whathappen
21-04-2004, 10:19
Any comments appreciated...
Whathappen’s True Summon/Werewolf Guide 1.0
** Introduction
In the “old days” pre 1.10, one of my favorite builds was the volcano/summon build. But in all honestly, it was a bit weak, specially due to the 50% physical resistance that all mobs had in hell. Now 1.10 has open the doors to a more strong and *true* hybrid: the summon/werewolf. By “true” I mean that neither are you converting into werewolf just to have more life nor you are using summons just as meat shields and/or distraction for the mobs. Another interesting thing is you need “decent” items with this build but not necessarily the super-goldy frequently used in other builds. By which I mean that you do need some nice equipment to make it work but not ueber equipment of the likes of the Beast weapon, Enigma armor, 2 SOJs, etc. You know what I mean.
I made 3 variants: Life, Offensive and Venom, all lvl 80+, all beat Baal in Hell, all are very good soloers, none used ueber gear. This guide is oriented towards PvM only.
** Basic skill allocation:
I only mention skills that I actually used. Points mentioned don’t include +skills. These skills are common independent of the 3 variants:
*** Shape shifting tree:
- lycanthropy, 1 point. Increases health and duration of your character in ww form.
- 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. You’ll know it because a fireball goes around you while enraged. When it disappears, you know its time to charge it again.
*** Summon tree
- 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 summon spirit wolves again. An issue that was asked to me is if 5 points is sufficient. I can say that even without Heart of the Wolverine, wolves and bear hit pretty well. It was easy to test by summoning the bear and see how many swings will he actually hit. The bear seem to miss very few swings.
- 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.
** Variants
With the basic skill allocation above there were 3 variants that I tested: life (Oak Sage), offensive (Hear of Wolverine) and Venom (rabies). I list pros and cons for each varian, and when to allocate points.
*** Life Variant
- 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.
- Fury, 1 pt, attack multiple enemies at the same time. Increases damage and AR. Your main attack. Even a single point and assuming 8 + skills, you hit 5 rapid times, each with 236% extra damage. Not bad. Keep enrage and have a good IAS and things will die quickly.
- Oak sage, 10 pts, substantially increases the life of you, your pets and your merc (but not the vine).
- Carrion vine, 1 pt, every time the vine eats a corpse, you get more 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.
- As your clvl goes 80+ pump fury.
Pros:
- This probably would be my choice if I was playing Hardcore. Died only once, when killing Baal in Nightmare, and that was only because I was extreme reckless not going back to town to take health pots.
- The Least equipment dependant from the 3 variants
Cons:
- From the 3 variants, this is the slowest killer of large group of mobs. Still pretty decent.
*** Offensive Variant
- 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.
- Fury, 1 pt, attack multiple enemies at the same time. Increases damage and AR. Your main attack. Even a single point and assuming 8 + skills, you hit 5 rapid times, each with 236% extra damage. Not bad. Keep enrage and have a good IAS and things will die quickly.
- Heart of the Wolverine, 10 pts, substantially increases the attack rating and a decent damage increase of you, your pets and your merc (but not the vine).
- 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.
- Pump Heart of the wolverine as your clvl goes 80+. Why not Fury? You want to increase AR and damage of all your “team” not just of yourself. This is a true hybrid, remember? If you find that you are dying too much, you can add a few points into Lycanthropy to add more life.
Pros:
- Very fast killer. The fastest boss killer from the 3 variants.
- A bit more expensive equipment than the Life build but not by much.
Cons:
- From the 3 variants, this is the one that is more on the edge. So you will die a few times if not careful. You need enough life leach capabilities and never forget Feral rage!
Credit to psuedoenviro for suggesting HoW in a previous post of mine. This let to the offensive variant.
*** Venom Variant
- Rabies, 20 pts, hit a mob and watch its health go down and all of his neighboring mobs get infected too. The effect for large packs of mobs is amazing. They all start turning green. Nice killer for a group of mobs.
