Was looking for a guide but couldn’t find one for 2.5 that was very good.

Optimal gear and skills?

Max Fire skills and 1 in all your summons and cyclone armor?

Ravenlore vs flickering flame

Optimal flickering flame base? 3 fissure with grizzly and cyclone or other fire skills?

Fire druid is expensive to make…

Probably maxroll has a guide.

I’m a fire sorc so got a lot of the gear already Phoenix and infinity. Will need an enigma, torch and ele skillers.

Trying fire druid out myself this season for the first time.

https://maxroll.gg/d2/guides/fissure-druid

Most of the gear is all the same, but here is the setup ill be trying first for HC:

Flickering Flame Pelt (currently has +3 volcano, would like +3 fissure and +3 grizzly down the road)
Edit: chose flickering flame over ravenlore because it never hurts to have extra fire res in hc
2/19 Druid Ammy (bp is either 68, 99, or 163)
Enigma
Arach
Hoto
Phoenix Monarch
Magefist
x2 bk rings
Tri res / MF boots

Torch / Anni / 4 ele skillers / gheeds / fire sunder

Merc: I'm hesitant to get infinity from the start since it is pricey. Will most likely try a random weapon to see if phoenix can sustain life/mana enough in p1/p8 runs.

If more dps needed: get infinity
If more mana needed: get insight
If none needed: try a5 merc w/ plague , crescent moon, lawbringer combo

This post was edited by Daybird on Oct 26 2022 04:13pm

Check out recent thread in this forum on this and youtuber dbrunski125 who is doing fire druid this ladder.

Ravenlore > ff

Enigma best armor

From there you decide how much you are spending and what player count you are going to be on as you chose between hoto/phoenix or 6 facet cs/spirit, or maybe something even cheaper for low p count.

30/30
Ravenlore
Enigma
Spirit
Mages
Arach
2/15+
Fcr ring
Bk/soj
Aldurs

Merc infinity is also hugely beneficial. And ravenlore is significantly better than flickering flame

This post was edited by Flameyes on Oct 26 2022 04:40pm

30/30 sword
20/20 shield
cta/spirit
+3 fissure flickering flame
enigma
mages
arach
3 ele / 10 fcr ammy
2x sojs
aldur or w/e boots
torch anni sunder fire skillers
infinity merc

flickering flame is generally better than ravenlore for pvm. You'll do more damage against non-immunes and less against immunes, but its more weighted to the former.

I would say, that the best alternate weapon for A5 merc that goes well with Plague is Crescent Moon.

Lawbringer would got the chance that lower resist would overspell with decrepify.

That's good for your Minions and the merc, but not for your elemental Dmg