CompanyofThree’s Variant Shaman Druid
This guide cannot be used in whole or in part, without due credit to the author. This guide does not belong to D2jsp.org, but is simply the medium it is being presented through.
Overview:
Introduction (to myself and the build)
Pros and Cons
Skills and Stats
Why the Pelt is Important
Gear:
- Maxblock setup 1
- Maxblock setup 2
- Verse caster setup
Inventory
Extra Stash Gear
My stats
99 fcr/ 99 fhr verse 163/ 99
Why 99 fcr is Essential
Oak Sage verse Heart of the Wolverine
20/ -20 JMod verse Stormshield/ Spirit Monarch
Fire Druid verse Shaman Druid
Hotkeys
How to Control a Shaman
Tactics and Techniques
Advanced Mechanics of the Build
Basic Strategies
Team verse Team
How to BM
Some Videos
Credits
Introduction:
Hello everyone, my name is CompanyofThree. I have been playing Diablo on and off for the past couple years, but it wasn’t until last summer that I actually became dedicated to the game. I started out the usual way, doing Player verse Monster, but that got a little boring and repetitive for my taste and I soon started taking my PvM Throw Barb into duel games for fun. Even though I was wearing terrible and noobish gear at the time, I was still getting mad props by the people in the game, “omg a throw barb!!!1” “I didn’t know people still made throwers!” It was nice attention and that was what got me on my path here. Going through duel games I always saw the same characters; hammerdins, fireball sorcs, wind druids, and bonemancers. These characters are good for a reason and that’s why they are known as cookie-cutters, so I wanted to make characters that one did not see often and then beat down those pubs. I originally made my Shaman druid back in October of 2009 if I remember correctly, and I built it according to Varsity’s and Clan_Iraq’s shaman guides earlier posted. It was a disaster. I deleted my original druid named Placebo_Effect on USEast Ladder, and remade him in December 2009 as maxblock with the most terrifying name, CompanyofThree. This guide will show you a different way to gear a shaman than the pure vita build and will help create a more effective character. Even for the ones not interested in building this, at least take the time to read the guide because some of the facts found you may not have known, or maybe something in here will spike your interest. Happy reading :cheers:
So what is a Shaman Druid? A Shaman druid is a fire and summoning druid who deals in both physical damage and fire damage. The three main damage dealers are Fissure, Volcano, and Grizzly Bear, while the massive special effect spell Armageddon will be obtained from our pelt. This is a character that is defined by patience and skill, and as thus, is not for everyone. I have helped three of my friends make a shaman and two of them sold theirs, and I have helped numerous people on East construct them also, and then get sold within days. This is not due to the character; this is the flaw of the player. A good bone necromancer can clear a game and dominate it within minutes, but a bad player will have trouble even getting their body back. A Shaman will take a ton of patience to learn based on the fact that we have cooldown timers for EVERY spell, but once the learning curve has been achieved pubs can, and will, be dominated. This character is not for everyone, indeed, it is only for an elite few, but in the few months I have taken Diablo seriously the Shaman has become my all time favorite Player verse Player character. Not even hotspurs can save you from me…
Pros and Cons:
The pro of this build is that it will easily kill everyone and no one will be able to kill you; a Shaman is the true King of the Mountain. Lol, no I’m just kidding there really are no immediate pros to this build that other characters posses. What this build does have is something special and unique that no other characters have: this character can last long in duels, summons act as meat shields, both an AoW and stunning fire attack, fire spells have a namelocking range of 3 screens, 3000 damage physical attack, and a nice WTF-Factor takes opponents by surprise. After enough experience and practice this character can become beastly and the pros will overwhelm the cons by so much there won’t appear to be any. But until that point, here are the cons to this build: fire damage can easily be sorbed, cooldown timers for fire spells leave you vulnerable for attack, and initially it can be hard to kill people due to ground spells (similar to blizzard, compared to line-of-sight spells such as fireball or bonespear). Sorb is a problem for every class and every beginner struggles to master their respected builds at first, so the real con is the cooldown timer, which as stated a moment ago, is easily mastered with practice and once done, actually becomes a scary character to have hassling you as you panic in the Blood Moor.
Skills:
Because you are a fire and summoning druid here the skills you will need to stat the following skills:
Elemental- 1 cyclone armor, 20 fissure, 20 volcano, 20 molten boulder
Summoning- 1 oak sage, 20 grizzly bear
The rest go into firestorm
If you do all your skill quests, this build will be totally maxed out at level 97, but don’t feel you need to get that high. My druid is level 94 and does quite well. Speaking in basic terms you only need to get to level 80 to max your main spells without doing skill quests, but of course getting a higher level means more damage and more life, so I strongly suggest you get as high as you can; at least to level 90.
Stats:
Strength- enough to wear Spirit Monarch/ Stormshield
Dexterity- enough to hit 75% block
Vitality- the rest
Energy- none
Why the Pelt is Important:
As said earlier, this build revolves around the pelt because that’s how we obtain Armageddon. Without the pelt it costs 6 skill points to obtain Armageddon and then you will lose out on fire damage when maxing synergies. That being said, any pelt with Armageddon can work, but to be a true menace to the public games in your realm you want the right pelt (this is also covered in the Gear section). There are three different types of pelts that I use: shaman verse melee, shaman verse caster, and pure fire damage. Here are the best combinations to get for your Shaman—
Shaman verse physical damage: 2 druid/ 10 fhr/ armageddon/ fissure/ grizzly/ 2 sockets
Shaman verse caster: 2 druid/ 10 fhr/ armageddon/ volcano/ grizzly or cyclone armor/ resists or life/ 2 sockets
Pure damage: 2 druid/ 10 fhr/ armageddon/ volcano/ fissure/ life/ 2 sockets
These pelts are incredibly hard to obtain and I actually have yet to see a pelt with these stats. This section is merely to point out the “goal” of an amazing pelt but lesser pelts can and will suffice. The reasons for these stats are pointed out in the gear section and explained there.
