Check out all the changes made to the Druid in Diablo 2 Resurrected patch 2.4. On this page, you'll find the improvements related to abilities and synergies for the Elemental, Shape Shifting, and Summoning skill trees, as well as the adjustment of attack speed.

D2R 2.4 Druid Skill Changes & Improvements

The druid's beastly ferocity makes all his enemies tremble in Diablo 2 Resurrected 2.4 patch.  First of all, the weak of the druid's fire skills are addressed, by reassessing the delays in the action of fire skills, increasing their physical damage, and improving synergies. What’s more, without expensive Diablo 2 Resurrected items and runewords, some rarely used elemental skills are adapted, such as the controls of Arctic Wind are improved so you have more freedom while channeling the skill and no longer having to target one enemy at a time. In addition, for the weak summoning skills on high difficulty levels, we receive improvements of surviving life per level to the game experience, the damage, and new synergies for ravens, wolves, and tendrils. And last but not least, the summoning skills and especially their synergies are strengthened.

1. Elemental Skill Changes

Too little used so far, the fire skills benefit from good buffs which should encourage players to select them more often.

Important note: It is now possible to use elemental buff skills in any form to avoid having to continually switch between forms to keep these buffs active.

Firestorm

• Cast Delay no longer shares its cooldown with other skills that have a cast delay

• Updated tooltip to show cast time

Molten Boulder

• Increased projectile speed by 100%. Decreased range of projectiles by 100% (the total length of their travel remains the same)

• Casting time reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second

• Cast Delay no longer shares its cooldown with other skills that have a cast delay

• Updated tooltip to show cast time

• Increased synergy with Volcano from 10% to 12%

Fissure

• Cast Delay no longer shares its cooldown with other skills that have a cast delay

• Updated tooltip to show cast time

• Volcano

• Increased synergy with Molten Rock from 12% to 16%

• Tooltip updated to show Volcano duration

• Cast Delay no longer shares its cooldown with other skills that have a cast delay

• Updated tooltip to show cast time

Armageddon

• Removal of the incantation period of competence

• Significant increase in physical damage

• The help box has been updated to show physical damage

• Modification of the synergy with Volcano to increase physical damage instead of Fire damage, from 14% to 18%

Arctic Blast

• Removal of synergy with Ouragan

• Increase in basic damage and leveling by about 100% (in order to compensate for the old erroneous damage calculation)

• Updated commands so you can use the skill more freely without being locked to a single target at a time

Cyclone Armor

• Can now be used as a Night Howler or Kodiak

Cyclone

• Increased damage scaling by 50%

• Added synergy with Arctic Blast: +20% stun duration per level

Hurricane

• Casting Delay Removed

• Can now be used as a Night Howler or Kodiak

2. Shape Shifting Skill Changes

Changes here and there to increase the number of viable builds. Maul skill damage is also increased to make them more viable on higher difficulty levels.

Werewolf

• Updated tooltip to show cast time

Feral Rage

• Increased attack rating bonus from +7% to +10% per level

• Increased synergy with Poison Ivy from 18% to 20%

Fury

• Increased attack rating bonus from +7% to +10% per level

Rabies

• Updated tooltip to show cast time

Maul

• Increased bonus damage per level from +20% to +30%

• Increased base attack rating bonus from +20% to +40%, and from +10% to +15% per level

• The value displayed by the stun tooltip now caps at 10 seconds, which matches the maximum stun duration in-game

Shock Wave

• Increased synergy with Truncheon from 5% to 10%

Fire Claws

• Damage increased by 75%

• Removed synergy with Eruption

• Removed synergy with Volcano

3. Summoning Skills Changes

Big modifications for the tree of invocations of the Druid. Ravens should thus be much more frequent than before given the improvements made. Blizzard is also making major changes to wolves and Spirit of Barbs, as well as D2 ladder items.

Oak Sage

• Unified minimum and maximum health values to always be the same, as per the tooltip

• Increased physical damage resistance from 0% to 25% at Normal level

• Reduced physical damage resistance from 100% to 25% at Nightmare level

• Increased physical damage resistance from 0% to 25% at Hell level

Heart of Wolverine

• Unified minimum and maximum health values to always be the same, as per the tooltip

• Increased physical damage resistance from 0% to 25% at Normal level

• Reduced physical damage resistance from 100% to 25% at Nightmare level

• Increased physical damage resistance from 0% to 25% at Hell level

Spirit of Barbs

• Unified minimum and maximum health values to always be the same, as per the tooltip

• Aura no longer reflects a percentage of damage taken. It now deals a fixed amount of damage when targets affected by the aura are attacked.

