Kung-Fu Spider Girl Guide

[chattius 2,653]

Die Waffenmeisterin
The female weaponmaster

 

Introduction

All started with pictures of dryads doing flip-kicks and circle-kicks in a thread at darkmatters[1]. The question arose if such a kungfu dryad could be played, given that she has no base damage from a weapon. First tries were hard to play, part because I just used a multi-aspect alchemy dryad for testing and not a custommade build, part because I hadn't the game knowledge which I now have. But this knowledge was won to a big amount trying to make such a weird character like a kungfu dryad playable. Lacking the time to play and test my own, I gave a homework to my older daughters, promising them a graphic equipment for the computer if they would play a weaponless dryad which would play like a spider, adding some tangled vine for webbing[2]. The weaponmaster idea started when seeing how well a Kungfu Dryad could be played when filling her weapon-slots with diffrent weapons: just a shield, blow-pipe, two-handed talons (CM-patch required), shuriken and shield, hammer and shield, ...

From other guides you are used to see skills and stats first and then the best equipment for the build. A word of warning, this build is different! We want to be able to play weaponless, so we have to get the damage and the hit chance from equipment. Add boss fighting abilities and we soon realize that the only chance to get x%-Leech_life_from_opponents is the full Detheya's_Agility-set. So we have to build our character around this set, adding properties not covered by this set with either socketing or choosing the correct skills and combat arts. This character will be very hard on equipment, so don't do it as one of your first characters. 

If you are patient, carefully fine tuning your character, you will be rewarded in being able to fight mighty bosses without a weapon, just look at the following video done by Furian:
 

The Character

 

The equipment

The armour
The weaponmaster is based on the full Detheya set. So it is good to know what the Detheya will give to us and what not. It will give x% lifeleech, some +allSkills and a small amount of fixed attack value together with critical chance. The attributes of the set are nice to have, but the combat arts and regeneration boni are not needed if we go for regeneration per hit. What the set doesn't have is regeneration per hit, OCE, COCE, any combat art block or reflect, run speed, damage mitigation, less damage over time, attack or casting speed, death blow...
All these missing modifiers have to be socketed or got from equipment. And remember: we still need a lot of sockets to put in base damage, because we don't have a weapon. So we have a problem: too much stuff has to be socketed. But there is a solution, it is not easy and is time eating: the solution is to add levels. A regeneration per hit (RPH) ring may be only 0.3seconds in silver but it are 1.5s in niob. So in niob you won't need 5 rings to get 1.5s RPH, a single one is enough. Similiar thoughts can be put into our base damage: in silver you may get rings with damage 5-5, but in niob you may get rings with damage 40-40. Same goes for the rings which give hit chance: OCE and COCE have way better values in niobium.

So while we raise in level we will be able to change more and more sockets to be filled with damage gear.

The shield
A kungfu dryad attacks with her flip-kicks. There is a special attack animation which kicks in if the dryad has no weapon. To my surprise I found that this animation is done too if the dryad has no weapon but a shield. So we loose nothing in wielding a shield but win more sockets and the possibility to use shield lore. The best shield for this character would be Kira's_Wall. But probably most of us mortals find this shield only once in a lifetime. So the second best shield would be a rare shield with 2 gold sockets and blockchance melee scaling with shield lore. Such a shield together with shield lore mastery allows us to ignore melee hits. Dobri did a guide for shield usage which may give additional information[4].

