Shockwave Bear Druid Guide

A guide for a Werebear using Shock Wave. Think of it as a sturdy, but slow moving furry sorc casting multi shot.

Shock wave has about the range and spread of multi shot clearing a quater of the screen per cast. High defense, high life, stuns and a castable on demand blocker (Summon Grizzly) means he barely takes any damage. On the downside he has limited scaling options, can not use any form of teleport and thus has to drag his hairy ass everywhere

This is a mapping and LoD content build. The dps to comfortabel do any ubers is to low. The great aoe of shock wave is meant to clear trash.

pros:

• a great and save mapper with lots of defense and sustain
• The defense scaling of werebear is great against trash mobs, but not so much against bosses
• very good sustain via Oak Sage and Carrion Vine
• high min damage of shock wave means consistent damage
• very forgiving gearing, just throw any combination of the listed items at him and he will work

cons:

• although min damage is is high, he has limited damage scaling
• has to walk everywhere and teleports do not work in bear from

Check out the build

Heres a Youtube link from someone else if you want to see shock wave in action Druid ShockWave Showcase S10 by Kirine

Mechanics

Shockwave is a spell dealing physical damage and - same as any other spell - its damage is scaled by:

• +skills
• fast cast rate (fcr)
• +x% damage of its damage type and -x% to enemy resistances.
  • There are no sources of +x% physical damage in the game and limited sources of -x% to enemy physical resistances

Physical damage builds dont have facets, but comparably easy acces to resistance penetration (via Amplified damge and Battle Cry), which means they are easy and cheap to build.

notably its damage is NOT scaled by:

• enhanced damage on items (e.g. Fortitude (Chest))
• weapon damage

Werebear as a caster benefits from:

• defense
• flat life / flat vit via Lycanthropy

Note that the increased damage of werebear is wasted on shock wave (it is enhanced damage). Additionally the shock wave projectiles can not shot gun.

We can draw a handful of conclusions from his Breakpoints:

• Faster Cast Rate (FCR) going up one frame is about 10% more DPS, which is about the same as +2 skill points. So when in doubt take +1skills over fcr, but aiming for 11 Frames per Animation (fpa) is reasonable. Notable breakpoints: 40/63/99/163
• Faster Block Rate (FBR) Breakpoints in werebear form got buffed compared to vanilla, but are still among the worst in the game. Thus i recommend to do what melee druids do and use a 2-hand cast weapon, a stave.

Skills

20 pts in main skill, prerequisits and synergies:

• Shock wave
• Werebear
• Twister (unfortunately useless otherwise)

1-20 pts in utility skills:

• Summon Grizzly gets a second grizzly at 20 hard points
• Oak Sage and Carrion Vine are synergies to one another. they give max life and sustain
• Lycanthropy for more life
• (maybe) Hunger for move speed, but is a pain to keep up
• (maybe) Hurricane to freeze nearby enemies, but is a pain to keep up and feels useless with the shock wave stuns

Base of the build is done at around lvl 75. Everything else is bonus

Attributes

• strength to wear gear might be above 200, but can also be very low with caster gear
• dex enough for stave of choice or max block, if you really want to
• vitality rest
• if you feel like doing something unconventionell/ineffectiv you can use Rain and put points here to boost the Cyclone Armor proc

Gear

This is a bread and butter caster: aim for 100fcr, as many +skills as possible, max resist and a source of can not be frozen (cnbf). When in doubt get a rare item with as many of these as possible and you are fine.

Notable uniques and sets are ...

Weapons

• Ondal's Wisdom: 4 all skills and huge 105fcr. flat defense for werebear and inner sight procs to not get hit. Best synergy with the build. 105fcr brings him to the second highest break point and it is viable to not have fcr on any other pice of gear. Can go for 9fpa (163fcr) with 60fcr on rest of gear

• Brimstone Rain +4all skills and 75fcr. The "-10% to Enemy Physical Resistance" is a huge damage increase. Top choice for damage

• Mang Song's Lesson +6all skills and 85fcr. Lower resist and resist reduction are wasted stats. Works, but is better with an elemental spell

• Naj's Puzzler is a very nice budget option with the full set, but the circlet blocks the helmet slot, which is for Jalal's Mane

• Staff Runewords in general lack +all skills and/or fcr, also there are no auto mods on staves for druid
  • Maybe something can be build around Wind ?
  • Spirit (Weapon) while leveling
  • Heart of the Oak is better built in a flail and then combined with a low block chance caster shield e.g. Lidless wall and low dex to avoid blocks