• Increased physical damage resistance from 0% to 25% at Normal level

• Reduced physical damage resistance from 100% to 25% at Nightmare level

• Increased physical damage resistance from 0% to 25% at Hell level

Raven

• Reduced the number of strikes per Raven from 12 to 5, at all levels

• Increased attack rating bonus from 15% to 30% per level (now shown in tooltip)

• Changed AI so Ravens attack more often

• Significant increase in damage scaling

• Added synergy with Summon Wolf Spirit: +12% damage per level

• Added synergy with Summon Dire Wolf: +12% damage per level

• Added synergy with Summon Grizzly: +12% damage per level

Summon Spirit Wolf

• Unified minimum and maximum health values to always be the same, as per the tooltip

• Attacks now deal Cold and Chill damage for a set duration (which adds utility to the skill and provides an alternate damage type to Dire Wolf)

• Increased damage scaling per level by 10%

• Increased base hitpoints by approximately 80%

• Increase hitpoints by 10% per level

• Updated the tooltip to display the bonus value of synergies

Summon Dire Wolf

• Unified minimum and maximum health values to always be the same, as per the tooltip

• Increased damage scaling per level by 30%

• Increased base hitpoints by approximately 90%

• Reduced synergy hitpoints from 25% to 15% (this is due to increased base hitpoints, and Wolf Spirit and Grizzly gaining points with each level)

• Updated the tooltip to display the bonus value of synergies

Summon Grizzly

• Standardization of minimum and maximum life values so that they are always the same, in accordance with the Help box

• Increase in basic health points by about 15%

• Increase in health points by 10% per level

• Updated help box to show synergies bonus value

Poison Creeper

• Standardization of minimum and maximum life values so that they are always the same, in accordance with the Help box

• Significant increase in poison damage timing

• Increase in the timing of health points by 100%

• Added synergy with Rage: +10% Poison damage per level

Carrion Vine

• Standardization of minimum and maximum life values so that they are always the same, in accordance with the Help box

• The recovery of health points has been reworked to be +1% care per level, instead of using a decreasing calculation ranging from 3% to 12%

Solar Creeper

• Unified minimum and maximum health values to always be the same, as per the tooltip

• Mana recovery reworked to be +3% base mana then +1% mana per level, instead of using a decreasing calculation going from 1% to 8%

D2R 2.4 PTR Druid Attack Speed Changes

Since the introduction of the Druid in 2001, the calculation of Attack Speed for the Night Howler and Kodiak forms has been quite strange. The Attack Speed contribution of the equipped weapon was used several times in the calculation, giving it more than double the impact compared to other Attack Speed calculations. This calculation involving the Attack Speed of the weapon also ignored the usual IAS limit.

On the PTR, the developers changed the Attack Speed calculation for the Night Howler and Kodiak forms to match the other Attack Speed calculations. The Attack Speed of the weapon will have the same importance in the calculation as the Attack Speed of any other character. In fact, the Attack Speed of the Kodiak should exactly match the Attack Speed of an unshamorphosed Druid. The Basic Attack Speed of the Night Howler also matches that of an unshamorphosed Druid, but is enhanced by the IAS bonuses of the Night Howler skill.

Several Motivations Behind this Change: 

• Due to the huge impact that weapon Attack Speed had on Metamorphose Attack Speeds, a high Weapon Attack Speed was by far the most important consideration for the weapon to be equipped. This change should encourage greater diversity in weapon selection.

• This calculation of Attack Speed was a bad experience for those who were not aware of it - especially at lower levels of play without optimized weapons. Although this change reduced the Attack Speed when using weapons with a very high IAS, it increased the Attack Speed for the majority of weapons - especially those encountered at a lower level of play.

The developers encourage players to experiment with different weapon choices for Night Howler and Kodiak forms. They don't want to reduce Polymorph Druid's viability and will look for ways to improve its performance without sacrificing the benefits gained from unifying Attack Speed calculations.