PvP Hybrid Rabies/FC Druid Author: Kazama Fury Version: 1.10 Page 1 I. Introduction II. Why this build and not another? III. The perfect Flaming Rabies Druid IV Stat Points Allocation V. Skill Points Allocation and Discussion VI. Item Discussion VII. Dueling Strategy VIII. Tables and Calculations IX. Leveling X. Links XI Credits I. Introduction Hello, you guys might know me as Kazama Fury, others as Kaz. 1.10 has been a completely new world for all of us. I've spent more than 2 months PvMing and MFing but killing the same monsters over and over isn’t what I call fun. What I love about d2 is the PvP aspect. PvP was a gift and a curse to me. A curse because a year ago, I made pretty much every single PvM build possible and eventually I saw nothing left to do anymore. I was about to quit, until one day I stumbled upon the druid forums; everyone seemed real nice and talked about PvP. I believe it’s the first time I became interested in PvP, and also in druids. My very first realm char was a werewolf and after he failed miserably I told myself I would never make one ever again. I certainly ate those words because here I am introducing you my PvP build, which I call Flaming Rabies. Crappy name? I am open to suggestions. As you may notice, Flaming for Fire Claw and Rabies for… Rabies. This druid is by far the most fun build I’ve made so far. I also would like to thank Victus Metuo for giving me the idea. I was skeptical at first, but when we saw the results after endless hours of testing and dueling, I was quite satisfied. II. Why this build and not another? Why would this build be appealing to you? Well, did you ever question which route to go? Werewolf or Werebear? Or wanted to make a Rabies druid, but wanted to go with the popular crowd that makes FC bears instead? Don’t wanna spend an arm and a leg for fine scs of vitas? Well I am here to tell you, this build can do all that, a 4x hybrid which will cost you a lot less than those physical damage druids and still be as good! Victus and I joked about it but the build itself is no joke. Being in wolf form, you can potentially have an arsenal of a 4fpa 33k Rabies Attack and a 5fpa 9k Fire Claw Attack. In werebear form, the same damage on the Fire Claws but at a 4fpa rate! I hope by now I’ve caught you attention. How is this possible? Please, read on. I will show you the numerical results and the gear I used. III. The perfect Flaming Rabies Druid (for Clan Honor) To be exact, here are the exact stats on the druid I made off SP. This druid is at level 85, has a level 10 oak aura on him, 50% Damage Reduce and a 43% chance of open wounds). Werewolf Form (4986 Life, 2077 def) 8312 - 9170 Fire Claw Damage w/ 19675 Attack Rating 32k-33k Rabies over 19.2 Seconds w/ 14980 Attack Rating Werebear Form (5323 life, 5400 def) 8386 - 9263 Fire Claw Damage w/ 13211 Attack Rating 428-664 Armageddon Fire Damage (50 seconds) Gear (perfect items): Cerebus’s Bite (unique blood spirit helm ladder only) socketed w/ Fire Facet 6 Shael Phase Blade, 6 Shael Giant Thresher on Switch Stormshield socketed w/ Shael Enigma Breast Plate Mara’s Kaleidoscope Verdungo’s Hearty Cord Raven Frost Carrion Wind Trangs Gloves Gore Riders Charms (perfect stats): 10 Shapeshift Charm of Vita 9 Steel Small Charm of Vita 1 Annihilus Brebuff gear: 2 SoJs Fleshrender Lidless Wall IV. Stat Points Allocation Str: Enough to equip all your gear (remember to have enough strength to equip your weapon on switch too) Dex: Enough for 75% Block Vit: Rest of the points in here Energy: Ignore all of the above, all in here… seriously… NO POINTS IN HERE. FAQ: Q1: Why not max strength like in those 1.09 builds? A1: Well because strength increase physical damage, which clearly this build relies on elemental. Also, those builds were on the concept of more strength->more damage->more leech. Unfortunately leech in PvP is too poor to even be considered. 1.09 is now a thing of the past. Q2: Why max block? A2: Having max block, 75% will save you from ¾ of all of the physical hits you are being taken (assuming you're not on run mode, which would reduce your block by a 1/3). And because you can’t leech anyways, its nice to have every source of protection possible. V. Skill Points Allocation and Discussion Basis of Flaming Rabies Druid Build (All builds should have this for their basis) Note: Do not put any points in a Vine or else this build goes bye bye! Max Rabies Max Fireclaw 1 Oak 1 Raven * 1 Spirit Wolves * 1 Werewolf 1 Werebear 1 Lycanthropy 1 Firestorm 1 Maul 1 Feral Rage This is where all the choices come in, this really depends on your preference and your area of dueling. Add these extra skills after adding those in the basis. *This is also another preference, but for PvP, its always nice to have at least 1 pt in these. Or enough to have 5 ravens and 5 wolves out after the +skills on your gear. My recommended Flaming Rabies Druid Build (This is an all rounder build) 1 Moulten Boulder Max Fissure Max Volcano 1 Armageddon 1 in prerequisite This should all add up to 96 Pts which at level 85 is the earliest you can have. This is also an ideal build for clan honor because of the level cap of 85. More life Flaming Rabies Druid Build 1 Moulten Boulder Max Fissure Max Volcano Rest in Lycanthropy This build sacrifices Armageddon and a small elemental reduction damage from cyclone armor. Team Flaming Rabies Druid Build 1 Moulten Boulder Max Fissure Max Volcano Rest in Oak This build is just like the one above except the rest the points are spent in a spirit to aid his/her team mates. Even more life but less Damage Oriented Flaming Rabies Druid Build Equip Stone for its level 16 Synergy Boost. But whatever you do, don’t put any PTS in Molten Boulder or this won’t work! Max Firestorm Rest In Lycanthropy and/or Oak Alternatives This build can be quite varied, instead of maxing 2 synergies for Fire Claw, you may decide you want more life, therefore, max just one synergy (I recommend Volcano) and put rest in Lycanthropy and/or oak also depending on your preference and your area of dueling. If you are capped like my builds to level 85, you may want to move one point somewhere, it’s your choice, I suggest from fissure and put one put in Shockwave. I will explain why later on. If you are not limited, feel free to put 1 pt in Shockwave and put the rest in another synergy for FC. Another choice would be putting some in Armageddon, it should increase by 90 fire damage for each point. PvP-wise, I suggest rest in a synergy of Fireclaw would be more ideal. You may also have one point in Grizzly and play around with the rest of your skills. Or even put more pts in Grizzly. Shapeshifting Skills Werewolf: 1 pt in this will enable you to turn into a werewolf! It also increases attack speed, attack rating and stamina. Lycanthropy boosts the werewolf form by giving it more life and enables the druid to stay in that form for a longer period of time. Why not max werewolf? Well a short answer would be, you won’t have enough points to do so. This is a hybrid druid anyways and werewolf will be boosted by the shape shift charms anyways, which is enough for this build. Recommend: 1 pt. (with +skills, I have +335%ar, +68% attack speed) Q1: Would max and base werewolf have a difference of the attack speed when dueling? A1: This build relies on shape shift charms and a phase blade for a weapon. Using TheDragoon’s calculator, I see, there is no difference, at both levels, you still require 110ias to achieve maximum attack speed. Werebear: 1 pt in this will enable you to turn into a big bad ass werebear! Look at those abs! O_O. Numerically, in werebear form, it gives an additional 50% life, more defense and more physical damage! Just like werewolf, to increase its life, you must have a higher lycanthropy. Why not max werebear? Same answer as above. Recommend: 1 pt. (with +skills, I have +183%dmg, +120%def). Lycanthropy: 1 pt in this increases your life and the duration in shift form. Usually maxing this would be a must, unfortunately in this build, you won't have this luxury. In later stages, putting rest in this would have its advantages as mentioned above. Recommend: 1 pt, later stages, rest in here if you want. (with +skills, I have +115%life, 420 seconds duration). Maul: This skill has no use because this build relies on elemental damage. 