The sockets
My personal must have: Artamark Star
Learning how damage is calculated[5], all my new builds use at least one Artamark's_Star. The resistances of the Artamark are multiplied by barkskin and armour lore and its base defense value is multiplied by: barkskin, shield lore and speed lore.So even if we decide to use a blowpipe for a while, the character has still some protection. So the artamark shouldn't be socketed into weapon slots, we want it active even we swapped a weapon slot.
Run speed
The 2 unique juwelries which have Run_Speed have second modifiers which are useless for this build. So the build will take Speed_lore to have most of the run speed covered. All what is to be socketed extra is a single rare piece which has a nice second modifier.
Casting Speed
Attack speed is strange. In ice and blood the attack speed for a melee hit done by a combat art is Casting_Speed plus attack_speed from weapon lore. Attack speed from equipment is not in the equitation. So for weaponless melee combat using combat arts we need casting speed since weaponless has no weaponlore. The casting speed is also useful for our nature and voodoo spells since we don't have nature or voodoo lores. There is only one unique juwelry with this modifier, Nadji's_Taming, which has the not so bad spell-reflection as a second modifier. But always look for useful rare juwelry with casting speed which have nice second modifiers on them.
Hit Chance
Weaponless combat has no weapon skill and the dryad can't get a base attack value from a skill. Attributes and speed lore will allow a hit chance of around 5% vs bosses late game. So how will we ever hit an enemy? Luckily there seems to be an easy formula how we can do this with socketing[6]. We will modify Sinister_Predator for Marked Shot. We activate the buff and look at the Sigma sign at F-Menu how much Chance_that_opponents_cannot_evade_attacks(COCE)is shown. Then we add 5% for the attack value part. Now it gets tricky: What is missing to 100% has to be socketed in a way that COCE and Opponent's_chance_to_evade(OCE) sum up to that value in the Sigma sign. COCE has lower values than OCE ,but OCE has diminishing returns. You have to play around with some juwelry to get some feeling for this.
Damage
We won't have base damage as a Kungfu dryad. So we have to socket it in the form of (damage x-x) rings and +x% (physical) damage. The best gain is from damage x-x rings.
Death Blow
Opponent_level_for_death_blow is a either totally useless or a very very powerful modifier. If you are doing one-hit-kills all the time death-blow has no use. It is different if you need several hits to kill or do a multihit combat art. A weaponless ravaged impact does a double-kick and is needing several hits to kill. So Death Blow has to be considered. In case of the Weaponless Kungfu Dryad deathblow will 'steal' sockets from so much needed 'damage x-x' sockets. I did fine results when death blow was around 86% [7].
Damage modifier
Weaponless combat will be only physical. Depending on the ratio between +x% damage or +x% physical damage in our sockets it might be better to not socket a damage modifier in our alternative weapons at all. Our main combat art will do armour piercing, which ignores most of the enemies armour.
Protection vs Damage over Time
We are low on sockets allready and won't reach 100% in Damage_over_time:_Magic and the other damage types. So spell resistance will be taken and mastered early on. We may add 20-30% reducing damage over time - but be careful when you approach spitting spider the first time.
Regeneration per Hit
In niobium 1.5s Regeneration_per_hit can be enough, so just a single ring or shrunken head would be needed.

 

Attributes

Constitution : We don't need damage from spells, we don't need the defense from dexterity, the attack value from strength, the faster regeneration from stamina or more spell damage from intelligence. Also we are flexible in choosing our weapon and so choosing a stat just for damage wouldn't be useful for all our weapons. Ice and Blood changed the bonus a stat adds to weapon damage to just a fixed amount [3]. Since there seems to be only one useful stat for this build we will put all our stat points into vitality.


 

Skills

Capricious Hunter Focus : Taken early because of the buff: hit chance and criticals
Shield Lore : 5 points to unlock armour lore and 28% blockchance melee on some shields early in game
Armor Lore : before having sets, early on the unlocked modifiers are nice
Tactics Lore : getting more damage
Nature Weaver Focus : mainly for the barkskin buff
Concentration : we want 2 buffs
Speed Lore : run speed, defense and attack value
Cabalistic Voodoo Focus : for headhunting and debuffing enemies
Constitution : more hitpoints, mainly because of casters
Spell Resistance : casters- a dryad learns to hate them
 

Combat Arts

Sinister Predator : Eagle Eye, Marked Shot, Hunting Focus - We want to fight with each weapon and these are the modifiers which work with each weapon. Every 10th shot a critical and 20% to hit chance is nice early on.
Ancient Bark : Rugged, Repel, Effortless - Rugged will multiply our resistances and they are important because of the way damage is calculated in high difficulties[5]. Most probably ee will have a shield and shield mastery so that nearly 100% melee blocking is done, reflecting melee is not needed, but evasion is nice versus archers when we have to close up. In my eyes it is better to avoid hits than healing them: so a higher buff at same regeneration penalty is probably better.
Ravaged Impact : Perforate, Breach, Blast - This is the combat art which allows us to play kungfu style. Weaponless it will do a backwards salto with 2 kicks. The idea is to fight weaponless so we take Breach and Blast which will support this fighting style. We will take Perforate because we don't want all our damage converted into poison and then running into a poison immune. Taking Perforate we can change from weaponless to damage modified weapon fighting if we run into a physical immune.
Dust Devil : Recondition, Spell Shield, Spread - Use this combat art to have some spell protection when fighting bosses or nasty casters. Faster coolddown, spell-blocking and a bigger radius is best if used passivly.
Twisted Torment : Headhunter, Tear, ? - We need just the first 2 modifiers to hunt for shrunken heads, recharging Twisted Torment with regeneration per hit[8]. A yellow shrunken head will add some resistance and up to 3 modifiers, which can include deathblow, regeneration per hit, ... A kungfu dryad is low on sockets so hunting for nice heads is fun and can help to add damage by freeing a socket use for RPH or death blow.
Darting Assault : Reload, Wounding, Rotate - Since we are a weapon master we modify our second weapon attack for ranged attacks.

