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My Oak build and strategy: Stay in Play

By on May 20, 2009 11:00:53 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

LORD-ORION

Join Date 04/2009
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I didn't see anything like this in the guide compilation, which is kind of surprising.

Overview:
-Self sustaining minion build, with low early mana requirements and exceptional healing to keep you in play when others must return to base.
-The point of this build is to not slay other DGs with impunity, but rather to control creep battles, support your team and not die.
-At level 5 you can quickly crush towers safely thanks to surge of faith. Infact it is beneficial to be fighting towers at the same time as enemy creeps so you can heal everything around you. This is usually not desirable or viable to do for other DGs.
-Insane DPS output and healing during battle later in the game.
-Staying alive and controling the creep battles have many benefits. It denies your enemy XP and large gold chunks.

Cons:
-High initial costs, so you won't be contributing to citadel early.
-You are a general, and as such micro is higher (avoiding AOE and such).
-Not a DG killing build. As mentioned above, DGs can be fought off, but if they have any skill they will usually escape.

Opening:
-Minotaur Berzerkers
-Siege Archers
-Early Monks not required, you have Divine Justice.
-Wait a few seconds and buy a teleport scroll. Not good early teamplay, but you will make up for it.
-As for favor items, you might consider Blood of the Fallen to give yourself a wider margin of error at the beginning of the battle (yes, I just said you SuXxor politely) but this trinket quickly diminshes in value later during the battle because you can heal yourself so rapidly. Because this is a build for staying power, you might consider Brillant Bauble to further increase your leveling advantge.

Playing

Start: Levels 1-3
-Everyone aspires to kill creeps and cap flags to level up, with minions you can do both. (run the minions to a creep battle while you cap)
-Some anti-DG configurations can be overpowering as they follow the creeps in... that's nice, they still can't fight you at towers yet. Death ward the creep battle to harass the enemy DG with any made spirits and fall back. When he kills your creeps, his creeps will advance. Fall back to towers, death ward again, and kill the creeps while ignoring the DG with Oak and attack with all your troops. The XP from the creeps is more important then making him run away earlier. After you kill the creeps, They won't be able to stay for long if they don't want to have to return to base.
-If you are hurt, fall back to towers, wait for creeps, kill them and this heals you. If you get severly hurt before level 2 and thus can't heal, you didn't play good.
-Try to stay in play, unattended creeps will restore you if you are hurt.
-Astute team members will realize that they can heal quickly too, saving healing potions.
-If you aren't in battle and are waiting for the next creep wave, your siege archers should be shooting at an enemy tower, every bit counts.

The unmovable: Levels 4-5
-Farm creeps and drive off enemy DGs, once you have raise dead 4 pick a place and own it. If someone tries to push you away, you can mess that someone up if all your minions are in play and then heal yourself in the field while they must retreat. You might attack DGs of opportunity (wounded and such), but this can still be counter productive because they can hurt you if they are an anti-DG build. (eg: They click a button and do several hundred dammage to you before withdrawing.)
-Once you have surge of faith, you can put a serious hurt on. The DPS you and your concentrated minions can inflict is overpowering. You might notice mana depleting now if you use Surge of Faith too much.
-Once you have surge of faith, you can start attacking towers. Follow the creeps in, cast surge of faith and you can put a hurt on the tower. Don't lose many troops doing this, you need them to fight off any DGs that try to gain control of your lane.

The destroyer: Levels 6-10
-Start being aggressive, it's hard to kill you now.
-You can demolish enemy DGs fighting near your creeps. Minions should always be attacking the enemy DGs during a fight, and you should be whacking creeps nearby to heal everything around you.
-You can demolish towers along the creep path when you have a full minion load out. Follow the creeps in, surge of faith, and it's going down. They crumble so fast they give a rock eating Rook envy.
-Since your don't have an Oooffffff! kind of instant 600+ dammage output, consider investing in a universal gadget to nail retreating DGs if they are a little too cocky.

Levels 11+
-Continue on the same path because this is working So making it work more is not a bad idea.
-A note on buying last stand when you can't buy a new Raise Dead, Divine Justice or Soul Power. A better idea is not to die, and it is infact even hard to die playing this build right because of fast healing. Spend the spare point on minion stats or save it.
-Upgrade items further as desired. + Minion items are the most desirable.

