----------------------------------Boxleitner’sGuide to the Blood Soaked Oak----------------------------------Copyright July 28, 2009 by Ivan MontecinosVersion 0017/28/09Created by: BoxleitnerQuestions or Regards: Ivanmontecinos@hotmail.com-----------UPDATES:------------July 28rd V1.1FAQ posted.-----------------------TABLE OF CONTENTS-----------------------0. Legal Notice1. Introduction -A ) Who is Oak? -B ) Who is Blood Soaked Oak?2. Abilities -A ) Ability Build -B ) Shield -C ) Divine Justice -D ) Penitence -E ) Surge of Faith -F ) Soul Power -G ) Raise Dead Ward3. Items -A ) Blood Soaked Wand -B ) Scale Mail / Banded Armor -C ) Vlemish Faceguard and Plenor Battlecrown -D ) Nimoth Chestpiece -E ) Wand of Speed -F ) Narmoth’s Ring -G ) Godplate4. Minions -A ) The Official Blood Soaked Oak Cheerleading Team -B ) Bishops -C ) Siege Demolishers -D ) Why not get Minotaurs?5. General Strategies6. Replays
7. Thanks
---------------0) Legal Stuff---------------I have written this FAQ for the purpose of spreading the word of the Blood Soaked Oak Build! . You can read the guide, link it to others, use the build to own BUT do not try to sell it or pass it off as your own. This guide has been Copyrighted. If you see it anywhere else than Gamefaqs.com or the Demigod forums please tell me! I’d be very grateful to say the least.Demigod the game is the property of Stardock and Gas Powered Games.------------------1) Introduction!------------------A ) Who is Oak?Thanos was a great warrior dedicated to the service of the Nimoth Kings. He was unique among his brethren in that he was immortal and reknowned in battle. It was upon the request of his last liege to slaughter innocents that Thanos turned to his Lord and argued against the order. For this act of defiance he was banished from his homeland, left to defend the remnants of his vassals from creatures of death and destruction in the Canyons of the Dead. Generations later the descendants of his servants dubbed him “The Oak” because of his stoic defense of their home.B ) Who is Blood Soaked Oak?Blood Soaked Oak, also termed the “The Girly Man Oak” by Mabmanz, is an Oak with a different fighting strategy than most other builds. He relies on Divine Justice to keep him and his allies topped off both in hit points and in mana. He also uses Blood Soaked Wand, the favor item, for even more allied healing! This Demigod is amazing in the fact that he keeps waves of reinforcements pushing, minions attacking and Demigods alive. He is PRIMARILY a support character who spams his Penitence and Surge of Faith abilities and as such is best played in conjunction with other Demigods such as a hit point build Unclean Beast or a minion Erebus. This is a damage and debuff Demigod that is meant to attack from out of range until an enemy death is certain; only then does he close in for a melee kill.--------------------2) Abilities--------------------A ) Ability BuildLevel 1: Shield I Level 10: Surge of Faith IILevel 2: Divine Justice I Level 11: Penitence IVLevel 3: Penitence I Level 12: Raise Dead Ward ILevel 4: Penitence II Level 13: Soul Power IILevel 5: Surge I Level 14: Raise Dead Ward IILevel 6: Divine Justice II Level 15: Surge of Faith III Level 7: Penitence III Level 16: RallyLevel 8: Divine Justice III Level 17: Soul Power IIILevel 9: Soul Power I Level 18,19,20: Raise Dead Ward III, IV and Frenzy
Level 10: Surge of Faith II
Level 11: Penitence IVLevel 12: Raise Dead Ward ILevel 13: Soul Power IILevel 14: Raise Dead Ward IILevel 15: Surge of Faith III Level 16: RallyLevel 17: Soul Power IIILevel 18,19,20: Raise Dead Ward III, IV and FrenzyB ) Shield (1 point only)Use: Oak grants a shield to a target, making them immune to damage for 3 seconds.Cost: 400 Mana / Cast time: .1 seconds / 35 Second cooldown / Range: 20 yardsShield is a wonderful skill that will give you 3 seconds of invulnerability. This is perfect for blocking a Torch Bearer fireball, Rook’s slam, or cleansing Unclean Beast’s venom spit. It also perfectly allows you to cast Blood Soaked Wand without interruption! I only get 1 point in this because other skills are more important to this build. Thanks to Mabmanz for suggesting it be gotten as soon as possible: it will protect you and others from early game spell damage if you are fast enough on the cast.C ) Divine Justice (Main ability branch for this build)Use: When Oak kills a target, he and his allies receive Health and Mana equal to 10% of the unit’s maximum health.Divine Justice is rarely regarded as a