- Heart of the Wolverine, 10 pts, substantially increases the attack rating and a decent damage increase of you, your pets and your merc (but not the vine).
- Poison Creep, 0 pt (zero as in “nada”), If you put any points here you will screw making an effective hybrid. You need the Carrion Wind ring. This ring will provide the +21 poison creep, which gives max synergy to pump the damage of rabies. Any point in poison creep will remove the effect, and you will be force to max it, loosing 20 much-needed skill points.
- Pump Heart of the wolverine as your clvl goes 80+. You want to increase AR and damage of all your “team”. If you find that you are dying too much, you can add a few points into Lycanthropy to add more life.
Pros:
- The fastest killer of pack of mobs provided that they are not poison immune.
Cons:
- Expensive. You need: Carrion Vine ring, Trang set gloves and Plague Bearer sword (which is kind of cheap) or death web wand (very expensive).
- From the 3 variants, this is the slowest boss killer.
Special note: this guide concentrates on hybrid variants and it is not really about rabies. For learning everything you wanted to know about rabies and were afraid to ask, head to Kaz's, excellent Flaming Rabies Guide:
http://www.rpgforums.net//showthread.php?t=127354
or Electric Blue's guide:
http://www.rpgforums.net//showthread.php?t=127492
** Equipment:
You can pre-buff the following skills: lycanthropy, werewolf, oak sage, Heart of the Wolverine. This means that you can use a cheap combo weapon/shield to shapeshift into a werewolf and to summon the oak sage/HoW 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, your pets and, your merc remains with the level when it was summoned. This can be checked easily by looking at your life bar.
These are your goals for the equipment:
- High-speed weapon that delivers lots of elemental damage. Note that only the weapon IAS will affect the speed while in werewolf form, not any other gear piece such as gloves (credits to psuedoenviro for pointing this to me).
- At least +7 skills in summoning tree and at least +7 in shapeshifting tree
- 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!. This is crucial for making your pets effective. Three notes here: (1) PI are about 10% of the mobs in hell. (2) Decrepify removes PI for most PI mobs except those that have combinations like PI and stone skin (very rare). (3) Still killing mobs for which its PI has been removed with decrepify is slow with pure physical damage. This is why you want to deliver lots of elemental damage. (credit to Unicorn Marketeer and lextalionis for pointing these facts to me).
- Elemental resistances are nice to have, You are not maxing Lycanthropy, so you will not have the tons of life that a pure shapeshifter typically has.
*** Life/Offensive Build:
- Weapon choice # 1: IK Maul with 1 (ok) or 2 (very good) or 3 (excellent!) additional items from the IK set (boots, gloves and belt). Put 2 shaels on the IK Maul and you are ready for anything. Switch Weapon # 1: Dark Clan Crusher/sigon shield. +3 skills. These two are as cheap as it gets. (Sim.The.GoSu gets credit for pointing the IK maul and other parts of the set to me. I had mistakenly assumed that this was barb only. Only the head gear is barb only)
- Weapon choice # 2: Windhammer. It is very fast and very nice damage. It just keep spamming twisters. Coupled with decrepify, mobs will hit you much less. Switch Weapon # 2: Baranar star. Adds 3-600 various elemental damages. Super fast. It also gives 50% to AR!. Since Barana star is a 1 hand weapon, you can use a shield. Take a Tiamat's Rebuke. This nice shield gives around 80-250 various elemental damages
- Weapon choice # 3: Baranar star and Tiamat's Rebuke. I beat hell with my Life variant using this combo. Not as fast killer as the first two choices but still pretty decent. Switch Weapon # 3: Dark Clan Crusher/sigon shield.
- Helm: you got to love Cerebus' Bite. I must confess that I have never seen one. But because of it, getting a Jalal Mana druid helm is cheap :). Gives + 2 skills and +2 shapeshifting skills.
