Rabies 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) Angelic Halo Ring and Angelic Wings are great for boosting your Attack Rating significantly. You can even add a second Angelic Halo to stack even more Attack Rating!

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. These areas are strong without a Sunder Charm.

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

Act 1

Act 3

Act 5

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 5 Barbarian

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

• Start your combat with feral rage to charge it up to its maximum. It provides you with Faster Run/Walk, Life Steal, Damage and Attack Rating bonuses, so keep it fully charged at all times. Each successful hit will increase the size of the swirling red ball until it is maxed out, indicating the maximum strength of the skill.
• Run at mobs with Rabies and bite them. This Skill applies Poison Damage Over Time that spreads to other close by enemies. While Rabies is doing its job, lure in to become infected.
• Kite the poisoned monster in the direction you are going to find the next monster packs. Rinse and repeat through the area.
• Utilize your Summons to maneuver around your enemies or to distract them to get off some easy Rabies / feral rage hits.

Immunities

• Until you have access to the full Sundering Charm setup, you should skip any monster Immune to Poison.
• Rotting Fissure breaks ALL Poison Immune monsters and brings them to 95% resistance. Pair this with as much -% Enemy Poison Resistance as possible. With Death's Web and a 4 Facetted Monarch -75% Enemy Poison Resistance, making you deal 80% of your damage against sundered monsters.

Late-Game

• At the beginning of each run, buff yourself with the Mark of the Bear. Simply transform into a Werebear and use Attack while wearing metamorphosis. This buff grants you 20% Physical Damage Reduction and 25% Increased Attack Speed for 5 minutes.
• In addition, you can make use of Shockwave while in Werebear form. This 2 point investment makes surviving much easier.
• Min-Max-Strategy: Utilize your 2 Weapon Swaps to deal as much damage as possible. Use rabies on the Weapon Swap with the highest +x to rabies. Then swap over to your secondary Weapon Swap that contains Death's Web and a 4 Facetted Monarch to deal a ton more damage!
  Tip: Put throw on your left-click on your Death's Web-Swap to always know which Weapon Swap you are in.

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 provided below. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Grief Phase Blade

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for the 42% or 86% FHR Breakpoint.

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

This build is Hardcore viable. If you are unaccustomed to this playstyle, we recommend trying this build on Softcore to gain experience on how to successfully pilot it.

Stat Point Changes

• The only thing that changes for Attributes point investment is Dexterity. Invest enough points into Dexterity until you have reached the maximum Chance to block 75%. This value will change based on equipment stats, Character Level, and the Chance to Block on your shield.

Item Changes

• The number one priority is your shield for a max block build. There are many budget, mid tier, and end game choices to choose from, but all options have some form of increased % Chance to blocking.
• Budget Example: Rhyme Gothic Shield
• Mid Tier Example: Gerke's Sanctuary
• End Game Example: Stormshield also has Physical Damage Reduction.