As you may know, the Carrion Wind Ring no longer provides a 30pt free synergy boost to this skill which dramatically cuts down on the dmg output of the skill. This has resulted in the skill to be given a death sentence by the community, so I figured I would build myself one of these gimped druids and see just how bad things are. For those who don't know, I rather enjoy playing "useless" builds although this time around it isn't quite as pleasant because the ladder reset means that items are rather scarce. To be honest, I rather like being able to shop around my mules for fun stuff for obscure builds but this time I will have to start from scratch and rely on the generosity of others.
First, some quick overviews of the two key skills in this build and I am going to focus on simple rather than detail. There is a LOT of complexity to rabies that quite frankly probably isn't worth going in to.
Rabies:Two things happen when you use this skill: 1. you infect an immediate target (what I will call application). 2. this infection spreads from that target to anyone that comes within their immediate vicinity (what I will call infection). Some other aspects of it
- Both application and infection are boosted by Increased Poison skill damage (such as from Tal rune)
- Both application and infection are boosted by -Enemy Poison Resists (such as emeralds)
- Plays nice with other sources of poison rather than overriding it, which makes it somewhat more party friendly
- Has a duration that starts out small, but increases as you put more skill points in it.
Poison Creeper:Strange little companion that is practically indestructable. It can only be damaged when it is above ground which makes it pretty hearty even during boss fights. It also is generally not buffed by your oak sage (again, except when it is above ground).
The creeper lays down poison "mats" and whenever a monster moves on that mat it gets infected with its poison. The actual damage that the mat does is somewhat debated as some people claim that the more monsters on the mat, the more effective it is - but it seems to in general be less effective than rabies. The biggest drawback seems to be that your mat is NOT influenced by -enemy resists and might not even benefit from +psn skill dmg gear. That will probably start to show up in late NM or Hell and be pretty easy to spot.
Early game, your creeper is very strong especially since it is so durable. You can "creeper toss" it in to a mob and do considerable damage in a relatively safe manner. This is particularily handy in large team games. The Creeper AI is a little stubborn, so I would actually encourage you to recast it over and over to get it placed right where you want it. This tends to make a rabies druid something of a caster build early game, which is nice as it allows you to put some focus on your Oak Sage.
As I play this build, I see two key routes - caster style or melee style. Given that you really only need 40pts for your dmg skills, this character is nice in the flexibility department.
The caster approach would be to focus on hit and run tactics or other things to keep the monsters busy while they are green and dying. You would build your gear with the concept of not hitting a whole lot, just enough to apply the poison. Skills to boost would be your summons and perhaps go as a bear and use shockwave to keep monsters stunned. You could then also use Maul as a boss killer, although you wouldn't really be all that strong against bosses. This mode would probably work best for those who have a strong party - especially one that already has characters who can kill bosses.
The melee approach would be go with Fury to have a strong melee attack. Your poison would soften things up while you pound away with fury and make yourself your own tank. You would be weaker than a pure Fury build as you don't have the points to spread around, but you do get the nice bonus of a very strong poison attack to help you out. I suspect that this route will also require you to be a slightly gimped tank as you need to divert points away from life boosting skills and need to orient your gear a little. Still - it opens up the ability for you to deliver strong physical dmg and more importantly effective crushing blow.
Currently, I am leaning towards dropping my points in the melee route as I haven't ever played a Fury druid before and I also like the idea of being more powerful against bossses. I suspect that by going strong poison early game and then building up my melee skills later in the game, I will help offset the tapering damage loss to my poison skills as the game progresses and monster resistances get higher.
At the moment, my character is in A3 and can run around just fine. Been pretty straight forward although I have taken a few shortcuts by partying with some power groups to get past bosses. I am in a bit of a hurry to move beyond Normal and start to really get a feel for this build.
I do have a few balance thoughts already though as I think that ultimately this build is not really well balanced for this community at the moment.
1. Empower rabies items.
Probably the biggest weakness I see right now is a limit of good items. There needs to be a few all around item boosts for this character. The few items that are really good have tragic flaws to them. For example, I am using the Jade Tan Do which is outstanding with its super fast attack, ITD, and +10% psn skill boost. However, with a paltry 16 durability it is broken after short battles. If it is to be an effective melee weapon, it needs a durability to match. I suspect this problem will be the case for all the dagger class weapons which is a shame as they seem to be designed for this build.
2. Give Spirit of Barbs the ability to lower enemy poison resists.
I don't know how tricky this is to code, but this would be a very nice boost as it would tackle the key problem of resists.