I always considered this character as cheating, even it started as a challenge. The challenge was to play a character with just 2 defensive skills and each of the remaining 8 skills had to support a single damage doing combat art, be it damage, hit chance or regeneration time. The class lottery gave me the dryad.

Planing the defense:
Armour lore is right for the dryad. I think in a 2 defensive skills only build shield lore is the better option than combat reflexes. So shield lore will unlock armour.

The attack skill:
Darting Assault with a staff. So staff lore, tactic lore and hunter focus.

Boosting the damage:
Acute mind for more intelligence, so nature lore and focus.

Boosting the hit chance:
alchemy

Adding DoT (bargaining was not allowed after the character started already and I was doing alchemy to unlock bargaining)
damage lore

The playstyle:
Modify Darting Assault for rotate. It will attack the first enemy with a staff bash, but then all other enemies in shooting range of the staff are hit the same moment. It doesn't matter if they are behind walls, hills,... Because they are away from the dryad, damage lore has time to kick in. At Bosses a full detheya is worn for x% life leech. Even Darting Assault is hitting everything in shooting range, there seem to be no shots. All enemies are hit while the dryads rotates, no projectiles, just mana/life leech lines.

Have you taken this into Niob yet? If so, what level, and how was the Guardian fight at end of Platinum?

Double Insight mod for Acute Mind?

One final question - Is this the new "norm" for cheaty-builds in Ice and Blood? Or is there another character who can use the staff lore bug better?

I love the dryad. I may like to try this one. Did I count right? 9 skills so far?

Concentration was 10th, for hit 2 buffs = hit chance and critical. Somehow forgot to mention it.

Other classes:
Inquisitor does only a 180 degree turn, no intelligence boost but similiar range.

Boss fights:
Damage at bosses; detheya with x% life leech

Protection:
melee: shield with block, skin to reflect, x% defense (skin but nor modified for it), evade from dust devil
spells: dustdevil, and willpower from mind

x% life leech attacks, hitpoints won't help because they are from max hitpoints. So the goal is to have heal potions which do full and not only 75% heals(Alchemy) to heal before the next x% life leech hits.

OMG that was fun. I had a level 65 template with no points or skills spent on SP with a tricked Balance.txt. I was able to just select all 10 skills randomly. put points into hunter focus, magic staff and tactics. and attributes in int. the ran out in silver to smack a kobald. holly hannah I saw about 20 XP numbers flash up the screen. I didn't see that many dead bodies until I started running again. and I was tripping over dead kobalds for 3 screens. I love this. and the ranged attack gives LL and RpH. soooo coool!

I think I found my next Closed Net build! Now I have to sequence the skills properly so I can survive from level 8 or so.

Very fun Chatius!

'nuff said.

Aww! you don't like it? why not. its basically the same build as a blowpipe huntress, but with Staff lore and shield lore instead. And its not limited to 4-6 shots at a time like the blowpipe is.

Oh wow. Now this is insane. That danged Dryad I tell yah, lol. Looks like an excellent build for Bargainers looking to climb up the levels real fast.

C O O L

I wanna see, I wanna see



I wanna play I wanna play

Any pix?

omgod...this sounds like a smart bomb



wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee



gogo

Gogo.... Stay away from the crack (this build). This is insane. Your going to Love it. Will be great for a Bargainer. I boosted a toon to 20, threw some gear on that I had laying around. Couple of open slots I put attack speed RPH and +xxLL. Near around 50% Dblow. Nothing special in the way of gear. Gotta work my way up for that Detheya set. Just a few hours later I'm 15 levels up and its not slowing down, I could really do better on damage, can't spam Acute Mind yet. I'll work on the one hit kill damage with the full Detheya's set.

I second the picture request.

HA! I just leveled from 1 with no gear or anything but some cash and Runes. I just hit 12 after 2 hours. its a little slow out of the gate, but the last 3 levels went by really fast, Sonme gear with sockets and some decent niob damage and this this is gonna rock! I'll take a video once I get here rolling nicely. another 6-15 levels ant this thing is gonna take off like a rocket!

I wrote about this already in this thread: Staff lore in the AddOn

I wanted to know if it is a exploit/bug or not. Normally I would have mailed it to ascaron before putting it as a 'guide/character idea'. GSF and ISF didn't want to have 'exploits' posted in their forum. But I doubt that there will be a fix so I decided to post it. I hope that the player community agrees on some rules on this: if they want such characters on their servers or not.

