TheDragoon's Werebear Guide

Skill points in Diablo II are rare. You can only get one for every level you gain, as well as 4 per difficulty level (via quests). Thus, it is a good idea not to waste too many of them. In this way, it is best to have a plan, a course of action for each character that you start. In this section I will endeavor to give my own take on the importance of each skill, give my recommendations for it and strategies to its use.

Shape-Shifting Skills

Werewolf
Yes, unfortunately every Werebear is forced to place a point into the Werewolf skill as a pre-requisite for Lycanthropy. However, since this is a Werebear guide, I will gloss over this skill quickly.
Recommendation: 1 point

Lycanthropy
This skill is one of the most important, yet least flashy, skills that a Wereform can invest in. It serves the double purpose of increasing the amount of time the Druid can stay in the Werebear form without having to re-shift (an additional 7 minutes at skill level 20) as well as adding a healthy bonus (115% extra life at level 20) to the life pool. Since both of these abilities are important, I would recommend maxing this skill. However, I have found that it is NOT necessary to max it as soon as possible. The main reason to put points into this skill early in the game is not for additional life, but to increase the length of time that you can remain in the Werebear form. Thus, when I start a Werebear, I will raise this skill up to about level 10 very quickly (before level 15) and then concentrate my skill points into skills that raise my damage. However, I always make sure to have this skill maxed out by the time I start Hell difficulty, as Hell monsters hit HARD and the extra life is definitely worth the skill point investment.
Recommendation: MAXED

Werebear
As the name would suggest, this skill is an important one for a Werebear character. Early on, one point in this skill will suffice as it is often more important to place points into the other skills in order to raise the duration of shifting (via Lycanthropy) or to raise the Attack Rating (AR). However, after the initial going it is often very helpful to add as many points here as possible.

One interesting thing to note about this skill is that you cannot die while in a shifted form. Thus, if you take enough damage that your character should die, you will not initially die. Instead, your character will de-shift into the normal Druid form. However, the process of de-shifting takes some time, so by the time you regain control of your Druid, he will likely be dead (from being hit again...you de-shift at 1 hp) or about to die as the monster gets off an attack. But sometimes you can swing this fact in your favor! ;-)
Recommendation: MAXED

Maul
This is another important skill for a Werebear. Each successful attack with this skill increases your character's damage until it reaches the listed maximum value (+260% at Level 20) as well as stunning the target. However, the extra damage and stunning attacks are not associated with this skill, so once Maul is charged up you can switch to a different attack and still benefit from the enhanced damage and stunning blows. Just make sure to attack with Maul again after a while since the charge-ups need to be renewed every 20 seconds. Also note that the attack rating bonus for Maul only applies when using the Maul skill, so don't expect this effect to carry over if you switch attacks.

Although it seems that this extra damage seems extremely powerful, I have often found that it doesn't seem quite as good, in practice. Since each attack charges up your attack a certain %, the higher the level of Maul you use, the more charge-ups it takes to reach the maximum damage. If you reach an area in the dungeon with no monsters or you want to fiddle with items, the charge-ups will often expire and you are then forced to recharge them. Thus, the way I approach this skill is with the following in mind:
Each point in Maul gives you an additional 10% (well... 20% every 2 points) while each point in the Werebear skill gives you 7% damage and 5% defense. Thus, my strategy for point points into this skill is to raise it up to around skill level 10 (the point where it starts becoming harder to maintain the charges) and then put points into Werebear until it is maxed. Then I come back and put as many points into Maul as I can.
Recommendation: MAXED (eventually)

Fire Claws
This skill adds a fire component to your melee attacks while in Wereform. In addition, it gives a healthy +AR% bonus. While this may seem all well and good, the extra damage without synergies is not really that impressive when compared to the eventual physical damage output of your Werebear (Fire Claws adds 235 damage at level 20... a high level Werebear can easily deal out an average of 2500 physical damage). For this reason, despite its usefulness for dispatching physical immune monsters, I do not use this skill for my standard Werebears. However, do not let my words scare you away from trying it, as I have known several people who use this skill to great effectiveness, it's just not a personal favorite of mine for most Werebears.

On the other hand, Fire Claws can be an incredibly powerful skill when it is the center-piece of the build. With the v1.10 patch, Fire Claws has now gained a +20% Fire Damage synergy with Firestorm, Molten Boulder, Fissure and Volcano. If several of these synergies are maxed out, along with Fire Claws, it can make quick work of any non-fire immune monsters, even on Hell Difficulty. These builds often use Shockwave to stun everything and then start attacking with as fast a weapon as you can find (such as a 6-Shael Phase blade to give you a 4 Frame Fire Claw attack) for about 8000 damage every hit. This can end up dishing out upward of 20k damage per second worth of fire damage. Definitely impressive. However, this is not the focus of this guide. If you want to learn more about this, I'd highly recommend visiting the Diabloii.net Druid Forum as many people on there have played this build and I'm sure they can answer your questions.