vital ability. However, it is simply amazing in that anything you kill gives you life and mana back. It’s like having vampiric abilities at no cost!! What’s even greater about it is that it heals and refreshes ANY ally in your vicinity. What it amounts to is an endless health and mana stream by level 3, both for you and your comrades, provided you get the killing blows (which is easy with Surge of Faith!).I prioritize the purchasing of this ability as much as possible. It is indispensable for an Oak that wants to be a team player. On his own he can also work miracles with Divine Justice because he will keep himself and creep waves alive and pushing.The last point in Divine Justice will give you Rally (When Oak kills a Demigod he and his allies receive +500 armor and heal 1000 health over 5 seconds), which I have rarely seen proc simply because by levels 10-12 most of my games have ended. I believe it to be useful in large fights and viable enough to get.D ) Penitence (Second most important skill)Use: Oak fills a target with holy remorse dealing damage, reducing their movement speed and increasing all damage taken by a percentage for 5 seconds.Cost: 450,550,650,750 Mana (Per level) / Cast time: .1 seconds / 7 Second cooldownRange: 20 yards / Movement reduction and Damage taken increase: 7% /10% /13% /16% (Per level)Blood Soaked Oak is a Penitence spammer. This means that he will be casting it back to back unless he is waiting for an enemy to use an interruptible spell. If you think Sedna will pounce or heal or you see Rook about to hammer slam, Torch Bearer about to land a Fireball or create a circle of fire then you can stop them by casting Penitence on them as an interrupt. You should be able to prevent a potion from being taken or a teleportation from being cast.You can also purposely cast Penitence to slow an enemy or increase enemy damage taken. Otherwise you will want to use this spell as an enemy Demigod softener in preparation for your charging in to melee and Surge of Faith him or her. E ) Surge of FaithUse: Deals 300,450,600 damage and increases allied unit movement speeds and attack speeds by 10%,15%,20% for 7 seconds. Cost: 500,675,800 Mana (Per level) / Cast time: 1 seconds / 10 Second cooldownThis skill is your source of health, mana, gold and creep kills on the battlefield. Use it whenever you are in the midst of an enemy creep wave. The kills will net you gold, experience and health and mana!F ) Soul PowerUse: Increases weapon damage by 20 and more per spirit you control.This is useful later. It is not gotten early because other skills are so much more useful.You may also choose to take this skill without Raise Dead Wards, thus giving you a flat +20 damage increase without the hassle of having to control spirits. G ) Raise Dead Ward (Late game)Use: Allows you to maintain an army of 3,5,7,10 spirits.The reason I suggest getting this so late is so you can focus on Divine Justice, Surge of Faith and Penitence in the build. Another reason is that I dislike handling more than one unit; it can be complicated enough to move your Demigod correctly and moving more than one unit at a time takes practice! Otherwise in your confusion you might move the wrong unit and lose your Demigod.However, Raise Dead Ward is a must late game because of the bonuses to melee damage it gives you in conjunction with Soul Power and the extra damage the spirits will do to enemies.---------3) Items---------A ) Favor Item: Blood Soaked WandUse: Heal self and all nearby allies for 1000.Cost: 1750 Favor / Cast time: 2.5 seconds / 45 Second cooldownThe Blood Soaked Wand is a rarely used Favor item with tremendous support ability. I have seen it turn a 3v3 fight around completely in 3 seconds. Many players will not be prepared for you to suddenly heal yourself and your nearby allies! What’s more, one thousand life is quite a bit at the start and still quite formidable mid to late game. Thanks to Blood Soaked Wand an armored Level 1 Oak can sit at a flag killing enemy reinforcements and practically tank ANY damage a Level 1 Regulus does to him, wanding it all back every 45 seconds! I do it all the time, ensuring an early head start on Warscore and asserting my dominance on the battlefield. In larger fights I have saved countless allied lives, defeated many a foe, gained more experience and downed more towers thanks to staying out on the field longer… all because I can heal 1000 hit points every 45 seconds.Why not use other favor Items? After much experimentation and