Cold Werewolf Druid

[MetalMusicMan]

Heya! Do you like attacking fast and doing lots of damage? Do you enjoy Blizzards and Ice Lances flying out of your wolf hands repeatedly as you smack things in the face? How about spawning a vortex of tornados so numerous that they become a white blob on your screen? If that sounds good to you, then welcome to Team Cold Wolf, arooooo!

Cold Werewolf is a strong bossing character that is solid at farming as well, especially for a Melee character. Why Cold over Physical? We get to freeze enemies via Survival Instincts and we have a longer Twisted Claw tornado duration which means lots of on-striking procs and damage. Furthermore, we can scale damage easily via Cold Pen and even Cold Spell Damage for our on-striking spells, which lets us hurt things real good without needing crazy high-end gear.

My Cold Druid. In patch 1.7 I have done all Boss fights except for Lazarous, Samael, and Deimoss with this build and I recently got Uldyssian's Trophy. I'm currently working on Laz but it's a pain

~4000-4700 Dex (depending on gear setup), ~14,000+ Life

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PROS

• Very high damage / 3 Frame Attack / Excellent Boss Killer and Charm farmer
• Doesn't care about Mana Leech or Regen because Mana Pulse gives full mana and costs nothing
• Great survivability (50% Avoid, Loads of Health Regen, high or potentially max block chance, decent defense)
• Very mobile during combat via Harbinger 0 Cooldown targeted teleport

CONS

• Melee in an ARPG
• Damage can be up-and-down on fights where monsters move out of tornados
• Enemies near walls will sometimes not be hit fully by the tornados (really hope this gets fixed some day)
• Mana Pulse management may seem cumbersome to some players (I grew to like it)
• Can be hard to get big Physical Res without sacrificing damage (As low as 20% has been fine for me killing Uldyssian due to other layered survivability)
• Mobility outside of Harbinger is lacking, no sources of faster run/walk other than gear

"BUT ELEMENTAL DAMAGE CAN'T LEECH!!!"

• If you're like me before I figured this character out, not being Physical Damage and thus having no Life Leech might scare you. While it's true that you will not be as much of a face-tank leech machine, I promise you will be surprised at how much you "leech" with 4-frame attack and 300 Life on Attack or with a 3-frame attack and as little as ~120-200 Life on Attack

Gameplay

Pre-Combat:

Buff with Mark of the Wild (use weapon swap
Sagespirit

Sagespirit
Compound Bow (4)
Two-Hand Damage: (4 - 5) to (14 - 29)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 5
Required Dexterity: 57
Item Level: 8
Dexterity Damage Bonus: (0.19 per Dexterity)%
+1 to Druid Skill Levels
+5% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
15% Attack Speed
+(18 to 35)% Enhanced Damage
+(6 to 20) to Maximum Damage
(31 to 50)% Duration Bonus to Mark of the Wild
(31 to 50)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(16 to 25) to Dexterity
Socketed (2)
Two-Hand Damage: (21 - 23) to (48 - 70)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 24
Required Dexterity: 92
Item Level: 26
Dexterity Damage Bonus: (0.19 per Dexterity)%
+(1 to 2) to Druid Skill Levels
+10% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
25% Attack Speed
+(52 to 69)% Enhanced Damage
+(21 to 40) to Maximum Damage
(71 to 90)% Duration Bonus to Mark of the Wild
(71 to 90)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(36 to 45) to Dexterity
Socketed (4)
Two-Hand Damage: (61 - 66) to (112 - 148)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 42
Required Dexterity: 186
Item Level: 46
Dexterity Damage Bonus: (0.19 per Dexterity)%
+(2 to 3) to Druid Skill Levels
+15% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
35% Attack Speed
+(87 to 103)% Enhanced Damage
+(36 to 65) to Maximum Damage
(111 to 130)% Duration Bonus to Mark of the Wild
(111 to 130)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(56 to 65) to Dexterity
Socketed (5)
Two-Hand Damage: (81 - 88) to (142 - 182)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 51
Required Dexterity: 370
Item Level: 80
Dexterity Damage Bonus: (0.19 per Dexterity)%
+(2 to 4) to Druid Skill Levels
+20% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
40% Attack Speed
+(104 to 120)% Enhanced Damage
+(43 to 75) to Maximum Damage
(131 to 150)% Duration Bonus to Mark of the Wild
(131 to 150)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(66 to 75) to Dexterity
Socketed (6)

to cast), buff with Symbiosis, and activate Werewolf form.

Combat:

Attack with Mana Pulse once every few seconds to generate mana.

Harbinger is your mobility and clearing move (the Crows it summons pierce through groups of enemies) and you can teleport around like a crazy person constantly with this ability (useful defensively because you're hard to hit!).

Twisted Claw is your single target and small/clumped pack burst ability (beeg beeg damage). The tornados hit many times, so they are excellent at proccing on-strike effects.

If you have
Cold Blood

Cold Blood
Crystal Sword (Sacred)
Required Level: 100
Required Dexterity: 1020
Item Level: 120
Innate Cold Damage: (36.0% of Dexterity)
20% Life Regen Over 5 Seconds When You Take Weapon Damage
4% Chance to cast level 50 Shatter the Flesh on Kill
1% Chance to cast level 50 Blizzard on Striking
90% Attack Speed
Adds (450 to 550)-(700 to 800) cold damage
-10% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+20 to Banish
Maximum Mana -50%
Requirements +100%
Socketed (6)

, manually cast Banish and curse enemies to take extra Tri-Element and Magical damage with each hit.

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Leveling (quick overview)

► Show Spoiler

You will want to start out in Normal as Physical. Put enough points in STR to wear gear and dump the rest into DEX.

Skill tree:

• Werewolf Form: Max
• Mana Pulse: 1 point - use this to regenerate all of your mana in Werewolf form, it's a bit awkward to get used to at first but then you will realize you never need to care about Mana Leech or Regen ever again and that is actually fantastic.
• Harbinger: 8 points (Keep enough points to make it have 0 cooldown. 8 Points is the max needed and it will always be 0 cooldown after that.)
• Feed the Pack: This is nice for the life on kill as you level. 5-10 points should be enough, but you can go higher if you really like the Life on Kill it gives you. It also summons wolf minions on-kill that can help hold monster's attention and keep you from taking damage.
• Twisted Claw: 1 point for when you are Physical (Max it when you switch to Cold)
• Barkskin: Max

Gameplay: At lower levels, you will be more reliant on Twisted Claw for damage. So you will use Harbinger less as a clear ability and more as just a mobility tool.

Here are some Tiered Uniques to make leveling easier:

Al Nath

Al Nath
Scimitar (4)
One-Hand Damage: (3 - 4) to (16 - 26)
Required Level: 2
Required Strength: 25
Item Level: 4
Strength Damage Bonus: (0.11 per Strength)%
15% Attack Speed
+(31 to 50)% Enhanced Damage
+(11 to 20) to Maximum Damage
(41 to 60)% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds (3 to 5)-(6 to 7) fire damage
Slow Target (3 to 5)%
(3 to 5)% to Strength
Socketed (1)
One-Hand Damage: (12 - 14) to (35 - 46)
Required Level: 20
Required Strength: 48
Item Level: 22
Strength Damage Bonus: (0.11 per Strength)%
25% Attack Speed
+(61 to 80)% Enhanced Damage
+(21 to 30) to Maximum Damage
(71 to 90)% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds (8 to 10)-(16 to 18) fire damage
Slow Target (9 to 11)%
(9 to 11)% to Strength
Socketed (2)
One-Hand Damage: (32 - 35) to (67 - 79)
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 104
Item Level: 43
Strength Damage Bonus: (0.11 per Strength)%
35% Attack Speed
+(91 to 110)% Enhanced Damage
+(31 to 40) to Maximum Damage
(101 to 120)% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds (23 to 28)-(43 to 50) fire damage
Slow Target (15 to 17)%
(15 to 17)% to Strength
Socketed (3)
One-Hand Damage: (44 - 48) to (91 - 105)
Required Level: 48
Required Strength: 212
Item Level: 76
Strength Damage Bonus: (0.11 per Strength)%
50% Attack Speed
+(121 to 140)% Enhanced Damage
+(41 to 50) to Maximum Damage
(131 to 150)% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds (61 to 80)-(131 to 150) fire damage
Slow Target (18 to 20)%
(18 to 20)% to Strength
Socketed (3)



Razordisk

Razordisk
Buckler (4)
Defense: (29 - 31) to (47 - 50)
Chance to Block: Class%
Required Level: 1
Required Strength: 6
Required Dexterity: 17
Item Level: 1
+0.3125 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+(21 to 30)% Enhanced Defense
+(11 to 15) to Strength
+(11 to 15) to Dexterity
Socketed (1)
Defense: (149 - 169) to (188 - 214)
Chance to Block: Class%
Required Level: 17
Required Strength: 9
Required Dexterity: 25
Item Level: 20
+0.375 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+(41 to 60)% Enhanced Defense
+(16 to 20) to Strength
+(16 to 20) to Dexterity
Socketed (3)
Defense: (386 - 432) to (481 - 538)
Chance to Block: Class%
Required Level: 35
Required Strength: 19
Required Dexterity: 53
Item Level: 41
+0.4375 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+(61 to 80)% Enhanced Defense
+(21 to 25) to Strength
+(21 to 25) to Dexterity
Socketed (4)
Defense: (600 - 664) to (747 - 826)
Chance to Block: Class%
Required Level: 43
Required Strength: 38
Required Dexterity: 109
Item Level: 72
+0.5 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+(81 to 100)% Enhanced Defense
+(26 to 30) to Strength
+(26 to 30) to Dexterity
Socketed (4)



Big Bad

Big Bad
Wolf Head (4)
Defense: (39 - 44) to (54 - 62)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 3
Required Strength: 23
Item Level: 4
2% Life stolen per Hit
+(41 to 60)% Enhanced Defense
(2 to 5)% to Strength
(2 to 5)% to Dexterity
+20 Life Regenerated per Second
Total Character Defense (11 to 15)%
+1% to Experience Gained
Socketed (1)
Defense: (174 - 193) to (224 - 248)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 20
Required Strength: 35
Item Level: 23
4% Life stolen per Hit
+(71 to 90)% Enhanced Defense
(10 to 13)% to Strength
(10 to 13)% to Dexterity
+30 Life Regenerated per Second
Total Character Defense (16 to 20)%
+2% to Experience Gained
Socketed (2)
Defense: (443 - 487) to (540 - 594)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 37
Required Strength: 74
Item Level: 43
6% Life stolen per Hit
+(91 to 110)% Enhanced Defense
(18 to 21)% to Strength
(18 to 21)% to Dexterity
+40 Life Regenerated per Second
Total Character Defense (21 to 25)%
+2% to Experience Gained
Socketed (3)
Defense: (670 - 731) to (818 - 892)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 152
Item Level: 78
8% Life stolen per Hit
+(111 to 130)% Enhanced Defense
(22 to 25)% to Strength
(22 to 25)% to Dexterity
+50 Life Regenerated per Second
Total Character Defense (26 to 30)%
+3% to Experience Gained
Socketed (4)



