Patriarch Paws, Rabies/Fury Wolf
After finding a 300% ED Ribcracker, I was itching to put it to use on a Fury wolf, and after reading the 'Sick Puppy' strategy somewhere (combine Rabies + Hit Causes Monster to Flee), I wanted to give Rabies a try as well.
I was quite surprised on both counts. There's not much to say about the Fury Ribcracker, you hit things and they die, but Rabies? Much to say about that skill. Rabies was, to put it simply, a great deal of fun. The infection spreads fast within gorups, and it's usually not long before the whole screen is poisoned. It's fun to be able to infect one monster group with a single bite, and then turn your attention to another knowing that the first group is doomed to die and you don't need to pay them any more attention. There was one time I infected a boss pack of Extra Fast Goatmen, and ran off to explore the rest of the level, watching the group chase me and slowly start dropping dead, with the boss falling soon after. Rabies worked well against annoying things like Fallen, who tend to split up and flee once something dies. When the entire camp is infected, this doesn't do them much good and saves you much hassle chasing them down. There were times I was surrounded by heaps of infected monsters, knowing that I only had to hold on for a few more seconds before they all fell dead (and this saved my life once or twice early on). Special mention must be made for the Cow Level, Rabies' effectiveness can be taken to the extreme here, go see how many cows you can herd before infecting the lot. It's like a fun bonus round between difficulties.
Rabies can be quite tactical too. I noted earlier the 'Sick Puppy' strategy which was to utilise Hit Causes Monster to Flee to help spread the effect of Rabies by infecting one monster and sending them running off to infect anything else in their path. To achieve this, I used a 4xDol 2xEth Phase Blade on switch, although you can get a 100% HCMTF weapon very early, just buy a Wailing Wand from Drognan in Normal and you're good to go (though the speed is a little slow, so you can still find better options). This worked surprisingly well, there were times when an infected monster ran off screen, and I'd later discover small groups of corpses that had succumbed to Rabies. When dealing with large packs of monsters, often one or two will detach first and engage you before the rest of the group catches up, so this tactic was useful for sending one of them back to infect the group, allowing me to apply Rabies in a safer manner and to be ready with my kill weapon by the time the group reached me. There is a great deal of safety offered by this tactic too, if I wanted, I could stick with my HCMTF weapon and keep attacking everything that engages me, causing them to constantly be fleeing untill they finally die from poison - I used this to great effect against the PI Blood Lords in Hell. This offered a great deal of tactics too, I'd often be trying to 'aim' the fleeing monsters where I wanted them to go.
Some monsters made excellent 'carriers' with this tactic. Certain monsters have a flee speed much faster than their normal speed and will take off like a rocket when scared. These include Apes, Finger Mages, or anything that is naturally fast to begin with. Also good are monsters that can fly, as they can cross rivers and gaps to infect the monsters on the other side. Here is an example of a Wraith spreading my love to the Goatmen on the other section. Teleporting monsters were also fun; even though Imps would quickly fall to Rabies, their constant teleporting can help spread the infection very fast amongst scattered monsters especially once one Imp infects a few more. One of the best carriers though are Ghosts, as they can pass through other monsters without stopping and turning back. The absolute best place to employ this strategy is the Arcane Sanctuary. The ghosts will fly down the long narrow pathways and over the gaps, infecting everything in their path if aimed correctly. This made the Arcance Sanctuary one of this build's favourite areas. One more interesting thing about Rabies is that it will still infect Poison Immune monsters, so while they cannot be hurt by Rabies, they can still act as carriers. I learnt that while Hell Maggots are Poison Immune, their eggs are not. By infecting the Maggots with Rabies, I'd ensure that any eggs they laid would get infected and then destroyed before they had a chance to hatch. This was great when there were mass amounts of Maggots around, as this eliminated eggs I could not reach to destory in time and helped cut back on the Maggot swarms.
As far as Rabies damage goes? It starts out great, it will make short work of big groups such as in the Act II Tombs or Act III Flayers (about the time you'd first get Rabies at /p1) and will be a great deal of fun. A funny thing about Rabies though, is that you don't want the damage to be too high, because them monsters will die too quickly before getting the chance to spread the disease, but you don't want damage to be too low to be worthless, so there's a bit of balancing you may need to do. It also helps if the initial bite doesn't take so much of the monster's health that it dies before it has a chance to spread, this is why having a low-damage Rabies switch is useful. Rabies also benefits a fair bit from +Skills, as you increase the level you will see dramatic rises in the damage, a weapon switch with Plauge Bearer and Spirit could give you a +7 boost to Rabies, a significant improvement in damage. As the game goes on, Rabies' damage unfortunately gets less and less impressive as monster HP and Poison Resistance grows. It will start to take quite a while to work, and some monsters you're better off just killing with something else, so Rabies falls to a support skill rather than a main killing skill. As much as I wanted to use Rabies as my main offence, by Hell it was wasn't very worth it and I may as well just Fury everything to death. I think that for Rabies to be really effective in Hell, it's going to need some serious back-up in the form of +Skills, +% Poison Damage and -% Enemy Poison Res. As a Physical Immune solution, Rabies is not very good. Most things that are naturally Physically Immune tend to have high levels of Poison Resistance, making Rabies terribly slow. The only PI's it's effective against are the Bug Swarms, so look elsewhere for a PI solution. And it was completly hopeless against a few naturally spawning PI/PoI's as well
My word, all that text and I haven't even started on Paws' adventures. In fact, I think I've given you a pretty solid idea of what this character was like so I'll spare the details and just get on with the character dump (BEWARE: More rambling in the equipment dump, save yourself while you still can!)
