Something for Maul Werebear players

Hello fellow Werebear players,

Since the beginning of past year, I have been on quite a journey with the Werebear. I think those of you who play the Maul Werebear might be interested in my endgame build below. I have not seen a build guide for this build so maybe it is new but of course I do not know for sure. I play single player offline. This build is players 8 Terror zone viable and basically shreds everything to pieces (and I mean everything, even ghosts and physical immunes). With a few tweaks I think it might also be hardcore viable.

This build has a workable Fire Claws on top of Maul (with gg 101k dps physical with a 15% ed ethereal Decapitator or Glorious Axe and optional plus 44k dps fire). I came up with the idea when I made the Faith bow for my act 1 merc. Previously I had played the whole game with HoW and strong summons. I then thought to myself that the merc better not die in this setup so I went for Oak Sage. Also, I believe that the quicker you kill the monsters with the Werebear, the better it is for the survival of the whole party. Therefore, the whole zoo is now a one point wonder and I put the points instead into Fire Claws and its synergies. It is a total team effort of your party but it works perfectly well together. It feels like you are just dominating the game. I will start with the act 1 merc since this build is kind of build around her.

Act 1 merc:

• Cold Arrow: freezes and slows down targets, thus helping out your whole party

• Inner Sight: she casts it all the time and this reduces the defense of monsters significantly (my Werebear therefore does not have any problems hitting stuff)

• Gear: Faith bow for the fanatism aura, Hustle armor for faster run/walk in order for her to keep up with you (works awesome!) and she also gets the skill Evade from Hustle, vampires gaze for life leech and damage reduction socketed with a cold facet.

Stats: Strength to wear gear. Dex I invested 200 points so when the merc is sometimes not nearby you still hit monsters at a good rate. Plus you will get a high health pool as a Werebear anyway. The rest in vitality.

Skill points distribution

• summoning: One point in all the animals. Twelve points in Oak Sage. This with skills on gear gives Oak Sage a life pool of 1.6k which is kind of a sweet spot for his survival based on my experiences and plus 175% life for the whole party. This is sufficient and works great. With the plus skills on gear and one summoning charm skiller the pets have 80% resistances (85% is the max). With the additional life from Oak Sage the pets are certainly no pushovers and they survive surprisingly well. The zoo has two tasks of utmost importance. First keep the merc alive and second keep the Spirit alive. With Oak Sage the merc has 5k life, the Spirit wolves 1.7k life, the dire wolves 3.1k and the bear almost 9k. I only summon them at the beginning of my p8 Terror zone runs. A few wolves might die but that’s about it. The merc basically never dies and the Spirit occasionally.

• Shapeshifting: 2 points in Lycanthropy. With all the skills on gear you get 10 minutes of Werebear which is totally sufficient. Max out Werebear, Maul, Fire Claws, 1 point in shockwave.

• The remaining 29 points you put into the synergies for Fire Claws (elemental tree).

My gear

• Helm: Metamorphosis preferably with plus to Fire Claws, plus to Werebear and either plus to Oak Sage or lycantrophy (you can shift the points between the latter two).

• Weapon: The runeword Death in an ethereal Decapitator or Glorious Axe is the best choice (though the ethereal Glorious Axe is likely the best because of longer reach and less strength requirements). Because of the might aura from the merc and the mark of the bear from the Metamorphosis you will hit with 6 frames which is the fastest possible as a bear.

• Armor: Plus skills is Key to make this build work. Chains of Honor because of the plus skills and resistances as well as life leech. With the life leech you can then wear Arachnid Mesh for an additonal plus skill. I tested Fortitude but the Chains of Honor setup improves the Fire Claws by 33% and the zoo gets noticable tougher.

• Amulet: Highlords

• Rings: Bul-Khatos and a Carrion Wind. The latter is needed because of the “damage goes to mana” mod. Otherwise you will sometimes attack a super unique monster which has manaburn with your normal attack. The high life leech is also needed.

• Boots: Gore Rider

• Gloves: Laying of Hands

• Belt: Arachnid Mesh because of the plus skill and the faster cast rate. You need at least 20% faster cast rate for shockwave imo, otherwise it is very slow.

