Diablo II: Lord of Destruction/Druid

Druid Strategies
"Commanding the forces of nature, he summons wild beasts and raging storms to his side."

A master of summoning, the druid can also cause massive spell damage and shape-shift into a powerful melee fighter. How massive and how powerful are questions left to each druid player, who must decide which of the druid's three skill disciplines to learn deeply. While at first somewhat daunting in their complexity, his skills, once mastered, make for an ideal single-player character.

Druid Initial Attributes
Strength: 15 Dexterity: 20 Vitality: 25 Energy: 20

Druid Attributes
The three disciplines that a druid can master each require a particular attribute distribution. If a druid player takes the elemental route, emphasizing spells that cause fire and ice damage, he will require a larger mana supply than one who focuses on shape-shifting or summoning. An elemental druid will need to sink more stat points into energy than one who uses summoned creatures, or a transformed body, to fight for him.

A shape-shifter will most often be found in were form, which, especially for werebear users, amplifies the druid's life supply. Still, shape-shifters will most often be found in melee combat, biting and clawing at enemies, and this takes its toll on vitality. A shape-shifter would be wise to put a stat point or two into vitality as often as he levels up. Melee fighters should also attend to their strength statistic as well.

Summoners create minions to do the dirty work for them and can either shape-shift to join in the fray or hang back and support the minions with elemental spells. Depending on a summoner's preferences, either energy or vitality should be augmented at each level, as described above.

Druid Initial Equipment

 * Weapon: Club
 * Armor: Buckler

Creating a Master Druid
Each of the druid's three skill disciplines tempts every player, yet to succeed in the higher skill levels (nightmare and hell), a druid must focus on one of the three, while using a second discipline to supplement his proficiency. Druids can be fashioned into characters that resemble quite a few of the other character classes--an elemental druid, for example, may elect to stand aside from large battles and cast devastating spells like a sorceress, while a shape-shifting druid will often be found ripping enemies apart like a barbarian.

Any combination of primary and secondary discipline from among the three choices--elemental, shape-shifting, and summoning--may be used successfully. You could play through the game nine times, just using the druid class, to try them all. A few moments of thought before applying skill points will lead you to the combination you are likely to prefer most.

A player who prefers to play a calmer sort of game, for example, can play a summoner who moonlights as an elemental spell caster. This player would create a wolf or grizzly, or would play with a group containing barbarians, paladins, or assassins, and would back the melee fighters up by releasing fire and ice spells onto the opponent.

A player who prefers to hack and slash, on the other hand, can choose to become proficient at shape-shifting, transforming himself into a werewolf or werebear, and learning a few summoning skills to boost the party's attack rating, or suck mana and life out of the fresh corpses. Keep in mind that your equipped weapon stats are still in effect in both werewolf and werebear form. For example, a slow attack weapon reaps the rewards from the faster attack speed of the werewolf.

Joining a regular group of other players will affect the druid's decisions, as a group without melee fighters will likely benefit most from a summoner or shape-shifter, while a group without spellcasting power will be grateful for the help of an elemental druid. A player who takes on Diablo alone is free to play with any style, as the druid is a well-balanced character for solo play.

Fighting Wisely
A druid, especially one who specializes in elemental spells, must be careful to manage his mana supply. Each elemental spell (to varying degrees) can affect numerous enemies with one casting. A volcano, for example, not only damages creatures at the point of eruption, but rains down fire damage on enemies in a wide radius around it. A molten boulder likewise attacks as many enemies as it encounters as it rolls away from the druid to its intended target point.

A summoned raven, wolf, or bear, on the other hand, never causes damage to more than one creature at a time. These creatures, while certainly a boon to a druid who needs to distract some enemies while he casts spells or assists in the attack, cannot quickly dispatch a group of tough monsters. Nor can a shape-shifted druid mow down batches of the game's most difficult foes.

These characteristics of the druid's three disciplines become important when the druid faces the four basic types of enemy encounters in the game: small or scattered groups of normal monsters, large groups of normal monsters, gangs of monsters who serve an enchanted boss, and climactic battles against extremely difficult foes.

Against small or scattered groups of normal monsters, almost anything goes. A druid will likely rely on a summoned minion or two, and perhaps a shape-shift, when going up against these run-of-the-mill enemies. Large groups are best weakened with an area-effect spell and then mopped up with the help of minions or shape-shifting.

Enchanted bosses almost always attack surrounded with a posse, and it is here where area-effect spells play their most important role. A druid, if he can, should blast apart these big groups before shape-shifting and/or entering the melee. Once the battle is reduced to the enchanted monster, the druid should begin to favor those skills that focus damage onto single opponents.

Spells like volcano and armageddon, for example, make for good initial attacks; a shape-shift or hurricane helps to mop up the sidekicks; and finally, a shape-shifted melee skill like feral rage, maul, or fury works well against the enchanted boss. Summoned minions will of course do their own things during these fights.

The important point to note is that area-effect spells should be saved for large groups, while single-opponent attacks ought to be used against small groups or single enemies. This is especially true for fights against the game's most mighty creatures, many of which are resistant to magic attacks, although their minions are often less so.