Oilerfan’s Fury/rabies Wolf Guide - Topic

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Jan 3 2013 08:14am

*all rights of this go to oilerfan
im just posting for him ^_^

The new d2pk has some new items and stuff like Jalal's Return and wolf teleport (neither of which I've used yet so idk how they work) so keep that in mind.

Oilerfan’s Fury/Rabies Wolf Guide

What this guide will be covering/Table of Contents:

1: Intro
2: Stats/skill layout
3: Breakpoints/Gear Setups
4: Tips/FAQ
5: Dueling Tactics
6: Conclusion

Intro:

Well howdy, recently I’ve been getting quite a few questions and positive feedback from my old guide, however I’m completely redoing my guide from the ground up as I’m not satisfied with my original (Written back in 2007 found here: http://www.diablo2.com/forum/oilerfans-pvp-fury-t1182.html )
Since the site I had posted it on is “apparently” going to be taken down due to inactivity I’m posting it here instead.

Now what you’ve all been waiting for…

Stats & Skill layout:

Stats:

Strength: Just enough to use your gear (Make sure all your setups are stated correctly as you’ll have quite a few)
Dexterity: Enough to reach maxblock in your lowest +dex setup
Vitality: Everything Else
Energy: Nothing

Skills:

Lycanthropy – Max
Fury – Max
Rabies – Max
Poison Creeper – Max
Oak Sage – Max

Any extra points should be put into werewolf.

You’ll also want to stat for ravens/spirit wolves/cyclone armour (If you find yourself lacking AR you can skip the 1 point cyclone and start dumping into werewolf early. I prefer this route)

Breakpoints and Gear:

FHR frames:

0% 7
9% 6
20% 5
42% 4
86% 3

You’ll be hitting 42 – 86 fhr depending on setup.

IAS calculators:

•Please note that wolves/bears will only benefit from oias (Non weapon/Non skill ias) at extremely slow swinging frames. Which is why they only get ias from weapons. (Realistically anyways)
http://home.comcast.net/~thedragoon/wereformadvanced.html
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=60602572&f=87 (Titanseal’s calc would be here but it’s censored on jsp so just go here) Credit to RaBBit3x.

FBR frames:

27% 6 (Non-Shael’d stormshield)
48% 5 (Shael’d)

•I suggest you try out shael/jah/jewel/whatever and find what you prefer as they’re all solid options.

Gear:

You’ll be using quite a few setups so if you don’t like swapping gear constantly then humph!

Helmets:

Jalal’s (ED/Dex/Res, 20 life/15@ res jewel or 7 fhr/stat/res jewel which will help hit 86 FHR with some setups most of the time however 42 is enough. DO NOT USE IAS JEWELS)
Coa (Ber Ber)
2 dru/frw/str circ* (Res jewels if it has base res to be used vs sorcs [Though I find Jalal’s is fine], if not 7 fhr jewel/Pruby for vs bowas/necs)

*You’ll want 20 str or more (which can be achieved with help from the jewel) on the circ so you can swap it with Jalal’s without hassle.

Amulets:

Highlord’s
3 shapeshift/100 life
Mara’s
Cat’s Eye/.08 Highlord’s/Nice craft FRW amu

Rings:

Ravens (Don’t stat on 2x ravens as you’ll be swapping rings)
Dwarf Star
AR/stat/life/res ring
Angelic
Bul-Kathos (Only used if you wanna buff your rabies a little more)

Armours:

Enigma
Bramble
Fortitude

Shields:

Stormshield (Jah, shael, or 40 ed/20 life)

Belts:

Verdungo’s
Tgods
FHR/ow/life craft belt (str/res are nice bonuses)

Boots:

Gores
Aldur’s
Rare 30 frw/tri res (Though aldur’s does the job usually)

Gloves:

Trang Oul’s
Bloodfists

Weapons:

Ebotdz/Grief pb
Eth tomb reaver (Zod 2x 40/15 or 2x 15 res/15 ias to hit 4 frame [I prefer 40/15])
Eth BOTD Great Poleaxe*

*Ebotd GPA is usually only used if you can’t find an Etomb as its 1 frame slower, has no +res and does overall less damage. On the plus side it’s got 1 range more than Cryptic Axe.