1 pt in here is enough and should never have more inserted in. It just serves as a prerequisite to Fire Claws. Feral Rage: This skill is useful in some cases. 1 pt in this should be enough as it serves also for a prerequisite to Rabies and Fire Claws. Why would this be useful? Well as you can see, feral rage increases your run speed and leech as it charges up. The run speed proves quite useful and it isn’t too hard to charge up just a few times because nearly every opponent has a minion. If they don’t have one, no problem, as I said, feral is useful, but you don’t need to rely on this that much. Uses I see in 1.10 is mainly to chase opponents on the move. Recommend: 1 pt (with +skills, I have +19-56% frw) Rabies: Ah your initial main attack skill. This build is called flaming RABIES. So obviously you will be maxing this first. Rabies is a very interesting skill: It bites and thus infecting the opponent. You will see a sort of cloud of disease around the infected. Others who are hostile to you who get close to that cloud of disease will be infected to in exchange. As the skill level goes up, more poison damage is inflicted by over a longer period of time. The attack rating also gets boosted for every extra skill point. Rabies also receives synergy bonus from Poison Creeper, 18% poison boost per skill pt inserted. This is a hybrid druid and because its nearly impossible to go both skills without sacrificing a lot, this build also revolves around the unique ring: Carrion Wind. Carrion Wind gives a level 21 synergy to Rabies which is quite nice due to the charges on it. With my tester wolf, I was able to achieve 33k max poison damage over 19.2 seconds. It’s a lot! Even in PvP wise! The fact that Rabies can hit 4fpa (frame per attack) is worth mentioning. This makes Rabies one of the fastest attacks in d2! With a lot of tests with Victus, we’ve also discovered very interesting things and wrote down the results. With Victus having max poison resists (75% pr), he took ~2k life after the whole infection duration. This could be calculated like this, 33000 (Rabies damage) x 0.75 (PvP elemental damage penalty) x 0.75 (75% pr) = 2062.5 poison damage over 19.2 seconds. This translates to 107.42 poison damage per second! Many tests were done and pretty much the same results kept appearing. We have also proved the fact that not all PvP sources reduces to 17%. In reality, elemental damage is reduced to ~25%. When I got Victus to stack on poison, 90% pr and 75% Poison length reduce. We came to these conclusions, Victus was taking an average of 500 damage across the period! We were puzzled because that amount seems too high. We then concluded perhaps the poison length reduction has a PvP penalty just like slow (which is now 50% effective) or like the eth rune (which is ¼ effective). After some calculations, we decided to assume poison length reduction is only ¼ effective in PvP. Therefore, 75% (reduce length of poison) / 4 = 18.75%. Now lets calculate the net damage: 33000 x 0.1 (90%pr) x 1.875 = 440 net poison damage. There's still 60 damage missing somewhere which we still don’t know why. Maybe our assumption is all wrong too. What we did notice though, with his stacked poison resists, when Victus was infected, it seems to re-infect him when the Rabies duration is over. It keeps re-infecting by in shorter and shorter intervals every time until it can not infect anymore. We are quite curious, and unfortunately we don’t have an answer yet to this phenomenon. Recommend: Max! (with +skills, I have, 32083-32799 poison damage over 19.2 seconds and +316% Attack Rating) Q1: Does each bite resets the infected opponent? A1: “Each bite resets the infection/Poison timer for any given monster, Stacking would be too overpowered since Rabies can reach +30K poison damage,” quoted by TheUnchosen. He did say monster, but I think it is safe to assume this works in PvP also. Q2: Do infections stack or re-infect? A2: “Infections don't stack or re-infect. Infection spreads to Poison Damage and it carries the remaining poison damage of an already infected/poisoned monster and transforms it to new monster. If a monster is already INFECTED then the disease (infection aura) will ignore that monster,” quoted by TheUnchosen. It is still useful to infect example the spirit of an enemy druid because they usually go back in contact with that spirit and infects themselves. Why do this? Well because it’s not that easy to actually hit an opponent, but a spirit or minion, a lot easier. Q3: Is Rabies ITD? A3: “ITD is another interesting thing. Is Rabies ITD? I don't think so now since there is an AR bonus so AR is a major concern. I always thought a Vit/block Druid might be the key so you've struck a good point bloog. Also the Dex added for Block will provide the much needed AR as well!,”, quoted by TheUnchosen. Fire Claws: This will be your main attack skill throughout the whole duel, preferably after your opponent has been infected by Rabies. Fire claws was used to be a secondary attack skill in 1.09 after maul was charged, but 1.10, Fire Claws is in the spot light. Having 4 synergies, 22% fire damage boost for every pt inserted makes this skill quite viable on its own. On werewolf form, the max speed you can reach is 5fpa, on the other hand, in werebear form, you may reach the fast attack speed of 4fpa! Fire claws also have a very nice Attack Rating boost for every pt in it which is quite useful. I have 2 strategies with this build. 1) Infect the opponent with Rabies and then, when the time is right, shift to a werebear and start attacking with Fire Claws. Advantages: You will be attacking a lot faster, have more life and more defense. This would be very useful in a melee duel mainly. Disadvantages: You need to re-shift, the opponent might be sneaky and punish you badly if you failed to shift into a werebear in time. You will have lower Attack Rating. You probably won’t have a chance to re-infect your opponent with Rabies anymore. 2) Infect the opponent with Rabies and then start attacking with Fire Claws while you remain in werewolf mode. Advantages: You will have more Attack Rating and you will not need to shift back and forth. You will also have the chance to re-infect your opponent a lot easier. Disadvantages: You won’t be attacking with Fire Claws as fast as in werebear form, you will lack the defense and Attack Rating which a werebear would have. These 2 strategies also depends on your dueling style and situation. Recommend: Max! (with +skills, I have, 8182-8967 fire damage and +620% Attack Rating) Now lets calculate the damages you can inflict per Fire Claw. Lets say you do 9k FC and your opponent has 75% Fire Resists. 