Building my first PvP char ever

[Borje]

Building my first PvP char ever

Hello!

I have been playing this game on and off for like 6 years and finally I have managed to gather the guts to start building a PvP char Itäs going to be a FC Bear. First off I would like to know if there is somewhere I can find general "rules" and "ethics" for dueling just to know what to expect when I start duelling.

Ok, so a few questions about my build:
I will not be able to afford 9 SS skillers of Vita, but will try to get as many SS skillers as possible with as many usefull mods as possible. I will have a 20 stats torch and an Anni, will I be better of maxing Lycant than another FC Synergy?
Here are my full setup:
110 IAS PB (one jewel is 50 AR, trying to get another with AR, have any better advice on second mod?)
Stormshield (what to socket?)
Jalals (socketed with 14 [email protected] +6 max dmg jewel - took this from a never finished Ubertrister, have better ideas for sockets?)
Armour probably Duress, what do you think?
String of Ears, currently 11% 8LL, will try to get 15%DR for a maxed DR%.
Angelicring+amu+Ravenfrost (18/245)
Currently I'm using IK boots + gloves but will most liklely change that to something else, but for what?

My current str is 105, which is about as much as I will need to wear SS (20+20+[10+] from jalal, torch, anni) but do you recomend that I get more to be able to wear some big polearm against casters? (read about that in some guides) Also, against highdef chars I read that a dual angelics could be good, shall I stat my dex so that I have max block w/o Raven?

I think that is all now, I might be back with more questions.. thx for all the help in adv.!

//Börje @ EuScL

 

[SlyFox]

I don't know too much about FC bear druids but SuperJayson was nice enough to write this awsome guide!!

Link to his site:
http://fcdruid.tripod.com/fc.html

There is a lot of other people who are knowledgeable about this subject too and I'm sure they'll come to the rescue soon enough.

 

[Barcelona]

Im not a huge fan of Druids, however ur question "will I be better of maxing Lycant than another FC Synergy?" can be found in the druid guides :thumbsup:

(btw, do u want a SS skiller? If so, PM me----sorry for slight OT):thumbsup:

 

[Borje]

Well, I have been reading theSuperJayson guide and he does not have any straight answer to that, also since he recomend 9* +1ss of Vita charms and I will not have the of vita I will have 40*9 to 45*9 = 360 to 405 less life before all bonuses that is quite a bit that is why I am asking the question - since I can't afford super elite gear all through I would like to know how this impact my character and if I have to build it another way.

I know how to read guides and I have done so, for the last few weeks, quite a bit about these bears - asking questions I didnät get answers to in the guides.

Barcelona: that sounds cool, what's your acc?

 

[SlyFox]

Alright I'll try to answer a couple..

As for the helm w/ the 14res+6max jewel sounds good. You may want to fire facet it if you find out that you don't need the added res. Also a 14-15 res jwl with str mod or dex mod would also be a great choice. Lets you save some dex/str pts to put into vita.

Get a dungo's for belt, it will help immensely. If you can't string will work good.

I'd personally max lycant over the other fc synergy since you are working with a little less life.

What to socket shield w/? I'd defiantly be aiming for the 86fhr bp (If I remember correctly bears are slower that wolves in the department). So a Jewel w/ 7fr/dex/res/life whatever could be useful or fire facet if you decide to pick up your fhr or res somewhere else.

I'd also suggest getting a couple different ammies. +3ss/lifer ammy, cats eye(You may need to chance someone down)

Thats all I really have for you, good luck.

Edit: Liquid wth do you get that quote from ^^

 

[Liquid_Evil]

110 ias, did you mean 115ias? I'm positive you need 115 to hit the final 4fpa bp. So ideally you'd want 5x shealed + 15iasjwl/ar mod. If that doesn't work out just 6x sheal it.

I'm positive it is 110% IAS.

 

[Borje]

I have got a Verdungos but for some reason I imagine String would be better, since you won't get that much bonus from the +vita.

No, I meant 110 IAS becuase that is what I have been reading, I think... yes this is quoted from the SuperJayson guide: "Note: In order to achieve your 4-frame attack in Werebear form or 5-frame attack in Werewolf form, you must get at least 110ias from your Phase Blade.". Is AR the best second mod on the IAS jewel?

As for FHR I will be aiming for 86 BP with Jalals + Dungos (is this the better choice?) + Duress I have 80 so a few charms should do it, right?

Or should I use the bloodfist gloves? or sandstorm? this is not just a matter of FHR..

So a +3 SS/life for general duels and a Cats Eye for runners/telers? What ring instead of angelics?

Thx for all the good help!

 

[Jary]

Of course there's no "perfect" gear selection for every situation, heck against melee char's like barbs I'd commonly bring out Dracs & Gore riders, whenever the resists aren't needed... and so on.

