Diablo 2 1.11 Elemental Druid Guide

Rock the Kasbah Elemental Druid

Yea there have been elemental druid guides but most don't seem to address the new equipment/runewords available. This druid should be good for just about anything. Complete rushing, Magic find runs including meph, the pit, diablo and Baal.  Baal Running for experience or just about anything you can imagine.

This build perfectly done will give you max resists and great Tornado/hurricane damage. Even somewhat less than perfect you will still have decent resists and damage.

Abbreviations:

MF: Magic Find
FC: Faster Cast
PI: Physical Immune monster
 

Ingredients:

One Level 80+ something  Druid. This build will basically complete at level 90, but very playable much before that. 

Strength: Enough to wear Archon Plate Enigma with any add on's you will need to get to 103
Dexterity: Base (more dex =better chance to block if you go that route.)
Vitality: the rest not used in STR/DEX
Energy: 0 (Tornado is very low mana intensive even if spammed)

Skills:

Elemental Skills:

Cyclone Armor: Max  for synergy/protection
Twister: Max for synergies. Never used in itself
Tornado: Max for damage and synergies, and it uses only 10 mana regardless of level
All of the 4 prerequisits: 1

Summoning Skills:

Oak Sage: Max by level 90 or optionally earlier at delay of twister
Spirit Wolf: 1 (optional by level 91, prereq for below)
Dire Wolf: 1 (optional by level 92)
Grizzly: 1 (optional by level 92)

Pick either wolves or Grizzly, don't waste points on both. If you choose one of the wolves or Grizzly, then all further points go there. I like the Dire Wolves because you get 3 of them. I actually usually put one point into Dire Wolf earlier, so I can use them by the time I'm level 70 or so.

All prerequisits: 1

Preferred equipment choices in red, alternates in green. 

Equipment:

Armor: Enigma - Teleport critical to rushing running etc.
Skins of Vipermagi, Chains of Honor etc

Helm: Harlequins Crest Shako with resistance jewel (fire or all) or UM rune (I like + all skills vs just Druid skills)
Tons of secondary choices, druid only helms etc.
 
Main Weapon:  HOTO with good resists
Suicide Branch, Spirit Sword

Main Shield: Spirit Runeword shield
Lidless socketed with perfect diamond (resists), or Ist for MF

Weapon Switch:  Call to Arms Flail with +6 Battle Orders
Switch Shield: Spirit for +2 all

Boots:  Sandstorm Trek (ethereal best since they self repair)
War Travlers (but give up resist poison)
Silkweaves

Gloves: Magefists (FC) faster mana regen or Trangs Gloves (FC) and cold resist. Really kind of a toss up.
Frostburns, Chance Guards etc.


Belt: Arachnids
Glooms Trap etc.
 

Ammy: Maras
Rare Ammy with + skills/resists
 

Rings: Two Stones of Jordon
Pick em for your needs

Charms: Gheeds (for MF/gold finding), Druid Torch and an anni charm, + any other resist and/or +skill charms you want to use.
Other charms to fill out your resists, magic find, attributes etc.

Plenty of merc equipment choices etc.
Merc: Defiance Act 2, Prayer Act 2, Holy Freeze Act 2 all viable. I've used them all. I kinda like holy freeze of late.
Weapon: The Reapers Toll with a Shael rune (gets next IAS level and decrepify makes the PI's not so PI). You could also use insight for mana regen, but may have problems with the PI's.
Armor: Shaftstop (ethereal or upgraded best), Leviathan,  Gladiators Bane, etc etc.
Helm: Lots of choices here too. Rockstopper (resists/damage reduction), Crown of Thieves(life leech and fire resist). Vamp Gaze (damage reduction), Crown of Ages (resists/damage reduction + skills), Tal's(resist/life leech), Blackhorns Face (Lightning Absorb/resist/slow target/prevent monster heal) etc also possible as are others.

Game Play: You can pretty much run anything you want. Pindle, Meph are easy as pie. The pit, Diablo and Baal also very doable. You can even host your own 8 player Baal runs and do the running.
Typical play. Battle Command, Oak Sage + wolves/bear, Battle Orders, Cyclone Armor, Hurricane in that order. Pop around and kill stuff with Tornado as your primary killing spell. Be sure every 40-50 seconds or so you recast hurricane to keep it active, and I also like to recast cyclone armor at the same time to refresh it. Cyclone armor will absorb quite a bit of magic/elemental damage, but no physical damage. It can in a sense make up for some lack of resists.

Observations..

With this build using Battle Orders/Oak Sage you should have well over 4k life (if you don't opt for blocking DEX in which case it may be 2-3k) and ~1k mana. This also helps keep your minions alive longer.

Not a lot of variability in skill choices until much later when you can decide if you want more minions.

Basic killing spell is tornado. Hurricane slows them down and helps but Tornado is where the money is.

Merc's Reapers Toll with decrepify removes PI problems allowing you to tornado/hurricane them down.

Adjust MF with other attributes/equipment depending on what you are doing/running.

With this build you will be at 11 frames for casting and 5 for hit recovery. Seems to be enough and you really can't get higher.

Use weapon switch with Call To Arms to increase life/mana/skills. Just remember it won't last forever and you will have to recast.
 
Once you max all the skills suggested (~ level 90) you will have extra points with seemingly no place to put them. This is where you can summon wolves or dire wolves, or even a grizzly.

Surprisingly even with 1 point (17 with add ons), my dire wolves probably survive 75% of the time in an 8 player public Baal run.

The high level Oak Sage is surprisingly hearty, even in hell. Occasionally you have to recast it, but not as much as you might think.
 
With a high level Oak Sage and even your battle orders from Call to Arms (if no barbs present with higher orders) you are very popular in public runs/games. |

This build rules the game in my opinion. I like it even better than the often favored hammerdin.

You are basically a melee caster. I.E. you get right in the thick of it, but you don't hit anything. You just keep hurricane going and spam tornado.

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