STATS
Paws
Level 83
Strength: 106 (74)
Dexterity: 177 (141)
Vitality: 270
Energy: 40 (20)
HP: 2134
Mana: 304
Fury: 3558-5221, 6869 AR, 4 FPA
Rabies: 8848-9262 / 14.4 secs, 6489 AR, 8 FPA
Fire: 75 (20)
Cold 75 (18)
Lite: 75 (31)
Poison: 75 (34)
FHR: 86%, 3 Frames
Life Leech: 78% (w/Feral)
OW: 35%
CB & DS: 15%
27 (20) Fury
27 (20) Lycanthrophy
27 (20) Rabies
15 (8) Feral Rage
23 (20) Poison Creeper
4 (1) Summon Grizzly
4pts pre-reqs
EQUIPMENT
CHARMS:
MERC:
Act 2 Might Merc
'Insight' eth Colossus Voulge
Tal's Mask (PAmmy)
Duriel's Shell (PAmmy)
800-4k ish Damage, 1,800 Life, Max Res and CBF. This set-up works ok, the PAmmy's are so he can equip the magical mana stabbing stick at a reasonable level.
SCREENSHOTS:
* What an appropriate name
* I sentence you to death by lethal infection
* A perfect example of the Rabies+Flee at play. A single bat woke up as I approached, and I sent him back to his buddies with a little gift. The whole lot died in their sleep.
* Tutorial: How to kill Shenk's army
Step 1: Nibble
Step 2: Wait
Step 3: Win!
END:
Thanks for reading!
After finding a 300% ED Ribcracker, I was itching to put it to use on a Fury wolf, and after reading the 'Sick Puppy' strategy somewhere (combine Rabies + Hit Causes Monster to Flee), I wanted to give Rabies a try as well.
I was quite surprised on both counts. There's not much to say about the Fury Ribcracker, you hit things and they die, but Rabies? Much to say about that skill. Rabies was, to put it simply, a great deal of fun. The infection spreads fast within gorups, and it's usually not long before the whole screen is poisoned. It's fun to be able to infect one monster group with a single bite, and then turn your attention to another knowing that the first group is doomed to die and you don't need to pay them any more attention. There was one time I infected a boss pack of Extra Fast Goatmen, and ran off to explore the rest of the level, watching the group chase me and slowly start dropping dead, with the boss falling soon after. Rabies worked well against annoying things like Fallen, who tend to split up and flee once something dies. When the entire camp is infected, this doesn't do them much good and saves you much hassle chasing them down. There were times I was surrounded by heaps of infected monsters, knowing that I only had to hold on for a few more seconds before they all fell dead (and this saved my life once or twice early on). Special mention must be made for the Cow Level, Rabies' effectiveness can be taken to the extreme here, go see how many cows you can herd before infecting the lot. It's like a fun bonus round between difficulties.
Rabies can be quite tactical too. I noted earlier the 'Sick Puppy' strategy which was to utilise Hit Causes Monster to Flee to help spread the effect of Rabies by infecting one monster and sending them running off to infect anything else in their path. To achieve this, I used a 4xDol 2xEth Phase Blade on switch, although you can get a 100% HCMTF weapon very early, just buy a Wailing Wand from Drognan in Normal and you're good to go (though the speed is a little slow, so you can still find better options). This worked surprisingly well, there were times when an infected monster ran off screen, and I'd later discover small groups of corpses that had succumbed to Rabies. When dealing with large packs of monsters, often one or two will detach first and engage you before the rest of the group catches up, so this tactic was useful for sending one of them back to infect the group, allowing me to apply Rabies in a safer manner and to be ready with my kill weapon by the time the group reached me. There is a great deal of safety offered by this tactic too, if I wanted, I could stick with my HCMTF weapon and keep attacking everything that engages me, causing them to constantly be fleeing untill they finally die from poison - I used this to great effect against the PI Blood Lords in Hell. This offered a great deal of tactics too, I'd often be trying to 'aim' the fleeing monsters where I wanted them to go.
