As many of you know, I recently made a lvl 49 fissure druid named :roll: GoNe_FiSsUrIn :roll: when I discovered the awesomeness of MLD that many others have also begun to explore. I have always been against making the typical cookie cutter builds in LLD such as 18 zealots and 30 sorcs; I like to be different and make something unique that really stands out. Hopefully many of you will like what I have done here. I've noticed a LOT of people asking me about this druid and there have been tons of posts coming up on JSP about "that uber lvl 49 fissure druid who pks HLD games". Anyway, I decided to write out a lil guide so hopefully others can experience how awesomely fun this guy is the place.

Basics

MLD is considered the "bigger brother" of the growing dueling catergory called Low Level Dueling (commonly categorized under lvl 9/15/18/30). MLD, stands for Mid Level Dueling and is again commonly divided into different level brackets like its lil buddy LLD. These brackets are commonly seperated into lvl 39/49/58 to achieve a more balanced form of dueling due to the drastic change in items offered throughout this range.

For this guide, we will be dealing with a lvl 49 MLD........what seems to me to be the more common MLDing lvl.

Stats and Skill Points

This Druid will be g-rushed, or "glitch rushed" so as to achieve the maximum +skills and stats from the quests throughout all 3 difficulties.

At lvl 49, we have 240 available stat points as well as 48 available skill points. Being fully g-rushed and having taken advantage of the 4x skill quests + stat quests in EACH ACT (Den of Evil, Radament, Life Pot, Lam Esen's Tomb, Izual and Anya) we unlock an additional 12skill points, 60life, 15stat points and 30resistances.

Stat Point Distribution

Strength: Always only put enough strength in to wear your gear. In our case, we only need 70str and we will be getting no +str bonus from gear so go ahead and top your base strength up to 70

Dexterity: In my build, I deemed it necessary to go to max block ie 75%. Since this build is both very effective against melee and casters, we've gotta have some nice block and resistances. However, you may or may not want to go for max block: this would allow you to put more points into life but will most certainly decrease your odds of survival against melee chars.

If you want to go for max block, put your base dexterity up to 85. DON'T WORRY IF YOU DON'T HAVE MAX BLOCK WITH ONLY 85 DEX. We will be getting dexterity bonuses to put us to maximum block.

If you do NOT want max block, leave your dexterity at the original base of 20 and dump the remaining points into vitality

Vitality: Into vitality, we put all of your remaining points that we have leftover after allocating the ones needed into strength and dex.

Energy: As fissure has a casting delay, it is not very mana intensive. We will have more than enough mana and therefore do not need to put any points into energy.




Skill Point Distribution

We have 60 skill points available to use after we have been g-rushed and completed the 12 skill quests. The skill point distribution is fairly straight forward: we want to max out fissure and put as many points into its synergies as possible so as to achieve the most damage.

20 Firestorm
1 Molton Boulder
20 Fissure
18 Volcano
1 Oak Sage

-Firestorm is a synergy, so naturally we want to max it out. It is actually also a very strong skill for using with someone in close combat and does surprisingly good damage.
-Molton Boulder is a pre-requisite to Fissure....we need to get it
-Fissure is our main skill, so naturally we will max it!
-Volcano is another pre-requisite and is also very useful against casters would randomly teleport everywhere (can get very annoying!).
-Oak sage provides us with a VERY nice 30% life boost. Note: It is not worthwhile to put more than 1 point into oak sage. The first point in Oak Sage gives the greatest life boost and other additional points that could be spent in Oak are better spent in synergies to give Fissure more damage. Also, Oak Sage is a very big target and is usually the first thing most players will target


Like Oak Sage, the points spent in Cyclone Armor can be better spent elsewhere. Cyclone Armor will not absorb nearly enough damage to be worthwhile spending the 2 points to achieve it.



Equipment

Now we get to the fun part, gear. There are probably many different variations and spins people could put on this, but I find my setup to be the best. I concentrate LARGELY upon +5/-5 Fire facets in this build as you will see. We will also shoot for as much FRW as possible without sacrificing valuable damage; anywhere from 60 upward should do the trick

Armor
For our armor, we will be using a Jewellers Gothic Plate of the Whale. Since this build does not rely upon armor, it is in our best interest to shoot for the lowest requirement 4 socket armor available. Jewellers Gothic's of the Whale are generally not too pricey because they are shoppable. I myself use an 89lifer one, but try and get one that is atleast 80+life.

Fill the sockets with 4x +5/-5 fire facets. So far we have +20% Damage/-20% Enemy Resist from facets.

Helm
Idealy for our helm, we will shoot for a +3elemental/+3fissure 2 socket helm. However, since these are so rare, the best option is to use a 3 socket pelt with +3 fissure.

Fill the sockets with 3x +5/-5 facets. We now have +35% Damage/-35% Enemy Resist from facets.

Weapon
This is the big papa of the build. For our weapon we will be using a 6 socket weapon, preferably ethereal. What do you suppose we will be doing with this weapon?

That's right, fill it with 6x +5/-5 facets. So now, we have +65% Damage/-65% Enemy Resist from facets.


Sure, a Spirit sword is great. However, in our case, this 6x facet weapon is much better for multiple reasons:

Since Fissure has a casting delay on it, we only need VERY little FCR which can be achieved from our Magefists. Generally this is enough to be effective.
Also, we are focusing on using facets for our damage. Doing the math, it can be seen that 6x 5/5 facets does a lot more damage than a 2 spirit sword (you can do the math if you really want to)

Gloves
Like I already said above, we will be using Magefists. This is a no brainer: +1 fire skills, mana regen and 20%FCR; perfect for our build.