1st 10 levels

1) Raid Dead Ward
2) Divine Justice 1- Why instead of Soul Power 1? Damage output is adequate for creeps right now, so Soul power not required yet. Aspire to heal yourself and initial minions as your primary tactic.
3) Soul Power 1- DPS goes up allowing you to kill creeps and heal faster. This is important. If you can whack a creep in 1 or 2 hits, it is better for your survivablilty in battle than taking 3 or 4.
4) Raid Dead Ward II-
5) Surge of Faith 1- Now you are pretty much unmovable unless teamed up on. For best results, use during creep battles, that 300 damage means you will be 1 hitting creeps and thus keeping your entire army and creeps at full life. Use it intelligently, you don't have the mana to click it on your every impulse. Enemy DGs will find it is not a good idea to fight you at creep battles, because they can't hurt you and will quickly have to deal with your creeps in addition to you.
6) Soul Power II-
7) Raide Dead Ward III- You can crush towers along the creep path, follow the creeps in, surge of faith, and and watch the towers crumble in seconds.
8) Soul Power III- (You are now at +60 damage with 1 spirit or +100 damage when you have 6 spirits, you should be killing creeps and thus healing at a good pace)
9) Divine Justice II-
10) Raise Dead IV- Good luck for any level 10 or less DG taking you on. The DPS and healing is alot to overcome right now. Enemies following and fighting with their mobs are actually worse off then fighting you alone as they are sustaining your DPS by feeding you the dead and allowing you to quickly heal everything around you.

Early Items- You have many things to buy, and minion DPS and life is important because you want to save your mana for Surge of Faith, not putting minions in play. So killing faster and minion life help with this strategy greatly. Get them as you have the cash. You'll make it up to your team later.

- Monks: 900
- Gladiator Gloves: 750
- Hauberk of Life: 1750
- Theurgists Hat: 3000 (combo with another + mana Helmet later)
- Minotaur Kings: 1850
- Siege Demolishers: 2050
- Bishops: 2700

Some other notes to consider
1) Never, ever send in your spirits first to attack a tower, they can all be killed while overlapped.
2) Make staying alive your primary consideration, that means oak should be putting his axe in creeps, and not enemy DGs. Use your minions on enemy DGs. When it is clear you are about to send the enemy DG running, then sick oak on them + minions.
3) Spirits cannot hit moving DGs, this also means it is hard for DGs to hit you because if they stop for long they get nailed. Don't chase them with Oak, stay with the creeps and your troops, stay alive.
4) In case it hasn't sunk in yet, Stay alive, damnit!

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May 20, 2009 11:24:51 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

It has some promise, but I don't get how you'll be able to kill enemy demigods, it looks like you have no damage skills the first few levels.  I really don't recommend minotaurs as monks do okay damage and heal you for a lot more than devine justice, and will help you beat an enemy demigod away, while minotaurs are little more than meat shields.  Under the start section, they can kill you at towers if they follow the creeps in and let them take the heat, and devine justice doesn't heal in the field very well at all since you have to stop attacking the demigod to try and use it.  Under the unmovable, by this point it's a good chance they will easily be able to kill your minions as well as yourself with an AOE attack.  So basically my input is:

Go for monks instead of minotaurs, they are a lot better and help a lot more 1 vs 1 against an enemy demigod. 

Change the build order a bit to get some damage skills like petenence a lot earlier, if you want a minion build pentenence also increases damage everyone does to that demigod.

Change the item section to get some mana items early on, otherwise you can't summon minions very much at all like you described.

Otherwise, good job so far, but I recommend taking a look at what I suggested.

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May 20, 2009 11:57:53 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Hrmm... you'll need to try it if you don't get it 1st just by looking at it, nothing here could be presented better then if you didn't try and see 1st hand.

The opening point being, minotaurs + siege do more damage, healing is not required and you get a TP scroll.

I tried it with penitence, dammage of enemy DGs is not nearly as fast even with a 600 point crunch. Like I said, get a gadget in case you have a fast fleeing DG, but the health drain of all your minions and you is so fast they usually cannot get away before they realize they are in over their head.

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May 20, 2009 12:13:02 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

i do not approve of this guide.

your going to get pushed out of your lane in the early game and start falling behind on xp.

penitence is nasty, it is oak's bread and butter for a reason. your build has no answer to people running away. good luck getting any DG kills.

I tried it with penitence, dammage of enemy DGs is not nearly as fast even with a 600 point crunch

who cares about the ability dmg of penitence? the slow and increased dmg they take is the reason to use it. This still holds true if you have 15 minions, or w/e. they cant run away as fast, and they are taking +X% dmg from all those minions. You are severely underestimating this ability

what are you going to do against AOE dmg that simply destroys your minions?

universal gadget is too slow casting to be anything more than a parlor trick.

