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Poison Ivy - A Pure Caster Dryad


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Posted (edited)

nice build you got there, although I like my dryads ranged...

 

I think you give too much credit to enhanced perception though, I think it' useless.

 

for me it would better to choose constitution. higher con means higher chance of survival (a higher survival bonus) and so a better chance to find magic items.

 

this way you can have , between levels 1-49, all attribute points in stamina

Edited by azamantes
Posted (edited)
nice build you got there, although I like my dryads ranged...

 

I think you give too much credit to enhanced perception though, I think it' useless.

 

for me it would better to choose constitution. higher con means higher chance of survival (a higher survival bonus) and so a better chance to find magic items.

 

this way you can have , between levels 1-49, all attribute points in stamina

 

Thanks.

 

Regarding EP, I considered doing that, but I'm way to addicted to Experience Gear. At higher levels, regular experience gear just doesn't cut it anymore, while EP Modified experience gear boosted by all skills are giving me about 20-25% more experience per kill as a native bonus, along with slots. Believe me, it certainly isn't for the magic find (doesn't do you much good when your real life luck stat is abysmally low). If I were to take constitution instead, though, I'd leave it at 1 hard point. The whole vit/sta thing wasn't that big of a deal for me though because I'm relying on my animus to do most of my work, regen times aren't nearly as much of a concern at first. At later levels, even with high casting speed, Tangled Vine still has about a 1s animation time, so I can still fast cast it while animus picks everything off. In a combo, Lances have a pretty long animation time, and by the time it finishes, I can already recast the combo or at the very least toss out a quick vine casting.

 

Confusedxx: Just updated my first post.

Edited by Purple Lizard
Posted

Are the combat arts listed in the order you modify them? If not, could you list them in that order?

 

PRETTY PLEASE! :P

Posted
Are the combat arts listed in the order you modify them? If not, could you list them in that order?

 

PRETTY PLEASE! :P

 

For voodoo, yes, that is my order. For nature, after ancient bark and goldenglade, you have a bit more flexibility. I went twisted vine first because I wanted to get the Area of Effect ASAP, as Animus was already my single target killer. For silver, acute mind isn't really a huge thing, which is why I got lances first, but you can swap that around if you want. Whatever helps you beat silver the quickest, really. Once you reach gold, you can immediately go to free world desert and grind the rest of the way to level 100 for your final nature mod points. Most of the time, you'll be running the desert until you start hallucinating mirages anyways.

Posted

Cool thanks. I notice that you don't have head hunter for any of your mods. I'm sure this is for good reason. Is there any advice you can give to better the chances of getting a rare shrunken head? Sometimes you need a little more help than twisted torment and morbid animus. Does EP even help with getting shrunken heads?

Posted
Cool thanks. I notice that you don't have head hunter for any of your mods. I'm sure this is for good reason. Is there any advice you can give to better the chances of getting a rare shrunken head? Sometimes you need a little more help than twisted torment and morbid animus. Does EP even help with getting shrunken heads?

 

Sheer determination and grinding :P

 

With all the time I've already saved by spreading love throughout the desert, I figure I can spend the time grinding bosses for rare heads. I'd rather do that anyways than gimp any of my skills. What I do is just activate the savepoint next to the scorpion, and port to it in free world at various difficulties for various leveled heads. Sometimes if I'm feeling daring, I replace Ancient Bark with sinister predator.

Posted

The new dryad is now lv 36 after just an hour or two. Took longer to hit lv 15 than to hit lv 35. Once I hit desert and had VD fully modded, I would level 5 or 6 levels by running the desert circle once (on silver).

 

I want to start looking for yellow boss heads, but I think at lv 40, I would be still too young. I have GGT and Ancient bark fully modded. Vines has 2 mod points already, but lances is unmodded so far. As a result, I am not sure how quickly I would take down bronze bosses if I wanted to farm the bronze scorpion boss for a yellow head.