Swap weapons/shields:

CTA/Spirit
Death’s Web/4x facet Monarch

Inventory:

9x SS skillers preferably high life
max/ar/lifers with a few frw/res in stash to swap to
Torch/Anni

Setups:

1 hander (Vs Melee/WW/Smiter etc) – 86 FHR, 5 frame fury, 7 frame rabies, 30 frw

Jalal’s
Ebotdz/Grief pb
Bramble
Trang’s
Gores
Stormshield
Dungo’s
2x Ravens or 1x ar/stat/life/res ring + Raven (Use angelic combo vs high def characters)
3ss/100 amu (Again use angelic combo vs high def)
Dweb/Facet shield on swap

1 hander (Vs Bowa) – 42 FHR, 5 frame fury, 7 frame rabies, 145+ frw

Skill/frw/str circ
Ebotdz/Grief pb
Enigma
Bloodfists
Aldur’s (40 frw > 30)
Stormshield
Dungo’s
2x Ravens (or 1x ar/stat/life/res ring)
Cat’s eye/.08 Highlord’s
Dweb/Facet shield

•Use your frw scs

2 hander (Vs Elemental) – 42 FHR (86 FHR if you chose to 7 fhr jewel your Jalal’s), 4 frame fury, 5 frame rabies, 85+ frw

Jalal’s or skill/FRW/str/res circ
Eth tomby
Enigma
Bloodfists
Aldur’s or FRW/Tri res boots
Craft belt (tgods vs light)
2x Ravens if cold otherwise ar/stat/life/res ring (dwarf vs. fire) + raven
Mara’s or skill/FRW/res/life amu
CTA/Spirit on swap (Of course you can keep dweb/facet shield on for much harder hitting rabies, though I like the tankability CTA/spirit offers)

•Use your frw scs

2 hander (Vs Windy) – 42 FHR, 4 frame fury, 5 frame rabies, 75 frw

Coa
Eth tomb
Enigma
Bloodfists
Gores
Dungo’s
2x Ravens (or 1x ar/stat/life/res ring)
Highlord’s
CTA/Spirit (Same situation as above)

2 hander (Vs Hdonk) – 42 FHR (86 FHR if you chose to 7 fhr jewel your Jalal’s), 4 frame fury, 5 frame rabies, 30-75 frw

Jalal’s
Eth tomb
Enigma or Fort
Bloodfists
Gores
Craft belt
2x Ravens (or 1x ar/stat/life/res ring) 1x Angelic is sometimes needed
Highlord’s
CTA/Spirit

2 hander (Vs nec) – 42 FHR, 4 frame fury, 5 frame rabies, 135-145+ frw

Skill/FRW/str circ
Eth tomb
Enigma
Trang’s or Bloodfists
Gores or Aldur’s (More FRW/life vs ds/cb/ow)
Craft belt
2x Ravens (or 1x ar/stat/life/res ring)
Cat’s eye/.08 Highlord’s
CTA/Spirit (Dweb/Facet shield can work very nicely if the nec isn’t expecting rabies + golem is usually a very easy rabies target, though biting him will slow you down. Try and bite nec and use golem as last resort rabies)

•Use your frw scs

Tips and FAQs:

First off a couple small tips.

•Rabies spreads among opponents/summons if they touch, utilize this whenever you can. If you have rabies’d an enemy and they went off your map rabies stops working so you’ll want to keep yourself on their map when rabies is in effect.

•Fury is an “auto-aim” skill so long as your opponent is in your weapons range. Meaning if you are running one direction and someone teleports right near you instead of trying to try and click them to fury you can simply hit shift and then automatically start swinging in their direction.

•Death’s web in combo with a facet shield can add some serious punch to your rabies damage, however you need to “flash” them (Just swap them out for a split second then return to main hand weapon)

•It can be difficult to tell what weapon slot you have out if your WSGing and this may cause you to get caught without your fury weapon out, so I suggest smacking some fallens with your CTA/DWeb until they get that “almost broken” signal. This’ll make it much easier to tell what slot you have out. (Or you could just keep normal attack/throw and base it off that but a simple hotkey fumble can ruin this)

•Feral Rage is an amazingly useful skill as it can add mass FRW, it’s also extremely useful vs. summon stack druid/necs as unlike fury it only targets a single opponent. But wait there’s more! Feral rage (as well as rabies) can hit a target that is trying to run/walk away from you (whereas fury will just whiff).

