Guide written by Hermit_Boy on the DiabloII.Net Single Player Forums.
There is a lot of info out there about the WW and even a few guides, but I am going to try to compile as much as I can and add my own experience. I am writing this under the assumption that you want to be able to beat Baal in Hell and do it in Single player. Since this is SP, a lot of the WW build I will suggest is a cookie cutter type build. But since you are not playing MP then I will assume that it does not matter much.
The WW is a druid who uses the WW form to kill. The strength of this build is that it is one of the most powerful melee type characters. Killing is fast and furious, the game pace is fast, but is mainly repetetive. This style of play fits me well, and my WW is one of my favorite characters.
Strength: 225 should be your goal. This is so that you can weild an Ogre Maul, which is probably the best WW weapon. I will talk about weapons later. 232 is the max strenght for the best armor (sacred Plate), and that is only another 7 points, so it may be worth it. However, by then you may have a +str item anyway to get you there. The only weapon you cannot use with that str is a thunder mallet, which is actually not as good as an ogre maul anyway. The str req for that is 253 which is way more than you want to put in.
Dexterity: Do not add anything. You need dex for certain weapons like swords and polearms, but they are not the weapon of choice. You will be using a 2-handed weapon, so you need no dex for a shield. Dex is also useful for Defense rating (DR), but as I will show later, a good DR is low on your priority list anyway.
Energy: Do not add anything. The druid gets +2 mana per level up, which is good. You will not be using much mana however, so just leave it alone.
Vitality: Everything else of course. Life is not a huge concern early on, so put 1-2 points per level up here early on and focus on strenght till you can use decent weapons and armor. Once you hit NM, you should start putting 3-4 points here per level up. With high or maxed Lycanthropy and Oak Sage, you will get 8 or more life points per 1 point invested in Vitality. That is an EXCELLENT return.
Since this is a SP guide, I will work under the assumption that you will not have much opportunity to trade or mule items. Because of this, the rule is use what you find. However, I will give some guidlines as to what you want.
You want a 2 handed weapon. PERIOD. At least as your primary weapon. The druid has a faster speed for 2 handed weapons that any other class. Plus, using a 1 handed weapon in many cases is slower than using a 2 handed weapon. You will not need a shield.
The maul, and eventually the ogre maul, is the preferred weapon for many reasons.
Unfortunatly on SP it is hard to aspire to a certain weapon. The fabled Immortal Kings Stone Crusher Ogre Maul is one of the best WW weapons. However, I found that it was easier to make my own rune word maul. IMO, Honor is one of the best rune words and is relatively easy to make. If you can find a 5 socket ogre maul, you will not be disappointed. The runes are all fairly easy to find. I found everything I needed by doing hell countess runs. The countess everntually gave me the runes, and I also found the ogre maul on one of the weapon stands. Here is the trick to find a 5 socket ogre maul. A weapon stand generally gives the same weapon type every time you visit it, until the map is reset by going to another difficulty level then coming back. I found a weapon stand that had the tendency to give out ogre mauls, then I just keep running back to it over and over. It eventually gave me a 5 socket ogre maul.
One with good defense is nice, but dont go out of your way for a really high defense. The reason is that in hell, you need a rediculously high defense to keep from being hit. Without a shield, you will be hit often enough. I will talk about this later. What you do want on Armor is resistance if possible. Fast hit recovery is ok, but not critical. + LIfe is alway very good. Lionheart is a very good armor if you can find the runes for it.
Druid pelts are very nice for the +skills. Resistance is good as well as +life. Jalals Mane is probably the best, but very hard to find. Stealskull or Tals mask are both good for the dual leech.
Leech life is very good. I will talk about that later. Otherwise look for resist all. A very good one to have is reduce freeze time, as a frozen WW can be very frustrating. I was lucky enought to find a Ravenfrost ring and cannot be frozen at all. VERY nice to have if you can find something like it.
Stamina and heal stamina is nice, but with high vitality, a WW rarely runs out of stamina. I would go for increase walk run speed. You can also get reduce freeze length if you dont have a cannot be frozen item.
Here is another place you can increase your life leech. Increase attack speed is also very desirable.
Not much to tell here. Just follow the above guidlines.
Do not use a shield. It will hurt your resist a lot, but you need that 2 handed weapon. However, it might be nice to have a shield with high resist all in your second weapon slot for those times that you just HAVE to have higher resistances. I will talk about the second weapon slot later.
Generally, the attributes you want in your items are as follows, in no particular order. Life leech, +life, +resist, IAS, fast run/walk. + damage is good also on some items, but I have found it usually isnt that impressive when on a ring or circlet. You really need it on the weapon itself.
There really is not a preset skill order for the WW. You can vary it if you want, but the way I will give you has been tried and true for many WWs.
Choose nothing from here. At first you might be tempted to get something from here to kill those pesky PIs. However, realize that you cannot use these skills when in WW form. It is not worth changing back and forth to use these skills because they are generally not too good anyway without heavy investment.
