Loki: Lord of Fire
- Thread starter LokiLoF
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Loki,
I think 80 synergies will work perfect if you're gonna' go Feral rage with a 5-frame attack, ppl get carried away with lycanthropy's importance... with enough leech you'll have no problem too. I think your ONLY choice then is a 4xShael Griswolds Caddy/storm shield.
I dunno, I beg you to reconcider using block though-- 2 hand is a lil' troublesome at times. Trust me, the block doesn't interfere as much as you'd think and stormshield is like too friggin' sweet to pass up. But it is your call
Your setup, going max damage, would prolly be more like this... only difference would be Griz caddy for some extra physical damage :wink3: :
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t240/Jaryism/Screenshot005.jpg
I think 80 synergies will work perfect if you're gonna' go Feral rage with a 5-frame attack, ppl get carried away with lycanthropy's importance... with enough leech you'll have no problem too. I think your ONLY choice then is a 4xShael Griswolds Caddy/storm shield.
I dunno, I beg you to reconcider using block though-- 2 hand is a lil' troublesome at times. Trust me, the block doesn't interfere as much as you'd think and stormshield is like too friggin' sweet to pass up. But it is your call
Your setup, going max damage, would prolly be more like this... only difference would be Griz caddy for some extra physical damage :wink3: :
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t240/Jaryism/Screenshot005.jpg
Werebears have faster base attack animation speeds than Werewolves. A Werebear just attacks faster than a Werewolf. It's sort of like how a Sorceress attacks faster with a Maul than a Necromancer does.
Haha, no, I think 80 points in synergies is overkill, too. There are too many other skills to spend those points in.
Of course, I also can't comprehend the idea of a Fireclaw shifter that would go with Werewolf over Werebear, either. Shockwave is the king of my Diablo II universe. :smiley:
In all fairness though, I think going caddy + Feral Rage charge-up is a pretty descent tradeoff to shockwave, not to mention its more useful against bosses & doesn't slow your momentum down at times. I love shockwave, but I've used wolf in a few situations and I liked the results too. The speed drop isn't THAT noticeable, fast is fast :grin: Also, if you saw my ar on my bear, if I switch to wolf I go from ~12k -->17k ar and that's not too shabby, not bad at all. If he wants to go wolf I won't compain, I like ppl trying different things, maybe I'll learn something I didn't htink of before ^^
80 in synergies shouldn't be problematic if you have the +skillz to back it up. That 4k extra damage is killing speed, the difference between maybe 1 hit killing each Urdor in a group, or 2 hitting each of 'em... killing speed man :wink3: (there are monsters that you'll hit down to like 10% health on your first attack and adding more damage makes that difference). However, if you feel more comfortable with the extra 2k health that works out just fine too
80 in synergies shouldn't be problematic if you have the +skillz to back it up. That 4k extra damage is killing speed, the difference between maybe 1 hit killing each Urdor in a group, or 2 hitting each of 'em... killing speed man :wink3: (there are monsters that you'll hit down to like 10% health on your first attack and adding more damage makes that difference). However, if you feel more comfortable with the extra 2k health that works out just fine too
Actually, I don't think that going all-out on synergies is overkill at all. With not even close to perfect gear, you'll probably have at least around +15-20 skills to Werewolf and Lycantrophy. Probably around +13 from charms, Jalal's is +4, it's PvM with a skill dependant attack, which means probably CoH as armor +2. Then prebuff that is probably +4 skills. If you wear Ravenfrost + Bul-Katho's, you got another one right there. This is total +24 and a hard point, so you already have level 25 WW and Lycantrophy, which should be more than enough for PvM.
From my experience, going for damage on FC builds seems to be the way to go. Don't forget that you can have a merc with Conviction aura (from that runeword) which is pretty sweet.
Perhaps. I do recognize shockwave is one of the best crowd-control skills out there, just as Warcry (especially on my new fully synergized Beserker-build). I also know the importance of life, which should never be underestimated. However, if I'm able to get a huge fysical damage weapon with a 5 frame/sec attack I can take advantage of something Werebears don't have: Feral Rage.
I probably will stick with my 2H-weapon tho, altough I might decide to switch to SS later on. The problem, however, is that I dont like to spend unnecessary points in dex. I rather boost my life or boost str for extra damage. With the huge AR bonus of WW and FC I should be fine.
Damage is king, right? Altough I do think this build will be harder then my max-damage Fury-wolf.
P.s. What would you guys suggest for my gear?
Some uniques I had in mind: Jalal's, raven (or perhaps nature's peace instead?)+ bul-kathos, the rising sun and perhaps Nosferatu's coil. And perhaps I even choose my ethereal Athena's wrath as my 2H-weapon.