• In the inventory I am using a Flame Rift charm. Also six shapeshifting skillers and one summoning skiller.

• Offhand weapon: Mang Song's Lesson Archon Staff socketed with a fire facet for summoning your pets and Spirit and for transforming into Werebear, and for hitting super uniques with Stone skin and magic/fire resistance (because of those the Flame Rift is in the inventory).

Gameplay

Summon your minions and Spirit and then head into battle and Charge up your Maul. With the first hit you get the mark of the bear (25% ias and 20% damage reduction). Whats nice about this build is that you do not need the bonuses from the mark of the wolf because they are neglectable and don't move the needle very much. I have never tested it but I assume you would also lose your Maul charges when refreshing the mark of the wolf in wolf form so that is a no go. Battle Orders are also not needed. When Maul is charged up switch between Fire Claws and Maul the rest of the way. Make sure to never lose your Maul charges during a run. I am hitting about 2/3 of the time with Fire Claws and about 1/3 with Maul. The last monsters of a pack you should hit with Maul in order to not lose your charges until you encounter the next monsters. Fire immune and weak monsters you should hit with Maul in order to Charge up Maul efficiently. All unique or super unique monsters you hit with Fire Claws (one of the two damage types will inflict damage). Only in very rare cases a monster “wants to play tough”. This is for example hephasto, The Cow King or a Council Member when they spawn with the mods Stone skin and magic/fire resistance. Then you switch to the mang song's staff (this does not kill the monster very fast but gets the job done quite well imo).

There is one overarching rule. Keep Oak Sage up at all times. The Spirit does not die much and survives imo way better than HoW but when he does die stop mauling/clawing and resummon him. The exception is of course boss fights etc. Use shockwave to help out your zoo, Spirit, merc and for crowd control in genereal. Furthermore always remember that attack is your best defense. Otherwise simply use Maul and Fire Claws for shredding everything to pieces. Ghost go down with two hits also souls go down way faster with Fire Claws as well as many other monster types. The clear speed simply improves quite a bit as you can imagine.

Having played the maulbear for quite some time which I greatly enjoyed, the addition of a workable Fire Claws is just awesome. I only play players 8 Terror zones. My Werebear never dies as well as my merc. Those of you who have played the maulbear should try this build out. I think you might enjoy it as well.

Here is the build with godly gear at maxroll: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/uf5cg0i2

Here is my gear which works perfectly fine: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/n747j0iq

Nice thanks!
I will consider doing this.
I think trying out Delirium for the merc instead of vamp might be cool, the like manic pixie merc that had a build post here sometime ago.
My only gripe with this is that you have no aoe whatsoever. I'll have to try this at some point.

This is very nice! Thank you, OP!

Much needed help to improve my fireclaws - Maul - Shockwave druid where I am currently facing these problems/thoughts:

- Heart of the Wolverine dying all the time (curious to see whether Oak Sage really stays alive more)
- Merc is good (A2 with The Reaper's Toll etc.) but I haven't thought about using the A1 merc for a change
- I'm level 81 but still eat a LOT of damage even in Act 2 Hell p1 sometimes...

Let's see!

oh, and for @or.houster:
I have Delirium on another merc and it's just great. The lolzies from the morphing wear off quickly, but due to the monsters getting confused, it adds a lot of safety. Sometimes happily chilling in Baal's throneroom with one last confused monster happily standing around.

I did some fine tuning of the build and swapped the Carrion Wind ring with a second Bul-Kathos ring and swapped the one summoning skiller in the inventory with another shapeshifting skiller. I think I overstimated the need for "damage taken goes to mana" from the Carrion Wind. I did not experience any problems yet with this set-up when facing uniques or super uniques with manaburn. Plus the short Stun from the Twister procs of the Carriona Wind overwrites the long Stun from shockwave. The zoo stays basically the same but you get two additional skill points for your main damage skills Werebear, Maul and Fire Claws. With the second Bul-Kathos the build feels even more powerful.

