whathappen
23-03-2004, 09:07
My WW/Summon Hybrid (sort of cheap)
** Introduction
This is a description of my werewolf/summon build for patch 1.10. My character just made it to lvl 80 and defeated Baal in Hell. Here are some of the highlights that I have experienced so far with this build:
- It is fun
- Starting from Baal in normal and all the way to Baal in Hell, soloed the act bosses to complete the final quests in games where other peeps were there (typically joined an “act 1 help” game and soloed the next boss). Only the minions of destruction and Baal really gave me a lot of pain but that is a given in 1.10.
- I had decent equipment but no “Enigma Armor, Shako, BOTD Archon Staff, War Travs, Verdungos, 2 SOJs, ..”. Every time I see something like this, can’t help to think that even a Dentist (necromancer using teeth as its main attack) would work with this equipment
- Died only once, killing Baal in Nightmare, and that was only because I was extreme reckless not going back to town to take health pots.
- No single mob is immune against me. I had a lighting trapsin and played her a lot but every time a lighting immune pack came, it was a pain (roughly 1/3 of the mobs in hell are immune against at least 1 type of elemental damage). Nothing like this happens to my WW/summon. He can take care of any mob (yes, some faster than others but still no complete immunities to worry about).
- Did I mention that it is fun?
** Roles:
The role of my WW is to deal with PIs, the role of my summons/merc is to deal with non-PIs, which is about 10% of the mobs in hell. Let me say it very clear, with appropriate equipment for you and your merc, 3 dire wolves and an act II might merc can take care of any non-PI mob very quickly.
** skill distribution:
I only mention skills that I actually used. Points mentioned don’t include +skills. At lvl 80 my druid had invested the following points:
*** Shape shifting tree:
- lycanthropy, 5 pts, increases health and duration of your character in ww form.
- Werewolf, 20 pts, increases combat speed and attack rating. Combat speed returns are low. At lvl 20 you get 68% IAS. At lvl 30 it gives 73% IAS only. Still it helps. AR increase is handsome: 335% at lvl 20.
- Feral rage, 1 pt, damage increase and life leach. With each hit you charge this skill. Once fully charged (after 3 or 4 hits), you will be doing substantial more damage and life leach. Effect lasts for 20 seconds or so. Afterwards, you need to charge it again. I always keep my character enraged. A fireball goes around you while enraged. When it disappears, you know its time to charge it again.
- Fury, 1 pt, attack multiple enemies at the same time. Increases damage and AR. My main attack.
*** Summon tree
- Oak sage, 10 pts, substantially increases the life of your wolves and your merc.
- Carrion vine, 1 pt, every time it eats a corpse gives you life. Also, nice feat: corpses eaten will not revive. Perfect to fight those pesky mobs that revive by themselves or are revived by other mobs.
- Spirit wolves, 5, increase AR and DR of wolves and bear. Useful companions until you put 5 points into dire wolves. At that point you never look back.
- Dire wolves, 20 pts, increase life of wolves and bear. In addition, every point you put into them increase the damage they deal. Dire wolves double the damage they do when enraged. They get enraged by eating mob’s corpses. You will recognize when they are enraged because they seem to glow. If you keep them alive, they seem to glow the whole time. Mobs hate that.
- Bear, 20 pts, increase damage of wolves and bear. Once I reached lvl 30, I put 1 pt into it. Since I use dire wolves as my main pets, I only started adding pts into it, once I maxed the Dire wolves because the damage that dire wolves gain is larger when putting points into dire wolves than to put points into bear.
I will continue pumping Oak Sage and werewolf evenly split as I go beyond lvl 80.
** Equipment:
Before starting, you can pre-buff the following skills: lycanthropy, werewolf, oak sage. This means that you can use a cheap combo weapon/shield to shapeshift into a werewolf and to summon and oak sage and then switch back to your main weapon/shield. Even though the life of the Oak Sage itself will decrease, its effect of increasing life to you and your wolves, merc remains with the level when it was summoned.
These are your goals for the equipment:
- High-speed weapon that delivers lots of elemental damage
- At least +7 skills in summoning tree and at least +8 in shapeshifting tree
- Additional +3 skills in switch weapon/shield for pre-buffing
- Reaper toll, the unique Trasher weapon for your act II might merc. It gives 33% chances of casting Decrepify. For practical purposes 33% means that after a few seconds, the merc will cast decrepify and keep it cast for the duration of the fight. This skill slows the mobs and makes your summons, your merc and you do 50% more physical damage!. Awesome!. A note here is that this skill does not remove PI. Only Amplify Damage does that feat (100% more physical damage).