THe following are prolly the staple gear choices though:

-Jalal 'shael'/5/-5% ffacet
-1) Enigma 2) Chain of Honor 3) Treachery (if need to prebuff fade/venom)
-1) bloodfists 2) magefists
-Aldurs boots
-110% PB
-Stormshield 'Um' (+22% resists, much needed)
-1) crafted blood belt (+50-70 life preferably) 2) arachnid 3) dungos 4) Tgods (use against lightning)
-anghellics set, 1xravenfrost, 1xdwarf, 1xNokoziak ammy (fire sorcs)

btw you don't need to have "godly" shape/lifers to kick some serious tail. However, you can get some with minor life mods for fairly cheap... and remember, you can always trade up for higher ones along the way.
gl playa ^.^

 

[MassiveSin]

First off I would like to know if there is somewhere I can find general "rules" and "ethics" for dueling just to know what to expect when I start duelling.

There are none and each realm has different ideals.
You can't go wrong if you go to the PvP forum and read up on some of the cookie cut builds you will encounter so you have an idea what people will hit you with.
http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=533767
You also didn't note if you were going lld or not. edit (not since your planning to use torch etc.)

Rule of thumb; in a public game don’t worry about rules so much just have fun. One common one is no red/purple pots. If you met some cool people in the pub game and they ask you not to do something they think is BM, invite them to a private game and make some house rules and go at it. If they say no, squelsh.

Private games obey the house rules and have them define clearly before the duel to avoid unnecessary noob calling.

 

[Borje]

Of course there's no "perfect" gear selection for every situation, heck against melee char's like barbs I'd commonly bring out Dracs & Gore riders, whenever the resists aren't needed... and so on.

THe following are prolly the staple gear choices though:

-Jalal 'shael'/5/-5% ffacet
-1) Enigma 2) Chain of Honor 3) Treachery (if need to prebuff fade/venom)
-1) bloodfists 2) magefists
-Aldurs boots
-110% PB
-Stormshield 'Um' (+22% resists, much needed)
-1) crafted blood belt (+50-70 life preferably) 2) arachnid 3) dungos 4) Tgods (use against lightning)
-anghellics set, 1xravenfrost, 1xdwarf, 1xNokoziak ammy (fire sorcs)

btw you don't need to have "godly" shape/lifers to kick some serious tail. However, you can get some with minor life mods for fairly cheap... and remember, you can always trade up for higher ones along the way.
gl playa ^.^

Thx a lot, when I already have my Jalal socketed for res, should I make that up by socketing my SS with a 5/-5 FFacet? thx for all the good tips!

There are none and each realm has different ideals.
You can't go wrong if you go to the PvP forum and read up on some of the cookie cut builds you will encounter so you have an idea what people will hit you with.
http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=533767
You also didn't note if you were going lld or not. edit (not since your planning to use torch etc.)

Rule of thumb; in a public game don’t worry about rules so much just have fun. One common one is no red/purple pots. If you met some cool people in the pub game and they ask you not to do something they think is BM, invite them to a private game and make some house rules and go at it. If they say no, squelsh.

Private games obey the house rules and have them define clearly before the duel to avoid unnecessary noob calling.

Oh, great, thx, this is very helpfull. The way I understand it I will have alot of problems with HDins, are there any other chars that will spank me completly? Also, about char lvl, I figure I want to use a torch and a storm shield. But when doing duels at these high lvls do I have to get my char to lvl 96 or something to be effective at all?

thx!

 

[MassiveSin]

Oh, great, thx, this is very helpfull. The way I understand it I will have alot of problems with HDins, are there any other chars that will spank me completly? Also, about char lvl, I figure I want to use a torch and a storm shield. But when doing duels at these high lvls do I have to get my char to lvl 96 or something to be effective at all?thx!

What is more important than lvl or what type of character your dueling against is your skill in dueling. No one character type owns another completely. If you know how to namelock/chainlock, evade attacks, sneak attack, prepare a battle field and switch your skills more effectively than your opponent you will win period.
That said yes certain characters will be more of a challenge but mostly good rule of thumb
Range duelers vs. melee: ranged is at adv.
Ranged vs. Caster: Caster has adv (debatable)
Caster vs. melee: Caster is at advantage (debatable)
Same vs. same: Who his who harder first and whom has more life wins
I'd recommend practicing again some friends and then move inot the pubs to get some duel experience. You need to understand the range of your skills and the range of your opponents. SO you know when your hit how far away the other guy can be for your counter attack.

 

[superjayson]

I will not be able to afford 9 SS skillers of Vita, but will try to get as many SS skillers as possible with as many usefull mods as possible

fc druids are cheaper to make than other shapeshifters, but unfortunately they rely heavily on charms as well. those 9 gc's will be half your damage and life. obvi if you cant get 9 lifers you just have to make due with what you have and upgrade aong the way. also depending on your gear you may want to get 1 or 2 1ss/12fhr gc's, but ONLY if you need it. with my gear i am good with 9 lifers, but depending on how you twink your character you can substitute.

