Melee Druid Guide

Pros

- Can solo any boss
- Fast killing/farming speed
- Shapeshifting is fun

Cons

- requires very expensive gear
- hard to reach -150 fire and -150+ enemy phys resist
- can only solo to lvl 15 cruci, good at tanking it though
- sometimes mana problems but not a big issue

Gear

Helm - Full moon, get one with -20 enemy physical resistance, socket with x2 Phys Horads, Enchant: 10%dr
Armor - Sanc Balance good stats - 5x Phys horad 1x Fire Horad Enchant: Teleport
Weapon - Flame horizon - socket with sur and 2 ber Enchant: 35lph and -5 enemy fire
Shield - Corrupted Stormshield - 3x Fire horads Enchant: 2x -enemy fire res
Boots - Perf death advance - enchant: -5 phys, cannot be frozen
Belt - Nosferatu, Enchant : -5 phys
Rings - 2x Con rings
Amu - Diablos rebith (to max out res)
Gloves - Hysteria - Enchant - fire

with all charms and perf eye ball charm this gives :

95 max res, 178 stacked res
30k attack rating
6k life
75% damage reduction
135% ias
-150+ enemy physical resistance
-150+ enemy fire resistance
55 life per hit
42% life leech
16% mana leech
40% crushing blow ( ravens and bear summon deal enough to cover the rest)
36% open wounds (26 from pounce)
20% deadly strike
13 unholy might aura
300%mf
6k defense
slow on bosses - with rabies wep and belt

Kills everything

Have tfury on switch for mappo and trag boss

Merc

act 3 merc

helm - pumpkin
arm - shadow plate 10 defiance aura
wep - shha fang perf aura
shield - malevolent perf aura

Points


Str - enough for gear
Dex - enough for max block (or more if you want more AR)
rest in Vita

Skills

Shapeshifting - Max werewolf, Lycan, rest one point
Summoning - Max dire wolf , grizzly (they do some decent damage and make good shields), one point in everything else, rest in oak sage.

left click rabies (for insane slow on bosses) right click pounce / fury whatever you want to use.

This is really interesting. Upload a video for us :)

will do!

Is pounce the main skill and do you max it?

yes it is, fury is good aswell, less mana problems and gives more attack rating, seems like pounce seems to be faster though, not sure need to test it properly.

i havnt maxed them, they give very little in damage per lvl, but they do give lots of AR so it optional i guess. Most of the damage comes from flame horizon proc.

Thanks for this guide pulse37!

Ive followed it mostly and it really plays well. Ive changed that armor into azmodans (curse immune, alot -% fire, 990 baselife bonus etc) and the belt into the new relic of the ancients. I may also try to get my claws on some titans grip ;)

i guess you can also equip your merc with this shaa sword + new arkaines wrath chest, adding up the physical pierce aura to like 40+? But i havent tryed to play with a merc yet. The druid is good enough on his own.

as there were videos requested and i want to help some new fire druid @About20Pandas :

oh and i mostly use pounce on bosses / large monster groups and fury for single monsters or some bosses like othuyeg who seem to not dodge as much as other bosses...

https://youtu.be/n9_0O5DXbjc

The first one is how to get to santa without getting hit from his snowballs. You need to run as fast as possible on the northern side of the way until you see him casting something (you can see it pretty clear where i decide to go southwards of the way and dodge those orbs almost completely).
Make sure to attack him first with rabies (-40% slow from rabies, plus those 2x sur runes i have in my FH = ultra slow boss, that cannot really attack you anymore).
Still he gets a second snowball attack on me and i barely survive it with (5500 life while shapeshifted, 8300 life while ss+oak) 95 coldress, 260 stacked resist, no absorb.

https://youtu.be/JsJWMO8F634

This is the first way to kill knarst: Try to kill stuffs close and in line of sight to him with fury. If flame horizon proccs, it gonna attack knarst too and kill him. Since fh proccs are no melee hits, he wont teleport away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjpLteBAXvM

This is the second way to kill knarst: Klick with pounce on him and then hold pounce while centering your mouse cursor fast! This way you gonna teleport with him, hitting him again and teleport again with him. That looks somewhat strange but killst him too over time.
A combination of teleporting around with him and the first way (killing monsters nearby) is probably the best way to get fast to dreamlands. I dont even slow this monster since it cant hurt me much.
OH and dont summon any bears/wolves/ravens. They melee hit him and he will teleport away. Its just you and the oaks :P

https://youtu.be/JKygnNhmY0g

and something funny at least. Probably one of the fastest ways to kill timerift diablo. I was pretty procclucky there and the more of this minions that are there, the more proccs my quillstorm and the more quillstormproccs there are, the more flame horizon proccs following :)

now the more boring part: My gear

Helm: Full moon - 2x fire facets
Weapon: Flame horizon - SurBerSur
Shield: Corrupted Stormshield - 3x fire facets
Armor: Azmodans shell - 2x phys horads, 2x fire horads
Belt: Relic of the ancients, 7 might, -20% physical pierce, 117dmg, 147 ed% :P
Gloves: rnd Hysteria (still want to test some titans grip there)
Boots: Deaths advance - enchated with -5% fire pierce
Rings: 2x cons
Amulet: 1x Diablos rebirth

Inventory with anni, neo anni, torch, druid prime with -10% phys res and alkors (you wont get hit into delirium, you just sometimes end up in cancelled wolf form. Just recast it then)
Rest of the inventory is filled with life/ar charms.
Most of the inventory is just random stats, except for the eyeballs. Ive chosen one with highest max resists since you will need them to get to 95% res.

in my case i end up having:
8328 Life while shapeshifted and oak alive, no bo
151 frw
65 fcr
40 fhr
110 ias
20-23k pounce damage (self-enchanted)
20-25k feral damage (self-enchanted)
33811 rabies + fury attack rating
31999 pounce attack rating
332 mana (like pulse said, there are some manaproblems :P)
92 max fireresist
95 max rest resists
252 stacked resists (cold 260, light 272)
-185% fire pierce
-60% physical pierce
44% slow from rabies, plus 40% from weapon (you can see the boss' attack speed in the first vid - Santa is ultra slow)

i still want some more fire pierce (for mappo, mostly) and probably some more physical resist, to get leech active/better on some bosses.
My gear isnt enchanted yet. Only the boots are. Also i can replace some of those fire facet jewels with fire/phys horads and get even better fire pierce.
Also i havent tested any merc yet. This act 3 lightning with arkaines wrath, shaa sword and malevolent seems to provide some nice stats. But mercs die way to often/fast and i just dont like looking for those guys...

gl and feel free to pm me if you have problems or need advice :)

~Lucid

Holy shit @Lucid.

Thank you so much for that explanation - that was way more than i expected!
I really, really appreciate what you've done. Thanks!

nice, i changed mine a lil bit. I started using bane of under world shield with a BER and 3x -PHYS horads. Swapped belt for scourgelords, and and wearing new ogre gauntlets also azmo armor. overall this gives:

12.5k health with oak (no BO)
40k attack rating 37k pounce
-165% enemy fire resist
-155% enemy phys resist (with the right enchantments)
and no mana problems becuase of meditation aura from shield :D

Wait I thought that if you used belial tome you wouldn't encounter mana problems or am I wrong?

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Originally Posted by wdzepplin

Wait I thought that if you used belial tome you wouldn't encounter mana problems or am I wrong?

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You are correct!

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Originally Posted by Eric

You are correct!

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Must be some special interraction with full moon and makes it so it doesn't give you enough mana? I don't know though

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Originally Posted by wdzepplin

Must be some special interraction with full moon and makes it so it doesn't give you enough mana? I don't know though

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Funny thing is Full moon actually gives mana per hit

How does a melee druid build with belials and full moon ever have mana problems?

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Originally Posted by rrra

How does a melee druid build with belials and full moon ever have mana problems?

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I don't know that's why I was asking :D

because my druid has like 330 mana, pounce costs like 30 and that are 10 hits. If i miss 10 hits due to the boss' dodge/parry/whatever they have, you already have your little mana problems.

thats not often tho but it happens from time to time. Also you mostly dont start with 330 mana due to the fact that youre recasting your oak/summons/wolfform and everything else before starting a bossfight.

on normal monsters you will really never ever have mana issues. And even against the bosses i find them maginal. Happens sometimes but hey, on other days you oneshot timerift dia :P

swap in like 3-4 15/70? :D

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Originally Posted by rattan

swap in like 3-4 15/70? :D

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ya all my chars usually have like anywhere between 5-10 15/70's so I don't run into mana problems ever

I believe the real question is, can you make a melee druid without sanc and flame horizon? Don't get me wrong I like the guide, but it's more about listing endgame gear that like 10% of the server can get rather than explaining step by step on how to build a melee druid.