For a standard Werebear build...
Recommendation: 0 points or MAXED

Hunger
Here is another skill that can be quite useful. Hunger deals 25% of your standard attack damage, but it gives you a HUGE bonus to life and mana leech. This skill is awesome for untwinked characters as it allows them to use their skills quite liberally despite the relative rarity of mana leech items. However, for those who slap a mana leech ring onto their characters the second they reach level 15 or earlier, this skill is nearly useless. Fortunately, if you do decide to put a point into this skill, it has its own animation (which is kind of cool) and it can work well with only 1 invested skill point (and +skill items make it even better!)

Similarly, this skill gives Werebears the ability to easily deal with some of the most potent monsters in the game: Lightning Enchanted Bosses. Since it raises your life leech to a very high level, it can make you leech back more than enough life to make up for being hit by the lightning bolts. Thus a monster that might originally tear a Druid to shreds (due to possibly low resistances) is greatly reduced to more of an annoyance. Don't forget, however, that this skill will only function if you are dealing physical damage, so it is useless against physical immune monsters.

One last interesting thing to note about Hunger has to do with its different animation. The animation for Hunger is slightly shorter than the Werebear standard attack animation and so, for a given equipment setup, Hunger will often be a frame or two faster than the standard attack. However, for very fast weapons, this speed advantage often dries up. Also note that, contrary to popular opinion, there is NO legit way to reach a 3 frame Hunger attack in Diablo II involving socketable Phase Blades or Demon Crossbows. Even if there was, no damage would be dealt as, for very fast attacks, damage appears to be dealt on the 4th frame of animation.

Interestingly, this might be caused by a bug in the code since the Hunger animation is 13 frames long but the game only uses the first 10 frames. If this is a bug, it may change in the future and so be slower than the standard attack for a Werebear.
Recommendation: 0-5 points

Shockwave
Now HERE is my favorite. This skill can shut down any non-boss monster in the game for long periods of time. Basically, Shockwave allows you to fire out small waves through the ground, unsettling your opponents, making them stand there stunned for a long time. However, don't believe the Arreat Summit about the listed stun duration, the actual duration is slightly shorter. In playing, this slight difference is rarely noticeable since most monsters are dead within 10 seconds and a slvl 20 Shockwave affords more than 10 seconds of stun time for monsters. In my opinion, a decent duration can be reached with around 10 points invested into this skill. However, the more points invested, the longer the monsters will stand there with birds circling their heads which is definitely worth as many points as you can spare! Personally, I tend to shoot for skill level 15+.
Recommendation: ~10 points or more

Summoning Skills
Though not necessarily specific to the Werebear, these skills are invaluable in helping your character reach its full potential.

There are basically two ways to choose summoning skills for a Werebear. The first option is the solo Werebear. In this, the Werebear forgoes the use of summonable "meat shields" and only adds skill points to his spirit of choice. This makes the Werebear the only tank of the build and so the Werebear must be quite powerful in order to do this. However, smart usage of Shockwave can help out quite a bit in this situation as it can leave entire packs of monsters standing around, helplessly stunned. This is the way that I tend to play since with the way I spam Shockwave around, the monsters aren't much of a threat, for the most part. Also note that solo Werebears will usually use a spirit so the summoning skill tree is still quite useful to a solo Werebear.

The second option is the Werebear with summons. In this build, the Werebear need not tank every monster that it runs into as it has placed a few points into the summoned creatures (Spirit Wolves, Dire Wolves, Grizzly). These summonable creatures take some of the heat off, allowing the Werebear to focus more on destroying its enemies than on keeping all monsters stunned. These builds are equally potent, the solo Werebear having more points to spend on becoming a creature of mass destruction, the summoning Werebear having a better defense and being less likely to be overwhelmed. From here it is really a choice of preference. However, I would urge anyone new to the game to go the summoning route, as it is a little less equipment dependent than the solo Werebear.

One last thing about the summonable minions (by this I mean Spirit Wolves, Dire Wolves and Grizzly) is that their passive bonuses carry over to each other. Thus, each point placed into Spirit Wolves will give its bonus to Attack Rating and Defense to the Dire Wolves and Grizzly. In this way, if all three skills are maxed, the summonables will deal a very large amount of damage. However, a Werebear build can't really max all three skills without being more like a Summoner than a Werebear, so don't expect to max them out with a Werebear build. If you wish to see how powerful they can become, however, play around with Chippydip's Skills Information page.