Featherclaw

Featherclaw
Chain Gloves (4)
Defense: (28 - 30) to (49 - 54)
Required Level: 5
Required Strength: 38
Item Level: 8
5% Attack Speed
(21 to 50)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(18 to 29)% Enhanced Defense
+(6 to 10) to Dexterity
Socketed (1)
Defense: (149 - 161) to (203 - 218)
Required Level: 22
Required Strength: 56
Item Level: 26
15% Attack Speed
(81 to 110)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(41 to 52)% Enhanced Defense
+(16 to 20) to Dexterity
Socketed (2)
Defense: (393 - 420) to (519 - 554)
Required Level: 40
Required Strength: 118
Item Level: 46
25% Attack Speed
(141 to 170)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(64 to 75)% Enhanced Defense
+(26 to 30) to Dexterity
Socketed (3)
Defense: (581 - 617) to (759 - 807)
Required Level: 48
Required Strength: 244
Item Level: 80
30% Attack Speed
(171 to 200)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(75 to 86)% Enhanced Defense
+(31 to 35) to Dexterity
Socketed (4)



Wormtongue

Wormtongue
Light Belt (4)
Defense: (53 - 58) to (71 - 78)
Required Level: 3
Required Strength: 27
Item Level: 5
(31 to 50)% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 5-13 poison damage over 2 seconds
(2 to 4)% Life stolen per Hit
+(18 to 29)% Enhanced Defense
+(11 to 15) to Dexterity
Socketed (1)
Defense: (214 - 231) to (259 - 279)
Required Level: 21
Required Strength: 40
Item Level: 24
(71 to 90)% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 19-50 poison damage over 2 seconds
(8 to 10)% Life stolen per Hit
+(41 to 52)% Enhanced Defense
+(21 to 25) to Dexterity
Socketed (2)
Defense: (544 - 581) to (649 - 693)
Required Level: 38
Required Strength: 83
Item Level: 45
(111 to 130)% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 75-150 poison damage over 2 seconds
(14 to 16)% Life stolen per Hit
+(64 to 75)% Enhanced Defense
+(31 to 35) to Dexterity
Socketed (2)
Defense: (801 - 851) to (946 - 1006)
Required Level: 46
Required Strength: 173
Item Level: 77
(131 to 150)% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 100-250 poison damage over 2 seconds
(17 to 19)% Life stolen per Hit
+(75 to 86)% Enhanced Defense
+(36 to 40) to Dexterity
Socketed (2)

Any -20 speed One-Handed Sword (Short Sword, Saber, Scimitar, Falchion, or Crystal Sword) with 86% attack speed (in the weapon itself) will hit 5 Frames which is great while leveling. A bit later into leveling, if you can get 115% total attack speed (in the weapon itself) you will hit 4 Frames and this isn't too hard either. It's perfectly fine to stick with a 4 frame attack until much later when you focus on trying to hit 3 frame attack.

If you have the crafting means, you can switch to Cold as early as Act 5 Normal by creating an Honorific Crystal Sword (which does pure cold damage): Socket with Attack Speed Jewels. Mystic Orb it with 5x Attack Speed, 5x Life on Attack, and 5x Innate Elemental Damage (in that order, you will want the LoA before the damage).

Once you switch, here are some tiered uniques that will help with cold:

Sagespirit

Sagespirit
Compound Bow (4)
Two-Hand Damage: (4 - 5) to (14 - 29)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 5
Required Dexterity: 57
Item Level: 8
Dexterity Damage Bonus: (0.19 per Dexterity)%
+1 to Druid Skill Levels
+5% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
15% Attack Speed
+(18 to 35)% Enhanced Damage
+(6 to 20) to Maximum Damage
(31 to 50)% Duration Bonus to Mark of the Wild
(31 to 50)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(16 to 25) to Dexterity
Socketed (2)
Two-Hand Damage: (21 - 23) to (48 - 70)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 24
Required Dexterity: 92
Item Level: 26
Dexterity Damage Bonus: (0.19 per Dexterity)%
+(1 to 2) to Druid Skill Levels
+10% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
25% Attack Speed
+(52 to 69)% Enhanced Damage
+(21 to 40) to Maximum Damage
(71 to 90)% Duration Bonus to Mark of the Wild
(71 to 90)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(36 to 45) to Dexterity
Socketed (4)
Two-Hand Damage: (61 - 66) to (112 - 148)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 42
Required Dexterity: 186
Item Level: 46
Dexterity Damage Bonus: (0.19 per Dexterity)%
+(2 to 3) to Druid Skill Levels
+15% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
35% Attack Speed
+(87 to 103)% Enhanced Damage
+(36 to 65) to Maximum Damage
(111 to 130)% Duration Bonus to Mark of the Wild
(111 to 130)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(56 to 65) to Dexterity
Socketed (5)
Two-Hand Damage: (81 - 88) to (142 - 182)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 51
Required Dexterity: 370
Item Level: 80
Dexterity Damage Bonus: (0.19 per Dexterity)%
+(2 to 4) to Druid Skill Levels
+20% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
40% Attack Speed
+(104 to 120)% Enhanced Damage
+(43 to 75) to Maximum Damage
(131 to 150)% Duration Bonus to Mark of the Wild
(131 to 150)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(66 to 75) to Dexterity
Socketed (6)

(weapon swap to cast Mark of the Wild)

Robe of Leaves

Robe of Leaves
Scale Mail (4)
Defense: (127 - 147) to (254 - 293)
Required Level: 4
Required Strength: 43
Item Level: 6
+5% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
-(2 to 3)% to Enemy Fire Resistance
-(2 to 3)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
-(2 to 3)% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+(24 to 43)% Enhanced Defense
Maximum Life (3 to 5)%
+(6 to 10) Life Regenerated per Second
Poison Resist +(21 to 25)%
Socketed (2)
Defense: (452 - 505) to (816 - 911)
Required Level: 21
Required Strength: 63
Item Level: 25
+10% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
-(5 to 6)% to Enemy Fire Resistance
-(5 to 6)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
-(5 to 6)% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+(64 to 83)% Enhanced Defense
Maximum Life (9 to 11)%
+(11 to 20) Life Regenerated per Second
Poison Resist +(31 to 35)%
Socketed (4)
Defense: (1166 - 1275) to (2031 - 2221)
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 133
Item Level: 45
+15% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
-(8 to 9)% to Enemy Fire Resistance
-(8 to 9)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
-(8 to 9)% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+(104 to 123)% Enhanced Defense
Maximum Life (15 to 17)%
+(21 to 35) Life Regenerated per Second
Poison Resist +(41 to 45)%
Socketed (5)
Defense: (1738 - 1885) to (3030 - 3287)
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 276
Item Level: 79
+20% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
-(9 to 10)% to Enemy Fire Resistance
-(9 to 10)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
-(9 to 10)% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+(124 to 143)% Enhanced Defense
Maximum Life (18 to 20)%
+(36 to 50) Life Regenerated per Second
Poison Resist +(46 to 50)%
Socketed (6)



Skyguard

Skyguard
Falcon Mask (4)
Defense: (101 - 113) to (148 - 166)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 8
Required Strength: 63
Item Level: 13
+(3 to 5)% to Lightning Spell Damage
+(3 to 5)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(4 to 5)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(4 to 5)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(1 to 4) to Forked Lightning
+(30 to 46)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 2%
+(4 to 5) Mana after each Kill
Socketed (2)
Defense: (346 - 379) to (478 - 525)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 94
Item Level: 29
+(6 to 10)% to Lightning Spell Damage
+(6 to 10)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(8 to 9)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(8 to 9)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(9 to 12) to Forked Lightning
+(64 to 80)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 4%
+(8 to 9) Mana after each Kill
Socketed (2)
Defense: (865 - 935) to (1174 - 1269)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 43
Required Strength: 197
Item Level: 50
+(11 to 15)% to Lightning Spell Damage
+(11 to 15)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(12 to 13)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(12 to 13)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(17 to 20) to Forked Lightning
+(98 to 114)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 6%
+(12 to 13) Mana after each Kill
Socketed (3)
Defense: (1283 - 1385) to (1737 - 1874)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 51
Required Strength: 408
Item Level: 85
+(16 to 20)% to Lightning Spell Damage
+(16 to 20)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(14 to 15)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(14 to 15)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(21 to 24) to Forked Lightning
+(115 to 132)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 8%
+(14 to 15) Mana after each Kill
Socketed (4)

You can keep using the phys damage gear too, at lower levels it's not a huge deal. And Wyrmtongue and Featherclaw will be useful for a long time purely for the Attack Rating.

Physical Resist is very helpful in Nightmare and Hell:

Werecat

Werecat
Breast Plate (4)
Defense: (203 - 224) to (379 - 422)
Required Level: 5
Required Strength: 55
Item Level: 8
5% Chance to cast level 1 Claw Tornado on Melee Attack
15% Attack Speed
4% Life stolen per Hit
+(24 to 40)% Enhanced Defense
+(41 to 50) Defense
+(11 to 20) to all Attributes
Physical Resist 3%
Socketed (2)
Defense: (622 - 681) to (1100 - 1207)
Required Level: 23
Required Strength: 81
Item Level: 27
6% Chance to cast level 7 Claw Tornado on Melee Attack
30% Attack Speed
6% Life stolen per Hit
+(58 to 75)% Enhanced Defense
+(81 to 100) Defense
+(21 to 30) to all Attributes
Physical Resist 4%
Socketed (4)
Defense: (1471 - 1589) to (2563 - 2777)
Required Level: 40
Required Strength: 170
Item Level: 47
7% Chance to cast level 13 Claw Tornado on Melee Attack
45% Attack Speed
8% Life stolen per Hit
+(92 to 109)% Enhanced Defense
+(131 to 150) Defense
+(31 to 40) to all Attributes
Physical Resist 5%
Socketed (5)
Defense: (2168 - 2330) to (3757 - 4046)
Required Level: 50
Required Strength: 353
Item Level: 83
8% Chance to cast level 16 Claw Tornado on Melee Attack
60% Attack Speed
10% Life stolen per Hit
+(109 to 126)% Enhanced Defense
+(181 to 200) Defense
+(41 to 50) to all Attributes
Physical Resist 6%
Socketed (6)