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Originally Posted by rattan

I believe the real question is, can you make a melee druid without sanc and flame horizon? Don't get me wrong I like the guide, but it's more about listing endgame gear that like 10% of the server can get rather than explaining step by step on how to build a melee druid.

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Yep you can!
My build is:
Helm: Full Moon
Amu: Rudolph
Gloves: the new one forgot the name
Belt: The new one still dont know its name
Shield: Css/ but it will be better with the new shield - 1000 life
Boots: Death advance or the new boots
Rings: 2 cons
Now the interesting thing - The Weapon: The new hammer, why???? Cuz of the 35 % static field chance on hit.... that combined with 50 k attack rating....you can do the math. Also lets not forget the fana aura and - 25 phys, 650 life etc.
Armor: Arcane wrath

Time to farm a Rudolph nose and try it out! Thanks for the answer :)

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Originally Posted by rattan

Time to farm a Rudolph nose and try it out! Thanks for the answer :)

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I do not think it's the - the important part of the build, you can always use dru neph. (But still its a nice amu)
Fury - max
Warewolf - max
Lynosomething - max
Oak - max
1 point on the pets
Rest on the dmg spirit

The key item is the hammer. Still not tested it yet on all conten, but it works pretty well in pits and inf cows.

My dmg at the moment is something like 22 - 23 k 12 k life and 50 k ar. With the new shield i think you can easy get 15 k life

If most damage come from flame horizon proc, there really isn't much use of caring about Phys damage then.

I think it would be more effective to build around fire damage from Flame horizon proc, holy fire, and Fire claws.

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Originally Posted by Ukon

If most damage come from flame horizon proc, there really isn't much use of caring about Phys damage then.

I think it would be more effective to build around fire damage from Flame horizon proc, holy fire, and Fire claws.

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I thought the same as well - I wouldn't even bother with any physical damage and go all out on the fire damage instead. Get lower resist, conviction, etc. and forget about physical that's probably only just a small % of the damage anyways

Flame horizon has limited phys damage and if you are only adding 1 point into fury / pounce, your overall phys damage is so minimal.


I think you would be better served either picking fire damage or phys damage, not both.

holy fire almost deals no damage, since you have no synergies to skill (like pala) and no jack of all trades or fire mastery as sorcs/asns do.

you just have it because its on the items. And forget about fire claws. Ive recently tried them with my current setup (-185% fire pierce) and reached 61k damage in screen. But that fireclaw skill seems to barely hit bosses and without physical pierce you cannot really rely on cb%. If you want a fire melee druid, focus on flame horizon procs and go with pounce. Thats the only viable bosskiller if you ask me...

or go full physical and MAYBE try the new necro wand :P lel. 5% chance for a blackhole procc doesnt seem much but i bet it deals good damage and you can focus on leech + cb + high physical damage.

Ya I think fire damage from the procs is really what deals damage from what I've seen from your build Lucid (at least in inf cows)

So then focus on getting -fire res and don't care about holy fire (since I can confirm you the damage is pretty bad vs any inferno content)


Made me think that maybe Flame Horizon paladin build is viable with Zeal

zeal has the same mechanics as fury. It wont be very good against bosses with dodge/parry/block etc.

A smiter would procc it more consistent and faster if you ask me. Its almost like the poison smiter we once had with plaguebringer as weapon.
But with a smiter you would loose every targeted benefit, such as making holy fire viable and you would have way less life and surviveability.

the only thing to get more firedamage out of the proccs is to skill with 20 armageddon (=+40% firedamage) and the rest of the points into fissure (every point makes 2 more seconds of armageddon).

I mean once you have the items it's rather easy to theorycraft and try out a bunch of builds since leveling isn't very long to do.
I might give it a try

I enjoyed smiter with on-hit effects since you can run things like salvation and just face tank everything and rely on on-hit for all damage instead of other traditionnal sources - HP isn't all that important when you have max DR, max block, decent evade (25-30%) and absorb

I tried smiter with Flame Horizon and I must say it isn't all that great.
It seems to lack lifesteal - maybe I need to tweak it a bit to make it worth better.

Also, gear is not fully done yet, I don't have horadrims in many of the gear yet as I have them all used for two other characters. I might just farm more crucible to get 5-10 fire horadrims more