0
Complete Rabies Druid Build Guide
Ok, this is my 2nd thread ever, and my first guide-so please give as much feedback as possible (positive critisim preferred.)
To max your poison (psn) damage (dam) you must first know what affects the damage of rabies. Your rabies skill #, your psn creeper skill #, your heart of the wolverine skill #, and any -psn enemy resist%/+psn damage % modifyers on things you are wearing all affect rabies damage.
Psn damage charms do not affect rabies damage! However, on my druid i still keep about 3k in psn damage scs. I do this because even tho your rabies damage wont be increased by them, all of your -psn res/+psn dam percentages will increase your damage caused by these charms, and since you will be wearing a lot of this type of gear it is a good thing to have some psn damage outside of rabies. In this guide i will first describe your Gear, your Stats, your Skills, and then Strategies respectively, with small tid-bits of info scattered all throughout.
***GEAR***
Although it is essentially impractical to wear perfect (perf) rabies damage in a pvp match, i will list this setup. However, i will also list different setups for different occasions, not including sorb gear, and including what i personally use.
For max rabies damage pvp you will want to wear the following items:
Head:Jalals/4skill Cereberus (w/ 5/5 psn facet)
Armor:Bramble w/ +50% psn skill damage
Weapon1:Plague Bearer
Shield1:Spirit
Weapon2erf Deathweb w/ 5/5psn facet
Shield2:4os monarch w/ 4x 5/5psn facets
Amulet:+3 to shapeshifter(ss)
Ring1:Bk/soj
Ring2:Bk/soj
Gloves: Trang-Oul's Claws
Belt: Arachnid Spiderweb Sash
Boots: Aldur's Advance
Charms: dtorch, anni, 9x SS gcs
One thing that really destroys this setup is that it offers little to no res, and almost no attack rating(ar.) AR is one of the single most difficult problems with a pure rabies druid. There are so many duelers that use an ber'd or eld'd Stormshield for max block/damage reduction that it can be very difficult to land a hit of rabies on the first attack. Especally the paladin; paladins are the most commonly used duelers. There are 3 main types of paladins; hammer, smite, and zeal, and all 3 can be amazing duelers. The problem when dueling a paladin is the huge advantage of block % that paladins get from their Holy Shield and from an almost essential shield-Hearald of Zakarum(Hoz). Combined this makes it almost impossible to hit them with even decent ar. Therefore, when dueling a paladin it can be a very good idea to switch out certain gear.
If you are having trouble landing a hit on a paladin during duels, try this modified setup:
Head:4skill Cerberus w/ 5/5psn facet (100%-120% ar bonus preferred)
Weapon1: Aldur's Rhythm 3 socketed w/ 3 Gul runes
Boots: Aldur's Advance
Amulet: Angelic Wings
Ring1: Angelic Halo
Ring2 Angelic Halo
Charms: Add 3 Grand Charms w/ 120+ ar, 6 dex or 35+life
Also add 10 Small charms w/ 30+ar, 2 dex
That setup can increase your ar to about 39k while retaining about 1/2 of your rabies damage. You might say that reducing your potential damage by 1/2 is a little extreme but what is the point in having full damage and never being able to hit your target? Also, bear in mind: i said that it will reduce your rabies damage by 1/2 but your rabies damage will be around 65k so reducing it by half still gives u 32.5k psn damage even without factoring in your dweb/20/20 psn mon switch trick.
For my personal gear i use a particular strategy of "hit and run". Basically my gear consists of maxing my life and rabies damage so i can take almost any hit while trying to bite someone. My basic dueling setup is as follows:
Head:198% ed Jalals w/ 5/5 psn facet
Armor: 49% psn damage Dusk Shroud Bramble
Weapon1: Plague bearer w/ Gul rune
Shield1: Spirit monarch
Weapon2: Dweb -51% psn res/ +5% psn damage
Shield2: 20/20 psn monarch
Amulet: 2druid skill, 17 str, 10 all res 49%psn res
Ring1: RavenFrost, 225 ar, 19 dex
Ring2: Perf BK
Gloves: Trangs
Belt: 40/15 Dungos
Boots: Aldur's Advance
Charms: ok, i have about 3/4 of what i want, but not all that i need for my ideal setup, so i will tell u what i WILL have: 20/20 Dtorch, 20/11 Anni, 4x 451 psn dam scs, 1x 313 psn dam sc, 2x 290 psn dam scs, 1x 251 psn dam sc, 1x 19ar/20 life sc, 1x Druid summoning gc w/40 life, 7x SS gcs w/35+ life, my horadric cube which holds my 5-6-4 cta, and a tome town portal.