The remaining combat arts depend how you want to develope this character: a third buff by preferring to bring concentration to mastery instead armor lore early on you take a third buff:
Moribund Animus : Malice, Elevation, Fury - Malice or Stoneskin depends if you want a hunting beast or rather a meat shield. The headhunter modifiers are not needed because we use twisted torment for this.


Or you want to try out if you can fight bosses weaponless without a Detheya set. Then you need armor mastery for the cool effects on rare armour pieces, have no third buff and probably want to try out:

Viperish Disease : Gangrene, Headhunter, Gouge - it will be used on single target and no time for twisted torments
Black Curse : Porous, Elongate, Dispel

This character was done to learn and understand optimizing a melee character, so I will leave some freedom in how you want to play it at higher levels. 
 

Boss Hunting Variant
added 23.11.2011

Viperish Disease works very nice together with x% life leech attacks. You can do high levels of VD to reduce cooldown and have VD starting its effect sooner this way. The regeneration is quickly done by Regeneration per Hit. In difference to Twisted Torment it is less powerful in headhunting. But in my experience it is not this much because you kill bosses so much quicker. 
So 
VD: More bosses killed in same time = more chance for heads (more loot too)
TT: High chance for heads - less boss kills needed to get a head (useful at riscy fights)
 

Last Words

I hope you learned that finding the right balance in socketing allows to play a dryad weaponless. More important for most of you is probably that you can play melee characters without any weapon skill. This allows to add bargaining or smithing with less drawbacks or play powerful hybrids who recharge their spells with weapon hits.

Quoted links
[1]: How all started: pictures of kungfu dryads
[2]: Spidergirls - The character design before the weapon master
[3]: How is weapon damage calculated
[4]: How to use shields in Sacred2
[5]: Why to use an artamark star
[6]: How hit chance is calculated
[7]: A short introduction into death blow
[8]: Shrunken Heads- types and how to get them

If you want to try out the character you can download the character:
Download the character at darkmatters 

Dieses Lied ist für einen guten Kumpel der seinen letzten Kampf gegen seine Krankheit verloren hat:
Über den Wolken

This song is for a good friend from my aero-club who lost his final battle against cancer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chattius 2,653]

It seems that the weapon speed of unarmed combat is a bit strange:

 

If no weapon skill is choosen then left clicks are attack speed and right click attacks casting speed.

If a weapon skill is choosen then this weapon skill is valid as long as no other weapon type is used in the hands. So if you unwield a sword and have sword lore then the weapon skill seems to remain valid if you are unarmed. More tests needed to confirm this. Perhaps even double hits from sword lore will remain if going armed. But more testing is needed. Currently the character is saved at level 65 without a 10th skill.

EDIT: A weapon skill affecting unarmed could not e reproduced in a predictable way.

 

Reflexes, spell resistance or a weapon skill are possible for the last skill. If doublehit's are carryed to unarmed then a melee skill would be possible. If not - ranged and synergy from hunter buff has to be considered. So more testing is needed.

 

Edit: Updated the previous Post with Skill values at Level 80. All attribute points are in strength. No more modifications done, they are saved to adapt to end platin and to niob difficulties. All buffs and ravaged impact are at their malus. Torment is at same regenerqtion time than ravaged impact to recharge it in a combiunation with regeneration per hit.

Edited January 21, 2010 by chattius

[chattius 2,653]

Optimizing the damage of a KungFu Dryad is a bit challenging. Our dryads are mainly using ravaged impact modified for open wounds, armour piercing and explosion. So the whole attack is physical. The full detheya is use so against bosses there is x% life leech damage which can't be resisted. But for leveling a 5% leech still means 20 hits against an enemy which has high physical armour. And that is too much against normal mobs for leveling.

 

So our current approach for damage directly done is:

1) Boost the base damage of Ravaged Impact with 'damage x-x' rings and strength.

2) Get a nice multiplier to 1) by x% damage from tactics, high combat art (rph for recharge) and x% damage gear

3) get a chance of a multiplying boost of 2) by a high chance to do criticals: buff (high cause of rph) and tactics

4) get a chance of a multiplying boost of 3) with armour piercing: ravaged impact, gear

5) if the enemy is below trigger deathblow from items will double the damage- remember ravaged impact unarmed is double hit, so the second hit may already do a death blow

 

The boost in 4) seems to be dependant on difficulty level. If the amour/damage formula is symmetric then a hit on an enemy with no armour does not only full damage: it even increases it. If I remove all armour and get hit in niob by a low level wolf its 400 damage shown in last kill are more than 1200 done to me. So no armour = way bigger damage. I hope the formula is symmetric and a hit on a not protected enemy does the same: trible damage in niob on enemies. Armour piercing seems to do just that: setting the armour to 0 in damage calculation.

