Introduction:Last ladder I made my level 30 tele windy about half way through the season, and never lost a ft5..rolled to NL and I dueled anyone that would step up, same result. Just finished the druid for this season, and it looks like its going to be the same result. So whats next? Writing the guide!
How this build is different from every other one:
Most wind druids consider bow zons, pnb necros, and sorcs to be the hardest duels...with this build, these will be your easiest kills ever
Every guide I've seen has had you aiming @ 1000-1200 life...With this guide you will have 1600 (extreme budget) to 1900.
Before you make a druid with this build, you have to know a few things:
You can't suck...sadly, most LLDers aren't very good...if you've ever played an HLD druid, that is exactly how you will be dueling. ie. chaining, WSG, keeping your wolves/sage up, and knowing when to back off or push for a kill.
How you're going to achieve that:
I'm not saying this to keep people from making this druid (I'm writing a guide after all
) but if you've never played a build using the above tactics, it might take some practice. If you feel confident with your use of the above tactics, this can easily be the most overpowered LLD for you
Now for the bulk of the guide: If you see something questionable, the reasoning is probably covered in the strategy section.
Stats:Strength - Enough for gear
Dex - None
Vit - The rest
Energy - Insert random newb joke
Skills:Oak Sage - 1
Raven - 1*
Spirit Wolf - 1*
Nado - Max
Hurricane - 1
Cyclone Armor - Max
Twister - The rest
*With this setup, you will have 5 wolves on spirit sword, and when you switch, the 5th wolf will stay alive for a bit and can randomly(?) die, but you will only be able to resummon 4 on staff. If you can get +1 spirit wolf on your pelt, you can put these 2 skills into twister and get some more damage.
Gear:I'm not going to go too far into the gear choices. You will be aiming for the below breakpoints, if you think you have a better setup that gets them, feel free to try it out, I will post what I have found to be most successful, and it is generally pretty cheap.
99 fcr on spirit
68 fcr on staff
63% fhr on spirit
fhr on staff will not matter, if you're about to get hit you should be on your spirit/shield. If you're getting hit on staff, you should have switched already
Weapon: Spirit Sword. Fcr can vary, depending on how much you get from belt. Just make sure you hit the above breakpoints.
Shield: Whitstans, socket this with a 9 dex/-15 req jewel. Even with 0 dex, you should end up with about 34% block.
Gloves: Magefists
Belt: Crafted fcr/17 fhr belt. Must be at least 8 fcr to get the 68 fcr bp on staff.
Rings: 2x sojs
Boots: Sanders.
Armor: Vipermagi
Amulet: 2 ele, 10 fcr, whatever else you want
Helm: 5 nado pelt. 2 sockets/life/fhr is always good, but the best second mod you can get here would be +1 or +2 spirit wolf.
Inventory: 40x 15 life scs. You can get some extra mana/res stack here if you want, I haven't needed anything more than plain 15 lifers.
Switch: Tele staves...get lots of them
NM Akara is the best place to shop them (48 charges each, very easy to get). You can get single resists/mana/pretty colors from Akara as well.
Final stats:
My last 2 druids have had just over 1900 life, both having a 2s pelt and using P Rubies. P Skulls are also a good option for some types of duels.
1013 nado damage on spirit, more if you got a spirit wolf pelt and put those 2 skills towards damage.
The only build better than this IMO is one revolving around a rare 20 fcr tele staff. I've never seen one... they can spawn, but nobody picks up rare staves anyway and I doubt anyone will ever find one and realize how good it is
Strategy:General:Like I said earlier, you will be using tele A LOT. In certain situations (Hdins, Trappers, Some regen builds) expect to use up to half the charges in a single staff, possibly more, but you should never run out of charges if you started with a fresh staff. It also doesn't hurt to have an easy way to repair them all. Last ladder I had a gf barb, this ladder I have a really basic MF sorc. It usually takes ~10 minutes to get enough gold to repair them all from 0 for me.