9000 x 0.25 (fire resists) x 0.25 (PvP penalty) = 562.5 net fire damage. That’s a decent amount if you keep in mind this a hybrid build. Q1: Why would I build this if I could make a full FC bear? A1: Well, you may, but the advantages of having a hybrid is to be more versatile. Someone may have stacked fire resists and absorb, what are you going to do then? You would wish you had another source of damage, well this build is the answer… Rabies! Versatility is key. Q2: Would I be able to join palapk, druidpk or whatever to have melee duels, i.e.: toe to toe with this build? A2: Yes you may, just prebuff and switch to a werebear and just use Fire Claws. A well built full FC werebear should be doing 13k, while you would be doing 9k which isn’t too bad. Or simply, you can also try to prebuff as a werewolf and connect Rabies in there and start FC’ing away. Glhf! Summoning Skills Oak Sage: This spirit grants you and your allies a bonus life! Even at base, you can notice a nice increase of life. In 1.10, life increases is based on your base life. So your goal is to have the most vitality pts inserted as possible. At level 6, my oak gives my wolf an extra 500 life and an extra 650 for my bear. As you can see, it is a must to have at least 1 or some pts in there. Recommend: 1 - ? (with +skills, I have +55% life) Q1: What about the other spirits? A1: You may have another pt in Heart of the Wolverine if you like to support your teammates or boost your Attack Rating. But personally, I would stick with oak, Fire Claw and Rabies both have decent amounts of Attack Rating, and they are quite fast too so I don’t see much problems. Your attacks are elemental, HoW will not boost them. Raven: Ravens are indeed an interesting summon. It pecks the opponent and cause them to go in a block. In my opinion, having at least level 5 with +skills is enough. They’re just there to annoy your opponent by blinding the minions, do some little damage and maybe cause them to blocklock. It is said that in 1.10, blocklock does no longer exist, it seems to be true, but Victus and I still notice some type of block which is why ravens are still to have. Dueling druids, ravens may also cause them to de-shift and kill them! Don’t say it’s not possible because it happened a couple of times! Recommend: 1 pt or enough +skills to hit skill level 5. Note: “Ravens are immune to all attacks except Sorceress Cold Shields, Assassin Blade Shield, Paladin Thorns Aura, and a Druid Spirit of Barbs,” quoted by Victus Metuo. Spirit Wolves: Same reasons as Raven and you should not put more than 1 pt in there unless you don’t have skill level of 5 with your +skills. Spirit wolves may be served as meat shields against FoHers for example. Its very useful. Recommend: 1 pt or enough +skills to hit skill level 5. Elemental Skills Cyclone Armor: This spell has its uses, it will absorb an amount of elemental damage dealt to you. It’s always nice to have nevertheless. Usually you will cast it once in a duel, when you prebuff that is. If you ever have another chance to recast it, go ahead. Cyclone Armor also has synergies from Twister, Tornado and Hurricane. Those 3 skills you would be putting 1 pt to reach Armageddon anyway. Recommend: 1 pt. Armageddon: Finally an elemental skill that you can cast in wereform! This will not be your main damage source, but just some damage to deal to your opponent while you are attacking with FC or Rabies. This skill may also use to kill them off if needed. If you have maxed Fissure to boost Fire claw’s damage, you have also increased Armageddon’s duration. It’s always useful to have Armageddon last longer than recasting it every 20 seconds. Remember, there is a timer for Armageddon. This is the timer for shifting also. So if you cast Armageddon and get de-shifted, you will be unable to re-shift for a few seconds until the timer is over. Recommend: 1 pt. Q1: How effective is this? A1: Say the opponent has 75% fire resists. My Armageddon damage is 664 max. Lets calculate this: 664 x 0.25 x 0.25 = 41.5 fire damage. I find that nice, a spell that you only need to cast usually once that does ~42 damage per hit. VI. Item Discussion Helms: Cerebus’s Bite: THE ideal helm for this build. Huge Attack Rating bonus (120%ar is max) and it can potentially have +4 Shapeshift skills! It’ll be a useful prebuff and on the field helm! Shapeshift means higher level of Rabies and Fire Claws, therefore more damage too! Open wounds (33%) is great and very useful in 1.10. Open wounds will be discussed later on. Unfortunately this item is ladder only, and it is quite difficult to find a near or perfect Cerebus. I only know one person who has one and I don’t think he’ll be trading it to me soon. Sigh. (5/5) Jalas Mane: This helm has its benefits over Cerebus, this is the ideal helm for those who can’t afford cerebus. Jalas is relatively easy to obtain, I would say 20-25 pgems on USEast. Jalas is nice in terms of skill bonus because of its +2 druid and +2 shape shift. Therefore, also a +4 shape shift effective, thus boosting Fire Claws and Rabies in the same amount as Cerebus. Jalas has also an Attack Rating bonus, just not as much, 20%. Jalas can potentially be more useful than cerebus depending on the duels, because this helm has 30%fhr, 30 resists, +20 strength and +20 energy. I would prefer Attack Rating over those stats because I usually duel on nm and I nearly have max resists and I don’t find Fhr that useful if you’re attacking this fast. That’s just my opinion though. (4/5) Shako: This helm might be amazing on other chars, but on this build, it is quite limited. With +2skills, huge life and mana bonus, a few stats and 10% DR are nice, but not as nice as the benefits you get from Jalas. And because the max DR is now 50% in 1.10, you can find DR sources from other places. (3/5) Tals helm: If you can’t afford Jalas, well you can use this for now. But remember leech doesn’t work too well in PvP and also this is an elemental base damage build, you wouldn’t be leeching much anyways. The only reason why you would want this is for the life, and resists bonus. This is I guess for those who can’t afford Jalas. They’ll hold onto this for now. (1/5) Rare Druid helm or Circlet: Mods you should aim for, Attack Rating bonus, +skills, life, stats (strength and/or dexterity), resists. Some of these helms can be real good, but most of the time, they’re not. (1-?/5) Suggested socketing: Fire facet: To boost Fire Claw and Armageddon damage. Since FC will be your main continuous attack, I suggest this facet over the posion one. (5/5) Poison facet: To boost Rabies damage. If you cant afford a fire one, this will do too. But you’ll only be using Rabies a few times compared to FC. (4/5) Prubby: If you can’t afford the facets, perfect ruby is definitely the way to go, it would boost your life by around 70-90 life when you shift. (3/5) Um/Resist Jewel: If you really need the resists, I guess get a resist jewel, preferably with second mods and socket it in the helm, but I would prefer a prubby over it. (2/5) Jah rune: I have no idea what they did, but after shifting, jah rune gives lesser life than a prubby would. You definitely don’t wanna waste such a valued rune for this especially if you can get a prubby in a matter of minutes. (0/5) Armor: Jah Ith Ber-> Enigma (preferably a breast plate): This armor is great! At level 85, you will +63 strength! That means it saved you 63 stats to put in vitality! This armor is a dueler’s dream armor. +2skills, thus boosting your life, damage, attack rating etc. 45% faster run walk, in all duels, having run is always useful. 