-Everyone aspires to kill creeps and cap flags to level up, with minions you can do both. (run the minions to a creep battle while you cap)

you do not get xp or gold for creeps killed when you are not there.

 

 

 

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May 20, 2009 1:21:31 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

As I've previously posted penitence damage is comparable to UBs spit, which many say is overpowered.  spit is 1500 over 10 seconds, penitence is 800 every 7, so in 10seconds it's penitence x 1.5 which is 1200.  However it is not removable like spit, and instant so enemy won't be able to have their timers on shield/heal come up in the meantime and save themselves; so in my opinion penitence>spit.  I find the viability of this build unconvincing against players with even half a brain, who'll roflstomp your minions, and you'll be sitting there without mana early game, unable to do anything but farm kreeps at your own tower.

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May 20, 2009 1:37:24 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Your strat has some good and bad. Personally I build similiar the people who commented earlier are probably building Oak like an assassin not a general.

If you build Oak like a general and go straight minions at level 10 4 raise wards(+12 minion damage) and 5 morale (+20 minion damage)with surge of faith. If you want to get divine justice earlier then this happens at level 12 with 2 points in divine justice

combine with ring of divine might favor +10 minion damage

750 gloves +4 minion damage

1750 armour

4500 armour

3500 gloves +8 minion damage

1750 helm (sometimes I only get 550 helm this build uses very little mana)

at level 10 spirts have +54 damage(54x10=540) +700 hp (9hp/sec regen) +250 armour +10% attack speed

That is just spirits doesn't include mini's,archers, or monks

Like anything you can build these demigods anyway you like

when used with surge of faith mega damage comes

 

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May 20, 2009 2:07:48 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

The important thing to realize is oak has no real way to heal, put up a long lasting shield, or bite people to death like other generals.  (The lower ranks of shield don't last long at all, and max rank it only heals 600 health)  Your only hope of pushing enemy demigods out of lanes is going for some damage skills early.  Oak really becomes a true general later on in the game.

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May 20, 2009 2:28:11 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

oak without pentinence...what a joke

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May 20, 2009 3:10:51 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Personally, I don't think Brilliance Bauble is a useful favour item.  You're better off spending a little extra cash on the citadel experience rate upgrade, then using your favour slot to cut down on the more expensive items needed in your build.  Similarly, I think the only idols worth your time early game are the priests.  The minotaurs are absolute crap, and the siege archers are mediocre at best.  The priests have more damage than either (go figure) and also can heal you.

Penitence and shield are must-haves for Oak.  Penitence deals shocking amount of damage with its debuff and is also your only interrupt.  I always get it first and max it out asap.  Shield is the best way to throw a wrench into any enemy combo, and is well worth at least one level.  You don't need to max it out, but level 1 is a necessity.  I would never even consider playing Oak without these skills, personally.

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May 20, 2009 5:48:31 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting Tiny4Ever,
oak without pentinence...what a joke

why is that a joke a lot of demigods don't have an interrupt so why do you need it and I never put more then 1 point in it if I get it.

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May 20, 2009 5:50:46 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I'd like to give this build a try. I generally mix up my skills a bit depending on the match but I've never gone without a single rank of penitence and relied on my minions almost entirely.

 

Penitence and shield are must-haves for Oak.  Penitence deals shocking amount of damage with its debuff and is also your only interrupt.  I always get it first and max it out asap.  Shield is the best way to throw a wrench into any enemy combo, and is well worth at least one level.  You don't need to max it out, but level 1 is a necessity.  I would never even consider playing Oak without these skills, personally.

 

I'm actually a fairly successful oak player and I rarely take shield. I only ever use it if I plan to buy HoL, which I only do if my team is in dire straights. I don't like to get used to playing a build that is almost certainly going to be changed sometime soon (the shield plus HoL combo).

Shield is useful but also tricky.

Something I wonder about would be pumping up some levels of morale to buff up my minions earlier on.. Maybe i'll play a round vs some AI starting at level 20 to test it out.

 

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May 20, 2009 6:02:01 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting Tiny4Ever,
oak without pentinence...what a joke

You fail at understanding:

10 spirits + 5 moral + minions items + your own damage + 1 sould power = AMAZING damage

you cant get this with pentience.

pentience is not that of a must-have like bite or spit, you can build usefull builds without it like this one.

I would put 1 point for the interupt cause with its low cd you can realy silence people, but no more cause you want to focus on minions in this build.