Inquisitor:
The Inqui has same, but no acute mind and only 180 degree cone. I would try a variation of Milka's Vollstrecker (excuter) from the GSF. He is using Clustering Maelstrom (but no ancient magic/ astute lore) to bundle and pre damage groups and then use a the range of a polearm while mounted. The Ruthless Mutilation will hit the collected group. Staff lore could probably used the same way and will even hit more enemies. Milka's redesigned character has alchemy and bargaining on his inquisitor too.

Seraphim:
The Sera does single animated hits, not hitting every target at once. But if no close target is around anymore the hits will target far far away enemies. Perhaps use Pelting Strikes and gather groups and pre damage them with Radiant Pillar.



The reason I consider it as a bug: ranged shots are limited to 3 per unmodified combat art for ranged weapons. My oldest was speed leveling such a character as a bargainer at youth camp. The opinion there was that it is much like a Temple Guardian who can do wide area attacks every 7.5 seconds.

Alchemy helps to unlock longer duration on potions so you can have mentors lasting for minutes, freeing some sockets for damage.

Full detheya is for x% life leech versus bosses. Doubt that it will add much to reach one hits. Without detheya you can use life leech shurikens and boost the hit chance and attack speed with trophies.

I still think that alchemy is a very good skill to unlock bargaining for a dryad on the PC.
Old thread about alchemy builds

Hope you have some fun experimenting with staff lore characters.

Will this work on consoles? Sounds like a fun build I mite try out later on for fun.

Staff lore to allow a staff to shoot was introduced with the AddOn for the PC. I do not know for consoles.

I think that the Darting Assault/staff lore needs discussion. In my eyes not mentioning it is a mistake. I have only ideas for staff lore in the other classes which have multitarget weapon combat arts. The sera might not cause much lag because of her single animations. The Inqui with a maelstrom and the weapon hitting 'only' 180 degree, ... hmmm
I think that an Inquisitor could be optimized for staff lore playing and would probably be close to the dryad. It has a damage boosting buff, the soul catching buff modified for weakening damage could reduce constitution=hitpoints on the mobs you gather. The maelstrom may bring enemies into deathblow range, ...

Not every dryad with a staff is using Darting Assault. Most caster dryads have a staff to enlarge combat art radius, reduce regeneration time and such. So I would think: In dubio pro reo.

Pictures:
I played it at firefighters some months ago with damage lore. My daughter played it as a shopper at youth club. So probably no pictures before weekend, and then I will have to upload them at work. 4800 baud at home will take too long. So if anyone else will do them, would be nice.

Guide:
I will not do a guide. I have not that much time to play and I prefer to test out stuff. So if it is wanted to write a guilde/play experience, feel free to do it. I finished platinum at level 84. My daughter is niob around level 130 now I think with her shopper.
Specially the 100% heal potions when you start to play in niob help a lot, thanks to alchemy.

What is not tested yet:
Is alchemy shortening this nasty heal potion delay. Or is it just a feeling that it is so. 100% heal potions make you only quaff one and not 2 if you 'see red'. So less delay because of not spamming heal potions that much?

Sorry, Cloud. No staff lore for dryads on console.

Staff lore does not enable staff shooting on console.

Two strikes and we're out. 8(

We still got VD / exploit to use, though 8)

I never got to use it!


Not fair!




It got nerfed before I had a chance to try and run it. I'm glad though at least console users get to have a lot of fun with it. I keep seeing posts about VD and peeps seem so happy with the mechanics and just the effect





gogo

Ok thanks for the reply back.

Awe I'm sorry you didnt get a chance to run in circles gogo.

Mucho happy with the effect... yes! Many levels in no time, thankyouverymuch.

Don't cry, Gogo, you got Staff Lore+Darting Assault to play with

NO FAIR




Oh, nonnononononono.... me likey... WAY TOO MUCH!!11111!!1oneoneONE!!

Sooo jealous of this

Well, I'll wait till the guys get the build going. As a piece of utility, this will really help us push account to level 200 as a bargainer.

From there, with that last bargainer in place (and hoping this build can help us do it quickly) We can then really start having fun with all the zero utility builds in mind since we started this game.

