So I really like Oak, but I find it hard to survive the early game, and even if I do I have an impossible time killing off other DGs. By the endgame I am usually unkillable, provided there's a source of creeps around for me to leech health off of... but I hardly ever pull in any kills, which leaves me with little gold. Level 1, I'll pick up the Universal Gadget and Banded Armor and go run right for a creep lane. I don't pick my power until I see what's going on up there; if there's another DG I will usually engage and see how it goes. If I'm starting to lose, I'll pick my shield as a 'holy shit, eject!' button, and if I'm managing to push them back (unlikely, but sometimes it happens) I may grab penitence to try and wrestle an early kill. 95% of the time, I've got Shield, though, as I have the universal gadget to try for that if I want it. I try and focus on the creeps instead of the other DG, as I need to level quickly to 2 for Divine Justice. I usually get pushed back by any other DG at this point, at which point I shield and heal with the Universal Gadget and get back in there. Level 2 is ALWAYS Divine Justice. The health restoration is all that keeps me in, but between it and shield I can usually stick it out a bit longer. I'm basically ignoring other DGs while doing this until there's no creeps left, at which point I may make a few swings before having to run. Level 3 and 4 are usually Raise Dead Wards to get a swarm of minions started. They help with my staying power a little bit just by harassing the other DGs while I creep. I'm usually forced back at least once by this point, though. Level 5 is ALWAYS Surge of Faith, as the AoE helps me kill off creeps for health and stay in the lane. Creeping gets much easier at this point, but I'm still getting my ass handed to me by just about any other DG. Level 6 is usually the next rank of Divine Justice to try and get some more staying power. If I run into other DGs at this point, I'll be working on killing creeps off before I do anything to them. I can usually mooch enough health off the creeps to survive whatever abilities the DGs blow on me, but Generals make my life so much easier if they have minions; I just focus on offing their priests or what have you, and it weakens them and keeps me in the game. 7-9 usually involve upping my raise dead ward and Divine Justice. I will pick up Soul Power if the opportunity presents itself, but I often wait on that till lategame... if I can afford the Heart of Life by this point, I will buy the fuck out of it and start boosting my shield so I can shield+HOL recover in fights. I still won't win most fights against DGs, but I can either force them back or hold out for quite a while as I creep. By 10, I get the next Surge of Faith. I can stay in fights a bit easier now, but I have fuck all for damage, and enemy DGs can just poke me and run away constantly. The rest of the game, I usually just max out Surge of Faith, Raise Dead Ward, and Divine Justice. I don't get the last rank of Soul Power, as it's predicated on killing enemy DGs and I can never seem to pull that off by myself. I often get about 4 ranks of Shield before I give up on it, because by that time I can just HOL my way back to full. I don't get Last Stand, as I don't want to have to die. A lot of games, I won't have a single rank of Penitence because I won't know when to pick the thing up.
Equipment-wise, I will usually grab a Vlemish Helm so I can keep blasting Surge of Faith as needed. I don't normally pick up speed upgrades, although I'm starting to think I should just because shield+run doesn't work if they can catch you! I really like the Hauberk of life for both my survivability and that of the minions I'm pulling out. If I get exorbitantly wealthy, I'll pick up the Platemail of the Crusader, but I think I've been in a position to do this maybe twice. I also really like the Unbreakable Boots.
I never really get to use Favor Items, as the total's always borked. I've bought the anklet like 8 times and it keeps dissapearing, and most games I seem to get reset back to 0.
I'm hoping to get some ideas here as to how to improve my Oak a bit. If my team gets an edge and I can keep levelling, I'm a monster by the end of the game and I can just wander around the map with impunity, but my main role is capping points, pushing towers, and offing creeps. Enemy DGs give me huge problems because I can never seem to get enough damage on them to kill 'em. I've seen penitence-centered builds that focus on hunting enemy DGs, but I've had very poor luck with that as so many goddamned abilities are instant or near-instant (Sedna's pounce, Erebus' bite...) I only really get that working with hammerslam rooks or the AI when it tries to teleport away, and that's just because they're blatantly obvious. Most of the time I can get a shield up before the hammerslam anyway, so I don't have to worry about interrupting it. Anyway, dudes, I'm posting all this because I'm basically just looking for advice. If I could be a bit more threatening to enemy DGs I would have an easier time with Oak because I wouldn't have to flee lanes constantly until the endgame.
