Werebear vs Werewolf

Ham_King · Post by **Ham_King** » Sun Mar 30, 2003 1:05 am

I thought i would start a discussion!

I have been playing the druid class recently and have encountered an interesting fork in the road. In the shapeshifting tree, what are the pros and cons of being a werewolf against a werebear- taking into account both PvP and PvM?

Stilgar · Post by **Stilgar** » Sun Mar 30, 2003 4:06 pm

I like the wolf better, speed is better then damage (IMHO)
But i'm no druid expert.
But why not ask a high level druid, most advanced players seem to have the same skilltree at high level

Ham_King · Post by **Ham_King** » Mon Mar 31, 2003 2:07 am

But is it better to play it safe since bears get more life than wolves, even though they are slower.....

garazdawi · Post by **garazdawi** » Mon Mar 31, 2003 3:38 am

Who needs health when you can out run your enemies? I never actually played LOD, but to me it seems as if going for a wolf seems the better choice as I like to be able to run all over the place while bitin' the foes

Karion · Post by **Karion** » Mon Mar 31, 2003 9:22 am

Hello

I have played also with a druid but I haven't give much points to the shape shifting categorie.

But I have spare mine points while I was become level 27. Than I have spend on level 30 points to summoning a bear and the strongest spirit. And also to Orcan (greatest twister I mean) and armageddon. I had also a helm for points to armageddon. And so I had finally 2 points to that greatest twister, 5 to armageddon and 3 or 4 to the summon bear.

This manner of playing is untill level 30 difficult but when you rease it, it become a real hell for your enemies. The bear can stand long in a fight and while you cast an armageddon, your enemies shall die quickly. The greatest twister is good for the firecaster who teleports. It makes them slow and kill them quickly. Your bear and yourself can't fight good against them.

This is for me a great killer druid!

majoola · Post by **majoola** » Mon Mar 31, 2003 6:28 pm

Another advantage you can get by going the werebear path besides the extra life and damage is Shockwave, incredibly useful in PvP and PvM. You'll just need a very fast weapon with IAS, and then some more. I think. The werebears and werewolves both look ridiculous...but an incentive to go werebear would be to see your cute little teddy rip various minions of hell to shreds. Again, the Strategy Compendium at diabloii.net seems to have a lot of the benefits and disadvantages covered.

Ham_King · Post by **Ham_King** » Mon Mar 31, 2003 11:59 pm

Just a comment about the elemental tree: i have found that all the skills simply do not do enough damage - even the top skills like armageddon and hurricane, and this is especially a problem in hell difficulty.
Also another thing, is it more important to have lots of life (werebear) or have a fast attack speed and hence more damage (werewolf)? - which is the essence of this discussion
And in the summoning tree, what spirit is better for what situations and druid builds: i.e. the Oak sage or the Heart of Wolverine

Tybaltus · Post by **Tybaltus** » Tue Apr 01, 2003 8:02 pm

The werebear is good, dont get me wrong. I mean some positives already stated, positives on life and damage, but also there is the stunning effect which, if put the time into, can be a lifesaver among high level creatures not immune to stun. If you adopt the time into high level stun, theyll be sitting ducks for a LONG time.

But, speed...you can get in so many quick hits with the werewolf. So while the bear does a truckload of damage in one hit, there werewolf does a bit more damage with a ton of hits in a short amount of time. Not to mention the running ability is significant. Youll grow so used to going that fast that even barbarians and assassins will feel like a snail crawl. The skill tree is a bit more appealing to the werewolf aswell. Barring rabies, you can do no wrong in building in that tree.

So, 3-2 werewolf wins

The Z · Post by **The Z** » Thu Apr 03, 2003 10:12 pm

Werewolf.

nickckster · Post by **nickckster** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:14 pm

Werewolf may be faster, but the wearbear can land several seriously damaging attacks with the "maul" skill which kinda makes up 4 the slowness. You will still be able to use the speed of the werewolf if you need to because you need to have werewolf so u can use lycanthropy (which any 1 who is gonna shapeshift into werewolf or werebear wants) so you can transform into werewolf any time. Any way, werebear is the best because you have more life, damage, and you dont need to worry about being slow or running away when all the enimies are dead.

Noober · Post by **Noober** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 6:18 pm

It seems a pretty simple debate to me: Fury/Rabies are good. Maul/Shockwave are mediocre. And IIRC, Werebears have the same FHR frames as human Druids (i.e. the second worst in the game, only in front of Sorcs).

sort-vampyr · Post by **sort-vampyr** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 1:46 am

Werebear WINS!

werebear: ALOT more def, more hit points, ALOT more damage
werewolf: a little more AR, MUCH faster AS and R/W

have to quote best agument so far: "Any way, werebear is the best because you have more life, damage, and you dont need to worry about being slow or running away when all the enimies are dead".-- nickster --... and he's right you don't need to worry about running fast or getting faster hits. Werebear hits you one time and your dead, so why would he now want to have another fast attack if you are allready dead? And now he don't need to go anywhere fast cuz all enemies are dead!

Noober · Post by **Noober** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:47 am

I fail to understand how you can possibly imagine a Werebear killing someone in one hit. It certainly wouldn't kill bosses in one hit (Crushing Blow is faster, which coincidentally would be delivered better by Fury) and has no hope of killing a real player in one hit.

Firstly Wolves deal more damage PER HIT than Bears. Yes, PER HIT! For comparison:
A level 40 Werebear gives +323% damage. Add 20-460% from Maul, and on average it gives 562% enhanced damage.
Level 40 Fury gives 763% enhanced damage. Now when we go into damage per second...I'll leave that to you (Fury can get a 4 frame attack). Don't forget that Rabies will also deal more damage per hit than Maul could possibly hope to.

Now taking that 562% damage, lets compare it to a REAL one-hit killer, aka a Charger.
Level 20 (not level 40 notice) Charge has 1375% enhanced damage and this is NOT including Fanaticism.
Now lets extremely optimistically take a hypothetical godly two-handed charger dealing 50,000 physical damage (very high max damage even for a Charger). After 17% pvp penalty and 50% Damage Reduction we are left with: 4250 Damage. Not enough to kill my Barb vs Caster WWBarb. Then we take into account realistic damage, block, defence and actual movement (e.g. a Charger will never hit a decent WWBarb due to the mechanics of WW).

darkrauser · Post by **darkrauser** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 3:05 pm

Werewolf does much more damage overall but it's all physical which means you run into problems in Hell with physical immune monsters. On the other hand, werebear has fire claws synergized by some of the fire skills in the elemental tree. Werebear has physical and fire damage so they will have to avoid less monsters in Hell. So in Hell, the werewolf will be killing a lot faster when it can do damage but the werebear will be able to kill more different kinds of monsters. This makes both paths pretty equal. Werewolf is better for PvP in all cases though.

Noober · Post by **Noober** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 12:42 am

Um...Wolves can also use Fire Claws...
In fact, Wolves also have Rabies which can do 30K poison damage (and be very strong in PvP, unlike Bears) with only a 40 point investment.
With respect to pure Fire Claws (seeing as it needs 100 points to maximise), there are FAR more Fire Immunes than Physical.