Pure Nature: Wanderer

[Ulari]

Hi all,

I just started a new toon and chose my first mastery as nature. I still can't decide which mastery to choose at lvl 8 , so maybe I will go as pure nature. Maybe I should choose Storm(never played caster before), or become pet master like Earth+Nature/Spirit+Nature . Also checked all threads and couldn't find anything about Wanderer.

Looking for builds, stat point giving, item suggestions etc

And found that Sickle of Kronos (drops from Act 3 Telkine) is awesome for new toons. Requires 10 str and dex, attack speed: average, damage is 35 or sth like that.

Sorry if I made grammar mistakes

Edit: Act 3 Telkine, not lvl 3

[AntarcticSNAKE]

A petmancer is usually the best choice for nature. Mix it with Earth or Dream for a good toon. It's also good for melee characters (especially heart of oak and possibly the wolves).

It's not a great caster class, the only good caster skill is plague and and heart of oak (perhaps sanctuary (briar ward synergy), i've never tried it).

I wouldn't suggest pure nature. You'll have little to no damage output, and you'd have to rely on your pets. The nymph sucks, so the wolves are your only hope besides spamming plague and using heart of oak.

What's the Sickle of Kronos? I thought that was the item the telkines were after, not an obtainable item?

[coolalien]

The Sickle of Kronos is a white melee item (not too sure what kind).

But, I agree with snake for the most part. The mastery does give you Refresh so you can cast long cool-down spells. So it's definitely viable for a support mastery for a melee toon. It's also very viable as a support mastery for a caster toon because of the wolves and the health boost (so you aren't as squishy as a rotten apple) from HotO. But, yeah I think any mastery that will let you dish out damage will go great with nature (physical damage classes get special note because of the massive +% damage boosts in the wolves line).

[Tyr]

Guide.

[AntarcticSNAKE]

20 million points to Tyr!

Just a P.S. Enemies that die from Plague alone won't give you any xp.

[Tyr]

My Wanderer toon was the one I was most proud of for getting through the game, the rest were mostly copies of someone else's builds as they seemed to work best even when I tried doing variations. I hope this helps other people.

Yeah I noticed that, but you'll be minimizing the chances of that happening since you'll be attacking mobs yourself.

[Violos]

Are you sure the Nymphs's arrows get a chance to pierce everything they hit when fired, or rather get a chance of 1/3 to pass through on each enemy?
I remember our discussion about the likelihood of an arrow piercing 8 people in line (while still close enough for each AOE to hit everyone), which would of course be greater if it was the former.


[EDIT: The following refers to Tyr's Wanderer guide, which in the meantime has been moved here.]


So... on the Pet Druid...

Since you did mention the class, I will share a few more thoughts about mine if you don't mind. Because the way I play him, I do still see him as an enhanced variety of that pure Wanderer, not a contradiction. Using pets instead of nukes, just like your guide suggests, he does focus on support and defense. Even more so than Nature alone, in fact.

Let me elaborate:

The main differences are that

• you get three nice spells to protect yourself from attacks, even with few points invested (Thunderball, Freezing and Stormsurge).
• you get a fourth melee pet, which is close to invincible!
• you can skill disrupt and manadrain/burn bosses, as mentioned in the Guide
• your entire group gets a boost of additional +140% to all their elemental damages - those granted by your gear, and the Nymph's AOE attack. The latter is roughly doubled in efficiency this way.

The "drawback" is that you are trading 32 skillpoints for a heap of Life, Energy, Dexterity and Intelligence instead of maxing the Nature trees early. And of course you spend some more on your storm skills.
This may be seen as a disadvantage compared to a pure class in early game (becuase later you get enough points anyway). On the other hand, my Pet Druidess, who is now level 20 is far from weak, untwinked... her biggest challenge is rather to keep up, deciding which loot to collect while four gear-boosted pets are mowing everything down.



Tremble in fear! It's Killer Wisp!


The main advantage of the Druid compared to others is that you do NOT need to get close to the fighting, or put your hopes in a feeble Overgrowth. Instead you are a master at staying out of trouble most of the time, even when facing "smart" Machae or Melione in legandary Hades' Palace.

Because, first, your pets do so much elemental damage that they keep the aggro pretty well. If I cast Plague after !!! they engaged a group of enemies (and no Squall), usually only the direct target comes running for me, infecting his mates in the process.
Second, you have the Storm skills mentioned above to keep those stragglers at bay, in addition to an (although probably weaker) Briar Ward.
And third, because pets are so strong, those who were stunned/frozen while trying to get close to you won't live to try again.