45 can be translated as 9 charms, 9 charms = 180 life saved! 8% DR from ber, nice! Jah rune for even more life! Ith giving you mana if you get damaged! Insane amount of defense! This armor is simply godly. Why breast plate you say? It may look ugly on your druid but an enigma breast plate is the only armor that may be equipped before you put any stats in! With the help of Annihilus preferably. If you plan to use an elite armor enigma, ask yourself this: Do I want more life or more defense? If you choose defense, go ahead with the elite enigma. (5+/5) Dol Um Ber Ist -> Chains of Honor: This armor is also amazing! +2skills just like enigma, the armor is anti-elemental because of its huge 65% resists all bonus! This armor also had 8%DR which never hurts. 20 strength bonus which means that goes for 20 pts in vitality! And a little replenish life never hurts. This armor is definitely made for kill casters! (5/5) Ral Ohm Sur Eth -> Bramble: A very nice armor if you want to concentrate more on Rabies. Bramble can give 50% more poison damage!!! This armor also gives the wearer a nice high level thorns. Unfortunately this armor can not be used in clan honor so I nearly forgot to mention this. Anyways in pubs or any other league, this armor would be quite neat if you are willing to sacrifice some life and Fire Claw damage. Huge poison resists, increases cold resists max and 50%fhr! Nice! (5/5) Shael Um Pul Lum->Stone: This armor is used for its high defense, fhr and resists, but mainly its level 16 molten boulder charges which gives free synergy to Fire Claws. But this armor might seem to be helping your Fire Claws, it’s not. It is debatable, but I find using enigma or chains would give you the chance to have a higher level of Fire claws. This armor would only give you the chance to opt for more life. (3/5) Hel Lum Fal -> Lionhart: This armor is made for those who wants more life and/or already have max DR. Huge amount of stats, life and moderate resists makes this armor the poor man’s choice. Unfortunately, it lacks +skills which would reduce your damage by a lot. (2.5/5) Shaftstop: This armor back in the old days used to be worth lots. Now this armor is quite easy to get and the mods on it are quite useful. 30% DR, 60 life bonus, nice defense. Another man’s choice of armor. This armor could prove more useful than Lionhart assuming you can’t afford a stormshield. (3/5) Glads Bane: I love this armor, I don't know why, maybe because wire fleece looks awesome on a druid. Anyways, this armor has physical damage reduce and magical too. Cannot be frozen mod which is a big plus if you don't wanna equip raven. 50% Poison length reduce may also save you a duel. High defense and not too hard to trade for. (3/5) Arkaines Valor: I never liked this armor much, the vitality is a neat bonus, but it isn’t so grand, the only reason why you would want this armor is for the +2skills. 30%fhr is always nice to have too. But what really turns me down is the extreme high strength requirements, 185… WOW! Stormshield would help a bit but I mean, if you can afford a stormshield, you’re half way to an enigma. (2.5/5) Guardian Angel: If you have a lot of stacked resists, this armor is nice to have. Also if ever you want more chance to block and block rate. This is the armor for you. (2/5) Duriel Shell: Need resists? Don’t have cannot be frozen mod somewhere? Which is very crucial in PvP. Well this cheap armor will help a lot! Str and life bonus too. If you have max DR, this armor is nice to have. But then again, you can use Lionhart. (2.5/5) Suggested socketing: Prubby Um Resist Jewel If you can afford a facet or ber, I think it would be best to simply get that enigma or chains of honor. Shields: Stormshield: The king of all dueling shields! 60% cold resists, 20% light resists, 35 strength, 35%DR, more block rate, more chance to block and a huge defense bonus. This shield is a must! (5+/5) Shael in this would be my choice but I am not 100% because of they say about 1.10 changing how block frames work. Mosers: Nice resists, extra block rate, extra chance to block, 2 open sockets, not too expensive. Its not a stormshield, but it’s still pretty neat. If you’re on ladder, upgrade this since a luna version of this will give even more chance to block and more defense. Pdiamonds or Um runes are the usually way to go. (3/5) Whitstan’s Guard: Cheap shield, has very high block rate and chance to block, this will probably opt you for more life, but you would be lacking resists and dr maybe. (2/5) Ko Ko Mal-> Sanctuary: More block rate, chance to block, faster hit recovery, lots of resists and 20 dexterity. It’s a neat runeword shield. I would recommend runewording a dragon shield because of its low strength requirements and it has nice base block rates already. (3/5) Shael Eth-> Rhyme: Use this if you need the cannot be frozen mod. But I rather use any raven instead of limiting myself on this shield. (1/5) Gerke’s Sanctuary: Resists, replenish, more chance to block and block rate and magic damage reduce. Its an ok shield, but this shield has a speed penalty because it’s a heavy shield. Str requirement is 133, seems rather high to me for an exceptional item. (1/5) Suggested socketing: Um Resist Jewel If you can afford a facet or ber, I think it would be best to simply get that enigma or chains of honor. Belts: Verdungo’s Hearty Cord: The ideal belt for this build! This belt has fhr, huge vitality bonus, DR and a lot of replenish life! This belt is great! A must have for this build. (5/5) String of Ears: If you can’t get a verdungos, then get this belt if you are need that extra DR bonus. This also has magic damage reduce. (4/5) Any other crafted/set/rare belt: If it has some or all these mods, fhr strength life open wounds, these belts will do. An ideal one would be a blood belt, 24fhr, high strength, high life, 10% open wounds. But then you will have to decide if to or not find another source of DR. (2-4/5) Thundergods: Anti-lightning belt, has some stats in there too. Limited to its use. But nice to have around vs. those trappers. (2/5) Gloves: 1.10 Trangs Gloves: They’re cheap, and they’re godly for this build! No other gloves may replace this! 25% more poison damage!! WOW! Extra cast rate and more cold resists to stack vs. those cold sorceress or wind druids! 20% faster cast rate also boosts your druid’s cast rate by 2 frames! Which means you will be casting and re-shifting a lot faster! (5+/5) A must. Trangs gloves boosts my Rabies by 7k!!! Bloodfists: They’re cheap too, fhr, life, nice to have… But um… trust me… trangs gloves. (1/5) Boots: Gore Riders: Mainly for Open wounds and it has a nice amount of faster run walk too. Open wounds I find quite essential for PvP. Open wounds will be your other source of damage that will drain your opponent slowly, but yet killing him surely. (5/5) 1.10 Aldurs Boots: Lots of run, life and fire resists! If you don’t care for open wounds, use these. (4/5) Waterwalks: More run, life and dexterity. Not bad at all, if you don’t care for open wounds. Go for this… if you can’t afford 1.10 aldurs boots. (3/5) Wartravelers: You’re not dealing physical damage which defeats the purpose of using these boots. Nt. (0/5) Rings: Carrion Wind: This ring is a must to make this build possible. It gives the druid a free level 21 poison creeper synergy to Rabies. If you don’t have such a ring. You must acquire it before continue your quest in completing this build. Remember to NOT put any points in poison creeper to make Rabies use the ring’s synergies. Huge poison