consideration, I have found that the hit point heal the wand gives is simply way too powerful to pass up. It is much more useful than the Blood of the Fallen favor item, which gives a static 800 hit point increase and a small 5 health per second bonus. You will find that Blood Soaked Wand is like carrying a hidden 1000 hit points! All of a sudden you will bring it out and turn the tables on your enemies. Staff of the Warmage is no good since you will already have enough mana and damage with this build to wreck havoc! Amulet of Teleportation would be nice on big maps but this build is about support. You can pay for teleport scrolls; they cost way less than buying Universal Gadgets to heal allies (no one does that anyway?). Wings of the Seraphim are not as useful because they require you and your allies to be out of combat for them to heal. They also do not heal minions or reinforcements. General Favor Items are not useful because this build will not use the minions it gathers until VERY late game AND only possibly. Cloak of Night is a great getaway tool, but not such a good attack tool, since enemies can simply outrun you again. It also does nothing to help others on the battlefield. As a matter of fact the only item that could possibly top Blood Soaked Wand for this Oak build is Swift Anklet. I have long debated whether Blood Soaked Oak should use Swift Anklet instead, thus allowing him to move at an advantageous +15% speed. But then I found myself having to return to the well for healing or spending gold on potions… and then end result was that I lost B ) Game Start Items: Scale Mail and Banded ArmorAgain: after much consideration and experimentation I have landed on the final conclusion that these two pieces or armor are indispensable. The 600 armor points negate an amazing amount of damage and should not be underestimated. Banded armor allows you to survive longer and the small hit point regeneration provided is pleasant. On normal game settings you will be keeping these two items for a great deal of the game, if not all the way thru. Late game if you have more gold they can be replaced by Narmoth’s Ring and Godplate for even more survivability, allowing you to melee even longer.C ) Getting Vlemish Faceguard and Plenor Battlecrown:By Level 5 you should have 1500+ if not 3000 gold already. You now have Surge of Faith and should get both helms at the shop now. If things are going really well then you can postpone the purchase of one helm and get Gold 1 for the team. If not, then it is important that you get it after your helms. Remember: you are a team player. You will always be central to your game wins if you take a healthy part in the outcome. Do not expect others to do this for you!D ) When to get: Nimoth ChestpieceIf you feel that you are taking way too much damage and having to return to the health crystal often after the start of the game then your next item should be the Nimoth Chestpiece. It will provide a significant increase in survivability and damage reduction. If not, then the proper time to get this item is just after buying both the Vlemish Faceguard and the Plenor Battlecrown. Staying out on the battlefield is important. The longer you are out there the more gold, experience and flags you will receive.E ) When to get: Wand of SpeedI am VERY aware that the drawback to this hero is movement speed. Because I advocate so much armor, health and mana reservoirs the build comes down to not having any boots at all. The result is that it can take an eternity to move around a map and engaging in melee can be dangerous if you misjudge the odds.Fortunately Eskendale proposes a solution in his Healing Oak Build (For more information visit his guide at: http://forums.demigodthegame.com/357493 ). The purchase of Wand of Speed allows you to rush to a spot, chase down enemy foes or run from them whenever the need arises. If you feel that the map is too big or that you are not getting away or landing kills because of lack of speed, then you should get this asap. Otherwise wait until after you get your two helms and your Nimoth Chestpiece.F ) Narmoth’s Ring (Replaces Banded Armor)This item is to be gotten if you can spare the gold. Personally I advocate investing your gold in Currency 1, Priests, Angels, Catapults and Giants (as well as Armory 1 and Blacksmith 1). Why? Because if you don’t make an effort to be the team player and buy the upgrades then no one will.However, if you find the need for more hit points, hit point regeneration and more staying power then the life steal on this item and it’s other attributes are right up your alley. G ) God plate (Replaces Scale Mail)This wonderful item will allow you to take incredible amounts of damage and still stay in the thick of battle. It is the last item I suggest you get. Any other gold should be spent on the citadel.Like Narmoth’s Ring, this item is for purchase if you have already reached all the important citadel upgrades or if someone else is appointed to do that.