Werewolf questions

[patriach]

Hi all,

This is my first time playing a werewolf druid, so I want to make sure I will not make some stupid mistakes. My druid will be the standard fury druid and I'm playing in single player (non - b.net). Ok, here are my questions:

1. The most important one: how do you deal with iron maiden :o ?
I've read many guides, but they never really touch on this subject. Would life tap charges be enough to counter it? I was thinking about feral rage. Can the 40% leech of lvl 20 feral rage counter IM? I also notice the skill Hunger at lvl 24. Has anyone ever tried this vs. IM?
I'm mainly concerned about the chaos sanctuary in NM and hell mode. The Doom Knights have tons of life and the druid will be forced to hit them multiple times before he can get to the OK.

2. Physical Immune!
After looking at my mules, I think I have 3 alternatives against PI: tiamat rebuke + baranar star, Hellrack, or the Reaper's toll. Which is the most effective solution? Reaper's Toll requires 89 dex. What about rares with amp on attack mods?

3. Elemental resistance
The impression that I got after reading the druid forum in the amazon basin is that: werewolf druids usually have bad resist. They survive in higher difficulty by having lots of life and leech. Yes? No?

4. End weapon choice
Among the Windhammer, Reaper's Toll, Bonehew, and Ethereal Edge, which would you recommend?

I think that's all for now ;)

[Caaroid]

1: IM
Soulution: you die. Now seriously, if you plan on playing single-player, bonehew, you'll have no problem. That is, if IM mechanics had not changed since 1.09 (that was when I last played a wolf). Then, if you single-hit killed something, you did not take damage.
Then again, I take that back immediatelly. Venom lords can have insane amount of life even in single player. Maybe rabies?
IM is a lot stronger in 1.10, leech might not counter it. Hunger would, but you will not kill anything with it. (Fury druids power comes from fury's sick damage boost. Exchanging that to a damage penalty, you'll spend years in the sanctuary - but might survive. I'd prefer the bite-and-run of Rabies anytime).

2: PI
Honestly, it is a greater problem. Barnar and Tiamat was insufficient even in 1.09, so not much help there. IF you have a cold mage merc, AND use B&T on the frozen PIs, it could work.

3: RESIST
Yes. Maybe :) The trick is for PVM wolves is that they usually go two-handed. They are fater that way, and do huge damage. Lacking 1.10 experience I do not know if this will cut it (don't see too many melee druids these days...) Fact is, that wolf blocking speed is sad, whereas hit recovery is awesome. This sort of indicates that Da Creators expected you to get hit and soak it up. If you have a 4 socketed shield, however... well, that's what I kept on my switch, to be on the safe side.

4: END WEAPON
Are you kidding? Bonehew shaeled. Only a dual-shael Tomb Reaver beats that. Bonehew gives you a 5 frame fury, with Tomb it would be 4 (fastest).


And some more:
* make sure you have 10k+ AR
* life 3k+ (charms, rubies, whatnot)
* cannot be frozen is unavoidable
* get faster hit recovery (more important than leech)
* decide on skills in time (werewolf 1-20? rage 1-20? Rabies 1-40?)

For more information check The Dragoon's Wereform Central. It is THE site for wereforms.

[patriach]

Ouch :blink: regarding IM. Looks like hell act 4 will be his biggest challenge. I dread the thought of encountering 4 champion Oblivion Knights and their 100 minions *shiver*

Thanks for the suggestions, Caaroid.

[FenrisWulf]

You know, I've never really found Oblivion Mages all that frightening, as long as I'm being careful. Simple solution: switch to Feral Rage, focus solely on the Mages, and kill them before touching anything else. If you get IMed at any point in this process, retreat and play with your Grizzly. Also use Summons to lure out the Knights, away from the Mages (since Mages generally don't follow).

EDIT:
PIs: BStar+Tiamat's still works in one player games, where HPs are manageable. In the absence of items, consider Rabies backed by a Poison Creeper synergy; this will put you low on skill points, unfortunately (you'd probably need to leave Werewolf and Lycanthropy around 10, and max Fury, Rabies, Poison Creeper, and Oak/HoW). Fire Claws requires a much greater Synergy investment, so probably isn't the best idea. There are a few other high Elemental damage weapon (Gimmershreds), and also weapons that cast Decrepify/Amp Damage (Reaper's Toll, Lacerator), which strip PI from monsters. Suggestion: Reaper's Toll on your Act 2 Merc, if you have one.

Resists: In general, yes, they will usually be lower due to lack of a shield. Note to Caaroid: Druid's Hit Recovery is actually pretty terrible, too.

