06-28-2003, 06:51 AM
Quote:The 125% to life from Oak Sage is nice to have as well. But again, do I really need it?
As other have mentioned, it depends somewhat on if you play HC or SC. I play exclusively HC, and have seen very few HOW wolves, nor have I ever made one. Most of my druids use a might merc and Oak. The safety that 3-4K life affords is well worth the damage, in the face of desyncs and the occasional drop on B.net.
Also, my other characters(non druids/barbs) much prefer Oak to HOW, for the boost in life is a huge advantage for classes that normally have little over 1K life in Hell.
Another point is a big one IMO: HOW is hardly any benefit at all vs phys immune monsters. The AR is usually redundant, and the damage boost has no effect at all. On the contrary, Oak will allow you to spend more time whacking the monster with your elemental wand/baranars/fire claws/rabies before you need to rejuv/ again.
OTOH, if you play a lot of party realm games, most other druids will already have Oak. Using HOW can give you both the advantage of not duplicating auras.
PS: Argh, I actually made a rabies wolf once, big mistake. That one was a joke :)