Electric Blue's 1.10 Wolf Guide

[electricblue]

www.geocities.com/welett/index110.htm

comments pls.

[Casperi]

Rabies has only 1 synergy for its poison damage, a %18 increase in poison damage per skill spent in Poison Creeper. So it takes 40 skills to invest in rabies. But there is a certain item, the Carrion Wind Unique Ring that gives 21 skill points to Poison Creeper. With the use of the ring, investment of rabies takes only 20 skill points.

Are you sure about this? I thought that +skills from items did not count towards synergy bonuses.

[electricblue]

+ skills doesn't work in synergies, yes.
but
carrion wind doesn't give +skills
it supplies +21 poison creeper charges.
And that is counted as synergy by the game.
If you place points in poison creeper or use 2 carrion winds, however, they will not stack.

[Little Faith]

Yes this is correct:

There is a synergy bug where you will recieve the synergy from charges on an item if you do not have the skill already.

This bug is perhaps better known amongst necromancers of whom some are known to abuse the Marrowalks Bone Prison charges in order to get powerful bone attacks without spending all their points into their synergies.

[electricblue]

How do you know that it is a bug?

I think it is a game feature.

[jahcs]

Bug, feature, exploit.

It becomes a matter of semantics. Some will use it and some won't, a few players unwittingly.

[Deadpan]

Nice guide.

Quick question about rabies: with all that damage are you finding that monsters are dying before they can pass on the infection? I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from hearing the sound effects.

Mana leech: you say you don't really need it but I find my rabid dog drinks blues all the time unless I switch skills. One point in Hunger works wonders if you don't have anything else.

[shavenlunatic]

Nice guide, I get lost in some of the calculations and tables but thats purely 'cos I'm a Diablo Newb (relatively) but pretty useful as we know I'm in the latter stages of building a WW druid.

My only constructive criticisms are (albeit very small criticisms and only included in the post so I feel I'm being useful.. lol):

With ref to the nama leech though, I do feel its neccessary if only a small ammount.
My WW currently does about 1800-2500 damage per hit (with only 21 in energy) and only has 3% mana leech. Only time I have had to use a potion is when there is one of those nasty pasty Mana Burners around.

Also, the site could do with being a little more user-friendly to navigate. (although again, Geocities is not the best place to host pages and it has its limitations as to what you can do with it.. so it probably cant be helped)


All in all though, it is a guide I'm sure I will use for reference many times in the coming months.

Much Appreciated :D

[Caaroid]

I also found mana leech to be useless. If you have it it does not hurt, but vulpine actually helps more (there is nothing to stop monsters from hitting you; you're not an ironman, will have low defense and probably no block, so no chance of avoiding this).

I just use wichever is handyer; in a PVM situation most my wolves do without any leech from equipment at all.

[electricblue]

I play p8 solo, that deals the quick death problem.

and you really dont need mana leech, I couldn't figure why you need it.
the only problem is when faced with mana burn monsters.

%dmg goes to mana solves it.

[shavenlunatic]

But.. but.. but

Doesnt it cost mana to "Hit" people? :blink:

[electricblue]

yes.
but.
it costs 'little' mana to hit people. With rabies for example, you hit once in 10 seonds averaged.
And fury alone I have never seen it consumed all my mana (usually everything is dead when my mana s half the way)
Fire claws, not mentioned before, needs some mana, and potions will do well with that. If you have a choice between mana leech and something else, I advice to go with something else. If you have everything, then OK to have mana leech.

[shavenlunatic]

Ah, I see, I just didnt want to end up running out of steam (so to speak) and not being able to take a swing. But as ive just remembered that ive only got 21 energy but about 220 mana I'll probably be ok. :D

[Caaroid]

And agreeing with you further...

for fire claws THE weapon is a SHAELx6 phase blade so you swing fastest possible, since your damage is going to be fire damage anyway. Then your silly little ~100 physical damage makes most leech useless :)

[Deadpan]

What about Rabies? If you only need to hit once is it better to go for skill adders - Plague Bearer for +5 to Rabies or Fleshrender for +1 druid skills, +2 shapeshifting are two that spring to mind? Slow weapons, I know, but the damage looks to ramp up fast.

[TheDragoon]

Every weapon has a base speed (one can check for base speeds in items sections of diablo2 sites). With suffixes or shael rune or IAS jewels, one can increase this to needed levels.

