D2R Best 2.5 Shockwave Druid Build - Druid Build Guide In Diablo 2 Resurrected Ladder 2

D2R Best 2.5 Shockwave Druid Build - Druid Build Guide In Diablo 2 Resurrected Ladder 2

11/1/2022 5:13:05 PM

Tag: D2R 2.5 Guide

Today we're going to look at the best build in Diablo 2 Resurrected ladder season 2, that's broken but not in a bad way. Rather in a way that turns a support skill into a more enjoyable active skill and frankly is kind of where it should be balanced even though this is technically a bug and that build is the Shockwave Druid. A build that's been simmering on a few channels since the release of 2. 5 but rarely catches much acknowledgment or traction in the community. In this D2R ladder 2.5 druid build guide, we talk about the build options, skills, weapons, mercenaries, and tips you need.

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D2R 2.5 Best Shockwave Druid Build - Armageddon, Summon, Fire Claws & Hurricane Druid Build In Diablo 2 Resurrected Ladder 2

A fully synergized 46 Shockwave deals close to 6600 damage rather than in the mid-800s that are listed. But for those that want the TLDR, simply put Shockwave has an odd self-amplifying effect where it gives us itself a 15 damage boost for every level after the first. So while it doesn't get out of hand, it does get up to two actively useful levels. You want the mall synergy since it applies before this percent boost and working with higher base damage is always helpful. That said there are a few varieties of this build this is mainly because for Shockwave to be effective, it only requires a little over 40 points and how you develop each build will depend on which of these flavors you decide you want to go for. Now, let's check the best shockwave druid build D2R 2.5.

D2R Ladder 2.5 Shockwave Build Options

Summoning will generally be the easiest and safest of the bunch, but with the others potentially providing more speed at the cost of more face time with the enemies. The four main flavors we are going to be Armageddon-based, hurricane-based, fire claw-based, and summon-based. With Armageddon and fire claw being the most aggressive options. Hurricane is a fairly balanced but short-range option with survival buffs and summoning being easily the safest option of the four. For the sake of this D2R 2.5 shockwave druid guide, we're going to assume you do not want to use your skill resets. So that you can play around with them later or even in future patches when this may or may not be removed.

D2R 2.5 Shockwave Druid Build Skills

Elemental: None

Shape Shifting: 27 Werewolf, 27 Lycanthropy, 27 Werebear, 46 Maul, 46 Shock Wave

Summoning: 19 Oak Sage, 38 Raven, 34 Summon Spirit Wolf, 19 Summon Dire Wolf, 19 Summon Grizzly

For both the Firebase options. You'll actually start out focused on the elemental tree with Molten Boulder being a really good skill to invest in for both of them. As it provides a powerful damaging tool and synergies well into our future skills. Though as you level up you will grab the shape-shifting skills and as you start gaining levels you'll want to start heavily investing in Shockwave and Maul. Since the Shockwave and its Synergy are going to be our main carrying skill through Nightmare and Hell. Our support skills are really only being brought out to speed things along, especially against physical immunes. If you're going fire claw, you'll invest in the claw itself after you finish them all in Shockwave. Once that's done, you'll go back and finish off the Molten Boulder and Firestorm synergies to top it off for maximum fire damage.

Similarly, if you're going Armageddon, you'll spend those later levels maxing that out and then investing in your choice of synergies for it. The best thing you can do is go with Molten Boulder and Firestorm to maximize the fire damage since we already will be doing reasonable physical damage with our shockwave along the way.

For the hurricane setup, it's a bit of a toss-up starting out will just be rough. Since all your skills are at higher levels, so you'll mostly just be smacking stuff in the face until you get to level 24 for Shockwave. Though you could use Maul along the way to smooth it out a little, you'll still be doing the basics just smacking things though. If you want to do more cold damage after finishing the Shockwave investments. you'll of course max out the hurricane and then go into twister and tornado. If you want something with a bit more survivability instead especially if you're doing this solo self-hound, you may instead consider going into Cyclone Armor since this will provide you elemental damage absorb helping buffer you against some of the more dangerous Elemental attacks and it also does extend the length of Hurricane but it does not boost its raw damage.

For your Summoner setup, your low levels are taken care of with Ravens and building up your prerequisites, then pushing through and getting your shock wave set up. After that not just invest in pushing your summons further and further. The best thing you can do is max out Ravens and Bear first and then go back in and invest in the dire wolf if you do have a source of dealing with physical immunes or investing in Spirit Wolf if you do not since they deal cold damage and can actually get up to a reasonable amount of damage there too. Though in the actual gameplay we focused on Dire since we have a source of Amplified damage and Thorns.