If you want to kill DGs with Oak, you really need Penitence. Minions, AoE spells and healing by killing creep is useful, but you really need direct damage against other DGs. Look at the spell: at maximum level it does 800 damage, takes 0.1 second to cast and its cooldown is 7 seconds: You can actually cast it twice while pursuing a DG, and it barely slows you down.
The other useful spell is Shield. The best way to use it, IMHO, is to cast it right before an assassin enters melee range. During that time, most players will use their big spells to do as much damage as possible, and the few seconds of invulnerability can easily protect half your HP, and make the oponent wastes his skills and MP.
try going with penitence, raise dead and soul power. soul power with raise dead is alot of dmg.
as u have the 2 raise dead with 2 soul power u will already do enough dmg to harras a demigod and kill him.
as u go into battle, cast raise dead, penitence, than choose all and attack the demigod, if he runs away cast penitence to slow him and catch him with boots of speed and maybe ankle.
divine justice is not that immportant unless u creep alot, but u say u want to kill demigods, so its less usefull. take it between the the 3 immportant skills so u can maintain your ghost alive.
as with surge of faith, again it is very good for creep but less aginst demigods, so take it if u see you have some time alone with creeps, take it, than use it after raise dead.
items-
I would take boots of speed and later the halm(s) of mana, other than that mabe an armor/hp item and others are citidel upgrades.
hope this helps
*btw- I know my english sux so be cool
As Oak, always take Penitence first, imo. Then the power to improve your weapon damage, then whatever else you want. If you keep up on those powers, get minions from raise dead and the power that gives you health for killing, you'll be a god. The point of starting with Penitence is that it is an incredibly useful skill. It ont only does direct damage, but interrupts AND causes the target to take more damage. Open up with it and finish with it.
To boot, if you're running around and you see someone with low health, a good shot of that will help you either scare them in moving further back, or allow you to finish them off.
Once you've killed a few guys, get one of the sweet artifacts that improves your damage and attack speed. For whatever reason, most people just aren't expecting a lot of increased attack speed. The problem is, if you're high enough level to afford an artificat, you'll already be doing a mess of damage. Now when people close into melee with you, they don't get an option to leave.
Well lets see what we can do. The person I play with most plays Oak and he doesnt have any sort of trouble killing DG's. Maybe I can impart some of his success on you.
Ok I see things going badly already. Universal Gadget should not be bought early game. Heals Less then a potion, costs twice as much and has a longer cooldown. If you were to buy 2 potions instead you would get twice the life healed and be packing enough health to chase for a kill against a slower demigod. Personally Id go without either and invest in another item such as a helm or gauntlets for more mana/damage. Hell even a teleport scroll would be better as you would get to a flag, cap it and get to a wave before the waves meet. This means you end up level 2 before half the enemy wave has died, put your point in, gain some life from the rest of the wave and when it is dead, go find another flag to cap. Doing this will have you at level 3 during the 2nd wave. BIG difference at the beginning of the game. Capping flags in levels 1-4 is the best way to get EXP early game. If you go the 2 potion route, you should be the one staying in the lane while your oponent backs out to the crystal or safe tower range. Point being your gimping your start by taking the gadget. Its just too expensive for what it does (nice that it has 2 uses, unfortunately, the cost is WAY too expensive for either one or the other. The other thing you can do to help your beginning game is click teh shop as the screen is spinning in, buy your item and start walking immediately. Choose your skill and favor item on the way. My friend usually starts with penitence as it is ranged (easy harassing) offers a ministun, which is incredibly useful, but just needs practice and more importantly a debuff. The penitence debuff is INCREDIBLY important when you and a team mate try and focus a DG. It also changes the field of battle for you as your oponent is slower and takes more damage. I would start with that one if I were you.