- Ammy: +2 druid skills magical ammy. If you have only + 1 druid rare then you may consider getting a +3 shapeshift or a +3 summon.
- Armor: Skin of the Vipermagi for some resistances and +1 more skill. Aldur’s armor. There is obviously nice armors like Duriel Shell. But the emphasis should be to help with the +skill count. Skin is cheap.
- Gloves, belt, boots: so many choices: sigon gloves and belt is a favorite because of life leach. Ghoulhide gloves are also nice. Gore raider boots. The belt from the orphan set is also very nice. But I strongly recommend that you start collecting IK stuff. IK belt, gloves and boots are really not hard to get by. No-no gloves: Dracul's Grasp. Very nice life leach for you and your pets, but: you don’t want to wear anything that has chances to cast courses because they interfere with the decrepify from your merc’s reaper toll. Only if you haven’t got Reaper Toll yet, these are nice to have. But you really should work to get that Reaper Toll.
- Grand charms with +1 shape****fing skills and +1 summon skills. The shape****fing are rather expensive whereas the summon are cheap. No one wants them, so you can trade them cheap.
- rings: you want raven as everyone else because of the “cannot be frozen” property. Gives a nice dextery boost. You also need some mana leach ammy. Doesn’t have to be manald. It is easy to get a magical ring with mana leach.
- My final gear for Life/offensive: IK maul, gloves, belt and boots. Skin of Viper magi (um), +2 druid skill magical ammy, Jalal Mana (um), raven and manald, + 1 GC shapeshift and + 3 GC summon. For a total of +8 skills in shape**** and in summon. But more is better.
*** Venom Build:
- Weapon: plague bearer (+5 rabies), shield: sigon
- Glove: Trang set gloves (+25% poison damage)
- Rings: raven and Carrion wind
- Ammy: +2 druid magic ring. If you don’t have get a +3 shapeshift magical ammy.
- head: Jalal Mana
- Armor: Skin
- belt: many choices: nightsmoke, belt from orphan set
- boots: many choices: Tearhaunch, waterwalk or rare boots with + run speed, some resistances.
- My final gear for Venom: Plague Bearer, Skin of Viper magi, raven, carrion wind, +2 druid skills ammy, Jalal Mana, Tearhaunch boots, orphans set belt, + 1 GC shapeshift and + 3 GC summon. For a total of +8 skills in shapeshift and in summon, and +13 rabies. But more is better.
** Stat points distribution:
- strength: enough to use weapon
- dextery: Typical advice for pure shapeshifters is to invest just enough needed for using the weapon. Offensive variant don’t need to worry about this because of the HoW. It is life that needs to have some 100 points in dextery here, to make sure that they’ll continue hitting as you progress to hell. About the Venom variant, I hear that rabies always hit. But, I saw mine miss a few times. Whether it always hit or not, still you don’t need dextery because rabies and HoW both gives AR.
- Vitality: the rest
- Energy: 0 pts.
** Merc:
- Might merc, equipped with Reaper Toll (I really don’t want you to forget this). Reaper Toll also gives you 11%-15% life leach. Add an amn. The merc could use some damage reduction and resistances. Ideally something like Vampire Gaze and Duriel Shell. I never got these two, so I end up using shaftstop and tal rasha head gear.
** tactics:
*** General:
- 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
- Lead your troops towards the group of mobs, take a few steps back once your small army is engaged, and then rejoin the battle. Remember that you are not a pure werewolf and as such you don’t have its awesome tanking abilities. But then he doesn’t have such deadly companions as you.
- Keep track of your pets as soon as one dies re-summon it.
*** vs. Mana leachers:
- These guys are a pain initially. Once they hit you, your mana is gone, that means no rabies, no fury, no nothing. Use your pets. Cast a pet right on these guys. Then you can start hitting them almost with impunity. If they turn for you just step back, let the pets and merc engage and then go back in and keep hitting them. Many of these guys are PIs. So if you are using windhammer, don’t forget to switch.
