2.7 Summon Druid Guide
Introduction
Patch 2.4 for Diablo 2 Resurrected brought some huge upgrades to the game itself and Summon Druid in particular.
The biggest changes obviously were that you can now have all your summons out at the same time and the massively improved Raven damage.
This is a guide for a pure Summon Druid which means you are not attacking with your Druid at all, and the builds are fully centred around the summons with no melee gear whatsoever.
For those who are just interested in the build and gear here is a link to that right away: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/0g0106oh
But first let's start with why someone would like to play a Summon Druid and some of the perks and also downsides of the build.
- You have your own zoo! Seriously, who doesn’t love pets?
- Summon Druid is a very "lazy" build. You actually don't have to do much besides reposition your minions and occasionally recast the Raven and maybe a Spirit or a Spirit Wolf. However, this means that it can also get boring very quickly if you prefer more action. It’s perfect for people who only pay half attention and do something else at the same time though.
- It's also a very safe build. You have tons of life (personall I have almost 6000 as Werebear and over 3000 as Human), access to a stun in the form of Shock Wave and Teleport. You can even further increase the HP by using Oak Sage if you really need to. Carrion Vine now also restores a good amount of life when needed.
- Summon Druid is unique with how it's synergies work. Unlike every other skill tree +skills from items do work for the summon synergies (except for Raven) allowing you get very high synergy bonus.
However, this means you need to invest pretty much everything into the summon tree (you need level 96 to get everything) which makes hybrid builds not really viable. People might try to make those work, but it will significantly reduce the damage of your summons and personally I would not call that a Summon Druid anymore.
- All your damage is single target, so the clear speed is still not up the levels of e.g. a Light Sorc or a Hammerdin. The damage also comes purely from the summons and your mercenary and their AI isn't always the best.
- But you can snipe with the Raven. If you cast a Raven directly onto a monster, then all Raven will attack that monster.
- The vast majority of your damage is physical with the exception of the Spirit Wolves (they deal cold damage) so you need something to break immunes (e.g. The Reaper's Toll or Bone Break) or accept the fact you will kill them only very slowly.
- The build actually isn't that expensive compared to other popular builds. Yes, Enigma isn't cheap but that's an item you will most likely use on any other character too, so counting it against the Summon Druid doesn't seem fair. And while Beast is nice, it actually isn't required at all and there are cheaper alternatives.
Skills
Summon Spirit Wolf, Summon Dire Wolf and Summon Grizzly all needs to be maxed because they synergize of each other buffing the attack rating, life and damage of all your summons.
Raven deal by far the most damage but only if you have the other skills maxed as well. However, they do not benefit from any auras and the only way to boost their damage further is a higher skill level and a Decrepify / Amplify Damage curse.
Heart of Wolverine is the spirit of choice to further improve the damage and hit chance of your summons and the merc.
When it comes to leveling up the skills, I would suggest maxing them in this order:
- Summon Grizzly: He’s a big tank with lots of life and his synergy buffs the damage of all other summons.
- Raven: They are incredibly strong and can carry you through Normal difficulty on their own. Together with a strong Grizzly you should have no problems clearing Nightmare either.
- Summon Dire Wolf: They deal the most damage (excluding Raven) and provide life synergy for the other summons.
- Summon Spirit Wolf: The weakest of the summons by a large margin. But they do give you the ability to deal with physical immune monsters and they indirectly buff the damage of the other summons by improving their attack rating.
Sunder charms should make immunities less of a problem, but if you don't have a way to break physical immunity, then you might want to invest more points into Spirit Wolves earlier. - Heart of Wolverine: Maxed last because it provides the least amount of additional damage.
If you are playing on Hardcore, then there might be an argument about maxing Oak Sage instead of Heart of Wolverine but personally I never had a problem with me or my summons staying alive, and I definitely prefer Heart of Wolverine over it. This comes from a Softcore player though.
Breakpoints & Abbreviations
There are really only two relevant breakpoints for Summon Druid and their individual values depend on the form the Druid is in.
Faster Cast Rate (FCR):
It is used to Teleport around the map, summon your pets quicker and in Werebear form to cast Shock Wave.