Some monsters made excellent 'carriers' with this tactic. Certain monsters have a flee speed much faster than their normal speed and will take off like a rocket when scared. These include Apes, Finger Mages, or anything that is naturally fast to begin with. Also good are monsters that can fly, as they can cross rivers and gaps to infect the monsters on the other side. Here is an example of a Wraith spreading my love to the Goatmen on the other section. Teleporting monsters were also fun; even though Imps would quickly fall to Rabies, their constant teleporting can help spread the infection very fast amongst scattered monsters especially once one Imp infects a few more. One of the best carriers though are Ghosts, as they can pass through other monsters without stopping and turning back. The absolute best place to employ this strategy is the Arcane Sanctuary. The ghosts will fly down the long narrow pathways and over the gaps, infecting everything in their path if aimed correctly. This made the Arcance Sanctuary one of this build's favourite areas. One more interesting thing about Rabies is that it will still infect Poison Immune monsters, so while they cannot be hurt by Rabies, they can still act as carriers. I learnt that while Hell Maggots are Poison Immune, their eggs are not. By infecting the Maggots with Rabies, I'd ensure that any eggs they laid would get infected and then destroyed before they had a chance to hatch. This was great when there were mass amounts of Maggots around, as this eliminated eggs I could not reach to destory in time and helped cut back on the Maggot swarms.
As far as Rabies damage goes? It starts out great, it will make short work of big groups such as in the Act II Tombs or Act III Flayers (about the time you'd first get Rabies at /p1) and will be a great deal of fun. A funny thing about Rabies though, is that you don't want the damage to be too high, because them monsters will die too quickly before getting the chance to spread the disease, but you don't want damage to be too low to be worthless, so there's a bit of balancing you may need to do. It also helps if the initial bite doesn't take so much of the monster's health that it dies before it has a chance to spread, this is why having a low-damage Rabies switch is useful. Rabies also benefits a fair bit from +Skills, as you increase the level you will see dramatic rises in the damage, a weapon switch with Plauge Bearer and Spirit could give you a +7 boost to Rabies, a significant improvement in damage. As the game goes on, Rabies' damage unfortunately gets less and less impressive as monster HP and Poison Resistance grows. It will start to take quite a while to work, and some monsters you're better off just killing with something else, so Rabies falls to a support skill rather than a main killing skill. As much as I wanted to use Rabies as my main offence, by Hell it was wasn't very worth it and I may as well just Fury everything to death. I think that for Rabies to be really effective in Hell, it's going to need some serious back-up in the form of +Skills, +% Poison Damage and -% Enemy Poison Res. As a Physical Immune solution, Rabies is not very good. Most things that are naturally Physically Immune tend to have high levels of Poison Resistance, making Rabies terribly slow. The only PI's it's effective against are the Bug Swarms, so look elsewhere for a PI solution. And it was completly hopeless against a few naturally spawning PI/PoI's as well
My word, all that text and I haven't even started on Paws' adventures. In fact, I think I've given you a pretty solid idea of what this character was like so I'll spare the details and just get on with the character dump (BEWARE: More rambling in the equipment dump, save yourself while you still can!)
STATS
Paws
Level 83
Strength: 106 (74)
Dexterity: 177 (141)
Vitality: 270
Energy: 40 (20)
HP: 2134
Mana: 304
Fury: 3558-5221, 6869 AR, 4 FPA
Rabies: 8848-9262 / 14.4 secs, 6489 AR, 8 FPA
Fire: 75 (20)
Cold 75 (18)
Lite: 75 (31)
Poison: 75 (34)
FHR: 86%, 3 Frames
Life Leech: 78% (w/Feral)
OW: 35%
CB & DS: 15%
27 (20) Fury
27 (20) Lycanthrophy
27 (20) Rabies
15 (8) Feral Rage
23 (20) Poison Creeper
4 (1) Summon Grizzly
4pts pre-reqs
EQUIPMENT
Code:
Ribcracker
Stalagmite
Two Hand Damage: 340 - 507
Durability: 107 of 30
Required Level: 38
Required Strength: 63
Required Dexterity: 35
Fingerprint: 0xdd21dcb0
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+15 to Dexterity
100% Enhanced Defense
+30 to Minimum Damage
+65 to Maximum Damage
+100 Defense
+100 Maximum Durability
Required Lvl +7
50% Faster Hit Recovery
50% Chance of Crushing Blow
[B]314% Enhanced Damage[/B]
65% Increased Attack Speed
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Rusty Jewel of Fervor
Rusty Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x70548e66
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+14% Enhanced Damage
15% Increased Attack Speed
[I]I was very happy to have found this very nice weapon.[/I]
[I]Notice how the ED is 314%? Notice how the Jewel only offers 14%? Yes.[/I]