If you were following what I mentioned you would get another level of penitence here. Its a very good and important ability and as I write this I believe it to be the main reason you are having so much difficulty (aside from gimping yourself with a terribly buy and strat based on it at the beginning).
Your doing this right. At this point you run in, Penitence the enemy DG, AoE the wave and attack the DG. When penitence cools down, hit them with it again. Watching everything around them dying while having their speed debuffed, you healing and still doing more damage to them will normally signal that they should GTFO. even if it isnt true. I believe one of your problems is that your enemies arent afraid of you. Taking defensive over offensive skills does tend to do this. At this point you should be winning most confrontations. You will heal as will your wave when you oE the enemy. Enemy DG is debuffed + being harrased and you and your wave are wailing on him. At this point, if they run and you cant easilly make the kill, let the creep wave follow and go hit another creep wave in another lane and do the same tactic. Its great for gold, xp and harassment.
Hope it helps!
Chaos
Sorry for the double post as well as the mess above. Dont know what happened and I cant fix it. Wont let me do multiple quotes (which is what caused that mess).
To find what I am talking about, just stay in the same box as what was mentioned and scroll down.
Again, sorry folks, didnt know it would do this.
EDIT: Ok, all fixed now. Damn quote tags Grrrrr
Chaos: Thanks, I get the gist of it, quote tree aside. I will start picking up Penitence first! I alway have trouble using it to interrupt abilities just because so many characters have such little windup, but I completely forgot/ignored the other benefits. Opening with it sounds like a good idea. Will have to test when I get home later.
Also, good call on Mage Slayer. I never really looked at the Artifact shop because I didn't put up enough gold to warrant it, but if I can nail a few DGs I will definitely be changing that.
Re: the Favor thing, I've edited the file, but it still doesn't seem to work, so I'm resolved to working without for now. If I can get it working, anklet's probably the best bet, right?
You know, many people swear by them, but as far as I am concerned unless you are fixing a massive flaw in your character (Rooks slow speed) or enhancing an already very high atribute to make it godlike (UB's speed) or require it for your roll in the team (your the one runnign around caping flags) I dont find it all that useful. Now, a speed buff is always good to have, dont get me wrong, and taking it certainly wont have a negative effect on you, but I always get the feeling there is something better for DG's who arent doing one of the above. My friend always takes the amulet of teleportation unless we are playing prison or crucible. Even on crucible he sometimes takes it anyways. It can be a long walk.
I would take a long hard look at the items on the second page that are specific to generals. It seems a lot of people dont notice there is a second page of favor items. The totem of war for instance gives bonus damage and attack speed to you and bonus damage to your minions. The blood soaked wand can heal you and your allies for 1000 every 45 seconds.
Point being, you will have to find one that suits your play style. You should put a lot of thought into you favor item as it can drastically later your build, what items yuo need or how you play. I for instance only came up with my very devastating Regulus build after I figured out there was a second page of items and started using one of them instead of the amulet of teleportation or the staff of the warmage.
P.S.: I fixed the quote tree and you can now glean all the nformation I provided quite easily, I hope.
Much better Chaos. I had to step away during my attempt to read your first posting
I also skip out on Raise Dead Ward unless it is end game and I need something to take. I find that Penitence/Shield/Divine Justice/Soul Power are all I need to make a very powerful Oak. Surge of Faith comes in handy as well at later levels, especially for weakening a mob surrounding a DG.
I'll have to look closer at the second page of focus items. I really like the circlet/boots combo for maneuverability right now (when my favor is working...) I start out with scale helm/chest for the stat boost and make a run right for a flag/lane. Penitence usually lets me keep the spot a little longer for xp before I have to head back. After that I go for teleport scrollsx2 and keep up the flag capping/creep killing while I quickly gain levels. I don't stick around too long if multiple DG's hit an area as my goal is to level up and gain gold. I'll pick up the building regen and damage upgrades quickly as well - and the gold upgrade as soon as it's available.
