Massive Area of Effect Dryad in the AddOn

[chattius 2,526]

One possibility to fight these reflectors were: take away nature lore and take damage lore. Just reduce the direct damage (which can be reflected) and add damage over time which can't be reflected. We hit this far away that the enemies should be dead before they arrive .Has to be tested of cause. Or try an inquisitor:

 

Staff-Mutilation

 

Comparing a staff-dryad and a staff-inquisitor:

 

Angle of Attack:

Dryad can do full screen, inquisitor only half

 

Damage boosters:

Temporary Acute Mind with intelligence compared to inquisitor with purifying chastisement buff and x% damage

 

Enemy spells, combat art block

dryad temporary dust devil, inquisitor reverse polarity buff

 

legendary hunting

inquisitor can have double loot with eruptive desecration modified for greed

 

x% lifeleech

dryad detheya set, inquisitor kaldur in left hand

 

reflectors:

both can use alchemy to allow ranged weapons versus melee reflectors

The inquisitor has better access to stuff which reduces enemy reflect chance

Question:how is reducing enemy reflect chance working? if an enemy has 50% chance to reflect and you have a 60% reduce reflect chance glove/helm. Will it be substracted so the enemy won't reflect at all, or will it be multiplied, so it reflect by 50%*(100-60)/100 = 20%.

[FrostElfGuard 9]

I'm very confused.

 

For defensive skills, Shield Lore, Spell Resistance and Combat Reflexes==>all allow unlocking Armour lore.

 

Aren't Dryads using Staffs--(or more correctly, Staves)... and aren't all staffs 2-handed? So. No room for a shield?

 

Isn't spell resistance (preventing spell-like abilities {combat arts} to be used to multiply damage) a better choice?

 

Confusedly yours,

 

Frost

[Spunky 16]

There are 1-handed staffs aswell, like Nlovae's Mystery & Keeper of Knowledge.

[locolagarto 15]

I'm very confused.

 

For defensive skills, Shield Lore, Spell Resistance and Combat Reflexes==>all allow unlocking Armour lore.

 

Aren't Dryads using Staffs--(or more correctly, Staves)... and aren't all staffs 2-handed? So. No room for a shield?

 

Isn't spell resistance (preventing spell-like abilities {combat arts} to be used to multiply damage) a better choice?

 

Confusedly yours,

 

Frost

 

In Ice and Blood I am believing more and more in Spell Resistance. Shield lore and combat reflex are excellent if you grind in Elf, Human,Orc lands but for Blood Forest and Wastelands, even I think the Swamp spell Resistance is a better choice. The problem is I don't know just how effective it really is. I don't know if it has been really well tested in Ice and Blood.

[Spunky 16]

I find Spell Resistance to be a good choice, especially when doing guardian runs where the spawned Temple Guardian's can do quite some damage with their spells.

 

Before I took SR they usually damaged me for 2K, and after SR was taken their damage was reduced to 1.5-1.7K.

Edited April 20, 2010 by Spunky

[chattius 2,526]

Spell resistance was always frustrating for me:

In old patches only the mastery was working. In ice and blood its effect might be fixed, but it isn't displayed. It's the same tooltipp display as in the bugged patches. I solved the problem for myself by having shield lore and socketing x% spellresistance to boost the base spell resistance from willpower and goldenglade. Even if spell resistance might work now, it is just giving x% and no base.

[larvi 0]

Started playing my DA staff dryad again and thought I'd give an update and ask some advice on skill points. I just beat niob with her at level 120, took my time doing most of the quests (557 complete) on my way through and took out most of the mini bosses. Skipped Haenir and the Dark Prince due to the debuffs, once Ancient Bark is gone she doesn't have much in the way of defenses. Also skipped some of the dragons due to the fire sensitivity but I did take out Fire and Earth lord without a problem, as well as Ordaurcil since I was doing the dark campaign. Bosses including the guardians go down very quickly with the %LL from Detheya's + shuriken and the attack speed from Sinister Predator and the celerity gold mod for acute mind, I didn't find I needed to use alchemy items at all to boost it after a certain level.

