View Full Version : Why is rabies so hated
Doing some math wouldn't rabies be a great skill. I understand the lag drop patch making it bad but if you were to play SP would it be any good? 31K is nothing to sneeze at imo but other say it sucks I want to know what I'm not taking into consideration.
For 31k Rabies you need to have slvl 43 which gives 1530 damage per second.
For comparison:
- a level 43 Plague Javelin does ~3300 damage per second.
- a level 43 Poison Nova (one extra synergy though) does ~3250 damage per second, and a Necro has LR on top of that.
Basically Rabies invloves hitting something and then running around dodging monsters for a long time.
Ok but knowing that is it still hell viable or is it just not going to work at all on bosses or such
Almost anything is Hell viable if you are patient enough.
ok what about extra poison damage from the weapon is that added to the posion damage of rabies?
It's so sloooooow, the poison immunes are plentiful in hell, but it's poison resistance as well as immunity that really hurts.
I've been trying to make as many builds as I can before the ladder reset and yes, Rabies Druid was on the list.
I do 54k poison damage.
It's slow, slow and did I mention slow?
I have a Grief pb on switch, and even with one point in fury ( and a heap of +skills mind ) it's much faster than rabies.
Still, it does only take one bite, then you're free to attack as normal, with the poison eating away at everything near you. It's not like rabies is a bad skill, but to be honest, even on a rabies druid, it still only takes second place to fury.
- If they reduced the duration on rabies to say 10 seconds or even 5 it'd be much more viable.
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't SP have less monster hp making the skill work a bit better.
Single player is the same as a one person game on bnet as far as monster health goes. Even if it's just me in the game, rabies is slow and I just end up using feral rage/fury because it's faster. As I said, I still lead with a single rabies bite to infect whatever mob I'm facing, but the real damage comes from fury.
ancalagon
31-07-2009, 17:41
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't SP have less monster hp making the skill work a bit better.
Nope, you might be thinking of Diablo 1. In D2, everything is the same in single player. Also, I doubt you can reach a high level rabies on single player. Unless you mean using Hero Editor to twink with facets, Bramble runeword, etc. Thirdly, its horribly slow like everyone mentioned because that huge number is over 12 to 15 seconds when you reach high levels. You will also need a lower resist wand in Hell
Alright What if I used feral rage as a back up while Rabies works it poison would that be viable?
I'd suggest one point in fury, if you have the +skills to fuel it. Failing that, if you have a good weapon like Grief, feral rage should work fairly well as long as the group of enemies isn't too big and you don't get swamped by them. It does have the advantage of course of boosting your run speed. Hit them with rabies, build up some feral rage charges and you're then able to choose between staying if you think you can handle it, or running if you want to back off and let rabies do it's work.
Rabies strength is generally other players weakness. Many players don't even have max poison in hell, with death's web/facet monarch switch trick you expedite your poison damage tremendously.
Its a PvP skill.
Mainly due to the dropping of games when the ping gets too high, it auto-drops. But you get 50k+ rabies and an infinity merc it will drop Hell Cows FAST. Unfortunately it just drops games faster.. lol
Single Player should be no issue, its just higher monsters resistance and PsI's in hell on top of the huge monster healing hinders it.. going big damage isn't gonna cut it, you need death's web on switch and facets to make it work and/or Merc with infinity and without the ability to trade I take it that's gonna be impossible SP.
Leman's Terms, its great at very high level with right gear. It sucks if not a very high level without the right gear, lol.
btw, Don't put points into Feral Rage. Go Fury. You're already going 15-20+ in Shapeshifting Tree, and the leech and run/walk speed is diminishing returns and the damage is weak compared to Fury. You'll get better leech just charging up a few with Feral Rage and using Fury to hit all adjacent enemies.
SyCoMiDgEt
31-07-2009, 19:09
It's so sloooooow, the poison immunes are plentiful in hell, but it's poison resistance as well as immunity that really hurts.
Pretty sure, "Rabies" isnt actually poison, i mean it is, but its not immunable. from what i believe
so your bs'ing us all...or ive been taught wrong
----oops nevermind, misread...
"The Rabies "aura" cannot be destroyed. Because the source of the poison is untouchable, all the antidotes in the game will not cure rabies directly."
Rabies strength is generally other players weakness. Many players don't even have max poison in hell, with death's web/facet monarch switch trick you expedite your poison damage tremendously.
Its a PvP skill.