*** Wolves vs. Bear
There are several factors to take into account here:
- If your merc does not have very good gear, you need the (dire) wolves around to provide more targets.
- In narrow places like Sanctuary, it is pointless to have the 3 wolves since place is so narrow. The bear is a much better choice there.
- Against bosses, wolves may die too frequently. Then you want to use the bear.
*** points allocation:
1.- When starting immediately put your point into Lycanthropy and werewolf. Put the 5 points for the spirit. And continue putting 1 point into each of the skills needed.
2.- Life/offensive alternate 1 point between dire wolves and werewolf until you maxed both.
3.- When starting nightmare (around clvl 45), you should have invested 5 points into sage/HoW. When you start Hell you should invested 10 points into sage/JoW
4.- Venom follows 1-3 but instead of alternating dire wolves and werewolf, alternate dire wolves and rabies.
*** versus Bosses
Life/Offensive can actually tank bosses. A big help to finish bosses quickly is your merc casting decrepify all the time. So you want to keep him alive. If he continues dying, you actually don’t need him but will take longer. Just make sure to cast the bear in the opposite side from the boss relative to your position. More often than not they get distracted by the bear and you can keep hitting them. The oak/HoW die frequently so you want to re-summon them all the time.
*** Venom:
Venom is a hit and run character. Without maxing werewolf, with just one point in Lycanthropy, you can’t really tank even for short periods of time like your cousins Life and Offensive do. But to compensate for that you have a nasty bite, whose effects last long and propagate to others after you have bitten your enemy. Don’t bother putting 1 point in Fury. In the real dangerous places where you would like to hit hard, you’ll die. In the easy places, your pets suffice. Since IAS is not an issue, afterall you are hitting once and leaving, I suggest you socket a Nef rune to your plague bearer for the knockback effect. Just keep them poison and watch them die quickly. Bosses in Hell are a real challenge. Keep your bear on top of the boss at all times and just hit and run,. It will take some time but they will go down.
Whathappen’s True Summon/Werewolf Guide 1.0
** Introduction
In the “old days” pre 1.10, one of my favorite builds was the volcano/summon build. But in all honestly, it was a bit weak, specially due to the 50% physical resistance that all mobs had in hell. Now 1.10 has open the doors to a more strong and *true* hybrid: the summon/werewolf. By “true” I mean that neither are you converting into werewolf just to have more life nor you are using summons just as meat shields and/or distraction for the mobs. Another interesting thing is you need “decent” items with this build but not necessarily the super-goldy frequently used in other builds. By which I mean that you do need some nice equipment to make it work but not ueber equipment of the likes of the Beast weapon, Enigma armor, 2 SOJs, etc. You know what I mean.
I made 3 variants: Life, Offensive and Venom, all lvl 80+, all beat Baal in Hell, all are very good soloers, none used ueber gear. This guide is oriented towards PvM only.
** Basic skill allocation:
I only mention skills that I actually used. Points mentioned don’t include +skills. These skills are common independent of the 3 variants:
*** Shape shifting tree:
- lycanthropy, 1 point. Increases health and duration of your character in ww form.
- 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. You’ll know it because a fireball goes around you while enraged. When it disappears, you know its time to charge it again.
*** Summon tree
- 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 summon spirit wolves again. An issue that was asked to me is if 5 points is sufficient. I can say that even without Heart of the Wolverine, wolves and bear hit pretty well. It was easy to test by summoning the bear and see how many swings will he actually hit. The bear seem to miss very few swings.
- 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.
** Variants
With the basic skill allocation above there were 3 variants that I tested: life (Oak Sage), offensive (Hear of Wolverine) and Venom (rabies). I list pros and cons for each varian, and when to allocate points.
*** Life Variant
- 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.
- Fury, 1 pt, attack multiple enemies at the same time. Increases damage and AR. Your main attack. Even a single point and assuming 8 + skills, you hit 5 rapid times, each with 236% extra damage. Not bad. Keep enrage and have a good IAS and things will die quickly.