While leveling any one hander with skills/fcr and low block rate off-hander works. e.g. a caster weapon Crafting with Splendor

Chest

• Arkaine's Valor and Steel Carapace Both have +2all skills, fhr and high defense. Akaines will have more life, carapace will have more defense

• Que-Hegan's Wisdom, Atma's Wail, Skin of the Vipermagi, Naj's Light Plate and Spirit Shroud all work fine

• Shaftstop for huge life and physical damage reduction (pdr) without any offense

• Chains of Honor +2skills, resists and pdr

• Enigma +2 skills, ok defense for low str, frw, blink is wasted on bear, str, mf, life% and pdr. still very good

• Rain has skills and cyclone armor proc. With Ondal and jalal he will have about 150energy

Helm

• Jalal's Mane only unique druid head that makes sense. skills, stats, fhr, resists and mana after each kill (maek) to sustain mapping. almost mandatory, but is easy to find/trade

Gloves

• Occultist, Trang-Oul's Claws or Magefist when in need of fcr
• M'avina's Icy Clutch has stats and cnbf
• Lava Gout for fire res and half freeze duration (e.g. combined with brilliant crafts)
• Dracul's Grasp for huge laek, but its not needed with carrion vine
• Soul Drainer for "-5% to Enemy Physical Resistance"

This is a good slot for a rare / crafted item, because most uniques/sets only have one useful mod

Belt

• Arachnid Mesh for offense
• Verdungo's Hearty Cord for defense
• Immortal King's Detail fors stats and resits
• Trang-Oul's Girth for life and cnbf

Rare/craft with life, fhr, resists

Boots

• Aldur's Advance, Natalya's Soul, Waterwalk, Sandstorm Trek, Marrowwalk all come with useful stats
• Rite of Passage for ultra budget cnbf with non-existant str req

Good spot for rares / craft

Rings

• The Stone of Jordan, Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band or Wisp Projector for +all skills
• Nature's Peace for max reistances, but monster RIP prevents hunger. imho it is overkill for mapping
• Raven Frost if no other source of cnbf can be found

Amulett

• Mara's Kaleidoscope for skills and resists

A brilliant crafted amu with +2 druid is basically a maras. Caster craft when in need of fcr

Mercenary

Mostly used to reduce physical resistance of enemies. Skills that reduce physical resistance are Amplify Damage (AD) and Battle Cry. AD can be procced by act1, act2 and act5 mercs, via their weapon slot.

The armor slot is based used by Heavenly Garb. It adds Sanctuary (Skill), which reduces undead physical resistance to 0.

Fill the remaining gear slots with cnbf and life leech. Add pdr, life and some resists

Act1

Used for better run speed. Id say this is the choice if you are mostly doing LoD content

Aura: Vigor to make walking less painful

AD proccing weapons: Wrath, Witchwild String

Act2

Defensive option, i see this mostly viable for HC, but i dont play HC myself

Aura: Defiance for even more def (not needed imho) and pdr

AD proccing weapons: The Reaper's Toll

Act5

Best option for offense and my go to

Aura: Might is useless for us, so we take Battle Orders, also has battle cry in his skill set

AD proccing weapons: The Vile Husk, The Gavel of Pain, Lacerator and The Cranium Basher. All are fine, the hammers are slow and thus do not proc as often. I like vile and lacerator, they drop fairly often or are cheap to trade for

Leveling

If you want to level as shock wave go werebear -> shockwave -> werebear -> twister. Use maul until shockwave is avialable.

Id rather just level as a fire caster or summon and respecc around the end of nightmare/beginning of hell at around lvl75

Tips

Put shock wave on right click. Right click on the screen. If you click further, the spread becomes tighter, if you click closer it becomes thinner, but tighter on the edges.

I usually use a medium distance, such that the shock wave projectiles barely touch. This yields best coverage without "wasting" projectiles because of the shot-gun limitation

If you are running LoD content put a point in gust and use najs off-hand to reach your destination

Where to farm

LoD content is easy. Cows, CS aLvl85 zones and corrupted zones work great. Avoid zones with swarms, e.g. far oasis. Baal runs are okish, we have to walk wstlvl2 and 3 and baal takes a little time, hexes are phys immune. Maps T1-T3 are great, just avoid tomb of zultan because of the phys immune scarabs.

Patch Notes/Changelog

Created for season 10.

compared to vanilla:

• damage massively buffed
• range buffed
• missile speed buffed
• stun length capped at .2s

Acknowledgments

ChugThatEstus for coming to the same conclusions, read his guide for similar information in other words [1]