-----------4. Minions-----------A ) The Official Blood Soaked Oak Cheerleading Team:Suggestion: When you have less than 7 spirits leave them at base near the crystal. Reason: Blood Soaked Oak is about staying out of combat, supporting reinforcement waves and allied Demigods and their minions and casting ranged spells to weaken enemy Demigods. It is difficult enough to focus your attention on all this and stay alive. In order to keep the bonuses from Soul Power at all times, your spirits must stay alive. Because of these facts, it becomes easier to simply leave your minion spirits at base and benefit from their passive melee damage increase rather than have to continually replace them in battle or, God forbid, die because of moving the spirits rather than the Demigod.After getting Raise Dead Ward 3, your spirits will be tough enough that it is wiser to use them in battle than to simply leave them behind at the crystal.B ) BishopsWonderful healing. Unless you like managing units, I suggest getting these after you have Raise Dead Ward 3 and are moving spirits with you. Otherwise you can get these and their upgraded counterparts as soon as you like! You can even start the game with them.C ) Siege DemolishersThese are fantastic help to Blood Soaked Oak since he is a ranged spell caster. Because of their good distance damage he can safely move them with him and not have to worry about them or bad pathing on their part as much as other minions.Again, because of the afore-mentioned constraints, I suggest you get these once you are already moving other minions into battle with you.D ) Why not get Minotaurs?Suggestion: Don’t get MinotaursReason: They are melee units. Our Blood Soaked Oak wants to attack at ranged as much as possible. Having to move Minotaurs in and out of melee range complicates matters way too much for them to be viable.------------------------5. General Strategies------------------------Stay in the creep lanes. You have the advantage of being able to heal from enemy reinforcement deaths. Your allied creeps will also help you with your attack on enemy Demigods.Try to lure enemies to fight you within creep waves.Don’t buy too many potions or scrolls but always keep 1 of each on you at any given time! Just 1 potion has saved my life from Regulus’ snipes far too often. Scrolls are best used to jump in on enemy flag cappers by surprise!! However be careful not to port into more than one enemy Demigod or into a Rook hammerslam. =.PAlways fight at full life or close to it. Don’t stay near death in lanes. Low hit points is just an open invitation to a heartache.Watch the minimap. Attack with friends. Flank enemies. After a kill always leave and refill both mana and health. Otherwise you will be vulnerable to a revenge kill by either your victim or his allies.For very good tips on how to play please read:Ke5trel’s Tips - http://forums.demigodthegame.com/347388/ Avoidance Guide by Ke5trel - http://forums.demigodthegame.com/354641/ ------------6. Replays------------The following replays will Blood Soaked Oak in action. Some human mistakes are always made, but in general you will get the idea! Enjoy!1) http://rapidshare.com/files/256838474/The_Blood_Soaked_Oak_1.DGReplay 2) http://rapidshare.com/files/256838562/The_Blood_Soaked_Oak_2.DGReplay
-----------7. Thanks-----------For replies to any questions or comments you have please e-mail me at:Ivanmontecinos@hotmail.comThanks to Eskendale for his patience, guidance and advice. Check out his Healing Oak Build!Many thanks to Mabmanz for all his counsel and frienship.Thanks to all my Demigod friends out there: You know who you are! Each of you are wonderful, caring, patient people. Stay Frosty!A special word out to Kalelsm1, Ataraxic, _Shadow, Rogdan, Dustbin, Demigood, Goggris and K5strel for their awesome comradery. Thanks to Demigod Database for offering us such great build info:http://www.demigoddb.com/Copyright Ivan Montecinos 2009
This seems to be a very supportive build. Then again oak is a very supportive character.
