Best D2R Ladder 2.5 Summon Druid Build Guide - Pros & Cons, Gears, Tips of Diablo 2 Ladder 2 Endgame Build Summon Druid

Best D2R Ladder 2.5 Summon Druid Build Guide - Pros & Cons, Gears, Tips of Diablo 2 Ladder 2 Endgame Build Summon Druid

12/20/2022 5:16:15 PM

In today’s guide, we are going to break down one of the most confused builds ever in Diablo 2 and that is the Summoning Druid build. We discuss the pros, cons, summon druid gear, mercenary gear, testing of the build and the test result.

Best D2R Ladder Season 2 Patch 2.5 Endgame Summon Druid Build Guide

It is true that the summoning druid build is actually viable compared to what it was prior to some of the updates in D2R, but it is just such a confused build because we've never seen something require such high-end expensive gear and have relatively horrendous clear speed compared to other meta builds, but at the same time having so much potential damage with all your summons added up, it's just a very interesting conundrum. The summoning druid build does excel in two areas PvP type of gameplay that we don't actually dabble in too much but also targeting champions and boss facts. In terms of actual general clear speed like clear and chaos sanctuary, the build is actually horrible, so Dbrunski125 did a detailed breakdown, testing a very high-end variant of the summing druid followed by a budget variant and then again comparing to other common meta builds and then wrap up the guide by talking about some potential tweaks that would maybe improve the summoning druid.

Pros of Summon Druid Build D2R 2.5

It does have a couple distinct advantages and the first major one can compared to the Summon Necro is that you don't require corpses to summon your pets. This is an advantage if you're cycling games, you're not stuck going to elders and shank or Nihlathak’s Temple to get your summons like you would with the summon Druid. it's definitely a nice quality of life feature.
The second major pro is that the build is relatively safe to play for players that are on a budget, you might not have enigma, you don't have very good gear, you just hang back behind your summons, make sure you have mana to cast your summons and then re-summon them as they die.
The last major pro is that with very high end gear, it's an effective single target telestomping build, that's why it excels so much in PvP, as well as niche magic finding scenarios like if you're farming the pits and you want to just tele stomp from monster to monster, it's actually really good in those two specific applications.

Cons of Summon Druid Build Ladder 2 Endgame

As far as the cons go for the Summon Druid, full clear speed, if we're doing a full cow clear or full chaos clear, is exceptionally poor, even with the best possible gear, it's not even close to some of the meta builds, we don't necessarily expect a Summon Druid to be a Javazon, but the lack of AOE is just so apparent with this build.
The second major con is that the build is boring to play. The build is exceptionally boring compared to laying something like the Fire Druid.

Best Summon Druid Gear

- Beast

- Keeper’s Coronet of the Magus

- Ravenlore

Ravenlore

Defense: 343-390 (varies)(Base Defense: 103-155)
Required Level: 74
Required Strength: 113
Durability: 20
(Druid Only)
+120-150% Enhanced Defense (varies)
+7 To Raven (Druid Only)
+3 To Elemental Skills (Druid Only)
+20-30 To Energy (varies)
-10-20% To Enemy Fire Resistance (varies)
All Resistances +15-25 (varies)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)

- Fiend Brow

- Keeper’s Amulet of the Apprentice

- Spirit

- Enigma

- Arachnid Mesh

Arachnid Mesh

Defense: 119-138 (varies)(Base Defense: 55-62)
Required Level: 80
Required Strength: 50
Durability: 12
16 Boxes
+90-120% Enhanced Defense (varies)
Slows Target By 10%
+1 To All Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Increases Maximum Mana 5%
Level 3 Venom (11 Charges)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)

- Bul-Katho’s Wedding Band

Bul-Kathos' Sacred Charge

One Handed Damage: 75 To 195 (135 Avg)
Two Handed Damage: 174 To 345 (259.5 Avg)
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 189
Required Dexterity: 110
Durability: 50
Base Weapon Speed: [5]
+200% Enhanced Damage
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
All Resistances +20
+20% Increased Attack Speed
Knockback

- Magefist

- Sandstorm Trek

Sandstorm Trek

Defense: 158-178 (varies)(Base Defense 56-65)
Required Level: 64
Required Strength: 91
Durability: 14
Assassin Kick Damage: 60-110
+140-170% Enhanced Defense (varies)
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+ (1 Per Character Level) +1-99 Maximum Stamina (Based On Character Level)
+10-15 To Strength (varies)
+10-15 To Vitality (varies)
50% Slower Stamina Drain
Poison Resist +40-70% (varies)
Repairs 1 Durability In 20 Seconds
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)

- Call to Arms

Call To Arms*

+1 To All Skills
+40% Increased Attack Speed
+250-290% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds 5-30 Fire Damage
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
+2-6 To Battle Command (varies)*
+1-6 To Battle Orders (varies)*
+1-4 To Battle Cry (varies)*
Prevent Monster Heal
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

- Hellfire Torch

Hellfire Torch(Sorceress)

Required Level: 75
5% Chance To Cast level 10 Firestorm* On Striking
3 to Random Character Class Skills (varies)
10-20 To All Attributes (varies)
Sale [15-17 To All Attributes (varies)]
All Resistances 10-20 (varies)
Sale [All Resistances 15-17 (varies)]
8 To Light Radius
Level 30 Hydra (10 charges)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.13 or later)

- Annihilus

Mercenary Gear for Summon Druid 2.5

- The Reaper’s Toll

- Fortitude

- Andariel’s Visage

Testing Of Summon Druid Build

Let’s jump to some testing where we are going to be doing players one chaos sanctuary with the best possible gear and then a budget oriented version and then we're going to compare the clear speed times, and then we will follow that up with a tele stomping hit example run as well. Click here to find more details.

Results of the Testing

We don't think damage is the issue because if you add up the mercenary, the ravens, all of your wolves and your bear, the sheer damage from a single tele stomp is absolutely insane, it's probably why the build excels so much in PvP. But it largely suffers from an area of effect source of damage, so maybe you could address this by possibly adding corpse explosion effect to the direwolves consuming corpses. We don't think that adding more damage is the solution to the Summon Druid, but it's definitely a subpar build, is it possible to please the pvm and pvp communities at the same time, that's very difficult to do. But the Summon Druid needs something a little bit extra, the clear speed on players one difficulty was exceptionally poor with some of the very best possible gear, especially when you compare it to lower end variants that don't have insane plus killers and just everything else. The build is definitely viable now.

Here are some problems with Summon Druid (shared from the comments):

1. Summons tree needs so many skill points that makes it basically impossible to invest in the elemental skills for some aoe damage and fun stuff to do while summons do their thing.
2. Enigma. And this is a problem created by the devs themselves, they should have never added a runeword that gives teleport and so many good stats. It just killed almost every other armor option for all classes/builds that aren't sorcs, because everytime you think "I could use this one other armor" you just know you're gimping yourself by not using enigma to tele stomp.
3. Bear is overkill damage. Of all the damage the summons do, the Bear is the one that straight up murders mobs. The direwolves are okay, and the spirit wolves take forever (although the cold damage is very nice). But that leads to a large part of your effective DPS killing one thing and then wandering around being distracted. VS the necro all the skele warriors are providing even dps on everything. And you don't have any way to support them outside of gear. No equivalent to 1 point wonder curse skills to play of.