The key here is don't get greedy. Fall back when a DG approaches your flag spot, then back in with penitence so they are at the flag instead of approaching it. Get in and melee but don't follow far unless they have overextended themselves. I'll take a tower hit or two if I KNOW I will drop him... but generally I don't go near them as I can just retreat to killing creeps again. It's a waiting game where you are looking for their first mistake. Except whle you wait you are gaining xp and gold.
Oak wise I tend to lean to a peni soul power right away build until I have enough cash for heart of life then I bump shield to at least 4 secs which is like rank 2 and let it sit. Raise dead plus soul power make you really strong against any demigod on top of peni.
I usually stick with gaunts first one scaled helm boots of speed maybe the first or second hauberk if that and wait it out until I can afford slayers wraps and the crit hauberk. Sometimes I go for the 3rd hauberk as it's nice bang for the buck instead. Vlemish helm is a nice addition as well. Anyways by that time the game is either won or over you will know who is going to win by the time this all happens. Buy citadel upgrades and unless you guys are farming an ai demi or a newer player don't plan on spending money any artifacts. Citadel upgrades are far more important anyways. The team that gets cats or giants at least five minutes ahead of the other is usually the winner in most cases .
There are at least 2 ways to play Oak and a 3rd one which is a bit hybrid.
You can go assassin style build with shield, penitence and soul power as main skills.
You can go full minion build with raise ward, divine justice, soul power and once your army is big, bottom skill enhancing minions.
And finally you can do a mix raise ward & penitence, couple of others here and there.
Surge of Faith in all builds is a must though.
Just my two cents: I'm not sure why I even read this whole thread, since I'm terrible at playing Oak and don't plan on getting better with him any time soon, but I play Sedna, and can totally empathize with not being able to get any kills. However, like Sedna, Oak can be a monster when it comes to survivability, and that's not necessarily a terrible thing. Killing enemy DGs is great and all, but builds that can take a good beating have their place as well. As long as you can dish out enough damage to harass, and aren't dying, you're helping your team. A lot. While creeping doesn't net you as much cash as a DG kill, if you force them out of the lane with enough health left to stick around, you're pushing your creeps toward their base, getting gold from enemy creeps, possibly capping extra flags (one thing I know with my Sedna build is that I can cap flags like no other, since I can stick around after a battle with an enemy DG, I don't usually use Pounce, like you don't use Penitance). So, if you want to kill enemy DGs, I'm sure Oak can get that done for you, but just remember that kills aren't everything.
Don't know how to embed a picture on this board. So here is the link.
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i dont get minions skills until lvl 10+ but i do get them, so first part of game its pretty much assassin style, then when you got the basics il get minions, works pretty well for me.
I can't believe how strong oak is mid to end game. UNKILLABLE is right. Especially if you shield and run away when your little spirits die from my hammer slam, and then get more because you placed a flag right before you left. Then come back and hit us for 500 damage with ridiculous attack speed. It must be really hard to balance end game because, jesus.
So after playing with Penitence Oak for a while, I'm pretty pleased. I've won two out of three games, although obviously teammates influence the outcome a fair amount.
I'm landing a couple kills with Penitence, and trying to open fights with it where possible. I find I miss the minions a lot for soaking up tower shots and helping me bring down waves that much faster, and a lot of the items I would usually go for that had +minion stats aren't necessarily as helpful.
Right now, I'm doing:
Level 1: Penitence
Level 2: Divine Justice
Level 3: Shield
Level 4: Penitence
Level 5: Surge of Faith
Level 6: Divine Justice
Level 7: Penitence
Level 8: Divine Justice
Level 9: Shield or Soul Power; Shield if I can get Heart of Life or if I find the other DGs are hassling me far into my base.
Level 10: Surge of Faith
Level 11: Penitence
By level 10-11 the game's usually decided, so I just go from there.