- Oak sage, 10 pts, substantially increases the life of you, your pets and your merc (but not the vine).
- Carrion vine, 1 pt, every time the vine eats a corpse, you get more 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.
- As your clvl goes 80+ pump fury.
Pros:
- This probably would be my choice if I was playing Hardcore. Died only once, when killing Baal in Nightmare, and that was only because I was extreme reckless not going back to town to take health pots.
- The Least equipment dependant from the 3 variants
Cons:
- From the 3 variants, this is the slowest killer of large group of mobs. Still pretty decent.
*** Offensive Variant
- 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.
- Fury, 1 pt, attack multiple enemies at the same time. Increases damage and AR. Your main attack. Even a single point and assuming 8 + skills, you hit 5 rapid times, each with 236% extra damage. Not bad. Keep enrage and have a good IAS and things will die quickly.
- Heart of the Wolverine, 10 pts, substantially increases the attack rating and a decent damage increase of you, your pets and your merc (but not the vine).
- 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.
- Pump Heart of the wolverine as your clvl goes 80+. Why not Fury? You want to increase AR and damage of all your “team” not just of yourself. This is a true hybrid, remember? If you find that you are dying too much, you can add a few points into Lycanthropy to add more life.
Pros:
- Very fast killer. The fastest boss killer from the 3 variants.
- A bit more expensive equipment than the Life build but not by much.
Cons:
- From the 3 variants, this is the one that is more on the edge. So you will die a few times if not careful. You need enough life leach capabilities and never forget Feral rage!
Credit to psuedoenviro for suggesting HoW in a previous post of mine. This let to the offensive variant.
*** Venom Variant
- Rabies, 20 pts, hit a mob and watch its health go down and all of his neighboring mobs get infected too. The effect for large packs of mobs is amazing. They all start turning green. Nice killer for a group of mobs.
- Heart of the Wolverine, 10 pts, substantially increases the attack rating and a decent damage increase of you, your pets and your merc (but not the vine).
- Poison Creep, 0 pt (zero as in “nada”), If you put any points here you will screw making an effective hybrid. You need the Carrion Wind ring. This ring will provide the +21 poison creep, which gives max synergy to pump the damage of rabies. Any point in poison creep will remove the effect, and you will be force to max it, loosing 20 much-needed skill points.
- Pump Heart of the wolverine as your clvl goes 80+. You want to increase AR and damage of all your “team”. If you find that you are dying too much, you can add a few points into Lycanthropy to add more life.
Pros:
- The fastest killer of pack of mobs provided that they are not poison immune.
Cons:
- Expensive. You need: Carrion Vine ring, Trang set gloves and Plague Bearer sword (which is kind of cheap) or death web wand (very expensive).
- From the 3 variants, this is the slowest boss killer.
Special note: this guide concentrates on hybrid variants and it is not really about rabies. For learning everything you wanted to know about rabies and were afraid to ask, head to Kaz's, excellent Flaming Rabies Guide:
http://www.rpgforums.net//showthread.php?t=127354
or Electric Blue's guide:
http://www.rpgforums.net//showthread.php?t=127492
** Equipment:
You can pre-buff the following skills: lycanthropy, werewolf, oak sage, Heart of the Wolverine. This means that you can use a cheap combo weapon/shield to shapeshift into a werewolf and to summon the oak sage/HoW 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, your pets and, your merc remains with the level when it was summoned. This can be checked easily by looking at your life bar.
These are your goals for the equipment:
- High-speed weapon that delivers lots of elemental damage. Note that only the weapon IAS will affect the speed while in werewolf form, not any other gear piece such as gloves (credits to psuedoenviro for pointing this to me).