Pnb Necros/Bowzons: + Fissure Druids*
You should be dueling both these exactly the same, hence I put them in the same category
. Put up your wolves/sage and get ready to telestomp. If they're running down, tele in front of them and nado up, if they're running up, telestomp them once and its game over. Going below them at the start of the duel generally makes them run up + makes them easy to kill. This build gives you a huge advantage, these duels shouldn't be hard at all, and 99% of the time you won't even have to resummon anything. To make things interesting, see how many duels you can win in a row without towning, or try to finish them off with arctic blast
*Fissure druids = same strategy, but don't worry about wolves, just keep sage up.
Light/Cold Sorcs:They just don't do enough damage...another unfair advantage. The difference between these and Nec/Zon is that they will just be teleing, and all you have to do is chain them.
Fire Sorcs:This is one of the few classes that can cause trouble (if you don't recast cyclone armor). Wolves aren't important, keep sage up. If the fire sorc is good, you don't recast cyclone armor, and you're using 75% fire res, you will probably have 1 shot at a clean kill. If you jump them and get a hit, you should be able to cast through for the kill. Cyclone will help a lot by giving you a 1 hit barrier before you get sent into fhr. So generally if you get a clean jump on them, you will get the kill. If you get in trouble, switch to spirit and walk down right/down left and try to bait them into jumping you. If they do jump you, just nado up for the kill, they won't be able to go hit for hit with you on spirit even if they get the first hit, unless you were significantly lower health than they were.
Melee (Non WW):Just keep your summons up, and don't run. Use the same strategy to kill as Nec/Zon. Just play offense from the start, and it should be easy. It's also pretty easy just to stay on spirit and play defensively, like a regular pub windy
WW Barbs:This is one of two chars that you cannot play pure offense against (The other being the wind druid). The best strategy is to play defensively on spirit/whitstans. If they're playing really offensively, switch weapons and tele once or twice. If they continue to play really offensively, they should die pretty easily. If they're good and play passively, waiting for a chance to get a ww in, keep your wolves and sage up, you can jump them and cast 1 or 2 nados before you have to tele off. Just continue to do this and pick your spots. This should force them to play a bit more offensively, and you can play a bit more defensive and it should be a lot easier.
Wind Druids:Don't worry about wolves, keep your sage up. If you play too offensively you'll generally lose. If they're playing really defensively, hold a lock with unsummon (right click) while you're on spirit, wait for them to get a few screens away, switch to your staff (should also have unsummon on right click before you switch) and telestomp. If you get caught, you're generally screwed, but its a fun way to get a kill on someone. Don't do it twice in the same set of duels, because they'll usually catch you
You should win most of these duels without tricks though, because your life is significantly higher (Most other druids invest in frw and lose a ton of life) and most LLD DvD ends with someone trying to go hit for hit.
Hdins / Regen Hdins:These duels can vary a lot, depending on how much/how well they will try to desync. Most Hdins will be pretty easy, and you can play pure offense on staff to win, but there are a lot of Hdins out there, and chances are one or two are good so heres the best way to duel the good ones: Wolves are the most important part of this duel. If they try to desync you a lot, use this strategy, but start off near a wall. Start off on your spirit, and wait for them to come to you. Spam some nados and watch your wolves to see if hes desync'ing, if they're all running somewhere, he's probably there
if you got caught off guard and your wolves are dying, tele away a few screens, resummon, and get ready again. Every Hdin will try go from one side of you to the other, spamming hammers in between. The main part of this strategy is to not get hit by these hammers, keep your summons up, and throw a few nados to make sure that he continues on his way, and can't just circle you spamming hammers. When they do pass by you, make sure all your summons are up, and telestomp them. If they don't die and continue running, resummon quickly and telestomp them again. If they start playing offense/trying to tank, keep your summons on top of you, and only back off if they die.
Trappers:These can be tough, unless you recast cyclone armor in which it becomes another easy duel...if not: its pretty much the same strategy as nec/zon, but they can passively hurt you while running away. Get your summons up and telestomp them. If they cleanly get away, back off because your summons are probably dead. Resummon and repeat, if you get caught by a mb at any time, WSG out and repeat. The only time you should continue to play offensively while you're in traps is if they're replacing them. Just continue to go at them from below, and try to catch them while they're running up.
Thats all, post if you want me to cover anything else