 

On the way through the wastelands I did get hit twice by champ demon leech attacks the first took me down to within a sliver of health since I didn't have dust devil up at the time, the 2nd time left me with about a quarter of my health left with dust devil. I did start adding point to willpower at around level 100 and had +126% spell resistance from socketables and relics but not sure if that helped or not, but I don't think I will taking her through that area again if I can help it. Also had some close calls getting surounded by too many fen fires and suprisingly Kral hit me with something that took me down to a quarter health, I wasn't paying a lot of attention at the time since usually that's an easy fight so I have no idea what it was.

 

As for skills so far I have the following at mastery:

Capricious Hunter focus

Nature Lore/focus

tactics lore

Bargaining

Shield lore

 

What's left is the following:

Armor lore

Alchemy

Staff Lore

Concentration

 

Is it worth getting any of the above to mastery? I don't really need regen help or a 3rd buff so don't think concentration is, attack speed and hit chance aren't a problem and I don't think double hits will help any so don't think Staff, unless there are staves with bonuses unlocked by mastery? I'm using a pretty low level nlovae's right now. Alchemy I don't use very much other than the passive health potion and mentor duration boosts, and for armor, Ancient bark gives more than enough physical/poison armor and I don't need the regen time reduction, would I get a significant boost to fire/magic/ice armor by mastering it?

 

Also which skills should I work on keeping at level? I'm assuming the 2 focus skills for the CA levels but not sure which others. Not sure about the lores since much of my damage is from %LL and I'm a bit concerned about reflection damage if I get them too high. Also from what I've read there isn't a huge increase in taking bargaining toi 200 with the new Ice and Blood shopping break points so not sure it it's worth taking bargaining up either. For shield lore, melee defense doesn't seem to be a big problem for the Dryad with Ancient Bark so not sure how much that would help either. Thoughts?

[Timotheus 416]

Chattius, you might not have intended the thread this way, and dislike the character you created.

 

But...

THANK YOU

FOR MAKING ME LAUGH

WHILE PLAYING HER

 

It has been SO much fun playing this Dryad, dangit the levels fly by

Edited June 3, 2010 by Timotheus

[Etherian 76]

Cant help myself. Giving this Area of Effect build a whirl...

 

I remain, Etherian

[ololcat 3]

Curious, if this works with visibility range +X% bonus from items.

Would be nice to socket lots of them to make DA hit even more mobs.

[dreeft 9]

Curious, if this works with visibility range +X% bonus from items.

Would be nice to socket lots of them to make DA hit even more mobs.

Yep. More visibility = more enemies available to hit.

 

Doesn't need it though

[Etherian 76]

Curious, if this works with visibility range +X% bonus from items.

Would be nice to socket lots of them to make DA hit even more mobs.

 

This build has a built in level accelerator. *Magic Staff bug coupled with DA CA mod Rotate*. Socket Visibility +X% would make the accelerator that much faster.

 

This same exact build is at level 67 now after the server rollback. Cashmere was brinking on level 74.

 

This build is *crack* as far as Sacred 2 builds are concerned. Very addictive.

 

I remain,

[jurrasicpunk 0]

Don't worry GoGo you aren't missing much with the VD one. The worst part about it is that it's really boring and you can't get the same loot if you just went around collecting the stuff yourself.

[offshore33 1]

For people without higher level characters, who are starting out on Sacred 2 from scratch, so they don't have lots of money/gear/runes/etc... what is the optimal skill/combat art progression here?

 

For example, what skills should be taken at 2, 3, 5, 8, 12, etc. when you are actually leveling a character and have to kill stuff and complete quests to advance? And how many and which runes should be fed to increase Combat Arts (I'm assuming only Acute Mind, Ancient Bark, and Golden Touch here.)

 

I just hit 12 with a fresh character and am unsure how exactly to progress. I've held back skill points and selections because I'm not sure how to proceed. I've got Tactics, Staff, Nature Lore, Hunter Focus, and Nature Focus so far as skills with an unselected skill yet to be determined.

