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Advice on a Dryad melee Dual Wield build


Superfreq

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So in reading various posts and builds (the Kung Fu Spider & DW staff) and in looking at my stockpile of Dryad armor & weapons in my trunk I've wanted to build out a melee dual wielding Dryad.

 

Notes to keep in mind. I have a Platnium shopper that I can finish up to Niob fairly quickly & I play on the console where rune eating is abundant and enemy spells aren't as big a factor as it seems to be in Ice & Blood.

 

My build would look to be as follows

 

Tactics - 170 (CH mods and damage)

EP - 75 (for goody finding and xp per kill jewelry)

CHF- 75 (finish out modding all of CH aspect and mastery)

DW - 125 (I have a large stockpile of hammers & swords and want somebody to use them)

NWF - 75 (To mod out Ancient Bark, GGT, & TV to keep mobs from running away)

Conc - 75 or 1 hard point depending on skill 10

Combat Reflexes - 75 (For evasion and to open up Armor Lore & Constitution)

AL - 75 (if I don't take CVF at skill 10 more points would be slotted here taken from Conc)

Con - 100

 

My last skill I'm debating about I would have 75 points for mastery in it. I'm trying to decide between Speed Lore, Combat Discipline or CVF to grab a pet and mod MA & Torment to go headhunting as Chattius has sold me as being addictive.

 

 

My vision is using darting assault on mobs and RI on bosses. Throwing up Dust Devil for evasion and GGT for healing and being a swirling dryad of death (off with their heads to put on my belt!).

 

Any advice or constructive criticism would be welcomed along with a choice on skill 10 from the 3 listed or perhaps another one which would make more sense in the long run. I started her last night and got up to 18 and while fragile in the beginning seems like it should build into something better.

 

 

Cheers!

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Personally I would not run the Dryad as a melee fighter. Her attack is fastest with ranged weapons. But different strokes for different folks. Have you considered giving her a particular weapon lore, e.g. sword or hafted so her attack and hit while dual weilding are top notch? I'm guessing you plan to dual weild two of the same type of weapon and have uniques or at least yellow for the extra attributes.

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Personally I would not run the Dryad as a melee fighter. Her attack is fastest with ranged weapons. But different strokes for different folks. Have you considered giving her a particular weapon lore, e.g. sword or hafted so her attack and hit while dual weilding are top notch? I'm guessing you plan to dual weild two of the same type of weapon and have uniques or at least yellow for the extra attributes.

 

Adding a weapon lore to Dual wield will only unlock special modifiers in those weapons. it will not enhance attack speed or attack value. however there are some weapons with some nice weapon modifiers that may make 2 weapon skills a benefit.

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I'll be giving this a go too. Might just go somewhat different way with some skills. Was somewhat coincidental what when I got yet another unique sword with my EP Staff Dryad, it came to my mind too.

So, I'll be dropping EP, and picking Swords lore instead, since couple of my chars will yield all nescesary stuff.

It's true that the rates aren't stacking, but since going with DW seraphim with Swords I've been itching to try it with some other chars.

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I've thought about Sword Lore as an option. I know I have many more swords than hafted weapons. Although, most of my 3 star swords do not have sword modifiers on them. I do have 3 or 4 boneslicers at different level ranges which of course have sword mods on them. I have read the benefit of having SL to unlock dual wielding boneslicers but I have so few of them as opposed to others in the trunk.

 

As far as not running a melee Dryad and sticking to range, my shopper is a blowpipe Dryad so I have that play style covered already. I also have a BFG seraphim & Ice HE that I play as well. So mostly, I've played ranged classes and want to have a melee character in the stable. I had a DW seraphim at 50 I deleted, and I just can't get into the Inquisitor or SW classes.

 

I do appreciate all the responses and opinions though.

 

Cheers!

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Ive made a dw dryad a long time ago and while I got distraced rather quickly, she was fun to play. For your last skill, if you dont want to pick a weapon lore then I'd go combat discipline for the increase in damage and regen bonus it provides. However, as youve mentioned, there are benefits to dual wielding and sword lore when it comes to something like boneslicers that may be an option too, you can always get more boneslicers if they arent at the level you need.