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I prefer Feral over Hunger. Feral can be combined, hunger can't (+ you get
-75 % damage). Take for example the Kodiak build. Its strong, no doubt, but slow like hell.
Verashiden
New member
But doesn't die to IM 
Athena's wrath... isn't that kinda a weak weapon... why not at least go 3xshael bonehew or 3xshael Tombreaver?
If your gonna' use Athenas wrath just use caddy, I'm telling you. Caddy does similar damage and is faster, and you can use stormshield. Your gonna' have to add "some" dexterity anyways to get descent attack rating, and even the minimum could give you about 50% block which is better than nothing.
I never really liked Hunger. It was only good for getting mana back usually... the damage was terrible and the leech barely accounted for the life lost when fighting. It was only pretty nice when using a high damage tombreaver or something like that, but with caddy and azurewrath I hated it :sad2: Fun, yes... effective, not really. Almost better off with dracs and high leech items so you can at least keep your damage imo
If your gonna' use Athenas wrath just use caddy, I'm telling you. Caddy does similar damage and is faster, and you can use stormshield. Your gonna' have to add "some" dexterity anyways to get descent attack rating, and even the minimum could give you about 50% block which is better than nothing.
I never really liked Hunger. It was only good for getting mana back usually... the damage was terrible and the leech barely accounted for the life lost when fighting. It was only pretty nice when using a high damage tombreaver or something like that, but with caddy and azurewrath I hated it :sad2: Fun, yes... effective, not really. Almost better off with dracs and high leech items so you can at least keep your damage imo
Perhaps. But I don't have very good 2H-weapons atm. It is kind of weak, but it got nice range, +damage per lvl, speed and is ethereal (extra damage).
I guess I'll use it till I come up with something (way) better.
Queen Mebd
New member
Great observation on the plus skills making one point lycanthropy more than doable there Strid. But from my experience the conviction off infinity doesn't seem to break enough fire immunities in hell to make it that worthwhile; creatures that are fire immune have a lot of fire resistance. It could however be useful for the crushing blow possibly. Your best bet for a merc's weapon would be something that deals decent physical damage rather than trying to break a couple odd fire immunities (you've got a lot to work with here and can find something much cheaper than infinity that can be just as effective).
Damage over time is key. This isn't necessarily doing more damage with a slower weapon all the time.
Praytell, why are you using Nosferatu's on this shifter? Do stick with the 'frost over Nature's Peace; you'll be swinging slow if you're frozen. I also second Jary on using the Griswold's if you're wanting decent damage in addition to fast fireclaws (see the above comment). You can use a shield as well - take advantage of werewolves' better fhr and fbr rates compared to bears.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't count on Conviction to break FI, but it would help against most other monster, IIRC. I vaguely remember using Infinity on a Lightning Fury amazon once, I guess it would help about equally for a FC druid. Also, I've had my share of FC bears, both PvP and PvM. To get maximal damage, I remember using 4x facet armor (for PvP, though), which is (optimally) another -20% enemy fire resistance and a healthy boost to your damage.
Immune moster have up to around 140% Resistance, IIRC, so you don't need to lower it that much. Level 12 Conviction from Infinity is -85% max resist.
"There is a cap of -150% resistance and you will not be able to remove some monster's immunities in hell level." Says the Arreat Summit, dunno how to take that one. "Some monsters" what the ----- is that??
The downside of conviction is that it takes so long to kick in and you need to keep your merc alive, which can be hard with less that optimal items. With good items like CoH, CoA and so on, he can pretty much hold his own, even in Hell mode. Especially, I find Might mercs to be great because they help themselves stay alive.
Also, I think I would count on eBotD 'zerker and 1 point Fury on switch for FI immunes (on the switch) and not worrying about Griswold's Caddy, but rather an appropriate 5 FPA robo-phaseblade.
superjayson
New member
I can vouch for that. A while ago I used infinity on my fc bears and the only immunities I remember successfully breaking most of the time were fallens.
in hell ur not going to break much with infinity, the only place i notice that if break all immunites was arcane but even then ull notice the less damg u be doing to the once FI goats... and bosses ull break one of the 2 immunes if it has 2... O and u will break the FI of the flayers or soul killers in halls lvls and WSK but not the OB knights, i been doing some on field testing of what gets broken, but i really need to write it down
Infinity would help kill a hella lot faster... but judging by his gear I doubt he's going that route. If he uses a caddy or 3xshael tomb he can feral rage FI's, so I don't really see the need to break their resists, although I've never been able to do that. There's always gonna be one type of monster that totally f's you up, its no different than PI's for Fury wolves, have to use rabies or something, well here he can use Feral. Using conviction merc to break resists only seems effective with cold sorcs from my xp
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