Zechnophobe

Join Date 04/2009

+57

Hybrid Beast: Any better version?

Favor: Blade of the Serpent. Starting Items Banded armor + health potion + totem of Revelation

Spit
Claws
Ooze
Spit
Grasp
Ooze
Spit
Ooze
save
Spit + Ooze
Inner Beast 1
Inner Beast 2
Inner Beast 3
Save
Spit + Acclimation

Item Buy Order:

Banded Armor
Health Potion
Unbreakable Boots
Nimoth's Chest
Hauberk of Life
Narmoth's Ring

I rarely if ever leave base with much money. Always keep a teleport or two on your for ganking (It pays itself back in spades) and a health potion or Sigil of Vitality (later) because fighting fair is for people who like to lose. I also pick up scale mail and/or gauntlets of bruatiliy with 'extra' money, but will always sell them off in favor of the HP items should I get the chance.

What do we see about the buy order? That's right, no MPS items. Why? Because blade of the serpent is very close to all the mana you will likely ever need. I now *always* buy a health potion when I leave base the first time. A lot of people see a low HP beast (only 2k hp to start) and think that means they can try to pick on him.. turn it around with a healing potion and you'll often get that early kill.

I have written elsewhere about the Sigil of Vitality, but want to reiterate here: It is a Fantastic item, and goes beautifully in a build such as this, one that likes to lure people into thinking they can kill you, and then popping an item for 2k or 3k health.

A few notes on play:

Early Game (1 through 4)

This is when you rely mainly on spit for damage, and that is also how you get your mana back with the blade (That and auto attacks). Try to sucker people into following you, and then spit/potion to seal the kill. Otherwise harrass with spit at most every opportunity. If blade is on cooldown, and you have full mana, start taking out DG's or towers.

Mid game (5 through 9)

Make sure you always get the most out of your money, and keep teleport scrolls on you at all times. You can help allies without even BEING there once the opponent knows you are lurking in the wings with an itchy teleport trigger finger. You have grasp, and you likely have 2 or 3 points in ooze to go with it, meaning you can tank some pretty impressive odds. Once you get 4k hit points, start keeping sigils of vitality on you.. they really surprise people. Use the Spooze combo: Spit on someone, turn on ooze, and grasp them. WHILE GRASPED activate your blade of the serpent (maybe 1 second into grasp) this will negate grasp and let you attack again. follow and spit again. Does an amazing amount of damage while limiting opponents retaliation. IN a pinch you can grasp and THEN spit to break the grasp. Point is, use your ability to break grasp to allow you to activate abilities while you know your opponent isn't moving.

Also a good idea to get Priest grunts in here, as they will help keep you going in between combats.

Late Game (10+)

Sigils, Teleports, Flag locks. All else goes to citadel upgrades. I know, you want an ashkandor, you want a Bulwark... but what you really want is to win, and that's what time it is. Push and defend flags, lock and teleport, or just kick it there next to the portal. Push any advantage you can and you should wrap things up quickly.

Final thoughts: On turning a loss into a win.

As much as we like to strategize around best case scenarios, sometimes those aren't the ones we have to work with. Perhaps someone on your team doesn't know how to stay alive, perhaps the opponents are all just... really good. Maybe someone dropped. What do you do when things go south?

First, remember the fine line between fight or flight. It is easy to get used to 'fight' being the default approach... but you still have Spit, and you can still use it for harassment against a foe too strong for you to 1v1. In these cases, consider a wand of speed to add to your arsenal.

Sometimes what you need however, is to keep an ally alive who can't do it by themselves. It is a difficulty proposition, but occasionally your best strategy is to baby sit a bit. Bad players may be hard to deal with, but often if you are around, and acting competent, opponents won't try to 1v2 you guys, and either force a bigger confrontation (2v2... which is a lot easier to win than a 1v1 would be) or prevent them from ganking outright. It is a bit humiliating, but this can work.

Anyhow, I'm fairly certain this is about the best build for Beast right now. Most people who argue about 'pure ooze' builds being at all good talk abou the need for mana items, and giving up weapon damage for them. Blade gives damage, and then you only buy health items. Also, any health difference is quickly made up with spit damage (If pure ooze takes Blood of the fallen, a single rank 2 spit negates it). Passive move speed boosts are nice... but rarely do you get as much out of those as another thousand or so damage.

So go for it, try to show me a build that's better, I'd love to see what people have come up with.

