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Thread: The Crow Druid

  1. #1
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    The Crow Druid

    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


    Ryleh + inferno cows


    dreamlands + inferno areas (a2, a3, a5)


    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.
    Last edited by rrra; 02-22-2017 at 01:29 PM.

  2. #2
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    Wow, very Very VERY nicely done!

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    Junior Member Snowish's Avatar
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    Impressive ! GG rrra , best guide so far i wish the other guides would be the same as this one.

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    To rrra

    Would you consider using Titan's Grip now instead of Divinity for both the might aura and physical pierce and perhaps switch your Mercenary's armor to Steel Carapace?

    Also have you tried this build with the Deadly Sin Sword (and then use an Act 3 mercenary with Azurewrath, Dragon's Bulwark, Templar's Might or Steel Carapace, and Focus)?
    Last edited by vaudeville; 02-13-2017 at 08:26 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by vaudeville View Post
    To rrra

    Would you consider using Titan's Grip now instead of Divinity for both the might aura and physical pierce and perhaps switch your Mercenary's armor to Steel Carapace?

    Also have you tried this build with the Deadly Sin Sword (and then use an Act 3 mercenary with Azurewrath, Dragon's Bulwark, Templar's Might or Steel Carapace, and Focus)?
    Steel carapace isnt that useful because a high level shout provides alot more defense then a low defiance aura. If there was a better armor aura than templars might, I would definitely consider it though. One I haven't tested is the husk of kaalut. Since ravens benefit from your pierce, you could conceivably use the aura on that (maybe with true guise as well) on a rabies hybrid. It might be worth trying. Azmodans armor is an option too if you are ever rich enough to put one on a merc lol. You could definitely use a well-rolled titans grip over divinity for more damage at the cost of the life, fcr, fhr, the cyclone armor proc and the +1 skill. I prefer the divinity given that I have so much pierce as is and dont really need the might aura. Its just a good bundle of stats.

    The deadly sin seems great for this build at first glance. The problem is that its only useful for its physical pierce. You dont use any of its other stats besides the mf. Azurewrath is just the best combination of so many necessary stats. Salvation turns your summons into uber tanks. Damage reduction and magic resist (this is, as of now, the only spec that can face tank nihlathak packs) are awesome. You have 3 skills on a weapon of all things and you have 5 sockets to play with. I honestly can't imagine ever using anything else with a pure crow spec. Well, maybe 5.0 can change my mind. We'll see.

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    That makes some sense.

    You sort of mentioned this a bit already but what about also an Act 3 mercenary with pride (just realized a few days ago you can now make that in a sword), Templar's Might, Dragon's Bulwark, and Focus?

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    Quote Originally Posted by vaudeville View Post
    That makes some sense.

    You sort of mentioned this a bit already but what about also an Act 3 mercenary with pride (just realized a few days ago you can now make that in a sword), Templar's Might, Dragon's Bulwark, and Focus?
    If I could reliably count on ravens for prevent monster heal, that is exactly what I would go. Unfortunately, in areas where you can't telestomp, raven ai is such that they will sometimes get stuck. So you can't always count on it. See the crucible video at lvl 15 for an example.

  8. #8
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    I'm afraid I don't follow the point regarding prevent monster heal as it relates to switching mercenaries unless you're saying you're relying on your Rogue hireling with 30% (I assume 30%) open wounds to take care of that.

    Also I have a few dreamland keys and frags to donate for videos on Worldstone or Dreamlands but not enough right now for a set.

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