Please help me get better with Oak!

By Esuzu on October 27, 2009 4:57:23 PM from

Hello,

I've been playing Demigod a while now and consider myself pretty decent with some Demigods (and very bad with some...). Lately I have been playing a lot of Oak to try to get better with him. I think I am doing alright with Oak atm but I want to get better. Is there any possibility anyone of you can watch the replay I am uploading and give me tips on how to improve my playstyle?

I will be very grateful for any help I can get!

Here is the replay:

Replay

+10 Karma | 31 Replies

well jongalt, what are you before level 11? if it is assasin than its what i walked about. being hybrid after level 11 is noting special.

Some replays of successful hybrid oaks gameplay would be nice. Can you provide some? But no noob bashing please, only games vs reasonable, experienced players.

for a replay of effective Hybrid vs Assassin see this game

Dark_Satana plays a build similar to yours, jongalt - getting minions only after the essentials are filled in. You'll notice I have more trouble with him after that.

As to spirits:

It really depends

- If I am playing with a solid and known group I can gank with I'll go pure Assassin, because even though I am weak through level 7 it's worth the Penitence and DJ lasthits in ganks. Personally I find this build a bit boring - every Assassin Oak plays just like every other and you have plenty of room to fill out your skills.

- In all other cases I'm playing some sort of hybrid, because if you want spirits early you have to make concessions to your core skills somewhere, which is interesting, and you tend to be more flexible. This is what I've got, lately -

Shield I
Divine Justice I
Ward I
Penitence I
Surge
Shield II
Ward II
Shield III
Ward III
Surge II
Ward IV
Fill in Penitence levels, Divine Justice, Surge III, etc.

Nice game. I'm surprised nobody got more then Monks. I'm not really convinced about the spirits though. Dark_Satana had easily 1500 life more then you late game, and he then got spirits aswell. What eventually got him killed, was not having a teleport and being caught in 2v1. At level 15, even shield and sigil won't help you there, neither will 10k life. After that you capped the flag, that's gg.

I think Spirits do work in 2v2 and especially in 1v1. However for 3v3 I think the assassin Oak is superior because he can spam max pestilence.

You had some close encounters vs Erebus. What you want to do is kite here, so he can't bite. Use the minions to attack, use Pestilence. Don't let him get close, and if he does. Shield so he can't bite. This way you can beat erebus. If you denied a bite or two he has to run. This isn't easy, I can't get this to work too often either.

Good commentary, ntropy.

Kira and I were definitely playing with a budget compared to our opponents - I was consistently an item or more down on Dark_Satana, because we were focused on saving for upgrades. If they had been able to out-DPS us it might have been an issue, but that wasn't going to happen with these DGs.

I wasn't looking for this, but it just occurred to me that I don't think NinjaAlk and Dark_Satana were stacking their priests. I'll check the replay, but if I were playing Oak/LE against a mixed team the first thing I would want to do would be ensuring that each of us had a L1 and L2 monk and leapfrog up from there. If they weren't doing this then it was a serious oversight.

I'm leery of using shield early against Bite since he still gets his heal - blocking 750 damage might not be worth the cooldown, but I'll try kiting against LE more. I confess regardless of build my Oak finds it difficult to take on good LEs in anything less than a 2v1 until 10+ just because LE can be so tricksy

Good to see you think Spirits can be viable. Some of the comments here and in other Oak threads lately are along the lines of "Spirit Oak will NEVER defeat Assassin Oak AAHH HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!!"

Re: 3v3 - Penitence spam is nice, but I tend to spam Surge and save Penit for the interrupts/chases even when I max it. I think you need the interrupt, and the debuff is amazing, but I've played high level 3v3 with a single point in Penitence and it hurts less than you'd think, as long as you have other nukes, slows, and debuffs on your team. It depends on team compositions and lane assignments, though. If I am sharing a lane I'm far more likely to stay with a traditional Assassin build.

I'll keep my eyes out for a solid replay of hybrid Oak in a 3v3 and post it here when I find one.

I've actually never made a replay before. Do I need a third party program or does Demigod comewith a feature that I never noticed. Demigod and it's wonderful technicl strengths right?

Last night vs a premie (i had some excellent teammates whose names i conveniently forgot) I had played the same oak build.
We were getting rocked for the first 15 minutes, their ub ended with the game with 12 kills (5 from me 6 from our rook, one from our reg)
After the 15 minute when i had enough gold to get my gear, (i also bought currency and angels so i wasntotally selfish) it really turned round. The 6-7k ub, 4-5k sedna and 4k hp reg could not stand against me. Even with ports in. Often, one would die with enough time left to scare away number 2. Furter, no one escaped once in the angry zone. Rook started beeing up his map control and we had a full sweep by the half hour mark. bothports.. it was a good game. I ended with 6 kills and 6 deaths. Top on damage.

My point is, a shield build oak, or an 'assasin' oak will do much better early game. But late game is when this build shines. As lon as your team doesn't get completely hammerd early, you'll get a chance to control the map single handedly.

late game you can get your spirits as assasin oak. no problem having spirit ward rank 2 at level 11 or so. the question is always how you skill before level 10.

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Please help me get better with Oak!