Minion Oak, the new build of every single match I'm in

By EldonTyrell2 on July 19, 2010 1:32:12 AM from

Unless someone can convince me otherwise I'm not playing against oak unless it's a player below 35% or so. There is no counter to his lame minion build that I've found. He just throws up a few flags, collects spirits, and rapes your base. The last game against a minion oak we were actively trying to prevent it from around level 4-5. I upped tower offense and defense, we tried to kill creeps away from his flags ... it didn't matter. Despite dominating the game otherwise our citadel fell to his spirits. We had both of their portals and they'd never taken one of ours. For the last half of the game our TB sat on our citadel trying to kill them as they came.

Another game I was oculus and I upped our building D and O almost to max and sat at the citadel using chain lightning and blast off to kill them. The best I could do was freeze our citadel hp at around 15k and I had to stay there the rest of the game, effectively taking me out of the fight.

If Oculus can't prevent it I don't see how it's possible. It's well past time Stardock fixed Oak's many ridiculous OP traits.

This wasn't a problem until recently because most people didn't realize it was possible. Now everyone sees it and is imitating it. It's getting out of hand.

0 Karma | 79 Replies

Quoting OMG_BlackHatHedgehog,

reply 25

The splash damage is bugged. It reduces tower's splash from 100% to 10% making it raped by minions.

Nice. Is that true for all levels of firepower? Or does buying II bypass the bug.

Doesn't AoE take out Oak's wards too? Sadly, I have never payed close attention, but it seems that in some games as Oak it is much harder to keep an active ward up and I think it is 'cause Circle of Fire or Rain of Ice is taking them out.

I think the point still remains that if only one specific build of one specific DG can maybe counter minion Oak before level 10, I'd say that's a bit unbalanced. Especially when that one specific DG is the only one that is possibly more powerful than Oak in the first place. The only saving grace with minion oak is that it takes finesse and patience that most players don't have or aren't willing to develop.

The splash damage is bugged. It reduces tower's splash from 100% to 10% making it raped by minions.

Exactly - the moral of the story is DO NOT buy the firepower upgrade.

Doesn't AoE take out Oak's wards too?

no - i don't think so.

Also, the nightcrawlers aren't the only thing that can damage wards. You just need to have nightcrawlers selected when you issue the attack order then even your dg or a siege idol can attack the ward... and it doesn't matter if the rolly pollies die so long as they were selected when the attack order was issued... it doesn't even need that much micro when you get siege idols or even monks

Quoting Maccilia,

reply 31

no

Also, the nightcrawlers aren't the only thing that can damage wards. You just need to have nightcrawlers selected when you issue the attack order then even your dg or a siege idol can attack the ward... and it doesn't matter if the rolly pollies die so long as they were selected when the attack order was issued... it doesn't even need that much micro when you get siege idols or even monks

So press n i think it is to select all, and if one of the things you selected is a nightcrawler, your whole group will attack the ward?

Yes.

Quoting Maccilia,

reply 33

So press n i think it is to select all, and if one of the things you selected is a nightcrawler, your whole group will attack the ward?
Yes.

Well that's hardly fair to poor minion Oak.

Uh huh if you say so...

Really though until they can place more than 3+ wards, its enough to shut down the minion oak and it forces them to constantly waste their mana... if you use it right you should be able to do enough damage before they spirit rush the citadel...

Quoting GM-McShane87,

reply 32

Quoting Maccilia, reply 31
no

Also, the nightcrawlers aren't the only thing that can damage wards. You just need to have nightcrawlers selected when you issue the attack order then even your dg or a siege idol can attack the ward... and it doesn't matter if the rolly pollies die so long as they were selected when the attack order was issued... it doesn't even need that much micro when you get siege idols or even monks
So press n i think it is to select all, and if one of the things you selected is a nightcrawler, your whole group will attack the ward?

m selects all minions, n selects demigod and minions

Eldon, I don't really have much of a problem with it since I play TB but I can give you a few tips.

As a TB you can either go BotS and just guard the middle the whole time. Get Circle of Fire so you can farm creeps without going to the lane and kill his archers. By level 4 you can farm the creeps from the middle much easier, and combine the exponential affect of Frost Aura and Rain of Ice to keep his minions from doing hardly any damage before you kill them. The problem with fighting Cheesey Kill Your Citadel Minion Oak is if you defend your lane of Citadel towers too much you won't level up and a BotS Hybrid Ring of Fire/Rain of Ice eliminates this problem... and its not too horrible of a build if the gayness doesn't end up happening.