Maxblock verse Vita Build:
Why maxblock? Easy. Fire spells for a Shaman have cooldowns, similar to a Sorceress’s Blizzard attack or a Paladin’s Fist of the Heavens. While those two cooldowns are relatively low, a Shaman’s cooldowns are extremely high. Fissure has about a 2 second cooldown timer, volcano a 4 second timer, and armageddon a 6 second timer. What this means is that after casting a spell you are open season and the game is serving YOU. What maxblock accomplishes is that you can cast a fissure or volcano, and not worry about that Smiter or BvC destroying you in one hit. While a vita build will give you more life (it does about 300-400 extra life), the ability to block lets you live longer and hit harder, and it’s much better. If you’re still skeptical, here is an example: fissure can be stacked up to 3 times. Pretend you do 5,000 fissure damage, you cast a fissure waiting for someone to run through it, they do, but then the BvC/ Fury Druid/ Charger/ Bow Amazon hits you, and you die. You’ve done barely any damage to them with the PvP penalty and fire resistances. With maxblock, on the other hand, you can cast a fissure, block a hit, cast a fissure, block a hit, cast a fissure, etc. You now have three fissures, doing 15,000 damage (before PvP penalty and resistances) each and they hit hard and they hit fast. The make-it or break-it curve in this learning ability is being able to outlive your opponent and beat them down through perserverance and combo attacks which can only be obtained by living longer.
Gear Setups:
Melee Setup #1 (this is the setup I have due to acquiring an amulet at an affordable price)
Pelt- 2 druid/ 10 fhr/ fire mods [best combination is Armageddon/ Fissure/ Grizzly] (Shael)
For this particular setup, the pelt needs 10 fhr to hit the 99 fhr breakpoint and the skill list is the best option to maximize the damage. Against non-teleporting characters fissure is better than volcano as the enemy has to walk through it and the stun aspect won’t do much as these enemies usually have good fhr.
Armor- Enigma
2 to all skills, 8% damage reduction, teleport, and massive strength boost. No other options here.
Weapon- Hoto
3 skills, 40% faster cast rate, 20 to dexterity, and 10 life replenish make this very good for easily obtaining maxblock, and the life replenish is amazing as most duels will last between 1-3 minutes. The only other weapon you’ll need for maxblock is a Spirit Sword and that’s covered in the other setup.
Shield- Stormshield (Eld)
With nice blocking mods, 35% damage reduction, and 30 to strength, this shield is the only one usable for blocking. 35% from Stormshield + 8% from Enigma give you 43% damage reduction in total, which you’re going to need when you get, and Eld verse Ber saves you a few extra points in dexterity which then turn into life. Overall, this shield is a must.
Switch- Call to Arms/ Spirit Monarch
Really no need for explanation… the extra boost in life is a must and there really is no alternative switch here.
Gloves- Bloodfists
30 faster hit recovery and 40 bo-able life, these gloves have no opposition and are essential to this setup.
Belt- Arachnids Mesh
1 all skills and 20% faster cast rate, what’s not to love?
Boots- Shadowdancers
With a strength requirement of 167, no extra points need to be put into strength after you can wear your Stormshield because the strength attribute allows you to wear it. Offering 30% faster hit recovery and 25 points into dexterity, these things are a beast.
Ring 1- 10 fcr/ 15 dexterity/ 40 life/ life replenish
Ring 2- 10 fcr/ 15 dexterity/ 40 life/ life replenish
The faster cast rate is your priority here, because without these you won’t hit the 99 faster cast rate breakpoint. Mods to look for are 15 dexterity (saves you 15 points), 40 life (bo-able), and replenish life (for those long duels). Good combos of these rings can often times make-or-break the fight against physical damage dealing characters.
Amulet- 2 druid/ 19 fcr
2 to druid skills would be the best, but 2 to elemental or 1 to druid skills can suffice as these amulets can get pricey. The bare mods are just druid skills/ 19 faster cast rate, but other mods that can be useful are dexterity, life, and life replenish. This is the only way to complete this setup.
You’ll need 2x 5 fhr small charms to hit 99 fhr with this setup
Melee Setup #2
Pelt- 2 druid/ fire mods [best combination is Armageddon/ Fissure/ Grizzly] (7 fhr/ str/ dex jewel)
The fire mods are the same as in the setup listed above, but without base faster hit recovery a jewel is needed and these stats are extremely helpful when equipping gear. Only option here.
Armor- Enigma
No other option unless you want to be a joke character, in which case you should wear 20/ -20 armor and die.
Weapon- Spirit Sword 35 fcr
2 skills, 35% faster cast rate, 55% faster hit recovery, and 22 points into vitality, what’s not to love? This weapon is great as it offers you everything you need that Hoto does not have. Either one of these will be your main weapon against physical opponents.
Shield- Stormshield (Eld)
See first setup.
Switch- Call to Arms/ Spirit Monarch
See first setup.
Gloves- Magefist
1 to fire skills and 20% faster cast rate, amazing. Bloodfist’s 30% faster hit recover will not be needed so it’s +1 fire skills and hitting the 99 breakpoint, or 40 more bo-able life. Not a hard choice.
Belt- Arachnids Mesh
See first setup.
Boots- Shadowdancers
See first setup.