 

Our level 80 Kungfu Dryad shows 2200 damage with ravaged impact - pure physical.

Peek damage is around 7300, without life leech and open wounds. It are double hits so damage from a single ravaged impact on a single enemy can be more than 14000. And remember: if it is a horde: it will do 2 explosions.

 

Chance to be hit by a normal level 90 boar at the level 80 dryad is 6%. And the chance to block (shield) or reflect (buff) is not in this 6% as far as I know.

 

So currently the character is quite solid in platinum. She has 2 shields with scalable block chance melee and both with 2 sockets: One with 2 damage x-x rings and the other with anti fire damage amulets

[gogoblender 3,305]

This is really really impressive. It looks like you were able to pull a build out of kung fu dryad, and I like your listing of ways to increase the damage which I had always thought would be the problem...but with rph as you`ve noticed, all kinds of possibilities are created. The speccs on the kungfu girl look great! yeah I wanna play her. Would it be okay if I split the kung ful girl build from this thread so that it`s more easily reference for readersÉ

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,653]

I was actually planing to put all in one post once my daughters reached niob with their characters. But if you want to do it search engine friendly right now, feel free to do what you think is best. I will not write this into a guide, but more like a diary, what were the reasons that the character looks like it is. The character kinda developed when playing it. And I think it is not fully optimized yet. So a diary-style write down would probably be best.

 

Edits I have to put in the spidergirl above when I am a home for exact values:

 

Level 81:

Skill number 10 was made to combat reflexes. Just one point but critical from enemies is reduced by 45% because of +all skills.

Twisted torment: Second modifier for longer duration. So now a Torment/RI combination can stack several torments quickly to add their chances on shrunken heads.

Starting to put more points in nature focus to modify tangled vine as second nature Combat Art.

 

Future Plans:

Acute Mind is planed to boost unarmed combat speed to save sockets for attack speed. None of the intelligence modifiers will be taken.

Dustdevil seems to be the only dryad-Combat Art which can block spells. It will probably be modified in niob. There are 4 modification points free and it looks like ravaged impact is the only modified weapon Combat Art used for the near future. So the 4th modified hunter Combat Art is most probably dust devil.

 

So by level 96 nature focus should be at mastery, at 111 concentration and around 117 the spidergirl will have a 3rd buff. Armour lore, Reflexes and constitution will be mastered after voodoo focus.

 

Attributes will be strength and dexterity from 80-100.

[Furian67 15]

Spidergirl - flip kicking net spitting character

 

Background:

I wished to play a real KungFu-Dryad for a year now, but I always lacked the time. With the AddOn came regeneration per hit and playing a KungFu-Dryad should now be easier. So when my daughters asked for a 3 dimensional computer mouse I said they will get a real good one if the manage to play a KungFu dryad to Niob, never touching a weapon. The character would not be allowed to use nature lore or voodoo lore. And to add more cruelty every combat art modification had to be explained by spider abilities.

I hoped to get some tests about kung-fu dryads done and our second daughter has to do a 3 month homework about animals living in a house. So I thouight by adding the extra rule that each modification has to be argued with abilities from spiders would make them reading into the spider stuff way before the deadline of the homework.

 

The spider-girls:

They decided to do the challenge in teamplay. One spidergirl is a shopper and the second is a more robust design without bargaining and better defense. The not shopping character was restarted, with some new knowledge found ( I was mean enough to test the challenge on my own before I gave it to them. I wanted it hard but solvable).

 

All spider girls shared 7 skills:

tactics, hunting focus, voodoo focus, nature focus, concentration, constitution, armour

 

The bargainer had reflexes to unlock armour and alchemy to unlock bargaining

The fighting variant had reflexes to unlock armour, speed lore for better hitting and damage lore to assist ravaged impact which was modified for poison.

 

The new variant is currently level 60 and is optimized for better defense, more sockets. The new spidergirl has access to all her ancestors got already and doesn't need bargaining.