You want to reach at least 68 FCR to get Teleport down to 12 frames. The next relevant breakpoint would be at 99 FCR, but that's not achievable when using Beast.
Faster Hit Rate (FHR):
Werebear attacks and skills can’t be interrupted anymore so it doesn’t matter for that purpose. However, it still helps in Human form when you get hit while using Teleport.
Spirit Shield alone gets you over the 8 frames threshold at 42 FHR, but you can also get down to 7 frames at 63 FHR very easily.
Faster Run / Walk (FRW):
There are no breakpoints for run speed, but there is a slight diminishing return that flattens out the curve at higher values.
There is a penalty to effective movement speed of 5% or 10% respectively for using medium or heavy armor types which also applies to shields.
With access to Teleport (additional) FRW becomes basically irrelevant and you don't have to worry about that stat anymore.
Magic Find (MF):
Magic Find also doesn't have traditional breakpoints, but the curves for unique and set items flatten out fast after ~250 MF.
The consensus here is that one should use as much MF as possible without reducing their clear speeds.
A faster run is generally considered better and more important than a higher MF value.
Gear
The Maxroll link I posted above includes 6 different sets of gear.
- The “Valak” set has all my current items and skills and is what I use most of the time on my Summon Druid.
Please be aware that I have a maxed out char level and extremely optimized gear. Most players will not be able to afford that many skill charms with 40+ life and small charms with resists plus other stats. However, the build works perfectly fine without those, and you can easily settle for charms with lower or no other stats on them depending on how much you are willing to spend.
- The "Ubers" setup, as the name suggests, is the build I use to run Uber Tristram and Diablo Clone. Yes, this char is capable of killing those with the help of some specific gear on the mercenary.
- The “Raven” build is a build designed to maximize the skill level and damage of the Raven. Technically speaking this build is inferior though, because the total damage output (of all summons and merc combined) is lower than on the main build.
- The “MF” setup is designed for magic find runs and has a good amount of MF on the gear, but at the cost +skills and auras.
- The "Budget" version comes with cheap gear and a max level of 79 and is designed for more casual players. I did start this Druid on a budget myself and this is very similar to what I used when leveling and gearing up this char for the first time.
- The "Leveling" build includes low level set and unique items as well as mid level runewords that can easily be farmed early from The Countess on nightmare difficulty and are theoretically sufficient to carry you through the whole game.
If you don't have those items, feel free to check out the "Budget" build for cheaper options. This section also has some suggestions for items during leveling.
For the other builds I will only explain the differences and why I made those choices in the respective build.
The Mercenary
Let’s get this straight right away. There is no better option available for a Summon Druid than an Act 2 Merc with Might aura.
Yes, the new Act 5 Frenzy Merc has great damage and can provide the same aura (Might from Last Wish) and proc ( Decrepify from Lawbringer) but all of those come with some massive downsides.
The Might aura on Last Wish is lower than the one of an Act 2 Merc, the Decrepify proc from Lawbringer has a lower chance to proc and the Life Tap proc from Last Wish is actually bad because it overwrites the Decrepify. The Sanctuary Aura from Lawbringer can be super annoying because it knocks the monsters away from your summons, especially in Chaos Sanctuary. The Frenzy Barb himself also always runs ahead of the rest of the pack which makes your zoo feel almost pointless. Oh, and do I have to mention how expensive that Last Wish is?
However, if you are still leveling or SSF he might be worth considering because Lawbringer and Hustle are cheap and decent runewords that help your summons.
So, here's the gear you want to use on your Act 2 Might Mercenary.
Weapon: The Reaper's Toll (ethereal)
An ethereal Reaper's Toll is the best available weapon out there. The reason for this is that the Decrepify proc increases the damage of all your summons, including the Raven and the merc itself so much. It also breaks most physical immunities you encounter. Whether you want to use a normal or ethereal one depends purely on your budget, but you want to socket it with Shael no matter what (15ias won't reach the breakpoint with Fortitude, Andariel's Visage and Beast).