Ring 1- Soj
You will hit the 99 faster cast rate breakpoint, so have 2x fcr rings is pointless. Wear a Stone of Jordan for that +1 to all skills and nice mana boost! Bul-Kathos is a no-go as the life is not applied to Battle Orders and is not worth it.
Ring 2- 10 fcr/ 15 dex/ 40 life/ life rep
You need this for the faster cast rate breakpoint, see the first setup if you have already forgotten when this good.
Amulet- 2 druid/ 15 fcr
You need at least 15 faster cast rate to hit the breakpoint and the +2 druid skills is good to have to boost your damage. Other nice mods are dexterity, life, and life replenish, as these duels will take a while and the more life and life rep you have, the longer you’ll last.
You’ll need 1x 5 fhr small charm to hit the 99 fhr breakpoint with this setup
Verse Caster Setup:
Pelt- 2 druid/ fire mods [best combination is Armageddon/ Volcano/ Grizzly] (7 fhr/ str/ dex/ light res)
Against casters and teleporting characters this pelt is the best: as fissure works amazing well with non-teleporting characters, volcano works marvelously with teleporting characters! Volcano is easier to namelock and use on a 200 fcr sorc than planting a fissure and hoping they’ll land in it, so you’ll want that as your pelt mod. Grizzly is always useful, whether as a tank or a beast he’ll play his part, so you want him as jacked as possible. The jewel is needed for the faster hit recovery breakpoint, and the other mods with it are also very helpful when equipping gear and facing opponents.
Armor- Enigma
See above setups.
Weapon- Hoto
3 skills, 40 faster cast rate, and 40 resistance, this weapon is amazing. The only time you’ll swap it out is to equip Wizspike for the extra resistance, and over time you won’t need it because you’ll be a better and smarter dueler, or to wear a 30/ -30 against Hammerdins or Bonenecros (these setups are in the strategy section). This runeword offers everything you need and nothing can substitute it, this is your anti-caster weapon.
Shield- Spirit Monarch 35 fcr
35% faster cast rate, 55% faster hit recovery, 35 light/ cold/ poison resistance, vitality points… What doesn’t this shield have? The 156 strength requirement is defiantly worth wearing this shield as it will make your life 10 times better.
Switch- Call to Arms/ Spirit Monarch
If you even read this part for the third time you’re retarded.
Gloves- Magefist
1 to fire skills and 20% faster cast rate, awesome! You’re a fire druid so it makes sense to wear gloves that will boost your damage, yes? The other option here are Trang-Oul’s gloves (20% faster cast rate, cold resistance), but these should only be used against Blizz sorcs, so they will not be your primary gloves.
Belt- Arachnids Mesh
1 to all skills and 20% faster cast rate, very much needed and enjoyed.
Boots- Tri res boots
The majority of casters do elemental damage, so you’ll want boots with the following stats: base fhr, cold res, light res, fire res. Other mods would be faster run walk or life replenish. Wear these at all times to make sure your resistances are well above 75% for maximum pwnage. Treks have been brought up as nice boots also, but the strength cannot be build around as there is much gear switching and 15 points in vitality is nothing compared to good resistances.
Ring 1- Soj
Ring 2- Soj
The 99 faster cast rate breakpoint is already hit, so wear these big studs on your hands for +2 skills and a huge mana boost! Again, Bul-Kathos are NOT advised because the life add is miniscule, and two, you will be abusing your mana pots a lot, and running out of mana quickly a lot.
Amulet- Maras
As stated you already hit the 99 faster cast rate breakpoint, so this amulet is dope. 2 skills and 30 resistances are much needed for more life and damage, as well more resistance to get well above the 75% marker. There really is no other option than can compete with +2 skills/ +30 all resistance.
Extra Stash Gear:
Thundergod’s (for sorbing lightning characters- 85% lightning res)
Wizspike (for extra resistance against cold/ lightning based characters)
Nokozan Relic (gm sorb- 85 fire res)
Trang-Oul’s Gloves (replacement for Magefists against Blizz sorcs)
30/-30 Weap (replacement for Hoto against Hammerdins and Bonenecromancers in order to do more damage and break their resistance)
Other Pelts (the more the merrier, i.e. different match-ups you may prefer different pelts)
1x Elemental Grand Charms (explained in the Strategies section)
2x 10 fcr/ 40 life/ resistance rings (for mixing and matching with different matchups, primarily with the 30/ -30)
Crown of Ages (ber ber) - you will be using this in only one setup
10 fcr/ 20 strength ring (to equip CoA)
Inventory:
The inventory is the usual stuff, you’ll need;
20/ xx Druid Torch
20/ xx/ x Anni small charm
8-9x life/ all resistance small charms (keep spares in your stash as you won’t need as many with the Melee setup)
6x Elemental grand charms; 5x ele charms in your inventory (mix of lifers/ fhr), and then 1x in your stash
4x Summoning grand charms; 4x lifers
5x ele/ 4x summoning is the best overall ratio of skillers, but in some cases it is better to have more fire damage than more bear damage. These characters will be covered in the strategy section.