- Elemental resistances are nice to have even if as a druid you get tons of life
This is the equipment I use to accomplish these goals:
- Jalal Mana druid helm. Gives + 2 skills and +2 shapeshifting skills.
- +2 druid skills rare ammy.
- Skin of the Vipermagi for some resistances and +1 more skill
- 1 Grand charm with +1 shape****fing skills and 2 grand charm with + 1 summon skills
- Baranar star. Adds 3-600 various elemental damages. Super fast. Just add a shael to it or have a 20% IAS gloves and when using the Fury skill you’ll be reaching 5 fps. Not bad. Oh it also gives 50% to AR!
- Since Barana star is a 1 hand weapon, you can use a shield. Simple take a Tiamat's Rebuke. This nice shield gives around 80-250 various elemental damages.
- Switch weapon/shield: Dark Clan Crusher/sigon shield. +3 skills. These two are as cheap as it gets.
- Several charms with resistances. Added a p. diamond to shield. Found an Um in the Forge Hell. I put it in my armor.
I know, I said it was cheap and now I list: Baranar star, reaper toll, Tiamat's Rebuke, Jalal Mana, 3 grand charms, and Skin of the Vipermagi. But believe me, from these the only one expensive is reaper toll. And even this is not worth a shako. Not even close. I got mine trading it for Aldur’s armor. I trade a rune (um or io I don’t remember) for Jalal Mana and so forth.
** Stat points distribution:
- strength: enough to use weapon (Barana star requires 153)
- dextery: speed and high chances to hit are your best friends. I always kept pumping dextery to make sure that I had 85% chances to hit the mobs I was fighting.
- Vitality: the rest
- Energy: 0 pts. Your minions will not die that much, so you are not recasting continuously
** tactics:
- Keep your act II might merc at your level.
- Only start hell when your merc reaches lvl 75 and can use Reaper toll
- Keep yourself enraged at all the times
- Max at the same time dire wolves and werewolf. Your last skill to max is Bear.
- When starting add the 5 points into Lycanthropy. It helps at the beginning to keep you alive
- In Hell, look for the PIs, those are yours. Try to use the minions to distract them and kill 1 or 2 at a time.
- Keep recasting that idiotic vine carrion. It is not much for the health you gain, but specially for removing corpses.
** Introduction
This is a description of my werewolf/summon build for patch 1.10. My character just made it to lvl 80 and defeated Baal in Hell. Here are some of the highlights that I have experienced so far with this build:
- It is fun
- Starting from Baal in normal and all the way to Baal in Hell, soloed the act bosses to complete the final quests in games where other peeps were there (typically joined an “act 1 help” game and soloed the next boss). Only the minions of destruction and Baal really gave me a lot of pain but that is a given in 1.10.
- I had decent equipment but no “Enigma Armor, Shako, BOTD Archon Staff, War Travs, Verdungos, 2 SOJs, ..”. Every time I see something like this, can’t help to think that even a Dentist (necromancer using teeth as its main attack) would work with this equipment
- Died only once, killing Baal in Nightmare, and that was only because I was extreme reckless not going back to town to take health pots.
- No single mob is immune against me. I had a lighting trapsin and played her a lot but every time a lighting immune pack came, it was a pain (roughly 1/3 of the mobs in hell are immune against at least 1 type of elemental damage). Nothing like this happens to my WW/summon. He can take care of any mob (yes, some faster than others but still no complete immunities to worry about).
- Did I mention that it is fun?
** Roles:
The role of my WW is to deal with PIs, the role of my summons/merc is to deal with non-PIs, which is about 10% of the mobs in hell. Let me say it very clear, with appropriate equipment for you and your merc, 3 dire wolves and an act II might merc can take care of any non-PI mob very quickly.
** skill distribution:
I only mention skills that I actually used. Points mentioned don’t include +skills. At lvl 80 my druid had invested the following points:
*** Shape shifting tree:
- lycanthropy, 5 pts, increases health and duration of your character in ww form.
- Werewolf, 20 pts, increases combat speed and attack rating. Combat speed returns are low. At lvl 20 you get 68% IAS. At lvl 30 it gives 73% IAS only. Still it helps. AR increase is handsome: 335% at lvl 20.
- Feral rage, 1 pt, damage increase and life leach. With each hit you charge this skill. Once fully charged (after 3 or 4 hits), you will be doing substantial more damage and life leach. Effect lasts for 20 seconds or so. Afterwards, you need to charge it again. I always keep my character enraged. A fireball goes around you while enraged. When it disappears, you know its time to charge it again.