I will have a 20 stats torch and an Anni, will I be better of maxing Lycant than another FC Synergy?

its up to you bro. assuming top notch gear maxing 4 synergies or 3 + lycan are both viable. considering you do not have the resources to get 9 ss lifers on hand you may be more inclined to max lycan instead it will help offset the life you will not have from your charms.

110 IAS PB (one jewel is 50 AR, trying to get another with AR, have any better advice on second mod?)

anything thats useful aka AR or res. and it is 110ias (someone was saying 115)

Stormshield (what to socket?)
Jalals (socketed with 14 [email protected] +6 max dmg jewel - took this from a never finished Ubertrister, have better ideas for sockets?)

first of all the jewel in the pelt is more useful for a fury wolf. either hel the thing or get a new jalal's and socket it with something else. what to socket it with depends on your gear. want more life to offset the lack of ss lifers ? put a puby + jah rune in jalal's and ss. want more res ? put um/pdiamonds. what ever your build is lacking try to make up for it in these sockets.

ps duress is a good choice, but dont rely on it completely. three best armors for an fc druid is a jewelers plate of the whale socketed with fire facets, enigma (for casters) and duress (for melee). you could use coh, but thats ideally a caster armor, one that has no FRW. thats why i think enigma is a better caster armor as its alot easier to build on frw from that and the rest of your gear than to get a coh and try and find a bunch of FRW charms.

String of Ears, currently 11% 8LL, will try to get 15%DR for a maxed DR%.
Angelicring+amu+Ravenfrost (18/245)
Currently I'm using IK boots + gloves but will most liklely change that to something else, but for what?

forget about getting a new String of ears. that one is fine the way it is. i dont know your wealth, but any dungo's is easily better than strings as the LL is meaningless and at least with dungo's you get 10fhr, which is better than no fhr. arach is a good choice for the extra damage. even any rare belt with 10+fhr and 40+ life is a good choice. id use any those over strings.

My current str is 105, which is about as much as I will need to wear SS (20+20+[10+] from jalal, torch, anni) but do you recomend that I get more to be able to wear some big polearm against casters? (read about that in some guides) Also, against highdef chars I read that a dual angelics could be good, shall I stat my dex so that I have max block w/o Raven?

your strength is good, but dont build around jalal's. if you have a cerebus its the best helm against high def melee, but a cerebus is only useful in my opinion is if it has +4ss and at least 100%+ AR. if you dont have that or are fine using a lesser version of it then keep one in stash. otherwise go a head and rebuild around jalal's, but if you ever do get that ideal cerebus you my regret having to remake later on ;p

go for max block when using full angelic's.

 

[Queen Mebd]

I've got to second Jary on that one. Bloodfists are the greatest piece of equipment for a bear. The fhr is indispensable, and the chunk of life is icing on the cake.

As for boots, Aldur's are the ones I use 98 percent of the time on my fc druid. The combination of fr/w, life, and fire resist (making up for what's not on your Stormshield) is hard to beat.

I personally haven't used a Verdungo's on my druid. A ber in the Stormshield (along with Enigma more often than not) is plenty of pdr for me. It also makes for some handy swaps, an Arachnid Mesh for the all around setup, Tgod's, Hsauru's belt with boots for the ar, M'avina's belt for the fr/w. But you'd be fine using a Verdungo's if you're looking to get a little more resistance out of the Stormshield.

Other than that you're looking good. I'd also echo the advice of going for lycanthropy. If you do upgrade and get a full compliment of skillers, your damage will be nothing to scoff at. I want to say mine (which went the lycanthropy route) can get 13-14k with melee and fr/w setups and 14-15k with the general setup.

Best of luck with your druid. Oh, be sure to practice your stashblocking skills, they're incredibly important. :laugh:

 

[Jary]

AHHAHHAHAhhaa.... heh omg, that's funny. I don't think I've seen that, I wish I was there just to laugh at them. I need to work on my stashblocking skills I guess, perfect them so one day I can be as good as you >.>

Minnesota 4 life! The real home of the Timber wolves =P!!!

 

[superjayson]

you can block waypoints with 2 bears ;p

 

[Verashiden]

Did not know that. Hax!

 

[Borje]

SuperJayson: Thx a lot for all the good advice! I have gotten started to craft Blood Belts and the best I've come up with is: Mesh belt, 7 OW, +21str, +39 life +minors. Using this I will loose some DR (I will not be able to Ber my equipment) and 10FHR. Is it still worth it or is Dungos better? Perhaps Dungos against Phys dmg chars only?