With godly gear and taking into account the Inner Sight from the rogue merc Maul now has 106k dps. Fire Claws (which consists of the 106k Maul damage plus 48k fire damage) now has a total of 154k damage. Not bad in my opinion, in particlar when taking into account that the Werebear is uninteruptable and does not nead the mark of the wolf buff nor Battle Orders.

I think this is the way to go in order maximze the full potential of the Maul Werebear.

Link to build: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/b13u0ww6

I posted a video of this build on youtube. Obviously I am not a professional so it is nothing fancy. Nevertheless I hope some of you might enjoy it or find it useful.

Link:

DKBam wrote: 2 years ago

I posted a video of this build on youtube. Obviously I am not a professional so it is nothing fancy. Nevertheless I hope some of you might enjoy it or find it useful.

Link:

for endgame I found this build to be very weak

fraggykrueger wrote: 2 years ago

oh, and for @or.houster:
I have Delirium on another merc and it's just great. The lolzies from the morphing wear off quickly, but due to the monsters getting confused, it adds a lot of safety. Sometimes happily chilling in Baal's throneroom with one last confused monster happily standing around.

I have heard that monsters killed by another monster when under effect of confusion do not grant any experience.

Can anyone confirm?

In my memories, this used to be the case back in LoD, but no more in D2R.

Bass wrote: 2 years ago

DKBam wrote: 2 years ago

I posted a video of this build on youtube. Obviously I am not a professional so it is nothing fancy. Nevertheless I hope some of you might enjoy it or find it useful.

Link:

for endgame I found this build to be very weak

You are certainly right, this is obviously not one of the strongest builds overall in particular compared to other classes.

But for a Maulbear build, based on my playing experience, this is imo by far the strongest build I have ever played and come across.

I have been playing this build with a eDeath Decapitator for quite some time. It is a powerful weapon no doubt and I was very happy with it.

Recently, I found my third ethereal Glorious Axe which finally rolled with 5 sockets in the cube. I didn't know what to expect, after all it is has just one additional range adder point (though the min/max varies in comparision to the Decapitator; the damage total is basicaly the same between the two).

To me it seems the one additional range adder point makes a noticable diffence. The clear speed improves as you are more swinging at monsters than approaching them. You can hit from left to right. Also, you can clear larger monster groups more efficently without interruption (since with the Decapitator you need to reposition to the next monster more often in order to make an attack). I was pleasently surprised with the eDeath Glorious Axe.

The downside of the ethereal Glorious Axe with 5 sockets is it very hard to find/get as the maximum number of sockets is 6.

I tried this build before and actually enjoyed it. But then wanted to turn for more AoE style, so I returned to Fury. However, I just wonder about Shock Wave build. With it has already synergized with Maul, I just tinkered the build at Maxroll and on paper it shows solid physical damage. This means a real deal AoE effect.

I'm kind of busy these days but will try that, surely.

https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/wp3r803h

This is the possible hybrid between Maul and Shock Wave. Due to FCR demand of Shock Wave, I changed the weapon, to ethereal Death Berserker Axe. Another marginal option could be weapon swap between Heart of the Oak and main melee weapon to reach 99 FCR.

When I started this thread I thought this was the most powerful and dominant Maul Werebear build. Well, I am happy to report that I was wrong.

Trying to optimze things, I said good-bye to my act 1 merc Hannah and welcomed the act 5 merc Magnus. Magnus got a Lawbringer on his offhand, a Hustle weapon and Hustle armor. In addition a vampires gaze socketed with a Cham rune. The question is if the Decrepify proc from the Lawbringer can make a difference. The Werebear basically stays the same, you just use the Bone Break instead of the Flame Rift and put more points into Dexterity (because you do not have Inner Sight from act 1 merc anymore). In order to hit the fastet attack speed breakpoint you can wear an eDeath in a Champion Axe. In case you are in the radius of the fanatism aura from the Hustle weapon of the merc you will attack with the fastest possible speed of 6 frames. You lose out on quite some damage compared to an edeath in a Glorious Axe or a Decipitator. However, when the Decrepify has procced this build has around 50 % more physical damage output per second than the previously described build (the numbers on maxroll against the dummy do not show the real truth of the significance of the decprepify as you have to take into account the physical immunities in hell).