This build is great and I aprove it as a usefull build.

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May 20, 2009 8:09:16 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

there are two approaches to playing Oak.

 

in the Assassin approach your most important skills are Penitence, Shield, Surge of Faith, and Divine Justice. you take no points in Raise Dead or Soul Power and probably only get priest Idol Minions if any at all. For this build it is unthinkable to do anything except max out Penitence as soon as possible. its your single best skill and really drives the build. you're going to take gear that is primarily tanking and damage oriented so stuff like Blood of the Fallen, Nimoth Chest Armor, and Slayer Wraps are good picks. 

 

in the minion commander approach your most important skills are Raise Dead, Soul Power (the first point anyway), Surge of Faith, and Morale. your most valued skill is Raise Dead and you max this as soon as possible. you probably buy a bunch of Idol minions with this build since you're taking points in Morale. you're going to take gear that is oriented around minion damage bonuses so stuff like Ring of Divine Might, Gloves of Fell Darkur, and Plate of the Crusader are good picks. 

 

the build discussed by the OP of this thread is a variation of the Minion Commander approach. its almost a cookie cutter build except i think most people skip points in Soul Power II and II and instead take a point in Shield rank I and Penitence rank 1.

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May 20, 2009 8:46:05 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting X-Raider,

Quoting Tiny4Ever, reply 7oak without pentinence...what a joke

You fail at understanding:

10 spirits + 5 moral + minions items + your own damage + 1 sould power = AMAZING damage

you cant get this with pentience.

pentience is not that of a must-have like bite or spit, you can build usefull builds without it like this one.

I would put 1 point for the interupt cause with its low cd you can realy silence people, but no more cause you want to focus on minions in this build.

This build is great and I aprove it as a usefull build.

It's not the understanding, but what you need to understand is you won't get this far into the game.  If you just think about what will happen once you get to this point, you won't be able to get there in the first place.  I can guarantee you that you will get slaughtered so much you will either lose before this point or will have lost so much gold to them it won't matter.  I'm sorry to sound mean, but the first thing you personally need to do as an oak player is get some skills that can actually dent a demigod, otherwise you will get no exp at all or be an easy target.

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May 20, 2009 9:21:44 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting Thrandiul,



Quoting X-Raider,
reply 11

Quoting Tiny4Ever, reply 7oak without pentinence...what a joke

You fail at understanding:

10 spirits + 5 moral + minions items + your own damage + 1 sould power = AMAZING damage

you cant get this with pentience.

pentience is not that of a must-have like bite or spit, you can build usefull builds without it like this one.

I would put 1 point for the interupt cause with its low cd you can realy silence people, but no more cause you want to focus on minions in this build.

This build is great and I aprove it as a usefull build.


It's not the understanding, but what you need to understand is you won't get this far into the game.  If you just think about what will happen once you get to this point, you won't be able to get there in the first place.  I can guarantee you that you will get slaughtered so much you will either lose before this point or will have lost so much gold to them it won't matter.  I'm sorry to sound mean, but the first thing you personally need to do as an oak player is get some skills that can actually dent a demigod, otherwise you will get no exp at all or be an easy target.

Hold on now, you are underestimating the DPS and staying power you have when spirits are deployed even at level 2 or 3. You don't take the soul power exclusively for dealing death to DGs, you take it to kill creeps in 1 or 2 hits so the army is always at full health.

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May 20, 2009 11:00:28 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I'm not talking about staying power against armies but this build will end up with you getting majorly crushed by other demigods, at least without pentenence. 

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May 21, 2009 6:54:39 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting ,
I didn't see anything like this in the guide compilation, which is kind of surprising.

Overview: Self sustaining minion build, with low early mana requirements to keep you in play. Insane DPS output later in the game. You will generally out level your opponents unless outmatched in skill or your team lets you down.

General Oak, The Damage Hose

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May 21, 2009 6:55:45 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting ,
1) Raid Dead Ward

2) Divine Justice 1- Why instead of Soul Power 1? Damage adequate right now so Soul power not required yet, heal yourself and initial minions for next battle)

3) Soul Power 1- DPS goes up allowing you to kill creeps and heal faster.

4) Raid Dead Ward II- 

5) Surge of Faith 1- Now you are pretty much unmovable unless teamed up on. 

6) Soul Power II-

7) Raide Dead Ward III- You can crush towers along the creep path, follow the creeps in, surge of faith, and and watch the towers crumble in seconds.