 

It seems like I need to get to the 360 Darting Dash ASAP, and then progress the mods in Ancient Bark, so I've been putting skills/points into the associated skills. But I don't see which other skills will be critical in leveling as well as keeping me alive.

 

Has anyone played this from level 1 on without having been twinked? I'd like to proceed efficiently rather than get frustrated due to lack of gear and focus.

Edited December 5, 2010 by offshore33

[chattius 2,526]

I wonder if I would do nature magic lore again. The lore seem no longer boost intelligence of acute mind in the AddOn ?

 

I would stay at 1 rune read in till I start to find regeneration peer hit around better than .3 seconds per item.

 

Then you can aim for a combat art regeneration time of animation time + time you regenerate per hit. If you fight mainly with weapons, then a high hunter buff will start to reduce hunter regeneration time. There will be a point where the malus from the buff will be lower than the bonus to regeneration you get.

[offshore33 1]

I wonder if I would do nature magic lore again. The lore seem no longer boost intelligence of acute mind in the AddOn ?

 

I just did a rough test of a 25 character with 25 Nature Lore vs the same character without it. You're right that Nature Lore doesn't increase Acute Mind's Int buff, however losing Lore really hurts both Ancient Bark and Goldenglade Touch. I had about 47% less hp regen, about 20% less Armor, and GGT's regen was almost cut in half. That's alot to lose and the gulf should only widen as the character progresses.

 

On the other hand, it does open up an entirely new skill. What additional skill added to the build would compensate?

 

Edit: also, from a playability standpoint, your development of mods in Nature Aspect will be greatly slowed. That means Ancient Bark will lag even further behind, as well as the enhancements of the other arts in that aspect.

Edited December 6, 2010 by offshore33

[chattius 2,526]

Constitution or nature lore...

 

Not having constitution could end that your high health regeneration would be useless because your hitpoints went negative.

 

But having nature lore is better healing and physical/poison resistance, also you can do some damage with nature spells...

 

I would go constitution because I am used to using alchemy for healing and defense. But alchemy is a total like it or hate it thing and it's best effect is not before niobium.

[ololcat 3]

Well, someone said that before: at higher levels you don't want to tank mobs, you just want to get no kicks, so it can be possible playing without Const. skill. If you manage to get atk/def/reflect/block rates high enough. But dryad lacks defense from magic: skills and CAs don't provide it (well, DD does, if modded, but I doubt that you'll be recasting it often: it becomes quite annoying to do so after the first fight with boss), increase in CAs block chance is non-linear, so you'll have to socket tons of jewelry or be unprotected against enemies' spells. And those can really pack a punch, resulting in one-hit-kill.

 

However, regen is quite useless without constitution (I'm not talking about GGT: correct me if I'm wrong, but it's regen still works at a full rate while in combat), so I would go with const too.

[offshore33 1]

I'm still basically new to this game (highest character is 25 in Silver ) so I don't have a real good handle on the way the game plays later on. I also don't have any hand-me-downs, so I wonder how important Armor Lore is? Wiki info doesn't give me the whole picture (or if it does, I'm still not really seeing it.) The regen reduction doesn't seem to be important with the other skills that will be reducing CA cooldowns. The access to higher level gear doesn't mean anything to me since I won't be getting gear more than a handful of levels higher than my current character level anyway. The increase to all Armor values looks nice since it's percentage based and would be able to scale with level a bit. But I have so many other skills to put points into, and if you have Nature Lore boosting your armor values that may be able to help you catchup (along with getting better regens and more poweful, if situational, Nature spells.)

 

My take on the replace Nature Lore with Constitution build would be something like this (note: the values are the minimums to unlock skills, I actually have no idea which ones, other than nature focus, I'd want to keep as close to character level as possible while leveling up.)

 

1 (2) tactics 5

2 (3) staffs 1

3 (5) hunter focus 5 (with the 5 from Tactics you can mod Darting Assault to Rotate)

4 (8) nature focus keep at character level (You will be WAY behind in getting mods here. I'm unsure of priority here.)

