Werbear-druid-guide? (and Fun-Builds.)

General Discussion
1

I didn’t find any Werbeaar-guide in the internet. All Druid-guides out there are either pure summoners, pure Elementals, or Werwolfs.

Where are the Werbears out there?

And are there any Fireclaw-players? (In Werebear-Form) Since This is something, I like to try. I remember having much problems against crowds. The Synergies for Fireclaw might be a Solution, if you can’t get near your enemy. Lighten up the crowd with Fire-casts, then Change to Werebear. Fireimmunes might be a problem for this, though, but the Bear also has a skill for this: Shock-Wave.

Since this needs a lot of skills, I think it’s more usefull to max just bear and Lykantropy, choose a Fire-skill to max (I like the boulder, here… Advantage: this does also do physikal damage.) And skill the other skills as needed. (I also like hunger for emergencies…)

One-point-wonders will get skilled, of course. At least the Oak-Sage. But maybe also Heart of the wolverine, for hell. (To still hit something there in melee.)

Although, nearly every guide suggests an Act II-Nightmare-Merc with holy freeze. However, I prefer a cold Iron Wolf… Why aren’t they used instead?

2

Werebear isn’t used because the damage is far, far worse than werewolf. Less damage = less leech. Since werewolves and bears have so much life, potions begin to become meaningless for healing and you need to depend on leech, but fire claws adds almost nothing to leech because it is elemental damage, and only physical counts.

Then there are the skill points. A massive investment to get fire claws up to solid damage which means few points for summons and shape shifting skills. So you lose out on the massive life the bear can have, ending up with potentially less than wolves, and you don’t have the strong summons to tank for you. Basically, the build gets less safe, and then has nothing for fire immunes. Makes it a very weak solo build. One point in spirits will mean they die constantly in Hell and they won’t last a second against bosses.

However, if you focus more of physical damage and keep your summons decent, the bear is a solid team member. A level 20 oak sage makes everyone happy. You have a huge life pool for tanking, as does your bear. Shockwave can keep monsters stunned for 4-9 seconds, basically disabling large packs.

The problem is that the singer barbarian does all of this better. They give allies three buffs instead of one, they stun more enemies with war cry, and can also reduce their damage by 50+% and armor by a similar amount, basically giving the party Shaftstop and Vampgaze in terms of DR and Blessed Aim in terms of hitting things. High level leap can also keep a screen of enemies in knock back animations forever, although this almost feels like cheating. The singer barbarian is even more of a team only player though and sounds super annoying, so bear isn’t terrible.

Hell can be tackled two ways, elite gear, or using some of the party specific builds to keep enemies stunned or locked in animations. Unfortunately very few people go the latter route so the game often becomes “get rushed through Hell by elite character, get exp as elite character kills Diablo and Baal for you on repeat.” If you find a group wanting to beat Hell with self found gear, a bear can be solid, but shockwave and tanking is what you want more.

I like the ice sorcerer in normal too, but holy freeze hits more monsters more often, that’s why it is better. And then the merc himself can tank and does more damage.

3

Hm. The problem with leech are the undeads. What do you do about that? At least skelettons won’t provide any leech, and they’re a damn lot out there… I tried leeching with the original D2 and constantly died as soon as they showed up. (This is one of the reasons, I prefer ranged classes…)

That said, you still have hunger.

About potions: I’m still at normal, but I remember using almost only full reju-potions at NM+. Aren’t drop-rates for at least the normal ones higher there? (and you easyly can make fulls, then with the cube.) Maybe a row of mana-potions, but for health, only full reju.

On the other hand, I realy don’t like it, if you burn more potions, than you’ll find. This is especially true for mana, so I almost always also end up adding a few points to energy, regardless of class. (I didn’T that… yet for my druid, however. But he is only 11 so far. And you can only use normal attacks until level 12 as wolf also as as bear. And I didn’t skill any elemental-skills, yet.)

Of course, I admit, that you will have +8 to all skills at hell. So an Oak sage is at least at level 9 there. (and other 1-point-skills.) This shouldn’t be too difficult, even with selffound-gear. (Add in a druid-hat with +3 to oak-sage, and you have level 12 with one point spent. And there are also uniques with +7, or so, to oak-sage, afaik. If you will have this, is another topic, if you consider gear self-found, however.)

For solo, I admit a “players-1”-game at hell for the beginning. If you reach baal with that, you still can try to set more players. But you need to reach Baal in the first place… I don’t know if players normally admit a “players-8”-set even for solo-runs, though.

Other question: Did the enemies get more health in comparison to orignal D2 1.09? (hence before synergies showed up.) Because if this isn’t the case, it should still be possible to use skills without any synergy-points spent, shouldn’t it?