I'm very curious about pure magic builds, horse builds and doing lots of stuff with alchemy.

Here's to hoping this new Darting Assault/ Staves build can get the job done quickly.



gogo

I think I am starting one of these tonight!

I was wondering how I would do the character if it would be me who had to play a bargainer to 200.

I am quite sure for 9 skills.

tactics
shield
staff
armour
hunter focus
nature focus
nature lore
alchemy, late because its last in a bargainer chain for me
bargainer

These are 9 skills.

Do we need concentration if we can bargain for regeneration per hit and CtH items?

Should concentration be replaced by damage lore or constitution?

This build may be one of the few builds which could use damage lore. Hitting a lot of beasts far away, so damage lore would kill them, before they are coming close. I would probably take damage lore, I never really used this skill, and it would be a good character to test it out. My staff dryad is just 84 and had not mastery damage lore yet.

Acute mind will probably give enough intelligence, so all attributes in vitality to compensate for having no constitution? At least I did it like this on my character.

So far this is the way I'm building mine. With concentration, Alchemy and bargaining are the last two skills. This will be a high level bargainer so there was no need to pick the skill as yet. I'll see if I can get some statistics for you from the added buffs, SP and AB and how I modded them.

How important is nature lore to this build. does it provide a significant boost to acute mind or is it needed for something else?

Um. Couldn't you save your current characters, deactivate your Sacred2, uninstall Sacred2, and re-install Sacred2, bringing it up to a patch level just before they patched out VD exploit? You could only play SP for the few days it would take you to enjoy rocketing up through the levels... and yes, leveling would be slower without other players... but it is the VD exploit so maybe that would still be fast enough?

I was tempted to do something similar with Sacred1 and the Dark Elf. Level 1 booga-booga! (I forget the name) {thank you wiki) Cobra stunned everything in the game. Then they built level comparisons into spells to limit spells effects based on caster level, Combat Art level and target level (and hidden Spell Resistance--which I'm sure is there for because of Dragons).


---

Back on topic...

Staff Lore 'bug'. Hmmm. I wonder if it is a bug. Adding shooting attacks doesn't sound like a bug. Combining it with a Combat Art... well. Maybe they should have put a range check into the staff shot. On second thought, if it crashes the servers... it's bad bad bad. So. I guess I convinced myself that this is a no-no for online play.

Cheers!

Yes, Nature Weaver Lore increases the Intelligence bonus on acute mind; as well as the HP regenerations on Goldenglade Touch and Ancient Bark. It also increases Bark's resistance bonuses. It increases damage on Ephadic Lances as well as increasing the execution times for Weaver Combat Art's. I've only scratched the surface here....

Also, it is needed to get mod. points (a lot) faster than if only the Focus was chosen.

Furian and I played on a server together last night. both of us using staff dryand "Feature" and I never even saw any lag. so I am not sure what the crashing servers concern is all about.

Thanks for testing Loco and Furian... that is great news indeed!



That was my only concern. The effect of this build on server's integrity and stability. In old Sacred when they came out with Underworld one of the "gifts" the devs gave us was this insane new set called Orla's.

The blue fireballs that flew out from a character were mighty and powerful beyond belief. What it also did was drop members playing on a server. Peeps who were seen to wear the set were soon then run away from and had to level on their own.

Orla's!

run...run away....!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeee



Great idea from Ascaron at the time, however it's repercussions were too powerful on the rest of us. I'm glad you guys don't report any problems...this is more and more looking like the build that can get our level two hundred trader to the top quickly.



gogo

Thanks for the info. I've been giving this build a try and needed bargaining early on so trying to figure out what I can drop as well and how to prioritize the others. I did take concentration for the 2 buffs and was thinking I may be able to drop the nature lore if I put enough runes in the Combat Arts.

I'm also wondering as to the best pick for the silver darting assualt mod? I picked wounding figuring I was going to be hitting mostly distant enemies anyway so the DOT would be the best choice but I also found out that you can aggro a lot of mobs this way and they all come charging at once. I managed to get all of the bears in the tutorial relics cave swarming me at the same time.

We will try it out in 4 people LAN -as the last shopper in our family chain. Our build will be probably a bit different, because the kids want to have fun. And their meaning of fun is not being limited to mainly a single Combat Art. At least it is possible to modify 2 full aspects.