 

At what level can I easily farm the Bronze Scorpion Boss?

Posted (edited)
The new dryad is now lv 36 after just an hour or two. Took longer to hit lv 15 than to hit lv 35. Once I hit desert and had VD fully modded, I would level 5 or 6 levels by running the desert circle once (on silver).

 

I want to start looking for yellow boss heads, but I think at lv 40, I would be still too young. I have GGT and Ancient bark fully modded. Vines has 2 mod points already, but lances is unmodded so far. As a result, I am not sure how quickly I would take down bronze bosses if I wanted to farm the bronze scorpion boss for a yellow head.

 

At what level can I easily farm the Bronze Scorpion Boss?

 

You should technically be able to do it now. In silver, even, if Animus is fully modded and you've been diligent about its levels. If you're at level 35, ideally your Animus should be around lvl70. I think around that level, the only boss I couldn't kill with my spider summon was the forest guardian, due to its insane healing. The general strategy that early on for bosses should just be tangled vines while your animus attacks. Or you can just wait until you're at a higher level. My advice would be to just try it, but keep your distance. If it looks like your animus is getting the worst of it, then just leave and try again later.

Edited by Purple Lizard
Posted

Finally, I know what to do with all of these damn runes that I've been hoarding. I'm not sure how many I have, but it's definitely 80% of what I keep in the trunk. Don't know why though lol. I'm level 46 right now in silver. Would you advise that I try to farm some boss heads now in silver or should I do my boss head farming in bronze? What level of boss head should I expect to get in bronze as opposed to silver? I've been following corrupted cat's dryad guide, so it's unfortunate for me that tangled vines doesn't have any mods right now. But my edaphic lances is fully modded. I haven't been putting any runes into morbid animus because it makes my regen times on everything else pretty hefty. Now that I see it's supposed to be my meat shield, I'll start memorizing some runes right away. I'll finally get a chance to convert those things over at a runemaster and free up some trunk space.

 

I don't know why, but I've been questing with this build as opposed to just grinding and shopping. I see that I have a lot of trouble with bosses since I don't have access to great set gear and sockets. I tried to take on the mist and got smashed. Well, I didn't actually try to take him on, I just kind of bumped into it while I was making my way to the swamp to grind. I walked out of a cave and there it was. I did take on the Gar' Colosus. GGT kept me alive otherwise I would have been dead in 2-3 hits. Most of the damage I done to him was with reflect damage from anicent bark. I guess I need to leave boss battles alone for a while until I mod the lances and the morbid aniums.

Posted (edited)
Finally, I know what to do with all of these damn runes that I've been hoarding. I'm not sure how many I have, but it's definitely 80% of what I keep in the trunk. Don't know why though lol. I'm level 46 right now in silver. Would you advise that I try to farm some boss heads now in silver or should I do my boss head farming in bronze? What level of boss head should I expect to get in bronze as opposed to silver? I've been following corrupted cat's dryad guide, so it's unfortunate for me that tangled vines doesn't have any mods right now. But my edaphic lances is fully modded. I haven't been putting any runes into morbid animus because it makes my regen times on everything else pretty hefty. Now that I see it's supposed to be my meat shield, I'll start memorizing some runes right away. I'll finally get a chance to convert those things over at a runemaster and free up some trunk space.

 

I don't know why, but I've been questing with this build as opposed to just grinding and shopping. I see that I have a lot of trouble with bosses since I don't have access to great set gear and sockets. I tried to take on the mist and got smashed. Well, I didn't actually try to take him on, I just kind of bumped into it while I was making my way to the swamp to grind. I walked out of a cave and there it was. I did take on the Gar' Colosus. GGT kept me alive otherwise I would have been dead in 2-3 hits. Most of the damage I done to him was with reflect damage from anicent bark. I guess I need to leave boss battles alone for a while until I mod the lances and the morbid aniums.