My Stats (with self Bo/ Bc):
Verse Caster Setup
Life (with Oak): 4924
Armageddon: 5884- 6852
Fissure: 4367- 4564
Volcano (physical): 1183-1190
Volcano (fire): 1254- 1404
Grizzly damage: 4408- 4562
Verse Melee Setup
Life (with Oak): 4464
Armageddon: 4427- 5254
Fissure: 3984- 4164
Volcano (physical): 911- 918
Volcano (fire): 955- 1050
Grizzly damage: 3075- 3212
Other people’s stats will vary according to their gear, helms, and ratio of elemental grand charms to summoning grand charms. This is just to give an idea of the type of damage you can do
99 fcr/ 99 fhr versus 163 fcr/ 99 fhr:
99 faster cast rate is really the only option here. After experimenting with the 163 build I have come to the conclusion that it is detrimental to the build. Too much gear is sacrificed to hit the breakpoint, and in the process we lose valuable life and damage which negates the build. The shaman will become more like an annoying house fly than the fire God that he has the potential to be. Even in Team verse Team games; I would suggest sticking to the Verse Melee or Verse Caster setup as that will allow you to be more beneficial to the team. The other point that hasn’t been mentioned is the cooldown timers completely destroy the 163 fcr; oh sure, you may be able to catch up to the faster characters, but then what? You missed a volcano 2 second ago and now you can just follow in pursuit hoping your bear can smack them. It’s not worth it.
Why 99 Faster Cast Rate is Essential:
99 faster cast rate allows the shaman to teleport at 11 frames per second. Although the build does have cooldown timers and thus, cannot cast, the FCR is needed to teleport out of danger and to resummon (quickly!) Cyclone Armor, Oak Sage, and Grizzly Bear, and that is also why 20/ -20 Armors are no longer in use. Do you see casters running around the Moor? No, so Enigma is the only choice obviously and we need the 99 FCR breakpoint to resummon and teleport to run away or Bear-Strike. To put this into perspective, most BvCs have 37 faster cast rate and teleport at 10 frames per second, which is just another reason we don’t use crappy facetted gear for pure damage. As you can see, our opponents are not going to be dogging it and if we cast and slower, let’s say at the 68 FCR breakpoint, game over.
Oak Sage verse Heart of the Wolverine (HoW):
There has been debate on this issue in the realm of Shaman druids for quite some time ever since this build made the headlines back in ’09: Oak Sage verse HoW. I have come to terms that Oak Sage is in fact the better spirit to have with you compared to HoW. Why is this? Without Oak my druid has 2.5k life (maxblock setup) and with HoW up Grizzly does a lot more damage. This can be useful verse lower life characters; i.e. glass cannons, bow amazons, ES sorcs, etc. The only problem is… if you’re died, you lose! Oak Sage will nearly double your life with Bo and thus make you live longer, which goes back to the argument that this build is made around patience and timing. You can’t be patient if you die in a few hits, and as thus, Oak Sage is the better of the two spirits in all aspects of this build.
20/ -20 Jewelers Monarch of Deflecting verse Stormshield/ Spirit Monarch:
Back when nubtards made fissure druids before 1.13, the towning variant always had 20/ -20 shields for more damage. While that makes sense for a towning druid, who hopes never to get hit, it does not make sense for us. More commonly, I have seen other players use the expensive and prestigious Jewelers Monarch of Deflecting, or JMoD, socketed with four 5/ -5 fire facets for massive damage and block. This does not, and will not, work. Let us compare a JMoD against our trusty Spirit Monarch in our anti-caster setup: against casters you will not need block, there goes half of the JMoD’s abilities; the 20/ -20 aspect is overkill as a 1k volcano is more than enough to whittle down a casters life. If they wear Hotspurs and BM you, change your setup and wear a 30/ -30 (while maintaining 99/ 99 and over 75% all res) and destroy the noob and then camp his body. Spirit offers amazing mods that make you stronger and you’re opponent have to work harder, and JMoD is not offering that to you. On the other hand, against melee, a lot of players assume “I need block AND I’ll have damage! Whoop dee doo!” I’ll use only Molton Boulder and slam that JMoD until you have to repair it. Stormshield offers better block, strength to wear Shadowdancers, and damage reduction. If you’ve ever been hit by a Charger or a Glass Cannon, they hurt. Good luck getting out of that one with zero damage reduction when you DO manage to get hit.
Now, you may be wondering, why am I bashing JMoD but supporting a 30/ -30 sword? Easy. Hammerdins and Bonemancers deal in magic damage. Neither Hoto, Wizspike, nor Spirit Sword offers magical resistance and more often than not these characters have very high stacked res. That means the only way you can break them is by wearing this sword and giving up the mods of your usual weapon, but you still get the great benefits of Spirit Monarch! JMoD is not as useful in this build as it is for a Javazon, so what I’m asking is that you think: this is a build about patience and timing, what better way to lose than to give up the ability to control the speed of the game?
Fire Druid verse Shaman:
The average player knows that dealing in one type of damage risks the infamous BM sorb: the End-All Be-All answer from players who can’t beat you. Most players will do this after their first death, or right away before dueling, and just slip on Hotspurs. If you’re a pure fire druid then yes, you’ll be doing more fire damage than a shaman due to a synergized Armageddon, but against a 95% res opponent you’ll be hard pressed to win. Even if they are not sorbing, you’ll still have trouble killing opponents without a stacked bear because you’ll have to wait 2-4 seconds in between every attack! A shaman on the other hand, will still have to wait for the cooldowns, but has a huge bear to use in the meantime and haze enemy players! Then when the player looses and wears Hotspurs after an embarrassing lose, you’ll still have the physical damage of your Grizzly for nice damage they can’t stop. A shaman is a safer and more effective character to make than a pure fire druid, and now you can see why.
Hotkeys:
Hotkeys can be done in any format you like. Clan_Iraq uses the F-keys, Master_Zappy uses the ASDF key area, and similarly, I like to use the letters on my left hand. You do not have to do your hotkeys in any similar fashion, but this just to help people get comfortable in starting. But no matter what you chose to do, you should always keep Teleport and Volcano next to each other for easy namelocking. I always keep Molten Boulder on my Left Click for anti-telestomp: simply click them when they stomp you and a boulder will simply knock them far, far away.
