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What is the point of the fire-tank druid (or, FTD)? The basic idea, if to be able to not only dish out serious damage, but to be able to take it as well.The fire tank druid can get you easily through all acts in all difficulty levels, be a great mf'er (magic finder), and they even totally rape in PvP. The fire tank druid can take a long time to develope and get the gear for, but once you actually get into the flow of the build, and know how to control it well, you can make it one of your most powerful characters of all.
Mew's Fire-Tank Druid
Chapter One: You and your skills.
The undebatebly most important part of the druid, is what? His skills! Without skills, the FTD is like a puppy without a mother, it just doesn't work. That is why you need to have a great skill base, and knowledge about each skill, so now I'm going to list for you all of the skills you will be investing in, and telling you when and why to get them.
20 Fire Storm: This skill is great early on, you can kill pretty much anything in the first act with just one cast, unfortunately it becomes sort of useless later on, but it will add extremely nice synergie bonuses to your other skills.
20 Molten Bolder: This may seem like a skill you wouldn't use a lot, but you would be totally wrong. This skill is extremely important, because it is the FTD's *ONLY SKILL THAT DOESN'T DO ONLY FIRE DAMAGE!*, don't get me wrong, the FTD is extremely powerful, but when you run into a fire immune monster....Uh oh! That is why this skill is so great. This skill gives two damages, fire damage, and neutral damage. It is displayed as having X amount of fire damage and then X amount of neutral damage. Why is this important? If you run into a monster that is fire immune, and you HAVE to kill it, but your skills don't work...Then you must have a skill to damage them...That being, molten bolder! This skill also gains and adds synergies, which is very useful.
20 Fissure: This is probably going to be not only your most used skill, but your most important as well. Not only is it the skill you will use most when regularly fighting, you will also be using it as a synergie for other skills. This skill can become so powerful, that my level 72 Zealer on battle.net was killed by a fully mapped-out fire druid who was only level 30! That is how powerful this skill can become, it can range from under 100 damage...Into the thousands
20 Volcano: This skill is mostly important because it has huge synergie bonuses, but this skill is more than worth the point for certain situations. This skill shoots up a jet of magma which spews balls of fire all over the screen, the balls of fire, once synergized and maxed, can by themselves take out hordes of enemies, and if you place the valcano under a monster OR human, you can send some serious flames up their.....well...you get the idea...
20 Armagaedon: Ahhhh!!!! Next to fissure, my most loved skill! This skill reins down flaming balls of rock to desolate your enemies, especially humans in PvP! With enough synergie bonuses, you can kill bosses with just this skill alone, not to mention people. This skill too, offers synergies, and will make utter shrimp-meat of anyone or anything that comes too close.
10 Oak Sage: Why the 10 in oak sage? Hey! I'm a fire-tank druid! I hate summons....right? WRONG! This is the one and only summon you WILL get. This summon is very important because JUST AT LEVEL ONE it adds 30% to your max HP!!! That means, if your HP is 300, you will now have an Hp level of 390, thats about 100 HP added! This skill adds no synergies, but is ever so great to use.
Some side notes about your skills: There are about 12 skill points you will recieve throught all difficulies, meaning you actually have roughly 110 skill points to distribute, you will want to put this into oak sage vs. something like cyclone armor because unless it has so me hefty points dumped in, and is synergized, cyclone armor will do almost nothing for you. Also, I suggest you get level one oak sage at around level 15. It helped me out a lot through the early periods, and even into my high levels as well, till I got it to about 5, then 10.
Chapter Two: You and your stats.
Much like the skills of the FTD, the stats are pretty important as well. They seperate the run of the mill muddled fire, ice, and summon druids, from the real hard core flame/life druids like us. Each of the stats is important, (except energy, because its a little poo head >
)Strength, 100: This will give you just enough for gear. It compiled with bonuses from charms weapons, helms, etc. will give you more than enough to wear whatever you might need to.
Dexterity, 150: Some might say this is a bit high, but it will give a good amount of defence, and more importantly, compiled with bonuses, enough for a 75% (max) block!
Vitality, 250: This will give you some pretty mad HP, with this much, you won't have any problems surviving hits from your opponent, or the mobs that surround you.
Energy, Base: With gear, charms, and levels, you will have more than enough mana to effectively cast spells without needing any...Now if your a spammer, its called mana potions
Chapter Three: You and your gear.
Gear...Ah...The least important, but yet....Most important part of the FTD. The gear is very special, and key to the survival of the FTD. The FTD needs a lot of defence, HP, and mana, and you need to base your gear around that.