As mentioned before I only play players 8 Terror zones in order to have some kind of a challenge so every damage output improvement matters.

How good does the act 5 merc perform? Well, I was pleasently surprised. He procs the Decrepify consistently. Overall, the clear speed noticely improved, maybe 15 % or so. Does it work perfectly? No, sometimes the merc stays behind and continues to fight a single monster. Also, he has the habbit to Taunt a monster once the Decrepify has procced. The Taunt then overwrites the Decrepify proc for a single monster. Usually several monsters get decrepified once it procs from the Lawbringer. You have to adjust your gameplay a bit and always watch out where the merc is or better where the Decrepify has procced, but more often than not you are slugging it out side by side. Bottom line, with the act 5 merc the damage output is improved.

But that is not it. Due to the Lawbringer which has the Sanctuary Aura against undead any possible threats from this monster type are basically gone or minimzed greatly (the undead who can still be dangerous at times are souls). You now just breeze through Chaos Sanctuary or Tal Rashas tombs without much of a challenge. Basically the undead are just waiting for you to slay them.

As a caviar, the act 5 merc can also take down undead monsters. Due to the Sanctuary Aura which removes the physical resistances of the undead, the merc can dish out damage of around 10k per second with his normal attack and around 25k with Frenzy, even without prioritizing his damage output. From a Werebear perspective, it also feels like you have a little brother at your side who is very very eager to prove he is worthy to fight alongside you. He is like a maniac with Hustle, Burst of Speed and Frenzy. His survivability is excellent. The act 5 merc has a life pool of 6800 with Oak Sage. He does not end up in hit recovery very often. I do not summon the whole zoo anymore, three wolves and the grizzly are sufficient to keep the Spirit and the whole party alive. In case you summon more pets the barbarian sometimes stays behind them and does not attack. In my opinion the act 5 merc fits better than the act 1 merc. The barbarian and the Werebear complement each other very well.

The best in slot weapon for this build is an eBotD in a Glorious Axe. The damage is basically the same compared to the eDeath in a Champion Axe. However, with the BotD you also just hit the 6 frames attack speed breakpoint when you are not in the radius of the fanatism aura of the merc (in case you have a Metamorphosis base with at least plus 2 to Maul). Furthermore the minus 25% target defense makes a big difference. It feels like you are hitting almost everything. Also the plus 200% damage against undead make a difference.

Just recently I started to play with the eBotD Glorious Axe. This build now somehow feels like as if you have beaten the game with the Werebear as there is not much of a challenge left in the game.

Here is the link to the build at maxroll: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/er3go0l0

I did some further modifactions regarding the Maulbear build with act V merc support. In another thread someone mentioned that his fav weapon for a Fury druid is among others an eBotD in a Thunder Maul. I did then have a closer look at that weapon. The Thunder Maul has the highest avg damage in the game but is a bit slow. The question is if the wearbear, as the physically strongest appearing character in the game, can wield this powerful weapon to his advantage?

Yes he can It is a bit of a stretch but with all shapeshifting skillers in the inventory you will hit the fastest attack speed breakpoint and hit with 6 frames per second when you are in the radius of the fanatism aura of the merc (from his Hustle weapon). The Maul damage per second goes up to 86 k damage compared to the 73 k damage per second with the eBotD in a Glorious Axe which I mentioned in my previous post. The Thunder Maul is in my opnion the most godly weapon for this build due to the significant additional damage. You will hit with 7 frames per second when you are outside the reach of the fanastim aura, but the Maul damage with a Thunder Maul with 7 frames per second is basically the same as with the 6 frames Glorious Axe. You win a lot of damage also considering the Decrepify proc from the Lawbringer of the act V merc.

I have read mixed reviews before about the act V merc with a Lawbringer. For example that he is not proccing the Decrepify very often. In comparison with my previous post I gave the merc an Arreat's Face (instead of a Vampire Gaze) which further boosts his attack rating and defense. The merc has an attack rating of 4300 for his normal attack and an attack rating of 10500 for Frenzy. The Lawbringer also has a -50% target defense. The merc is proccing the Decrepify around every 2-3 seconds it feels like. Furthermore, though he is fighting always in the thick of it he rarely dies. You can always help him by using shockwave so that he is attacking stunned opponents.