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I would pick CVF as a last skill and try to get yellow (rare) insect's shrunken head: this will provide some *support* to your toon.

At the moment I'm building a DW dryad (she is at 39 so far) and thinking about full Detheya set plus 2x Kaldur's Legacy to get a big leech.

 

PS. Not modded DA doesn't seem to work with DW properly, have to test it modded.

Edited by ololcat
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PS. Not modded DA doesn't seem to work with DW properly, have to test it modded.

Ayup. Noticed that too. Sure, you can get a hit or two, but it works million times better with pipes, bows and staves.

Luckily RI does it job and it's somewhat Area of Effect when fully modded.

 

Currently middle twenties, I'll do some intestive testing to see, what should I pick later on to boost survivability.

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Here's a thought for an interesting build. I picked up several unique pulsars but my Dryad, although a ranged character, can't use them. I have a seraphim with ranged lore and sword lore. If I give her dual wield she could use two unique pulsars at the same time. Since two of my pulsars are over 100 damage she can be doing over 200 damage easily with each trigger click at level 45 in silver! Include the unlockable mods on them and she can do more damage than with any current swords she has without getting close to the target.

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As far as not running a melee Dryad and sticking to range, my shopper is a blowpipe Dryad so I have that play style covered already. I also have a BFG seraphim & Ice HE that I play as well. So mostly, I've played ranged classes and want to have a melee character in the stable. I had a DW seraphim at 50 I deleted, and I just can't get into the Inquisitor or SW classes.

 

Have you considered running a hybrid character like the Temple Guardian? He acts like a ranged character when equipped with his shooting CAs but also as a melee character with swords, hafted etc.. You can play him strictly as a melee character by not equipping any CAs that allow him to shoot. The only problem is he cannot use two handed weapons or shields so it would be a challenging build to use him strictly melee.

 

@ Dragon Brother: the devs sure know how to take the fun out of an imaginative build! Yeah, they left a lot of good stuff in but a few more perks would have been nice.

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You speak about dual-staves dryads in your first post. They were invented in times when dryads had no staff skill and double wielding had to bring the hit chance. The AddOn brought staff lore to dryads and staves are now a weird weapon type ,mixed ranged and melee.

So if you play in the AddOn:

The Staff dryad in the AddOn is a overpowered(?) character which is not in the guide section (yet?).

 

She is a weird Barsteward: has to hit a target in melee, but then everything around is hit too. She is not my taste, but if speaking about melee dryads she has to be mentioned. Sorry if you read into her already.

Edited by chattius
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chattius: Dunno, if she really needs a deeper guide. I've advenced with her quite a lot, just throwing some skills into the fray in the advance. Frail at start, but when DA is modded, things go wild. I kinda liked playing her.

 

Also, DW Dryad is going kinda smoothly. Only thing is, I couldn't yet try her with bosses, since I have some troubles with Gar'Colossus. Going the SP campaing.

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You speak about dual-staves dryads in your first post. They were invented in times when dryads had no staff skill and double wielding had to bring the hit chance. The AddOn brought staff lore to dryads and staves are now a weird weapon type ,mixed ranged and melee.

So if you play in the AddOn:

The Staff dryad in the AddOn is a overpowered(?) character which is not in the guide section (yet?).

 

She is a weird Barsteward: has to hit a target in melee, but then everything around is hit too. She is not my taste, but if speaking about melee dryads she has to be mentioned. Sorry if you read into her already.

 

Unfortunately being on console (Xbox 360) we will not get the AddOn. While DW staves are available the Acute Mind buff was not as powerful as it was on the PC either. As far as a 10th skill I think I'm down to deciding between CVF or Combat Discipline. I have quite a few Khandar's Slicers and Officer's Sabers that don't have sword mods on them and DW mastery is the same effect for sword lore minus the unlock of mods on the swords themselves. Seeing as she'll have CR, AL, & Con for defense the point of having a pet to soak up extra hits sounds appealing. I don't use many combos in this build and with RpH keeping RI spammable shouldn't be an issue either. What would give the most damage output? A high level yellow shrunken head pet or the damage gain from CD. Of course, the pet has a slight advantage of soaking up some damage and CD gets the regen time.