Skyguard

Skyguard
Falcon Mask (4)
Defense: (101 - 113) to (148 - 166)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 8
Required Strength: 63
Item Level: 13
+(3 to 5)% to Lightning Spell Damage
+(3 to 5)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(4 to 5)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(4 to 5)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(1 to 4) to Forked Lightning
+(30 to 46)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 2%
+(4 to 5) Mana after each Kill
Socketed (2)
Defense: (346 - 379) to (478 - 525)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 94
Item Level: 29
+(6 to 10)% to Lightning Spell Damage
+(6 to 10)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(8 to 9)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(8 to 9)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(9 to 12) to Forked Lightning
+(64 to 80)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 4%
+(8 to 9) Mana after each Kill
Socketed (2)
Defense: (865 - 935) to (1174 - 1269)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 43
Required Strength: 197
Item Level: 50
+(11 to 15)% to Lightning Spell Damage
+(11 to 15)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(12 to 13)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(12 to 13)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(17 to 20) to Forked Lightning
+(98 to 114)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 6%
+(12 to 13) Mana after each Kill
Socketed (3)
Defense: (1283 - 1385) to (1737 - 1874)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 51
Required Strength: 408
Item Level: 85
+(16 to 20)% to Lightning Spell Damage
+(16 to 20)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(14 to 15)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(14 to 15)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(21 to 24) to Forked Lightning
+(115 to 132)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 8%
+(14 to 15) Mana after each Kill
Socketed (4)



Erawan

Erawan
Body Armors
'Nih'
Runeword Level: 100
10% Bonus to Buff/Debuff/Cold Skill Duration
5% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(144 to 171)% Enhanced Defense
25% to Strength
25% to Vitality
Physical Resist (11 to 15)%
Total Character Defense (11 to 20)%



Truce

Truce
Belts
'Vith'
Runeword Level: 98
-5% Cast Speed
-5% Attack Speed
Stun Attack
+5% to Summoned Minion Damage
+(172 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 10%
Slows Attacker by 5%



Witchhunter's Hood

Witchhunter's Hood
Cap (Sacred)
Defense: (2136 - 2611) to (2161 - 2642)
Required Level: 90
Required Strength: 228
Item Level: 1
+(80 to 120)% Enhanced Defense
10% to Strength
10% to Dexterity
Maximum Elemental Resists +2%
Elemental Resists +(31 to 40)%
Physical Resist 5%
Total Character Defense (16 to 20)%
Requirements -50%
Socketed (4)


Witchhunter's Attire
(Assassin Claw Set)



Hunter's Trackless Step

Hunter's Trackless Step
Heavy Boots (Sacred)
Defense: (1392 - 1740) to (1474 - 1842)
Required Level: 90
Required Strength: 492
Item Level: 1
(0 to 40)% Movement Speed
3% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(100 to 150)% Enhanced Defense
+(31 to 50) to Vitality
+15 Maximum Stamina
Physical Resist 5%
Total Character Defense 50%
Socketed (4)


Big Game Hunter
(Barbarian Throwing Set)

Aim for 30%+ in Hell if you can. You get another 10% from Survival Instincts when you unlock it. The Tran Athulua Trophy also grants an extra 5% Physical Res.

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Breakpoints

Attack Speed Breakpoints

Shapeshifted Druids are weird and the only thing that really matters for them with regard to their attack speed is the IAS that is on the weapon itself. This can be IAS on a Unique/Rare/Honorific/Runeword weapon as well as any Jewels, Runes, Mystic Orbs, etc. on the weapon. But not from your gloves, armor, etc.

Crystal Sword (-20 base speed):

5-frame: 86% Weapon IAS
4-frame: 115% Weapon IAS
3-frame: 209% Weapon IAS

Other Breakpoints

Faster Hit Recovery:


5-frame: 20
4-frame: 42
3-frame: 86

Faster Block Rate:


6-frame: 27
5-frame: 48
4-frame: 86

Faster Cast Rate:


13-frame: 26
12-frame: 40
11-frame: 60

Stats

Enough Strength to wear gear (I have 133 points into Strength at level 136 with lots of charms, you will need a few hundred more until you are geared-up). Dump the rest into Dexterity (I have 965 points into Dexterity). With charms and gear my character has 717 STR and 4221 DEX at level 136.

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Skills

Werewolf

Werewolf Form: All remaining points / 1 point / 50-50 split with Feed the Pack


Gives 30% Avoid at level 1, gives scaling Deadly Strike and Attack Rating per level. Although Deadly Strike does nothing for elemental damage, you will want to put points into Werewolf Form purely for the Attack Rating for end-game bosses. My druid currently has 350,000+ Attack Rating with base level 27/32 (Level 59) Werewolf Form, which gives him a 93% chance to hit Uldyssian at level 136. Basically, put all points here after you get the rest of the skills sorted out.

Note - if your gear is decent, you don't technically need any more than 1 point into Werewolf for farming things like Fautzinville because Deadly Strike does nothing for Elemental Damage and you get 30% chance to Avoid from the first point. You will have more than enough Attack Rating to kill non-boss monsters with 1 point from all of your Dexterity, so that won't be an issue either. So for farming you can then choose to use the points you saved on Werewolf to dump into Feed the Pack to get extra Life on Kill. So if you are under-geared and focusing on farming, this is a solid option for more survivability until you get more geared.

If you're uncertain and don't have many respecs/Belladona Elixers left, you could also do an even 50-50 split with Feed the Pack to have a solid balance of Life on Kill and Attack Rating boost. This is a pretty good in-between for all types of content.

Mana Pulse: 1 point


You only need a single point in this ability. You use it to refill your mana and will hit it every few seconds to maintain mana regen while in Werewolf Form (because your mana constantly drains while in Werewolf Form).

Harbinger: 8 points


This ability requires 8 base-points to remove the cooldown completely. No need to put any further points in as it only increases the raw cold damage slightly and reduces the cold-conversion (which we don't care about because we do pure cold damage anyway).

Feed the Pack: 1 point / All Remaining points / 50-50 Split with Werewolf Form


With good enough gear you really will not need more than one point in this. That said, the Life on Kill is quite nice at lower gear levels and you will not need the dump of points into Werewolf form until you start focusing more on bosses. So you might want to put 20 points into this and 1-point Werewolf until you are ready for late-game boss fights. It also summons wolf minions on-kill that can help hold monster's attention and keep you from taking damage, but once again one point is usually sufficient in that regard as the chance to summon them is dependent on your points in Werewolf form and not on the points directly in this skill.

You could also do an even 50-50 split as noted in the Werewolf Form section.

Twisted Claw: MAX


Physical Druids get away with 1-pointing this, but we want that sweet extra cold damage and extra duration. Max this bad boy and it not only increases the cold damage per hit, but also makes the Tornados last for around 3.5 seconds (instead of only for 1 second at base).

Nature

Harvest: 1 point


Not used

Elven Song: 26 points


26 base-points is the amount needed to reach 20% Avoid from Symbiosis synergy in the Reward tree. This puts us at 50% avoid when combined with Werewolf Form.

Infected Roots: 1 point


Not used

Barkskin: MAX


This gives us Maximum Life and a solid bonus to Defense. We aren't Paladins or Necromancers so Defense isn't our primary survivability method, but it's still nice to have. My druid had around 225,000 Defense at level 136 in good gear. I could have had more but I chose to use lower Defense pieces for more damage. With extremely defensive gear for Dimensional Labyrinth at level 140, I have gotten up to ~450,000 defense (at the cost of a lot of damage, but that's required for Lab).

Harvesters: 20 points


The primary reason for these points is the Symbiosis synergy which gives us 100% of our Life regenerated over 20s. My Druid at level 136 has 14,500 life so he regenerates 725 life every second from this talent alone. It's very strong.

I don't keep them summoned as they die fairly easily, but Harvesters can be useful if you need minion meat shields for certain fights. They also grant you 30% movement speed while nearby.

Reward

Mythal: 0 points / 1 point


The extra -20 enemy resistances is nice, but it's a relatively small area of effect and the monsters will often just move out of it making it useless due to the cooldown. It's definitely fair to say it would be worth it to invest a single point in this, but IMO until it gets reworked it is not worth the hassle.

Symbiosis: 4 points (max)


This ability only has a maximum possible investment of 4 points, and you will use all 4/4 to get it to maximum efficiency. This buff grants 20% Avoidance and loads of Life Regen (100% over 20 seconds) while active. You'll always want to keep it on (it has a 10 minute duration, so that's not a big deal).

Survival Instincts: 1 point


This is our Ultimate Skill but we will only 1-point it. This is because it gives us 20% of our Dexterity as cold damage and a free 10% Physical Resistance at level 1, neither of which scale up with more base points. The only thing that scales up from more points is the Spell Focus, which honestly isn't bad for us (due to increasing our Cold Spell Damage from Procs), but isn't worth dumping points into either. At level 136, my Druid is getting +850 cold damage from this ability. It also has the wonderful side effect of very frequently freezing non-boss monsters, which is fantastic for survivability.

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Gear

Weapon

Cheap, easy, and good: Honorific-crafted Sacred Crystal Sword with Mystic Orbs for 5x Increased Attack Speed, 5x Life on Attack, and 5x Innate Elemental Damage. Bless with Abandoned Shrine or Sacred Shrine (usually Abandoned is better unless you are struggling for Cold Pen). Can easily hit the 115% Weapon-IAS 4 Frame Attack Speed Breakpoint via 60% IAS from Mystic Orbs and putting 10%/15% IAS Jewels in the weapon.

You could also try Sacred Rare Shrine Crafting Crystal Swords, but that has more RNG than it is worth and you would be better using Shrines on other gear slots.

If you find a
Kraken's Cutlass

Kraken's Cutlass
Scimitar (Sacred)
One-Hand Damage: (93 - 105) to (196 - 308)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 421
Item Level: 105
Strength Damage Bonus: (0.11 per Strength)%
+50% Increased Mana Pulse Duration
75% Attack Speed
+(140 to 170)% Enhanced Damage
+(100 to 200) to Maximum Damage
Adds 200-300 cold damage
-(20 to 25)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
Slow Target 10%
Maximum Cold Resist +1%
Socketed (3)

or can trade for one for cheap, it's a really solid weapon. Unfortunately it can only hit 4 frame attack and can't get to 3 frame attack.

Best:
Cold Blood

Cold Blood
Crystal Sword (Sacred)
Required Level: 100
Required Dexterity: 1020
Item Level: 120
Innate Cold Damage: (36.0% of Dexterity)
20% Life Regen Over 5 Seconds When You Take Weapon Damage
4% Chance to cast level 50 Shatter the Flesh on Kill
1% Chance to cast level 50 Blizzard on Striking
90% Attack Speed
Adds (450 to 550)-(700 to 800) cold damage
-10% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+20 to Banish
Maximum Mana -50%
Requirements +100%
Socketed (6)

SSU Crystal Sword. This is the best thing, you want this. High level Blizzard on-striking for big cold damage that procs all the time, as well as big potential on-kill damage from Shatter the Flesh for farming. Perhaps most importantly it grants Banish, which we will manually cast to give us big Tri-Elemental Damage and Magic Damage on every attack!