All in all, you get a build that can really hang behind the lines and support if it wants to, and make sure that line stays where it is. All your abilities are long ranged, and the pet's main boost (EotS) moves with them wherever they go.
As for points, this would be a very defense-oriented final build, assuming a mere +2 Skills to assure three wolves with 80% damage absorption.

And if you really feel the need, you still have the possibility to respec to some nukes, i.e. Shards or Chain Lightning, at any time.


So, in short.... I like her.

[Tyr]

To be honest I was planning on content only for the Wanderer, the multiclass builds are only there as pointers. Your info is welcome though, I'll be adding extra suggestions as soon as I finish recording the effects of Nature skills beyond max level (up until ultimate). Then I need to revise some parts of the guide, I was writing stuff from the top of my head so some paragraphs need to be reworded.
This may take time as I have to juggle this with work. Don't worry I'll give credit for suggestions.

Are you sure the Nyphs's arrows get a chance to pierce everything they hit when fired, or rather have a chance of 1/3 to pass through each enemy?
I remember our discussion about the likelihood of an arrow piercing 8 people in line (while still close enough for each AOE to hit everyone), which would of course be greater if it was the former.

I'm pretty sure it's the former, although I'm not discounting the possibility of the latter. Like it says in the guide Nature's Wrath has more horizontal (left to right) range then an ordinary arrow attack, and it could hit mobs left and right without the actual arrow ever hitting anything (and so continuing across the screen). I'll need to make more tests if the arrow itself pierces through all mobs or one mob at a time.

[Violos]

To be honest I was planning on content only for the Wanderer

I understand. And I think it is very nice for single mastery players. On the other hand, you have done so much work laying out the basics that it would take little effort to make this thread a "Comprehensive guide to all Nature-focused petmasters". Condition being that the playing style is aided, not changed, by choosing a second mastery.

And doing that comes naturally - at least it did to me - the moment I asked myself the question:
How are the pets going to inflict good damage?

If I got that right, your suggestion was to use elemental and/or physical pet boni, and you skilled Strength of the Pack to increase physical damage. The issue with mixing damage types, however, is always that neither damage gets really high boni, or it requires more equipment space and skillpoints to reach the same level.
That is the main reason why the Druid described above completely focuses on elemental damage, boosting it with Wisp and gear while neglecting the physical parts (e.g. only 1 point in SotP, just for the speed).

However, Plague reduces resistances to both elemental and physical attacks. So let's say you choose pure physical.

The problem with physical damage dealt in many small amounts, like wolves do it, is armor. If they hit for 500 damage later in the game, a suit of 300 armor will reduce this by 200 every time, or 40% in total. Even worse if the amount does not even surpass the armor value. (Which was once said to absorb twice its displayed value in reality. EDIT: Found the source of that: here!)

The obvious solution would be to increase the wolves' damage per hit as much as possible - which means Warfare, Battle Standard, +274 physical bonus increased by +1XX% from skills. The convenient Warhorn and up to five additional melee pets are merely a bonus.
Another way is Dream: Chaotic Resonance (from the Dist. Wave tree) weakens each piece of armor by about 300 points at max level, which in this situation is actually worth investing in. Besides other nice pet boosts, namely the trances and Master Brain aura.

Both of these masteries help "physical wolves" nicely in getting their damage to the client, without causing much of a change in style.

Finally, there is the option of vitality damage. Either resisted completely or barely at all, it is kinda double-edged for a player without matching resistance breakers. Not for the Soothsayer, though, who has all the ways you listed to take full advantage of this damage type, and all the %health reductions on top.


So all in all, the choice of a second mastery for this Wanderer is less a question about the style of playing.
It is about the type of damage you want your pets to do - and making the most of it.

[Tyr]

Yes, I guess I may have to discuss this in the multiclass section. It does complete the guide in some way.
I suggested using elemental bonuses for Normal mode because I found it to be more effective until your pets get more powerful and better +pet damage items become available in epic. Elemental damage ignores armor and never misses. Some mobs and bosses are heavily armored which is a concern in normal. It helps that mobs and bosses generally have much lower resistances pre-epic.

This for those who want to play "untwinked" though. I forgot to specify this, since if you have Invoker's or Ritualist's gear from other toons you can use those instead and just skip elemental damage.

I already pointed out that the Wanderer is a defensive pet-user and that multi-classing is best for aggressive players who want higher DPS. I think I may have accidentally deleted that paragraph though, I'll take note of it.