new player bow druid seeking advise

Hey there!

After i decided to give ye good olde d2 a shot again i found median by accident while clicking rhrough the diablo wiki and instantly fell in love with this mod!

So after messing around with classes i decides to play a bow druid which utilizes feed the pack and acid fiends and while hatred was somewhat a piece of cake (although there were some wtf moments due to new encounters) i hit terror (got the substone too - yay - have to do the ennead challenfe though).

But now i'm not quite sure where the journey will lead me so i made a copy of my char (playing sp for now)... especially i'm concerned that griswold can one shot me at 69 after killing 20 minions instantly. Not quite sure which attack he uses or for what i have to look out atm. Maybe thats normal or maybe i'm lacking of appropiate defense? Maybe you can help me out there and have a look at my stats and give advise whether or not my build is appropiate. Having the feeling that i uptiered my gear too fast while i should've raised vit instead.

But for the gear i'm running now:
T4 falcon mask - nezha runeword
T4 salamander's breath
T6 Jitan's Kamon
T3 Featherclaw
T3 Deadfall
Honorific boots with minion resist and elemental resist plus some total defense

With jewels, socketet runes and rings and some extra mo i hit for now:
Resistance cap (77 for poison)
2100 AR (95 % hit chance on griswold as example)
11 k Defense (29% chance to get hit)
3.1 k life
85 FHR
5% avoid damage
10% Damage Reduction
40% minion life
10% minion damage
45% minion resistance

and +5 to all skills.
Speaking of skills: i'm maxing for now
Acid fiend
Spore Shot
Elfin weapon (including bonus skill levels)
Werewolf (lycantropy bonus)
Feed the pack

1 point to pagan rites

While i plan to dump some points into Force of nature, goodberry and lifeshield when i'm able too.

Sooo these are the most important points covered i guess. Oh btw: using exemplar hireling and he lives quite long even with beginners runewords on him

Question is:
Do you think the skill build is viable?
Are the stats okay or should i focus more on defense and if yes: where? (I mean... bam! You're dead and aside of griswold i drop low from time to time on other enemies... or was i just too comfy fighting there?)
Do my minions need better stats or should i abandon theplan on using them excessevly?
Question on crushing blow: does it only apply to the initial hit or to additional arrows on spore shot too?
Where should i upgrade my hirelings gear?

So yeah thats it... what do you think? Is this char good (for now) and i'm just too concerned about unique enemies or am i too offensive statwise.

Thank you in advance

Greetings
OnkelRufus

Welcome

About your questions:

Feed the pack is not worth it for any other build than the werewolf. You won't get life after kill unless you are morphed with maxed lycanthropy and spending so many skill points for reanimates is not the best. It's better to rather put those points in acid fiends & poison flash if you want tanky meatshields.

Stats - two things you need to work on. 1) Get some more attack rating. For the later terror acts you would want at least 5k. To get this put around 100 points into dex, orb your bow with attack rating mystic orbs and roll for attack rating on jewels. You could also cube 15 keys and 15 eld runes into your char orb and that will keep you sorted until lvl 120. 2) More def. It is hard to raise it until you complete the Black road challenge but you should cube 15 skulls & 15 ith runes into your orb for right now. Also prioritise maxing out the enhanced defence on your chest and helm + belt.

You don't need minion stats on gear. Putting points into fiends & poison flash will be enough, and right now you will have many to spare anyway.

Crushing blow applies to all your arrows.

For merc gear - just give him a nice weapon, for example Tal runeword in the best spear you can find (so he can buff the party when he kills stuff) and max its enhanced dmg and life leech with mystic orbs. You could also go for the TU trident too for some nice crowd control procs. Maxing his res and giving him good def is also nice.

Anyway so far so good, you chose nice gear for yourself. Make sure to kill Griswold on terror and get a high level rune from his special box so you can upgrade your helm RW to a Natha which is a great item. Other than that + the above you should be good to go. BTW no need to copy your char - you can respec any time you want with the belladonna elixir cube recipe, look it up in the documentation.

Hey!

Thanks for your quick reply!