D2R 2.5 Shockwave Druid Build Mercenary

For Mercenaries, all of these just want something tanky with pure casters and maybe even the fire claw one depending on your weapon choice. A holy freeze Act 2 mercenary will generally be your first pick with Reaper's Toll being the chase weapon and then just general survival boosters for the rest of his gear.

On the Fire Claw Druid if you have a good weapon an alternative can be an Act 1 mercenary with faith for fanaticism to speed up your attack speed quite a bit since you will be focusing mostly on cast speed for the Shockwave stuff. This will help compensate a bit with the attack speed boost on Maul after the first few hits, squaring it away to get up to decent speed. The main reason for this is we want to actually swing at a reasonable speed even before we get that charge up.

On the Summoner though, we have things easy and Act 2 Thorns mercenary. If you're on a budget since it will help out a ton with bosses. If you're not on a budget, it opens up a few more options though. With Act 1 or Act 5 mercenaries have options that allow for amplified damage while using Bramble Armor to get that very similar effect. We would avoid using Reaper's Toll for this setup though since you want enemies smacking your beasts if you are using that thorns effect.

D2R 2.5 Shockwave Druid Build Gear

Weapon - Heart of the Oak

Helmet - Jalal’s Mane

Amulet - Mara’s Kaleidoscope

Shield - Spirit

Armor - Enigma

Gloves - Magefist

Belt - Arachnid Mesh

Rings - The Stone of Jordan, The Stone of Jordan

Boots - Gore Rider

Gear-wise, a faster cast, and plus skills are going to be king of the hill for all of these build with the exception of maybe the Fire Claw Druid which also needs to juggle their weapon choice a bit which can make it annoying even at higher-end gear. Though thankfully with the addition of plague in 2.4, there is at least a bit of an avenue to pursue there thanks to its attack speed plus skills and lower resistance helping you square away the fire damage support. While not for the faint of heart, it is still a ton of fun. The other three as said have much more similar gear year on a budget this means stuff like getting Dual Spirit as soon as you can, with the sword in early Nightmare and the shield in Hell.

Things like lore plus skills, heck even plus skill, and Druid belts are fairly obvious pickups if you stumble across them. This skill can be provided you getting enough faster casts from random rings and the Dual Spirits safely wander through hell naked with the exception of areas with stuff like glomes that will kind of snipe you from off-screen. Though with Bearer life from plus skills, you'll sometimes even survive those with a basic amount of lightning resistance.

As far as chase gear, they slightly vary between the choices, but for the most part, the cliche setup is what we are using here and it will work with Heart of the Oak and Spirit being your main weapon and shield choice for the obvious faster cast plus skills and resist purposes. Dual Stone of Jordans and a skill amulet for some plus skills are kind of a go-to. Armor-wise, we have Enigma here, not necessarily for teleport. Though it does help if you want to zip through areas to get where you want to go, so why not save some strength points if you are struggling to resist Chains of Honor can be a solid choice.

For helmets, we are using Jalal’ mane for a total of plus 4 to shape-shifting skills. You could argue for certain other helmets with very specific roles in them. But this is just a super consistent pickup worth having at least one period for a number of druid builds. Especially since it gives plus two for the other trees as well and can be socketed to Rainbow facets if you're running any of the elemental varieties. For gloves, if you need cold resistance, you could go triangles, but you’d better go with Magefist for the mana regen and plus fire skills.

For the belt, we're going with the Arachnid Mesh, we get plus skills, faster casts some Mana perks and slow targets are all handy additions for these. While there are more options for fire claw variants, we still found this to be the solid pick for it. Pretty much a guaranteed pick for all of the other Shockwave builds. Finally, the boots, outside of the Fire Claw build don't really matter. The reason why we are using Gore Riders here for pretty much any of the casters, it's up to your discretion. But it's a good place to get magic find but if you don't need that plus life boots like Alders or Water Walks will get a massive boost.

If you're using Called Arms or Oak Sage or both in addition to your bear form since they have a flat plus life boost that does get amplified by these. For the charms, it's all plus shape-shifting skills all the time. For small charms resist and life is King. Don't bother with sunder charm on this Diablo 2 Resurrected ladder season 2 druid build unless you're going for one of the few purely physical options and have amplified damage.

D2R Ladder 2 Druid Build Gameplay Tips

The play style for all of these is to stun and slay enemies with the Shockwave whenever possible. Breaking out the support or in the case of Summoner keeping those summons up in between being Sanctuary's number one stunner. Is this broken or fast like Blizzard or Hammerdin builds? No, but it's definitely an a-tier build in D2R ladder season 2 that handles even hardcore quite well and is worth trying out. Even as a ladder starter character provided you can tolerate the lack of teleport.