resists and damage goes to mana. (5+/5) Q1: Would equipping 2 Carrion Winds be boosting Rabies by giving it a level 42 synergy? A1: Nope, it would give 2 separate charges of poison creeper. And they don’t stack. Raven Frost: This should be the other ring you use. It has huge attack rating bonus, dexterity and cannot be frozen mod. The higher the stats, the better. This is ideal! And also a MUST! (5/5) Dwarf Star: If where you duel is legal to use fire absorb, then use this if you duel any fire elemental opponents, replace that with raven. (2/5) Rare rings: With Attack Rating, cast, stats, life, resists, they’re ok. But if I were you, I would get a raven frost instead, even a crappy one would be more useful. Unless the stats are very high and you cham’ed your shield or have cannot be frozen somewhere else. It is highly debatable. (0-4/5) Amulets: Maras: This amulet is amazing for this build! Mostly because of the +2skills and 20-30% resists! Not only it has that, you also get 5 in every stat! Very useful and I strongly suggest this amulet for this build. (5/5) Seraphs: This amulet is not bad because of its +2skills, other than that, the other mods aren’t too great. If you can’t afford a maras, its likely you will not be able to afford this item since it’s ladder only. (3.5/5) Highlords: This amulet is godly on a physical attacker, but since this is an elemental one, this amulet is restricted to its uses. The benefits you will get from this is the +1skills and the 35% light resists. That’s about it. Or if you need the extra IAS, you’ll get 20 from here. (2.5/5) Metalgrid: Another ladder only item. Unfortunately the amulet lacks the +skills which this build really needs. But to compensate, you have a very nice amount of Attack Rating and resists boost. If where you duel allows charges, well you have iron maiden too which proves useful in some cases. Downsides: ladder only, lacks +skills. (2/5) Telling of Beads: A set amulet. This amulet is often underrated, but I really this, its better than Highlords in my opinion for this build, you will have a very nice amount of poison resists and cold resists. Both resists which is needed to stack vs. cold sorceress and poison necromancers. Also, you get +1skills! So, in contrast with telling of beads, its pretty much the same amulet in away, except this one has more versatility. If you duel a foher, then switch to Highlords. (3/5) Cats Eye: IAS, nice amount of run and lots of dexterity. Unfortunately, lacking +skills and resists. This amulet should be used if you feel like you need more run and can’t cover it with charms. This amulet has its limited uses. But still may prove useful if you can’t afford enigma which has a 45%frw boost. (3/5) Saracen’s Chance: Stats, chance to cast iron maiden and resists. I don’t see many use this amulet to duel and I don’t suggest this amulet either, there’s a lot of other amulets that can be a lot more useful than this. (2/5) Rising Sun: Use this if only you need fire absorb. (1/5) Atma’s Scarab: 20% more Attack Rating, lots of poison resists, chance to cast amp, more poison damage. This amulet is not bad, but I haven’t done enough testing to see if Rabies resets the Atma's posion damage. Because this is how the damage works. You damage your opponent with the bite (physical damage + outside posion damage) then the Rabies damage gets factored in. I am not sure if Atma's posion gets cancelled out. Nevertheless, people who use amp is looked down upon and for this build, if you have or not, it doesn’t help you either. (1/5) Rare/Crafted Amulet: What you will be aiming for, +2druids, stats, resists, life, poison length reduction and run. Unfortunately +2 crafted amulets require you to be at level 89+, which clan honor duelers will not have the luxury to have. But in a rare amulet, you can get +2druids, stats, resists and life. Those amulets are quite godly and can potentially be a lot better than even maras! Why didn’t I use an amulet like this for my testing? Well it’s because these amulets are nearly impossible to come by and would be insanely expensive. I wanted to try to have at least the opportunity to be “realistic” and maras isn’t too expensive compare to those amulets. (2-5/5) Weapons: Before I start naming some weapons I would like you read this passage copied and pasted from Victus Metuo’s guide on a maul PvP werebear. The main reason I put this up is because I want you to understand why speed is very important and crucial to win. This also would answer those people who would want to use Death’s Web for a weapon. “As a Werebear you will have two ideal speeds to be attacking at, which are 4-Frames Per Attack and 5-Frames Per Attack [FPA]. Here you are not left with so many choices with what weapons you can use. But you may ask, what about loading up on IAS gear? Well, much like a Whirlwind Barbarian, shifted Druids rely on weapons to attack faster. However, this is only for the faster weapons. With a slower weapon, IAS gear will actually help your Werebear, but you will never reach the 4 or 5 FPA [other than 5 FPA Two Handed which will be discussed below] that you will need. So with your Werebear you will be relying on your weapon more for speed and your skills more for Damage. As you may or may not know, Diablo II: LOD runs at 25 Frames Per Second and as I have said we are aiming for 4 or 5 FPA which will give you 5-6 Attacks Per Second. So don’t frown too much on that 3,000 Damage you are aiming for because that will give you 18,000 Damage Per Second before Damage Penalties and including Critical or Deadly Strike. Now that doesn’t sound so bad now does it? Why else would we want to keep a 4-Frame attack? Well a 4-Frame attack for a Werebear will be different than any other melee attack that can reach such a frame rate. This is because all of the other attacks that can achieve 4-Frames have some sort of break due to it being a multi-hit skill. Your other melee skills that will reach 4-Frames come from Paladins, Amazons, and our brother Werewolves. A Paladin can reach 4-Frame mark with the Zeal skill, which hits five times. Here, there is a small pause between each Zeal attack because the greatest a Paladin can achieve is a 8-Frame initial attack for an 8/4/4/4/4 Zeal attack. An Amazon can reach the 4-Frame mark with the Jab skill, which hits twice. Just as Zeal does, Jab has a pause between each Jab attack [between the second attack on the jab and the start of a new set], which also breaks the continual 4-Frame attack. Our fellow Druids, the Werewolves, can achieve up to a 5/4/4/4/4-Frame Fury attack, but you are not likely to see a Werewolf with an initial 5-Frame attack, but rather one with 6 or 7-Frame initial attack. "The biggest key to a Werebear is taking advantage of your Stunning capabilities and sending your opponent into Block or Hit Recovery so that he or she cannot move."  