Help with druid

[Irma2]

tell us your current spells u are having now

He did that in the first post. He's in Act IV Normal, with Squall/OV, Storm Nimbus, Heart of Frost and Static Charge mainly. He's likely to be somewhere between level 33 and 40 and has probably had to invest most of his points so far in the masteries. So advising him to go with -100% recharge gear, Wolves, Plague, LB/CL, Briar Ward, HoO, Freezing Blast, SB/SS, Regrowth and Thunderball isn't going to help. He doesn't have the gear nor the points for all that. He needs a strategy that will get him through with the skills he has now, not the skills he'll have at level 65+.

[shadow noob]

Since he is in Normal, I guess Ice shards are still viable.

which means:

He need to remove static charge(squall is only for debuffing, not for damage at the moment since he is stuck) and invest on ice shard, because ice shards are better than lighting bolt in Normal, because ice shards have no cool down at all making DPS higher than Lighting Bolt.

Heat of frost should be kept at max to boost ice shards.

so now the strategy at the moment will be :

squall the mobs
when they run towards you
Ice shard them
or cast biar ward to hide inside and ice shard them to death.( U need to buy a lot blue pots for that, too bad)
or U can find "-cost" items to reduce the casting cost of Ice shards

Keep farming for recharge gear(prepare for lighting bolt build or whatever build, since recharge gear is for mages in legendary) or level up.

by the way does Plague and Squall stack?

[Kalam]

That is one option, but there are many more possibilities. The slowing tactic irma posted is an option, sharding is, thunderball, ...
Yes, plague and squall do stack, I guess

[shadow noob]

I am not very sure about this Squall and plague stacking, i saw some threads here
saying

2 skills that -% for example here, to elemental resist
Only the higher one will take effect.

for an example
because squall minus resistance to all by 45% for a 12/8 squall
and the plague has -40% to elemental resist

In this case squall will over ride plague when it comes to elemental resist

I have never played a Druid before(played Elementalist before)

Need some veteran to verify this

[shadow noob]

Does Plague and Squall stack when damage resistance and elemental resist???.
Thanks in advance

[Irma2]

Squall stacks with everything except ToW. Those are the only two % based resistance reduction spells in the game. Everything else is absolute reduction.

[shadow noob]

Thanks for the reply Irma2
So does that means casting Squall and plague will result in elemental spells such as LB/CL

having more damage as opposed to a squall then LB/CL???



I was thinking of playing a Druid , too bad my G.card is under repair , using on-board G.card now(can't play now) .

From experience with my Elementalist.

I Spam spell broke-lock 3x Hades(Mboss mod) in his third form(having 100% recharge) , until he has no spells/skills to use , that he has to resort to run over to my face and hit me with physical attack. That is a problem for Elementalist will have.

Now I am having an Idea for Druid that might help Rezzo in his Legendary mode against Hades

1) Squall and spam spell break until he resorts to melee attack
2)cast biar ward and plague him(reduce the Hades melee dps done to the biar ward),spam what-ever spells you have , at the same time spell break-lock him , keep him skill-less/spell-less
3) let your wolves tear him to shreds

[Irma2]

It should do, yes. Just like hitting a monster with Sapros and with Monkey King's Trickery in your rings will reduce its resistances more than just Sapros alone.

Iirc apoc's testing indicates that all named resistance reductions are absolute even if they are indicated by a %. So when Study Prey tells you that it's reducing piercing and physical resistances by 50%, it's actually reducing them by 50. Because the resistances that it is reducing are named: piercing and physical. It's easy to see this is in action with Study Prey. Even in Normal, it increases your killing speed massively. Yet, from the description, it appears to only reduce monster physical and piercing resistance by 50%. In Normal, very few monsters get significant pierce resistance and nothing gets significant physical resistance. So SP shouldn't have a very noticeable effect if it's % as it appears. Reducing 10% pierce resistance by 50% would drop it to 5%. You wouldn't even notice such a small difference. Try casting maxed SP on a Normal mob and you'll notice a huge difference. It must be reducing resistances absolutely and not by percentage.

The only skills which reduce by a % are those which have a % sign in the description and just say "X% reduced resistance". Because no resistance is named, they work as a %. Obscured Visibility and ToW are the only two skills which do that.

So the rule of thumb is that when it says:

1) "-X% damage type resistance" then it's absolute
2) "X% reduced resistance" then it's percentage
3) "X reduced resistances" then it's absolute

1 and 3 always stack with each other and will stack with one (the highest) source of 2. So, using this rule, we look at the descriptions of Obscured Visibility and Susceptibility and get:

OV: "X% reduced resistance for 6 seconds" - no resistance named and a % sign, so it's percentage reducation and is thus category 2.

Susceptibility: "-X% damage resistance, -X% elemental resistance" - the resistances that it reduces are named (physical and elemental) so it's absolute reduction and is thus category 1. Although it's indicated by a % sign, the resistances are named so the reduction is absolute.

Category 1 and one (the highest) source of category 2 will stack so Squall and Plague will work together.

I haven't tested this but apoc did exhaustive tests and his conclusions fit with what I've experienced in gameplay. Casting Study Prey or Squall on a mob that is already Plagued, or SP on a mob that is already Squalled, results in massive resistance reductions.

[shadow noob]

So at the end of the day that is:
1)Named reduced resistance % + Unnamed % reduced resistance = stack

2)2 Unnamed reduced resistance % = dun stack

3)Named % + Named(no %) = stack

plague then squall, then LB/CL = dead enemy , the plague doesn't even have the change to spread due to the 1st target died.