Armor: Fortitude / Treachery / Hustle / Bramble
For the armor there are now three options that mostly depend on your budget. The cheaper (and almost as good) is using a Treachery runeword in whatever base you have or can afford. Increased attack speed and a Fade proc for reduced damage and more resists are great and will help your merc stay alive just fine.
Patch 2.6 added the runeword Hustle to Ladder and Single Player and this armor is very similar to Treachery. Instead of a Fade proc it provides some flat resist and Evade on top of attack speed, run speed and some FHR. However, it does have fewer resists and slightly less attack speed than Treachery which could be relevant.
If you want to spend more you can make an ethereal Fortitude runeword which also provides the merc with some resist, more defense and most important more damage. There is also the option to use a non-ethereal armor that you can then use yourself on a melee character you want to play.
Bramble is an option if you want the Thorns aura for your summons but losing Fortitude significantly reduces the damage output of the Merc himself. Thorns become relatively stronger on higher player counts though were you don't instantly kill everything and there is more time for Thorns to reflect damage.
Helm: Andariel's Visage / Vampire Gaze / Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
For the helm there are again multiple options. The top choice is an (ethereal) Andariel's Visage socketed with an 15ias + fireres jewel. It will provide life leech, attack speed and the strength to wear a weapon or armor with high strength requirements.
If that is too expensive then there are various other options that all also provide life leech, such as Vampire Gaze or Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest and they all should be socketed with an Ias jewel to reach breakpoints. Bulwark is another extremely cheap runeword that got added to Ladder and Single Player with patch 2.6. It doesn't have as much life leech, and you can't socket it but it's very cheap and can be used during leveling until you find one of the better options.
Some people might want to use Guillaume's Face for the Crushing Blow instead and you can definitely do that, but it will make the attacks of your mercenary 1 frame slower compared to Andariel's Visage which also affects the application of Decrepify. If you go that route you want to socket both The Reaper's Toll and the Guillaume's Face with a 15ias + 40ed jewel.
Summon Druid: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/0g0106oh#1
Armor: Enigma
It's simply the best armor out there. It provides +skills, gives access to Teleport and provides a lot of strength to wear the rest of the gear as well as some MF. If you want to be efficient, make it in a Mage Plate and you can run a "0 strength" build and use it on multiple chars easily. The only reason I'm using a Dusk Shroud is for the looks.
If you don't have Enigma but for some reason own a Chains of Honor, you can use that, but the lack of Teleport will hurt you.
Weapon: Beast
The reason for Beast is the Fanaticism aura to give the summons and the merc more attack speed. On top of that it also gives us access to Lycanthropy without putting any points into it and some strength to equip the rest of the gear.
Faith in a bow is technically even better because it provides a higher level Fanaticism aura. However, the downside of that is that you lose the shield with all the stats which just isn't worth it in my opinion. The FCR and resist are just too good to pass up.
Another cheaper option is to use a Heart of the Oak runeword in a Flail. FCR, all res and +3 skills are all great stats. Beast provides more damage overall, but you could theoretically use the Heart of the Oak to pre-buff and summon your zoo at the start of game and then swap back to Beast and profit from both the additional +skills and the Fanaticism aura.
Shield: Spirit
Funnily enough the +skills on it aren't actually that relevant and I'll explain why a in a moment. However, the FCR is nice to spam Shockwave and helps with the Teleport (you need at least 28 FCR on it) and the resist are great.
You probably want to make it in a Monarch though. I only use an Aegis for style points.
Weapon Swap: Call To Arms & Spirit
More life and more mana for us and the summons. You also want to cast every summon, including Raven and the Heart of the Wolverine on the weapon swap (does not apply when you use Heart of the Oak) because you have more +skills in that setup which means more damage for them. This is also the reason we don't necessarily need a Spirit in first set.
Helm: Magic +3 Summoning Skills + 3 Summon Grizzly + 3 Summon Dire Wolf Druid Pelt
The best helm is a magic pelt with +3 Summoning skills and then some additional skills like Summon Grizzly, Summon Dire Wolf and Heart of Wolverine together with some life and 2 sockets.
A rare pelt would also work but they are limited to +2 Druid / Summoning skills and are therefore slightly worse. But either of those are very rare, and you need to find one that is actually better than the common options.