 

Yeah, the biggest thing you have to accept with this build is that regen times WILL rise. However, unlike other characters who have to chain cast their offensive stuff, the caster Dryad's role early on is more distraction. Your animus, built high enough, can and will deal with everything. While he's a bit fragile early on, pump enough runes into him and fully mod him and he's more than just a meat shield... he's like bringing a cat with you into a colony of mice. Mod him for offense, and aside from a few physically resistant things, he should be able to 1-2 shot normal mobs, maybe even champions. His high level will provide him with all the defense he needs. At one point, I saw miasma drop a tornado on his head, and he didn't even flinch. Also consider spell effects: If you cast twisted vine from afar, it's gonna keep them in place and do DoT. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the DoT stacks like other spells like frost flare and recasting TV only resets the duration, so the regen isn't really working against you when fighting bosses/minibosses. I started my boss hunting in silver roughly around that level, long before I got acute mind or an effective tangled vines/lances/acute mind/curse combo. My strategy back then consisted of comboing tangled vines with GGT, or tangled vines alone, and letting my little spider deal with the rest. And like I said, don't be afraid to up your ancient bark level. Not dying is your first priority and very few things should be making you even flinch in silver. I can't really say what level heads you'll get in bronze, because I have never played bronze difficulty myself...

 

Oh, and Miasma will be an annoying boss no matter how strong you get. Unfortunately, this is also where Animus can get stupid sometimes, as he will try to hit the tornado itself unless you lead him away and towards the zombies instead. With acute mind + vines fully modded though, I just cast TV as soon as the zombies get summoned and can usually catch the entire group of them. With acute mind up, it does about 6000 damage per second at a relatively low vines level.

Edited by Purple Lizard
Posted

So what's your strategy for dealing with the undead? IMO, it doesn't seem like the dryad is equipped for that. Some areas I'd like to use VD to soften them up, but either it won't work at all, or the infection doesn't spread like it should even with the right head equipped. That's like my biggest problem right now. At least until I get a higerling of doom like you do.

Posted
So what's your strategy for dealing with the undead? IMO, it doesn't seem like the dryad is equipped for that. Some areas I'd like to use VD to soften them up, but either it won't work at all, or the infection doesn't spread like it should even with the right head equipped. That's like my biggest problem right now. At least until I get a higerling of doom like you do.

 

Question 1:

 

I'm interested in making this, because my only dryad, is a "mainstream" Capricious Hunter one. However, this will be my first experience looking for shrunken heads. From what I see with this build, it can only be at full potential when equipped with the right shrunks. However, while playing my other dryad, I did not come across any rare shrunks, and if they did drop for me it was only once in a blue moon.

 

Where do I farm shrunks, and without the gold mod "headhunter" in MA, what can I do to compensate in increasing their chance to drop.

 

- -

 

Question 2:

 

Since I am under the impression that CV aspect is the main aspect of this build, why was CV lore not chosen and NW Lore instead. I was under the impression that NW had always been a support aspect for increasing survivability in both CH aspect and CV aspect based builds. Thus their damage did not need to be increased, only their regen times and max skill level needed to be improved?

 

while waiting for your reply I'll park my new dryad and continue farming for shrunken heads on my ranged dryad... TY in advance for the reply. :tongue2:

Posted (edited)

My strategy for undead when I actually do fight them is acute mind + tangled vines, with animus picking off whatever, otherwise, I just run past all of them :tongue: . This is mostly due to my laziness though, as I hate fighting undead regardless of the class. Undead potions never seem to want to work for me. I think I remember reading somewhere that disease doesn't work on undead and for some reason doesn't work in the swamp. On the other hand, I've gotten disease to spread to skeletons in high elf territory when starting the disease in kobold territory, so who knows...