E- Armageddon
W- Switch weapons
A- Cyclone Armor
S- Teleport
D- Volcano
F- Fissure
Z- Battle Command
X- Battle Orders
C- Summon Grizzly
V- Summon Oak Sage
How to Control a Shaman:
Here are two basic forms of movement for a Shaman druid to maximize it’s effectiveness verse other characters. What you mainly want to do is constantly keep moving, never stop. As soon as you do cast a spell, teleport. Taken from the website: http://postabout.com/index.php?showtopic=249584 (I do not advise the build this person has advised, it is terrible, but the strategy section is fairly good and for that reason it is being used as a reference).
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The zig-zag tele: A zig-zag tele is something I do all the time when I approach a character that needs to aim. This applies to all teleing characters as well – not just fire druids. A perfect example would be a spear nec or a fireball sorc. If you tele towards them in random zigzags they usually freak out and don’t land a hit on you.
The semi-circle tele: This is basically teleing out too far and making basically half a circle. I use this on some ranged chars. It’s another form of teleing towards a char that isn’t teleing around very quickly. Many times with this technique you catch chars off guard. It makes an almost defensive offensive attack.
Tactics and Techniques:
Unlike most cookie-cutter PvP builds who only have a few different types of attacks, a Shaman has numerous attacks and I haven’t even mastered all of them yet :o copied with permission from Clan_Iraq’s guide: http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=38040648&f=87, he has proposed many different types of attacks that I cannot dispute with.
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Volcano + Grizzly.
This is the bread and butter of a shaman, your primary dueling tactic, which is responsible for crushing every caster from here to kalamazoo. Calling into the earth with his crossdressing mojo, a great torrent of hot steamy love shoots directly into the anus of your opponent, quickly followed by a man-bear-pig running a train on his face. Volcano + Grizzly is the first thing you must master as a shaman. The combo is extremely simple: Namelock a volcano, cast it, and immediately switch to teleport. Since volcano naturally chainlocks your opponents, due to its cast delay, simply switching to teleport will cast it, namelocked, on your opponent. This is extremely simple on paper, though aiming the volcano is tough to learn. The effects should be obvious: The first eruption of your volcano will often either FHR or FBR lock your opponent momentarily, and thus open up an easy shot for a namelocked teleport, which lands your grizzly a free swipe. Even against a character that recovers and teleports away, a volcano + grizzly combo can hit an easy 3-4 volcanos & 1x grizzly, which adds up as 15000+ damage, delivered straight into your opponents quivering butthole. The difficult part, as I said, is aiming the volcano. You get a single shot, a single click, and then you're on cast delay. Therefore you MUST learn to namelock with a single click, a tough learning curve. Executed properly, this combo requires only two buttons: Once right click to volcano, one hotkey to change to teleport, thats it. This 1-2 punch will dominate teleporting casters; use it against bone necros to break down their defenses, against sorcs to clobber them, against zons to blocklock and 1-hit-ko them, against fohers to get in their face, etc. Bear in mind that with your bear in mind, its risky to teleport directly onto some builds as they tank. Your grizzly / heart provide you only minor minion stacking, so teleporting onto a hammerdin can be deadly. But this is when it all comes down to dueling experience & judgement. Trying to do a volcano/bear combo on a wind druid out of the blue is purely suicide. But if you widdled him with fissures, so that hes got no minions and needs to restack his armor, and you namelock a volcano/bear combo as he teleports away, it can be the duel, right there and then. A fire sorc shoots balls. A blizz sorc lays blizzs. A bvc telewhirls. And a shaman, he Volcano + Grizzly's. This is your bread and butter, your namesake move. Learn it well.
Grizzly + Volcano.
A simple inversion on the above. Against most characters it is beneficial to use the chainlock/interruption of volcano followed by grizzly, but in some circumstances you can win more by using grizzly first, then volcano. The protocol is simple: Teleport on top of them, and then immediately volcano at their feet. This requires a bit more aiming and timing, but it can be more effective in some cases: High FCR ES sorcs in particular, or bone necros- your bear drains their defenses more easily and can knockback/stun them momentarily when your volcano would simply bounce off them. Hence, against an ES sorc, it is often better to hit them with a bear, draining their ES, and then drop the volcano on them. This can often score 2 hits with the bear, meaning ES drains away. In particular against the mana potting sorcs, or ones using hacked 70/15 items, etc. Often times, a volcano/grizzly combo against them leads to them teleporting off your volcano, whereas with the grizzly leading, their energy/bone shield breaks, letting the volcano molest them to death.
Fissure Spam:
Congratulations! If I need to explain this one, you're below the average tal's blizz sorc. Simply lay down a bunch of fissures pretty much at random. This technique is a proven way to harass and psyche out fast teleporting/charging characters. For example, against a 200% fcr fire sorc who is buzzing all around, she'll teleport herself into fissures. Once she realizes you are spamming, she'll slow down and aim more. And this gives you the opening to drop the volcano/bear combo. Use random fissures to both haze flightly evasive characters, and to supply suppression cover against teams; If you are being 5v1'd by people chasing you around blood moor, teleporting like a maniac with fissures will thin the pack.
Fissure Matador:
Drop a fissure at your own feet. Teleport away. Watch opponent teleport into it and cry. Pretty simple. Variations on this form your #1 attack against most paladins; they just *love* to either telestomp (hammerdonks) or charge at you (smiters). Dragging their sorry asses through fissures leads to them stopping to play offensively, again, leaving you open to start your offense with volcano/grizzly/etc.
Fissure Psychic:
One of my favorite moves against wind druids. Simply cast a fissure at the edge of your screen, then teleport into it. Just like the matador, as people follow, they get burned. But this is a hell of a lot less obvious. You are leading them into your fissures, not expecting them to bumble in there. So simply place a fissure and teleport directly into the middle of it, and then out again.
