Struggling Some. In need of your knowledge!

Hey guy's. So hopefully I can explain myself decently. I am having a hard time playing my crow druid and my newly made smiter, (currently level 44) as MF characters. I play the game solo, I also don't open up 2 or more clients to rush or boost exp/mf bonuses in-game, just for you's to keep that in mind. I keep running into the factor and on more than one occasion I honestly almost quit, due to frustration. I can not express how frustrating it is to come up against a Physical Immune while playing a crow druid or a Smiter. It's absolute cancer and I am on the brink of cutting it loose. My Smiter can kill the undead dudes in the Plaguelands no problem and I've been told by many people that's where you'll want to start for effective gear farming for a lower-level/gear'd character. But as soon as a ghost shows up, it's game over. I got a decent poison bow on my merc, hoping she could take care of the physical immune ghosts but we both get rolled almost instantly when they arrive. What I am trying to get at, is a few things:

1. I don't want to have to make an MF character to find gear for my fresh characters. Honestly, this defeats the purpose of playing at all for me. I don't transfer gear over to other characters and my fun comes from building MF characters to find gear for themselves, entirely.

2. Where is the fun factor if I am forced to play specfic characters to simply run the new content maps? Physical Immunes = Smite completely countered. Physical Immunes also = Crow Druid completely countered. Now you can argue and say, well build into bearform for the physical pierce, which only works on the summoned bear, which also defeats the purpose of playing a crow druid as it would be more effective for me to build melee, and again, which also forces me to build into tanky/dps items instead of MF items.

3. I am highly against the way spectating works in the sense that you can level an account full of characters all at the same time, which effects the leaderboards, (especially in Hardcore..I am looking at you "Bad"). You can get to Hell mode in something like 10 minutes max. It's borderline "cheating" if you make a private game and flood it with your characters because the massive MF increase and exp increase, (I don't mind it if there's a public game and a ton of people are working together, ex Inf cows.)

4. I am starting to realize that almost every person I come across who is hella geared has been forced to play specific characters with specific builds to MF gear for their other characters. I don't want to have to feel like I absolutely need to do this as well. I am a solo player, self-found and I complete 100% of the campaign on each of my solo characters.

Now, with all that said and to sum this all up, how the hell do I take on Physical Immunes with my Smiter and Crow Druid? Cheers!

Well, if you want to solo as a Druid, I would recommend playing a Melee bear build. Werebear now gets physical pierce and the new shockwave stuns enemies. With basic gear you can take down phys immune and just about every other type of monster. Couple that with the ability to have every summons available running at the same time and you can easily farm act 5 pit solo. I did it in HC until I got bored of the grind but not before I had tons of extra gear.

Another very important part of any melee build would be to use Amp Damage curse. Amp damage can break physical immunities in most cases. There are several items that have a chance to cast amp damage on striking including the IK weapon, Death Cleaver, set spired helm, the mace from the same set, and saracen's chance amulet. Combine that with high crushing blow and smite can kill any phys immune inferno mob or boss excluding Mappo and a couple others. Eventually with enough -phys immunity gear you can switch to just running life tap and it'll be smooth sailing. For those unpiercable phys immunities there is the poison Smiter build. There is a guide in the character section of the forum that covers that.

I completely understand your desire to solo the game and I assure you that it is possible with Druid and even the Paladin. The pally will have a tougher time but it is very doable.


Edit: I just re-read your post and saw that I missed the part where you didn't like the idea of having to run a bear form build. I get it. There are a few build that I wish were more versatile. Believe me, there are a few versatile builds, but unfortunately I don't think a crow Druid is going to be the balanced solo build that you want it to be. I tried it and was very underwhelmed. Someone might have suggestions about some uber gear that'll make it more powerful but something tells me that you won't have access to that gear without trading and you've said that you prefer to be self found. There are several strong builds to choose from that are perfect for soloing. You will have to be willing to play them though even though they seem like the flavor of the month.

Smite was always the butt of a joke until Ubers came along, and then people used it for that(and only that). There's no one-size-fits-all build. You'll have to make non-phys chars to do certain content, especially if you don't have the gear to back up your gimmick beforehand. The game would be rather boring if that wasn't the case. #AllBuildsMatter

i dont know what you expect... you say you are a solo player. As a solo player i would say u have to modify your build the best for every situation.