So as you can already see they have the disadvantage from the slower initial frame. Maul is a focused single hit skill, so your 4-frame attack will be a continual 4-frames if you do not go into Block or Hit Recovery. Also being a single hit skill, you will never have to wait or stay in place to finish the rest of your attack. The biggest key to a Werebear is taking advantage of your Stunning capabilities and sending your opponent into Block or Hit Recovery so that he or she cannot move. Keeping a constant 4-Frame attack is the best way to achieve this, and the decent Damage you can attain is really just a huge bonus for you. Our skills and attack speed reduce the need for insane damage. So now let’s take a look at those weapons you will be looking to get your hands on,” ~ Victus Metuo. Thanks buddy. If you are interested in his guide, refer to the links below. Before I start this, I will remind you again, physical damage is not needed for this build! What you will look for in a weapon is mainly speed, and if it allows, Attack Rating. So enhanced damage mods will be useless to you. 1 Handed Weapons At skill level 11 werewolf you will need 108ias on a phase blade according to TheDragoon’s calculator for max attack speed for both Fire Claw and Rabies in both forms, therefore, -138 WSM. How this is calculated you ask? Take the negative number of the base attack speed of a weapon then add the number of increased attack speed on the weapon to get that mark. Example: A phase blade has -30 base speed. Take the negative-> 30. 30 + 108 = 138. Therefore, this weapon hits 4fpa Rabies and 5fpa Fire Claws on a werewolf and 4fpa Fire Claw on a werebear. The fastest you can get. This is definitely what you will aim for. Everything else will be at lower speeds making you less effective, if you are curious with whatever weapon you have in mind, I implore you to try TheDragoon’s calculator. 4 Shael + 2 Attack Rating or resists with 15 IAS jewels Phase Blade: This is THE weapon for your build. I am kinda angry at myself because I failed to look at this before and instead I used a plain 6 shael phase blade -.-. Anyways this weapon is perfect, not only you hit max fpas, you have a choice to have more Attack Rating and/or more resists. Attack Rating/IAS jewels are not too expensive, too bad in the other, 15resists/15ias jewels are insanely expensive. Use this if you want perfection. (5+/5) 6 Shael Phase Blade: If you can’t afford what was mentioned above, this weapon will be nearly as effective and will potentially cost you a lot less and still hit max fpa! (5/5) Fool’s Phase Blade of Quickness Shael Shael Shael: This weapon is insane, only spawns in 1.09 because of the sword chipped cube recipe, which makes this weapon very very very very very rare. Fortunately you won’t be needing to look for this weapon because it lacks 8ias on the weapon to hit the last speeds. Therefore, you will be hitting 1 frame slower, but in the other hand, you will have a very handsome Attack Rating bonus. The rarity outweighs the advantages. (3/5) BotD Phase Blade: Nice stats, nice mods, too bad this weapon doesn’t hit fast enough. (1/5) Deaths Web: The disadvantages outweighs the benefits, speed > damage. Read Victus’s passage if you don’t know why. Maximum speed you can hit with this will be at 9fpa! It’s pretty slow for a Rabies druid. Also, this is a hybrid druid, you will be shifting into a werebear too even in mid-duel, a werebear with deaths web is pathetic in terms of speed, trust me. (0/5) 2 Handed Weapons Before I continue, I would like to put another passage from Victus’s great guide, hopefully he doesn’t mind again! ^^ “You may be asking, now why would I ever want to go Two-Handed with my Werebear, because a Werebear without a shield = a dead Werebear. Well in some cases that would be correct, but in other cases he would be a better Werebear. So what would be the uses of having a Two-Handed weapon? Well the obvious one would be that you could achieve more Damage. You can also increase the range of your attack to up to Range 5, which will help you greatly in certain situations. So what are the times that you would want that huge range? Firstly, range will be a great asset when you are chasing an opponent that generally will not stop moving at all, for example a Sorceress or Necromancer. With the option of removing your Damage Reduction gear and change to Resist gear against pure Elemental Damage attackers, you will not need a shield anymore. The next reason would to be to have such a weapon on your switch to use against a running ranged character, like an Amazon. This setup also has some benefits in melee combat. Equipping a greater ranged weapon accompanied by Hit Power Gloves will keep your opponent out of striking distance at least 60% of the time. Against a Werewolf Druid who will be using Ravens, Spirit Wolves, and Poison Creeper, he will have one less advantage; he will not be able to put you into Block Lock with his Summons. The Summons will then do miniscule Damage to you because that is not there focus. When you are facing a ranged opponent that you will be chasing constantly, such as a Bowazon, you will not want Knockback with a Two-Handed Weapon. The reason for this is that when you get in close enough you want to benefit from the ability to keep stunning constantly. You do not want to knock them back and have to chase them down and take the chance that they will get out of stun because you will lose the advantage you just gained from the range. However, the character you will never want to go 2-handed against is another Werebear because his Shockwave will be always hitting you, very easily letting his Grizzly finish you off. Beware though, any time your opponent does get inside of range, you will need to retreat quickly as your previous thought will become reality, a Werebear without a shield = a dead Werebear,” - Victus Metuo. At skill level 11 werewolf, you will need -123 WSM for max speeds. To sum: Why would 2 handed weapons be viable? Yes you lose the luxury of having a shield on, but you will have range 5 for a weapon! This weapon will crush casters or whoever runs away from you. Range is ideal to catch opponents or even help you get the first strike in melee duels. In 1.10, Victus and I confirmed that blizzard has indeed fixed the namelock bug where if you click on the opponent, the char will approach and attack in range 1 and not take advantage of its range 5. In our tests, we have discovered if you are in range of attack and you click on the opponent, you will be standing and attacking! Very nice improvement. I wanted the testing to go further, so I told victus to start running away from me and I held the namelock after him. When my werewolf got close enough in range 5, it would attack! Very nice! The need to shift attack will not be as useful as before. Speaking of shift attacks, Rabies and Fire Claw don’t seem to have that ability. But maybe that’s just me. Ok, on the weapons! 6 Shael Giant Thresher: If you love speed, this is the weapon of choice! All your attacks will be hitting the max speed possible! And not too hard to find these days! (5/5) 3 Shael + 3 Attack Rating or resists with 15 IAS jewels Giant Thresher: Now this is a debate between this weapon vs. the 6 shael one. The difference between to two is the attack speed of Fire Claws on a werebear. This weapon will hit 5fpa Fire Claws instead of 4fpa. I personally would prefer 4fpa, but this weapon has its uses, mainly vs. melee chars. If you want the extra Attack Rating and resists, you may want to try to use this. Although, as I stated above, resists/IAS jewels are very hard to come by. (4.5/5) 6 Shael Great Poleaxe: Same issues as the one above, you will be hitting one frame slower for Fire Claws in werebear form. If you can’t afford a giant thresher, then use this. (4/5) BotD Giant Thresher: Too slow… Read BOTD phase blade observations. (0/5) BotD Great Poleaxe: Too slow, read above. (0/5) Charms: Spiritual Grand Charm of Vita: This is what you're aiming for! These charms boost your druid's life, increases your Attack Rating and damage for both skills! 