The D2 game is always full of surprises. I would not have expected this but the act V setup with Lawbringer and the Decrepify proc is a huge boost while playing players 8 difficulty. It is in my opinion surperior to the rogue merc Faith bow setup. The Decrepify is simply very powerful.

Here is the link on maxroll for the eBotD Thunder Maul setup:
https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/5ymk064b

Up to now I have only played the Werebear with the Act I and Act V Merc. Recently, I gave the Act II merc a try. The merc wears an Infinity, Hustle armor and a Vampire Gaze. The Werebear now has maxed out synergies for the Fire Claws. He is now wearing a Grief and a Phoenix shield to maximize the damage output from the Fire Claws (both are solid options but I will discuss my personal bis weapon further down below).

With the Grief and the Conviction Aura from the merc weapon you will hit basically everything (minus 25% enemy defense and ingore targets's defense from Grief and the minus 83% enemy defence from the Conviction aura). Also you will have no leech problems as the damage from Grief is so high for a one-handed weapon. Plus the Werebear will hit the attack speed breakpoint relatively easily with Grief. The Werebear will only hit with 7 frames per seconds (6 frames is the fastest for two-handed weapons) in this setup. He cannot hit faster with a one-handed weapon if I am not mistaken. The damage from Maul and Werebear does not really scale very well in this build. Therefore you can spend some skill points according to your preference once you have reached the attack speed breakpoints. You can wear Magefist for example for higher Fire Claws damage and a higher faster cast rate. Shockwave is pretty fast now.

The first thing I noticed when heading into battle was that the Act II merc is more likely to die than the other two mercs I have played. Sometimes he needs special attention and sometimes in particular pods. This was not the case with the other two mercs. Therefore I spend a few points into dire wolves and grizzly so that they both have 85% resistances to elemental damage and can contribute to keeping the merc alive. After taking a few swings with the Fire Claws it became obvious that I have up to now never seen the Werebear take a more damage inflicting swing. Wow!! It feels like he is on steroids. He is hitting slower but with higher damage. The Infinity runewords seems very powerful.

Here is the link to the build with Grief on maxroll: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/um4020ih

Now to my best in slot weapon when playing players 8 difficulty. The best in slot weapon is in my opinion an ethereal Stormlash with a Zod. You will lose out on quite some physical damage compared to Grief but you get the 15% chance to cast level 10 Static Field on striking. I am playing with a normal Stormlash socketed with a Perfect Skull (I can then also wear another Bul-Kathos instead of a dual-leach ring). This works awesome!! Basically what it does is that you are hitting about 70-80 percent of the monsters with minus 25-50% of their health pool. You significantly reduce the swings needed to kill an enemy. You only need one to two swings of the maxed out Fire Claws to kill a monster most of the time. I have read in other threads that some want something like a "melee splash" for melee characters. Well, this is probably as close as it can get (though you still have to finish off every monster). Obviously the benefit is in particular for playing higher player counts. With the normal Stormlash you will not leech as much but with the Redemption aura from the Phoenix shield it is totally sufficient.

Link to build with ethereal Stormlash: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/co7460bt

This build is very powerful, maybe even more powerful than the build with the Act V merc (Lawbringer and Hustle weapon). You are not hitting as fast with the Fire Claws Werebear but the damage output is better and with the Static Field proc you have significant aoe damage ( Static Field procs about every two seconds when you are attacking). This outweighs the lower survivability of the Act II merc, but with a beefed up zoo he stays alive quite well now.

Often I am testing stuff like procs and auras etc. first in the Cow level as this is sort of like an optimal setting with its large monster packs. This Stormlash Fire Claws Werebear is the fastest of them all by far in view of clear speed on players 8 settings.

After playing some more, I can conclude for the Stormlash Fire Claws Werebear that you can also use a normal Stormlash socketed with a fire rainbow facet instead of an ethereal Stormlash. The damage output from both is on a similar level.

