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Melee Dryad overpowered?


AeonsLegend

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I've played a few characters now and I was blown away by the sheer power of the Dryad in terms of damage output, but most of all survivability.

 

I've thrown a Shadow Warrior, a Seraphim and a High Elf all with multuiple set ups against the goblin boss in the beginning. I forget the name, but he's large and throws rocks at you. All characters were around level 12-14 except for the Dryad which was level 8.

 

Now all characters required some sort of tactic. ie. running around, using healing from either potions or spells, switching to ranged attacks and whatnot, but the Dryad (Dual Wield Melee build with Ancient Bark as a buff) didn't require any tactic. I could just stand in front of the guy without taking too much damage and taking the hurling rock, which dealt around 150-200 damage to my other characters, head on without flinching.

 

Is Ancient Bark so overpowered or is this only the case in the beginning of the game? I noticed the healing from Ancient Bark as well as Grand Invigoration also work during combat (as per the mastery of Constitution).

 

Edit: I also noticed the skill Ancient Bark saying it adds Fire resistance (in the description and the Wiki) but it adds poison resistance instead of fire resistance. Is this normal?

Edited by AeonsLegend
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Wait for the dragons...

...Ancient Bark makes you more vulnerable to fire attack - lowering your damage mitigation towards fire.

 

And yes it adds poison resistance.

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What you said happening with your dryad happened with my shadow warrior with my RE and GR activated and properly modded while fighting Garcolossus in silver. Not quite invincible, but tough enough to fight it brainless. He lacked power at that time, though, so it required lots of patience. My melee dryad was also decent, but thanks to the aforementioned fire weakness, she died from mere fodder throwing flaming arrows and swords at me. :P. Most, if not all, classes can be built to be walking tanks, not just the dryad. From personal experience, dryad can be built tough, but she isn't the worst offender either. The SW and the seraphim I find are worse offenders in that regard.

Edited by Aegis
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The Seraphim is very weak until high levels where you get to upgrade warding energy or Divine Protection so it becomes overpowered. The Dryad is overpowered out of the box. To compare, the Armor rating of the Dryad at level 8 was similar to the Armor rating of my level 30 Seraphim.

 

I guess the fire weakness can be a pain, but there's probably ways to work around that.

 

I had never looked at the SW with those buffs before. They look very strong indeed. So what would you mod on Reflective Emanation?

 

Bronze
Tough - Adds a chance to reflect stun effects. (20% + 2% per CA level chance)
Backlash - Adds a chance to also reflect ranged attacks. (20% + 2% per CA level chance)
Silver
Unstoppable - Adds a chance to reflect root effects. (20% + 2% per CA level chance)
Antimagic - Adds a chance to reflect incoming spells. (20% + 2% per CA level chance)
Gold
Riposte - Adds a chance to increase to reflected damage. (14% + 1.4% per CA level chance)
Idol - Extends the reflective effect to all party members. (50% effectiveness to party members)

 

Easiest would be to go for allround reflect with Backlash, Antimagic and Riposte. But I don't know if in the end stun and root reflect become more useful. So what's your pick?

Edited by AeonsLegend
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Agreed that the seraphim takes a little more time to develop as far as tanking goes, but when you do get there, she is beyond abusive. Having nine armor pieces, access to all defensive skills, healing and shield spells, and an offense that is great at melee or range means she's got quite a number of options to make her the most braindead to use. It's why people have said that the seraphim is 'easiest' to reach 'demi-god' status or why people have called her 'invulnerable'. Not to say dryad isn't freakishly tough, given ancient bark IS great even with fire weakness, plus she has goldenglade touch on top of all that. She along with inquisitor have high dexterity to start out with, and since dryad was designed with range in mind and dexterity affects defence and range... Still, I can honestly say that the dryad doesn't feel so bad in the long run after a number of playthroughs with her.

 

As for RE, I mainly choose to reflect attacks that do damage, thus backlash and anti-magic, then riposte since I care less about party members. However, a case can be made to use either tough or unstoppable instead. While stuns, I haven't encountered much that have bugged me, rooting tends to be more prevalent. Most ranged attacks in general haven't been all that painful compared to melee, and with the GR buff, you have a solid defence courtesy of the huge amounts of willpower you gain. Of course, rooting can also be countered using a properly modded ruinous onslaught. While you only asked about modding RE, should you use GR at the same time (and frankly, most people end up using both buffs for their melee build), you defintely want to mod GR for hp regeneration over adding more hp. At the time I was maining the SW, that choice has saved me numerous times in my beginning days.

Edited by Aegis
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Agreed that the seraphim takes a little more time to develop as far as tanking goes, but when you do get there, she is beyond abusive. Having nine armor pieces, access to all defensive skills, healing and shield spells, and an offense that is great at melee or range means she's got quite a number of options to make her the most braindead to use. It's why people have said that the seraphim is 'easiest' to reach 'demi-god' status or why people have called her 'invulnerable'. Not to say dryad isn't freakishly tough, given ancient bark IS great even with fire weakness, plus she has goldenglade touch on top of all that. She along with inquisitor have high dexterity to start out with, and since dryad was designed with range in mind and dexterity affects defence and range... Still, I can honestly say that the dryad doesn't feel so bad in the long run after a number of playthroughs with her.

 

As for RE, I mainly choose to reflect attacks that do damage, thus backlash and anti-magic, then riposte since I care less about party members. However, a case can be made to use either tough or unstoppable instead. While stuns, I haven't encountered much that have bugged me, rooting tends to be more prevalent. Most ranged attacks in general haven't been all that painful compared to melee, and with the GR buff, you have a solid defence courtesy of the huge amounts of willpower you gain. Of course, rooting can also be countered using a properly modded ruinous onslaught. While you only asked about modding RE, should you use GR at the same time (and frankly, most people end up using both buffs for their melee build), you defintely want to mod GR for hp regeneration over adding more hp. At the time I was maining the SW, that choice has saved me numerous times in my beginning days.

 

I figured that's how GR was supposed to be modded for maximum efficiency. That's why I didn't ask :). Anyway I haven't really played Sacred up to the higher levels yet. Got my High Elf to level 42 and my Seraphim to level 36. The Dryad I haven't really used so much because I dislike the running/walking animation. Looks like a dude with huge boobs.

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  • 5 months later...

I think it gives only an added percentage. On the other hand, it does make quite a difference.

 

And having played the dryad alot more since then, she's tough out of the box, can still be tough in the late game, but takes more work to maintain. SW and seraphim are definitely more brain dead.

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