Belt
I feel the best option here for a belt is a 15%DR/15MDR String of Ears. It boasts some nice MDR vs casters as well as some very nice %DR which can be a life saver vs melee.

Boots
Our boots will be Waterwalks. Waterwalks are seen as the king among MLD caster boots (atleast by me!). They give a very sex 65 life (if you can find perf ones), or the equivalent of about 32 stats.......very hard to turn down. They also boast a cool 20%RW and some very nice fire resistance which can be extremely useful vs fireball sorcs (which are very common)

Shield(s)
Alright, we have two very important shields that need to be used here, both depending on whether you have chosen the max block route.

Caster Shield:The god of all shields in MLD is the runeword Sanctuary. This badboy gives a possible 70resists and 20dex.......amazing. This is the shield we will be using when facing casters or any build that does some hefty elemental damage.

Melee Shield
--------Max Block Route Shield: When facing a melee, also use a whistans guard. This is the set shield from the Orphan Call set. If you have gone the max block route, this is THE shield to use. It boasts a HUGE 55% Increased Chance of Blocking. When combo'd with our base 85dex + 15dex waterwalk, WE ARE ABLE TO ACHIEVE 75% BLOCK!

We will socket this with 1x +5/-5 facet. If we are using Whistans, we now have a FINAL TOTAL OF +70% Damage/-70% Enemy Resist from facets.

--------Non-Max Block Route Shield: If we are not worried about max block, then we will want to shoot for more damage!!!! The best shield we can use here would be a 3 Socket Large Shield

Fill this with 3x +5/-5 facets. If we are using a 3 socket large shield, we have a FINAL TOTAL OF +80% Damage/-80% Enemy Resist from facets.


Jewelry
We want to use dual soj here for obvious reasons. Our amulet will be a +3elemental skill/+Life ammy. We don't have any need for FCR or any extra stats, so this is our best option. I currently use a +3/100life ammy but anything over 70life should do the ticket.

Inventory

At lvl 49, we are able to get a maximum of 30life on grand charms. I myself decided to get 10x 25-30life Elemental Skill GC's, but another good option would be to get 7% Faster Run Walk Elemental GC's. It is really your decision, whether you want to be a speedy little bastard or be more of a tank.

Anyway, get 10x skill GC's of your choice.

Now we have 10x single slots below the GC's. Again, this is your choice as to what you do with them. I would recommend using 2x 5%fhr/+5all resist SC's however, as the 10%fhr will give you atleast some sort of FHR breakpoint (11frame).
I chose to fill the remaining 8x spaces with 5%rw/8%+ individual resistance SC's. If you are using 7rw Skillers, you may choose to use 20life/5resist SC's to make up for lost life, or you may not care about life and just want to be uber fast. Again, this is all up to your personal preference.







With this final setup, you should have around 5-6k fissure damage, with anywhere from +65%/-65% to +80%/-80% from facets (PRETTY MUCH YOUR OWN CONVICTION AURA).

My druid has:

15Frame FCR BP (19%FCR)
9Frame FHR
1.2k HP with Oak Sage, 900 HP without
5.9K Fissure with -70% Resist


Experiment with different styles of dueling and you should get a general idea of how to play vs each character/class type. Hope you all enjoyed my guide, if you've got any questions feel free to post and I'll be more than happy to help out!

-MaStEr_FuDgE

This post was edited by jacquesstrap on Feb 6 2007 01:11am

nOoB

woot, first comment

i dont know much about lld... and didnt really read the whole guide no offense.
but i have 2 give u props for changingi chars.
every1 uses same chars, i honestly think there should b more fissure druids

instead of string of ears, i think a fhr/str/hp/resist rare would be much better, especially since you have almost no fhr anywhere else. it would also help your hp which seems fairly low too. crazy damage though. ive always wanted a bigger brother for my lvl 30 fissure druid (1500 dmg, 1750 hp with oak)

Yeah I also noticed the lack of fhr, which is obviously a pain in the ass vs assassins and melee characters since they will stun you. I'd suggest to take some fhr skillers and get at least 42 or 63 fhr (9 or 8 frame break) to stand a chance versus stunners.

The rest of it is very nice :] sexy guide etc. maybe I'll even try to make a fissure druid of my own ^^

-Lucas

3 ele 30frw 2 sox circlet > +6 fissure.
15/-15 30/20 Shield > whistans.

My lvl49 fissure druid got;

1.5k+ life
63% fhr bp
~100 frw
Maxres w/o sanc.
5.4k dmg
-60 res from facets.

Fun char thats good against most meeles and crappy casters but if you meet a decent char you´re fucked.

I beg to differ, I haven't met a well gear'd MLDer that I can't beat



I haven't once had a problem with FHR

This post was edited by jacquesstrap on Feb 6 2007 10:34am

Then you obviously havent dueled a decent mlder. You honestly think that you should beat a sorc with that crappy life and res? Only chars that should have a problem vs a fissure druid is meele chars that doesnt use GA and a 60+ stack and even then most should have a fair chance with your crappy frw.

Im not trying to rack down on your char but Im just saying that this is nothing more than a fun char, sure it can kill some decent mlders but vs experienced duelers you stand little chance of winning. The key for fissure druids isnt their dmg its their frw, if you cant catch them you cant kill them.

Its a nice guide, keep up the good work.

Regards, Mac

I really don't understand where you're coming from though. 60%+ RW is more than enough to keep up/dodge oncoming attacks, I really haven't had a problem with this yet.

And yes, I have faced many of the top MLDers on east and I am able to kill them.

Also, I only have 1.2klife because i'm missing 4x lifer gc's. I should have about 1.4 when I've got all my GC's.

Do you have maxblock? If not, that'd be where ur getting ur extra life from. I'd very much like to duel your fissurer, or atleast see him. Are you on E NL?