Locked Post +2 Karma

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

NATfcltatr
SoFFacet

Ok, heres something that I wanted to keep secret but what the hell... First off, I see people argue spit/ooze is better. Why not get both (iron man rules!)? Then theres the hybrids which water down what the predominantly spit or ooze builds have as strengths.

What made me decide to do my build was max effectiveness throughout all levels, like you, but... the moment it is available you should capitalize on both. I basically get spit for lvl 1 for early psychological harassment, then ooze. Save 3 and then at lvl 4 get both. basically any time your 2 levels behind the next spit/ooze upgrade, save a point. If your running and not getting kills or creeps as needed, your going to suffer from the item/level deficit. Its pretty bad when your running from Sedna throughout the first 5-7 levels. Embarassing really.

My build boils down to getting foul grasp at level 5. At level 8 diseased claw because you get the most effect from lvl 1. By level 10 you will have both spit/ooze maxed and will be taking down buildings or killing demigods. Lvl 11-13 you will get inner beast.

Now I know im going to get criticism for saying to wait on the inner beast but the stat boosts barely help you till your doing good damage. Also if everyone is running from you, 1 on 1, wyrmslayer will be more effective than the speed boost which can get nerfed by other DG abilities/items. Lvl 14 save if you want the Spit AOE 15 skill. Believe it or not this skill isn't too bad on wasting other DG minionswhile your fighting him or if your attacking a structure your still doing 100 dps on anything that attacks you, like enemy creeps. Obviously at 15, acclimation is THE skill to get. After this its all up to you. I usually get stat 1-5. If you forego spit 5 you can get stats up to 6.

The second part of my build which is almost as important is the items. BOTF is a safe bet for a favor item. Heavens wrath is also a really good choice being that one of UB's issues is leveling fast. You can hunt another lane of creeps at the same time. Out the door, you want banded armor and scalemail helm since you want to keep your trips to the crystal as few as possible. Dont sell them back, in fact dont sell anything back until you have no more slots for new equipment. Beginning items have the best gold per hp/mana ratios available. Next items, unbreakable boots, nimoth chest. One I havent experimented with but will soon is the sludge slinger. If it stacks with your ooze your going to have 70% damage resistance because of the slowdown of enemy demigods attack speed. its like 750 gold, wtf? At this point you can either sell back the banded armor for the narmoth ring or if your running out of mana sell back banded for vlemish. Then scalemail for narmoth. Next buy mageslayer. basically sell back the item that you need less. At this point, your lifedrain plus your health per second is going to last you through any fight. Finally, the orb of veiled storms. Since you dont have post mortem its a nice aoe with 50 mobs on you.

At this point of your build, if your not able to take 2 demigods at once, you should try tiddlywinks or scrabble. Your health regen through health per second/lifedrain is ridiculous. I have destroyed 3 demigods at once. On nightmare tournament I can stand toe to toe with 2 lvl 20 DG and not die. Its when I run that I die because my lifedrain stops. So far, the only demigod I can beat nightmare tournament with is with UB and this build.

Successfully updated karma reason!

By the way, Zech, you have now posted several threads within only a few hours of eachother, all quite accurate regarding builds, balance, items, etc. I am often caught thinking "I couldn't have said it better myself." These posts will hopefully raise the overall level of play in the community as newer players learn from more experienced ones. Well done, +1.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting SoFFacet,

reply 2

The only part of your build that will stoke major debate, I think, is BotS. I personally have never tried it so I'm not really in a position to tell you that its worse, but having 800 less HP at level 1 would make me nervous. But tell you what, I'll get my partner to try it next time we play. He plays a BotF Hybrid all the time, and we'll report back on the pros and cons of each.

By the way, Zech, you have now posted several threads within only a few hours of eachother, all quite accurate regarding builds, balance, items, etc. I am often caught thinking "I couldn't have said it better myself." These posts will hopefully raise the overall level of play in the community as newer players learn from more experienced ones. Well done, +1.

The issue comes down to WHO you are facing on the opposing team. With the squishies lined up on the other side the BoTS is awesome and you can still stack HP out the wazoo too.. hybrid you can fill you bar with ooze alone on a tic for the creep wave..

You really need to pay more attention to the HP which is sometimes hard to adjust to, after Blood of the Fallen for so long..