I'm finding that this route is keeping me roughly on par with the other DGs. If they get careless, I can land a kill, but usually penitence doesn't pack enough firepower to actually down them. My biggest loss has been against a team with a pure-support Queen of Thorns who was throwing up shields constantly from the back of their lines; since none of us could get at the Queen, I basically just wasted my Penitence on a never-ending stream of shields while the Rook and UB getting the shields just tore me apart. I'm also finding tower Rooks to be a bit difficult without the minions, as they were good at soaking up fire and Penitence can't target structures. Once I'm so sunk into Penitence, I usually have to put the Raise Dead Wards off until really mid-late game, and I think that somewhat undermines the effectiveness of Soul Power.
Equipment-wise, Heart of Life is still my most vital gear, with the vlemish helm right behind it for earlier in the game. I've been grabbing the scaled helm, a combat mana pot, and either a capture lock or a health pot from the start depending on the map. (Cataract in particular is fun to lock, as players will usually leave the middle +exp lane for one of the sides with creeps if they see it locked, and never come back to get it).
Any suggestions for edging out the opposition? Late-game, this build doesn't feel quite as unstoppable-steamroller as my earlier Oak attempts, but it can harass enemy DGs well enough to keep the game dynamic, rather than just me fleeing constantly. Shielding Queens, Towering Rooks, and Regulus in general give me a hard time... Regulus simply because early game he can shoot me from the safety of towers on most maps if I'm trying to cap; Tower Rooks because although I can usually hurt them enough to force a retreat, they retreat into a nest of towers that I get gunned down in if I follow, and shield Queens just because they can basically negate Penitence damage and I have no burst aside from that to take them down with.
Well Im glad its working out for you. You definately seem more pleased with the performance. Unfortunately there is no way for a acharacter to do it all (aside from being fed and getting rediculous amounts of items).
Penitence itself wont get you a kill, it is a kill enabler. Small amount of immediate damage and slow/increased damage to help with the kill.
All the tactics you mentioned having difficulty with are spot on. Each of those require specific tactics to defeat. You have changed your build and play style so the difficulties you will have will be different.
There is unfortunately no way to do it all.
The point of a build that can kill demigods and harass early on is to end the game before it gets to a point where endgame builds become too powerful. On some maps, this is very difficult as they are so large but on most of them, if your doing the job you built your character for well, it should end before late game builds really come into effect. That or your team gets to the late game builds while your oponents havent and the game ends anyways.
How much extra damage per spirit active does he get with the various ranks of soul power?
1. Penitence
2. Mana/Life attack
3. Soul Power
4. Penitence
5. Surge of Faith
6. Soul Power
7. Penitence
8. Shield
I dont use raise dead cuz they are too weak and you have to micro them. When playing Oak as a DPS class, I try to avoid too much macroing on minions so hence the reason of not having minion. I get shield a bit later because if you playing defensive and you got healer in the beginning, I dont think a shield is needed. I would sacrifice for more attacking power to kill creeps.
There's no micro in placing the ward, draw a big cube on the screen, attack the demigod. the best thing is the ghost cap is reached pretty fast so even if they die, more will come. means- no need to micro them to keep them alive (just whenever you come to strike place a ward first- its instant, mana cheap, low cooldown so no reason to leave it aside)
you can earn so much more dmg with raise dead and soul power that its totaly worth it.
I... Thank you.
You are missing out significantly if you do, in fact, play Oak as a DPS class. With maxed spirits in the end-game with maxed Soul Power, you are looking at +350 - +400 damage per swing, instead of the usual Soul Power cap--what is that? 60?
With enough + attack speed items, I can get to 600DPS pretty reliably in the end-game. I'll post my build up in a second; just got to find the post on Qt3 I wrote it up on
I posted this originally on Qt3, so there may be some parts of it that are answering to questions or comments I saw there, but hopefully not
This is my current Oak Build, but I am still playing with Items (especially artifacts; I hadn't realized Mageslayer was so darned cheap!). I typically do the immediate flag cap -> wave kill = level 2-3 open, and basically spend my early levels killing off mid-range players who don't know to retreat and leveling off of grunt-kills. As I hit level 5-7 or so, my skills start to synergize enough to become a real assassin-level character, and spend most of the rest of the game killing off lone Demigods, clearing creep waves out, and pushing through enemy towers to capture their portals ASAP.