In my stash i keep a Stormshield with a 40/15 ias jewel, Aldur's Rhythm w/gul, gul, shael, angelic's 2 ring/ammy combo, a +3 SS skills/ 26 str ammy, and a 122 ar/40 life gc. I also keep a ds fort, nos belt, jalals w/ 40/15, and a 381% ebotdz for a fury/rabies duel.
***STATS***
STR: This is another issue with the ss druid. I learned from my mistake, and you must add the correct amount: enough to have 136 str -torch+anni str if you have jalals or 156 str - torch+anni str if you use cereberus. There can be other things that u might use to avoid having to use so much str, like a good ss skill ammy with str like me (i keep 2), or boots, charms etc...
DEX: Normally i would say enough for max block, however for this char you will not need to add that much to dex, in fact you will be allowing yourself to take more damage and just adding to your life so you can use spirit/20-20psn mon instead of Stormshield. But, you will need to get at least 80 to use the plague bearer sword.
VIT: Add everything else, after str and dex have been met.
ENRGY: Add nothing.
***SKILLS***
SHAPESHIFTING:
WereWolf: 5pts
Lycanthropy: 5pts
Feral Rage: 1pt
Rabies: 20pts
Fury: 20pts
WereBear: 1pt
SUMMONING:
Ravens: 1pt
Poison Creeper: 20pts
Oak Sage: 1pt
Heart of the Wolverine: 20pts
Spirit Wolf: 1pt
Dire Wolf: 1pt
Grizzly: 1pt
ELEMENTAL:
Arctic Blast: 1pt
Cyclone Armor: 1pt
TOTAL: 99---->lvl 88 w/all skill quests completed
For maximum damage you will need to max Rabies, max Psn Creeper, max Heart of the Wolverine, 5 in WereWolf and 5 in Lycanthropy, one in Cyclone Armor, and one in Grizzly. After that, i also got one in WereBear, and i maxed Fury. Any after that i just keep adding to Oak Sage.
***STRATEGIES***
Ok, listen up--if you have a lot of pride and it bothers you when people call you a coward for running away; then dont make this char build. To optimize your attack and life you must do a lot of wep switching before every duel or at least after every death. It may be a pain to do all these steps in order, but after a while you will get faster at it and it wont be such a burden. Its best in my opinion to follow these casts in this exact order:
Starting Weapon set 2: CTA + Spirit
1.) Battle Command
2.) Heart of the Wolverine
3.) Battle Orders
4.) Battle Cry
5.) Switch Dweb for CTA
6.) WereWolf
7.) Cyclone Armor
8.) Switch Spirit in wep set2 with 20-20 psn mon in wep set1
After you do these 8 steps, duel. These are the basic and essential summons for almost every duel. If you will have time to cast more; like when dueling a friend, then cast Ravens, Dire Wolves, and Poison Creeper right after step 7. Keeping your cube is almost essential in this duel, allowing you to "Bo" (battle orders) and use the dweb wep switch trick w/o having to return to your stash.
*A note: when i first started to use poison creeper in duels i had a hard time telling when i had bit someone or when they were just poisoned. When you bite someone with Rabies they will be green with psn, but they will also have some small red spheres around their torso.
To duel, just do the summons, then bite with wep set1, plaguebearer and spirit. Then switch to wep set2, dweb and 20-20 psn mon. Then switch back to wep set1. This is known as the dweb/psn monarch switch trick, by doing the quick weapon switch you will recieve the -psn res and +psn damage bonuses from the wep set2 and will have the skill damage bonus from the wep set1.
After you bite, and have done the dweb switch trick, hit "r", so you toggle your run to a walk. When you run your chance to block from a melee or arrow attack is reduced to 25%, by walking however, you retain your full level of block be that what it may.
I believe thats all there is to a pure rabies druid, however, if there are any changes or something i need to add i will do so later. Thanks, and enjoy your druid.
One last thing: I wanted to give thanks to Kiba for unitentionally giving me the inspiration to make an SS druid, and more thanks to Celtic Alphabet for his intuitive dueling strategies and ideas which i took part of my strategy from.
***THE END***
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by MrWill
Bookmarks