8) Soul Power III-

9) Divine Justice II-

10) Raise Dead IV- Good luck for any level 10 or less DG taking you on. The DPS and healing is alot to overcome right now. Enemies following and fighting with their mobs are actually worse off then fighting you alone as they are sustaining your DPS by feeding you the dead and allowing you to quickly heal everything around you.

 

In my opinion, Soul Power I alone scales well through the end of the game.  It adds 20 damage for 1 spirit, 40 damage for 3, 60 damage for 6, 80 damage for 9.

Soul Power II adds +20 damage over Soul Power I.  An improvement, but a rather small one.  Going from 80 -> 100 is not a big deal.

Soul Power III adds +20 damage over Soul Power II.  Even less of an improvement, going from 100->120.

In my opinion, this build will do better if it replaced Soul Power II & Soul Power III.

 

This build suffers in the early game by being unable to interrupt teleport scrolls.  A single level of Penitience will do that.  In addition, Penitience also provides a movement modifier (which will help your minions remain engaged longer when the foe tries to run), and a damage boost (which helps the killing go faster).  Can't go wrong with that!  I generally wait until the minion swarm arrives at the chosen target, then hit Soul Power and then Penitience.

 

With *sixteen* minions at level 10 that would benifit from Morale, Morale is a very good choice.  Morale is often overlooked because it is "little numbers", but the overall effect of Morale on that many minions is huge.  Try a few levels of Morale with a minion Oak, and you will definitely like it.

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May 21, 2009 8:04:07 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I did a couple of tests with this build in single player, just to try it out before I made too many judgements on it. 

I only tested it quickly singleplayer vs 3 AI in two games. The first was against "normal" AI, the second against nightmare AI. I also pumped a bunch of points into morale post level 10. I didn't take a single rank of shield of penitence.

I generally play a general/assasin hybrid build so this was a pretty big departure in playstyle for me.

Here are my honest impressions - They pretty much echo what others are saying already and what I suspected:

Pros:

  •  Really gives you a sense of being 2 places at once. I could use my minions to fend off oncoming attacks while my hero cap'd and fled. I played on exile and this was perfect for keeping the enemy DG's busy while I ran to the middle crystals to regen.
  • Excellent for taking down towers in the early game
  • Able to sustain a decent amount of DPS on early/midgame DG's
  • Morale did add some real staying power to my minions once I got it to rank 4.
  • Never ran out of mana with the vlemish helm/plenor battlecrown combo in mid to late game
Cons:
  • Requires a lot of money up front to support the purchase of your idols
  • Mana heavy in the early game due to spamming minions if a DG comes your way
  • No gold/xp outside of the minion radius which is suprisingly small
  • no interrupts meant that I could almost never get a DG kill early game because of TP scrolls/items
  • Minion DPS negligible in the mid to late game (post level 12)
  • Very DG killing weak late game. Any DG could pretty much walk around my minions with impunity. Their regen was usually such that any DPS my minions were doing was mitigated by it entirely.
  • Minions are more susceptible to stunning skills than a DG. Stun durations seemed to last twice as long on my minions as they did on me. 
  • The reliance on minion support items meant that Oak is late to gear up with real serious protective/health providing gear giving me very little staying power toe to toe in the later game, really negating the extra dmg I would have done with soul power. 
If i was going to play a very heavy minion build I think it would be a decision I made around level 5 if I was able to dig up approximately 6000 in gold to buy my level 4 totems right away. 
Personaly I would change the following:
I would swap out later levels of soul power in favor for early ranks in penitence and shield
I would swap out later levels of divine justice in favor of morale

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May 21, 2009 1:46:24 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

@danielB

 

full moraled minions do something like 453 dps by themselves.  thats insane. 

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May 21, 2009 1:48:41 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

ps, when you take the soul power out past lvl 1, and replace with penitence, like the oak - damage hose build, this build decimates DG's at high levels.  its sick.  just dont forget for all of your gear to be minion enhancing.  1500 hp spirits swarming on you is nothing to snap your fingers at imo. 

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May 21, 2009 2:16:16 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

453 DPS to a target with 0 armor that stands still while all 16 of your minions are in range. 

 

how much DPS is it to an average Demigod? just making some reasonable assumptions this is what I get:

 

the demigod has an armor mitigation of 35% (easily achievable from just a Nimoth Chest Guard).

the demigod has a move speed of 6.6 (easily achievable from just a Boots of Speed) and thus can remain out of range of a certain number of minions. this is harder to quantify but using just conservative estimates only i'm going to say this cuts 10% out of the overall DPS. its probably more than that in real games.

some portion of the minions have been killed by Towers, AoEs, and enemy creeps/minions. this is highly likely. exactly what portion of minions are actually alive at any given time is hard to quantify so i'm once again going to use a very conservative estimate of just subtracting 10% from the dps, its probably more than that in real games.