 

 

The character so far- level 80 , mid platinum

 

Ll #M SL HF AL TL NF CC VF SP CO ?
05  0  5  2  1
08  3  5  8  1  1
12  5  5 12  1  3  4
18  8  5 18  1 14  5  1
25  9  5 25  1 25  5  1  3
35 13 23 35  1 35  9  1  3  1
50 13 50 50  5 50  9  1  3  1  1
65 13 65 65  5 65  9  1  3 31  1  -
75 13 75 75  5 75  9  1  3 51  1  -
80 13 75 75  5 75  9  1  3 75  1  1free

Ll Level, #M number of modifications till level, SL shield lore
HF hunter focus, AL armour lore, TL tactic lore, NF nature focus
CC concentration, VF voodoo focus, SP speed lore, CO constitution

Order of modifications
Ravaged Impact: Perforate(1), Breach(2), Blast(3)
Sinister Predator: Eagle Eye(4), Marked Shot(6), Hunting Focus(7)
Ancient Bark: Rugged(5), Divert(8), Invigorate(10)
Twisted Torment: Headhunter(9)
Forest Flight: Roots(11), Expert(12), Escape(13)

 

Future Combat arts

Tangled vine: sprawl, impair, encroach. TV will be used defensive on nearby enemies.

 

Attributes

All attributes so far in strength. All combat arts and buffs are at their malus and recharged with regeneration per hit. RpH is at half of regeneration time of ravaged impact because of its double hits.

 

Shrunken heads

We will get shrunken heads by using a combination of twisted torment and ravaged impact. Twisted torment is at a level which allows to be recharged instantly by ravaged impact. A full detheya set will give x% life leech to kill bosses quickly. So we will have several high level twisted torments running silmultanously stacking their chance to produce a head.

 

Optimizing the damage:

Rings with damage x-x to increase the base damage.

Death blow items because RI does double-hits and deathblow needs at least 2 hits to make sense.

Damage lore: will it work on wounds or poison of RI?

 

Stuff to know about Ravaged Impact

If it is used without a weapon it does a flip kick animation which does 2 hits. If you have a shield but no weapon it does the same double hit animation. So you can do two weapon combat (2 feet) while wearing a shield. Using a shield will add slots and allows to use shield lore instead reflexes to unlock armour.

Weapon less it has no weapon skill. So strangely the combat art menu of ravaged impact uses casting speed and not attack speed as is speed modifier. We had a 9% attack speed and 12% casting speed on items and left clicks were at 109% while ravaged impact was listed as 112%. So the 10th skill of the new spidergirl will probably not be alchemy because there is no trophy for casting speed.

 

Help requested

I would need help from people:

Is this casting speed for ravaged impact real or is it just a display error?

Is damage lore affecting ravaged impact in weapon less combat, because it is kinda working like a spell?

What is this damage extra effect listed in normal attack tooltipp and Combat Art tooltipp. Left click has the block chance from shield while RI shows Combat Art-Block from an item.

 

So far the character makes a lot of fun. It gets better damage when leveling because less rings with RpH are needed, less rings with minus enemy chance to evade. The empty sockets can then be filled with damage x-x or +all skills.

 

 

A few questions Master Chattius, I have started running this build or actually my spin on it with yours as the referance. A question on your pick of shield lore and armor lore. I understand SL unlocked AL. But then you have only put 5 points into AL and have mastered SL. I like both skills, and was actually thinking of not taking AL but at pre level 20 my regens are really bad. What is your reasoning to master SL instead of AL? I shopped for a set of level 2 armor that I socketed a few smith armor into and smith damage. I might have to rethink the socketing. Currently at level 18 and still wearing level two starter gear, but doing very well. I have a dryad shopper at level 20 so I can buy new gear . Currently missing RpH rings.

[chattius 2,653]

I think RpH is the difference. In beginning every socket of the characters of my oldest daughter was filled with either -enemy chance to evade or RpH in early game. The second daughter tried concentration potions and alchemy to overcome the long concentration times in early game. She was doing a bargainer spidergirl, with alchemy and bargaining instead voodoo and reflexes. They did 2 player parties.

The reason shield lore and not armour lore was pushed: The regeneration effect and item level from armour lore can be got from +all skills. Since full set will be used armour mastery is not needed to unlock something. Shield lore will be needed for level 90+ yellow shield when block chance will scale with shield mastery. Shield lore will have 2 effects: it pushes the defense from dexterity and it gives scaling block chance. So its rather don't get hit than trying to resist a hit.

My oldest likes shield lore from many PvP battles with class mates. Armour lore can't stop life leech. Not getting hit can. If you see it from the defensive side and not from the regeneration from: shield lore allows to ignore reflexes, constitution and armour lore for a while.

[locolagarto 15]

Now I understand Shield lore a hundred times better. I have seen in past builds or family challenges you took Speed lore or Damage lore or both. on the surface and in wiki they don't seem very useful at all. what have you found hidden in those skills that makes you choose them?

[Furian67 15]

I think RpH is the difference. In beginning every socket of the characters of my oldest daughter was filled with either -enemy chance to evade or RpH in early game. The second daughter tried concentration potions and alchemy to overcome the long concentration times in early game. She was doing a bargainer spidergirl, with alchemy and bargaining instead voodoo and reflexes. They did 2 player parties.