Yes, I will try to get a good Cerebus against high def chars. But what to do to get FHR? I am leaning towards Bloodfist, but I will need a lot of ss/12 charms for it to work, or could I compensate by using a duress against highdef chars to get the FHR from it and only needing 2 (or something) 12 FHR charms?

I will do some calculations on my res and I might get a new Jalal to socket with something more usefull. How much stacked res should I have? I also have a IAS/19fire res jewel I might use for that sixth slot on my sword...

hahaha, that stashblocking was very fun - gotta learn that however seems a bit BM not to let them prebuff

 

[TigerPrawn]

I consider myself knowledgeable about FC druids now after making one, stripping it, and revising my FC druid.

First off I agree with Jary about gear. Also, a big part of gear is tailoring it to your needs. SuperJayson's guide is awesome, but I found myself tweaking skills/gear to fit my needs and wants in the second build of my FC druid.

First off, your gear looks pretty much like mine did the first time I started my FC druid. I had virtually no high end gear so scrapped by with what I can get.

when I first started;

Skills:

20 boulder, 20 Fissure, 20 Volcano

20 Lycan, 20 Fireclaw~preqs, 1 Shockwave

1 Oak

So 3 Synergies and max Lycan...

Gear Setup:

Jalal's
Wirefleece Duress
Highlord's (couldn't afford anything else)
Verdungos
Ravenfrost
BK ring
Aldur's Boots
BloodFists
6 soc PB
Stormshield
5-6 skillers, low torch and anni.

Now with this build and setup I was doing ok... I didn't have very high life. I was lacking in charms for one, but I also had to invest into a bit of str to wear my gear and dex for max block. I think I was at about 5K life without CTA Battle order buff.

I then decided to strip my bear, try a new char, but eventually came back and re-outfitted my FC druid with new gear and a new build.

New Skills:

20 Firestorm, 10 Boulder, 20 Fissure, 20 Volcano

10 (soon will be) Lycan, 20 Fireclaw~Preqs, 1 Shockwave

1 Oak, 1 Ravens, 1 Poison Creeper, 1 Spirit wolves

I decided on the middle ground for this build. Putting 10 into boulder for the synergy and investing 10 into Lycan for the HP boost.

Gear setup:

Enigma
Jalal's - 5/5 fire facet
Maras
BK ring
Raven frost
IK boots/Aldur's
Blood fists
Blood belt - 17% FHR, 61 life
Stormshield - Pdiamond
6 soc Phase Blade - 4 Shaels, 2 15% IAS wth all res or high missing res.
7 Lifers, 1 skiller with 12% FHR, 1 skiller with 7% run/walk.

Let me explain my reason for a few gear changes...

Armor: Although arguable, I feel very strongly about using Enigma now. At first I hated the idea, and chose the duress route. However, after using Duress and Enigma, I find Enigma vastly superior. 45% r/w is no joke. This is what get's me in the face of even the fastest casters. Coupled with charms, boots, etc, you'll be a speed demon. The +str per lvl is so high that at lvl 75-80 if you stat around torches, anni, enigma you may not have to add a single point into STR. The most definitive attribute is the +1 Teleport. I find often times I shift out of Bear form and into caster form for some varied strategy.

Example: I dueled a "Bowsin/Poison" Build. She used Widowmaker, BoS, and something that gave Vigor. Even with my r/w speed at 120%+ I was just unable to catch her and the OW from GA and Venom was wearing me down even when walking to try and block as much as I could. I then lured her into chasing me, I unshift, fissure, she runs right through and that's the end of the match.

Many argue that statting around Enigma restricts you from being versatile. I beg to differ as I find being able to tele about caster form, drpping fissure, Volcanos, then shifting back when needed is very versatile and has added another card up my sleeve.

Boots: Although I still find Aldur's superior to any other boot, I do like IK boots alot. It's a nice AR boost if you're lacking and if you're good on FR you won't need Aldur's.

Belt: Verdungo's is ok. Not bad, not great, just ok. I prefer a nice crafted blood belt. I lucked out and got one with 61 life, 17% FHR (helping me hit the breakpoint) a few other minor mods.

With the new build/gear I'm at around 17K dmg, with 8K life. Enigma makes a huge difference and I urge you if you are able to obtain one, at least try it out. I dismissed it the first time and I'm happy I gave it a chance the second time.

 

[Borje]

Thx for that answer, I do have an enigma. The thing is, my str is kinda high atm so I would really have to remake to have use of its full potential. A bit of a problem it may be I would sure gain a lot of life. However, I really would like to know, how much will I miss the possibility to change my armour? What do you'll say?

Also, for a bloodbelt to be versatile, it should have life (50+) and FHr, to be better than Dungos, is that right?

thx

 

[Verashiden]

NEVER STAT AROUND ENIGMA

Versatility > the small life gain you'd get.