Patriarch LupusVelox – The Grief Fury/Rabies Wolf (1.13)

TheNix

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Jun 23, 2003
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Patriarch LupusVelox, “It’s the wool-oof!”


Level: 84

St – 106 (130)
Dx – 136 (155)
Vt – 248 (295)
En – 20 (40)

HP 3038 (as wolf)
Mana 380

Resists:

Fire: 75
Cold: 75
Ltning: 75
Poison: 75

Skills:

Werewolf: 20 (28 – after switch)
Lycanthropy: 20 (28 – after switch)
Fury: 20 (24)
Rabies: 20 (24)
Poison Creeper: 14 (16)
Feral Rage: 1

Fury (+ Fanaticism):

AR: 10503
Dam: 1015 – 1973

Rabies (+ Fanaticism):

AR: 10503
Dam: 863 – 1742 / 5009 – 5299

Defence: 2318


Equipment:

Weapon 1:

“Grief” Phase Blade
“Dream” Troll Nest

Weapon 2:

“Hoto” Flail
Sigon’s Guard


“Um” Jalal’s Mane
“Duress” Archon Plate
Laying of Hands
Gore Rider
Verdungo's Hearty Cord
Atma’s Scarab
Raven Frost & Dual leach Rare


Merc (Act 1 – Fire)

Rockstopper
“Um” Eth Shaftstop
“Faith” Great Bow


Random musings:

Let’s start with a simple statement – I HATED THIS BUILD WITH A PASSION! With that off my chest let’s continue. Following the comparison between my two previous builds, I decided to try another multistrike type of build, the Fury Wolf. I have already made a Fury/Rabies wolf using an upped Ribby and it was a killer, so I had great expectations for this build (Funny, I thought that I’d said that somewhere before!). The build definitely failed to meet my expectations (Déjà vu?). My plan was to infect the enemy with Rabies and smash them with Fury hoping that the ctc Confusion would kick in quickly. The thought of my enemies fighting each other while their lives ebbed away, I found appealing.

Where did things go wrong? The Fury bug? The Druid’s relatively slow blocking rate? I forgot to sacrifice a chicken and bathe in its blood? The constant swings and misses causing me to have to move out of fights to reposition myself (and allowing everyone free hits, yay!) was bad enough, on a number of occasions even moving or attacking were impossible (desync?) and had to S&E! And all this was with a three frame hit recovery, great AR and maxed out weapon speed for a Phase Blade. Rabies, on the other hand, just kept chomping though everyone without a pause. As a result, I pretty much stopped using Fury as my main attack for anything but bosses toward the end of Act 2. So much for my build comparisons! All that being said, I did not die once but I had to play ultra-defensive on order to achieve this and I hate playing defensive! On many occasions it was just the sheer number of hit points I had available that kept me alive.

And finally, to some up this character; AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!



Screenshot037.jpg
 
Congrats!!!

Haha!. Grief PB on a wolf imo is a double edged sword (pardon the pun).. That relative high dex and the tendency to carry a shield can break any wolf build..
 
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The character in pictures: 🐺:mad::sick:+🏹

With a passion he hates the build
A member of a druidic guild
The crowd is out of control
Confuse cannot fill its role
Perhaps curses would have to be cast
Before battle, first and not last
Yet it is easier said than done
For a wolf that just growls it's no fun

Could slowing be what he needs?
A generals flail to tune down the creeps?
Such damage, the untwinked just stare
But blocklocked it's still a night-mare
Could Delirium, if one has such luck
Make wolves less crowded and stuck?
Rabid and furious, this wolf was a hard one
No deaths so if HC, it would be a guardian
 
If so, I will demand to be meeting interesting new people at least as much as for example Dragon Age Leliana. Dibs on the pirate captains, to start with!
 
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The build is definitely interesting, congrats on making it all the way through without dying, thats something I always had to keep in mind as a HC player :). I think where the build went wrong however is the use of the dream shield in the hopes that it would cast ctc confuse in a timely manner. You have to remember that dream has a 10% ctc on struck. That means you are relying on the enemy to hit you for the curse to go off, this is after defense and blocking and all the like, so the chances of it actually going off consistently is awful and you don't really want to block or get hit since it causes the fury bug. This build is kind of like how I always always wanted to somehow make use of the medusa's gaze ctc lower resist but its once again based on being struck so it did jack all anytime I tested it.

Suggestions to make this better? Obviously 2-handed weapons always do way better for a druid, pick something else that attacks fast and has good damage without a shield (you said you already did ribcracker which is awesome, but I always liked the idea of doom for some reason, or tomby but that has a real high level req). A really simple fix though if you really want the confusion to kick in, I'd say include a delirium somewhere in the gear setup. I see that you used a rogue merc to get the fanaticism from faith. If only at a bare minimum I would switch the rockstopper to delirium and do a couple runs to see if it improves. The jab from an act 2 merc would definitely set it off way more often but you probably need the ias from fanac. If you time travel then a beta delirium would be even better and might actually work fantastically (get it, fantastically :ROFLMAO:) with the rouge merc.

Edit: Realized Maltatai essentially said all of this in a well written poem. I'm not taking it down though. Maybe it will be useful anyway.
 
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If so, I will demand to be meeting interesting new people at least as much as for example Dragon Age Leliana. Dibs on the pirate captains, to start with!

I was thinking more along the lines of Dandelion/Jaskier personally. :ROFLMAO:
 
Should have gone w/o a shield, one paw free to punch annoying monsters in the face.
This is what I ended up doing for my Grief Fury/Rabies build. He was leveling in the Pit to equip eTomby, so p8 made Rabies less useful. Grief was quite useful, at the expense of having an empty hand. But no one could see anyhow when shifted :)

Congrats on another Pat, even if a bit painful to get there!
 
@TheNix What is your chance to block anyway? on 136 dex (155 with gear I suppose)
 
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That's pretty high. 1 in 3 chance for fury to be disrupted. Even at 15% blocking I'm not entirely satisfied at the amount of whiffs caused..
 
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