Will try to implement your suggestions... for now my acid fiends fot a huge life and damage boost.... tried the maxres on them bc i read an sorc guide earlier where he suggested it for ice elementals. But i have a look how they work without it and focus on total defense on my honorific boots.

With respeccing into some dex i hit 3.5 k attack rating without MO so far (and only 250 AR from keys). Will the be still applied if i tier up the bow or do i have to apply them again?

And after loosing som VIT... is it true that this stat doesnt have too much impact on my hp for now?

there is a guide for this in my compilation called Sagittarius

When you hit lvl 59 make

Natha

Natha
Druid Helms
'GulEl'
Runeword Level: 65
4% Chance to cast level 2 Arrow on Striking
20% Attack Speed
50% Hit Recovery
(31 to 50)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(58 to 86)% Enhanced Defense
+5 to all Attributes
Physical Resist 10%

rw. Also i would suggest

Death Spur

Death Spur
Heavy Boots (4)
Defense: 27 to 39
Required Level: 3
Required Strength: 27
Item Level: 1
1% Chance to cast level 6 Spike Nova on Kill
(10 to 40)% Movement Speed
+0.09375 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+(11 to 15) to Strength
+(11 to 15) to Dexterity
Socketed (1)
Defense: 109 to 141
Required Level: 20
Required Strength: 55
Item Level: 31
1% Chance to cast level 10 Spike Nova on Kill
(10 to 40)% Movement Speed
+0.15625 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+(21 to 25) to Strength
+(21 to 25) to Dexterity
Socketed (2)
Defense: 248 to 310
Required Level: 38
Required Strength: 193
Item Level: 51
1% Chance to cast level 14 Spike Nova on Kill
(10 to 40)% Movement Speed
+0.21875 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+(31 to 35) to Strength
+(31 to 35) to Dexterity
Socketed (3)
Defense: 346 to 427
Required Level: 46
Required Strength: 386
Item Level: 77
1% Chance to cast level 16 Spike Nova on Kill
(10 to 40)% Movement Speed
+0.25 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+(36 to 40) to Strength
+(36 to 40) to Dexterity
Socketed (4)

instead of honorific boots.
You forget about rings/amu so my suggestion is to use rare with +1 all skills and res (ideally would be 2 elements) and +life or

Empyrean Band

Empyrean Band
Ring
Required Level: 40
Item Level: 40
1% Chance to cast level 18 Singularity on Kill
(3 to 5)% to All Attributes
Maximum Life +3%
Maximum Mana +10%
(5 to 15)% Gold Find

and mo them with thunderhammer on kill and - fire res to boost your bow proc.For amu rare with +2-3 all skills and lighing arena oskill. And remember that - enemy res can't break monsters immunity (there are some spells that can do that but you wont use them).

Yeah rings and amu arent the best so far. Besides +2 skills on amu.

But i'm 84 now and have farmed some stuff to upgrade these slots. The skill respec was a good decision and your item suggestions too.

Thanks so far.

Its me again.

Thanks for your help so far. Just wanted to let you kbow that i just finished level challange 2 and keep you updated about my progress if you're ibterested (and maybe you have some more tips?

)

So both salamander's breath and jitan's are tier 6 right now and i managed to get my hands on empyrian band, a triple res ring, an i think solid amulet (+3 skills, FHR, minion damage, defense, life) as well a quiver (+1 druid skills, damage, dex, cold res) which i MO with - fire resistance.

For noe i'm at
5.4 k life (with goodberry)
6.2 k AR
17k defense
78/77/79/81 resistances
170 % FHR
85 crushing blow
35 open wounds
-37 enemy fire resistance
12% lifeleech

While managing to make my hireling tanky with 2 sacred items, tal runeword and a whopping 4k def armor boosted with defense orbs.

I'm maxing now:
Poison flash
Plague avatar
Acid fiends
Spore shot
Elfin weapons
Force if nature

Keeping the rest at 1 (with +8 skills goodberry is good togo at 1 i guess)

only thing is that my minions ocassionaly get whiped within an blink of an eye. Do they really don't need res and life on terror and later in destruction? Or are these just some random damage spikes?

Aniways: thank you so much for your advises... and how could i play without median mod?