With 90% IAS already on the weapon, this lets you hit the 209% 3 Frame Attack Speed Breakpoint by crafting 5x IAS Mystic Orbs and placing a 15% IAS Jewel in each socket of the weapon to reach 210% Weapon-IAS.

After you hit the 3 Frame Attack Breakpoint, use as many Life on Attack Mystic Orbs as you can. You will have 4x by level 136 for 120 Life on Attack, and this is ideal.

Shield

Cheap, easy, and good: Sacred Rare Shrine Craft (Abandoned). Look for some combination of +1-2% Base Block Chance, Physical Resistance, +Dexterity, +Druid Skills, and Enhanced Defense. Shrine Bless with Abandoned for even more Dexterity.


Rainbow Fury

Rainbow Fury
Bone Shield (Sacred)
Defense: (1640 - 2123) to (1902 - 2461)
Chance to Block: Class%
Required Level: 100
Required Dexterity: 527
Item Level: 105
+1 to All Skills
Adds 25-50 fire damage
Adds 25-50 lightning damage
Adds 25-50 cold damage
-10% to Enemy Elemental Resistances
+(8 to 20) to Storm Crows
+(70 to 120)% Enhanced Defense
+(50 to 75) to Dexterity
+1 Life on Striking
Socketed (6)

gives solid offense and +1 Life on Striking (since it's on-striking it means our Tornados can actually proc it which is crazy because they hit a bajillion times a second). This is probably the best shield for the money.


Lightforge

Lightforge
Kite Shield (Sacred)
Defense: (4144 - 5055) to (5252 - 6315)
Chance to Block: Class%
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 497
Required Dexterity: 559
Item Level: 105
Gematria
(Bonus per Socketed Great/Elemental Runes)
+5% Physical Resist
-5% Elemental Resists
+25% Total Character Defense
1% Chance to cast level 10 Thunder Hammer on Striking
-10% Movement Speed
+(100 to 150)% Enhanced Defense
+(500 to 1000) Defense
+(1000 to 2000) Defense vs. Missile
+(30 to 50) to all Attributes
+(30 to 50) Life after each Demon Kill
Socketed (4)

is probably the best budget purely-defensive shield because you can get 20% Physical Resistance by socketing in Great/Elemental runes.


Shield of Hakan II

Shield of Hakan II
Gothic Shield (Sacred)
Defense: (6995 - 7994) to (9190 - 10428)
Chance to Block: 1% + Class%
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 531
Required Dexterity: 619
Item Level: 105
-25% Cast Speed
1% Base Block Chance
-50% to Spell Damage
+(150 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
+(2000 to 3000) Defense
Maximum Life (10 to 15)%
Maximum Elemental Resists +(0 to 2)%
Physical Resist 5%
Slows Attacker by 25%
Socketed (4)

is your go-to for Dimensional Labyrinth when you need super high Max Res.


Avatar

Avatar
Shields
'Qor'
Runeword Level: 100
+1 to All Skills
45% Cast Speed
45% Hit Recovery
-(25 to 30)% to Enemy Fire Resistance
-(25 to 30)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(25 to 30)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(172 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
(16 to 25)% Magic Find
Requirements +33%

is exceptional, providing huge penetration for damage and even some magic find to boot.

Best:
The Flying Saucer

The Flying Saucer
Small Shield (Sacred)
Defense: (3627 - 3957) to (3907 - 4262)
Chance to Block: 1% + Class%
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 463
Required Dexterity: 499
Item Level: 120
1% Chance to cast level 60 Cryo Beam on Striking
30% Movement Speed
1% Base Block Chance
-25% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-25% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(120 to 140)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 5%
Socketed (4)

. This gives big penetration and damage from the Cryo Beam on-strike. It also gives a little Physical Res which is nice, and it has 1% Base Block Chance which helps a ton to reach higher block chance. It also gives us 30% faster Run/Walk speed which is super nice since the only other source we have is our boots and charms. Mystic Orb with Dex and Cold Spell Damage.

Helm

Cheap, easy, and good: Sacred Rare Shrine Crafted Druid Helm (Abandoned). Look for Cold Damage/Pen, +Druid Skills, and +Dexterity. FHR and Enhanced Defense are nice as well.


Witchhunter's Hood

Witchhunter's Hood
Cap (Sacred)
Defense: (2136 - 2611) to (2161 - 2642)
Required Level: 90
Required Strength: 228
Item Level: 1
+(80 to 120)% Enhanced Defense
10% to Strength
10% to Dexterity
Maximum Elemental Resists +2%
Elemental Resists +(31 to 40)%
Physical Resist 5%
Total Character Defense (16 to 20)%
Requirements -50%
Socketed (4)


Witchhunter's Attire
(Assassin Claw Set)

is very solid. Gives % Dex, Physical Resistance, Max Resistances, and solid Defense boost. Great defensive helmet and not too pricey. This is also a favorite for Dimensional Labyrinth when you need crazy high Max Res, so keep one on-hand if you intend to do that.

If you happen to find one,
Shiverhood

Shiverhood
Full Helm (Sacred)
Defense: (3596 - 4141) to (4218 - 4803)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 273
Item Level: 105
You may Only use Melee, Summon and Support Skills
+(1 to 2) to All Skills
+(20 to 30)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(15 to 25)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(15 to 20) to Winter Avatar
+(25 to 50)% to Summoned Minion Life
+(120 to 160)% Enhanced Defense
+(600 to 1000) Defense
Maximum Mana (10 to 20)%
+100 Life on Attack
Requirements -50%
Socketed (4)

is also quite nice.


Nezha (Xis)

Nezha
Druid Helms
'KoXis'
Runeword Level: 120
+2 to Druid Skill Levels
50% Attack Speed
+(172 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
5% to Strength
(35 to 50)% to Dexterity
Maximum Mana (11 to 20)%
(41 to 80)% Magic Find
Cannot be Unsocketed

gives BIG % Dex and MF, an excellent farming helm since you don't need more than -100 enemy resistances for general farming.

Best:
Coldhunger

Coldhunger
Wolf Head (Sacred)
Defense: (1842 - 2082) to (1915 - 2165)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 440
Item Level: 105
4% Chance to cast level 40 Ice Lance on Striking
+(1 to 2) to Druid Skill Levels
Adds 13-38 damage
Adds 30-35 cold damage
(14 to 17)% Life stolen per Hit
-(29 to 35)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(115 to 143)% Enhanced Defense
+(41 to 50) to Dexterity
+(41 to 50) to Vitality
Cold Resist +(30 to 50)%
Socketed (4)

. +Skills, Cold Penetration, +Cold Damage, +Physical Damage, big Dex, and a 4% Chance to cast Ice Lance on striking. This thing flings out Ice Lances like nobody's business, thanks to our tornados procing constantly. Mystic Orb with Dex and Cold Spell Damage.

Body Armor

Cheap, easy, and good:
Erawan

Erawan
Body Armors
'Nih'
Runeword Level: 100
10% Bonus to Buff/Debuff/Cold Skill Duration
5% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(144 to 171)% Enhanced Defense
25% to Strength
25% to Vitality
Physical Resist (11 to 15)%
Total Character Defense (11 to 20)%

. Solid defense and up to 15% physical resistance. This is not a super-tailored item for this character but it provides excellent defense and is very effective and very easy to obtain. I used Erawan until very late game when I had enough damage to warrant losing the physical resist to get even more damage via Icetomb.

Best:
Icetomb

Icetomb
Field Plate (Sacred)
Defense: (5937 - 7017) to (7053 - 8335)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 589
Item Level: 105
+50 Spell Focus
+(1 to 2) to All Skills
+(20 to 30)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(20 to 25)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(120 to 160)% Enhanced Defense
+(31 to 40) to all Attributes
Maximum Fire Resist -1%
Cannot Be Frozen
Total Character Defense 30%
5% Reanimate as: Frozen Lord
Attacker Takes Cold Damage of 1000
Socketed (6)

. Skills, cold spell damage, penetration, and even Cannot Be Frozen. You lose defense rating and physical resistance compared to Erawan though, so make sure you have enough damage everywhere else for this to be impactful. Mystic Orb with Dex and Cold Spell Damage.

Insane:
Natasha's Legacy (Xis)



Natasha's Legacy
Body Armors
'XisXisXisXisXisXis'
Runeword Level: 120
+(1 to 4) to All Skills
-(3 to 30)% to Enemy Elemental Resistances
+(322 to 350)% Enhanced Defense
Maximum Elemental Resists +(0 to 4)%
Physical Resist (5 to 20)%
Total Character Defense 100%
Cannot be Unsocketed

BIG Pen, Phys Res, +skills, max res, and defense. Absolutely nuts, but absolutely a pain to craft due to requiring SIX Xis runes on top of a ridiculous range variance... oh, and you can't un-socket it. Yikes. I got pretty lucky on mine this league and crafted a -25/20% Phys, huzzah! I'm currently at 41% Phys res and will hit 46% when I re-farm The Sleep and a Viz'jun trophy.

Belt

Cheap, easy, and good: Sacred Rare Shrine Craft (Abandoned Shrine) or
Truce

Truce
Belts
'Vith'
Runeword Level: 98
-5% Cast Speed
-5% Attack Speed
Stun Attack
+5% to Summoned Minion Damage
+(172 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist 10%
Slows Attacker by 5%

. Truce is easy to make and nice because of phys res, but you will get better stats and damage from a Sacred Craft if you have the Abandoned shrines for it. They can be hard to craft well though.

Great:
Sash of the Frozen Seas

Sash of the Frozen Seas
Sash (Sacred)
Defense: (2036 - 2329) to (2064 - 2362)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 452
Item Level: 105
-75% Regenerate Mana during Werewolf Form
30% Attack Speed
Winter Avatar Cooldown Reduced by 0.4 seconds
+(501 to 1000) to Attack Rating
-(6 to 15)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(101 to 130)% Enhanced Defense
+(51 to 250) to Mana
+100 Life on Attack
Socketed (2)

. Big Life on Attack, Cold Pen, and Attack Rating. Really great belt and usually very cheap for how strong it is. It only loses because it can't give us crazy Dex like Sacred Crafts can.

Great: Well-rolled Sacred Rare Shrine Craft (Abandoned Shrine). Belts can natively roll Cold Spell Damage and Cold Penetration, so crafting them with Abandoned Shrines is fantastic. With a good roll you can get up to 16% Cold Spell Damage and -10% Enemy Cold Res, plus Enhanced Defense, Dex, Life, etc. and the Abandoned shrine will guarantee Dex % and +Dex. Bless with Abandoned and Mystic Orb with Dex and Cold Spell Damage.