If you're playing with anyone else just make yellow denying your first priority. Minion Oak will be weaker than everyone 1v1 if he's spending all his effort on trying to tear down your towers... he'll probably be on mana side so he can be the one capping the XP flag so as long as whomever is on your team who is nuturally fast and badass (UB, LE, Fire TB) keeps him from doing much capping and owning the XP flag and thus the war rank you should be fine. It just gets really nasty if he reaches his benchmarks of level 7 and 10 and starts spamming endless spirits too soon. If you keep him relatively contained until you reach war rank 8 then its curtains for him and his team.

Anyone who actually knows about playing something besides TB agree with this?

Nothing really works against spirits, something needs to be done.

Attacking wards is not viable, because he can put one behind the tower and still get the spirits. Though if i play the build, which i do when i have a noob on my team that feeds, i do it like this:

1. Shield

2. The healing thingy when you kill someone

3&4. Wards (only 3 spirits does not help at first imo)

Favor is the hp regenerating, because it gives you 20hps, and you can regen the minions, which makes them harder to AOE kill (better than the damage)

I just had my first opportunity to try Erebus against a true minion oak...and we totally kicked his ass.

I stayed on his side the entire time and would destroy wards whenever I saw one. The only time he was able to hit towers was when I was occupied elsewhere, which wasn't often. He's so weak outside of minions that he can't do much to push you out of an area and mass charm gives you a lot of longevity against spirits if he puts them on you. To be successful he needs a constant stream of spirits and it's easy to interrupt that stream even if you don't get all the wards right away.

It's still a painful build to play against and I think we had the better DG selection (oculus, erebus, UB against oak, regulus, UB) but he was not a huge threat with me countering him. With bat swarm I can get places quickly so I'm able to help out elsewhere as well.

It works just as claimed though I noticed sometimes that only my nightcrawlers would attack the ward. I'm not certain that erebus himself ever hit it, just the various minions.

It did become difficult if the ward was in the middle of a bunch of creeps because it was hard to target it but I would get it down eventually.

I still think it's nearly impossible to beat an unretarded minion oak without erebus.

It's funny that Oak has two of the lamest "skills," and I use the term loosely, in all of Demigod - Shield cap locking and the spirit citadel rush. I love playing Oak and have never used Shield locking because it is so lame, now I'll also add minion build to the list. Let's have a little integrity, people. After all, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...

Quoting Logfloater,

reply 41

After all, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...

"most" good players don't use minion oak for that reason. Though shield-porting or shield-locking isn't really a cheese strategy :/ a lot of people can do that stuff with other abilities.

Quoting awuffleablehedgie,

reply 43

"most" good players don't use minion oak for that reason. Though shield-porting or shield-locking isn't really a cheese strategy :/ a lot of people can do that stuff with other abilities.

Sedna can use silence

Rook can actually boulder if people are far away from him and get a lock off/ tower farm a portal infinitely

erebus can just be gay and put constant portal pressure on which usually leads to a portal getting stolen

Quoting EldonTyrell2,

reply 40

I still think it's nearly impossible to beat an unretarded minion oak without erebus.

If this situation is unbalanced enough that people consider it an exploit, how would you suggest the Devs fix the problem?

make it so minions can't attack the citadel. Problem solved. Minion players can still rape all the other towers, other players, w/e. But they can't ninja the citadel down. But it's really no use talking about it, the fix will never come lol.

Quoting 4Nana,

reply 46

Odds are you are right re: a change to oak's spirits. I think your solution is pretty reasonable, though. I haven't really encountered anyone that does the spirit oak base pwn very well though. Its usually weak minion players that figure they want to try it out. I'm trying to think of who actually did spirit oak well... omicron? maybe janook.... other than that, no one really comes to mind.

Hey, that's MY solution >

My idea was just to stick a Tower or two on the citadel. It'd be enough to stop rogue spirit attacks. I played with an awful spirit Oak last night who basically ignored everything but playing with his spirits. That made it a 2v3 from my point of view. We got slaughtered and couldn't hold any flags.

And YET! we nearly won the game because his spirits had their citadel down to about 25% when ours fell. I felt dirty just being in the game.

Quoting OMG_pacov,

reply 47

I'm trying to think of who actually did spirit oak well... omicron? maybe janook.... other than that, no one really comes to mind.

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Minion Oak, the new build of every single match I'm in