 

453 base dps - 20% = 362.4 DPS alive, in range and attacking.

362.4 dps reduced by 35% from armor mitigation = 235.56 dps connects with the enemy.

 

235 is a solid number but it doesn't stand so far above other DPS techniques that you should wet your pants over it.

Venom Spit from Unclean Beast is providing 150 DPS at rank 4.

Fireball from Torchbearer is also providing 150 DPS at rank 4. 

Rank 4 rook towers provide a pre-armor DPS of 95 each (190 damage per shot, shoots every 2 seconds). it only takes 4 rook towers to exceed the pre-armor DPS of that minion army.

a demigod with a 1.0 attack speed and a weapon damage of 362 also matches the minion army damage. fairly easily achieved with just a Mageslayer. 

 

and like the minion army, these other DPS methods are just one of the methods available to the DG. a Torchbearer can have his 150 DPS Fireball AND 235 DPS auto-attacks. just like a general can have minions and his other stuff. in fact, its probably more costly and less reliable to build up the minion army than it is to access most of the other comparable DPS methods.

 

the real reason why you might be attracted to the minion army is scaling. you've got a high "scaling factor surface area" so to speak so items and abilities that add to minion damage will cause large rises in this DPS. but again, that puts the focus somewhat narrowly on minion damage. it can leave you with a Demigod starved of mana and health and with weak autoattacks. everything has a trade-off. 

 

 

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May 21, 2009 3:26:47 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

@danielB



full moraled minions do something like 453 dps by themselves. thats insane.

 

I understand and totally agree - In theory, sounds awesome.

In a limited practice situation (again ONLY against AI, both normal and Nightmare), I was really having trouble sustaining damage to enemy DG's, therefore getting kills. I wasn't being as aggressive as I normally would because my gear was so minion focused I was getting smacked around by the enemy DG's a bit.

 

Even the AI normal bots were escaping me pretty easily. One rank of Pen would have solved this for the most part. 

 

However in the late game, the ONLY way I was going to kill enemy DG's was with a big accompanyment of artifact powered gear. The lack of killing them early on however left me with a major cash shortfall so I wasn't able to afford the artifacts I would have needed.

I'd like to do some testing in a custom game at some point though. Maybe this weekend.

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May 21, 2009 3:41:18 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

This seems like more of a support guide, where you are dependent on having good teammates to cover you and vice versa. If you have a good team this build could work well, but in a 1v1 game or a match where your teammates aren't there to cover you you'll probably end up being dominated for most of the match.

An Oak without shield or pentinece will have almost no choice but to run from an assasin or a general with an assasin build.

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May 21, 2009 5:02:05 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

you all forgetting something:

Different build needs different strategies, and therefor this build, lacking in finishing moves wont be a demigod killer strategie. its like a speed UB trying to be a tank, just wont work.

What this build can offer you:

-Main damage DG while your team mates do the finishing.
-low cost items (only need the basic boots of speed, few minion items) allowing you to buy more citidel upgrades for your team.
-Whenever the enemy is not looking you can destroy a main lane of buildings in seconds (very important).
-you might not kill them but removing a DG from your lane can be crucial, letting you destroy his deffense / earning xp.

Oh and dont forget 1 point of pent is (imo) enough to creat the advantage for your side, giving all that damage you have.

And yes, it might be trick to win with this in 1v1 but we playing a team game right?

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May 21, 2009 5:27:35 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Good point X.

If you're filling a specific role, I would say mainly a building / tower killer this build would definitely fit the bill for Oak.

That being said.. Killing DG's I think is a pretty well accepted strategy that accelerates map control and often is the biggest contribution you can lend to your team.

IMHO, axing an enemy DG nets you the most gold and between 20-40 seconds of time where that DG isn't harrassing teamates, farming creeps, gathering gold or capturing flags.

Beyond playing a supporting role in a healing / shielding capacity I would say you'd better have a good reason to focus on a non-DG killing build.

There are those reasons out there though and if this build is working for you and your team, great!

I have to say, even though it might be a more specific support functioning role in the above mentioned state, its great fun to play! I approve and will probably bust this build out in the next few games I play online.

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