- At least +7 skills in summoning tree and at least +7 in shapeshifting tree
- 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!. This is crucial for making your pets effective. Three notes here: (1) PI are about 10% of the mobs in hell. (2) Decrepify removes PI for most PI mobs except those that have combinations like PI and stone skin (very rare). (3) Still killing mobs for which its PI has been removed with decrepify is slow with pure physical damage. This is why you want to deliver lots of elemental damage. (credit to Unicorn Marketeer and lextalionis for pointing these facts to me).
- Elemental resistances are nice to have, You are not maxing Lycanthropy, so you will not have the tons of life that a pure shapeshifter typically has.
*** Life/Offensive Build:
- Weapon choice # 1: IK Maul with 1 (ok) or 2 (very good) or 3 (excellent!) additional items from the IK set (boots, gloves and belt). Put 2 shaels on the IK Maul and you are ready for anything. Switch Weapon # 1: Dark Clan Crusher/sigon shield. +3 skills. These two are as cheap as it gets. (Sim.The.GoSu gets credit for pointing the IK maul and other parts of the set to me. I had mistakenly assumed that this was barb only. Only the head gear is barb only)
- Weapon choice # 2: Windhammer. It is very fast and very nice damage. It just keep spamming twisters. Coupled with decrepify, mobs will hit you much less. Switch Weapon # 2: Baranar star. Adds 3-600 various elemental damages. Super fast. It also gives 50% to AR!. Since Barana star is a 1 hand weapon, you can use a shield. Take a Tiamat's Rebuke. This nice shield gives around 80-250 various elemental damages
- Weapon choice # 3: Baranar star and Tiamat's Rebuke. I beat hell with my Life variant using this combo. Not as fast killer as the first two choices but still pretty decent. Switch Weapon # 3: Dark Clan Crusher/sigon shield.
- Helm: you got to love Cerebus' Bite. I must confess that I have never seen one. But because of it, getting a Jalal Mana druid helm is cheap :). Gives + 2 skills and +2 shapeshifting skills.
- Ammy: +2 druid skills magical ammy. If you have only + 1 druid rare then you may consider getting a +3 shapeshift or a +3 summon.
- Armor: Skin of the Vipermagi for some resistances and +1 more skill. Aldur’s armor. There is obviously nice armors like Duriel Shell. But the emphasis should be to help with the +skill count. Skin is cheap.
- Gloves, belt, boots: so many choices: sigon gloves and belt is a favorite because of life leach. Ghoulhide gloves are also nice. Gore raider boots. The belt from the orphan set is also very nice. But I strongly recommend that you start collecting IK stuff. IK belt, gloves and boots are really not hard to get by. No-no gloves: Dracul's Grasp. Very nice life leach for you and your pets, but: you don’t want to wear anything that has chances to cast courses because they interfere with the decrepify from your merc’s reaper toll. Only if you haven’t got Reaper Toll yet, these are nice to have. But you really should work to get that Reaper Toll.
- Grand charms with +1 shape****fing skills and +1 summon skills. The shape****fing are rather expensive whereas the summon are cheap. No one wants them, so you can trade them cheap.
- rings: you want raven as everyone else because of the “cannot be frozen” property. Gives a nice dextery boost. You also need some mana leach ammy. Doesn’t have to be manald. It is easy to get a magical ring with mana leach.
- My final gear for Life/offensive: IK maul, gloves, belt and boots. Skin of Viper magi (um), +2 druid skill magical ammy, Jalal Mana (um), raven and manald, + 1 GC shapeshift and + 3 GC summon. For a total of +8 skills in shape**** and in summon. But more is better.
*** Venom Build:
- Weapon: plague bearer (+5 rabies), shield: sigon
- Glove: Trang set gloves (+25% poison damage)
- Rings: raven and Carrion wind
- Ammy: +2 druid magic ring. If you don’t have get a +3 shapeshift magical ammy.
- head: Jalal Mana
- Armor: Skin
- belt: many choices: nightsmoke, belt from orphan set
- boots: many choices: Tearhaunch, waterwalk or rare boots with + run speed, some resistances.