Invisible Fissures:
Fissures when cast with your opponent off the minimap will be invisible, making for beastly traps. And yes, obviously, they disappear when you enter town, but can still damage. In long teleport races, take advantage of this to get your opponents to teleport into what should have been obvious stacks of fissures
Volcano Matador:
Volcano was always a neat spell because of its huge versatility; fire yet physical, stationary yet namelockable, single target yet aoe. Take advantage of the AOE spread to use volcano just like you would fissure, against charging paladins. Volcano is much less effective in an aoe than fissure, but it has a key trick: It cannot be absorbed as easily. If you are up against a 95% fire resist charger, you can widdle them down faster with volcano tricks than with fissure. Try to lure them through the bulk of it, else, the huge aoe spam often lands a hit or two. Because of its high physical damage, its not easy to absorb since the fire aspect alone. As they get more wary of your volcano psychology, it opens room for bearstrikes.
Volcanolock:
Its very easy to see how Volcano chainlocks you for teleport, but in some duels its just as nice to save it for just another namelocked volcano. If an opponent teleports away from you with 10% HP, you can often kill them just by holding down Volcano until the timer is up and letting loose another one from 3 screens away. Volcano will spawn regardless of range, as long as you maintain the namelock.
The Telefrag (Bearstrike):
This is your secondary attack, behind the volcbear combo. This is often where the meat of a druid's hot and melty damage comes from. While fire skills are great for controlling the flow of the duel, this is your finisher and your destroyer. Learning to properly aim a bearstrike is the *other* difficult thing for a shaman. The mechanics are simple: Namelock and teleport. Bam, grizzly hits them. The real trick is to learn timing and psychology. You must know WHEN it is safe to bearstrike them, and when it would land you a 1-way-ticket to the rogue encampment with one less ear. Bearstrikes become your most valueable asset against characters that they would seem impractical against: Trappers, bvc's, hybridsins, smiters, etc. If all you did all day long was try to hump them with your grizzly, they'd turn around and destroy you. Instead, you must use your fire skills to create openings for a quick in-and-out bear facemelter. For example:
Throw a fissure under a trapper, and as he teleports away, catch him with namelock, then tele out. Even though if he was tanking he could have pummeled you with mindblast/traps, this quick "spite check" just smacked him down a bunch of HP. You knew he would teleport away to escape the fire under his bum. Another example:
WWSin/barb takes a long whirl past you, and the instant it ends, you land on top of her, and then off again. Even though whirlwinders could destroy you if you were pure summon by just whirling in circles, well, when they sense the damage they take from fissure, they'll play more cautiously. And learning to anticipate their whirlwind patterns provides you to opportunity to sink an attack straight through them. As a smiter stops charger to run for a second to try to namelock you, you pass right by his head and leave him down 1/3 his hp. Bam. Learn to control your teleports- a smiter that has 30k defense and 75% block is nigh untouchable while walking/charging, but if your fissures convince him to run out of the way, he has 0 defense and 25% blocking. Easy bear-loving delivered via US postal, right there.
Shake the Namelock:
If your opponent namelocks you, you should be able to sense it. If they are charging straight at you even as you teleport, or dropping foh's on your head, or chainlocking you with throw/unsummon, or shooting bone spears way too uncomfortably straight at you, shake it! Once an opponent has you namelocked, it is incredibly unsafe to get close enough to him to drop the volcano+bear combo, or to haze fissures. Don't risk it. If your opponent namelocks, teleport away until they are off your minimap and immediately return. Thats it. Don't l8z, don't run for it, don't book it to cold plains. Just take 2 teleports to the south and 2 to the north and bam, you're back and he's lost his lock.
Grizzly Playtime:
Against melee characters who cannot teleport and cannot charge, or that is to say, against shapeshifted characters, that don't use rabies, this is a great trick for destroying them quickly. As if fissure didn't already bash their faces in. But especially against absorbers, this trick can win you the duel: Simply teleport a short distance away from them, and then walk in the opposite direction. As they namelock you and try to chase you, your grizzly will hit them as they walk right past it, and they won't hit you. Since they are running, they take a huge smack to the face. Then just teleport away, wince, rather, lepeat. Against an absorbing fury druid, this is a really neat tactic. Short hops with your grizzly standing still as you walk away leads to easy bear strikes. This is really the only time your grizzly hits anyone that isn't a telestomp.
Grizzly Techchase:
Against high ES sorcs, recasting windies, and other characters who simply want to get AWAY from your big bad grizzly, one hit is often not enough. To penetrate that energy shield, what you need to do is badger them nonstop with a grizzly. After landing your volc/bear combo, teleport after them again and again. Namelock teleport every time they move, follow them at their heels. Your grizzly will land hit after hit as their energy shield breaks, bringing them down. This is really the only way to beat those 5000+ mana ES sorcs using hacked items, etc.
Walking South:
When a hammerdin namelock teleports on you, walk south.
Bowling for Hammerdonks:
Despite the name, this also applies to wind druids. The concept is simple- this is your only chance to use a boulder in a duel, and its fuckin hilarious. Throw a molten boulder, teleport into its path, and then walk alongside it. Any hammerdonk/windy dumb enough to namelock teleport you will have to suck your chocolate lava balls. If it proves fatal, make sure to say "STRIKE!" in chat. The idea is, that fissures mainly persecute the hammerdins, but if they get absorbed slightly, then your hammerchucking foe can make meat for boulders. Boulders provide a disturbingly huge punch when they land, and since hammerdins will inevitably attempt to namelock teleport on you, this makes them easy prey. For best effects, cast your boulder due south, and run south along it. This way you'll run straight out of the path of hammers, yet the pallydonk will be pushed along like the aztecs taking revenge on indiana jones.
