Diablo 2 Resurrected 2.4 Ladder 3 Powerful Budget Build Guide: Why do I Choose Fire Druid & Hydra Sorceress & Fohdin to Start the Ladder

In this guide, we're going to be breaking down three new budget character builds that we think would make for excellent choices to play at the start of a ladder to progress.

Related Read: D2R Patch 2.4 Best Spear & New Runeword Base Guide: Mancatcher, Stygian Pike, War Pike, Plague Claws

Budget Build 1 – Fire Druid

In patch 2.4, out of every single character class, the druid has probably received some of the most substantial changes, and a lot of that comes from the reworking of the fire spells on the elemental skill tree, we'll cover three reasons why we think the Fire Druid is a great character to start the ladder.

• The first reason is the reworking of Volcano, Molten Boulder and Armageddon, these three skills now receive substantial more physical damage, so you don't run into this like a hard wall against firemen monsters, which are very important in addition to not struggling with that hard wall, you can get substantial damage from Armageddon, they buffed up the radius and the number of meteors that are falling and also the rate that they're falling at so it does hit monsters a lot more frequently than what it did in the original patch, so that is great.

• Number two is the reduction of that stupid annoying cooldown that was associated with the fire spells, so before this patch, if you cast Armageddon, you could not cast another spell for seven seconds, it was such a restrictive spell to use that typically any end game fire druid would probably rely almost entirely on the fissure that is not the case anymore in addition to that there's no interrupting cooldown delay between any of the fire spells.

• The final reason is that they have introduced some new areas to magic find with fire builds, these include areas like the Stony tombs and some of the Ice caves in act five, so you can start out with very basic gear and complete the obliterate monsters and have the potential to drop every item in the game.

Elemental Skill Tree

Maxed out Fissure, Volcano, Armageddon, Molten Boulder, Firestorm

Gear Build

• Weapon: Crystal Sword

• Crystal Sword[4 Sockets & 10-14ED]

  Sale [4 Sockets]
  Sale [10-14  EDmg]
  

  
  

  Crystal Sword

  1H damage: 5-15
  Base speed: [0]
  Class speed: Ama, Asn, B, D, P, N - Fast
  S - Normal
  Adds range: 1
  Durability: 20
  Req Strength: 43
  Quality level: 11
  Treasure class: 12
  Max sockets: 6
  

  
  

  
  

• Weapon Rune Word: Spirit

• Helms: Griffon Headdress

• Helms Rune Word: Lore

• Amulet: Prismatic

• Shield: Large Shield

• Shield Rune Word: Rhyme

• Armor: Quilted Armor

• Armor Rune Word: Smoke

• Belt: Fiend Cord Heavy Belt

• Ring: Corruption Eye

• Gloves: Coral Chain Gloves of Wealth

• Boots: Fiend Nails Light Plated Boots

  
  

Budget Build 2 –Hydra Sorceress

Even though Hydra Sorceress reduced the damage output from the first phase of PTR to the second phase with the reworking of hydra, we do think it's a viable budget starting character.

• The first main reason is that with the reduction in the cooldown associated with casting the spell.

• The second big plus of this build is that there's a lot of versatility in terms of extra skill points, which you can use once you've maxed hydra and its synergies, especially once you get to a higher level, there are different options.

• The final big plus is that it's a very safe playstyle build.

Gear Build

• Weapon: Crystal Sword

• Weapon Rune word: Spirit

• Armor: Quilted Armor

• Armor Rune word: Smoke

• Amulet: Rune Beads Amulet

• Shield: Large Shield

• Shield Rune word: Rhyme

• Boots: Fiend Nails Light Plated Boots

• Ring 1: Wraith Coil Ring

• Ring 2: Rune Grip Ring

• Belt: Fiend Cord Heavy Belt

• Gloves: Magefist Light Gauntlets

Budget Build 3 – Fohdin

• First, they reduced the cooldown associated with the skill we think it was two seconds before, and it's 0.4, that's a lot more damage output.

• There's a lot of versatility in terms of the aura that you choose to use, so whether you want to go the route of maxing your initial lighting strike, and use a conviction, and then also just helping out your supporting characters.

• The third and final point that we think is a big plus is that the Fohdin is not as dependent on being right on top of monsters.

  
  

Gear Build

• Weapon: Crystal Sword

• Crystal Sword[4 Sockets & 10-14ED]

  Sale [4 Sockets]
  Sale [10-14  EDmg]
  

  
  

  Crystal Sword

  1H damage: 5-15
  Base speed: [0]
  Class speed: Ama, Asn, B, D, P, N - Fast
  S - Normal
  Adds range: 1
  Durability: 20
  Req Strength: 43
  Quality level: 11
  Treasure class: 12
  Max sockets: 6
  

  
  

  
  

• Weapon Rune word: Spirit

• Armor: Dusk Shroud

• Armor Rune word: Smoke

• Amulets: Rune Beads Amulet

• Shield: Targe

• Shield Rune word: Spirit

• Ring 1: Wraith Coil Ring

• Ring 2: Rune Grip Ring

• Belt: Fiend Cord Heavy Belt

• Boots: Fiend Nails Light Plated Boots

• Gloves: Magefist Light Gauntlets

That's sort of a full wrap-up of some of the new changes that have been introduced for the new D2R items, We hope that this will be of some help to you.