Head: Jalals has always been my choice when picking a helmet for my druid, but if you can afford something better, don't hold back, go get it. You may also think about a shako, which would add quite a bit to your HP, and +2 to your skills!
Body: Frankely, I would either pick bramble, enigma, or stone. Bramble will give the thorns aura to all of your minions, meaning that when your oak sage is attacked, it at least has SOME way to defend itself. The enigma is going to be the best for dueling because of the teleport, when you teleport, you can just turn the ground under your enemy(s) to lava and cracks with the good ol' fissure skill, and not risk getting hurt. As for the stone, it has great bonuses and very, VERY high defence, making it extremely good for PvM'ing or just doing anything in general.
Waist: Because I'm such a big fan of hunting for items, I always choose gold wrap, but if you favor power more, you might want to go for the arachnid spider web sash, which is arguebly one of the best.
Arms: Earthshifter. There is no better for the FTD. This hammer will add 7 TO ALL OF YOUR ELEMENTAL SKILLS! You could have level 13 fissure...and now have it at 20! It makes a HUGE difference in the damage of all your spells.
Fingers: x2 soj are great, but I actually like carrion wind a lot. Probably better for a lot of melee people, but meh, I love it none the less.
Neck: A +3 to elemental skills ammy or maras is preferable, each are very good depending on how you like to fight.
Hands: Magefists are great, +1 to fire skills, mana, and a lot more. They will add a lot to your damage and output.
Boots: Marrow walks add so many bonuses to your stats and overall ability in the field of combat, there is NO way you CAN'T love them. I always use the 33 charges of bone prison on them to trap people and then use fissure under them. They never expect to be trapped in a bone prison by a druid
Chapter Four: You and your mercenary.
Mercenaries are very important. They can mean the difference between life and death for you and your party. The best mercenaries are usually the Act II mercenaries, which gives auras. Auras like defiance can be important to protect you and your oak sage, and getting thorns can give the oak sage a way to fight back. I suggest the thorns aura for bosses and people who like to MF, but for those who like to just PvM or PvM, I suggest a barbarian or defiance town-guard from act II.
Act 1:
Cold Arrow Rogue: She can shoot fast and freeze targets, but she is not as powerful as the fire arrow rogue or ice magi.
Fire Arrow Rogue: She is fast and has very powerful fire arrows, unfortunately, they cant freeze the targets like the ice magi or cold arrow rogues, and even though they are faster and smarter than fire magi, they arent as powerful.
Act 2:
Thorns Town-Guard: This guy is great if you fight bosses, he will reflect a lot of the damage done to him, unfortunately, besides that one point, he isent so hot.
Prayer Town-Guard: One of the less-used mercenaries, but if you find yourself using potions a lot, at higher levels this guy can really help out.
Might Town-Guard: For many classes and builds, a very good things to have. Unfortunately, for casters, and you especially, it doesn't do a lot, so it's best just to skip this one.
Freezing Town-Guard: Even though I hate ot admit it because of it's unfair-ness, I love this guard. Send him out into a group of enymies and freeze them. and then have at em' with fissure. Fun fun fun.
Defiance Town-Guard: Very helpful especially vs. bosses where you will need a lot of def, good for partying as well, but not the strongest of guards.
Blessed Aim Town-Guard: Similiar to might in the way of that it doesn't help you out a lot as a caster build, best to choose another mercenary.
Act 3:
Fire Magi: Can get to be very powerful, unfortunately, they don't always use fire ball, and use inferno instead, which does very low damage. They also tend to want to get near enemies when using inferno, which is very bad, bad bad bad. They are also slower than the rogues by far.
Ice Magi: Not AS powerful as the fire magi, and slower than the rogues, but are more powerful than the rogues and can freeze unlike the fire magi.
Electricity Magi: Very powerful and decently fast, their only problem is that once you hit nightmare and hell mode, 45% of the things you face have a lightning immunity, making this mercenary pointless.
Act 5 (No Act 4 Mercenary):
The Barbarian: They are all pretty much the same, they can knock back and stun opponents, but unfortunately they don't attack very fast and tend to like big crowds of enemies...they are sort of stupid AI....
A side note about the Act 2 Mercs:
Unlike any other class, the act 2 mercs have a special ability with a lot of people don't pick up on. They use a form of jab, they hit monsters extremely fast multiples times, making them very strong and very fast, making up for the fact they rush into mobs of enemies becuase they are morons.
Well, thats my revised FTD for you, not TOO much added, but quite a bit added and expanded. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Good luck!
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