10 of these are a must! (5/5) Steel Small Charm of Vita: These charms should be complementary to those shape shift charms above! Get 9 of these! It increases your Attack Rating by a huge amount (+36ar is max on these) and also boosts your life! (5/5) Annihilus: This charm is godly! You got to kill Diablo clone to get one of these. +1skill, 10-20 stats, 10-20 resists and 5-10%exp boost. Having one of these gives a nice advantage to you in a duel. (5/5) Spiritual Grand Charm of Balance: Just like the spiritual GC of vita, but instead of gaining more life, you have a higher faster hit recovery. I personally wouldn't suggest having much faster hit recovery since you will be hitting so fast, but if you do, I would aim for 42. (4/5) Plain Spiritual Grand Charm: Just like the benefits of the spiritual charms above except you wouldn't have that much of a life boost nor some faster hit recovery. Never the less, these charms aren't too hard to obtain and they still help greatly! If you can't afford a second mod to these charms, definitely get 10 of these! (4/5) Fine scs of Vita: You're not doing physical damage, and these charms are pretty expensive, definitely get steel charms of life mod instead. (2/5) Small Charm of Vita: If you feel like you don't have enough life and are willing to sacrifice damage, then stack up on these. (2/5) Steel Small Charm: These are the plain +Attack Rating charms. If you can't afford those with life as a 2nd mod, get some of these, a mixture of plain steel charms and vita charms could do. (2.5/5) Elemental damage mod Small Charm: These charms are ok, but they don't get boosted by Fire claws or Rabies. (2/5) Resists Small Charm of Inertia/Vita: If you feel u need more resists, get these charms. Obviously having a second mod of more run or more life is very nice too. (3-4/5) Prebuffing Items: Here is a list of items that you may keep in your inventory to equip on and then shift with. When you remove those items and wear your actual gear, you still retain the bonuses from the +shape shift skill you had before. This can prove very useful and give you an extra edge. Thanks to Victus for letting me borrow this table, I've also updated it so it contains 1.10 items. Item Name Bonuses Item Slot Jalal's Mane +4 Shapeshift Helm Cerebus's Bite +4 Shapeshift Helm Shako +2 Shapeshift Helm Magical Druid Helm +2-3 Shapeshift Helm Enigma +2 Shapeshift Armor Chains of Honor +2 Shapeshift Armor Arkaine's Valor +2 Shapeshift Armor The Spirit Shroud +1 Shapeshift Armor Skin of the Vipermagi +1 Shapeshift Armor Que-Hegan's Wisdom +1 Shapeshift Armor Mara's Kaleidoscope +2 Shapeshift Amulet Seraph's Hymn +2 Shapeshift Amulet Highlord's Wrath +1 Shapeshift Amulet Magical/Rare/Crafted Amulet +2 Shapeshift Amulet Communal Amulet +3 Shapeshift Amulet Stone of Jordan +1 Shapeshift Ring Bul-Kathos Wedding Band +1 Shapeshift Ring Islestrike +2 Shapeshift Weapon Dark Clan Crusher +2 Shapeshift Weapon Flesh Render +3 Shapeshift Weapon Sigon's Guard +1 Shapeshift Shield Lidless Wall +1 Shapeshift Shield Spiritual Grand Charm +1 Shapeshift Grand Charm Recommended Gear Setup: For the player who are quite rich, this would be an ideal setup: Helm: Cerebus's Bite (Fire Facet) Armor: Enigma Breast Plate/Bramble/Chains of Honor Weapon: Phase Blade (4 Shael + 2 IAS Jewels) Shield: Stormshield (Shael) Switch: Giant Thresher (6 Shael or 3 Shael + 3 IAS jewels) Belt: Verdungos Gloves: Trang Gloves Boots: Gores or Aldurs Boots Ring 1: Ravenfrost Ring 2: Carrion Wind Amulet: Maras For the player with less funds, this would be a better build: Helm: Jalal’s Mane Armor: Lionhart/Duriel Shell/Glads Bane Weapon: Phase Blade (6 shael) Shield: Stormshield (Shael) or Whitstans Guard/Mosers Switch: Giant Thresher (6 shael) or Leave Prebuffing Equipment Belt: String of Ears (Any DR%) Gloves: Trangs Gloves Boots: Gore Riders/Aldurs/Waterwalks Ring 1: Ravenfrost Ring 2: Carrion Wind Amulet: Any that +skills/shape shift skill VII. Dueling Strategy This will be updated shortly, just give me some more time, I already have some strategy posted throughout this whole guide. I haven't had enough experience to start posting. I will get into details soon, typical werewolf/werebear strategies vs. certain type of builds. If you really need some strategies right now, I refer you to Victus's PvP Werebear guide and other guides that may have some. VIII. Tables and Calculations These tables are taken from Victus's guide yet again, also I made a few tables of my own for werewolves, thanks to Clan Honor's Website Page.     Maximum Blocking Rate Tables For The Unique Shield: Stormshield Level 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 Dex 186 188 190 192 195 197 199 201 204 206 208 210 213 215 217 219 221 224 226 228 230 233 235 237    Maximum Blocking Rate Tables For The Set Shield: Whistan’s Guard Level 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 Dex 158 160 162 164 166 167 169 171 172 175 177 179 181 182 184 186 188 190 192 194 196 197 199 201   Maximum Blocking Rate Tables For The Unique Shield: Gerke’s Sanctuary Level 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 Dex 170 172 174 176 178 180 182 185 186 188 190 192 194 196 198 200 202 204 206 208 210 212 214 216 Blocking Formula: [(Char Level * 150) / Shield%] + 15= Needed Dexterity Faster Blocking Rate (Werewolf Form) %FBR 00 07 15 27 48 86 200 Frames 9 8 7 6 5 4 3   Faster Hit Recovery (Werewolf Form) %FHR 00 09 20 42 86 280 Frames 7 6 5 4 3 2   Faster Blocking Rate (Werebear Form) %FBR 00 05 10 16 27 40 65 109 223 Frames 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4   Faster Hit Recovery (Werebear Form) %FHR 00 05 10 16 24 37 54 86 152 360 Frames 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 Crushing Blow, Open Wounds and Deadly Strike: This information was taken from experience, testing and from the Arreat Summit Website. Crushing Blow: This was very useful in PvP in 1.09 because it would give you a chance to take off 1/10th of your opponent's life in additional to the damage you were doing on them! Unfortunately Crushing Blow has suffered a major nerf in 1.10: physical resistance is now factored in. So potentially you will only inflict a 1/20th on the opponent. Which I find not too essential to have. Open Wounds: This has received a huge boost in 1.10 which is awesome! I always loved seeing my opponent's blood spurt out while they run like a chicken. Now they even take huge amounts of damage! This is why I recommend using Cerebus's Bite and Gore riders. Now you will have 3 sources of damage, poison, fire and this! Can it be resisted? Nope! If their blood start splurging out, there it goes, lasting for 8 seconds (200 frames). These calculations were taken directly from Arreat Summit to show the damage per frame is dealt. Clvl = The attacker's level. Clvl=1-15:  (9*Clvl+31)/256 Clvl=16-30: (18*Clvl-104)/256 Clvl=31-45:  (27*Clvl-374)/256 Clvl=46-60:  (36*Clvl-779)/256 Clvl=61-99:  (45*Clvl-1319)/256 If you prefer per second, just multiply by 25: Clvl=1-15:  25*(9*Clvl+31)/256 Clvl=16-30:  25*(18*Clvl-104)/256 Clvl=31-45:  25*(27*Clvl-374)/256 Clvl=46-60:  25*(36*Clvl-779)/256 Clvl=61-99:  25*(45*Clvl-1319)/256 In PvP, if it was a melee open wounds attack, the total damage is divided by 4. If it was from a missile attack, it is divided by 8 instead. If you are equipped a bow and attacking in shift form, this still counts as a melee open wounds attack. Lets give an example. Lets say a level 85 Werewolf attack the opponent and his blood starts gushing out. How much damage is he taking in total after the 8 seconds? 