I mean immunes arent new content, they were always there. And not every build have to be absolutely insane. Just thinking of my favourite build in vanilla "meele dual dream sorc". It was really strong with the spezial gear but totally crap without.

what im trying to say is that maybe plaquelands isnt the perfect spot for u. cows for example dont have phys immunities. for example a lot of players SKIP the dragon at dreamlands bc of his immunities.

and the other hand:
try to invest some points in your other minions. the bear can tank a lot and the wolves can be your meat shield. then get yourself a meteor act 3 merc. he is doing a lot of dmg from behind. it will take some time to kill phys immunes but it is possible.

at the beginning the stragedy is always to stun/freeze/trap/tank/whatever the enemies. nealy every class has a skill for that.

i dont want to be rude, but i always thought the goal for playing online is to connect with other players to help each other and handle difficult situations together. get yourself a friend with elemental dmg and your problem is solved. still want to play solo? play singleplayer and modify the game

if you are a solo player, you make characters for purpose, period. that's how it has been in almost every mod or vanilla game of d2. after entering hell mode you will run into things that you can't kill unless you switch builds.

it is rather weird that you are having problems with druid who is incredibly op and will be nerfed soon. if you stick on a single build without end-game gear you don't stand a chance. for druids i would recommend you to switch to elemental skills (specially opnado) when you see immunes that you can't deal with.

also there are items/skills to pierce immunities and - pierce from gear works on mobs which is unique to this mod. but it is not a solution since there WILL be mobs that are super immune. you just need to increase your diversity.

and last thing, i don't want to sound like a jerk but this concept is the same with bnet: there are characters which requires good gear to mf efficently and there are classes that fall off later with better early game abilities. and then there are druids but it's another topic. my point is if u can't live with these conditions you better quit this mod because you will never find a build (except tornado druid atm) that can farm every content efficently.

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Originally Posted by Thor

Hey guy's. So hopefully I can explain myself decently. I am having a hard time playing my crow druid and my newly made smiter, (currently level 44) as MF characters. I play the game solo, I also don't open up 2 or more clients to rush or boost exp/mf bonuses in-game, just for you's to keep that in mind. I keep running into the factor and on more than one occasion I honestly almost quit, due to frustration. I can not express how frustrating it is to come up against a Physical Immune while playing a crow druid or a Smiter. It's absolute cancer and I am on the brink of cutting it loose. My Smiter can kill the undead dudes in the Plaguelands no problem and I've been told by many people that's where you'll want to start for effective gear farming for a lower-level/gear'd character. But as soon as a ghost shows up, it's game over. I got a decent poison bow on my merc, hoping she could take care of the physical immune ghosts but we both get rolled almost instantly when they arrive. What I am trying to get at, is a few things:

1. I don't want to have to make an MF character to find gear for my fresh characters. Honestly, this defeats the purpose of playing at all for me. I don't transfer gear over to other characters and my fun comes from building MF characters to find gear for themselves, entirely.

2. Where is the fun factor if I am forced to play specfic characters to simply run the new content maps? Physical Immunes = Smite completely countered. Physical Immunes also = Crow Druid completely countered. Now you can argue and say, well build into bearform for the physical pierce, which only works on the summoned bear, which also defeats the purpose of playing a crow druid as it would be more effective for me to build melee, and again, which also forces me to build into tanky/dps items instead of MF items.

3. I am highly against the way spectating works in the sense that you can level an account full of characters all at the same time, which effects the leaderboards, (especially in Hardcore..I am looking at you "Bad"). You can get to Hell mode in something like 10 minutes max. It's borderline "cheating" if you make a private game and flood it with your characters because the massive MF increase and exp increase, (I don't mind it if there's a public game and a ton of people are working together, ex Inf cows.)

4. I am starting to realize that almost every person I come across who is hella geared has been forced to play specific characters with specific builds to MF gear for their other characters. I don't want to have to feel like I absolutely need to do this as well. I am a solo player, self-found and I complete 100% of the campaign on each of my solo characters.

Now, with all that said and to sum this all up, how the hell do I take on Physical Immunes with my Smiter and Crow Druid? Cheers!

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... You know you don't have to really go full blown bear build right? You can literally cast murder of crows while in Bear Form, infact it was designed with that in mind. Bears even have a better FCR breakpoint. You can just put 1 point into bear and get some physical pierce, and that is usually enough for your crows to break physical immunity. Just a heads up. Putting a couple of points into something doesn't make it a "bear build". You should take advantage of all the utility a class has to offer, or you honestly just aren't playing the game right. Elemental Druids aren't Summoner Druids, but wouldn't it be absolutely stupid to not use Oak Sage? Same concept here with bear and crows.

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Originally Posted by LordManhammer

Well, if you want to solo as a Druid, I would recommend playing a Melee bear build. Werebear now gets physical pierce and the new shockwave stuns enemies. With basic gear you can take down phys immune and just about every other type of monster. Couple that with the ability to have every summons available running at the same time and you can easily farm act 5 pit solo. I did it in HC until I got bored of the grind but not before I had tons of extra gear.

Another very important part of any melee build would be to use Amp Damage curse. Amp damage can break physical immunities in most cases. There are several items that have a chance to cast amp damage on striking including the IK weapon, Death Cleaver, set spired helm, the mace from the same set, and saracen's chance amulet. Combine that with high crushing blow and smite can kill any phys immune inferno mob or boss excluding Mappo and a couple others. Eventually with enough -phys immunity gear you can switch to just running life tap and it'll be smooth sailing. For those unpiercable phys immunities there is the poison Smiter build. There is a guide in the character section of the forum that covers that.