The reason shield lore and not armour lore was pushed: The regeneration effect and item level from armour lore can be got from +all skills. Since full set will be used armour mastery is not needed to unlock something. Shield lore will be needed for level 90+ yellow shield when block chance will scale with shield mastery. Shield lore will have 2 effects: it pushes the defense from dexterity and it gives scaling block chance. So its rather don't get hit than trying to resist a hit.

My oldest likes shield lore from many PvP battles with class mates. Armour lore can't stop life leech. Not getting hit can. If you see it from the defensive side and not from the regeneration from: shield lore allows to ignore reflexes, constitution and armour lore for a while.

 

Very nice, Thank you. I'm currently running two dryads. One is a ranged bargainer the other is the Kung-Fu dryad. The bargainer is only used to buy goodies from the shop for the next tier in levels: level 20, level 40, lvl60. And so on. I'll run them both up to 40 and decide what needs changed and restart the Kung-fu I already dont think the order I picked my skills in is optimized.

[chattius 2,653]

If an opponent hits you depends on several factors:

Invisibility- dryad can't get it

defend/evade

parry/block

reflect

 

What you should know is: You can't block, parry or dodge 100%. A formula prevents hidding the 100. So 40% evade +40% evade are not 80% but more like 60%. The idea of the spidergirl's defense is multiplication. Rather than putting all in one defense she uses all three:

 

defend/evade :

dryad's dexterity gives base defense

shield and speed lore multiply the base defense by adding x% defense

dustdevil gives evasion

reflexes give evasion

 

parry/block

A yellow shield with scalable block chance melee is around 50% block at 70 points.

Shield lore mastery gives even better blocking

 

reflect

barkskin is modified for reflection

 

So an enemy hitting you means that you didn't evade, block or reflect. The probabilities that you couldn't block, evade or parry are multiplied.

 

So if you can do 3 times 40%:

all in one defense is like reducing-formula of (40+40+40) = 70 (guessing, not at machine). So chance you get hit= 30%

2*40 in one and 40 in another is like (1- reducing-formula of (40+40))*(1-0.4)= 0.4*0.6. Chance to be hit is 24%

all 3 defenses: 0.6*0.6*0.6: 21.6% chance to be hit

 

Summary

Shield lore if used with a yellow shield with scalable block chance adds to 2 defense area's. There are different approaches which shield is the best. You can have scalable modifiers in either blockchance melee, blockchance ranged or base-defense. So in mixed areas (opponents with ranged and melee) and if having shield lore at mastery using scalable defense might be best. It will protect versus melee and ranged and the defense is boosted by 2 skills: shield lore and speed lore while shield mastery gives still a decent block chance.

 

Edit: Editing the Spidergirl main post to new values. Reflexes were taken as 10th skill. I cut and pasted this post and the one about optimizing the damage into the spidergirl main post. So it should be possible later to present the character in the dryad main forum. This character is kinda a prototype. So the main post will be a collection of new results. I will mark changes so people can follow the discussion here. A nobvious mistake in the original spidergirl was to take only 3 and not 5 points in voodoo. Hunting shrunken heads with 5 points and torment to head hunter and longer duration is a big difference.

Edited January 26, 2010 by chattius

[gogoblender 3,305]

Was inspiring seeing you get your build in that server last night Furian. And I've split up the original kung fu topic so that we have Master Chattius's (love that, nice one Furian 1smile.gif) newest Magnum Opus all wrapped up and ready for google readers, and...

 

It may be time!

 

Kung Fu Fight Night

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,653]

The spidergirls are now in Dryad-Jungle at level 85 doing the platinum main quest to reach niob. Nature focus will be brought to mastery now. Tangled vine got its first modifier.

The scorpion boss lost its head: RpH, defense and torment. My daughters said it was somehow strange: hunting for heads brought no good ones and then, while not exspecting it at the main quest it is a really good one.

Bringing vodoo focus to 5 and not only to 3 as soon as possible for modifying torment to duration would have been better. So the 4th mastery would be delayed by just 1 level.

The detheya set is a mix of parts from level 45 to 90, but it is the life leech of the full set which is needed.

 

Only one girl has the full set ,so the bargainer does the support: dustdevils, tangled vines, ...

 

I will update the skill and Combat Art list when they reached Niob, so probably when I am back from work. I did some more chapters to the spidergirl main post (guide?)