I never reached hell after act 3, I must admit, so I probably do much underestimate this difficulty.

But my first goal is at least to get through complete nightmare. Then I will see.

4

Try Dbrunksi or MrLlama they will have guides. I know fore sure Dbrunski has covered it before.

5

“Dbrunski”? do you have link? that sounds russian, however. I don’t speak even one word russian…
Perhaps I will google it. Thanks.

Edit: Well, those are let’s plays. I more want written guides… Where I can directly look, waht I want to know. (I don’t realy intent to read the complete guide. Just skilling. Gear won’t realy interest me, since I don’t trade much…)

6

than look at this thread

Many Builds and Guides

7

As I said, I more want written guides, not necessarily videos. And as the title said, it’s more for fun, than for min-max. I don’t like to just kill as much as possible only for the purpose of killing. (to get down, when I’m upset, the normal kill-rate of the game is enough for me…) But with min-max-builds AND the inventory completely filled with charms, this isn’t the case. (I test-looked on the lightning-sorceress-guide. A more min-max-build than this just is impossible…)

8

I can’t post links, but Google “Town Dump Werebear”.

I’m going to start something like, but maybe spread some of those Lycantropy talents around other Werebear skills. Still a melee character, but Shockwave works very well with minions. Full Maul Werebear is very dependant on fast 2h weapon.

9

You seriously didnt find anything when looking it up on the internet?

I literally just wrote “D2 druid build” on Google and the first two sites already give me 4 werebear builds.

I am not allowed to post links here though. The first site is called “Rankedboost” and the second site is the damn Diablo Wiki. Come on, dude.

10

The best build is always the one the puts the biggest smile on your face. We hope you can find one that does it for you, Migromul!

1 Like
11

Yeah but the biggest smile on my face comes from killing the most mosters the fastest. :stuck_out_tongue:

Seriously, since I read this, I’m thinking if going Werewolf, leveling up to Summon Grizzly as a cohort.

And WHY does creeping vine get so much hate? Yes, later on it’s damage is minimal and it gets killed easy, but even then, it takes next to no mana and it slows baddies down, gets their attention while you move in.
More than that, IT LOOKS COOL! :smiley:

12

There are many druid guides out there. But none of them is about the werebear. All are Pack-builds (Werewolf with wolve-summons) or Wolve only or Elemental or pure summoners.

There are definitly “must-have”-skill. Oak sage is one. I think also you should have ravens sooner or later (at least one point to boost that with ±skills.) They can’t be killed, blind the enemies and are there a complete mob-fight, normally. Then you can resummon them. They’re a real annoyance in PVP, by the way. You can literally do NOTHING against them. (But I don’t play PVP normally. I did sometimes back when I played original D2. So I remember…)

I also take the vines with me. Just one point in every of them.

The concept, how you play a synergized Fireclaw-werebear is:

Cast Firespells to weaken croud-mobs. Change into wearbear-form and kill the rest in melee. With that, you also have the option to kill mobs, which NEED to be killed at range (The seasnakes in act 3 come to mind.) If you want to go also armageddon, you also need the wind-skill. The cyclone-armor is also a must-have sooner or later imho. But with one point in Tornado at least, when you reach act 3 in normal, you have an option to kill the snakes. Then you can also get the act 2 soldier. (with blessed aim.) although I prefer an act 3 Ice-wolf.

If you skill that way, you might not have enough skillpoints for real werebear-skills, however. But you won’t need much in lycantropy, then, because you will only shilft to finish off the annoyers, which don’t want to die… :wink:

I didn’t skill for that concept, yet, however. I play a lightning-cold-soreceress at the moment. (Hybrid with chainlightning and Frostorb.) But I’m not even level 30, yet.

I find spamming just one skill boring. I like to change and have something to do, when I play. So I like it, when I use several skills for fighting. I skilled all lightning skills so far. (although many will just get one point, but I’ve also taken thunder storm, because this is a very nice bonus skill, which has often saved my ass just in the right moment.) For lightning, I don’t take 20 in lighnting and the rest in chain. I split the synergy-points. I didn’t skill charged bolt (and won’t, I think.) But you CAN NOT synergize max with a hybrid-sorceress. So I think max. 20 Points in skills for synergy, mostly NOVA will do the trick. (goal is chain lightning max, lightning mastery max. Frost Orb Max, Synergy for this nearly max and Frost mastery as needed. So I have some spare skills for warmth and maybe glacial spike. and even telekinesis to synergize Energy shield, which I also took.)

Well, I drifted to Sorceress. But the title also mentions “fun builds” so this may fall in that category, I don’t know, yet…