Delirium runeword in a Druid pelt with Summon Grizzly, Summon Dire Wolf and possibly Heart of Wolverine or other Summon Druid relevant skills as staffmods is a great alternative. You don’t get any resist, other stats or usable free sockets that way, but you can get a lot of +skills to your summons if you find the right base.
Jalal's Mane is a cheap alternative which is easy to come by and gives us everything we need from +skills, to resists, FHR and strength. I think it is a better option than Ravenlore because the +2 Druid skills buff the damage of all your Summons and not just the Raven. Also, the additional stats on Jalal's Mane are better than those on Ravenlore. You probably want to socket something in it that improves the resist even further or go with some MF.
Belt: Arachnid Mesh
This one is easy. It's the only belt that has +skills on it. The FCR is a nice bonus.
Boots: Rare Tri-Res + FRW + FHR Boots
I'm using a great pair of fire + light + poison resist boots with 30 FRW, 10 FHR and some MF on top but these type of boots are hard to find and usually very expensive, especially with 100+ tri-res and FHR.
Technically any combination of resist will work, but you really want fire resist to compensate for the lack of that on Spirit. FHR is great because in combination with Spirit it gets you to the 63 FHR breakpoint in human form. FRW is just nice to have but not required when you have Enigma, and you should prioritize the other stats over it. A valuable additional 6th stat could be Poison Length Reduced, Magic Find or Replenish Life.
If you don't have good rare boots then Aldur's Advance are a great option as they provide a large amount of life and also lots of fire resist. You can also compensate for the lack of FHR by socketing a Shael into your helm.
You can also use Sandstorm Trek if you need the strength (for e.g. an Aegis) and/or the FHR to reach a breakpoint but realistically they only provide poison resist and are inferior to other alternatives.
Gloves: Trang-Oul's Claws
The FCR allows you to get to the 68 FCR breakpoint for faster Teleport and the cold resist is also very nice.
If you don't need the latter, then Magefist are an alternative.
Amulet: Magic +3 Summoning Skills + 100 Life
Getting as many skills as possible for the summons is the key here and life is simply the best second stat we can have. Also, this type of amulet is quite common and usually not very expensive, especially when settling on a lower life value.
There is no way for a Summon Druid to reach the 99 FCR breakpoint without using Heart of the Oak and/or a FCR ring which both reduce the damage output. Therefore, there is no need for a godly crafted or rare FCR amulet either.
Using Metalgrid and making an Iron Golem out of a Pride is technically the best option for damage, however the Iron Golem will only have ~1700 Life including Battle Orders. Therefore, he is at constant risk of dying and Pride is an expensive item to replace every time that happens and I do not recommend using it.
Another alternative is Mara's Kaleidoscope as a great all-purpose amulet providing us with +skills, stats and resists which are all useful especially if you are struggling with resist.
Rings: 2x Stone of Jordan
We want the +skills for our summons and Stone of Jordan beats out Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band. Having the additional mana is more useful than having 100 more life especially when you already have over 3000 life in human form and need mana for Teleport.
However, Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band is much cheaper and if you don’t want to invest into Stone of Jordan then by all means use that instead.
Charms: Hellfire Torch, Annihilus, GC +1 Summoning Skills + Life, SC MF + Resists
Get yourself the best Torch and Anni you can afford. You should prioritize resists over stats because you already need to spend little to nothing into strength and we have more than enough life.
Depending on whether you want to run with or without a Horadric Cube and open inventory slots you can fill the rest with up to 9 skill charms with life (I recommend 8 skill charms + Horadric Cube for farming so you can pick up items).
You can use the remaining inventory slots for small charms with whatever stats you need. In my case I wanted some additional MF and also getting all my resists up, so I chose 7 MF + 11 resist small charms.
Consider carrying a Bone Break in the Horadric Cube when running Terror Zones with physical immunes to swap it in when needed.