 

What is still missing:

defending against spells

defending against DoT

 

And listening to the discussions while playing:

A chapter for the optimal shield. Weapon fighters have different damage types in the weapon-slot and my oldest has the philosophy that each area demands the optimal shield at least till platinum:

melee area: yellow shield with scalable blockchance melee

ranged area: yellow shield with scalable blockchance ranged

caster area: Stalworth Saveguard

melee and ranged: yellow shield with scalable defense value (shield and speed lore and barkskin pushing it)

mixed with casters: Stalworth Saveguard

 

I suppose that scalable defense will get better and better because not only the base defense climbs, but also the x% from skills and barkskin get better the higher you are in level. Blockchance ist still there because of mastery and climbs with level too. So probably around level 120 niob a scalable defense shield and the stalworth would be enough.

 

If you have something to make this guide better, please tell it. Somehow I never want to write a guide but my character ideas keep changing into ones. So this 'guide' was obviously never thought as one. Normally you play a character and then write a guide about it if you know how it will be played in niob. This guide developes while being played. So I have a problem:

 

People who followed the discussion now and people who will read the guide months later. I wonder if I should do 2 'guides': A writedown of the played character for the people who want to see how this character developes. And a 'real' guide about how I think an optimized character should look.

Edited January 27, 2010 by chattius

[Furian67 15]

I wonder if I should do 2 'guides': A writedown of the played character for the people who want to see how this character developes. And a 'real' guide about how I think an optimized character should look.

 

This I would agree with. I like the idea of " How I would build it if doing it over again".

Edited January 27, 2010 by Furian67

[Furian67 15]

I'm currently at level 17 and was just able to socket 0.5 RpH. Made a huge differance in combat. Also from level 2 onward I have had 3 sockets with niob smith regen and critical hits that has helped the initial high regen. When I fine a nice group of enemies I cast in combo the intelligence buff(can't remember name) and dust devil, concentration and mentor potions, then RI. She start flipping so fast it's crazy. And with the explosion of RI multi mobs get hit so regen is faster for the next flip.

[chattius 2,653]

Yes, using explosions in groups recharges Combat Art's quickly with RpH. That was one of the reason shield lore was this pushed: being able to fight in big groups early.

 

My daughters reached Niob yesterday with level 85 for the tank spider and 89 for the bargainer spider (alchemy boosted mentors). Killing undeads in farview (level 115 ones) for half an hour in niob was without problems. Just the items found were too high in level.

 

Fen fires were really annoying, small, hard to see, quite big damage and the damage done to the mis only a third of the normal one. They seem to have either physical damage mitigation or are immune to armour piercing. Anyone knowing if ghost type enemies have special immunities?

 

I updated the spidergirl guide for new skill and Combat Art values at level 85 and some play experience.

[Furian67 15]

What is still missing:

defending against spells

defending against DoT

 

Currently made level 35 this morning. And my bargainer dryad is at 31. Keeping them about equal in level to shop for the Kung-Fu. As for the question of DoT. I shoped for an armor piece that had natural all channel DoT protection and two sockets open. I then got lucky and found a double DoT amulet/ring. socketing the amulet on netted me 65% DoT protection and left me an open socket for Casting speed or damage.

 

Help requested

I would need help from people:

Is this casting speed for ravaged impact real or is it just a display error?

 

I believe the casting speed is legit. When I rebuilt my armor from level 20 to level 30 I neglected to socket the 20% casting speed I had on. When I went out to fight there was a very noticable differance. The flip kick ( RI ) was much slower in speed. I went back to my armor chest and put the original piece of armor I had the casting speed on and sure enough I was flipping like crazy again.

 

On a side note. with this build there not much health points. Compared to what my Shadow Warrior can have. I was a bit worried about this when I went to the Blood forest to quest. The eye balls I thought were going to be really bad turned out to be very tame. I believe their LL% didn't do much damage to me because of my low hit points. Whereas with my Shadow Warrior and Grim Res. his hit points are triple that of the Waffenlosen Nahkampf ( ya like that? Googled it! ) So I was able to run the quests up to the Big Hellhound.... had to stop there for work.

[Spunky 16]

Those LL can be extremely dangerous when your char have alot of HP, had a near death experience with my Shadow Warrior a couple of weeks ago when 3 of them hit me at the same time, 35K HP gone in an instant.

[chattius 2,653]

Life Leech

Damn, I forgot the sheet with the updated values of the spidergirls at home. One thing which should be really done: Modifying dustdevil for spell block. My daughter plays in a 2 player team so in general there is allways at least one dustdevil with Combat Art-block active. The ranged life leech attacks seem to be Combat Art's and can be blocked. It is not as good as expulse magic, but it greatly lowers the chance that you are by all of the leeches silmultanous.

weaponless combat = casting speed for Combat Art's

So you think too that weaponless RI may be affected by casting and not attack speed? Socketing casting speed would have the extra benifit that it helps the tangled vine, twisted torment, dustdevil, ... casting speed too. I like synergies.