Werewolf You will need this of course. When you first become a WW you will notice that you swing your weapon painfully slow. Putting a few points here will increase your attack speed, so I recommend putting 4-5 points here ASAP. Once you get to a decent attack speed, you may want to put more here up to level 9 or so. That is where the diminishing returns hit hard. This skill also gives you AR bonus that does not suffer from diminishing returns. I found that when I reached hell and had maxed my other skills, it was nice to go back here to bump my AR a bit.
Lycanthropy You will want this maxed eventually. This increases the duration you stay a WW. I have heard some people say that they keep it low because they don't mind recasting WW often. However, if you forget and suddenly turn soft and pink in the middle of a fight, it is NOT a good thing. In fact, I recast WW just before a big fight no matter how long I have left. Even if it was not for the duration, it is worth maxing this for the HP bonus.
Feral Rage You wil use this alot, however, it is not worth putting more than a couple points in it. This skill gives you life leech while you are using Fury. The damage and AR bonus of this skill only applies to the skill itself and does not help when you switch to Fury. I will not bore you with the intimate details of how it works. Suffice to say that in a battle, you will hit with this a couple times to build up a glowing ball around you. Once the glowing ball is big (4-5 hits) you will then switch to fury to do the killing. The glowing ball goes away 20 seconds after the last Feral rage hit you make. To keep this ball going you will want to do 1 Feral Rage hit every 15 or so seconds then switch right back to Fury.
Fury The best skill for a WW. I recommend putting every point here from every level up from 30-50. Max it as soon as possible and you will not be disappointed. It gives an incredible damage bonus as well as AR bonus. It also hits consecutive times, up to 5 times in a row. There are definately disadvantages when using this skill, but without using it, you will not be nearly as viable in Hell.
Disadvantages: There is a bug that is still around where it calculates if the hits swings actually hit. It is much like the Paladins Zeal skill. I don't know how the bug works, but the effect is that even with 95% to hit you will probably miss 2 or 3 times per 5 hits. And if you miss the first swing, you may miss the other 4 swings. This bug used to be much worse, but Blizzard has attempted to fix it, and it is better now than it was. This does not make the skill unusable though. The IAS of Fury still means that you will hit more often using it than by using another skill.
Another disadvantage is Fury lock, or Zeal lock to Pallys. Once you start hitting, you are commited to all 5 hits, even if you want to run away half way through. This shows up mostly when fighting Diablo. You start the series of 5 hits, then immediately you notice Diablo gearing up for his red lighting. You are tempted to run from it and dodge, but still have 2 or 3 hits left, and cannot run. This is a little frustrating, but usually not a fatal problem.
Fire Claws Does not do enough damage in Hell. Not worth it. And if that was not bad enough, you also need to waste a point in WB to get it.
Hunger Same as Fire Claw. Not worth wasting the pre-req points. Feral rage is more than enough leech.
Rabies Since this is a pre-req for Fury, it is fun to watch, but usless in practice. Don't invest more than the 1 pre-req point.
Fire Claws, Hunger, and Rabies are mostly useless, but may be upgraded with the 1.10 patch. We will have to wait and see.
Ravens Someone once calculated the total damage maxed ravens can do, and it is a bit impressive. However, that is damage over time, and the WW is a very impatient killer. This skill is not worth investing more than the 1 point as a prereq.
Vines The damage from a Poison Creeper is negligable. Only use this as a pre-req. Carrion Vine- This is definately worth getting. Usually 1 point is sufficient, but more will always help if you have points to spare. There is no level at which this vine will survive a tough fight. It seems like monsters are drawn to it, and it dies faster than a rose petal. It is usually best to use after a fight, to recharge, or cast it towards a pile of bodies that are out of harms way. The life it gives is very good, especially because red potions become worthless. Solar creeper is worthless because you will likely never have mana problems and you cannot have it and the carrion vine at the same time.
Oak Sage There is a debate about the OS vs HoW. For a WW, I believe that OS is the way to go. The life it gives you is very good. It also gives life to your minions and merc, and we all know a merc can always use more life. A high level oak sage can also be a good tank. They are surprisingly tough.
Heart of Wolverine This is nice for the AR and damage it gives. However, a WW will not need the AR, and the damage is not enough to make a huge difference.
Spirit of Barbs Not good enough to use in hell. If you want thorns, a good thorns merc is much better.
There is a bug where a spirit cannot benefit from +skills past level 20. This may be fixed in patch 1.10.
Wolves and Bear There is a big debate about which to use. I belive they basically serve the same purpose which is to distract the monsters while you do the killing. Neither will be very good at dishing out damage in hell. The benefit of the wolves is that there are more of them, and therefore more distracting. The bear is my personal choice of 2 reasons. 1) It lasts longer than the wolves. It can be more of a tank. 2) It has knock back attacks. This really distracts monsters and keeps them occupied. Personally, I would not rely on either too much, so it is not worth putting too many points in either of them.
The first and most important strategy for a WW is leeching. The more leeching the better. With Feral rage on top of your leeching items, you will be getting back more life than the monsters are taking away.