We will try no concentration and damage lore. My daughter has experience with a no concentration elf already.

Damage lore while Darting Assault has open wounds already. I have an idea, but I have to test first if it is possible to do it. Using a staff with high magical base damage. Then socket a low level lava to covert most of it to fire. So the enemies should be hit with magical to weaken and fire for it's DoT and wounds. But I have to understand multiple damage type converting first.

From my limited testing, if you have a weapon with 50% fire damage, and socket a 50% Magic Pearl, the base damage seemed to be 25% physical and 75% magic, with no fire. I did not try your idea with low fire conversion from high base damage, but I think it is working like: all elemental damage that is natural on the weapon will be converted to the socketed type, as well as X% of the remaining phycial damage. The only way to have the overview or the combat art page show multiple elemental damages is to have a weapon with 2 or more elemental damage occur naturally (Orc Shock) and do not use converter.

I was trying to get all 5 damage types on one hit, but was not even close to getting there. The closest I had was with a pistol that had Physical, Ice, Magic and Poison damage all occur naturally on the gun.

This is correct. somewhere we have a couple of extensive threads on this subject. I will have to do a search to find them. one is in Epox magic coup He build guide I think



there is very little animation involved in the attack. basically multiples drop dead instantly without a lot of fan fair. furian and I will try a test with both of us side by side. but in different areas and different levels I saw no lag from his mass murder, or mine either for that matter. Now if we bring in Dragon Brother with his super lag already, he may experience some issues.

Only time I get any kind of lag ( or actually I should call it a time flow hickup) was when I would round up as many mobs at once , spend more time looking for loot than the actual kill, and smackem. One hit with acute mind going and I get a full top to bottom screen of experience. But normal runnin and killing of ten to fifteen at a time I had no hickups.

After trying it out IMHO it is definitely a bug, but an awesome bug none-the-less.

I think chattius's analysis in the other thread is spot on, the game is probably treating the staff as a melee weapon, with maxed out range possible, hence you get it hitting stuff two screen away, not having a projectile limit like the combat art explicitly states (and all other ranged weapons), not having missile animations, and not having a range attack animation but the melee one.

I wonder if close combat reflection will affect this attack as well. Probably will.

Well, I just ran for 3 hours in the swamp ( Gogo this is insane) and the jungle. Made 11 levels, 40-51. Ran for a bit side by side with Dragon Brother, he was using a hunter dryad also, seemed like there was no issues as far as lag. And we all know how DB's internet is, I feel for ya Brother. So I think we can call Massive Kill Rate Lag a........ BUST. Next is the reflective turtle. Hmm not sure if its cuz I'm on silver or they just didn't reflect. But I did noticed that when I would target the champ turtle directly a few times I got a slight drop in Htps. When I was attacking anything other than the Champ I had zero drop in health. Think this will still have to be tested out on a higher level. Reflective Turtle Test..... Inconclusive.

Hmm, I think the AddOn changed multi-damagetype attacks. I tried a staff with half magical damage and socketed a 33% fire lava. The staff had like half physical, 40% fire and 10% magical when I pressed F and looked for the damage. Also there was a chance to burn and a chance to weaken in the tooltipp.

If I got it right: the amount of magical damage doesn't matter? If you hit with magical damage it is always the same weakening effect?

Our character at 25 so far, before I watched soccer. The girls decided to continue playing after Bayern Munich got 2 goals really quickly.

2 tactics 25
3 staff 1
5 nature lore 25
8 shield 5
12 armour 1
18 damage lore 9
25 nature focus 1

What we will test out:
Can you bring several damage effects on a target with a single hit?
We play mainly with a single combat art, so why not place DA on more than one Combat Art-slot. It is possible to combine weapon-slot and Combat Art-slot, so by pressing '1' DA would be done with the fire staff, by pressing '2' DA would be done with the poison staff, ...
So we could place really high different DoT on the targets.

Refllecting turtles: doing less direct but more DoT will be tested too.

For quick test results damage-lore will be mastered as one of the first 3 skills.


Even my feelings for this staff-dryad are still a bit like cheating, I want to know what is possible with this character.
We need a high level bargainer anyway and we can test out a bit more on alchemy, damage lore and other rarely used skills.

