The Druid

Jack of all Trades

The Druid is one big mutt of a class. At times he resembles a Paladin, a Sorceress or a Necromancer. He is not as powerful in any single area as these classes, but shares many of their traits. His melee combat is similar to a Paladin's, and he can summon spirits with what amount to be auras - though neither is as good as a Paladin. He can nuke alongside a Sorceress with powerful elemental magic, though again, not quite on the same level as she can. Finally, like the Necromancer, he is a master summoner in his own right - calling forth spirits, vines and animals to aid him in the quest.

Obviously I'm not ready for this fight quite yet

C'mon Radament, where are you?

Like I said, no clear stat upgrades

The Druid feels most powerful with a balance of skills in all three skill trees, thus he never manages to get quite as powerful as any of the three classes that we compared him to. The individual Elemental skills are not as powerful as the Sorceresses' and the Druid is best off by not focusing on them exclusively, as she can. Summoned creatures and Shape Shifting are too useful to be ignored for long, just to get a slightly better Molten Boulder or Fissure. The Druid's elemental skills are also heavily focused on fire abilities, which, with the advent of immunities, is a dangerous path to take.

Don't stare at the full moon, Goku

The Druid also has the unique ability to transform himself into a werewolf or werebear. This encompasses an entire skill tree called Shape Shifting. While in either were-form, he can use certain abilities to make himself more powerful. Lycanthropy is a general, passive skill that toughens the Druid with more hitpoints, and extends the period of time for which he can maintain the shapechange. Other skills like Hunger or Fire Claws need to be activated, and make either of his were-forms more powerful. Then there are skills like Rabies or Maul, specific to the werewolf and werebear specifically.

Both the werewolf and werebear have their strengths and drawbacks. In wolf form, the Druid gains bonuses to his damage and attack ratings, while in bear form, he gains bonuses to damage and defense. In both forms, however, he attacks very slowly due to a bug - in the current version slow enough that the Druid barely attacks as fast as a Barbarian's normal attack with his axes. Hopefully the upcoming patch will address this concern. The werebear gets no such bonus, and already suffers from the lack of an attack rating increase, making it a poorer choice in melee, but a better choice for a spell-casting Druid. Keep in mind that both were-forms have limitations on what skills they can use.

Awesome

He's so CUTE!

The extra defense is perfect for those long fights

Elemental and Summoning

With a slight focus on Summoning and a good choice of Elemental and Shape Shifting skills, my druid defeated Andariel while at level 10. He breezes through fights against large, weak hordes, stumbles somewhat against champions, but can hold his own versus bosses.

Summoning skills allow your character to bring in allies such as Spirit Wolves, Dire Wolves and even a Grizzly Bear. These three, the Druid and his party can benefit from other summoned beings like an Oak Sage (who increases the total hitpoints of the party) or Spirit of Barbs (which reflect damage back upon the attacker.) The Summoning tree contains various Vines such as the Poison Creeper (automatically spreads poison to enemies), the Carrion Vine (eats corpses and returns a percentage of health to the Druid) or the Solar Creeper, who can drain mana and transfer it to the Druid.

Immunities shimmunities

Things get so ugly down here

The bossman

Elemental skills very much resemble the Sorceress' selection of abilities, which focuses on dealing elemental damage to groups of monsters. They tend to not do as much damage, and the Druid does not have the benefit of Warmth to regenerate mana quickly - while Solar Creeper is a level 24 spell. Most do fire damage, although Arctic Blast inflicts cold while the Twister line seem to do melee. The Druid can also use Cyclone Armor to protect himself from fire, cold or lightning based attacks.