Ubers Druid: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/0g0106oh#2
A Summon Druid is capable of clearing Uber Tristram and Diablo Clone, however you have to rely heavily on your mercenary for doing that because the Druid itself has no good way of applying Crushing Blow and Open Wounds. You will have to recast your summons and especially the Spirit quite a bit during the fight and in rare cases your mercenary might die as well. Do not try to fight without him and instead go back to town to ressurect. Consider using Oak Sage to boost your life further when fighting Über Mephisto.
We also need to make some changes to the gear to stand a chance.
Amulet: Mara's Kaleidoscope
The only reason for this change is to get more resists.
Boots: Aldur's Advance
We want as many small charms with lightning resist in the inventory as possible and therefore we need as much fire resist as possible on the boots and Aldur's Advance does just that.
Tri (dual) resist boots such as mine with >60 fire + lightning resist combined are an even better option if available. Consider using Sandstorm Trek for Lilith.
Charms: GC +1 Summoning Skills + Life, SC Life + Resists
We don't need a cube for Ubers so that can go and make room for 1 more skill charm. We also want to make sure we get max fire resist and then as much lightning resist as possible from the small charms (ideally together with life).
Merc Armor: Duress
We need a source of Open Wounds to prevent the Ubers from healing. Duress does that and also gives some Crushing Blow and resists on top.
Merc Helm: Guillaume's Face
We need more Crushing Blow in order to kill them quickly. Your merc must stay alive at all costs, so socket it with some lightning resist to prevent him from dying to Über Mephisto.
Pre-Buff: Treachery and Heart of the Oak
You want a Treachery armor to trigger the Fade proc for both you and your mercenary to get some additional resist and damage reduction before entering Uber Tristram.
Also use Heart of the Oak to get a higher level on your summons and the Battle Orders prebuff.
But don't forget to swap both of them back out and get your original armor and weapon.
Raven Druid: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/0g0106oh#3
Warning: A Raven centered build is weaker than a regular Summon Druid!
In this build we are going all out on Raven even at the cost of making our other summons weaker. Fortunately for us the skills don't change except we now have to put a hard point into Werewolf and Lycanthropy if we want the additional life in Werebear form. This means we don't have to respec and can switch to that build at any point assuming we still meet the strength requirements for our items.
Raven don’t benefit from buffs (like Battle Orders) or auras ( Heart of Wolverine, Might, Fanaticism, Concentration) and because of that there are some differences in the gear, and I'll go over all of them.
Helm: Ravenlore
This helm gives +7 directly to Raven but we are now missing +skills for the other summons lowering their damage. But it does make the Raven stronger which is the whole point of the build. To ensure the 63 FHR breakpoint socketing it with a Shael rune might be necessary.
If you have magic pelt with +3 Summoning skills and +3 Raven plus other mods, you might want to use that instead.
Weapon: Heart of the Oak
As mentioned earlier Raven don't benefit from Fanaticism so Beast doesn't boost their damage. Instead, we want maximum +skills and Heart of the Oak gives us +3 skills on top of some FCR and resists. However, it has to be said that this is the main reason the overall build is weaker. The loss of Fanaticism really hurts the other summons and the mercenary.
We also definitely need a Spirit shield to go with it because we are now using the primary weapon set to cast all summons.
The weapon swap is unchanged as Call To Arms still provides us with one more +skill and the additional life and mana.
Boots: War Traveler
We lose the strength from Beast which means that we now definitely need use a Monarch as shield and that makes the strength bonus on Sandstorm Trek much less relevant. Resists are also less of a concern thanks to Heart of the Oak and therefore we can use whatever boots we want.
I recommend using War Traveler for more Magic Find but you could just keep using tri-res boots if you have those or something like Aldur's Advance for a big boost to life or even Waterwalk. It all depends on the personal preference.
Amulet: Magic +3 Summoning Skills + 100 Life
In contrast to the regular build, there really is no other option. Going for maximum +skills we need a magic amulet with +3 Summoning skills. Life as an additional stat is slightly better than strength because it can roll a higher total value, but both are totally fine, and you should just use whatever you have with +3 skills.
Charms: There shouldn't be any need for changes there unless you need to max out different resists in that build.
