Fury druid, Gear / Skills / What am I doing wrong?

[murasame]

So I recently went back to my love for druids, and I decided to re-make a Fury druid again, for some really weird reason I am having insane difficulty killing almost everything, from zealadins to other fury druids.

Skills:

Lycan - Maxed
Werewolf - Maxed
Fury - Maxed
Oak - Maxed
and now currently leveling HoW.

Gear:

Breath of the dying
Jalals Mane with 40ED/15IAS
Fortitude
Stormshield with 40ED/15IAS
Gore Rider
Steelrend Gauntlets
Verdungo's Hearty Cord
Highlord's Wrath Amulet
2x Raven Frosts

As for stats, there are some extra un-necessary spent points here and there in Dex/Vit, but other than that the usual spent what i needed in STR/Dex and rest in Vitality.

My question is, how come I have incredible difficulty killing almost every melee class, is there an item I should replace ? If so, what do you suggest.

Also, what's the attack speed cap for a druid ?

Note I only enter melee duels, no poisons or taps or so on....

any suggestions would be more than awesome... <3

[2.0]

Whats the Ebotd in?

And, Bloodfists are better than Steelrends..

[Ryanthegreatness]

Yay! I got a bloodfist for my sorc =)

[dainbramage]

Duelling melee, grief pb > botd anything. This is probably why you're losing, the damage difference between the two weapons is insane. If you don't need block, an eth zod/ias jewel/ias jewel tomb reaver is your best bet by far.

Lose the ed/ias jewels (the ias is useless, for starters), bloodfists > rends, angelic jewellery is the only jewellery you should be wearing against melee.

Don't level up HoW. You can only have 1 spirit alive at a time, level something which will actually benefit your build in some way.


1h, grief pb or most botds hit at 8/5 fpa. 2h, the above tomb reaver hits at 7/4.

[2.0]

Duelling melee, grief pb > botd anything. This is probably why you're losing, the damage difference between the two weapons is insane. If you don't need block, an eth zod/ias jewel/ias jewel tomb reaver is your best bet by far.
Grief can be considered Bm in Fury Vs Fury.

[murasame]

the botd is in a berserker axe.

The Grief PB, why would it be considered bad manners, because of the poison ?

Ok so I need to loose the gloves, replace most of stuff with angelic... what else ? suggest I still go grief, even though it can be considered bm ? or stick with botd

EDIT: Just spoke with the ppl in the duel game i duel with, yes Grief is considered bm

[2.0]

Hmm....Whats your inventory look like?

[murasame]

some random charms with random stats, and 2 10maxdmg 45life charms, Annihilist and hellfire, that's pretty much it

[Zarley]

some random charms with random stats, and 2 10maxdmg 45life charms, Annihilist and hellfire, that's pretty much it

That's most likely your problem. "random charms" is not going to cut it for PVP.

You're going to need AR/max/life charms or shapeshift life charms before you're going to be anywhere close to your opponents.

[murasame]

That's true, I do realize a difference, however the most difficulty I have is actually landing hits on someone lol, I get hit so easily yet somehow everyone else manages to block or evade my attacks. And yes my block rate is 75%.

[Robofiend]

i have the same problem. and im using angelics. i still need to get grief i guess instead of my ebotdz, and im using dracs, my inventory is fine with 9gcs life scs torch and anni.

[Aqua]

1h, grief pb or most botds hit at 8/5 fpa.
Incorrect. Grief pb hits 9/5/5/5/5 frames. So does ebotdz. Both are equally slow weapons. A faster weapon would be better, though good ones like a cfkoq are hard to come by.

That's true, I do realize a difference, however the most difficulty I have is actually landing hits on someone lol, I get hit so easily yet somehow everyone else manages to block or evade my attacks. And yes my block rate is 75%.
There is a bug with fury, so I've heard:
1. IF you go into FHR animation or within a fury frame of the 5 hits you will miss the rest of the swings in that animation.
This isnt that big of a problem vs most class's but it will give you issues hitting zealots and other fury druids.
2. It seems after talking to many close friends who happen to be druid experts (inkanddagger from d2.net) we have concluded that a slower, harder hitting weapon vs zealots and other fury druids actually seem to miss ALOT less due to the longer time involved from being hit, recovering and starting another attack (see above)
42% FHR is key here. It seems you get hit with 86% fhr (the next frame) more then you do with 42% (see the bugs explination above)

[dainbramage]

Incorrect. Grief pb hits 9/5/5/5/5 frames. So does ebotdz.

Wereform central (http://home.comcast.net/~thedragoon/wereformadvanced.html) disagrees with you, and we're not assassins and we're not using feral rage. Technically fury attacks at 9/5/5/5/4, which is often simplified to 8/5.


EDIT: The bug Zebb describes in point 1 doesn't apply to complete rollback attacks, only incomplete (fury is complete, as are zeal [except on an amazon or sorc] and dragon talon. Incomplete are strafe, jab, fend and zon/sorc zeals). What's written in point 2 is just wrong.

[Aqua]

Wereform central (http://home.comcast.net/~thedragoon/wereformadvanced.html) disagrees with you, and we're not assassins and we're not using feral rage. Technically fury attacks at 9/5/5/5/4, which is often simplified to 8/5.
Interesting, because I did use the wereform calc. Its WIAS tables say that a pb hits 9/5/5/5/5 @ 29%ias, and 8/5/5/5/5 @ 44ias. Therefore, grief pb = 9/5/5/5/5. So if it's really 9/5/5/5/4, that would mean that the wereform tables are slightly off?

[dainbramage]

Okay, that's weird. I just noticed that it was defaulting to barbarian for me... I'll concede defeat.

9/5 will mean 10/5/5/5/4. The retarded thing about the notation is that the attacks actually go 4/5/5/5/10, i.e. the long swing is at the end of a cycle. I'm not sure why thedragoon has put down fury as /x/x/x/x rather than /x/x/x/(x-1), but that's how the attacks operate. He may have written the calc before it was known that that's how the attacks operated.

I'll see if I can find the threat at the AB.



EDIT: Here we go. If you're into gory detail; http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/index.php?showtopic=42841


EDIT 2: theDragoon's calc was written in 2003, the above was discovered in '04. Hence why the calc doesn't show it.