This is why a good defense is not too important. Who cares how much life you lose, as long as you are gaining it back faster than you are losing it.
The other drawback of being hit is being stunned. I tried really hard to find the info on stun, but I could not find it. I know I have seen it though. Basically, you are only stunned if a hit does more than x% of your total hit points. I think it is 7%, but I cannot remember. As a WW, you will have so many hitpoints that regular hits will not stun you very often. Usually only with bosses.
With my Werewolf I have around 30-40% life leech. In Hell this has kept me from using potions in most cases. Rejuv potions are the only way to go. The red potions do nothing in the middle of a battle. Make sure you keep a belt of full rejuvs for when you need them.
The silver bullet that all WWs hate. These guys are very tough since you have no good magic damage skills. You will have to make up for it in items. Most likely your main weapon will not have much magic damage. The best way to do a decent amount of elemental damage is to have a second weapon with high elemental damage and put it in your second weapon slot.
What to look for as a second magic damage weapon? Well, many people look for a one handed weapon so that they can have a shield to go with it. When you are fighting a PI, you are not leeching, so watch your health. That is when a shield comes in handy to up your defense and blocking. If you find a good 1 handed weapon with great elemental damage, it will save your bacon. As funny as it sounds, wands can have some of the highest elemental damage of any blue magic weapon. You may want to start browsing the wands section when you buy. If you find one that you can also socket, that is all the better. I think this is the best bet if you cannot find a good unique like branars star or lighsabre. Another good suggestion is to get a 1 handed weapon with sockets, then add some gems or runes. If you go this route, you will want something with 6 sockets. The following weapons are 1 handed and can have 6 sockets: Crystal sword, War Ax, and Military Pick. And of course their exceptional and elite versions.
There are 2 ways to go with elemental damage. Either spread out the damage between different elements, or put it all in one element. It really is a toss up as to which is better. Say you find a phase blade and have it socketed in the socket quest. Then you put in 6 perfect topazes. You just have to run from bosses that are PI and LI. If you spread it out, then for most double immunes you are doing 2/3 of the usual elemental damage. But at least you can then kill them.
I would not recommend using poison. It takes too long to kill and does not stack. Fire does good damage, but I am always reluctant to use it since more monsters and double immunes will be immune to fire than any other element. Cold does not do as much damage, but has chill. However, you might have chill on your ring or gloves or something else, and it only takes 1 point of cold damage to chill. Plus most immunes in Act V are immune to cold, and Act V is the hardest. My choice is lightning. I think it does the most damage and has the least amount of monsters immune to it. However, there are lots of monsters that are lightning enhanced but not LI. LE gives them high resistance, but not necessarily immunity. So lightning is not always the best either. Some people think it is too random since it has such a low min damage. However look at the gems. A Perfect ruby does 15-20 fire damage, averaging 17.5. A perfect Topaz does 1-40 lightning damage, averaging 20.5. It is up to you as to which element you use.
My personal preference is to be very strong in one element. Normal monsters are never double immune, so you will only have to watch out for bosses. Then only when you meet a boss that is PI and LI, or whatever your element is. By the time I beat hell, I had only run across a PILI 3 or 4 times in all of hell. I just ran.
Remember also that running is not cowardly. If you do not learn that, you will have many frustrating deaths.
It is always good to collect elemental damage charms as well. With enough planning PIs will just slow you down, not stop you. Also when you run into groups where some of the monsters are PI, but others are not, I found that the best strategy, if you cannot seperate them, is to ignore the PIs. Just beat on the non-PIs and hopefully you will leech enough to stay alive until you kill them, then switch over and deal with the PIs.
Without a shield, a WW is going to have low resistance. My WW has 26 resist to lighting and -10 to -40 in the others. And I made it just fine. As long as you are leeching, you can take an incredible amount of damage and keep kicking.
There are only a few places where low resist and high elemental damage will be dangerous. One is in the Chaos sanctuary with all the oblivion knights. The other is with LE bosses, especially MSLE bosses with conviction auras. Sometimes you just need to do a little damage, then run away and hide till you heal. There is also nothing wrong with running away and never coming back.
What merc is best for a WW? I have drastically rewritten this section in case you read it in the first draft.
Act I rouges are good, but they supply physical damage, which is not going to be too necessary. Unless you get them a good elemental damage bow.
An act II merc is not a bad choice if you choose the right one. Prayer will not heal you enough to make a lick of difference. Blessed Aim might be nice if you are having AR problems, but you shouldn't have too much need for it if you build your WW right. A Defiance merc would be OK as it will keep you from being hit as much. Thorns will not help too much, especially in Hell. Holy freeze would be a good choice to slow monsters down for you. Might would also be good as it will increase the damage you are doing.
An Act III merc would be good to deal out some elemental damage. If you can equip them right and keep them alive long enough to level, they may be the way to go.
The only good thing about an Act V merc is to tank for you, which you really do not need that badly. Unless you can give him a great elemental damage weapon, he will not help that much.