Best:
Dementia

Dementia
Belt (Sacred)
Defense: (3111 - 3348) to (3272 - 3524)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 634
Item Level: 120
-(15 to 20)% to Enemy Elemental Resistances
+(15 to 25) to Fowl Fight
Slow Target 5%
+(120 to 140)% Enhanced Defense
+500 Defense
Maximum Life 5%
Maximum Elemental Resists +1%
Physical Resist 5%
Requirements +20%
Socketed (2)

: Max life, big penetration, phys res, slows target, max res, and um... chickens? Hard to argue with this one, but you really don't need it until you are pushing really really hard content like the Dimensional Labyrinth. A well crafted sacred rare is very close to as good.

Gloves

Not a lot to choose from here at the lower gear levels, just take whatever you can find that has good stats, skills, etc.


Stareye's Claws

Stareye's Claws
Gauntlets (Sacred)
Defense: 1674 to 1959
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 574
Item Level: 120
+25% to Cold Spell Damage
-15% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+200% Enhanced Defense
15% to Dexterity
+50 to Dexterity
Maximum Cold Resist +2%
Socketed (4)
Cold Resist +30% (#s2)
Adds 100-150 cold damage (#s3)
+5 Cold Absorb (#s4)


Henchmen Trophies
(Legendary Set)

are basically a well-rolled Sacred Rare craft.


Snowsquall

Snowsquall
Gloves
'Krys'
Runeword Level: 100
10% Chance to cast level 9 Cone of Cold on Melee Attack
+1 to All Skills
Adds 20-40 cold damage
Slow Target 20%
+(58 to 86)% Enhanced Defense
+(21 to 25) to Dexterity
Cold Absorb 5%
Target Takes Additional Damage of 25

gives big 'Slows Target' to slow both enemy's attacks and their movement speed. It also has a pretty decent amount of offense, though it lacks penetration. Honestly the more I use these gloves the more I like them because of the defensive bonus you get from Slows Target. Really tough call here. Losing the Dex and AR is big but man, 20% Slow Target is nice.

Sacred Rare Shrine Craft (Abandoned Shrine). Like Belts, gloves can roll Cold Spell Damage and Cold Penetration natively, so crafting them with Abandoned makes them amazing. Look for +Druid Skills, Cold Spell Damage, Cold Pen, Big Dex, and Life on Attack. Bless with Abandoned and Mystic Orb with Dex and Cold Spell Damage.

Boots

Cheap, easy, and good: Sacred Rare Shrine Craft or
Steppe Sleeper

Steppe Sleeper
Boots (Sacred)
Defense: 651 to 671
Required Level: 80
Item Level: 1
+1 to Barbarian Skill Levels
(0 to 40)% Movement Speed
-(11 to 15)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(3 to 7) to Blood Hatred (Barbarian Only)
(31 to 40)% to Strength
Requirements -100%
Socketed (4)


Tundra Walker
(Barbarian Warrior Set)

. Movement speed is nice and any Dex or Pen you get as a bonus is great.

If you happen to find a
Hunter's Trackless Step

Hunter's Trackless Step
Heavy Boots (Sacred)
Defense: (1392 - 1740) to (1474 - 1842)
Required Level: 90
Required Strength: 492
Item Level: 1
(0 to 40)% Movement Speed
3% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(100 to 150)% Enhanced Defense
+(31 to 50) to Vitality
+15 Maximum Stamina
Physical Resist 5%
Total Character Defense 50%
Socketed (4)


Big Game Hunter
(Barbarian Throwing Set)

with good Movement Speed, you can use them for a bit as they provide 5% Physical Resist.

Best: Sacred Rare Shrine Craft (Sacred Shrine). Boots cannot roll Cold Spell Damage or Cold Penetration natively, so we will want to use Sacred Shrines here. Go for movement speed and +stats or +dex. Bless with Sacred and you can hit up to -10% enemy cold resistances and 16% cold spell damage. Mystic Orb with Dex and Cold Spell Damage.

Jewelry

Easy pick and cheap ring is
Ripstar

Ripstar
Ring
Required Level: 60
Item Level: 60
+0.5625 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+20 Life on Attack

. Even though it grants physical damage, we attack fast and the damage will still add up. Plus it has 20 Life on Attack.

The Assur's Bane quest ring from Duncraig is actually fantastic and gives a good balance of offense and defense. I used two for a while until I got very solid offensive Rare Rings.

Rare rings can be great as they can give you +1 All Skills, Cold Spell Damage, Cold Penetration, +Damage, and stats. Don't forget to Luck them for more Cold Spell Damage!

Great:
Witchcraft

Witchcraft
Ring
Required Level: 100
Item Level: 120
+2 to All Skills
20% Cast Speed
-5% to Enemy Elemental Resistances
Maximum Mana (-5 to 5)%
Total Character Defense 20%

gives skills, defense, a little pen, and cast speed. I keep one on-hand for Dimensional Labyrinth and other content where I want a bit more defense than a second Bad Mood would provide.

Best:
Bad Mood

Bad Mood
Ring
Required Level: 100
Item Level: 120
-20% Cast Speed
Adds 50-100 fire damage
Adds 50-100 lightning damage
Adds 50-100 cold damage
-(5 to 20)% to Enemy Fire Resistance
-(5 to 20)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(5 to 20)% to Enemy Cold Resistance

is absurd, just look at it. The only downside is you might need to get a bit of extra Faster Cast Speed to make up for the negative it has so that your teleport/curse cast speed isn't too slow. I recommend 2x Bad Mood or 1x Bad Mood and 1x Witchcraft.

For Amulets, Rares are again very nice if they spawn with Skills, Cold Spell Damage, Pen, and stats.

A Unique option for more defense but still good damage is
Dyers Eve

Dyers Eve
Amulet
Required Level: 100
Item Level: 120
5% Chance to cast level 5 Time Strike on Striking
+2 to All Skills
Adds 15-20 damage
5% Life stolen per Hit
Elemental Resists +10%
Physical Resist (1 to 10)%

, due to the Physical Resistance and Time Strike proc.

Best is probably
Black Dwarf

Black Dwarf
Amulet
Required Level: 110
Item Level: 105
+2 to All Skills
20% Cast Speed
20% Hit Recovery
+(15 to 25)% to Lightning Spell Damage
+(15 to 25)% to Cold Spell Damage
-(5 to 20)% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
-(5 to 20)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(21 to 29) to Supernova
Total Character Defense (30 to 40)%
-5 to Light Radius

.

Mystic Orb Rings and Amulets with Cold Spell Damage, Reduced Physical Damage Taken, and Defense.

Sockets

You will want all IAS Jewels in your Weapon to reach your fastest breakpoint. I would recommend crafting them with a Lem rune for +all attributes, but you could use Nih for Life on Attack as well.

Your Body armor is a good place to put Jewels with FHR and FBR (or both) to hit those breakpoints. Any FCR you get is a nice bonus.

Everything else: Io Runes / Perfect Amethysts. We want as much Dex as possible as it is both our best offensive and defensive stat. Offensively, it increases our Attack Rating and our damage (Crystal Sword grants 41% of Dex as Cold Damage and Survival Instincts grants 20% of Dex as Cold damage). Defensively, Dex increases both our Defense Rating and our Block chance.

There are some cases where you might want to use Thai runes for the Cold Pen, but they make the item level requirement higher which means you can't put as many Mystic Orbs on it and they have no survivability benefit. If you can get your Penetration elsewhere, Io Runes are better.

Penetration

You shouldn't need more than -100 Enemy Cold resistances for normal/farming gameplay, but if you plan on bossing then having as much as -199% could be useful. I killed Uldyssian and farmed his charm with around -175 on my Druid.

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Endgame Challenges/Dungeons/Rifts

Level 105

Island of the Sunless Sea

This one is pretty easy once you realize you can target the invisible monsters with Harbinger even when you can't see them.

Horror Under Tristram

The butcher himself isn't very dangerous, just keep an eye on your health as you click him down with Twisted Claw. If your health gets low, you can run from him as he is pretty slow. The bigger dangers are the flames that come from the sides of the room, keep your eyes open and dodge them or you might die.

Invasion

Pretty trivial fight, mostly just hold click Twisted Claw and he dies. You might need to move out of the lightning effects on the ground, but probably not.

Infernal Machine

Thin out the crowds of monsters before killing the turret machine and this one will be pretty easy. Just don't over-extend before thinning out the monsters and you should be fine.

Death Projector

This one can be surprisingly hard at low gear levels because you won't have enough damage to power through before more invincible minions spawn. Start the fight by attacking the turret with Twisted Claw while walking in a circle away from the giant purple death beam. Eventually, there will be too many additional invincible minions for you to power through without dying. When that happens, you need to run to a corner of the room and let the minions follow you there, then you can summon your own Harvesters to hold their attention and run back towards the turret to finish damaging it.

Level 110

The Secret Cow Level

Cows are not too bad because Harbinger lets us teleport around crazily and that means we are rarely at risk of being cornered/surrounded. Generally you can just spam Harbinger until you find a Shaman or Ninja cow, which you might want to Twisted Claw down before returning to Harbinger spam. At low gear levels they can do a lot of damage and be a little dangerous if you don't keep on-the-move.

Torajan Jungles

Overall one of the easiest and best places to farm and level at this range. Nothing is especially dangerous and you get a good amount of signets and loot.

The Binding of Baal

This one is not hard, just kill the minions to make the boss able to be damaged. They are fairly tanky so you will probably want to use Twisted Claw on them. Be warned that shapeshifting out of Werewolf form while you are transformed into Baal can bug this fight out and prevent you from ever shapeshifting back into form, which means you won't be able to use your abilities and will have to exit the game and re-start the fight (this happened to me, it was awful lol).

Horizon's Sanctum

Pretty easy, just use Twisted Claw to kill the boss as fast as you can while paying attention to how many additional monsters he summons. If he summons too many, you'll need to take a break from the boss and kill them or you might die. If you can pull the boss far away from his summons, they sometimes tend to leave you alone while the boss dies.

Akarat

Pretty easy fight if you have been keeping up with your damage. Just have to kill his minions near him to make him vulnerable, then kill him quickly before his health regens. Building up Tornados on him while he's invincible and letting those Tornados kill his minions will give you a burst of damage onto the Boss, as he becomes vulnerable when the minions die and will already be standing in your Twisted Claw tornados.

Assault on Mount Arreat

If you are having trouble with surviving, try to walk slowly in until a few axe thrower minions target you and then walk away quickly to pull them away in little groups and kill them while safely away from the bigger group. Do this around the corners of the map until all of the minions are dead before going to the center and killing the main boss. Like the Baal transform, if you accidentally shapeshift out of Werewolf form, you might bug out and have to restart the fight.