I think we can call this an oversight by the Devs. it doens't seem like this was thier intention when making the staff a part-time ranged weapon. if anything it should have been limited to the number of projectiles in the DA bronze mod. but this was way too easy to do. Dual staff Dryads have been around for a long time. even though they are usually casters, it was only a matter of time before somebody at low level hit DA just to survive a mod. So, while it does seem like over-kill (literally) its not like we are going outside of the normal game play to use this attack.

I am ok with it as long as nobody is getting any bad lag or server crashes. If that happens our good judgment will have to take over and we can censor ourselves in full servers.

I can kinda see how QA might have missed this bug. It is probably part of repression testing since staff weapon is not new or anything. And the tester probably just tested each combat art with the new staff in a testing area against one enemy.

But yea, I don't think anyone actually tried to test staff lore + any of those combat art in the real game, otherwise they would have noticed it it is obviously not doing what it is suppose to do.

Or one developer knew, but dryad had no staff lore when he coded staff shooting. And then another added staff lore to the dryad without thinking about the now changed staff lore.
What made me wonder is that it took so long to be mentioned. Well GSF and ISF don't want exploitable bugs posted, but still...

Maybe it was just the same as with reg per hit. It was working on consoles all the time. But every PC-guide was not mentioning it, so noone tried it out on consoles.

Anyhow, this build could be called the Lone Ranger, nothing around for most of the time. So you start thinking if adding riding might be a good idea to speed up finding new enemies and better the rate.

So for a joke(?):
Instead of damage lore take riding. Gogo said that a bargainer should have riding.

The Lone "Ranger"

Brilliant!

Riding would be manditory, then

Had to try this out and yes it's insane

It reminds me of the ranged Inquisitor back in the beta when he would shoot everything in range up to 2 screens away. I've been trying to get s good screenie for you gogo, this is the best I've managed so far

I'm not sure if this is strecting the forum or not so appologies if it is and I'll change it


here is an old thread with Jonnyx and me using a ranged RM Inquisitor in the beta, it seems he didn't shoot all around but everything in front:)

Thanks for the picture. So I haven't to upload them from work.

DA should be modified for open wounds. The damage bonus from intelligence seems not to be affected by a damage converter in the staff. So there will be a high part of physical damage. I really have to do some research in which order bonus damage from different sources and the 3 different damage converters are applied. Jewelry with armour piercing or reducing physical armour might be useful.

Does anyone know what will happen if the angle of attack will be greater than 360 degrees? Will targets in the overlapping area be hit twice?

We restarted this character from begin after community patch was put in. We hope to be able to merge staff-dryad and patch testing. The new staff dryad looks really weird skill-wise and if someone had asked me a year ago if I think this dryad is playable--- I would have said no.
Alchemy, riding, bargaining, shields, armour, nature lore/focus, hunter focus, staves, damage lore --- no tactics, no constitution, no concentration, ....

The new character is obviously a test character. The idea was to add stuff to the test character which couldn't be added via socketing: damage lore, alchemy, riding. We will play around a bit with horse combat arts again.

P.s.: I am still curious how you will design a level stormer.

Crazy pic Dobs, so there's absolutely no limit how many targets you can hit at once?

I don't think so Spunky, in the blood forest yesturday she hits everything in range. It's not long before everything is dead and you have to wait for a respawn

I modded Darting Assualt- edged/throwback/rotate. Reload seems to have no affect on how many hits she does and the extra damage boost from edged is useful due to the staff base damage being low. Throwback is useful to keep the champs away from you as they often take a few shots to finish off. Wounding doesn't seem to be needed. Put a lava chunk in a Nlovae's staff and she sets things ablaze anyway, leaving you free to take throwback.

Skills are, for a shopper: 2-Tactics Lore, 3-Magic Staffs, 5-Capricous Hunter Focus, 8-Shield Lore,12-Armour Lore,18-Concentration,25-Constitution,35-Nature Weaver Focus,50-Enhanced Perception, 65-Bargaining. You could take EP and barg early on depending on what equipment you already have. Taking it late you will need to save skillpoints to get bargain up to mastery/your level cap. I plan on sitting her at 75-80 cause I need a new shopper

For a non-shopper: 2-Tactics Lore, 3-Magic Staffs, 5-Capricous Hunter Focus, 8-Shield Lore,12-Armour Lore,18-Concentration,25-Constitution,35-Nature Weaver Focus, 50-Combat Discipline and 60 is your choice really, either Nature Weaver Lore for improved health regen from Ancient Bark, Spell resistance, or maybe even Damage lore to help staffs produce secondary effects.