- My final gear for Venom: Plague Bearer, Skin of Viper magi, raven, carrion wind, +2 druid skills ammy, Jalal Mana, Tearhaunch boots, orphans set belt, + 1 GC shapeshift and + 3 GC summon. For a total of +8 skills in shapeshift and in summon, and +13 rabies. But more is better.
** Stat points distribution:
- strength: enough to use weapon
- dextery: Typical advice for pure shapeshifters is to invest just enough needed for using the weapon. Offensive variant don’t need to worry about this because of the HoW. It is life that needs to have some 100 points in dextery here, to make sure that they’ll continue hitting as you progress to hell. About the Venom variant, I hear that rabies always hit. But, I saw mine miss a few times. Whether it always hit or not, still you don’t need dextery because rabies and HoW both gives AR.
- Vitality: the rest
- Energy: 0 pts.
** Merc:
- Might merc, equipped with Reaper Toll (I really don’t want you to forget this). Reaper Toll also gives you 11%-15% life leach. Add an amn. The merc could use some damage reduction and resistances. Ideally something like Vampire Gaze and Duriel Shell. I never got these two, so I end up using shaftstop and tal rasha head gear.
** tactics:
*** General:
- 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
- Lead your troops towards the group of mobs, take a few steps back once your small army is engaged, and then rejoin the battle. Remember that you are not a pure werewolf and as such you don’t have its awesome tanking abilities. But then he doesn’t have such deadly companions as you.
- Keep track of your pets as soon as one dies re-summon it.
*** vs. Mana leachers:
- These guys are a pain initially. Once they hit you, your mana is gone, that means no rabies, no fury, no nothing. Use your pets. Cast a pet right on these guys. Then you can start hitting them almost with impunity. If they turn for you just step back, let the pets and merc engage and then go back in and keep hitting them. Many of these guys are PIs. So if you are using windhammer, don’t forget to switch.
*** Wolves vs. Bear
There are several factors to take into account here:
- If your merc does not have very good gear, you need the (dire) wolves around to provide more targets.
- In narrow places like Sanctuary, it is pointless to have the 3 wolves since place is so narrow. The bear is a much better choice there.
- Against bosses, wolves may die too frequently. Then you want to use the bear.
*** points allocation:
1.- When starting immediately put your point into Lycanthropy and werewolf. Put the 5 points for the spirit. And continue putting 1 point into each of the skills needed.
2.- Life/offensive alternate 1 point between dire wolves and werewolf until you maxed both.
3.- When starting nightmare (around clvl 45), you should have invested 5 points into sage/HoW. When you start Hell you should invested 10 points into sage/JoW
4.- Venom follows 1-3 but instead of alternating dire wolves and werewolf, alternate dire wolves and rabies.
*** versus Bosses
Life/Offensive can actually tank bosses. A big help to finish bosses quickly is your merc casting decrepify all the time. So you want to keep him alive. If he continues dying, you actually don’t need him but will take longer. Just make sure to cast the bear in the opposite side from the boss relative to your position. More often than not they get distracted by the bear and you can keep hitting them. The oak/HoW die frequently so you want to re-summon them all the time.
*** Venom:
Venom is a hit and run character. Without maxing werewolf, with just one point in Lycanthropy, you can’t really tank even for short periods of time like your cousins Life and Offensive do. But to compensate for that you have a nasty bite, whose effects last long and propagate to others after you have bitten your enemy. Don’t bother putting 1 point in Fury. In the real dangerous places where you would like to hit hard, you’ll die. In the easy places, your pets suffice. Since IAS is not an issue, afterall you are hitting once and leaving, I suggest you socket a Nef rune to your plague bearer for the knockback effect. Just keep them poison and watch them die quickly. Bosses in Hell are a real challenge. Keep your bear on top of the boss at all times and just hit and run,. It will take some time but they will go down.