Lord Aldric Jitan

We do pretty well at this fight because Harbinger is excellent at moving around and avoiding projectiles from the Guard Towers. Just pull a few Guards back at a time (don't rush in right away) and you will be able to finish them off with Twisted Claw while using Harbinger to reposition if you take too much Guard Tower damage. Jitan himself is basically just "click and hold Twisted Claw" until he dies, but you might need to move away during his multi-tower summon if you start taking too much damage.

Level 115

Kurast 3000 BA

This one can be a little frustrating at lower gear levels because many of the Skeletons have Cold Absorb and that coupled with the Towers granting them more survivability can make them a bit hard to kill. Killing the towers first is ideal as far as speed goes, but you may not be able to survive diving straight in right away. If that's the case, first focus on clearing out some of the non-cold absorbing Skeletons with Harbinger, then focus the cold absorb ones down with Twisted Claw until it is safe enough to get to the middle tower and kill it.

High Heavens

This one isn't bad to farm if you pay attention. It can be awful for mindless farming because losing concentration and eating a poison ball can mean instant death Werewolf is pretty good at dealing with them due to Avoid making us often just ignore the poison balls completely, but still, if you get hit by one and aren't paying attention it can be annoying. Just pay attention and hit your Health Potion any time you get poisoned and it's pretty easy.

Tran Athulua

This one is pretty RIP-ie at low gear levels. There are so many Amazons shooting at you that Avoid has a hard time helping us out due to the sheer number of incoming arrows. Still, like most crowded monster situations, Harbinger is the answer. Stay on the move with instant teleporting attacks and they will have a hard time hitting you. Make sure to clear out all of the normal Amazons before killing the three Bosses, or you will probably have a bad time. The Amazon Bosses are pretty annoying because their AI makes them constantly run away (and out of Twisted Claw Tornados) so they take less damage than they would otherwise. The cold absorbing Boss is especially tanky at low gear levels and can be a bit of a slog.

I recommend farming the Tran Athulua Trophy for an extra 5% Physical Res.

Bull Prince Rodeo

This fight is more of a damage-check than a mechanics one, and it give a lot of classes trouble as there are many giant AoE mechanics that are very difficult to keep from getting hit by. However, Avoid is a fantastic defensive stat for this fight and Wolf has plenty of it. At low gear level, my Werewolf killed this boss far easier than any of my other characters who always had trouble with it. Great fight for us, just Twisted Claw him and ignore all of the mechanics while bursting him down and marveling at your wolf powers .

Rathma Square

Another fight that has given my other chars trouble at low gear level, but once again Wolf excels here Use Harbinger to leap-frog from the constantly spawning small red minions onto the boss and burst him down with Twisted Claw. If you are taking too much damage, you can thin-out some of the minions on the sides of the map before going to fight the boss.

Black Road

Another great fight for Wolf! Similar to Rathma Square, you have a lot of constantly spawning minions to deal with. For this fight though, you need to drag the boss into the fire circle otherwise he is invincible. This is pretty easy if you just run into the circle and let him follow you, however he may get stuck on some of your wolf minions from Feed the Pack. If this happens, you can try moving around the room until he follows you into the circle. Once he's in the circle, it's really easy. Click him down with Twisted Claw and let your Avoid and Life on Attack do the rest. Just be careful not to move too much once you're inside the circle, as it will trigger traps that unleash more additional giant waves minions.

Legacy of Blood

Another great fight for Wolf! Just teleport on top of the boss and burst him down with Twisted Claw. You should kill him very quickly while avoiding all of the minion damage without much hassle. Just beware the explosion that occurs a few seconds after he dies and make sure you have picked up the charm before then

The Veiled Prophet

You will want to have pre-summoned as many Harvesters as you can before entering the portal for this one. Once you enter, run to the bottom-right and hide in the first corner in between the lightning beams (don't touch them, just stand still). Stand still and spam-summon your Harvesters so the invincible minions attack them instead of you. Once the lightning goes away, immediately run to the center of the room and teleport onto the Tower with Harbinger. Burst it down with Twisted Claw to summon the boss and break the immunity off the existing minions. You may need to thin out the minions before focusing on him, but you should be able to burst him down fairly easily.

Heart of Sin

Pretty easy fight for Wolf, just avoid the large AoE attacks if they do too much damage to you. Avoid and Life on Attack with fast attack speed makes us survive through most everything else Azmodan can throw at us without any issue.

Level 120

Teganze

This is a zone that gave me a lot of annoyance on other characters because of all of the projectile balls flying around at all times that do high damage. Wolf doesn't care much though, because once again Avoid is an excellent defensive layer. Combine Avoid with Harbinger mobility and those balls almost never hit us. Excellent character for Teganze!

The Triune

In previous patches this zone was very annoying because of the Rock Fall attacks monsters used, but they don't do that anymore! So now it is quite easy and pleasant to farm. Just keep your eyes open for the Towers because the Meteor circle they place on the ground will probably one-shot you if you stand in it. Use Harbinger to teleport directly to any towers and burst them down with Twisted Claw as soon as you see them, then resume killing the rest of the monsters on screen normally. This is my preferred zone ~120.

The boss fight used to be really awful, but they've made it a lot more palatable. You need to pick up the book item from Squidward in the chapel. Be warned, it sets your Avoid to 0 while holding it, but you will need it to kill the boss. You'll find Malic in the courtyard casting firebolts and being annoyingly invincible. Kill all monsters in the courtyard by Malic and then head down into the building below the courtyard to find Lucion. He is also invincible, but that's okay, we have a plan. Lucion will attack you and follow you, so you must slowly walk away from him and let him chase you into the courtyard where Malic is. Use the skill that Squidward's book grants you to Mind Control Lucion, and then let Malic hit him with his firebolts and that will deal damage to Lucion. Note that you cannot Mind Control again before the existing Mind Control has stopped, so don't spam the ability or it will be on-cooldown for a longer time after the Mind Control ends. Also, note that there is an annoying bug where you have to drop the book after every cast of Mind Control, or Lucion will not take damage despite being Mind Controlled. At 50%, the bug goes away and Lucion also enrages and becomes much faster and casts more spells and ground effects. Other than Lucion being faster and casting more though, the mechanics are the same. Just keep mind controlling him and letting him get hit with Malic's firebolts.

Duncraig

Duncraig is a bit annoying for all Melee characters due to the explosive barrels doing magic damage that can easily 2-shot you out of nowhere. Still, if you keep your eyes open and move in a sort of "run forward and then backward" pattern, you will be able to bait out the barrels and avoid them by moving away after you see them fall from the sky. It's not the best place for Wolf to level/farm ~120, so I would head back to The Triune after getting your charm. This area is a bit weird in that it forces you to use Jitan's Gate to teleport around odd gaps to find five Seals (each from a mini boss) and combine it with a Ring of the Five (a random drop chance from all monsters in the zone). Once you have all five seals and the ring, cube them to create Assur's Bane.

The boss, Assur, is your first Purify fight. You must use Assur's Bane to cast Purify on Assur to kill him (as he is immune to any damage you deal other than the granted skill Purify). Walk close enough that Assur's life bar appears on your screen and then stop as soon as it does. Usually he will not teleport to you at this range and you can back up and kill any monsters that are in the way before walking further forward to pull Assur. I like to clear the big room before Assur's room completely and then run from Assur and teleport into the big room so he follows me. Once I'm in the big room, I just run circles around him until I hit him twice with Purify to kill him.

Judgement Day

Pretty easy fight. Harbinger on top of the boss and burst them down with Twisted Claw while Avoid and Life on Attack take care of most of the minion damage. You might need to use Harbinger to re-port to the boss if they teleport away. You can also use Harvester minions to help take some focus of the invincible boss minions off of you if you are having trouble surviving. Both Imperius and Mathael basically play out the same way, there isn't much difference between each of them as far as how you approach the fights.

Twin Seas

Very easy fight, but Wolf is a bit slower than some characters might be at it due to the Boss's runaway AI making her run out of Tornados from Twisted Claw. Even considering that, it's not hard. Just Harbinger on top of her when she runs away and use Twisted Claw when you land. Rinse and repeat.

Quov Tsin

This fight can be obnoxious for any melee character at-level when using your normal gear. Basically you run in a circle and try to avoid the Death Beam, but don't die because when you do the boss heals for a lot. Every time you hit the boss he teleports far away, which is annoying because Wolf walk/run speed is slow. Try crafting
Wheel of Fortune

Wheel of Fortune
Large Shield (4)
Defense: 85 to 162
Chance to Block: Class%
Required Level: 4
Required Strength: 22
Required Dexterity: 45
Item Level: 6
+(21 to 30) to Vitality
Maximum Elemental Resists +1%
Elemental Resists +(6 to 10)%
Cold Absorb 1%
Lightning Absorb 1%
Fire Absorb 1%
(4 to 7)% Gold Find
(5 to 10)% Magic Find
Socketed (1)
Defense: 240 to 405
Chance to Block: Class%
Required Level: 21
Required Strength: 32
Required Dexterity: 67
Item Level: 25
+(31 to 40) to Vitality
Maximum Elemental Resists +1%
Elemental Resists +(11 to 20)%
Cold Absorb 2%
Lightning Absorb 2%
Fire Absorb 2%
(9 to 12)% Gold Find
(11 to 20)% Magic Find
Socketed (3)
Defense: 501 to 817
Chance to Block: Class%
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 68
Required Dexterity: 139
Item Level: 46
+(41 to 50) to Vitality
Maximum Elemental Resists +2%
Elemental Resists +(21 to 30)%
Cold Absorb 2%
Lightning Absorb 2%
Fire Absorb 2%
(14 to 17)% Gold Find
(21 to 30)% Magic Find
Socketed (4)
Defense: 684 to 1113
Chance to Block: Class%
Required Level: 48
Required Strength: 141
Required Dexterity: 288
Item Level: 80
+(51 to 60) to Vitality
Maximum Elemental Resists +2%
Elemental Resists +(31 to 40)%
Cold Absorb 3%
Lightning Absorb 3%
Fire Absorb 3%
(17 to 19)% Gold Find
(31 to 40)% Magic Find
Socketed (4)

and other Elemental Max Res/Absorb items to make it much easier. If you don't want to hassle with the gear crafting, you can save this fight for later when you out level and out gear it.