Waffenloser Nahkampf

In germany it had a long tradition. It fills several chapters of midage fencing books. A knight with a full plate which got tripped or fall is as defenseless as a turtle laying on its back. So several books say that some knights fought weaponless with just a shield to block strikes while getting in hand to hand range. If you look at the pictures of some old knight plates: the elbow part is often a thorn. So grap an opponent, make him fall and hammer the elbow, the shield or a stiletto into a weakness of an enemy's armour was a quick way to kill and not much exhausting. (remember they fought in full armour and couldn't allow themself to fight the next opponent totally exhausted). In later years Kampfringen was thought to be unhonourable and no longer taught. But it is stupid to think that europe would be the only place without a traditional weaponless martial art. Hand and feet are very cheap weapons and learning to use them was probably invented several times all over the world.

Kampfringen

The german word for it is Kampfringen. Some of the books about used to be online at ARMA. The following picture shows a grapping technique to disarm an opponent and the kicking counter of the disarmed opponent:

unarmed combat in a fencing book

Even I did subhunting and SAR, I had to learn some martial arts at my army time. I got interested into Kampfringen, but there is no longer any school teaching it. Closest would be training at rangers, seals or what we had before reunion of germany: Fernspäher. I did Bojitsu instead.

Edited February 1, 2010 by chattius

[Furian67 15]

Here's a little taste of Kung-Fu at work. Wet your appetites with this!

 

[chattius 2,653]

Nice Video. It's kinda amazing how fast a spidergirl can kill a boss and that she slows down at normal mobs compared to other characters.

 

I updated the 'guide' with modifications, skill and damage numbers at level 96 in niob.

[locolagarto 15]

Here's a little taste of Kung-Fu at work. Wet your appetites with this!

 

 

And a unique off the Canarch, I almost never get those!

[chattius 2,653]

Update of the progress of the spidergirls:

Level 105, Niob, mainquest arrived at dryad island. Almost full level 135 Detheya collected but to low to wear it. So not much changes damage wise. At level 108 armour lore will be mastered and level 135 stuff is possible then. Then a total re-equipping will be done for the last 2 chapters with their heavy DoT beasts.

 

Leveling in the famous orc cave proved to be quite easy (at least after shield mastery):

Only poison and physical damage in this cave, no spells. So everything which passes the defense (orc champion hits for 13%) is normally stopped by the 75.6% block shield, and shield mastery bonus adds too. A normal fight there is starting with a tangled vine (lasting 10 seconds, rooting normally all 4 orcs and slowing their attacks), ravaged impact combination. If finding the right angle to attack quickly all orcs and spiders are done in this one tangled vine.

 

Goblins 15 level up can die at a single ravaged impact if critical and armour piercing kick in and the second hit of the RI already doing deathblow damage.

 

My daughters decided to continue playing the characters even they did the challenge already: reaching niob. But the character is still developing: no 3rd buff yet, no black curse, ..... so they will do the side quests with their spiders. Someone wrote that quests affect the stuff a shop offers.

 

I really start to wonder if I would have used fist weapons instead a shield if the game would have provided them. A shield adds so much savety and still doing a dual-wielding-like attack.

Edited February 7, 2010 by chattius

[chattius 2,653]

Updated the main post ('guide') with some more links to useful discussion threads, level 120 skills, ....

 

Forgot where the sheet with the level 135 numbers is, will be updated the next days when I find it. They had a lot of time to play, because district closed schools because of too much snow and ice. No busses to visit friends or sport training either.

[dameware 0]

My severe adhd leaves me incapable to try this out, I can't even do schoolwork for ffs. By the summer ill have meds and plenty of time to play and that will probably end up leaving me with a level 200 kung-fu dryad. Most interesting/coolest class to me by far, but requires the most patience; which I don't have

Can't wait to try this puppy!

[chattius 2,653]

Started a new KungFu-Dryad.

 

Reasons:

I was asked if a KungFu would be playable without this ugly looking Detheya.

I want more knowledge in armour piercing builds.

The KungFu is a challenging character and fun to play.

Testing how much combat discipline and damage lore may help with the build, giving away combat reflexes (not really needed because of shield mastery) and voodoo focus (more than enough heads in the chest).

 

The idea would be to modify ravaged impact for poison and boost the damage with damage lore. I hope that the targets in the explosion will get damaged enough for deathblow kicking in.

 

A realistic goal without x% lifeleech would be to master platinum difficulty. For niobium I fear the high mitigation values and not able to use damage modifiers if running in mobs that have mitigation in physical and poison.

 

P.S.: I am absolutly sure that the same build will run through niobium if full detheya or x% life leech shurikens would be used. But not using x% life leech is a personal challenge, which should not hinder other people to use it.