Mainly due to the dropping of games when the ping gets too high, it auto-drops. But you get 50k+ rabies and an infinity merc it will drop Hell Cows FAST. Unfortunately it just drops games faster.. lol
Single Player should be no issue, its just higher monsters resistance and PsI's in hell on top of the huge monster healing hinders it.. going big damage isn't gonna cut it, you need death's web on switch and facets to make it work and/or Merc with infinity and without the ability to trade I take it that's gonna be impossible SP.
Leman's Terms, its great at very high level with right gear. It sucks if not a very high level without the right gear, lol.
btw, Don't put points into Feral Rage. Go Fury. You're already going 15-20+ in Shapeshifting Tree, and the leech and run/walk speed is diminishing returns and the damage is weak compared to Fury. You'll get better leech just charging up a few with Feral Rage and using Fury to hit all adjacent enemies.
Not sure why you keep mentioning Infinity. Conviction doesn't lower poison resistances.
As for Lowering resistances, I'm using a grief pb on switch - it's not as much as Deaths Web, but it's more useful in PvE. All I need now is another Headhunters with 3 perfect poison facets in it to go with the Grief. Prefer headhunters over the 4 socket monarch for sure. Lower reqs, resistances, higher defense. You lose out on one 5/5 facet, but I think it's worth it.
Pretty sure, "Rabies" isnt actually poison, i mean it is, but its not immunable. from what i believe
so your bs'ing us all...or ive been taught wrong
----oops nevermind, misread...
"The Rabies "aura" cannot be destroyed. Because the source of the poison is untouchable, all the antidotes in the game will not cure rabies directly."
Fail.
Verashiden
31-07-2009, 21:38
What are you using on Main hand, Akimbo? If you say Plague Bearer I'm gonna cry.
What are you using on Main hand, Akimbo? If you say Plague Bearer I'm gonna cry.
Get those tissues ready.
Plague Bearer with 5/5 Facet. I don't have any trouble hitting things, so I hit once, then switch to Grief. I was using grief initially which worked fine, but Plague B. adds a lot of damage.
deathwinger
01-08-2009, 03:13
Rabies mechanics:
Once a unit is under the effect of rabies, the aura is put on top of their person, and every 4 frames they will fire an invisible "rabies projectile" in a random direction. This invisible projectile travels an extremely short distance. Any unit struck by a rabies projectile, including the unit that shot it, will be given both the rabies effect AND struck by a poison damage. If the bit rate of this poison damage is higher than the current bit rate on the character's poison damage, it will override it, which is how all poison works. (and why you can switch to -resists gear). Upon being struck by this poison (and this is the case for ALL poison in d2), the target will take 1 frame of the poison even if it *doesn't* override the current point, 1 frame which is treated as a 'normal attack'. This is why rabies can be lethal, and it also means that since it strikes every 4 frames, rabies will do up to an extra 25% damage over its normal amount, since every 4 frames the DPS is doubled for 1 frame. However, the great number of projectiles being created by rabies means that it will crash the server due to the 1.11+ restrictions put in place to prevent lag duping.
OK is the lag dropout thing going to affect SP or TCP/IP
OK is the lag dropout thing going to affect SP or TCP/IP
No, as he said, it was introduced to bnet to stop lag/crash duping. If you're not on bnet it should be fine. ( 9/10 of my chars are game droppers, I HATE Bnet :) )
Verashiden
02-08-2009, 09:13
You don't need Plague Bearer. Simply use Grief Main and use Rabies switch to DWeb/20/20 and watch the fun.
skullvomit
02-08-2009, 19:55
Rabies mechanics:
... If the bit rate of this poison damage is higher than the current bit rate on the character's poison damage, it will override it, which is how all poison works. (and why you can switch to -resists gear)...
I'm building "flaming rabies" as well, but with novamancer you would cast nova, quickly switch to -res gear and back, ie. not keeping -res whole time the nova is in effect? And same of course to rabies: bite, quick switch to Death's Web, switch back to prey for seconb bite/fire claw while poison still corrodes the bones of paladin with -res effect.
You don't need Plague Bearer. Simply use Grief Main and use Rabies switch to DWeb/20/20 and watch the fun.
Why? Wouldn't I be better off using the Plague Bearer, hitting once, then switching to the -res set? Also since it "procs" every second, does that mean the damage drops? or does it only check for the -res every second?
Yup, Infinity doesn't lower poison. I thought about that afterwards, my bad.
Plague Bearer's not really bad at all. I just think Fury/Rabies is the better way to go.