Buffs are Ancient Bark modded- rugged/repel/invigorate and Sinister Predator modded-Eagle Eye/marked Shot/Hunting Focus.

Some regen per hit is a must but as llama said last night, you don't need very much because she makes so many hits. Acute mind is a great damge booster for bosses but haven't modded it yet.

Any tips on how to mod Ravaged Impact? I'm a bit of a dryad virgin

Just took this screen in the swamp, it gets a bit laggy when fraps saves jst as the leech hits, I count 28 hits there, going to try and better it

So here is what I have so far. Working on getting her to 100 to start her bargaining for my Venom-Nature/Voodoo child. Anyways:

I'm currently level 81 and just finished Gold. Wasn't in a hurry until a quest broke while I was in the desert and I got a follower I couldn't get rid of, so I finished the Campaign.

All attribute points into Vitality. I didn't see a need to put them into Intel as Acute mind is over working that attribute already. No constitution in this build so Vitality is a must.

In the parenthesis is the skill point at its current level naked. In < > boosted level from equipment

Tactics Lore[/u ](76)<104> - at level till 75
[u] Capricious Hunter Focus (76)<110> - at level till 75
Magic Staff (52)<80> - once Tactics, Hunter, and Nature Focus are at level I'll pump this until around 145% attack speed.
Shield Lore (5)<30> - 5 points to unlock Armor Lore,
Armor Lore (6)<34> - points as needed to allow wearing an item without penalty.
Nature Weaver Focus (76)<104>At level till 75
Concentration (1)<29> - Keep at 1 point, I might master this last for end game and run the Moribund Animus unmodded.
Nature Weaver Lore (22)<50> - pump points into this when I have a chance, used for the mod points and to boost Golden Glade and Ancient Bark, Later game will be mastered for the Tangled Vines and Edaphic Lances for bosses.
Alchemy (5)<33> - To unlock Bargaining, Haven't been a fan of this skill, didn't really seem to notice much of a boost from the trophies consumed but that's probably because its at so low a level. BUT I do like the fact that mentor potions last forever even at such a low level.
Bargaining (7)<35> - Will pump this skill at level 80 to get to level by 100 (that's the plan, we'll see if it works)

For Combat arts I modded them this way:

Darting Assault -
Reload So that when I need to pull out a ranged weapon I'll get the extra shots. But I can really see the usefulness of Edged. If this toon needs remade I'll use Edged.
Wounding There are so many mobs off screen that you don't see to ensure they are dead, this more often than not will kill them by the time I get around to looking for the loot.
Rotate Of course this is the means to mass destruction.

Sinister Predator -
Eagle Eye For the critical hits, 90% of the time we will use Staff so there’s no need for ranged attack speed
Marked Shot This is where we'll get most of the chance to hit from.
Hunter Focus Of course

Dust Devil -
Recondition we pump this Combat Art and when needed the Dust Devil will be spamable non stop.
Spell Shield For those income spells you just know have the potential to really hurt
Spread So I can move around a bit inside the cloud

Ravaged Impact -
Envenom Description is misleading, it says "Some of the damage will be converted to poison damage" it actually converted about 75% to poison, I didn't want this so I wont do it again. I should have taken Perforate
Breach The chance to ignore armor and lay into a boss with full damage....Sign me up.
Double Shot I'll be using this Combat Art with a LL% shuriken so I want the most hits I can. And of course Regen per Hit.
**To bad I think I screwed up the first mod, I think would be an awesome Boss killer

Forest Flight -
Roots Just in case I need to escape
Expert I'm really not concerned with getting immobilized, I would rather have a fast cooldown
Escape now I'll chose escape over light healing.


Nature Weaver -

Ancient Bark -
Slippery
Repel I've done the Rugged before and I'm more impressed with defense values than I was with Armor. 25,000 armor and opponents chance to hit is at 50 % means your going to get whacked. My current armor is at 11,000 but last 10 mobs on platinum had an average of 10% chance to hit me. I like not getting hit at all. Repel slips right on in there with Slippery to work very well together.
Effortless This allows us to eat 200 runes

Acute Mind -
Proficiency
Insight for the Intel boost
Easiness Proficiency and easiness work hand in hand. allowing me to pump this

Goldenglade Touch -
Flow
Persevere
Diligence With this combo of mods the duration is longer than the cooldown, and with Regen per Hit we can pump this to be stackable and heal us for more hitpoints than we will have.