Townguarding:
When push comes to shove and the going gets tough and the BM gloves come off, a Shaman can hold his own. You know those glorious fissure druids that sit at town? You can be one of those. You know those summoning druids who fail hard? You can be one of those too. Both at the same time, fissureguard AND grizzlyguard. But this is such a glorious waste of time, rather.
General Batshittery:
Necro got you by the balls at low hp? Sorc pummeling you? Hammerdin wants to charge in for the kill? I think its time you go batshit insane. Make sure your geddon is up. Drop a fissure nearby, then drop a volcano near it, then teleport, left, right, left, right, up, down, left, right in all directions, all in a small area, like a maniac. Geddons will drop everywhere, volcano fireballs spamming across the screen, fissures popping out of the groudn. I am yet to meet someone who isn't thrown immediately off their attack by such a visual rape of their eyeballs. When someone sees all that shit flying across the screen, they will take a moment off their stompchase. And that can buy you a precious few seconds to gather your marbles and go back on the offensive. It might seem silly, but this tactic actually works. Look at the video I refer to later on in this, and watch the beginning part 30 seconds in as that guy duels a necro. Exact same tactic as I use, right there.
The BOULDERPK:
You're in a baal run, you're on a level 60 sorc with not much hp, no stats spent yet. Theres some kinda fire druid shooping around in the background. BAM. HE HOSTILED YOU. BAM, YOU DIED! BOULDERPK is just about the only manual TPPK that can be done in d2; you can tppk people without needing hacks. Simply roll a boulder, go to town, hostile. Boulders are so slow you can do this with your pudgy fingers alone. Just be warned that its hardly effective against competent characters. Great for picking off lowbies.
Advanced Mechanics of the Build:
Similar to how a Bonemancer uses Teeth, Bone Spear, and Bone Spirit to kill his enemies, you will also be using many different attacks. Taken from Clan_Iraq’s Shaman guide (http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=38040648&f=87), here are some specs about the attacks you may or may not know:
Quote
Faster hit recovery:
In the D2 engine, FHR is *not* a 1/12 magic number like some people say. For all the spells a shaman uses, it is the exact same formula, using the divisor 16:
If the attack deals more than 1/16 of the targets max HP, they have a 37.5% chance to go into fhr
If the attack deals more than 1/8 of the targets max HP, they have a 75% chance to go into fhr
If the attack deals more than 1/4 of the targets max HP, they have a 100% chance to go into fhr
Against a 5000 hp target, the cutoffs would look like this:
313 damage = 37.5%
625 damage = 75%
1250 damage = 100%
Hence, any attacks which deal less than 1/16 of your targets max HP will not put them into FHR. These numbers are figured after damage reductions, including resistances & pvp penalties. So an 8500 damage grizzly will deal 708 damage after reductions; he'll have a 75% chance to put a 5000 hp, 50% dr pally into fhr.[/SIZE]
Fissure:
Fissure works almost exactly like Blizzard. The code may very well have been a copy/paste job. It simply spawns a series of small vents that act as collision boxes, which, when overlapped by a hostile monster, deal damage to it. These vents are all spawned with relative randomness inside an aoe surrounding where you cast the spell. Each vent can only strike a target once per overlap, but the function controlling this is screwed up by overlapping multiple vents at the same time; hence overlapping multiple vents will hit you as fast as the nextdelay allows. Thus, it is safer for your opponent to stand still in a fissure than to run around in it.
Fissure opens 13 vents over its 3.2 second duration, one every 6 frames. The vents are much larger than the displayed ones in-game, which, as far as anyone knows, don't actually have any correlation; its better to assume that if you are in a fissure, you're going to get hit. Compared to blizzard, fissure spawns more 'vents', spawns them faster, with larger hit boxes, in a larger aoe. As a result, fissure is noticeably easier to hit with, and will utterly punish opponents who move through it. Whirlwind in particular often scores a quick death through fissure.
The nextdelay on fissure is 5 frames. That means it strikes at most 5 times per second.
Fissure has a casting delay of 2 seconds.
Volcano:
Volcano is a nasty complicated mess of a spell. Volcano spawns the cone directly where you aim it and immediately begins to spawn fireballs, one every 2 frames, which will hit anything on top of the volcano as it is spawned once, and again will land randomly in an aoe and hit again. The effect, which would be ridiculous, is hampered by nextdelay: Being struck the initial cone forming (frame 0) will deal volcanos normal damage and then give the target a 10 frame next delay. After this initial strike, further fireballs from volcano will only have 5 frame next delay. However, since volcano only shoots on even frames, the end result damages like this:
frame 0: spell cast
frame 2: damage
frame 12: damage
frame 18: damage
frame 24: damage
frame 30: damage
This initial 'long' hit on volcano gives enemies a solid chance to teleport off of it, since they have twice the alloted time to escape. If for whatever reason they did not manage to teleport away by frame 12, they will be struck every 6 frames, which will annihilate them if they are in the FHR range. Furthermore, volcano can be blocked. This has both positive and negative ramifications, as stated before. While it means volcano will deal less damage against high block opponents, it will also throw them into block lock; the blocking animation will interrupt casting of spells, rendering your opponent easy prey. However, while it could be potentially devastating, blocklock has low effects beyond the first few hits; as of 1.10, blocking will activate a 10 frame timer after you finish the animation which states that you will not be put into blocking animation until its up. So for 10 frames after blocking, your opponent can block without animations (he'll still block attacks, they just won't paralyze him). So against a necro with 7 frame block, he can only block at a maximum of once every 17 frames. This 10 frame "free escape" will give that necro the ability to teleport out easily after a half a second trapped in your volcano, if he has 75%+ fcr. Opponents with less than 10 frame FCR tend to get stuck; amazons will be utterly locked in a volcano thanks to dodge/evade/avoid being so slow, and enemy druids fall just short of 10 frames using a 99% fcr build. This also tends to hold true of assassins, especially c/c, which get trapped in extremely slow blocking animations if they are not whirlwinding. High block sorceresses, on the other hand, can easily escape. The catch, is, of course, that volcano can throw you into both FBR & FHR. An attack that is blocked will use the blocking animation, and attack that is not will use the FHR animation. This will only occur if the enemies max hp, dr, resists, etc are below a certain threshold. For a 1150 physical, 1350 fire volcano, against an 8% dr 75% resistance caster opponent (enigma gives 8% dr), volcano deals 232 damage; if they have more than 3700 hp, they will not get thrown into FHR. As a result, a good chunk of 'less than perfect' characters get ruined by volcano, whereas tank characters can teleport right out. Vita sorcs and es sorcs once their es breaks will almost always get thrown into fhr, bone necros with their armor down, etc.