- Fury, 1 pt, attack multiple enemies at the same time. Increases damage and AR. My main attack.
*** Summon tree
- Oak sage, 10 pts, substantially increases the life of your wolves and your merc.
- Carrion vine, 1 pt, every time it eats a corpse gives you life. Also, nice feat: corpses eaten will not revive. Perfect to fight those pesky mobs that revive by themselves or are revived by other mobs.
- Spirit wolves, 5, increase AR and DR of wolves and bear. Useful companions until you put 5 points into dire wolves. At that point you never look back.
- Dire wolves, 20 pts, increase life of wolves and bear. In addition, every point you put into them increase the damage they deal. Dire wolves double the damage they do when enraged. They get enraged by eating mob’s corpses. You will recognize when they are enraged because they seem to glow. If you keep them alive, they seem to glow the whole time. Mobs hate that.
- Bear, 20 pts, increase damage of wolves and bear. Once I reached lvl 30, I put 1 pt into it. Since I use dire wolves as my main pets, I only started adding pts into it, once I maxed the Dire wolves because the damage that dire wolves gain is larger when putting points into dire wolves than to put points into bear.
I will continue pumping Oak Sage and werewolf evenly split as I go beyond lvl 80.
** Equipment:
Before starting, you can pre-buff the following skills: lycanthropy, werewolf, oak sage. This means that you can use a cheap combo weapon/shield to shapeshift into a werewolf and to summon and oak sage and then switch back to your main weapon/shield. Even though the life of the Oak Sage itself will decrease, its effect of increasing life to you and your wolves, merc remains with the level when it was summoned.
These are your goals for the equipment:
- High-speed weapon that delivers lots of elemental damage
- At least +7 skills in summoning tree and at least +8 in shapeshifting tree
- Additional +3 skills in switch weapon/shield for pre-buffing
- Reaper toll, the unique Trasher weapon for your act II might merc. It gives 33% chances of casting Decrepify. For practical purposes 33% means that after a few seconds, the merc will cast decrepify and keep it cast for the duration of the fight. This skill slows the mobs and makes your summons, your merc and you do 50% more physical damage!. Awesome!. A note here is that this skill does not remove PI. Only Amplify Damage does that feat (100% more physical damage).
- Elemental resistances are nice to have even if as a druid you get tons of life
This is the equipment I use to accomplish these goals:
- Jalal Mana druid helm. Gives + 2 skills and +2 shapeshifting skills.
- +2 druid skills rare ammy.
- Skin of the Vipermagi for some resistances and +1 more skill
- 1 Grand charm with +1 shape****fing skills and 2 grand charm with + 1 summon skills
- Baranar star. Adds 3-600 various elemental damages. Super fast. Just add a shael to it or have a 20% IAS gloves and when using the Fury skill you’ll be reaching 5 fps. Not bad. Oh it also gives 50% to AR!
- Since Barana star is a 1 hand weapon, you can use a shield. Simple take a Tiamat's Rebuke. This nice shield gives around 80-250 various elemental damages.
- Switch weapon/shield: Dark Clan Crusher/sigon shield. +3 skills. These two are as cheap as it gets.
- Several charms with resistances. Added a p. diamond to shield. Found an Um in the Forge Hell. I put it in my armor.
I know, I said it was cheap and now I list: Baranar star, reaper toll, Tiamat's Rebuke, Jalal Mana, 3 grand charms, and Skin of the Vipermagi. But believe me, from these the only one expensive is reaper toll. And even this is not worth a shako. Not even close. I got mine trading it for Aldur’s armor. I trade a rune (um or io I don’t remember) for Jalal Mana and so forth.
** Stat points distribution:
- strength: enough to use weapon (Barana star requires 153)
- dextery: speed and high chances to hit are your best friends. I always kept pumping dextery to make sure that I had 85% chances to hit the mobs I was fighting.
- Vitality: the rest
- Energy: 0 pts. Your minions will not die that much, so you are not recasting continuously
** tactics:
- Keep your act II might merc at your level.
- Only start hell when your merc reaches lvl 75 and can use Reaper toll
- Keep yourself enraged at all the times
- Max at the same time dire wolves and werewolf. Your last skill to max is Bear.
- When starting add the 5 points into Lycanthropy. It helps at the beginning to keep you alive
- In Hell, look for the PIs, those are yours. Try to use the minions to distract them and kill 1 or 2 at a time.
- Keep recasting that idiotic vine carrion. It is not much for the health you gain, but specially for removing corpses.