25*(45*85-1319)/256 x (8/4) = 489 Damage in the full cycle or 61dmg/sec. Wow! This is the reason why I recommend having open wounds in PvP and even in PvM if you can. Deadly Strike: Deadly strike is the chance of doing the double of your total physical damage. In this build, you won't be needing this at all because it's 99% elemental damage you will be inflicting on your opponent. IX. Leveling If you are like me, you will hate leveling. This is after all... a PvP char. Most PvP chars are horrible against monsters because of their high amount of HP. If you want the 1.10 rush way, which I owe credit to Zabo, you may be able to hit 85 in 8 hours. Yes, its a lot, but its better than killing monsters over and over. This is about leeching most of the time. Your goal is to hit 24 through normal leveling, you don't have a choice for this. After that, it's all about leeching. PS: Don't PM me or post messages that Blizzard will fix this because I posted this! It's posted everywhere! Everyone in realm knows about it! Blizzard is not ignorant nor should you be. At level: 1-10: Start killing monsters in Den. Its best to join a game where there's 8 players and people actually killing and not kids spamming "RUSH RUSH RUSH PLS". You will hit level 10 quite fast. If its possible, you can even start leeching in Catacombs with a friend doing the killing. Gear: Death's Gloves and Death's Sash. (cbf, resists, IAS) 10-15: Sewer runs, trust me on this. You get leveled very nicely. Gear: Angel Amulet + 2 Angel Rings (lots of Attack Rating, replenish life), Hsarus Belt and Boots is nice too. 15-21: Arcane runs, by now you may or may not be killing, feral rage is pretty great, but maybe mana will be annoying you. Just use a normal attack. If you have a lot of those large strength charms (+5), you may be able to equip Sigon Set without even putting any stat points yet. I ask not to put any stat points because some people are never sure how much they need, and perhaps accidentally put way too much. This is also useful if you are planning to use Annihilus and enigma breast plate combo. You may dump your points in vitality and some in dexterity if you really have the urge to put stats. 21-24: Trav runs, kill or leech, whatever. These runs go quite fast, you got to stay with them. Getting to 24 won't take too long. 25-40: Now its time to do ancients and get to level 25. With ancients done, you may start leeching in norm Baal runs! Goodie! They go quite fast, sometimes its because high levelers are there trying to level their mercenary or helping a friend. Hey, you can always ask a friend to help out too. (cough sim, cough). Make sure you don't get the quest BEFORE you hit 40. 40-60: Now you should be in nightmare, get rushed and start leeching in nm Baal runs, make sure you don't get the quest BEFORE you hit 60. 60-**: Now you should in hell, get rushed and start leeching in hell Baal runs until you hit 70. Now you are able to use Annihilus (assuming you have one), this is where Annihilus kicks in, with that, you will be able to equip the enigma breast plate, everything else will fall into place. You might need to put a few pts to equip stormshield and some more pts to equip the giant thresher. But by level 70, you should be able to equip everything, even if you don't have an enigma or Annihilus. Now you can leech some more and hit whatever level you want and start dueling! HF! Q1: What do you mean by "get rushed"? A1: Oops, I forgot to mention that eh? This is thanks to Zabo. Act1: Just like in 1.09, get someone to kill Andariel for you. Act2: Long way: Get a friend or you get full staff, then kill the summoner, then go get Duriel. Short way: Join a game where players are already working on the Duriel quest. Just stay in the game until they kill him. You will automatically get quest too! Nice! Act3: Get the council quest in Travincal. Talk to Cain. Get someone to make a teleport in Durance level 2. You are now able to get in! So just like in 1.09, get someone to kill Mephisto, or join a game where they are working on the Mephisto quest! Act4: Just like in 1.09, get someone, or join a game to kill Diablo where quest needs to be completed. Act5: Get someone or join a game where people are killing ancients. Just remember you must be level 20,40,60 respectively for norm, nm and hell to get the quest. For Baal, well... get someone or join a game where people are doing the Baal quest. VOILA! X. Links THE Victus Metuo's Werebear Guide - This is where I got my information and his site inspired me most! If you want information on a werebear guide, this is it! He will be updating his guide for 1.10 real soon! Tommi Gustafsson's accurate FHR and FBR tables - Your source for faster hit recovery and block rate information! This site changed PvP forever because the values we once thought were off! Clan Honor's Official Website - Need to find a private dueling league that tries to balance the skills and make legit dueling fun again? This is the place for you! It has all the PvP information you need too! TheDragoon's Werebear Guide - Great PvM Werebear Guide Written by the Druid Attack Speed King Chippydip's Skill Calculator - The one and only source you need to plan where you want to distribute your skill points! His 1.10 version is even better than his 1.09! TheDragoon's Wereform Attack Speed Calculator - The Source of all Attack Speed Knowledge in a simple calculator. DiabloII.Net - The leader in Diablo II help and information DiabloII.Net Druid Forum - Your source for druid guides, information and spam! o_O Arreat Summit - This is where you can information on items in the game, conventions like Crushing Blow, Deadly Strike and Open wounds. How certain skill works. Etc. Very nice site. XI. Credits My Girlfriend: You are the best! You are always there for me, you are the one who gives me support, encourages me, believes in me and most importantly makes me happy. I hope I can return the same favor because I think of you always. I love you. Victus Metuo: No matter what you say, you’re still a legend to me. I’ve had a lot of fun testing out builds with you. Thanks for hosting the games and for the fun duels. Also I would like to thank you for the inspiration that I got from your website and guide, and I hope you don’t mind I used your nav bar idea, so yes, the credit goes to him for it! Most important, thanks to Victus for giving me the idea of a Rabies/Fire Claws druid. Ah hell, this whole page is sorta his! Don't bm pm me pls o_O TheUnchosen: You made me realize Rabies is PvP possible. Pansy: Lending me that cruel war pike so I can take screenies for that pic I got up there. TheDragoon: For his calculator, it owns! It’s my druid bible. Oh, for those who are using the calculator, remember to put the NEGATIVE number of the base speed you see on arreat summit! Garbad_the_weak: Making a legit dueling league possible, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have acquired so much experience in dueling. Or perhaps, I wouldn’t be hooked on this game either. o_O Proudfoot: Thanks for editing this guide in advance, I am sure it'll be hell! Zharous: The clan honor website always has the fhr and block rate information that I always need! Zabo: You’re the first person to have shown me how to get rushed in 1.10. Thanks. Chippydip: Your skill planner owns, it saved me a couple of hours of testing! Everyone else that I probably forgot to mention! Thanks! Kazama Fury 0 Please log in to post... Please log in. Use your Diii.net Forum account. Username: Remember me? Password: Want to register?     Lost password?