It's too bad Rabies is so outclassed by Fury. You'd think that spending 40 skill points would give you something nice. I've been wanting to build a Rabies/Fury druid someday, but I think i'll put it off for a while. You can say Rabies is a PvP skill, but that discounts the contamination effect which is clearly meant for PvM.
So the choice is between
1. using Plague Bearer and then switching to Death's Web / Rainbow facetted shield to watch things die from a distance
2. using Plague Bearer and then switching to "Grief" Phase Blade / Rainbow facetted shield to watch things die while engaging in Fury
3. just using "Grief" Phase Blade / Rainbow facetted shield to do Rabies and Fury.
So from my understanding because Grief and Fury is OP, ppl are not patient and the bnet disconnecting those are the reason Rabies isn't liked as much as I figured.
So from my understanding because Grief and Fury is OP, ppl are not patient and the bnet disconnecting those are the reason Rabies isn't liked as much as I figured.
Fury isn't OP by any means, especially when compared to hammers, lightning fury etc. It is however easily the best skill Druids have for shapeshift. Patience isn't really the issue for Rabies, it's the game dropping issues. Also the fact that the timer gets -longer- with more points in rabies is just annoying. I have too many characters who drop games if I play them at full potential, making the endless Baal runs VERY boring :( :coffee:
onderduiker
03-08-2009, 22:16
ok what about extra poison damage from the weapon is that added to the posion damage of rabies?
The weapon's poison damage is a separate (and thus competing) source of poison damage.
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't SP have less monster hp making the skill work a bit better.
Monster stats in single-player and open games are identical to Ladder games: some are lower in Nightmare and Hell off the Ladder on closed battle.net.
Single Player should be no issue, its just higher monsters resistance and PsI's in hell on top of the huge monster healing hinders it..
Monsters don't regenerate damage while they're poisoned. :)
Upon being struck by this poison (and this is the case for ALL poison in d2), the target will take 1 frame of the poison even if it *doesn't* override the current point, 1 frame which is treated as a 'normal attack'. This is why rabies can be lethal, and it also means that since it strikes every 4 frames, rabies will do up to an extra 25% damage over its normal amount, since every 4 frames the DPS is doubled for 1 frame.
This was my understanding too, but I've done some tests recently that indicate that it doesn't work quite like that, and have updated the Calculating Poison Damage (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=711678) and Rabies Mechanics (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=717215) threads accordingly: in short, an infected monster's own rabiescontagion missiles don't apply an additional frame of poison damage with each collision, but those from other infected monsters do... so if an infected monster is alone, it won't take any additional frames of poison damage.
I'm building "flaming rabies" as well, but with novamancer you would cast nova, quickly switch to -res gear and back, ie. not keeping -res whole time the nova is in effect?
Poison Nova's skill level and +% to Poison Skill Damage are applied on casting (technically, +% PSD is applied when its missiles are created), while -% to Enemy Poison Resistance is applied when the missiles first collide with and poison their targets. Once the target is poisoned, it doesn't matter what you're equipping: you can even overwrite Lower Resist on broken poison immunities and they'll remain poisoned, even though they're once again Immune to Poison. :grin:
This means that, technically, PN's damage can be maximised by casting with the combination of skill bonuses and +% PSD which results in the highest rate upon casting, then switching weapons to maximise -% EPR upon collision... but the closer the targets are, the more likely they are to be poisoned before the switch is made.
See the Rabies Mechanics (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=717215) thread for more details on when these modifiers are applied to its poison damage.
mepersoner
13-08-2009, 20:30
For pvm I like Rabies + Feral + Fury. Hit the monster with Rabies, feral up, then fury to stay alive while the plague spreads and you mow them down with fury.
Some of my favorite PvP moments were when 1.10 was first released. Hamsterman and I built the first Rabies druid on west (and he was pure Rabies at first). We'd go into games and just hostile everyone. Catch one person with Rabies, and then soon everyone in the game would be dying from that one hit, pure awesome. Another reason it was good for PvP, the time reduction doesn't work on Rabies because of the aura, the person just gets repoisoned.
Ok I'm trying a pure rabies build out with a friend (Lan) hes a trapsin. the build is ok my question is do I spend points on Lycanthropy or the actual were-wolf skill first until Rabies?
Ok I'm trying a pure rabies build out with a friend (Lan) hes a trapsin. the build is ok my question is do I spend points on Lycanthropy or the actual were-wolf skill first until Rabies?
If you go with maxing poison vine you will get around 3x or more poison damage from the first point in rabies. That's what I've always done but I suppose some wolf-oriented points would be better, probably just lycan for the duration+health.
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