Maul Druid Guide

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Gear/Base Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.

1) Breath of the Dying made in an Archon Staff provides the Maul Druid with close to the highest overall DPS along with the most consistent damage. This maximizes his one-shot potential and Life Leech in most scenarios.
2) Treachery and Demon Limb are used for pre-buffing prior to taking down the Ubers. Treachery pre-buffs Fade for All Resistances, Curse Length Reduction, and Damage Reduction, while Demon Limb pre-buffs Enchant for increased Attack Rating.
3) A Life Tap Charge Wand on Weapon-Swap can be used to apply Life Tap to Uber Bosses.

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to Immunities or bad layouts.

Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter or Budget Build Variant.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Ubers

This build is capable of farming Uber Tristram and the Mini Ubers before (See the "Ubers" Build Variant):

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Act 1 Rogue Mercenary

Faith, Freezing Arrow

Equip the Rogue with Faith to benefit from Fanaticism. This Aura grants Increased Attack Speed and Enhanced Damage depending on its Level. A Cold Act 1 Mercenary is used to provide additional Crowd Control for this build.

You can also use an Act 2 Might Mercenary with Pride for slightly higher Damage, but lower Attack Speed. Additionally, The Reaper's Toll is a solid option for its Decrepify proc; however, because the Mercenary often lags behind on the Maul Druid, it is not always helpful. Since you cannot use Teleport while in Werebear form, you cannot quickly reposition the Mercenary for reliable Decrepify procs.

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability. Mercenary Types and Gear Options at each Gear Level perform equally well in different situations; choose based on Farming Spots and/or personal preference.

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Before each Magic Find/Experience run, cast Werebear on your Weapon-Swap with more + to Skills to transform into a Werebear. Then cast Summon Grizzly and Heart of Wolverine or Oak Sage. Swap back to your main Weapon. Recast them when they die.
• If you have Harmony on Weapon-Swap, use it to lumber to your Farming Spot faster.
• With Metamorphosis equipped, transform into a Werewolf and attack the first monster you see with Feral Rage to gain the "Mark of the Wolf" bonuses. Once its stat bonus Aura is confirmed, transform back into a Werebear. Refresh "Mark of the Wolf" every 3 minutes.
• Maul serves as your main source of damage. Continuously attack monsters with Maul to build up stacks and maintain them.
• Briefly use Hunger in-between bouts of Maul to regain your Life and/or Mana when they get low.
• Use Shock Wave to Stun dangerous monster packs and to make it easier to deal with high monster density.
• You can also cast Summon Grizzly in front of dangerous enemies to tank and distract.
• You can choose to summon Oak Sage instead of Heart of Wolverine in dangerous situations, or to provide a massive Life bonus to other Players during group play.

Immunities

• Bone Break sets all Immune to Physical monsters to 95% Physical Resistance, allowing any sources of -x% to Enemy Physical Resistance (Amplify Damage or Decrepify) to take full effect.
• If you are not using a combination of Bone Break and a source of either Amplify Damage or Decrepify, you should skip all monsters that are Physical Immune.

Late-Game

• Before starting your Magic Find/Experience run, first cast Battle Command 2 times and then Battle Orders once using Call to Arms. Refresh these buffs as soon as they expire (approx. every 2-3 minutes).

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

Increased Attack Speed speeds up your attack animations. Weapon bases have different IAS breakpoints. Values for recommended weapon options are provided below. Breath of the Dying Archon Staff takes into account "Mark of the Bear" from Metamorphosis. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Breath of the Dying Archon Staff

Grief Phase Blade

Ribcracker

Oath Feral Axe

Unbending Will Colossus Blade

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for at least the 54% FHR Breakpoint on the Standard Build.

Faster Block Rate (FBR)

Faster Block Rate increases survivability and ease of mobility on the Hardcore Build Variant. Aim for the 40% FBR Breakpoint on that setup.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary focus is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.

The Maul Druid can become Hardcore viable with key changes to Gear and Stat Point allocation. Review the changes below before building this character in Hardcore, as some of these changes differ significantly from the Standard Build.

Gear Changes

• Damage Reduction: There are several gear options/setups for achieving a high amount of % Damage Reduction on a Hardcore Maul Druid. A setup using Stormshield, Grief Phase Blade, and Metamorphosis can together reach 55% Damage Reduction (5% overcapped) with "Mark of the Bear" active, while also enabling maximum Chance to Block. Metamorphosis can also provide you with an insane Life bonus with its "Mark of the Wolf". If you want to instead maintain the higher 2-Handed Damage from Breath of the Dying, you can use a combination of String of Ears and Metamorphosis (or even Crown of Ages) to maintain high Damage Reduction.
• Stacking Resistances: Stack your Fire/Lightning/Cold Resistances beyond the default maximum values of 75 each (175 total in Hell). Stacking 85 additional Resistances in Hell completely negates the Conviction Aura of any Elite Boss or the Oblivion Knight's Lower Resist Curse. Beware of encountering both at the same time! Consider the primary damage type(s) of the monsters in the area you want to farm. Crown of Ages is the best Helmet option to achieve this. Chains of Honor is a possible Body Armor option. Um Runes socketed into gear, Jewelry, and Charms are also ideal sources of Resistances.
• Lightning Absorb: Equip Thundergod's Vigor when farming an area where Burning Souls are able to spawn such as Worldstone Keep/Throne of Destruction.

Stat Point Changes

• Only allocate enough Stat Points into Strength to wear your gear.
• Allocate enough Stat Points into Dexterity to achieve to maximum Chance to Block (75%) with Stormshield.
• Put all remaining Stat Points into Vitality
  
  See the "Hardcore" Build Variant below for additional suggestions and visuals.