Diablo II: Fury Druid Skill Layout

A Fury Druid is a fairly basic character. This is a druid in werewolf form that uses Fury as his main attack, with a few secondary skills for crowd control and so forth. The big debate about this type of build is what type of spirit to have, Oak Sage or Heart of the Wolverine. I went with Wolverine as in Hell all monsters have 50% physical resistance so the more damage I deal the better. Along with that due to being in werewolf form the character should have plenty of life to begin with so more isn't going to provide much of a bonus, while more damage is definitely a major plus. Since he deals purely physical damage he does need some sort of backup plan for the physical immunes that are encountered in Hell, most specifically the Ghost-type monsters. The skill setup is as follows:

Werewolf - 1
Lycantropy - 3
Oak Sage - 1

At level six a few good skills are available. Obviously the main skill Werewolf is present to increase attack speed and attack rating. However here Lycantropy is the skill being pumped for two reasons: extra life and duration. Following that theme a one point Oak Sage spirit will be used from here onward until Wolverine becomes necessary. Early on the extra life will be what keeps this character alive in dire circumstances and is a hallmark of the build in general.

Raven - 1
Spirit Wolf - 1
Lycantropy - 7
Feral Rage - 1

At level twelve the duration of Werewolf is decent and the life increase very noticeable. However a big change at this point is the availability of minions. The Spirit wolves provide tanks to spread out monster packs so they are not all concentrating on the character while the ravens will help keep the packs disorganized and ranged attackers blinded. Ravens will be useful all the way to the end of Hell.

Lycantropy - 10
Rabies - 1
Heart of the Wolverine - 1
Dire Wolf - 1

At level eighteen dire wolves replace spirit wolves as the minion of choice for tanking purposes. Their increased live along with helpful corpse disposal make them much more viable. While Heart of the Wolverine has become available, the small amount of increased damage it provides doesn't warrant switched from the Oak Sage for the time being.

Lycantropy - 20

At level twenty-seven Lycantropy is maxed and the duration of Werewolf is quite substantial so that it won't be running out in the middle of a long protracted battle anymore. Just remember to recast it from time to time after a fight. At this point the character should have a large life pool and near death experiences (NDE) should be few and far between.

Werewolf - 2
Grizzly - 1
Fury - 1

At level thirty our main offensive skill is available, Fury. The mana cost is relatively low so that this can be used right away, just keep a column of mana pots in the belt in case a mana burn monster is encountered (Ghosts). Also at this time an excellent tank becomes available, Grizzly. The grizzly has much more life than all three dire wolves put together and for much of the game will be the main minion companion, at least until we get a chance to put more points into Dire wolf to boost their life.

Fury - 20
Werewolf - 4

At level forty-nine Fury is completed and our character should be dealing quite a bit of damage rapidly. The Attack rating will be quite his so that no points need to be placed in Dexterity at all, except to wear equipment. A few charms or equipment pieces that provide straight AR is all that is required to allow a decent chance to hit once Hell is reached.

Werewolf - 10
Heart of the Wolverine - 10

At level sixty-two we get a chance to boost Heart of the Wolverine and it may now replace Oak Sage as the spirit of choice. This boots our AR that much more, as well as the damage dealt by the entire party. The mercenary will very much enjoy this boost, so make sure to equip him/her with life leech and she/he won't die very often at all.

Werewolf - 20
Heart of the Wolverine - 15

At level seventy-four Werewolf is not maximized and the character has become as fast as possible with his Fury cycles. Along with this extra damage is added by the Wolverine spirit and the character is just about ready for Hell.

Dire Wolf - 10
Heart of the Wolverine - rest

The next group of skill points goes into Dire Wolf to increase their life, which is done at level eighty. This allows the character to quest in hell with three dire wolves instead of a single grizzly to better spread out the monster packs. They still don't equal the grizzly in durability, so constant recasting is necessary. As a result the character will need to manage his minions on a regular basis as the spirit has low life, the ravens don't have too many hits available before they disappear and the dire wolves die to hard hitting monsters. Still, the main focus of the character will be melee fighting with minion management a secondary concern.

Final Skill Distribution:

Werewolf - 20
Lycanthropy - 20
Fury - 20
Heart of the Wolverine - 15
Dire Wolf - 10
Grizzly - 1