its all about the speed. Sure, you deal about 4 k more, but the onslaught of 5 attacks may occur before you know what happened.

Ultimately, I'd say the Fury druid is still ahead of its time (like a Hammerdin-in-1.09 ahead of its time). The paladin has been around longer and has been able to get nerfed and Pumped up by more patches. Long live the Zealer, And the Kicker, And the 1.11 Fury Druid!!!

[a_brick]

i dont need a god damn shield, but your suggestions are good. i see now why dracs would be a better chioce over soul drianer. cus i built a mediocre smiter, and one hit with life tap healed all my life.

but, let me explain why i chose things like jalals over cerebus and ebotd tm with no shield over ebotdz and shield.

jalals is so much easier to find, plus i had like 1 of them on my mule. i didn't know that cerebus does +120% ar, and thats good. but cerebus gives +4 ss, and jalals does +2ss and +2 all. which one is better? plus jalals gives a good str boost,fhr, and resists.
i still say jalals.

why ebotd tm??? because its awesome!!! my damn coh and jalals give me good resists, why a shield? plus blocking isnt to useful for a fury druid for me. the tm givs +50% attack speed, thats so good for a 2 handed wep. not to mention the other mods botd gives. lastly, i love doing like 13k physical dmg, so i have a maul that does 1.3k dmg!!! duh!!!!

thank you for your advice, but think about it my way, don't base all ur opinions off of your guide.

thanks tho

some try the build on opne or something aand see how i works. plz???