Hello Everyone!
Here is my guide to the crow druid.
General Pros
Tankiest spec on the server, I currently have 21k+ life, max dr, and max resists.
Anything you can telestomp dies almost instantly
Strong vs small and medium sized groups of monsters
General Cons
Can struggle in areas you cant tele due to summon ai. See the crucible video for example on lvls 15 and 18.
Weaker versus large groups of monsters
There are a few things that can kill your minions even through bo+salvation. A list of minion proc survival is below.
- flamehorizon spell - yes, minions die
- frostmourne spell - no, minions live
- uldyssian spells - no
- cains raven swarm looking spell - yes, cains other spells - no
- corpse rain from azmo - yes, azmos pool - no
- reziarfg spells - untested
- belials insect swarm - untested
- tyraels spells - untested
- cthulu spells - untested
- ctogga - untested
- necro puzzle box boss spells - untested
Skills
Raven - 20 points - your primary source of damage
Oak sage - 20 points - health and synergy
Murder of Crows - 20 points - your secondary point of damage
Lycanthropy - 20 points - You will be in shifter form. This gives a lot of health.
This is the core of the build. The rest of the points are up to you.
My preferences are below.
Spirit Wolf - 1 point - weaker meatshield
Dire Wolf - stronger meatshield that eats corpses :(
Grizzly Bear - strongest meatshield, its knockback stun is really nice
Heart of the Wolverine - 1 or 10+/all extra points. Ravens damage is increased by auras and this functions as an aura. Use this with oak sage once you have a druid prime and/or full moon.
Spirit of Barbs - 1 or 10+/all extra points. When maxed it gives 33% damage reduction aura. Use this over Wolverine spirit when you need that more than the extra damage.
Wolf form - 1 point. Better when you value run/walk speed + access to rabies over physical pierce and extra life/defense. The walk speed is subject to diminishing returns. So dont max it.
Bear form - 1 point. Better when you value physical pierce and extra life/defense over run/walk speed and access to rabies. The physical pierce is subject to diminishing returns. So don't max it once you have some decent gear.
Maul - 1 point. Pre-req for pounce
Fireclaws - 1 point. Pre-req for pounce
Pounce - 1 point. A teleport with open wounds. Very useful versus high regen opponents. In areas where you can't teleport, it just does its damage without you moving.
Feral Rage - pre-req for rabies. It can be useful to charge it up if you need extra damage reduction or movement speed.
Rabies - 1 point. A wonderful 1 point wonder. With +skills, I currently have 46 slow target and -124% damage. To be honest, I don't know how that -damage even works. Maybe someone else can clarify that. But I do notice that affected monsters are much slower and weaker. Rabies also spreads. So you just need to hit one monster in a group and it spreads to the rest of them. It's probably possible to do a hybrid crow/raven+rabies spec. I haven't tested it, but it looks like it has potential.
Bear or wolf?
Bear is better early on when you don't have much physical pierce. But once you have at least 100 physical pierce, I prefer wolf for the movement speed and the access to rabies. Once you have some decent gear, the extra life and defense from bear dont mean that much.
Gear
The goal here is to max out on resists, damage reduction, and magic resist with as much + skills and physical pierce as possible. You realistically need at least 200 physical pierce to kill Uldyssian who has 250 physical resist. I have 241.
Weapon - Azurewrath - A salvation aura for your summons, +3 all skills, +attributes, damage reduction, magic resist, and 5 sockets to play with. Mine has 5 physical horadric jewels. This has the best combination of all the stats you need. Someday I will chant this with 2 +1 druid skill enchants.
Shield - Bane of the Underworld - The meditation aura is nice. The big bonus here is the 1000 life. With lycanthropy, oak, and bo, 1000 life turns into 8000 life... Mine is socketed with 4 physical horadric jewels and is chanted with 1 all skills.
Helm - Corrupted shako - You can use ravenlore here instead. But I really value the curse immunity here. It also gives 5 max resists and 15% damage reduction. Mine is socketed with 1 druid king jewel and 1 physical horadric jewel and is chanted with 1 +1 druid skills enchant.
Armor - Sanctuarys balance - 6 physical horadric jewels and teleport enchant. 86 physical pierce total. The fcr and fhr are nice too.
Gloves - Divinity - Best gloves for this build imo. It has +1 skills, some life, some fhr and fcr, and the cyclone proc is nice too. Mine is chanted with 150% mf.
Belt - Scourgelords Girdle - My favorite belt for this spec. It has +1 all skills, damage reduction, magic resist, and a bone armor proc. Mine is chanted with 5 physical pierce.
Boots - Deaths Advance- If you go ravenlore instead of cshako, go rare boots instead here with 1 all skills/5 max resists. Unholy might aura gives your minions attack speed and life steal. It has 1 all skills,15 physical pierce, some life, and some damage reduction.
Rings - I use band of sin and constricting ring here. The damage reduction, magic resist, skills, and pierce on band of sin are really nice. Constricting ring gives 5 max resists and allows you to skimp on resists elsewhere.
Amulet - Diablos Rebirth - I mainly use this for the 5 max resists it gives. The fcr, %vita, @resist and unholy might aura is nice as well
Inventory
Perfect dudu prime, torch, raven anni, neo anni, alkors, 3 druid summon gcs, belials, gheeds and a few rand small charms.
Final Stats (buffed with lvl 59 bo/56 shout)
21.8k life
14.5k defense
182 fcr
43 fhr
241 physical pierce
84% dr stacked (117 if using barb spirit)
70% magic resist
94/95/94/95 @resists with 50 extra stacked
17-27k murder of crows damage
2-2.3k damage per raven hit (x4.5 with merc auras, x8.5 if using maxed wolverine spirit as well)
Merc Gear
The goal here is just to stack auras for your ravens while ensuring a reasonable amount of survivability. You also need open wounds here since prevent monster heal doesnt always work. I use an a1 merc right now. If the prevent monster heal from ravens was more consistent and their ai worked better in certain areas, I would use a3 and add on a bulwark.
Weapon - Faith bow - lvl 19 aura fanaticism. Chanted with 3 open wounds scrolls. I may switch to a pride bow if I can get some more ow scrolls.
Armor - Templars might - lvl 15 might aura. Using enough -15 req jewels and chants for her to wear it.
Helm - Focus runeword - lvl 10 concentration aura. The other mods are nice as well.
Videos
Here are videos of me clearing some of the areas. If anyone wants to donate me cthulu keys, tyrael keys, marks of trag, ctogga boxes, frag sets, or marks of sin, I can make vids of those too. :)
Gear, plaguelands, and lich king
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRQRKAMsr3M
Ryleh + inferno cows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUR8SYvVXns
dreamlands + inferno areas (a2, a3, a5)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Wj8q4S3uA
crucible - You can realistically get this down to 25 minutes if you get good monster setup on lvl 18. This was more of a chill run right before bed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIZ1_vC4W-8