 

Question 1:

 

I'm interested in making this, because my only dryad, is a "mainstream" Capricious Hunter one. However, this will be my first experience looking for shrunken heads. From what I see with this build, it can only be at full potential when equipped with the right shrunks. However, while playing my other dryad, I did not come across any rare shrunks, and if they did drop for me it was only once in a blue moon.

 

Where do I farm shrunks, and without the gold mod "headhunter" in MA, what can I do to compensate in increasing their chance to drop.

 

Well, the best way I can answer this is that shrunken heads affect this build primarily in two ways: the type of animus you summon, and the attributes that come on it, because equipping a head is essentially like equipping another accessory. Having the proper head equipped also increase effectiveness against that same enemy type, but in my experience, the effect is not that noticeable. The only time it really comes into play for me is equipping an insect head to spread disease across the desert faster, or a barbarian head for spreading it in kobold territory.

 

Rare heads summon better monsters, and also have more attributes on them. You really only need the one just for the summon, but you will farm them anyways for the better attributes. For example, a 0 star head summons a spider that goes around biting things, and may only have one attribute on it, like, say, Voodoo Focus + 5 or whatever. On the other hand, a 2* head will summon a Scorpion which attacks like it has dual wield and life leech, and the head itself will give you deathblow, voodoo aspect, and voodoo lower regeneration times. Other attributes I've seen include EP Modifier for experience per kill, max HP, Defense value, and various +skills. Rare heads can ONLY be dropped by story bosses and dragons, so Garganthropod is the only thing that drops a 2* insect head. Nameless guardians I think drop a monster head which summons a tree. The only place I've gotten a 2* Dragon head is the swamp dragon. I think Octomammoth or whatever his name is drops a head that becomes a minotaur but I can't remember. Without any headhunter mods, the best you can really do is have patience. As I mentioned early, just activate the savepoint near the scorpion boss and keep going into free world, killing it, and exiting. My luck varies... sometimes I can get about 2-3 within 30 minutes, and sometimes I'll go on a wicked dry spell and get nothing after an hour. My routine for maximizing chance for a head to drop seems to be a placebo at best, but I normally just make sure totem is on screen, and that I've casted Twisted Torment, and then I let my animus kill it.

 

 

Question 2:

 

Since I am under the impression that CV aspect is the main aspect of this build, why was CV lore not chosen and NW Lore instead. I was under the impression that NW had always been a support aspect for increasing survivability in both CH aspect and CV aspect based builds. Thus their damage did not need to be increased, only their regen times and max skill level needed to be improved?

 

while waiting for your reply I'll park my new dryad and continue farming for shrunken heads on my ranged dryad... TY in advance for the reply. :tongue2:

CV Lore doesn't affect disease's damage, or Animus. Animus's stats are based on its level and mods, which is why it is important to take the elevate mod to put him at much higher levels. As far as I know, Black Curse doesn't benefit too much from it either although I may be wrong. Hence, only CV focus is really important because it allows you to have higher level Animus without penalty. NW certainly does give the impression of providing defense only. I was certainly skeptical about it at first. However, just look at the numbers for Acute Mind the way I have it modded. And that lvl126 Dryad is nowhere near optimized for damage, because of bargaining. With acute mind up, tangled vines can stop large groups and do 6000 damage per second. On large bosses, my typical routine without combat discipline is: TV+BC, Acute Mind, TV+EL, all while my animus is doing about 17000 per hit with his dual wielding scorpion self. With my deathblow at about 70%, each needle does roughly 30,000-50,000 per hit, depending on the boss. In Niob, this combo more or less one-shots most of the bosses/minibosses.

Edited by Purple Lizard
Posted

I've been pumping the intelligence attribute. I don't seem to be getting much return in my investment in terms of damage on any of my Combat Art in NW or CV. What gives? Are those not considered magics or something?