Kingdom of Shadow

Wolf is not the best at this, but it's not bad either. The Zombie Run gives a lot of players anxiety but once you get a feel for the map it is actually not bad at all. The gist of it is that thousands of tiny invincible zombies run after you and attack and poison you, and all you can do is run. The map is weird and has lots of odd areas and it isn't immediately clear where you should go -- but don't worry, that's why I'm here! As soon as you enter the zone, you will see two long walls that run down the right side of the screen, from the top-left corner to the bottom-right corner of the screen. Hug the inner-most wall and follow it to the bottom-right corner of the screen. When you hit a perpendicular wall, that's when you start heading to the bottom left-hand corner of your screen. Keep going bottom-left for a long time, hopping over any intersecting walls with Jitan's Gate until you can't go down to the bottom left any more. You will end up on a thinner path with a cliff/abyss on the left side. Now, run to the upper left-hand corner, this is the final stretch. When you get to the end, the boss is surrounded by even more invincible little zombies. Use Harbinger to port straight over them and burst down the boss with Twisted Claw. Pick up the charm quickly before the zombies swarm you!

As a general tip, you want to walk and not sprint to avoid de-syncing from the server. Personally I save sprint for when a bunch of zombies are near me, to force them farther away from me and into a more manageable ball behind me.

There are big scary enemy dues who actually ARE attackable, and you can Mana Pulse them to get enough mana to be able to teleport. Depending on how many big scary dudes you see (or don't), you may need to temporarily shift out of Werewolf form to have enough Mana to teleport over some of the walls.

Eve of Destruction

Another great fight for Wolf, Baal's usual annoying Mana Drain ability doesn't really affect us since we can just use Mana Pulse and regen all of our Mana right away. Avoid and Life on Attack help us tank through most of his attacks, even the black sludge on the ground if you're geared correctly. Twisted Claw damage bursts down the ads easily if they spawn, but they often never do because Baal spawns the other Bosses when he hits you, which he rarely ever does because of Avoid. If he Spawns Duriel, Andarial, Diablo, or a Minion of Destruction, always make sure to burst them down as soon as possible with Twisted Claw before focusing back on Baal again. If things get out of hand, you can kite Baal and the minions away from each other and solo them down alone -- this probably won't even happen though, as once again Avoid is just really good and he rarely summons many during the fight becaus of it.

Banisher of Light

Kabraxis is another great fight for Wolf. Avoid helps us not get hit by most of his damage, if you are well geared you can easily stand in almost everything Kabraxis does and not care, only the big green firestorm bomb-drop ability is scary. If you aren't well geared, the fight is still great for wolf. What I like to do is run away from Kabraxis, which forces his AI to make him port on top of me and summon skeletons. Then you get a few free Twisted Claw hits in while he is finishing his Teleport animation. The Tornados will damage him and kill the skeleton minions, which give you life on kill. Then just walk away again and let him port on you, rinse and repeat. Great fight to farm.

Level 125

Toraja

This place is pretty awful but not exactly hard. Everything in here is invincible to you, so you have to use your summonable Edyrem from the Judgement Day reward in order to make them attackable. This wouldn't be that bad but the Edyrem AI is awful and they are way too squishy. I've found the least-awful way is to summon all 10 Edyrem behind a wall, then spam Harbinger to port directly onto enemies with all the Edyrem porting with you (so they are more likely to attack it). It's a bit of a slog and pretty annoying, but not exactly "difficult". Once you find the Boss, it's the same thing with her and she doesn't have much health and dies fast. The only issue is making sure you clear out enough enemies before the boss jumps on you, otherwise you will probably die since you can't clear the invincible enemies out easily when there are so many of them at once.

Viz-Jun

Very easy, just watch out for the mines that spawn on the ground as they can kill you if you eat a bunch in a row. Generally though, Avoid deals with the mines really well and you don't have to think much about them. Solid place to farm, the boss just takes like 2 purify hits to kill, and you can easily port-spam with Harbinger to get him to quickly if you want. Would have probably farmed here more but Fautzinville exists and Wolf is really good at it.

Fautzinville

Wolf kind of crushes this. I'm sure there are some ranged characters that clear it more quickly, but the annoying map has a lot of high/low levels and walls that most characters can't easily walk around on and it is annoying. However, we are WOLF! We have Harbinger and we can just port around wherever we want and we do not care, huzzah! Wolf is fantastic at this and Cold is especially good because we don't care that Necrobots have high physical resist since we do Cold Damage. We are quite excellent at farming here, go get those items and great runes! Aroooo!!!

Lord of Lies

Not a particularly hard fight, but a little hard to figure out if you've never done it. Belial is invisible and he has many copies of himself that roam around. You need to figure out which one is actually him, and the easiest way to do that is to kill the copies of him so that there is less visual clutter. The only thing he does that is particularly scary is make a clone wall of himself, which you can often ignore, however if you stand in line with the copies it can hit you for big damage. So just be aware of your positioning. If you have a Cold Blood, you can use Banish to put a curse icon over his head when he is invisible, which will let you cheat and see where he is and be able to click him even when he's invisible. It's a little unintuitive at first but it's a pretty easy fight once you get the hang of it.

Ghosts of Old Bremmtown

Another great fight for Wolf, we can just port pack-to-pack with Harbinger. The dog-ghost-purple-things also port onto you, so it becomes a giant ball of death quickly. Luckily, they don't do much damage and if you are constantly porting with Harbinger they will not hit you much anyway. They die fast too, so you probably don't even need to use Twisted Claw on them. Run down the bottom-left toward the double bridge and take the second bridge toward the bottom-right. The Dark Star Dragon will be to the bottom-left of that bridge. He has absolutely no HP and dies when you sneeze on him, so don't worry about fighting him along with a big pack of the purple dudes. Very easy to do this in a minute and a half to get the charm. You can also definitely do it in 30 seconds for the Trophy if you want to farm it. Nice place to level/farm also, very easy to zone out and do this area quickly.

Yshari Sanctum

This fight is a bit annoying because you have to farm an entire set of gear that basically amounts to not playing your character and playing another character instead. Some people really hate it but I don't think it's too bad. I'm not going to go over the mazes that help you get the gear set, there are already better guides for that. Basically you have to run through a maze with teleport disabled and get special pieces of gear, it takes about an hour probably? It's not too bad but some people hate that part as well, haha. Anyway, the fight itself amounts to you using Granted Ability #1, a lightning bolt nova, to clear out minions that the boss summons. You then use Granted Ability #2 to hit the boss (it's basically Purify). The caveat is that you can't use either ability unless there are minions nearby, so you need to kill most of the minions but not all of the minions. What gets annoying is the boss's twitchie AI makes him move around and often dodge the Purify shots. Furthermore, his pattern appears to be totally random and sometimes he dances around for minutes on end without ever summoning any new minions, which can be really punishing with regard to the timer if you mess up and kill all of the minions. This fight is a few tweaks away from being fun, but it definitely isn't fun in it's current form. Not the worst thing ever, but not really fun either.

Wolf (or rather Druids in general) are actually fairly good at it due to their Avoid and Life Regen from the Symbiosis buff, which you can still cast on yourself while wearing the Quest Gear Set.

I would avoid this until later if you have never done it before, try everything else at-level first.

Xazax

Another great fight for Wolf. Try to burst the boss down to 50% as fast as possible, because early in the fight there are only 1 or 2 minions summoned. As the fight goes on, the boss summons more and more minions and they are invincible. You have to kite the minions around away from the boss, then quickly Harbinger port onto the boss and get hits in with Twisted Claw as fast as you can before the minions reach you. Then rinse and repeat. The boss has three main abilities, a Fire Rain, a Poison Wave, and an Ice Nova. The Fire Rain will definitely kill you, so move out of it when you see the markers on the ground. The Poison Wave doesn't do much and you can generally ignore it / use a health potion. The Ice Nova will kill you if you are too close and eat multiple hits as it can shotgun-effect you up close. Far away though each individual one won't kill you. Just keep an eye on the minion's position and kite them in a circle and you will be good.

Note that even though they are invincible, you can still attack the minions with Mana Pulse to get mana for teleporting.

Astrogha

Like Quov Tsin, this fight is horrible for Melee and I would recommend avoiding it until you have completed the other fights. It is very doable though, you just need dedication What makes this fight so awful is that Astrogha summons towers that, when killed, heal her for a huge amount. If you ignore the towers, they will eventually die on their own but they release a billion little maggots when they do. So now you have to kill the maggots, but when you click them to kill them the boss might suddenly spawn a tower and now OH NO a tower is under your Tornado and OOPS the boss is at 100% health again (and you will wish you were dead).

So what do you do?

Mana Pulse. Only. Mana Pulse.

Mana Pulse deals a solid chunk of weapon damage and does not spawn tornados like Twisted Claw or Crows like Harbinger. So it will ONLY hit the boss and will NEVER hit the towers unless you click them. This leads to a lot of awkward situations where you are surrounded by a bajillion maggots and just staring that the boss, but hey, that's the fight. If you are patient and you demonstrate discipline by never using Twisted claw, you will never accidentally kill the towers. If you get too surrounded by maggots, it's best to port onto the boss with Jitan's Gate (not Harbinger, that'll kill towers!) and hit him to get him to teleport away. If he's far enough away, you can kill maggots and towers and not worry about them healing the boss. The maggots cast an ability than can one-shot you, but when you're mass clearing them away from the boss you can use Harbinger and they will die quickly to the crows and be frozen and immobile from Survival instincts.

This fight is awful for all Melee, truly awful. But there is a weird sense of pride when you can do it. I've done it on three melee characters, so maybe I just have Stockholm Syndrome? lol

Nymyr's Light

This is another purify fight, but Wolf is pretty good at it due to our Avoid and Regen. Still, you won't be doing any damage yourself (Purify only) so you may want to craft some tiered uniques that give Max Life and Life Regen, or use
Malus Domestica

Malus Domestica
Club (Sacred)
One-Hand Damage: 41 to 42
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 376
Item Level: 105
Strength Damage Bonus: (0.11 per Strength)%
You Have Apple Healing Effect
+(0 to 2) to All Skills
+50% Damage to Undead
(11 to 20)% to Vitality
+(1 to 1000) to Life
Maximum Life 10%
+100% Increased Healing Rate from Apples
Physical Resist (6 to 10)%
10% Reanimate as: Tree of Life
Socketed (3)

for additional Regen. I had 21,500 life when I completed it, thanks to tiered uniques and crafts socketed with On Runes, which meant I was regenerating 1,000 HP per second from Symbiosis alone. You don't have to do that, I almost got her with my normal gear several times, but having more life and regen will make you more consistently successful.

Basically, you run around in a circle and avoid the minion witches' ground flames and the boss witch's circular nova attack and weird square-line-panel attacks. The boss's nova will shotgun-effect you up close, so keep your distance--but not TOO much distance, or the boss will teleport onto you and melee you. This melee hit won't kill you, but it will almost kill you, which means the next attack you fail to avoid might.

