Non Nature Weaver dryad build suggestions?

[Omunall 0]

Okay so I'm playing the game with my wife today and she suggested we both try out a Dryad (She likes the character and I like the mount) and after reading about her I've noticed that it's rare to have a non Nature weaver build since it lacks defense.

 

Now I love the NW aspect but I dislike the green goop that the buff puts on, and cosmetics are important to me tbqh. Here is the idea; I'm thinking of using divine devotion with the nature deity to work with bosses, keep the damage away more than mitigate it. Now this skill would act as a sort of emergency buff when she's just not keeping up, and may just save her. It's still a glass cannon build, not really something for HC but more a fun idea.

 

Skills would be:

 

1: Enhanced Perception

2: Concentration

3: CH Focus

4: Tactics Lore

5: CV Focus

6: Spell Resistance

7: Armor Lore

8: Ranged Weapons Lore

9: Divine Devotion/Damage Lore/Ancient Magic:)

10: CV Lore

 

Now since she's just ranged and voodoo, I'd end up dumping into stamina. Her vodoo would all be modded for secondary choices and not any kind of raw damage.

 

Ravaged Impact: Preforate, Breach, Doubleshot-Just for larger enemies/bosses

 

Darting Assault: Reload, Wounding, Pierce-Mob killer. Now I'm curious, does Pierce work with blowguns?

 

Forest Flight: I'm thinking Recovery, Expert, Refresh. I'm wondering if the root chance by itself is enough normally, and does the healing effect on the gold mod stack with the bronze?

 

Dust Devil: Concealment, Elongate, Spread- Just to give a sort of damage mitigation during trashmob gameplay, and to help her not get the smackdown (as well as when playing with my wife to help her) and since the dryad is not getting any defense from NW, any extra boost would help.

 

Sinister Predator: Eagle Eye, Marked Shot, Hunter Focus

 

And for the voodoo

 

Twisted torment: Encumber, Sadist, Envenom-To use with starting boss fights and cause a minor DoT white using RI in conjunction

 

Viperish Disease: Relapse, Transmission, Contaminate-I'm not sure how nerfed they made this skill since the exploit was abused, but since I'm not running acute mind in any way I'm not trying to use it for damage. Stamina, Concentration, and CV focus should still give enough play with eating runes to make it useful in conjuction with DA. It's not going to kill by itself, but I'm not fond of waiting around for that anyway, just good to throw out for good measure to help reduce the population of a mob.

 

Black Cure: Porus, Distress, Dispell-I'm not sure on the silver if elongate would be best. I'm wanting specific opinions on this one if used in a combo with Twisted Torment on bosses. TT would slow and poison whole this would just rip down any defense a boss has; between the two there would be a weak DoT and a decrease in physical for the ranged attacks to kill. If I end up getting into a pinch I'll have the god spell to keep her protected for the duration after the boss is able to get within striking range. I figure that because of this, she wouldn't need the decrease in attack speed for the boss, and can just sort of rinse and repeat with a bit of kite working.

 

Malicious Totem: Solid, Venomous, Rapid Fire-This is a sort of odd skill as the intelligence is going to be dropped from AM, so much less damage. It would be thrown out with VD and used as a sort of miniature "mob DoT", to put out a bit of extra damage to a mob while VD does the same, helping VD become more effective and helping it spread. Again, this isn't about killing by itself, more like using VD in a fun way and not trying to spread it past the area that I'm fighting. The two spells would be lower regen times to keep them to be able to be used often in conjunction with DA, all around mob effectiveness.

 

Morbid Animus: Malice, Elevation, Fury-Malice would work well with helping chop away at a boss because of the lack of defense from black cure, and the little minion would end up running in first at time in hopes of distracting. I don't know if the armor rating would be better, it wouldn't be useful if the little bugger dies every two seconds, but I'd like to hear some opinions on this. Seems like you would have to dump runes into it anyway, and the higher level mod would make it at least a bit more tough, making the extra damage worth something as well as the natural leveling involved with eating runes.. Also, running around with a super strong Kolbal is hilarious.

 

Now this is going to be the first dryad I've built so I'm not going to be surprised if it fails horribly, but my wife is making a NW/CV build that I think this would work well alongside during some multiplay lan. I don't know how well it will do later in a solo gameplay, or what types of equipment I should use. I also don't know if taking damage lore or Ancient Magic would be a better choice than Divine Devotion, or how useful the nature god spell would be since I don't think the duration lasts longer with DD, and if it doesn't it will still work just as well for all intents and purposes. Again, a fun but squishy build idea, still sort of a pipe dream, but I'd like some serious advice on this.

[chattius 2,525]

Dustdevil should be modified for combat art block, its the only CA a dryad has against spells.

 

Voodoo Lore- it would be only needed to raise damage of the totem. But as you have said: no acute mind, no ancient magic, ... choosing the right head will do more damage than taking the lore.