One last note on volcano; Volcano will not spawn next to obstactles; it has a collision size. If you namelock it on someone, but they were next to a puddle or tree or rock or wall or something, sometimes volcano simply will not spawn. You won't be docked the cast delay / mana, but you won't get the volcano, either. Its important to try not to let your opponent camp in puddles and such. Use fissures if they try to take advantage of this. Its a rare occurance, but it can be gamebreaking if you lose a volcano like this.
Armageddon: Theres really not much to say here, besides the non-obvious: Multiple castings of armageddon do *not* stack, they simply refresh the duration. Armageddon's meteors deal a large amount of fire damage, which is displayed, but also a small amount of physical damage. The duration effect is almost always negligible. Geddon will follow you perfectly even though you cannot see it when you teleport; the meteors are falling at your previous location. Hence, geddon is just as useful while teleporting (or more) than when walking, even though you cannot see it. This "I can't see my geddon" has given rise to the idiotic notion of fire druids being supposed to walk. Its just misinformation. Armageddon's level can be 'prebuffed', and its duration can be fairly short. You'll want to cast it while BO'ing, but be careful, as geddons terribly long casting delay can leave you rather dead if its used in the heat of a battle. Often, shamans will let their geddon run out during a duel, and only recast it if it devolves into teleport chasing. If a duel lasts 50 seconds, its a bad sign anyway.
Molten Boulder: Boulder is a silly little spell. As I've said before, you use it very rarely. But when you do, its best to know the mechanics: Boulder can be blocked, and it carries a knockback effect. Anyone who is struck by the attack will take both the listed physical & fire damage, and knockbacked (and then struck immediately again, and again, and again). Since knockbacking always triggers FHR, this can be deadly; people with low frames and small enough brains to get hit in the first place can get trapped by a self-chaining boulder blast. However, if someone blocks boulder, it will pass right through them and not knockback, thus making it ineffective against 75% block characters. However, the end explosion, when the boulder blows up, cannot be blocked and deals full damage, in a much larger aoe than the boulder itself, making it a hell of a finisher.
Firestorm: You will never use firestorm under any circumstances, so its really unnecessary to go into detail about it. But anyway, I will. Firestorm creates 3 'snakes', which are fire collisions being repeatedly spawned. Anyone who overlaps a fire trail takes a specific damage, which is completely removed from the listed damage. Each 'cell' of the firestorm deals its own damage, and hence the more you overlap a single trail, the more damage you take. Yet at the same time, overlapping *multiple trails* will deal that much more damage. Overall, in the absolute best case scenario, with all 3 trails overlapping a player and hitting him a total of 9 times per frame (the maximum), he'll take approximately twice the listed damage on the skill per second. Which is, of course, still piddly crap; a 7000 dps firestorm might deal 14000 dps for a single second, at melee range, when a 5000 damage fissure can deal up to 25000 damage in a second, without requiring you to get into melee range. Hence, firestorm blows. Its moderately useful for pvm against large collision size bosses, but you'll want boulder on your left click.
Grizzly: There are a lot of summoning nuances I could go into detail about, like how HOW/OAK interact, but these are best given by googling the "Druid Pet Calculator". The short story is that Grizzly will choose the nearest target with its AI, and move to it. If you teleport on top of this, it will hit him immediately. If it was going after someone else, it will either move off for a second or take a moment to rechoose its target. Hence, dueling in an area filled with fallen can mess with your grizzly's brains and make him not hit. However, once the area is cleared, the grizzly will make a beeline for your opponent. It often takes a short hop around your opponent for the AI to *sink*. However, if your grizzly starts a swing at your opponent, and you teleport on top of him (moving the grizzly while he's swining), the swing will still connect! The game only checks if the target is in range at the end of the animation. Likewise, if your target teleports away before the blow lands, it will not strike. However, I have seen occasions where a grizzly *misses* its attack due to being out of range, but it will still activate secondary "on attack" effects, like it will drain an ES sorcs mana, break a necro's bone armor, get chilled from frost armor, all without dealing damage. This can be played to your advantage, since stomping on these flighty characters can break their defenses unfairly.
Your grizzly will have 85% resists in hell, which are not stacked (-%resists will have the expected effect). He'll attack at either 12 or 17 frames, but this is enormously faster than it seems, since it is handled serverside, as I mentioned above. He has a 10 frame FHR, and typically around 8000ish attack rating, meaning he has no problems at all hitting casters.