Alas items such as blood soaked wand and blood of the fallen tend to loose effectiveness around level 15 or so provided nobody has been fed.
Oddly enough I usually took swift anklet so I could zip around to save allies via pent or shield. The movespeed bonus is incredibly at level 20 since theres no real cap on movement.
In more tightnit games maxing out shield is incredibly useful since it clenses two characters while making both of you immune to further debuffs.
In the end I think builds are team/map specific though, so many things to consider.
Right so rereading that post, which i have seen b4 roughly when it first came out, I see that the amount you get per minion is not based on the level of the soul power. You get a flat bonus from the soul power level, and then an extra 20 per satisfication of # of spirits. So that means that lvl 2 soul power, with 1 minion, gives +40, but with 6 minions gives 40 + 20 + 20 = 80 damage. If you only had lvl 1 soul power this would give you 60 damage. If we had lvl 3 soul power and 6 minions, we would get 60 + 20 +20 = 100. Therefore I am correct when i say that boosting up levels of soul power only adds 20 damage to your oak per level, regardless of # of spirit minions you have. Therefore my supposition that going beyond one level of soul power is a waste of skill points when you can be maxing out pen/surge/shield/spirit ward instead is true imho. The difference between lvl 1 soul power and lvl 3 soul power with 9 spirits is 20 + (20 x 3) = 80 vs 60 + (20 x 3) = 120. Furthermore, you can't shield if you are disabled, and please also remember shield has a long CD. In addition, UB can grasp you while you are shielded, however you won't take any damage. So your 2nd invulnerable statement is very misleading.
So eskendale, I suggest you reread that post again, because the author clearly notes that at maximum, with lvl 3 soul power and 9 spirits you can only achieve +120 damage, so your +140 figure is completely bogus.
Another note is that as you are casting your wand, you are not adding dps, nor are you moving, so that is another drawback to an activated item over a passive.
I like the fact that he is trying to use blood soaked wand, which gets no love, as well as suggesting enhancing divine justice, which also gets no love, however i feel it necessary to suggest optimization tips.
Wrong - You would get a combined total of 180 damage. Your problem is that you forget to incorporate the flat damage increase you get from soul power (20) per increase of its level and the 20 bonus damage you get for merely having one spirit out. I proved to you in a game that this method is how soul power works. If you only get minions you only get 20 bonus damage, but if you get soul power you get both the bonus and the constant damage increase of 20 per soul power level. THE CODE BEHIND THE BONUS DAMAGE VIA SOUL POWER USES A MULTIPLIER EFFECT, i.e., MULTIPLICATON. If X is your level of soul power, you get 20 x X bonus damage for each additional level of soul power after level 1, as long as one spirit is out. This effect has NOTHING to do with the way in which soul power gives a spirit-independent increase of 20, 40, and finally 60 damage.
Unless you're using shield like a drunken sailor, you will always have the use of shield when entering battle. I RARELY have shield interrupted or find myself unable to use it in a battle. So is Sedna's heal useless because someone might frost nova or mass charm her before she can use it? Is wand of speed useless because it has a cooldown time of 25 seconds and you can't spam its use? Before its nerf was Heart of Life useless because you could take damage and suffer the loss of its buff? Any skill used correctly and judiciously will be of use. Level III shield grants stun immunity, and this level is the one that this build should intend to reach (I spoke with him numerous times about why shield is important). As said before, the shield skill grants immunity to EVERYTHING.
And the drawback to using a passive like Blood of the Fallen versus the wand is that you can't hide the fact that you can replenish your health or that of your allies, that in reality they have more staying power than you otherwise expected. Box uses a ranged build, so in the time he waits for the casting time of blood to be finished he gains more time to spam penitence and surge.