Gemmed Phase Blade
Phase Blade
One Hand Damage: 31 - 35
Indestructible
Required Level: 54
Required Strength: 25
Required Dexterity: 136
Fingerprint: 0x77680417
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
Hit Causes Monster to Flee
50% Target Defense
6 Sockets (6 used)
Socketed: 4x Dol, 2x Eth
[I]The fastest weapon I could get that offered 100% HTMTF. [/I]
[I]Stuffing a Shael would've only dropped a frame [/I]
[I]from 8 to 7, so I didn't bother and used[/I]
[I]two Eths instead to make sure things I wanted [/I]
[I]to be bitten would be bitten.[/I]
Raven Gorget
Amulet
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0x8b561598
Item Level: 84
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+1 to Strength
Fire Resist +7%
+1 to Druid Skill Levels
All Resistances +13
Treachery
Mage Plate
Defense: 248
Durability: 48 of 60
Required Level: 43
Required Strength: 55
Fingerprint: 0x4d29655b
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
45% Increased Attack Speed
25% Chance to cast level 15 Venom on striking
5% Chance to cast level 15 Fade when struck
20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
3 Sockets (3 used)
Bitter Lash
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 31
Durability: 11 of 12
Required Level: 24
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0xe81b0efe
Item Level: 45
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+24 to Life
+29 Maximum Stamina
Fire Resist +18%
Poison Resist +14%
Attacker Takes Damage of 6
24% Faster Hit Recovery
Gore Rider
War Boots
Defense: 158
Durability: 33 of 34
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 94
Fingerprint: 0xc169a65d
Item Level: 72
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+20 Maximum Stamina
193% Enhanced Defense
+10 Maximum Durability
Requirements -25%
30% Faster Run/Walk
10% Chance of Open Wounds
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike
Dracul's Grasp
Vampirebone Gloves
Defense: 138
Durability: 9 of 14
Required Level: 76
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xb879e44
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+10 to Strength
110% Enhanced Defense
10% Life stolen per hit
+9 Life after each Kill
25% Chance of Open Wounds
5% Chance to cast level 10 Life Tap on striking
[I]Trang Oul's Gloves would've been ideal here for the [/I]
[I]+25% Posion Skill Damage fro Rabies, but unfortunately [/I]
[I]I didn't have any when I was sure I did. [/I]
[I]Oh well, Dracul's is still awesome and saved my furry butt many times.[/I]
Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x40f016bc
Item Level: 78
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+19 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+216 to Attack Rating
+15 - 45 cold damage with 4 sec Duration
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen
[I]Unfortunately, cold damage interferes a little with the Rabies+Flee[/I]
[I]combo, as monsters will get chilled and not move as fast,[/I]
[I]however, there is no way I could give up the other [/I]
[I]sweet bonuses either, so I just had to deal with it.[/I]
Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x446ce8be
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+17 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+209 to Attack Rating
+15 - 45 cold damage with 4 sec Duration
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen
[I]And why not add another? An extra 4-5% chance to hit is never bad.[/I]
Jalal's Mane
Totemic Mask
Defense: 249
Durability: 16 of 20
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0xc5e20a96
Item Level: 75
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+20 to Strength
+20 to Energy
152% Enhanced Defense
+2 to Druid Skill Levels
30% Faster Hit Recovery
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
+5 to Mana after each Kill
+2 to Shape-Shifting Skills (Druid Only)
All Resistances +45
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Um RuneCHARMS:
Code:
Spiritual Grand Charm
+1 to Shape-Shifting Skills (Druid Only)
Coral Grand Charm of Sustenance
+24 to Life
Lightning Resist +25%
Jade Grand Charm of Balance
12% Faster Hit Recovery
Spiritual Grand Charm
+1 to Shape-Shifting Skills (Druid Only)
Jade Small Charm of Strength
+1 to Strength
Poison Resist +9%
Coral Small Charm of Greed
Lightning Resist +9%
8% Extra Gold from Monsters
Coral Small Charm
Lightning Resist +9%
Russet Small Charm of Greed
5% Extra Gold from MonstersMERC:
Act 2 Might Merc
'Insight' eth Colossus Voulge
Tal's Mask (PAmmy)
Duriel's Shell (PAmmy)
800-4k ish Damage, 1,800 Life, Max Res and CBF. This set-up works ok, the PAmmy's are so he can equip the magical mana stabbing stick at a reasonable level.
SCREENSHOTS:
* What an appropriate name
* I sentence you to death by lethal infection
* A perfect example of the Rabies+Flee at play. A single bat woke up as I approached, and I sent him back to his buddies with a little gift. The whole lot died in their sleep.
* Tutorial: How to kill Shenk's army
Step 1: Nibble
Step 2: Wait
Step 3: Win!
END:
Thanks for reading!