But this blade played hybrid is quite good

Successfully updated karma reason!

ur build BLOWS

Successfully updated karma reason!

i use this build quite often with some minor variations.

variant 1:

favor item Blood of the Fallen

will utilize Scaled Helm (at start) which is upgraded to Vlemish Faceguard (midgame)

this variant provides greater early game staying power and i find it preferable against strong harrassing opponents such as enemy Beast or Torchbearer.

variant 2:

skill order changes

Ooze built up at levels 6, 8, 9, 11

level 3 point saved

level 5 spent on Post Mortem and Foul Grasp simultaneous

Post Mortem is useful for faster creep farming. its optional most of the time but i sometimes enjoy having it, particularly if the other team buys creep upgrades somewhat early. i find that its uncommon to get much use out of ooze before level 6 anyway so this build doesn't lose that much.

Successfully updated karma reason!

GG.. sorry about your Regulus teammate.

After Spit 2 I generally stop in the hyrbrid. It's only really good for early game harrassment, or finishing a kill. Spit 2 doubles the damage of the first one and is really powerful at level 4. After that I can't find the mana to support spit and grasp with the Scaled Helm and boots. How did you like the pots against us? I remember seeing this topic before our game .

Successfully updated karma reason!

Zechnophobe,

That's the identical build I use. I've had pretty good success with it so far. I would actually throw in a nature's reckoning. It's very cost-effective direct damage that is *AOE* and it adds to your mana base, which helps BotS. Mana + direct AOE damage makes this item a good idea for a BotS hybrid UB. UB has the highest attack rate if I'm thinking correctly, so that increases its DPS.

As long as your teammates have Blood of the Fallen, you should be fine. If you choose Blood of the Fallen, you will usually need a mana item to run spit and foul grasp. By using Blade of the Serpent, you leave your gearslots open. It's a tradeoff that doesn't pay off until later, but I think it's worth it. Spit UBs usually play "Hit and Run," so pretend to be a Spit UB until you can get decent gear. Then you run both out the wazoo and beat straight-up Ooze UBs hands-down.

I've also tried using Essence of Magic. It's not a bad choice, but I think BotS is probably better still. You can still get off a ton of spits early game with it. If you're going to run Bestial Wrath along with Spit and Ooze, Essence of Magic is a better way to go. The problem is everyone runs as soon as they see Bestial Wrath. Getting people to engage a Spit+Ooze+Bestial Wrath UB is well nigh impossible. The best part of Bestial Wrath is rank 5, where your speed can't be reduced for 10 seconds.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Epiphenomenon,

reply 7

Zechnophobe,

That's the identical build I use. I've had pretty good success with it so far. I would actually throw in a nature's reckoning. It's very cost-effective direct damage that is *AOE* and it adds to your mana base, which helps BotS. Mana + direct AOE damage makes this item a good idea for a BotS hybrid UB. UB has the highest attack rate if I'm thinking correctly, so that increases its DPS.

As long as your teammates have Blood of the Fallen, you should be fine. If you choose Blood of the Fallen, you will usually need a mana item to run spit and foul grasp. By using Blade of the Serpent, you leave your gearslots open. It's a tradeoff that doesn't pay off until later, but I think it's worth it. Spit UBs usually play "Hit and Run," so pretend to be a Spit UB until you can get decent gear. Then you run both out the wazoo and beat straight-up Ooze UBs hands-down.

I've also tried using Essence of Magic. It's not a bad choice, but I think BotS is probably better still. You can still get off a ton of spits early game with it. If you're going to run Bestial Wrath along with Spit and Ooze, Essence of Magic is a better way to go. The problem is everyone runs as soon as they see Bestial Wrath. Getting people to engage a Spit+Ooze+Bestial Wrath UB is well nigh impossible. The best part of Bestial Wrath is rank 5, where your speed can't be reduced for 10 seconds.

Occasionally I use Bestial Wrath as a scare tactic. Maybe I'm not doing too great, they come to get me in my lane, I roar and make lots of noise... more often then not if isn't Oak or a ranged DG it just might scare them off. Even if it is Oak, he's liable to 'waste' a shield as a panic-move.

That said, not really worth it to put more than one point into it. Though BW is also good for Fortress maps...

Successfully updated karma reason!

BotF is overrated. Sure the HP is nice, but any amount of good kiting and smart play and you can still win a battle of attrition against a BotF opponent with other favor items. Also 800HP is not so useful late game as opponents DPS starts to get pretty high. BotF does not scale like BotS or other favor items that continue to stay effective throughout the game.