For my Oakiness, modified for a more Assassiny build (now that I've been playing awhile longer): Level 1, Spirit Ward (spirits from dead enemies), Minotaur totem, heal potion, and 1st level armor. Favor item: 450pt speedy boots. Spawn the 'taurs, grab a flag, and then kill baddies w/ flag in place till you level. I take Penitence (direct damage), then Soul Power (+atk, +more from spirits), then Penitence 2, and finally Surge of Faith (AoE damage) on the 5th level. As soon as I pull 1K gold (usually after killing a level 1 enemy hero right after I hit 2 and get Penitence and still have my heal pot), I run back and grab the 1K speed boots. At this point, I've got +25% movespeed, ~+100 atk, and whatever idols I've been able to afford. From there, it's a pretty steady progression, leveling up Penitence, Spirit Ward, Surge of Faith, and Soul Power, taking the kills=heal skill whenever I catch a leveling break. I nab the +attack speed gloves (750 gold), 1500 gold +mana/regen hat (biggest single boost to my mana, which is handy), and the 1500 gold ring that procs a lightning strike to nearby enemies (that + surge of faith makes me a grunt-killing god) as soon as possible and fill in my missing idols. By this point (usually ~level 6-7), I am able to stand toe-to-toe with any competently played demigod and have an above-average chance of taking him down before he gets me; I've scored the 25+ kills in one match achievement 3 times (since the achievement/favor code is broken and it doesn't save afterwards). For the end-game, it's a matter of upgrading. I like to move into the 6750 gold gloves and boots (bigger speed bonuses, plus extras) and the 3000 gold armor, the duelist's cuirass. . . but given how many demigod kills I usually manage in a match, by level 15-16, I can usually afford the God Plate, along with my level 4 idols. I max penitence and soul power first, then max out surge of faith and finally spirits (berserk can be insane). . . after that, I can nab the minion+ skill or extra healing, depending on how high up their defenses have gotten. As it stands, straddling assassin/general like that and pulling in a ton of XP from mass-murdering grunts and tons of gold from Demigod kills, I've had what I feel to be an unprecedented amount of success. As of last night, I'm the no. 5 Oak in the world and somewhere near the top 100 overall, AFAIK. All of which goes to say: not only is Oak not underpowered, but he might well be overpowered at this point. A full boat of minions + spirits + items can set my oak over 600DPS, not even counting the nearly 20 doodz smacking all around me or my 800 damage penitence and 650 damage surge of faith AoE Man, sorry for the mammoth Oak post, but I am absolutely flipping in LOVE with this guy.
I do pretty well with oak with just putting points in to soul power and spirits in the beginning, and picking up +health + health regen armor peices and the boots, then the +20 regen ring. It gives you enough survivability to chase off those pesky demigods while you farm creeps, or if they are slow .. kill them.
I have tried a new strat of stacking dodge% but that only works when favor works
one point into the 10% hp and mana deal too forgot about that
It's kind of amazing to see the massive variance of Oak players. I've found a ton of luck with nothing but Raise Dead, pest and soul power. The build isn't strong until mid game when it really becomes a fun way to play. I'll use siege minions early and get the priests later. The key to early survival is shield - early kills come along with pestilence.
Generally Oak needs a bit of backup early game so run with your teammates until you can get your legs. You'll be getting assists more than kills at first but will quickly flip that later in the game.
I think Oak is one of the few demigods that can have vastly different outcomes based on item selection. If you are a Minion Oak, use those minion items for buffs and watch the difference on the battlefield.
-AceQ
600dps at what level? And with what items?
It seems like with maxed soul power, spirits and a few haste items you should be far higher than that if my mental calculations are correct. I will have to test it this evening.
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