Posted

Poison Ivy

 

thanks for the build and feedback so far. At lv 36 I went and farmed the Scorpion boss in Bronze level. After about 6 times, he finally dropped an insect head. It does not have the best stats, but now I have a scorpion pet :thumbsup:

Now at lv 41, I will farm Silver for a newer Chest Piece of Time and see if I can get an upgrade on my insect head from Silver Scorpion Boss.

 

Unfortunately, I need to do the campaign quest to move to gold - damn quest takes longer than it does to level to 70 on this build :)

Posted (edited)
I've been pumping the intelligence attribute. I don't seem to be getting much return in my investment in terms of damage on any of my Combat Art in NW or CV. What gives? Are those not considered magics or something?

 

That's why I focused more on Vit/Sta. Acute Mind levels give you far more of an Int boost than regular points. 1-2 points into Int each level up won't really show that much of a difference and makes her no different than other casters. On the other hand, casting Acute Mind gives you Int boosts in the thousands, where the difference in damage is considerably noticeable.

 

Confusedxx: haha yeah. I've actually only completed campaign mode once with my Dryads, and that was in Platinum (I saved glitched up to it) so that I could unlock Niob right away. Now I just spend all my time free worlding Niob.

Edited by Purple Lizard
Posted

How do you find a gold or plat public game on ps3? I have no invitations, but cannotvsee where I can search for open online games at gold or higher level. I want to do save glitch gor gold now :)

Posted
How do you find a gold or plat public game on ps3? I have no invitations, but cannotvsee where I can search for open online games at gold or higher level. I want to do save glitch gor gold now :)

 

I don't know about ps3, but in 360, it's Create Game->Quick Match. Then you can see all available servers running that you toggle between with LT/RT. Remember to find a campaign game, not free world.

Posted
How do you find a gold or plat public game on ps3? I have no invitations, but cannotvsee where I can search for open online games at gold or higher level. I want to do save glitch gor gold now :P

 

I don't know about ps3, but in 360, it's Create Game->Quick Match. Then you can see all available servers running that you toggle between with LT/RT. Remember to find a campaign game, not free world.

 

cool found a gold game. Not many happening right now :)

so I do save game and then I can do my own capaign on gold?

Posted
How do you find a gold or plat public game on ps3? I have no invitations, but cannotvsee where I can search for open online games at gold or higher level. I want to do save glitch gor gold now :P

 

I don't know about ps3, but in 360, it's Create Game->Quick Match. Then you can see all available servers running that you toggle between with LT/RT. Remember to find a campaign game, not free world.

 

cool found a gold game. Not many happening right now :)

so I do save game and then I can do my own capaign on gold?

 

Activate a quest first. Don't know if it has to be sidequest or one of the main quest points. Then activate a save monolith. Then do leave game (don't hit save game). now from the main screen, you should havve the continue campaign option, but in gold.

Posted

Thanks for the advice Purple Lizard,

 

I joined a gold game and the guy was already questing so I got his quest automatically added to my active quests once he killed a mob. However, I could not find any quest givers where I could activate my own quest. I guess he did them all himself already :)

 

So I then activated a monolith and existed, Unfortunately that did not enable me to do a gold campaign. I guess I must activate my own quest.

 

I will see if I am lucky enough to find another gold game and to get my own quest or I might just have to grind through the painful silver.

Posted
Thanks for the advice Purple Lizard,

 

I joined a gold game and the guy was already questing so I got his quest automatically added to my active quests once he killed a mob. However, I could not find any quest givers where I could activate my own quest. I guess he did them all himself already :)

 

So I then activated a monolith and existed, Unfortunately that did not enable me to do a gold campaign. I guess I must activate my own quest.

 

I will see if I am lucky enough to find another gold game and to get my own quest or I might just have to grind through the painful silver.

 

I know what you mean. I have going through the light campaign down to a routine now :dry:

Posted

I joined a gold and now if I press continue game, I can keep going in gold. However, I cannot select continue campaign or free world gold. Question: if I complete gold can I then select both gold and plat in free world or am I wasting my time?

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