Endgame: I would also likely go with the Bonehew. It's a very fun weapon.

[Wyrm]

1. Have a weak weapon on switch and use rabies (I guess even fire claw would work...). Or you could use Armageddon since that works in were-form now, but it's a bit of a waste considering you need the synergies or it does piddly damage.

Too bad there's no curse removal potion.

[arrunique]

1. The most important one: how do you deal with iron maiden

At least you only see iron maiden in Chaos Sanc and Worldstone. Just avoid those areas. As for the quests they are will be tough and slow. Draw minions away, kill them at a distance from the ob knights. Then madly charge and hope they don't cast it. Always keep a row of rejuvs because in switching wereform you get one last chance to save yourself if you get pinged from IM.

2. Physical Immune!

The monsters that are base PI don't have many hitpoints. It is the unique PIs when the base type has a pile of hitpoints that area problem. Tiamat + Bstar should work. But better than bstar is glimmershred.

3. Elemental resistance

My druid's resists sucked. I ended up wearing a 3 ral black hades just because I needed the fire resists. What you might want is the absorb setup of raven + wisp + hellmouth. Jalal's is a nice all around hat.

4. End weapon choice

My druid used buriza until he upgraded to bonehew, it worked well. Bonehew also looks cool when it fires off. I think I socketed mine with a skull and shael just to free up my other gear for resists and elemental damage. As for reaper you are better off giving that to your merc.

Other unasked questions -
Merc: I would seriously consider going with a blessed aim merc. I think my AR topped out at about 6k which wasn't enough in late hell. Another good choice would be freeze for defense. My druid went with the might merc and Oak Sage but if I had to do it again I would go with a freeze merc and Heart of the Wolverine.

Mana Burn: I had massive problems with hell mana burn monsters because when a druid is at 0 mana he can't do with fury or feral rage, unlike a paladin or barb who do normal attacks instead of zeal or double. This is a huge problem against fast hitters like Infidels or Buzzards. Rejuv potions are your best friend again. My belt setup was 1 row heal, 1 row mana 2 rows rejuv.

Burning Dead Archers(and other nasty non-leechers): They suck. If you are relying on heavy life leech you will hit a brick wall on the frigid highlands when clusters of archers will drop your life faster than you can kill them. My druid fortuitously found dracul's grasp somewhere in hell and after that they became much nicer.

I don't think I could handle a melee druid hardcore because so much relies on you getting that one hit that will leech you back 1.5k hitpoints. If you miss, the next monster hit kills you.

[FenrisWulf]

@arrunique:
6k AR really wasn't enough in late Hell? Eh, I do run with a bit higher, but I didn't realize that even a fairly high value like that would give people problems. Equipment AR isn't that hard to come by, though, and gets a significant boost from WW/Fury. I think that there are better uses of a Merc than that.

Fury will stall when you have no mana. Feral Rage actually does default to the regular attack.

Archers, other Ranged Attackers: get a point in Grizzly. Cast wisely.

[loked]

o yeah that thing call resistence can sometimes be so anoying, but there is a way to get then all at max, but the gear is realy expensive, and how are you gona mule on single palyers??, or are you soloing?, got and other computer?, uses and editor?, well, here is how to get full resistence
amulet:maras if you have one, saracen chances, or cromatic amulet, they got from 25-30 resistences
anyas quest: i only count 2 of them, since the hell one is realy hard, and you have to finish hell almost :P 20 to al resistence
armor: chain of honor, yupi, 65 resistence, but otheres are, naj armor, goldskin upgraded, or smoke,
boots: there are some normal boots that gives 10 to all resistence, but forgot the name
belt: disiple belt give 15 to all resistence, some normal belts do it to
helm: the best for resistence is veil of steel, but you will end using jalas, i now
so far we got185-165 resistence, and you where saying than resistence is not posible, and i havent used a single um on the gear :P

[Caaroid]

To FenrisWulf:

Note to Caaroid: Druid's Hit Recovery is actually pretty terrible, too.

I use Tommi's site when referring to Hit Recovery (http://www.hut.fi/~tgustafs/hitrecovery.html). I found it to be correct. According to that, even though the human form's hit recovery is the worsst save the sorceress, the wolf's is much better than any other.

Then again, wolf is the only character running around melee without any protection (bear has showckwave and defense, barb has defense and/or shield, ama has avoid.., assas have block or wblock, palas have the 2-frame block and defense, melee necros have blocking and bone armor, melee enchantresses have blocking and ES), whereas the wolf has leech and life. Period. This might mean that you "seem" to spend more time in hit recovery than other classes, but you still are the king of hit recovery. Getting a 3-frame hit recovery is noting to sneeze at.