Up to now I have never really focused on magic find. Priority for me was always high damage output and clear speed in order to find high runes basically.

In my opinion there is a very interesting magic find build for the Stormlash Fire Claws Werebear without much Sacrifice to the overall damage output. This build performs very well in players 8 settings and can definitely hold his own in view of clear speed (compared to other Werebear builds and not to other characters of course). You swap the Chains of Honor with a Skullder's Ire (plus 123 to magic find at level 99) and socket it with a fire rainbow facet. Instead of Gore Rider you are also wearing War Traveler. With proper charms and ring you can get above 200 magic find relatively easy. You lose a great amount of resistances with the armor swap. Therefore you put on a Mara's instead of the Highlords. Quite a lot of things are dropping with this build

Magic Find build Stormlash Fire Claws Werebear: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/4hjn05cz

The strategy is simple with this build. You approach mobs and start hitting with Maul to Charge it up and not lose the speed bonus until the first Static Field procs. Then you switch to Fire Claws. Quite a lot of monsters can go down with one hit, it is quite amazing. It is also nice to be responsible for your own procs for a a change, instead of having to rely on your mercs to proc something.

The highest possible Fire Claws damage output (in case I am not mistaken) you can achieve by wearing a 4 socket armor with three fire rainbow facet jewels and one 15 IAS jewel. This dude is a one shot monster on players 8 once Static Field has procced one or two times.

Build with three fire facets and one 15 IAS jewel in armor: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/4rjk052r

After the positive results with the Stormlash for the Fire Claws build I checked out some other unique weapons for the Werebear as well.

The Bonehew is a nice weapon for the Werebear and you can dominate on players 5 settings but players 8 is a bit too much. The Bonehew would imo be a very good weapon if you could trigger the Corpse Explosion charges in Wereform. Without this possibility you have to transform into human form and you then lose the Maul (speed) charges. As a consequence it only makes sense to use the Corpse Explosion charges at the end of a run.

The ethereal Tomb Reaver is a great weapon for magic find but it is not on the same level imo as top tier runewords. You lose out on quite some damage compared to an etheral Death runeword in a Decapitator or an ethereal BOTD Thunder Maul. Players 8 settings can be challenging.

In my stash I then came across a non-ethereal version of The Reaper's Toll. Up to now I have never played this weapon. What is nice about a non-ethereal version of The Reaper's Toll is that you can get to the fastest 6 frames attack speed breakpoint for the Werebear by socketing the weapon with a 15 IAS jewel (with mark of the bear from Metamorphosis etc.). And this is achieved without any aura support from the merc. The by far best option is then to hire an act 2 might merc. Since the Fire Claws itself is maxed out with about 3/4 of its synergies the merc is wielding an Infinity. The results were very surprising for me. This build can dominate players 8 settings with ease. He does not has the highest overall one shot ability and single target damage, but he is just motoring his way through enemies very efficiently. Plus you always have a cloud of Decrepify around you which makes this a very safe build imo, also for your merc and pets. Basically you are just busy using Maul and Fire Claws for whatever comes your way. You do not need to spam shockwave as much. Overall, the clear speed is one of the best. From all of the builds he is the fastest Baal killer for sure.

Where would I rank the build with the non-ethereal Reaper's toll? Well, the cream of the crop for players 8 settings of the builds mentioned here in this thread is imo the Stormlash Fire Claws build. However, The Reaper's Toll build comes in second imo. Surprisingly for me he plays even better than the eBOTD Thunder Maul build with a Lawbringer wielding act 5 merc. I suppose it is simply always nicer to proc stuff yourself than having to rely on your merc.

Link to Reaper Bear build at maxroll: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/bm3m00z2

what a cool guide, I might actually try to build this

Created an account just to reply to this post and say THANK YOU, as a druid player since original D2 LOD release Maul Werebear builds have felt very stale for an incredibly long time. Reading this thread was fascinating and informative, completely changed the trajectory of my plan for the HC Werebear I'm currently leveling.

I currently have several versions of the Stormlash build as well as The Reaper's Toll build open, in your opinion which would be best for HC? I'm assuming Reaper's Toll for the Decrepify aura. Cheers!