Edaphic Thorns -
Density Testing this mod
Thorns for added hits
Barbs I don't want to be limited on the damage as some bosses have a resist to fire, so we go with bleeding wounds

Tangled Vine -
Tendrils I want more damage at one time rather than increased duration. I don't want to be in a fight with a boss for a long time, lets kill fast
Impair I'll go with the reduced attack speed for when I'm running an unmodded pet he should be able to survive longer.
Encroach I already have critical hit chance, so will go with a larger area of effect in case I use this on multiple targets.


Equipment used, optimally what I've been using is a full set of Detheya's Agility for the life leech% and Hunter boosts. I also always keep 3 pieces of Eternal Flame, usually the Helm, Chest, and Shoulders. The chest has physical mitigation on it but with all 3 pieces you get Fire Mitigation. Socket these three with the same as you have on your normal gear but if you can add a Dragon Amulet. Fire Mitigation and Fire DoT adds up to almost equalizing the Sensitivity to Fire that we get from Ancient Bark. It sure takes the sting of fire away, not completely yet but at least I haven't been one shotted by the baby dragons since I've started wearing the Eternal Flame when I'm in primary fire areas.



Prior to about level 50-60 I pump Sinister Predator so that my chance to hit is always above 100%. With Ancient Bark I'll pump this to keep my chance to be hit at below 10%. Currently I have about 6% RpH and both sinister predator and Ancient Bark are 177 and 119 eaten runes. Darting Assualt has 38 eaten runes and at level 56.9 I'll eat more runes into Sinister predator till 200 then start eating more Darting Assualt to bring my regen time up to under 12 seconds for the regen per hit to kick in. Could go much higher with it but I like to be able to hit a single mob and have the Combat Art ready to go again.

lol Dobs. OMG those pics are wicked.

I just got mine to 65 and got my last skill pick, currently working through gold hardcore campaign. Since I just started playing closed net I didn't have a big box of goodies or another shopper so I took bargaining early on. It was a little slow going intially because of this, here's the order I did:

Tactics
Alchemy
Barganing
Staff
Concentration
Shield
Armor
Nature Focus
Hunter Focus
Nature Lore

Tactics, Bargaining and Nature Focus are at level and working on Hunter Focus now.

Mods so far (not in the order I took them):
Ravaged Impact - Perforate, Breach, Double Shot
Darting Assault - Reload, Wounding, Rotate
Sinister Predator - Eagle Eye, Marked Shot, Unflinching
Dust Devil - Recondition

Edaphic Lances - Thorns, Stings, Singe
Ancient Bark - Rugged, Divert, Invigorate
Acute Mind - Proficiency

Survivability is good, I have had a couple of close call when I get surrounded by spiders or eyes and can't seem to find a live target due to all of the corpses around me to start my Darting Assault piroette to get some healing life leech. Some bosses also go down pretty slowly, I'm thinking this should get better once I find the last piece of Dethya's.

Also is it just me that is not finding any shrunken heads with this build? I think the last one I found was around level 8.

The Shrunken heads are probably laying all around your feet. But unless you have your dropps set to all you wont pick them up. Since I'm not casting spells at them I havent worried about what head I wear. But with thast said I'm currently wearing a yellow Scorpion head level 30'ish that has 19% Death Blow.

Yeah, you are right, I just checked and I am getting white shrunken head drops but have white turned off. When do you start seeing blue and yellow heads start dropping?

Its possible to get blue heads from champions. But you'll have to really bang away at them with Twisted Torment ( and use a weapon with not much damage but alot of regen per hit) , since its unmodded. As far as yellow heads, with this Toon I have gotten a yellow monster head from one of the four guardians just by killing him really really fast. Full set of detheya's and a LL% throwing star . Few tricks up yin's sleeve and presto we gots a yellow monster head. Actually I was really surprised that I got a shrunken head. I got all excited, but the stats on it were so so. But I know it can be done so therefore I shall continue to do again till I find a good stat head.