Edited by Superfreq
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Okay, looks like I've found a replace for my DW shadow warrior :)

She's @ 48 level, completed Gold sp campaign (each guardian died less than in 10 seconds :) - even faster than my ultra-overpowered BFG seraphim) and ended up with 5.1% LL. But she still haven't got Constitution skill so there are troubles with survival.

Now I'm gonna rush through Platinum to test her with high-level mobs, high-damage bosses and all that stuff. Again :P

Edited by ololcat
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Hell yeah! Finished platin @ level 71, still alive and kickin' :) Had to add some deathblow, block chance: combat arts, armor +x% and had to eat something around a hundred AB runes :)

But now, it's a time for grinding, updating equipment and shrinking RI regen time to something around 0.5s :)

 

Maybe later I'll make couple videos of her taking down bosses.

Edited by ololcat
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@olocat: Seems like I made a right decicion to start one myself too. :) Not that high yet, only on way to Octo on Silver, but she's doing mighty fine job already.

To be on the safe side, some res/migitation 'specially to fire might be in place, since that AB's certain downside.

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That's awesome ololcat, work has been crazy lately so I'm only at level 35 on silver in the desert. I just picked up Armor Lore so hopefully her survivability should start to get better, her killing speed though is just fine. Even got through Mist of Miasma with little difficulty (which always seems to be a possible oh crap moment).

 

What did you wind up taking for your 10th skill choice? Still kind of up in the air on mine but I still have constitution to pick up at 50 before I need to worry about it. Really liking the Blast gold mod on RI, as when battling undead in the swamp can stay locked on a fallen undead while the others go down to LL and the blast damage on regular mobs.

 

I'm glad I took EP, as I've been getting lots of Detheya set pieces along the way. On my blowpipe Dryad it seemed I'd get more Daerwains & Leaves & Twigs.

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What did you wind up taking for your 10th skill choice?

I took Vodoo Focus as a last skill to have a pet. But I also thought about Combat Reflexes (took Spell Resistance to open up Con and AL and just to survive) (but I didn't really needed them because of 40% CC reflection and huge Def bonus from AB), Combat Discipline (would boost RI damage and improve regen time but dmg bonus was too small and it was easier to use RpH ring to recharge RI) and Damage Lore (DoT is nice, %LL kills everybody way too fast to get use of Open Wound, Poison etc).

Edited by ololcat
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Set experience to x10 just to boost testing, currently at level 126, doing boss runs for gear :)

I start feeling all-powerful with this toon. She's doing really great: mobs can't even touch her, bosses are going down before they can do serious damage :yay:

 

Maybe I should test her in Cursed Forest? ;)

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Being on console, I can't tweak the XP gain but I did finish silver SP at level 41 and have been farming the Guardians until I hit 50 (got a nice 2 star monster head drop from one of them 19.1% spell resist and 7% find valuables). I'm at 48 now and it seems to be going smoothly. I think I will go ahead and pick up CVF as my 10th skill as well so I'm trying to master Tactics, DW & Concentration at 75 and then will work on Con & Armor Lore as next masteries.

 

Where did you pick up those Kal'durs olocat? Is that an Ice & Blood drop or is that available in Fallen Angel? Nice work testing the build out, may have to try getting a guide together sometime.

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Where did you pick up those Kal'durs olocat? Is that an Ice & Blood drop or is that available in Fallen Angel? Nice work testing the build out, may have to try getting a guide together sometime.

Kaldurs in FA are legendaries, but in add-on they became uniques, but still being very rare drop. I borrowed them from my friends :lol: They have lots of nice shiny things in their stashes :)

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Rare drop - tell me about it :lol: I got my very first one in about a year and a half a few days ago.

 

I guess the best bet is to make a char with lots of chance to find valuables + opened map + enhanced perception and level him/her slowly, but enjoy the much better drops the game will provide.

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Sigh...Im yet to find one, although I have plans...talking to furian, he's said that with his item drop tinkering they seem to drop most commonly in wastelands, so that seems like a good place to farm :)

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