I completely understand your desire to solo the game and I assure you that it is possible with Druid and even the Paladin. The pally will have a tougher time but it is very doable.


Edit: I just re-read your post and saw that I missed the part where you didn't like the idea of having to run a bear form build. I get it. There are a few build that I wish were more versatile. Believe me, there are a few versatile builds, but unfortunately I don't think a crow Druid is going to be the balanced solo build that you want it to be. I tried it and was very underwhelmed. Someone might have suggestions about some uber gear that'll make it more powerful but something tells me that you won't have access to that gear without trading and you've said that you prefer to be self found. There are several strong builds to choose from that are perfect for soloing. You will have to be willing to play them though even though they seem like the flavor of the month.

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I had no idea any of that would be effective. Thanks a lot for your time Man! You're great :D

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Originally Posted by duderominus

Smite was always the butt of a joke until Ubers came along, and then people used it for that(and only that). There's no one-size-fits-all build. You'll have to make non-phys chars to do certain content, especially if you don't have the gear to back up your gimmick beforehand. The game would be rather boring if that wasn't the case. #AllBuildsMatter

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I see, okay maybe I will have to adjust my mentality. See, I play the game for fun abilities. Smite imho, is the coolest ability in the game because you're Annihilating, (pun definitely intended) every monster with a shied smash haha. That's basically the only reason why I like using it.

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Originally Posted by dattelmann

i dont know what you expect... you say you are a solo player. As a solo player i would say u have to modify your build the best for every situation.

I mean immunes arent new content, they were always there. And not every build have to be absolutely insane. Just thinking of my favourite build in vanilla "meele dual dream sorc". It was really strong with the spezial gear but totally crap without.

what im trying to say is that maybe plaquelands isnt the perfect spot for u. cows for example dont have phys immunities. for example a lot of players SKIP the dragon at dreamlands bc of his immunities.

and the other hand:
try to invest some points in your other minions. the bear can tank a lot and the wolves can be your meat shield. then get yourself a meteor act 3 merc. he is doing a lot of dmg from behind. it will take some time to kill phys immunes but it is possible.

at the beginning the stragedy is always to stun/freeze/trap/tank/whatever the enemies. nealy every class has a skill for that.

i dont want to be rude, but i always thought the goal for playing online is to connect with other players to help each other and handle difficult situations together. get yourself a friend with elemental dmg and your problem is solved. still want to play solo? play singleplayer and modify the game

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Thank you very much for the suggestions, it's appreciated :) One of the reasons I don't play online, is because the game because way to easy. With people handing out free gear, absolutely tearing through every monster around me, I just lost the joy in playing online. Now if there's an event, (sometimes ill jump into inferno cows) than I am there for sure. But like I said earlier, I am going to try and adjust my mentality to play with others.

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Originally Posted by nedamettin

if you are a solo player, you make characters for purpose, period. that's how it has been in almost every mod or vanilla game of d2. after entering hell mode you will run into things that you can't kill unless you switch builds.

it is rather weird that you are having problems with druid who is incredibly op and will be nerfed soon. if you stick on a single build without end-game gear you don't stand a chance. for druids i would recommend you to switch to elemental skills (specially opnado) when you see immunes that you can't deal with.

also there are items/skills to pierce immunities and - pierce from gear works on mobs which is unique to this mod. but it is not a solution since there WILL be mobs that are super immune. you just need to increase your diversity.

and last thing, i don't want to sound like a jerk but this concept is the same with bnet: there are characters which requires good gear to mf efficently and there are classes that fall off later with better early game abilities. and then there are druids but it's another topic. my point is if u can't live with these conditions you better quit this mod because you will never find a build (except tornado druid atm) that can farm every content efficently.

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Yeah well if none of which I try works for me I am quitting most definitely lol. You don't sound like a jerk or anything I've more or less made up my mind to give this one more shot.

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Originally Posted by Game

... You know you don't have to really go full blown bear build right? You can literally cast murder of crows while in Bear Form, infact it was designed with that in mind. Bears even have a better FCR breakpoint. You can just put 1 point into bear and get some physical pierce, and that is usually enough for your crows to break physical immunity. Just a heads up. Putting a couple of points into something doesn't make it a "bear build". You should take advantage of all the utility a class has to offer, or you honestly just aren't playing the game right. Elemental Druids aren't Summoner Druids, but wouldn't it be absolutely stupid to not use Oak Sage? Same concept here with bear and crows.

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I am definitely going to have to try that haha. So pierce does work with the crows? How about the ravens? I like the idea of using multiple skills to be effective though, sounds fun