Advice / tips for a 1st elemental druid?

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I'm going to make an elemental druid but I'd like some advice please.

 

Windy druids are prety much the most effective ones, their skills do both physical and cold damage, so you don't have to worry about immunities as much.

Enough STR for gear
Either enough DEX for max block or leave it at base
All other points in vitality, leave energy at base.

Try to hit at least 99 faster cat rate for 11 frames per second casting time.

Skills :
1 point arctic blast (prerequisite, isn't a synergy so not worth more points)
20 arctic armor (good damage absorption, synergy for both tornado and hurricane
20 Twister (useless as a damaging skill, but a synergy to tornado and hurricane so you should still max it.)
20 Tornado (your main damaging skill that you'll be firing at enemies)
20 Hurricane (Creates a swirl of wind around your character that moves when you do, enemies that get stuck in its radius get frozen and take damage. good passive damage dealer with all the synergies.)

This pretty much takes care of the bare bones of the build at 81 points. with the 12 points available from quests throughout normal/nightmare/hell, you should be able to complete the elemental tree at lvl 69 (if that's all you focus on.)

However, there's still a bunch of skill points left considering it shouldn't be that hard to hit 85 (or even 90) and you really want some added protection - so you'll really want to spend some points on the summon tree as well.

You only need enough points to get 1 in grizzly bear (more points in it don't raise the bears life, and you only use it as a meat wall anyway.
1 Raven -> 1 spirit Wolf -> 1 dire wolf -> 1 grizly bear.
it's too bad you need to waste 3 points on the prerequisites, but it's worth getting.
a grizzly bear has ~1000 life, and you can just keep recasting it when it is close to dying - that way enemies will stay away from you while your bear tanks, and you can shoot tornados at the enemy from the backline.

this takes your total points spent to 85 - if you have all quest reward skill points by now, you should be level 73.
you also want a carrion vine - spend anywhere from 1-5 points on it. it will consume corpses as you kill them and give you a portion of life for each one consumed.
as well as an oak sage - it will give you and your bear +% of health (a lvl 5 oak sage will give +50% health for all allies in it's aura for axample.)
you can split out all skill points you get past lvl 73 between the 2 skills, or focus more on one of the other, whatever you prefer (i'd just get carrion vine to 5, then spend the rest of my points on the oak sage.)

This is roughly what your skill tree should look like at lvl 85 :



As far as gear goes ( i'm including links to the arreat summit item listing):

Helm : Jalal's mane unique helm is your best bet here, it gives +2 To Druid Skill Levels and +30 resistances along with a bunch of other good mods.
Armor : Skin of the vipermagi unique - great armor to have. +1 To All Skills, 30% Faster Cast Rate and + 20-35 to all resistances.
Weapon : Spirit runeword (Tal + Thul + Ort + Amn) in a crystal sword. gives +2 To All Skills, +25-35% Faster Cast Rate (ideally you want one with the max of 35%.) and +22 To Vitality
Shield : you could make a 2nd Spirit runeword in a monarch shield, for another +2 To All Skills, +25-35% Faster Cast Rate and +35% resistance to cold, lightning and fire. - another option would be the Lidless Wall unique shield - it gives +1 To All Skills and 20% Faster Cast Rate.
Boots : Sandstorm Treks - 20% faster run/walk speed, +10-15 vitality and strength, but most importantly +40-70% poison resistance. this is important to get because poison damage goes straight through arctic armor. obviously you'll want some sandstorm treks with at least 60%+ poison resist.
Gloves : you need more FCR and this is pretty much the last place to get it. get Trang-oul's set gloves or Magefist unique gloves. both give 20% faster cast rate. magefists also give +25% faster mana regeneration, trang-oul's give +30% cold resist. (magefist are probably going to be easier to find though.)
Belt : Arachnid mesh. +1 To all Skills, and +20% faster cast rate. no other belt compares.
Amulet : Mara's Kaleidoscope - +2 to all skills, +20-30 to all resistances and +5 to all stats. pretty damn great to have.
Rings : Some choices here. Stone of Jordan for the +1 to all skills if you dont need to fill out a stat you are lacking on ther gear. getting a ravenfrost ring is also a good choice for the cannot be frozen mod.
a good rare ring with 10% faster cast rate and resistances would be decent as well.

With this setup it should be easy to get +8-10 to all skills (2 from jalals, 2 from weapon, 2 from shield, 2 from amulet, 1 from armor, 1 from belt.) which pushes your skill damage through the roof.
Granted, if i recall correctly you are playing single player so getting some of these items might be a bit of a challenge but try to get at least a good amount of them and fill up the rest with good rares.

 

Thanks very much for the advice. Definitely appreciated.
Yes I play just me or me and my nephew when I can get him off of CSGO.
As for going through Hell I plan to give it a shot but I will probably fail early on like I use to do. But we shall see

 

To be honest i'd prefer jalal's over ravenlore even when going with a monarch spirit shield. with the +20 strength on jalals you'd only need 136 str total to carry the shield (less if you also get strength from other gear) and while you get 1 +skill to the elemental tree less, the +2 skills on jalals does benefit your vine creeper and oak sage. the +2 points in oak sage easily give another +10% to the life increase aura of the oak sage, which is worth the minor dip in damage on your wind tree IMHO.