There is a concept called WIAS (Weapon Increased Attack Speed), to determine weapon speeds. It is basically taking the negative of the weapon base speed (listed in arreat summit), and adding the IAS on the weapon. The WIAS information along with the weapon type is used to determine the attack speeds.

For example feral axe has -15 base speed, having 1 shael (%20 IAS) annd 1 IAS jewel (%15 IAS) makes it

WIAS=-(-15) +20+15

WIAS=50

I haven't read through all of the comments you've gotten, but this is wrong. WIAS does not include the base speed (at least not as it is usually interpretted and used in the attack speed equations).

EDIT: Also, you misspelled my screen name in your links section. It's "TheDragoon" not "The Dragoon" :)

[electricblue]

Well, that is a definition, and the tables in the charts are prepared according to that definition.
So, you can't just say that a definition is wrong without showing that the outcomes are wrong values.

My fury tables were prepared (according to that definition) independant of the work done here, by TheDragoon or elsewhere, and that may be the cause of the difference in definitions. The results are correct, however.

I will correct your nick with the update, sorry for the misspelling. :)

[apandapion]

If you like...

Rabies : your level 42 best-equipment poison setup does, by your numbers, 3.1k damage per second, and you suggest this is massive damage. My necromancer with level 32 poison nova and trangs gloves does about 2k per second. It's not bad, but it leads me to think that suggesting 3k per second is "massive damage" that "not many can stand" is reckless exaggeration. Even if you assume -100% poison resistance and double the damage, it still sounds something short of worldrending.

Fury : You describe the gear that people will wear at level 60 and beyond. Players still have to get there, you know, and most who do, unless they do serious mfing, won't have the gear you describe. The rabies section also suffers from this flaw.

For a fast Fire Claws attack, one can shift into a bear instead of a wolf and use Fire Claws even faster.

This is either a typo or needs more explination. The bear is faster than the wolf?

Stormshield Unique Monarch is a must

More uberitis. And thus, anyone who can possibly use most of the information in your guide has probably already deduced most of it.

[AtomicKitKat]

I think it's just that the bear can achieve a 4 frame attack with Fire Claws. *shrug*

[electricblue]

If you like...

Rabies : your level 42 best-equipment poison setup does, by your numbers, 3.1k damage per second, and you suggest this is massive damage.  My necromancer with level 32 poison nova and trangs gloves does about 2k per second.  It's not bad, but it leads me to think that suggesting 3k per second is "massive damage" that "not many can stand" is reckless exaggeration.  Even if you assume -100% poison resistance and double the damage, it still sounds something short of worldrending.
(1)

Fury : You describe the gear that people will wear at level 60 and beyond.  Players still have to get there, you know, and most who do, unless they do serious mfing, won't have the gear you describe.  The rabies section also suffers from this flaw.
(2)


This is either a typo or needs more explination.  The bear is faster than the wolf?
(3)


More uberitis.  And thus, anyone who can possibly use most of the information in your guide has probably already deduced most of it.
(4)

(1)
yes right, but not much useful information, i think.
The thing that you skip is that you get that damage rate for 20 seconds with just 1 bite and can not prevent it in any way.. that is the thing that actually makes rabies a massive damage source.
if you are full possible resists and again if we assume you will not be affected by -%enemy poison resistance, you will still get about 800 damage with 1 rabies bite.
if you are careless, and just get enough resists for the difficulty level, you will lose about 5k life with 1 rabies.
Now, isn't that much?

(2)
The guide is not designed for low level duelling...
that area is left as an exercise for a starter to get used to druid style of playing and to adapt his/her own techniques.
I think you realise the gap between simple game mechanics and advanced duelling. See the reason now?
But an update is coming with levelling information and corrections. + Some more depth with the skills. Also havent mentioned some possible godly weapons, they will be added.

(3)
The bear is faster then a wolf with a phase blade 110 ias inserted in it using fire claws. no typo. bear hits faster, and with more damage also.

(4)
Not exactly deducible especially the parts with fire claws (you will see better with the update).
One more thing.. If something is deducible, it is mostly the obvious or best way of doing something. With druids, no such conclusion can be made. Hence the 3 variant hybrids. Else I could just tell about fury + rabies.