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The only char that worked for me in HC
#1
Well I play the game with dailup internet so I recieve plenty of lag spikes. (dsl isn't in area/cable etc) Anyway on to the build (note this is for starting from nothing and I highly not useing it in any pvp situation).

Skills:
firestorm -20
valcano -20
fissure -20 (note fissure will be your main attack)

oak sage -20
bear -1
here you have a choice:
you can max dire wolf for a simply massive hp bear that doesn't do to much physical damage (around 450 with good +skill items)
if you max bear you will have alot higher physical damage but lower hp.
Personally I found that the extra hp isn't needed and the physical damage makes great work of the fire immunes so I suggest maxing bear over dire wolf but that is my personal opinion.

with all the pre req's you will be about level 90 after maxing all of those

I suggest putting a point in carrion vine/solar creeper and the other creaper just because it saves so much time getting new mana/health pots.

Personal merc choice is act 2 nightmare merc for the holy freeze aura.

Items I feel in the end the only choice is a enigma, wether you want to put it in a low strength armor or an archon its your choice. Personally if I didn't already have a bp enigma I'd go to 103 strength simply so you don't have to hunt down +strength charms. (hp isn't anything to be worried about)

Hoto should be your end choice weapon, note until you have enigma you don't need to worry about caste rate much because fissure has a 1 second or so delay either way but once you have teleport you might want to raise it a bit. (note hoto requires 35 dexterity wether you get that from charms/other items or just add the points is your choice.

Shako for a helm or a druid only helm but I like the +health/mana (+health is affected by oak sage)

Shield you could go with anything really +skills if you can get enough resists without it or a kokomal runeword for a hefty +70 resist all.

boots/gloves you could go for mf if you wanted (war travels and chance gaurd) or if you don't need mf maybe tearhaunch and magefist (the +1 fire skills does effect your fire tree)

rings/amulet I suggest one raven frost/one soj and a mara's kalidiscope for ammy.

I very much doubt if your just starting you will have all these items unless you are incredibly lucky or have a rich friend. Not to worry the build isn't dependant on items at all. as I said I play with this build in hardcore and the only time I ever died was when I first started and didn't have any good resistances and got nuked by threshsocket in act 5 hell when I was to close and his death aura went off. Note mote trick works with fissure but the damage is dismill so I suggest a sorceress if your planning on botting boss's like mephy (that is unless your strong enough to get up close and personal with your bear/merc).

Note fissure only takes 15 mana no matter the level so I suggest either leveling energy base or maxing it around 50. vitality is everything else. With items expect 3k hp easy.
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#2
wind is better than fire for HC because you max cyclone armor...and bear is a waste of the prereq points in my opinion
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#3
The problem with wind is to have any accuracy with tornado's you have to be toe to toe with your target. Thats to risky for me in hc unless my character has really good items. I like to stick with a ranged attack if at all possible...I guess you could replace bear with cyclone armor (although without the rest of your points in wind talents you would get up to 300-400 damage asorbed...and since your resistances are ignored in the calculation that could be wiped out in one hit. Bear has saved me multiple times as it can actually hold baal by itself and such. This also free's up your merc to nail the crap out of things without getting hurt (nice when you don't have a good merc yet). Everyone plays different.
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#4
i agree torndo is difficult to hit with, but if you have a nice insight merc like i always do you can just spam the hell out of it till it starts hitting

i'd agree that bear would be good if you didnt have to spend 4 points to get it...as is i max oak, then only put 2 more points into summoning: psn creeper to get carrion vine. when playing an ele druid you need all the points you can get.

and as for the getting too close, i really dont get that close myself, and my cyclone armor was up to absorbing over 2k of damage. with a few damage reduction items you become almost invincible! so getting close isnt that big of a problem
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#5
Bloodangel26 Wrote:wind is better than fire for HC because you max cyclone armor...and bear is a waste of the prereq points in my opinion

I disagree with You on the bear part. I just recently made a PvM wind druid, with 1 point in bear, and at the moment, I am actually thinking about maxing bear out. It really is an excellent tank in 8 people CS runs...
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#6
i'm not saying bear isnt good, i just think ele druids need all the points they can get, and using 4 points just to get a tank doesnt work for me. my merc does the job fine

your wind skills will be pretty weak if you max bear
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#7
Yeah...that is the point...for hc you need cyclone + oak...an element druid wind has the 2k absorv dmg and the oak gives the life....and 1 point into bear is enough for ele druids....since oak sage give he life and so you can remake him...and tornado you can attack from distance...just need to mind where the tornado would target and play it....
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#8
FrozenFire Wrote:Yeah...that is the point...for hc you need cyclone + oak...an element druid wind has the 2k absorv dmg and the oak gives the life....and 1 point into bear is enough for ele druids....since oak sage give he life and so you can remake him...and tornado you can attack from distance...just need to mind where the tornado would target and play it....