I can play queen and I'll get the upgrades. Bramble and Cape of Plentiful Mana(I get ~150 MPS using it) should complement this build
Well what you are saying there goes against the post you listed earlier, as every1 seems to agree that 120 bonus damage is the max however you quote a different figure. I will side toward you atm, as I have not looked at it myself. I will do so whenever i get off my lazy arse. From what I'm understanding you are saying SP lvl damage x 1,2,3, or 4 which is based upon how many spirits you ahve out. This is contrary to ppl who say it is SP lvl damage plus 0, 20, 40, or 60 (where 20 is 2, 40 is 3, and 60 is 4). To clarify for those who don't know, you achieve 1 at 1 spirit, 2 at 3 minions, 3 at 6 minions, and 4 at 9 minions. You must have at least one spirit out to gain the bonus damage from your SP (aka the 1 modifer)
You continue to think of your shield as an escape from everything, however once you get hit with a deep freeze, or go oom, or are just lambasted with disables (b4 you cast it), or even spiked out. I agree completely that shield is amazing, and I always build into shield 3 eventually. However I don't want people to get the impression that just because you got shield 3 means everything is going to be awesome.
I would just like to add that having the passive extra hps also helps against burst (aka spike) damage that some teams will use to great effect. This is primarily the case when you want to intimadate the other team and/or kill people b4 shield or heal can hurt you in a group fight. By intimadate, i mean you burst out a guy down to 25% hps and he will want to run away. However generally speaking, a burst team is just that, a one trick pony that has trouble doing full damage so must kill you with the burst or lose the war of attrition.
I personally don't like this build all that much, but I have to interject that because it casts so quickly, preventing Shield from being cast by using stuns is completely unrealistic. Oak would have to be very stupid or reckless to let himself die that way.
Also in post 23 you say something nonsensical about "armor builds." I honestly have no idea what your talking about here, the build in the OP is just stacking standard health/armor items like every melee DG is supposed to. In fact he's going a little light by picking Plenor over Unbreakables. You say something about Armor being less useful late game because of spells which ignore armor, which is almost right except that spell-based builds actually dominate the mid-game and tend to lose steam if the game goes late and AA-based DGs complete their expensive builds. So yes, Armor is useful against AAers, but that fact actually implies that Armor is strongest during the late game. In general, of course. If your facing nothing but Fireball and Pounce or something, obviously Armor wont help against that no matter how late the game goes.
Hi Box, nice build, and thanks for the shout out.. You should try stacking wands on your team, sometime, it works even better when you have three of them Also, idol priests are worthwhile early, every time
Just to clarify some things about shield I'm seeing in the comments -The tooltip on shield states that it purges at level 3. This has never, ever been the case. Every level of shield, starting with level 1, will purge any debuffs which are on the target before the shield procs. After the shield has been cast, the target is immune to damage but can be debuffed. For example:a. Oak gets spit on, casts Shield 1, purges spit.b. Oak casts Shield 1, gets spit on, takes damage from DoT once shield is off. I'm uncertain whether all disables will work on a shielded target (I don't think LE's stun does), but I know for certain that Grasp and Boulder will stun, even though Oak takes no damage. On whether non-stun interrupts will work on a casting shielded Oak, unless they changed something from the HoL days - no, no they don't...
finally someone has realised the power of blood soaked wand, why shield at level 1 is a must and why using pentience as an interrupt is important.
nice guide boxleitner.
Ok, afaik, Oak's Soul Power buff doesn't do anything if there are no spirits out. To get even the listed damage, you have to have 1 spirit out. So, your math is somewhat off because you're doubling the listed damage, essentially counting it for both 0 spirits and 1+ spirit out.
Please actually play the build and see for yourself that Eskendale is right. You are incorrect. You will get a flat damage increase per points spent in Soul Power.
Oh and thanks for coming by and leaving your ideas and praise everyone. (..^^..)
hehe. I totally agree. I wonder if I'm the 1 guy who's tried this out.
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