The worst thing about this fight is that the spawn locations of the minion witches seem to be totally random. I have had attempts where there are literally none anywhere near the boss's room that were much easier compared to other attempts where there were like four minion witches in my backyard the entire time. Like most Purify fights, it isn't too bad once you understand the mechanics. And like most Purify fights, it would be a lot less obnoxious and, dare I say it, almost fun if the boss just had like half the HP that it has haha.

Spirit World

This fight seems very easy until it isn't. I can't decide how I feel about it. Wolf does a lot of damage and is fairly mobile in some ways, but fairly immobile when it comes to just running around if we have to do that. I know some people do this fight by running around the map to the far platforms to get the boss to chase them, because the boss is faster than the ads. That didn't work for me, because Wolf run speed is very slow.

The winning strategy for me was to kill all of the white ghosts on a platform (usually the center one the boss was on) and run around in a circle around that platform for most of the fight, kiting the boss and the little orange balls in a circle. The little orange balls that chase you are invincible and do high physical damage on hit. They will spawn infinitely as the fight goes on, clumping up into a small hot ball of white/orange death. Don't let them touch you. Keep running in a circle from them and Harbinger port away from them onto the boss when he is not near them, getting as much quick damage as you can with Twisted Claw before the little orange balls catch you. The boss will spawn weird voodoo poop piles that you have to hit with Purify to kill, as long as even one of the poop piles exists the boss will not be damageable. Killing these piles spawns more of the orange balls that you have to run from, so keep your eyes open.

It was a bit of a pain but I did it after spending a while getting familiar with it. I think in the future this fight would be easier if I somehow got more run speed on this character, but I'm not sure how.

---

130 Fights and the rest of the guide are in the post below, keep scrolling!

[MetalMusicMan]

Level 130

The Void

This fight was recently overhauled and I think it might be my favorite fight in the game. You have to run through several maps and kill a boss on each map, which gives you an item to cube and create a ring to summon the final boss. I'll go over each area:


Black Abyss: run to the top-center and take the red portal to the next zone. Note that the portals in these zones don't appear right away, they take a second to spawn (but their locations are always the same, just wait a sec for them to appear).

Plane of Sloth: run up the left side and enter the opening on the right that goes to the room in the center of the map. Kill the Sloth boss, he dies easily but when he dies a delayed spike-trap goes off. Dodge the spike trap by moving in a circle or it will probably kill you. This boss is the only boss who does not have a 100% drop chance for his item, but luckily he respawns after about 3 seconds. Keep killing him, avoiding the death spike trap, and re-killing him until you get the Scroll off Sloth. Exit the center room and run to the top left-hand corner of the map and take the exit portal.

Plane of Gluttony: Run to the center of the map and kill the boss in the center, he's easy just hold Twisted Claw. Pick up the Scroll of Gluttony.

Plane of Greed: Run to the center and kill the boss, he's also easy and basically does nothing to you. Pick up the Scroll of Greed.

Plane of Lust: Run to the bottom-center and kill the boss, she's also easy. Pick up the Scroll of Lust and exit -- the exit portal is in a weird location, it's near where you came in and surrounded by garden gates except for the top side (but you can port over the walls to get to the portal.

Plane of Wrath: This boss actually just kills himself. All you have to do is survive. Attack him for Life on Attack, he'll die in a few seconds on his own. Pick up the Scroll of Wrath and run to the bottom-left to the exit portal.

Plane of Envy: This boss did the most damage to me, but still wasn't an issue. Just run away for a second if you get low. Pick up the Scroll of Envy when he dies. Run to the top left-corner and port over the weird stairs to get to the exit portal.

Plane of Pride: This is the hardest one both in terms of the map and the boss. You need to enter a series of Red Portals that take you to different platforms. It's a maze where there are some dead ends and it can be kind of hard to tell which way to go, but keep clicking the portals and trying different ones until you end up on the biggest platform at the top/top-right of the map. Oh, and mind the Lightning Bolts that fly at you from the abyss. You want to keep moving while entering the Red Portals or you will eat Lightning Bolts, one or two won't kill you but more than that probably will. When you get to the end, you actually kill the Boss by killing its ads. So don't try to chase the boss down, he'll just run away. Just be near him and kill the ads and you'll see him take damage and eventually die. Don't forget to keep dodging the Lightning Bolts, they keep going when you reach the boss and that plus the Boss damage can definitely kill you if you aren't careful. Pick up the Scroll of Pride and enter the last portal.

Once you have each Scroll, cube them all together to make the Ring of Virtue, which gives you the Ability "Scream of Trang'Oul" to summon the real boss, who aways in the last portal.

The Void - Actual Boss Fight: Put on the Ring of Virtue and walk to the center of the room. Use the Granted Ability Scream of Trang'Oul to shatter the pillar and summon the boss (actually two bosses). It takes a bit for the summon, so put your normal ring back on during this time.

Two Bosses will spawn, Inarius and Lilith. Inarius is who you are trying to kill, but he's invincible. Lilith is "your friend" in that she allows you to kill Inarius, but be careful as she is very fragile and both your moves and Inarius can damage her. The way the fight works is that Lilith casts a red puddle on the ground, it has a small red flashing circle to indicate where a puddle is about to appear. After a few seconds, the puddle erupts. Drag Inarius into the puddle and keep him there, while the puddle is erupting you can damage him. If your damage is good, you should be able to kill him in only 2-5 puddles tops (I do it in 2-3 usually). Just be careful not to hit Lilith as she is very fragile and once she dies you will NOT be able to damage Inarius. If you die, Inarius will attack Lilith while you are gone in town. You might be able to get back via Town Portal in time before she dies, but you likely will not most times if she has already taken a chunk of damage before your death.

Overall it's a fun fight that is QUICK. I think this fight has everything that Median fight should have, and I applaud the devs for their rework of it. Just really neat and I wish more fights were like this. I just really like how it rewards you for figuring out specific mechanics but also doesn't take very long to actually accomplish once you figure it out -- but it's still punishing if you mess up, even after you figure it out. Challenging and fun, excellent!

Nephalem's Sacrifice

Uldyssian is a very tanky boi, but Wolf wins again! Excellent fight for Wolf!

Uldyssian has a lot of Defense, but we can easily get over 300,000 Attack Rating as Wolf and still be able to hit him at ~95% accuracy. We also do big damage, and he has a LOT of Health. I think my fastest kill on him so far has been about in about 5:30. I know I can kill him faster than that, but sometimes I stand in the-bad-things and die, so that makes it take longer.

To get to Uldyssian, you have to go through several portals and kill several bosses. None of them are particularly hard and they mostly just take a bit of time, just kill them and move forward through the portals. The only notable one is the last series before Uldyssian, which is a tri-fight of clones of Baal/Diablo/Mephisto. They have far less health than those bosses generally would as act bosses, but have all the same abilities otherwise. You only need to kill Diablo to get the portal open, so if you can pull him away from Meph and Baal that makes things easier. I almost never have to even see Meph because he is so far away that only Diablo and Baal ever run to me as I walk up to them.

For Uldyssian himself, gist of the fight is that he summons Edyrem warrior minions repeatedly who you will want to burst down with Twisted Claw. If there are only 2 or 3 you can probably focus on Uldyssian without much care, the minions will probably die to the Twisted Claw tornadoes that you hit the Boss with. But sometimes there are like 10 or so and you definitely need to kill them if they swarm you. Uldyssian basically just ports around and throws axes and honestly his damage is the least threatening part of the fight, the ads do more damage to you.

The biggest threat is the giant black falling star-shaped death that drops from the ceiling. If you eat a single arm of the star-shape as it falls, you will probably not die unless you were already low. But if you eat the center of the star, you dead. So dead. Luckily, this mechanic has a tell, the screen shakes twice and then white smoke on the ground appears. The first screen shake indicates where the star-shape will drop (on top of wherever Uldyssian was during the first shake). The second screen shake indicates that the drop is coming soon. Lastly, the white smoke on the ground shows the exact places the black death is dropping, and it will drop only a few milliseconds after the smoke occurs. So, if you pay attention you will know both where (first shake) and when (second shake) the the star-shape is going to drop before you even see the white smoke on the ground. So the trick is to stay damaging on the first screen shake but take note of Uldyssian's position, then move away after the second screen shake so you are not at risk of being in the center of the star when it falls.

Uldyssian gives a lot of characters trouble, but he's pretty easy for Wolf because of our crazy Attack Rating and Damage.

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I have not done the remaining three: Lazarous/Samael/Deimoss yet. I hope to do them someday, we'll see!

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Videos

Here's a full deathless run of Uldyssian, ~10 minutes for the run and ~4:30 for the kill. Level 139 with 50/50 Wolf/Feed the Pack point split. I'm liking that more lately as I still get 93% chance to hit him (opposed to 94% with full Wolf points) while keeping about 475 life on kill which is nice for the Edyrem. I do the mechanics much better in this fight than the one below, haha. Also, I have Natasha's Legacy here so that helps a lot with regard defending vs the Edyrem damage.


Here's an ealier Uldyssian Kill at 136, was about 5 minutes 30 seconds. I have several deaths on this attempt because this is before I realized the two screen shakes that are a tell for the black death




Thanks for reading!

[Jovoman]

Great guide !

[AzureGladiator]

Nice work!! That intro is very enticing... I'm sure you'll gain a following with this one! Adding a few navigation links at the top would help a lot too

[xion2091]

" The extra cold damage means we get bigger benefit from the Cold Spell Damage stat on our gear" : Character screen is just wrong, dmg not increase in reality.

[xion2091]

My wolf maybe has less dmg, but can kill Uldyssian without Potions :v

[MetalMusicMan]

" The extra cold damage means we get bigger benefit from the Cold Spell Damage stat on our gear" : Character screen is just wrong, dmg not increase in reality.

LCS is LCS but Cold Spell Damage does work on Twisted Claw according to this:

viewtopic.php?t=186

[tempmail]

My wolf maybe has less dmg, but can kill Uldyssian without Potions :v

Gear? Skills?

[suchbalance]

LCS is LCS but Cold Spell Damage does work on Twisted Claw according to this:

viewtopic.php?t=186

Nice guide. Just a small correction: cold spell damage doesn't affect twisted claw, because it deals 99% of its damage through the twisters which are ranged projectiles. The only skill in the wolf tree which benefits from spell damage would be Mana Pulse.

[xion2091]

LCS is LCS but Cold Spell Damage does work on Twisted Claw according to this:

viewtopic.php?t=186

Nice guide. Just a small correction: cold spell damage doesn't affect twisted claw, because it deals 99% of its damage through the twisters which are ranged projectiles. The only skill in the wolf tree which benefits from spell damage would be Mana Pulse.

How about Divine Judgment sir ? I see it also increase when add spell dmg, but i think it doesn happen in reality