5 (12) Shield Lore 5

6 (18) Armor Lore 1

7 (25) Concentration 1

8 (35) Alchemy 5

9 (50) Bargain 1

10 (65) Constitution 1

 

I'd take Shield Lore to Unlock Armor Lore kind of early to make up for your diminished Ancient Bark. You'll probably need to eat more AB runes than you'd normally like since it will be a lot weaker than one with Lore bonuses. From my early experiences with Focus at about half character level through the beginning of the game on Silver you never looked at your hitpoints except against mini-bosses or when I rounded up 7 or 8 champs. Without the more powerful Ancient Bark I noticed that even a swarm of normal mobs could actually make my hp bar go down and those 7 or 8 champs required timing on the use of Goldenglade Touch (which I almost never had to use before.)

 

Now, granted, that's a fairly low level test with only a few set items and only a handful of +1 to all skills items/sockets, but I did feel the difference in survivability. Also note that this character didn't even have the Constitution bonuses yet, so it might feel quite difference when you unlock the mastery and get the combat hp regen bonus.

 

Anyone else still tinkering around with this character concept in real games?

 

Edit: Also curious what people are doing with their mod points. With a slow Nature progression, you won't be getting all the goodies for awhile. I focused on Acute Mind first with Proficiency (to use it more often,) Insight (for more Int,) and Easiness (to use it more often.) Next I put a point in Rugged for Ancient Bark to up the armor and a point in Goldenglade Touch in Bandage but I'm honestly not sure here. Mainly I went GGT to get to the Willpower boost in case I need it against a caster boss. In Hunter, I went with the standard opener of Darting Assault Edged, Wounding and Rotate. Then I'm building up Sinister Predator with Eagle Eye for crits, Marked Shot to lower evade chance, and Hunting Focus to reduce cooldowns. Other than that I'm not sure what to do with my future mod points.

 

2nd Edit: Playing this at 28ish, I'm having problems with to-hit and solo-killing some of the mini-bosses. I just hit the Werewolf mini-boss that's at the far east and I couldn't out-dps his regen. I could briefly catch-up when Acute Mind was up, but before that his health regen was higher than my DPS.

Edited December 7, 2010 by offshore33

[ololcat 3]

I had this kind of character in plan, it looked like

 

Tactics

Staves

Dual Wield

Hunter Focus

NW Focus

Spell Resistance

Armor

Concentration

Constitution

NW Lore

 

Defensive skills are picked a bit late but have high priority. As about gear.. Full Detheya fits good for boss killing, but I'm not sure if it going to boost dmg really well for staves, so maybe just pieces of both Detheya and Leaves and Twigs sets. Good one-handed staff in right hand and zepetl (or officer's) in left for bonuses.

[offshore33 1]

Possibly odd question but what is the real benefit of Hunter Focus here? I don't really put any runes into anything other than Dust Devil for this aspect in order to keep Darting Assault spammable. Sinister Pred buff gains minuscule bonuses in melee per level and only due to the mods. I don't really use anything else in the tree. Should I be eating more runes in this aspect? I don't like seeing my regen times get so high and the reduction via the SP mod and the points in Hunter focus don't scale with eating runes.

 

Also, I've read that the rings and effects that cause regeneration on hit should work with the massive DA attack. However, I have .6 (which is tiny I know,) and have never seen any effect at all. I don't seem to even see it when I'm actually just ranged staff attacking (which generally only happens when I'm lazy or if there's a flying dragon.) If I was getting any regen off of DA I think I'd see it (since I've rounded up several dozen mobs and one hit them with an Acute Mind fueled DA.) Does it only affect the currently active combat art?

Edited December 9, 2010 by offshore33

[chattius 2,526]

This thread should be marked Ice and Blood by a moderator.

 

You have the AddOn?

[offshore33 1]

Yes.

[kriv 14]

Running this little lady again on closed, about level 30.

[namad 3]

what is so special about staff lore in ice and blood? specifically what does ice and blood change about staff lore? staves can now shoot lasers with basic attacks right? does this effect Combat Arts too? I thought it was only for normal attacks? also wouldn't this work even if someone didn't take the staff lore skill?