Raven
Basically, this skill is only really useful for the first 10 minutes of PvM combat. In v1.10, Ravens can blind monsters but since Werebears will make use of Shockwave to provide stunning for monsters, the blinding ability is not really worth it for this build. Though it does have uses for PvP, a standard PvM Werebear build really doesn't need more than the pre-requisite point in this skill.
Recommendation: 1 point

Spirit Wolves
This is another skill that doesn't really have a huge damage output. However, since you can potentially summon five of them, these wolves can be quite useful as a buffer for your druid. Think of how today's cars employ "crumple zones" that give way easily, but help protect the passengers. Well, these wolves can serve a similar purpose. Summoning them before heading into battle can buy your Werebear time to kill several of the monsters before the whole group begins to attack you. However, Shockwave often makes this a moot point, so these wolves are really only a luxury. On the other hand, by employing +skill items, you can be able to summon the maximum of five of these guys with only one point spent here (and it's a pre-requisite for the other summons, too!)
Recommendation: 1 point

Dire Wolves
These wolves do significantly more damage than do the Spirit Wolves. However, since most of your skill points will probably be spent on making your Werebear more powerful, rather than these, I usually skimp on points here. However, with a large number of points into Grizzly, these wolves can pack a bit of a punch, making them quite useful. Again, +skill items can be employed in order to save points here, by only placing the single point into this skill.
Recommendation: 1 point

Grizzly
Here's just what your Werebear always wanted, a pal bear to hang around with! The Grizzly is quite powerful in terms of its damage output as well as its tanking abilities, even in Hell. However, this guy often falls into the same problem that plagues the wolves: too few skill points to go around. Thus, I will often place only one points in this skill, hoping that my +skill items will make it powerful enough to tank (even if not really damage) a good number of the monsters I face when I'm too lazy to use Shockwave to stun them all.

Note: Your Grizzly has the ability to knockback and stun enemies. If your Grizzly hits an enemy that you have stunned with Shockwave, the Grizzly's (possibly much shorter) stun duration will override the Shockwave's stun.
Recommendation: 1 point

Oak Sage and Heart of the Wolverine

Now is where you have some choices to make: selecting a spirit. Both of these spirits are extremely powerful, yet you can only summon one at a time. Thus, the arguments for the spirits go this way:

Oak Sage: This spirit capitalizes upon the Werebear's already pumped up life total by increasing it even further! Werebears that use this spirit find themselves with so much life that they are VERY tough to kill very quickly giving it unrivaled tanking ability.

Heart of the Wolverine: However, Werebears tend to have a very low AR, leading them to miss quite often when they attack. Heart of the Wolverine compensates for this problem by supplying a healthy dose of +AR% (+158% at level 20). In addition, it also provides a good amount of additional damage (+153% at level 20), powering up your Werebear's already devastating blows.

The debate over which spirit to use can go on forever, but a slight majority (myself included) tend to prefer Heart of the Wolverine for the additional AR and Damage (after all, Werebears have a LOT of life to begin with). However, there is no right or wrong answer to this debate. Just pick a spirit and go with it! Note: in version 1.09 there is a bug where spirits no longer increase in their bonuses after skill level 20. For this reason, people have advocated only putting enough points into these so that when you add in your +skill items the spirits are exactly level 20. However, this bug has been fixed in v1.10, so if you're playing online, there is no longer any reason not to max out your spirit! In fact, with the tougher monsters of Hell in v1.10, these spirits sometimes don't seem to last very long so more points will get them more life which means you can worry about them less. Even then, expect to be re-casting these things pretty often if they find their way into the line of fire.
Recommendation: MAXED

Vines
Some people advocate the use of the Vines to help your druids. However, they are quite graphically intensive, so if you are playing on a slower computer, expect them to drop your frame rate significantly (which is why I don't use them). But, for those with computers that the rest of us drool over, I will give some basic descriptions of uses for them:

Poison Creeper: This skill, like ravens, does decent damage in the early-going, but quickly runs out of steam later in the game. Additionally, the low life of this vine causes it to die off quickly toward the end of the game. Thus, if you wish to use vines, put just a single point here as a pre-requisite. Otherwise you can skimp on the points here to invest them elsewhere.
Recommendation: 0 or 1 point

Carrion Vine: This vine is of great use in one situation: battling resurrection. Act Two (and to a certain extent, Acts One and Three) can be a pain if you run into a large pack of monsters with other monsters in the back resurrecting every monster you kill before it can even touch the ground. In this situation, this vine shines, as it will eat the dead bodies, preventing resurrection and allowing you to eventually kill off this pack without having to resort to luring the monsters away from the resurrection monsters to kill them. However, this vine is probably not something to be used when playing with a necromancer or a paladin relying upon redemption as it will tend to eat all of the dead corpses that those classes prey upon.

In addition, in v1.10 most monsters of Hell tend to only allow you to leech off of a small portion of their life. Thus, a Werebear that is planning on using life leech might have a bit of difficulty in Hell. In this case, Carrion Vine can be a HUGE help. However, it is extremely fragile so expect to cast it a LOT. More than 1 point might be needed if you plan to make extensive use of it.
Recommendation: 0 or 1+ points

Solar Creeper: Werebears rarely hurt for mana. All Werebear skills require very little mana to be effective, and so this vine would be a bit of a waste. A single item with mana leech or +mana after each kill can be all that a Werebear needs to keep his mana pool full.
Recommendation: 0 points.

Now with skills out of the way, it's time to move on to choosing your weapon.