Now for some FAQs:

Q: What about Cerebus or visio pelts?
A: Jalal’s is generally better as you won’t need AR that badly, not to mention your stash is probably 100% full at this point anyways. Visio pelts *can* be useful but they need to be top tier (2skill/10 fhr/3 fury/rabies/life/2 soc) to even contend with Jalal’s.

Q: Fool’s weapons?!?
A: More of a melee vs. melee thing (even then they need to be top tier [40 ias/280+ ed/fool’s/2 soc/eth/rep] to even compete with ebotdz, let alone grief lol) but a fool’s zerk (for rangeadder 2) vs. smiters (rabies n’ run) would be nice if you had that much room to spare.

Q: Ebotdz vs. Grief pb
A: Grief is the hands down the best melee weapon in the game, however Ebotdz comes in very handy with it’s range vs. WW barbs/smiters wielding a zerker (You eat less shit trying to hit them with ebotdz) Ebotdz also adds a considerable amount of AR.

Q: Death’s Web vs. 30/-30 facet weapon
A: The 30/-30 wep is better vs. res stacked chars (Which is the majority of them nowadays) however fitting a 6 socket weapon into a stash that is already crammed full of other gear can be a challenge (You’d have to sacrifice other useful gear) so Dweb prevails!

Q: Eld vs. Jah in SS
A: I looked into this awhile back and Eld gave slightly lower life (47 iirc) vs Jah’s 50, however the saved stats Eld offers raises your life in 2 hander setups, but those tend to be the larger life pool setups anyways so I opt for boosting the life in shield mode. (Though you can always soc this with shael or a neat jewel)

Q: 37x max/ar/lifers vs. 9x gcs
A: As a hybrid wolf you should only be using 9x GCs for the boost to rabies, but I’ll answer this anyways. Both are very good options it comes to personal preference. Take a gander: http://i48.tinypic.com/sdelgj.jpg

Q: Poison small charms any good?
A: No they suck.

Q: Why wasn’t your old guide on jsp?
A: It’s been on jsp a few times (However not posted by me) as for why I didn’t post it; maybe I hate jsp? Or perhaps deep down inside I knew it wasn’t cut out for jsp? Who knows?

Dueling tactics:

Amazons

•Bowas – You’ll want to pile on every piece of frw you have for these. Cast spirit wolves ahead of you to absorb incoming GAs if you’re caught off guard. Try and close as much ground as possible while keeping an arcing pattern to your run/walk so to avoid as many GAs as possible. I mainly only use rabies/feral vs. bowas as they can hit moving targets. Rabies will kill most zons in 1 cycle for the res stacked ones you’ll have to either get a second bite in or keep the pressure on with feral rage. Another way to approach this is equipping a stormshield (to keep maxblock) on both slots and using WSG to your advantage to help catch the zon.

•Light Java – A lot of them will try to toe to toe you with CS, use Etomb and the 4 frame will keep them in dodge/block/fhr lock until they die. Ones that utilize tele/Lfury you’ll want to rabies then avoid any Lfurys until Rabies has widdled them down to low health (At which point another bite or a good fury will end it) or has killed them.

•Poison Java – Avoid poison clouds and get in close (pure poison javas will have a very weak attack besides the psn jav) Smarter ones will mix in GA, Lfury, CS which will make it a harder matchup but as long as you avoid poison clouds (it’s fairly easy to dodge them) it’ll take the zon a long time to kill you giving much more time to kill them.

Assassins

•Trapper – Lots of FRW and Light res will be needed, using rabies on shadow whenever you can. If you get caught up in a mess of traps WSG out (If you can afford 2x etombs you may consider using both to WSG and not get caught with your dweb/cta out as you can’t tell what you have equipped in wolf form besides nearly a broken item on swap or if you have your skills different on each swap). Don’t forget to keep spirit wolves up to take shots from traps. This is an extremely hard duel if the trapper is any good.

•Hybrid (LS/WW) – Smart ones probably won’t even whirl you, but if they do use that opportunity to rabies them. Otherwise just like dueling a trapper.

•Ghost – Unlike hybrids these ones will have to whirl you, use rabies as soon as possible (Followed by fury if you’re not getting stunned by multiple traps) and if you find yourself taking a beating back up a bit and let rabies do it’s work.