1. Tornado branchs in a random direction so no matter how much you 'mind' it its still luck. (note its going to start from the direction you aim it but it doesn't continue straight in that direction)
2. attack from the distance of say to the edge of your screen max (I think thats as far as the tornado can go before it wears out) Fissure works with maphack's scroll thing. so you can caste it at least twice as far as a tornado wears out at...and its accurate.
3. I can't argue against 2k asorb damage, except for the fact that the only thing that can hit you is lightning (hell wisps can be a problem without two willowisp rings)

Your dueing AoE fire damage and strong physical damage (thanks to bear and merc) IF you wanted this could easily be changed to valcano or boulder type build were you split your damage between fire and normal.

Like i've said before it really just comes down to how you play, in hardcore I play range cause without proper gear your going to take damage upclose no matter what class/build it is. For example act5 hell (and maybe even nightmare I don't remember) moonlords or whatever the big bulls with frenzy are called physical immune (bye bye tornado + bear + merc) you still have your hurricane but a hurricane isn't going to kill them fast enough and once they get a hit or two in that frenzy is going to go fast enough that even the hurricanes freeze isn't going to stop them. as where with fissure you easily rip through them while they are chopping at your bear and merc. The only thing I find the wind druid's asorb useful for is tp'ing down for a baal run on act5 hell, just wear two willowisp's with any normal character and your just as safe. Maybe you could say "Well hurricane is great because even when your tp'ing down it freezes guys so they don't get a hit on you and stop your tping". Act 2 nightmare merc with the conviction runeword (forget the actual name of it) let him hit something once or twice before you start tp'ing you have holy freeze (which cuts through cold immunes to makeing it a HUGE bonus) you have conviction which increases your fissure damage and if there is any sorcs along they are going to love that conviction to.
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#9
cyc armor also protects you from cold enchanted and fire enchanted monster explosions...and from those dark lord guys(the ones with fireball and firewall and meteor) and venom lords with inferno. oh yea and from meph's ele attacks, diablo's ele attacks, council guys hydra, and baal's ele attacks. not just for lightning.

and there is a lot more things immune to fire than immune to physical
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#10
Bloodangel26 Wrote:cyc armor also protects you from cold enchanted and fire enchanted monster explosions...and from those dark lord guys(the ones with fireball and firewall and meteor) and venom lords with inferno. oh yea and from meph's ele attacks, diablo's ele attacks, council guys hydra, and baal's ele attacks. not just for lightning.

and there is a lot more things immune to fire than immune to physical

Ok the reason that I said lightning is because its the only thing that gets to you. Monster explosions you shouldn't be near them with fissure...again the range deal...thats the mistake I made with threshsocket...otherwise he would still be alive right now (or if I hadn't of had negitive resistances). Dark lord guys, their metoer is the easiest thing in the world to get out of the way of...so if your hit by that you don't deserve to play. firewall isn't going to get even close to killing you before you can just step off of it. hyrda's can actually be pretty dangerious. Once you have done enough baal runs though you know how to dodge them. 3rd wave of guys stand right in front of baal until he waves his arms then start running back, your merc and bear will still be withen range to fight you will be out of range for the hydra's. (note thats not really important since in hell they are all fire immune anyway so you will need a group with you to kill them at a decient speed).

Meph again range. moat him and don't worry about stupid ele attacks.
diablo...The max your going to kill him is three times for quest (or possibly if your a hammerdan going for 99 you might kill him while the rest of the group is killing baal's first waves then come back and kill the second half of the wave's).
baal's ele attacks. the cold wave thing might be an issue if you had very low resistances. his mana drain attack...again range so it doesn't hit you...that is why I said lightning only. everything else isn't a problem.
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#11
If you still think fire druid is better than windy ok man you have your cons and pros about it...but when you have such experience to think where the tornado will reach ( i think if you play it for 2 months you will get the way, but it is different to person to person ), and if you can afford a conviction hire you can afford a very good equip to play it, and that is true blueangel there is just few monster in hell that are physical immune and the most of them is fire

anyway....see some druid guides elsewhere or in this forum to get to know a little more about it and see how wrong you have been xD
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#12
personally...i dont have problems hitting with tornado....you just have to figure out how it works through trial and error

out of curiousity, about how much damage did your fissure do?
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