MF Build: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/0g0106oh#4
The Magic Find build sacrifices some damage in the form of +skills and the Fanaticism aura in order to equip commonly used MF items such as Harlequin Crest, War Traveler, Goldwrap, Chance Guards, Nagelring and Gheed's Fortune.
A Delirium in a nice pelt and a magic amulet with +3 Summoning Skills + MF are other great items to look out for.
You can use any combination of those items depending on what you have and how much MF you want.
If you are using Enigma as armor, I highly recommend using a Heart of the Oak as weapon just because otherwise your FCR will be very bad. And you really don't want to Teleport when you have less than 68 FCR. You could even go up to the 99 FCR breakpoint by keeping Arachnid Mesh and using 1 FCR + MF Ring.
Budget Build: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/0g0106oh#5
I won't go over all the possible items here, but the goal is to get as many +skills as you can for as cheap as possible. In item slots that don't have (cheap) skills we aim for stats, resists and damage reduction to keep us alive. You probably want to keep a lot of (small) charms with resists in your inventory to not fall behind on that end.
I also assumed a maximum level of 79 to keep it more realistic to achieve for casual players.
Warning: Please be aware that the new runewords Hustle and Bulwark can currently only be made on Ladder and Single Player!
One of the best armors you can use on a budget is Rain but it does require a Mal rune. I still think that is reasonably cheap as it gives +2 Druid skills, some lightning resist, mana and some protection with the Cyclone Armor proc and magic damage reduction. But you can easily replace that with something like a Skin of the Vipermagi or an Arkaine's Valor as even cheaper options. Naj's Light Plate is an amazing choice if you combine it with Naj's Puzzler on the weapon swap for Teleport and some bonus magic find.
You can go even a bit more into Magic Find by using a Goldwrap as your belt and one or two Nagelring. The alternative is using items with bonus to stats and resist in those respective slots.
Double Spirit is excellent starting point when it comes to your primary weapon slot for casting all your summons. Don’t forget to swap the weapon slot for farming though when you use two pieces of the Naj's Ancient Vestige set.
The Jalal's Mane can be replaced with a good rare or magic pelt with +2 Druid / Summoning skills and additional staffmods that boost one of your skills directly if you happen to find one. You do lose a lot of strength and resist though. Ravenlore is another alternative if you happen to get that.
You can also use boots, charms, jewellery and maybe even the belt to fill out remaining needs such as resists, more stats and life.
If you can’t find The Reaper's Toll for your merc to break physical immune monsters and/or during the midgame leveling you can also consider using an Act 5 merc with Lawbringer and Hustle.
You can also simply use a Bone Break in your inventory (it works for your pets). Another alternative is using Spellsteel on the weapon swap to get Decrepify and Teleport charges, but this will cost you the MF bonus from Naj's Ancient Vestige.
If you plan to upgrade the build you can do that gradually. The biggest upgrade in regard to comfort is definitely the Enigma, which then allows you to also get a Call To Arms for the weapon swap. However, upgrading items without +skills (rings, belt) to ones with +skills will give you a bigger damage boost.
In this build it makes sense to spec one point into the vines early to help with the life and mana regeneration and reduce the amount of potions needed.
It might also be better to put the remaining points into Oak Sage instead of Heart of Wolverine. You're most likely not maxing either anyway and because you have much less life on the budget Oak Sage might help you out quite a bit.
Leveling Build: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/0g0106oh#6
If you want to know what items to look out for and runes to farm while playing through the game, you can get an idea here.
During leveling using an Act 5 Merc is most likely more beneficial than using an Act 2 Merc, because you get access to Decrepify via Lawbringer and having Fanaticism from Hustle as the same time.
All the items and runes needed for that build can be farmed early from The Countess on Nightmare difficulty (except for the Lem) and will be sufficient to beat the game on Hell.
From there you can slowly upgrade with items mentioned in the other builds, depending on what you personally find and/or trade for.
Closing Words
I hope you enjoyed and maybe learned a thing or two and it made you feel like starting your own Summon Druid. Thank you for reading my wall of text.
To close it out here is a picture of my beloved Druid.
And would like to learn AR and damage situation. Does it worth it should I be in human form for instant 
krathkor
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