Bit underwhelmed with Druid Fireclaws

Just hit 88 and respecced from Fury wolf to fire bear and gave Chaos Sanct a try to get a feel for the build. Spec below:

Fireclaws 20
Synergies 40
Maul 20
Shockwave 1
Prereqs 1
2 spirits 1

And I'm starting to add to Armageddon, think 9 or so points in now. Equipped: +3 fireclaws Metamorphosis, Obedience superior (13% ed) Thresher, Treachery Archon Plate, Laying of Hands, Highlords Wrath, BK ring, don't remember ring#2, Goreriders, Verdungo (Nosferato as alternative for more leach/ias), high roll anni, high roll torch, couple skillers and a bunch of varied resist charms.

Experience so far-
Pros: It seems that Fire Claws hits nice and hard. Pretty fast when Maul stacks are up and Marks are active. Bear is cool. Shockwave is excellent.

Cons: Fire Claws and Maul only hit one at a time. I suppose this could be mitigated by switching to Fury WW, but then I'm playing a Fury playstyle and not a Fire Claws playstyle. I thought Fury was slow. This is agonizingly slow. Does not handle density well. Armageddon doesn't seem like it does much, but perhaps that is b/c it isn't maxed out yet. I still can't imagine it clearing anything in higher Player counts. Perhaps when running dual Phoenix. I basically just Maul or Claw in a pack while a ton of monsters Swarm me and hit me from all sides. Sometimes I tank them just fine, but I'm also going through lots and lots of potions. My Act 5 merc does a commendable job, but without me able to hit more than one thing at a time, he gets overwhelmed also. He wears Treachery in Eth Kraken, Bukwark Fury Visor with +2 Iron Skin, Mania Eth Cryptic Sword and Lawbringer Phase Blade.

I imagine Fire Bear is a good boss killer, but really bad at clear. I am wondering if it is worth the effort to level into high 90s or not. I may switch back to Fury and work toward eBOTD/eDeath just to "complete the build", because investing into single or dual Phoenix doesn't seem worth it if the character remains super slow.

Am I being too hasty?

thanks for the heads-up. I also thought experience will be like this. I have 3OS fire claw +1Fury head and a Cham on ladder. I think head will go to Charsi. Cham can be used better elsewhere.

Yea, nobody's ever accused Fire Claw druid of being S-tier or even A-tier. That's why you rarely see them around.

I only use Druid on hardcore.

human_being wrote: 2 weeks ago

As a long-time Fury: Skill player, yes, you only try Fire Claws once.

Then you have a story to tell your grandchildren about the time you were bored out of your mind playing your favorite game.

Good laugh there. Back to Fury: Skill for me. I am wondering, is there a point of diminishing returns with Werewolf: Skill and Lycanthropy where it would be better to put points into Summon Grizzly synergies (i.e., Summon Dire Wolf)? Or is it pretty straightforward, max both?

FerociousTerrier wrote: 2 weeks ago

human_being wrote: 2 weeks ago

As a long-time Fury: Skill player, yes, you only try Fire Claws once.

Then you have a story to tell your grandchildren about the time you were bored out of your mind playing your favorite game.

Good laugh there. Back to Fury: Skill for me. I am wondering, is there a point of diminishing returns with Werewolf: Skill and Lycanthropy where it would be better to put points into Summon Grizzly synergies (i.e., Summon Dire Wolf)? Or is it pretty straightforward, max both?

On P1-P3 I choose to have 80 points invested in the summoning. Left over goes to Fury and Lycantropy.
Then after releasing all the zoo (+4 Skill Arioc sockedted with -physical Stone) I swap to reapers Toll and run right to Baal.
a2 Merc is having Infinity so our gang almost never miss targets.
Not a perfect build. I was just boring seeing my summoner ravens do the job and doing nothing myself. Never done mush theory crafting on him. Just took stuff from shared stash and it works.

I don't think it will work on higher player counts. But for P1-P3 full shapeshifting Fury druid is overkill.

ganseng wrote: 2 weeks ago

i've been having this obsessive idea of a fire druid with double Phoenix.. shall i forget it or is there something to it?

That was the original end goal, but after respeccing into fire bear with Obedience, I'm just not feeling the playstyle. For me it was just one-at-a-time kills, which is just too slow to be enjoyable. I wasn't expecting screen-delete power, but this felt too much like a slog, and I decided the investment for dual Phoenix might be too much.

That said could do well with Ubers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Chaos Sanctuary might not be the best place to test a budding a Fire Claws druid (or any Fire based build), given the large amount of natural fire immunities. On top of that Venom lords are extremely tanky with like 10k+ life on p1.

You might want to try an area with few/no natural fire immunities before you decide - such as Stony Tomb under Rocky Waste.

Here is a link which also covers the Fireclaws Werebear. Obviously it is single target, but the Fireclaws Werebear is the strongest of all Werebear builds. With very expensive gear he can tackle P8 without a problem. If I remember it correctly you need an Eth Stormlash (Grief also gets the job done), Phoenix shield, Metamorphosis (or now maybe a Jalals mane with an ancient fire jewel), CoH, fire sunder charm and an act two merc with Infinity. Chaos Sanctuary was pretty easy with such a setup.

forums/something-for-maul-werebear-play ... 79475.html

DKBam wrote: 2 weeks ago

Here is a link which also covers the Fireclaws Werebear. Obviously it is single target, but the Fireclaws Werebear is the strongest of all Werebear builds. With very expensive gear he can tackle P8 without a problem. If I remember it correctly you need an Eth Stormlash (Grief also gets the job done), Phoenix shield, Metamorphosis (or now maybe a Jalals mane with an ancient fire jewel), CoH, fire sunder charm and an act two merc with Infinity. Chaos Sanctuary was pretty easy with such a setup.

forums/something-for-maul-werebear-play ... 79475.html

Thanks, and I appreciate your thread and the work you did. I don't doubt the strength of the bear. Even with just an Obedience in a sup Thresher I was doing massive damage every swing. It is still single target damage though. I play multiplayer, and while I can jump right into the middle of a pack of cows and smash away, it's still a bit disheartening when a lock, zon or sorc come by and just mow down my pack in a second.

It's a pretty fun, raw power build, but I'm enjoying Fury more since it hits more targets (still pales in comparison to the aforementioned cow lawnmowers).