 

My belly feeling says: replace voodoo lore with combat discipline or constitution. Your idea is at 10 Combat Arts each 3 modifiers - so 396 points needed alone for modifying. Perhaps stay away from totem?

 

Divine devotion, you can't get less than 3-4 minutes cooldown for the god powers. Do you really need it?

[Omunall 0]

Alright, will do for the dust devil.

 

I suppose you are correct with the CA mods. I wasn't thinking of the amount of points needed to mod everything that much, though is it possible to mod two full aspects and still do well? I thought tactics would give mod points as well making it a bit easier to mod the first aspect and give more options to the second...though eating away at the 900 (you are able to get 911 or something like that correct?) something points in the end would be bad I guess. Far as divine devotion goes, that's what I figured. The skill would only be used for emergency, and it already gives an invincible time frame even for a short duration.

 

What about taking Ancient Magic? Would using VD and DA work well enough later to keep mob damage up so I wouldn't have to use the totem?

 

If the totem isn't needed to keep up damage on top of VD and DA (DA would still kill fast enough to where VD would do it's job) then taking off CV Lore and taking off DD for obvious reasons that I was concerned about (Inquisitor and testa are the only combos I've seen that's useful, that or Ker) what about replacing with damage lore and constitution?

Edited May 24, 2011 by Omunall

[chattius 2,525]

396 points: you need at least level 99 and focus and lore in both aspects at character level. In difference to most other characters boosting your 2 aspects adds nothing to defense: no quick healing, no barkskin, crystaĺskin , energy shields, ...

 

So I would say cut down your CA-mofification a bit till the late game. Hunting aspect could have lore and focus at mastery, so 4 Combat Arts. Voodoo focus at mastery, so 3 Combat Arts first.

[Omunall 0]

Does hunting have a lore?

 

Anyway, I see your point. I'd like to end up modding it all but maybe I'll work with silver mods or the like, or just see if I can cut back in general. I keep forgetting how "on paper" is much easier than the actual time frame of building something, and that making a good build requires a lot of planning. I think I'm understanding the mechanics now, but not so much the time span and experience of playing a character to niobium haha.

[claudius 104]

You can disable the visuals of the buff. I think under options or something? Anyhow bark is awesome so unless its an intellectual challenge I would disable the visual and use bark. I always disable because I don't like running around like GI Joe doll.

[Stormwing 40]

IIRC, there's some way to do that for an individual spell/buff somewhere like spells.txt or something.

I always disable the ominous wailing from SW's Veil, when I play with it.

[claudius 104]

I do think it would be cool to build a dryad without ancient bark. It would be novel and you would be a pioneer. It all depends if the dryad is sufficient without bark. And whether you are satisfied with a 'unoptimal' dryad. It takes ages to get to niob and probably it is fine for quite some time. But one of the reasons dryad is so strong is the amazing armor and defense boost of ancient bark.

[JKtheWonderguy 3]

I do think it would be cool to build a dryad without ancient bark. It would be novel and you would be a pioneer. It all depends if the dryad is sufficient without bark. And whether you are satisfied with a 'unoptimal' dryad. It takes ages to get to niob and probably it is fine for quite some time. But one of the reasons dryad is so strong is the amazing armor and defense boost of ancient bark.

Agreed.

I thought about taking this'n on myself.

 

One consideration is the Dryad has no toughness, so she'd hafta compensate in other ways to build up damage absorption or mitigation.

She has the best dexterity in the game, so my suggestion is to take advantage of that, pumping dex as high as she can get it.

Additionally, the best damage mitigation is evasion, because it mitigates 100 percent of all physical attack damage and the spell resistance would also need to be invested heavily in as well.

 

It would also need gear to compensate.

Items like artamak's star would be very valuable, or any gear or jewelry that adds armor or mitigation.

I also feel a shield lore is not optional, if only to unlock all the neato block options available would help tremendously

Edited June 8, 2011 by JKtheWonderguy

[claudius 104]

Yes I built a shadow warrior with high evasion and he was a heck of a tank. Hopefully there are some set pieces with evasion or else maybe bargaining?

[JKtheWonderguy 3]

High dex is neato. Works out well with weapons too when you pump it.

 

I gotta 62 dual wield dryad (that has nature buffs on it) and I've put one into her dex every level. With survival bonus, she's at 375 dex. She's in plat, so has a plat smith, and her defense w/o the nature buff is about 1700. Put a shield on that, it'd be more for sure.

My 95 bargainer seraphim in niobium before she was whacked had over 500 dex, and her defense with battle stance was just short of 9000 points, as a dual wielder. Normal monster chance to hit was around 8 to 9 percent. High level dex plus evade, plus combat reflexes adds up to a whole lotta whiffing from the monster side.