Barbarians

•BvC/BvA/BvB – Rabies is your best friend vs. anything that whirls as fury has a hard time connecting against moving targets, if they’re clipping you back up and let rabies go to work, if they’re just whirling over you use fury. When a barb makes a long whirl it’s better to just avoid it as chasing it will probably just result in you taking damage.

•Conc/Zerk/Wolf barbs – Use rabies (never forget to switch trick) then go toe to toe with fury, if you find yourself taking to much damage reposition yourself (giving time for rabies to work).

•Singers – Use a shield as WC is blockable. You should be able to straight up out damage these guys.

Druids

•Windy – Rabies comes in handy in wiping out minions opening up a chance to fury them, but if you’re finding a hard time getting that initial rabies in it may be better to just click through summons with feral.

•Fire – Can be an annoying duel since fissure hits if you run/walk over it (Which you’re constantly doing) and armageddon can pack quite a punch once you close in. Rabies vs. minions then cut down with fury/feral.

•Hybrid wolf – Stack on poison res and hope your rabies, fury and res is better then your opponents. Reposition yourself if you find you’re getting out fury’d.

•Fireclaw/Maul – Bears just lack so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem if your res is good. Watch out for shockwave as it’ll allow them to FHR you to death.

Necromancers

•Bone – Up there with trappers/smiters for really difficult duels. Avoid getting smacked by golem as best you can. Cast spirit wolves to distract any bone spirits coming your way. Catching the nec can be hard but once you do they’ll usually go down in 1 good fury.

•Poison – Usually using fire golem (a prime rabies target) simply keep away from the nec and wait for them to tele too close to you (They’ll have to close the gap to hit you). If they’re using trang’s stack on frw and 1 rabies will probably kill.

•Summoner – Clicking through summons with feral is probably your best bet. Rabies vs. summoners isn’t too hot as the amount of damage a summoner can deal will probably kill you before rabies can kill them.

Paladins

•Hdong – Bad ones that constantly stomp will meet a quick death, if you feel they’re going to stomp take a couple steps south (You’ll want to stay south of them as best you can, try not to walk north if the hdin is close) and try and position yourself to be in their blindspot once they land. If their syncing predicting the synch and placing yourself ahead of them and the using shift + fury can be a good way to get some damage in. Some may carry grief or be a hybrid smite/hammer build in which case it becomes an even harder duel.

•FoH – They’ll be hard to catch (unless they suck), but if you stay out of FoH range they’ll have to approach you once they start coming towards you you’ll want to stop trying to stay out of their range and try and meet them half way to get a rabies in.

•Smiters and V/Ts – A really hard match, rabies and run is really all you can do as smite will beat fury every time. If they start saying “stop running” or the like just tell ‘em to go shove it.

•Zealers – Use rabies and toe to toe with them using fury. Rabies is banned in gm melee for a reason

•Chargers – Rabies and then don’t allow them any breathing room for them after that, keep pressuring with fury. Spirit wolves are useful against all paladins using charge as they’ll get caught up on them, so keep them up at all times.

Sorceresses

Dueling all sorcs is pretty much the same (besides orb that can be a tedious duel as it takes a long time to kill 10k life with orb and they don’t like to stomp). Bait tactics come in handy, head one direction until they begin to follow then quickly start heading straight back at them. Unshifting then grabbing an unsummon lock or similar then stomping -> reshifting -> shift + fury can work out nicely sometimes vs sorcs/necs but it’s risky as if you get caught unshifted you have much less life and no way to defend yourself ‘cept for an etomb chop in human form.

Conclusion:

I really suck at wrapping things up, so I’ll keep this brief.

All in all following this guide will make you a very formidable wolf, though they can be quite hard to get the hang of, stick with it and amazing things will happen (hopefully)

Some thank you’s:

US West/East Druid grove – not a cooler bunch of cats around.
US West Wolfpack – Weredingo, Kiba, BluntedReality, Jalal, Warwolf (I forget some other wolf names QQ) over west!
TheDOMINATOR@diablo2.com – inspired me to make my first hybrid wolf.
Myrddrall9@Jsp – Pre-read this guide to make sure everything was in order and bouncing some ideas back and forth.
Porkie@Jsp – Couldn’t put you with the wolfpack you silly bear, so you get your own spot.
Skeptical@Jsp – Helped point out some mistakes (fixed them ofc) on my old guide, which eventually made me make this.

Constructive criticism accepted!