[patriach]

As I have mentioned, I play single player. I use ATMA to transfer items between my characters. I only use items that are found by myself. I cannot afford those high level runewords or those rare uniques, although I have a few mid-level uniques like Jalal's (from hell Andy), Bonehew (from hell Meph) or Duriel Shell.

Thank you for the link, Caaroid. I think I will have to decide whether to socket Jalal's with my only preciousssss Um rune or a Shael rune.

For the mercenary: How good is defiance merc for a werewolf? Does everybody just ignore their werewolves' defense? I will probably use a holy freeze merc as you guys suggested.

He probably won't be able to use Rabies for act 4 normal. I will try the hit-and-lure-and-run tactic. I will update his progress if he can pass act 4 normal.

My druid is still in act3 normal. I have never played a melee character without a shield before, especially a druid. His adventure has been an interesting experience for me. Thanks again for the replies guys :) . When my druid finally finishes act 5 hell, he'll remember all of you ^^

[patriach]

Ah, almost forget to ask one more thing

I heard that monsters in nightmare and hell mode has a new 'drain effectiveness' feature, which adds a further penalty to life and mana leech. Is life tap curse affected by this feature? I have been saving a wand with life tap charges. I am hoping that it doesn't become useless.

[Obi2Kenobi]

boots: there are some normal boots that gives 10 to all resistence, but forgot the name

Tearhaunch Greaves. I prefer rare boots, as they can get very high resists (I miss my rare 20% dual resists, 40% another resist...)

[loked]

o yeah well you already got 3 nice items for latter on, duriel will give you 20 to al resistence exept cold because thats 50 , if you decide to um jalas, then 45% resistence from there, and the 2 anyas quest, on hell mod you should have -15%fire, lighting and poison, and +15 to cold, only 90 more to go, some rares items you found on the way might help you

[FenrisWulf]

@Caaroid:
I stand corrected, as I don't have any good way to test this myself, nor any particularly good reason to dispute your sources. :) Thanks very much for the information.

[Fragbait]

Hi there,

Considering that he plays sp only, maybe he's interested in other weapon switch options,
since

  But better than bstar is glimmershred.

bstar and glimmershred aren't that easy to find, too.
Options are:

- Demon's Arch
- Hellrack
- Nord's Tenderizer
- Demon Limb
- Stormlash
- Djinn Slayer
- Azurewrath
- Frostwind

Some are more effective, others less. None of them marks 'the top' of combat against PIs.
Hope this helps,


Greetings, Fragbait

[FenrisWulf]

Of course, never forget the dirt-cheap option of an Elemental damage Wand, easily purchased from most of the healing vendors. :) My 1.09 Werewolf got by with a Condensing Wand of Useless Mods until he was able to hunt down a Baranar's Star.

[patriach]

Of course, never forget the dirt-cheap option of an Elemental damage Wand, easily purchased from most of the healing vendors. :)

Ah, clever idea Fenris. I never thought about those elemental wands. I guess it's time to start shopping.

My werewolf Fur-y already passed act 4 normal :) . I counted a total of 3 IM-related heart attacks as well as a pair of sweaty hands while clearing chaos sanctuary. The progress was slow but he didn't die. Now I'm looking forward to act 4 in NM and hell.

Thanks everyone. I really appreciated the help.

[FenrisWulf]

@patriach:
No problem. :) The ones with the blue feathers are the fastest.

[Caaroid]

This trhead made me yearn for a wolf, so I made one. He just killed ancients in nm, and I am enjoying him immensely. (You don't know what you miss out by playing single player -- having a fana smiter by my side makes life a lot easier.)

One thing I noted about IM: Wolves DO require "strategical gameplay" unlike most my other characters. (I mostly play casters myself.) What I found working best was reverting to Feral Rage and taking out the knights only. At the moment (using full hwains) I can survive one-two IM-ed feral hits (effective leech ~ 50%). With fury, I don't stand a chance.

I am afraid that once I'm able to use Bonehew, even this option will be gone. (I decided to use Spirit of barbs, since I never used it before, and I always get hit anyways and I don't play HC -- and also since having a mate to play with also means that we DO kill each other a few times each day, although latelly it's him killing me sorely :(

Anyway, I hope this was a mildly-legible rant; against IM the best bet is not to get IM-ed, so kill them knights fast.