I also usually play a BotS hybrid beast build, but I hold off on the Ooze until I have the effective HP gear to commit to melee battles, usually around lvl 8 or so I will start Oozing. Until then I focus on maxing spit, along with 1 point in diseased claws, foul grasp, and 2 points inner beasts (you will be mostly hit and run until you start ooze). I may pick up Ooze earlier if the opponent buys priests at the citadel to get some aoe (I skip post-mortem entirely).

Bestial Wrath is awesome for VERY late game (Lvl 15+) but for most games it is useless. I'll usually only reach levels that high in a tightly contested Zikurat match.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting SleepyForest,

reply 4

ur build BLOWS

reported for trolling.

By the way, this guy always delivers derogatory 1-sentence remarks just for the fun of it.

Click the report button to get rid of him.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Looks like a real, best of both worlds build, im gonne try this one for sure!

I tried both seperatly, full spit, or full ooze , en just took up BW later in game. But with ooze i kinda god chased by reg, tb, and with spit i got owned by end game creeps, mininon builds.

So this looks promosing.

Thx.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I've only just started playing Beast, but I think builds I've tried closer to this one have always proven more effective. I find myself putting one or two points in spit to scare people, but after about level 5, most players are durable/smart enough not to get killed by it; I find Ooze to always be a good investment once you have the health to support it. I didn't think to try BotS, but that would make it more viable to keep leveling up spit, since I could more easily keep it up. I guess taking it over BotF would mean that I would have to hold off on Ooze for just a bit, since I won't have the health/regen buffer to make it work early on.

I also find that I often don't put points in BW, and I only put a point in PM if I'm fighting several generals (koff koff, erebus minion spam, koff koff) and need to mow through minions before they have time to do anything about it.

Lemme ask you this, though: what is your opinion of taking Imp. Attributes? As good as UB's passives are, since he only has 2 skills you'd ever invest more than 1 point in, i figure you might have a few points lying around, and UB's the kind of DG that could benefit a lot from the bullying power that Attributes give; depending on the stat, they're worth anywhere from half a level's worth of stats to three-quarters of a level, which can turn a shaky lead into a solid one, or let you recover from falling behind.

Lastly, can someone set me straight: damage from Ooze doesn't trigger lifesteal or any of that crap, right? That would be pretty silly...

Successfully updated karma reason!

Damage from Ooze does trigger BotS

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting jonthemon,

reply 13

Damage from Ooze does trigger BotS

It even triggers on the damage that UB takes from Ooze. How cool is that?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Shade,

reply 6

GG.. sorry about your Regulus teammate.

After Spit 2 I generally stop in the hyrbrid. It's only really good for early game harrassment, or finishing a kill. Spit 2 doubles the damage of the first one and is really powerful at level 4. After that I can't find the mana to support spit and grasp with the Scaled Helm and boots. How did you like the pots against us? I remember seeing this topic before our game .

The worst part about that game was me misclicking and taking inner beast at rank 3 instead of ooze. It was so demoralizing, that I cursed myself for a good 5 minutes afterwards. And yeah, I think erebus/beast isn't quite as good as Sedna/beast .

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting jonthemon,

reply 13

Damage from Ooze does trigger BotS

Quoting Epiphenomenon,

reply 14

It even triggers on the damage that UB takes from Ooze. How cool is that?

AWESOME!

I hereby christen the UB + Ooze + BotS build "Gunksaber".

Successfully updated karma reason!

I think this is a great build but I don't think you should limit yourself to just one favor item. You should also try grabbing gauntlets of brutality, scalemail armor, and a combat potion for the first items on cataract. Rush the xp flag and if the other team shows up you tear them up with the extra 50 autoattack.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Just tried this build out on a friend that always plays UB. It was such a good build it overwhelmed his. Thanks for sharing this amazing build.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting DoctorAwesome,

reply 16

Quoting jonthemon, reply 13Damage from Ooze does trigger BotS

Quoting Epiphenomenon, reply 14
It even triggers on the damage that UB takes from Ooze. How cool is that?

AWESOME!

I hereby christen the UB + Ooze + BotS build "Gunksaber".

With a name like that I feel compelled to try it out...

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Aroddo,

reply 10

Quoting SleepyForest, reply 4ur build BLOWS
reported for trolling.

By the way, this guy always delivers derogatory 1-sentence remarks just for the fun of it.

Click the report button to get rid of him.

They see the post and see my reply and realize what I had to say is crude but valid, dummy

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting SleepyForest,

reply 20

They see the post and see my reply and realize what I had to say is crude but valid, dummy

You used to have some type of reasoning behind your bashing but now your contributions are just lazy and worthless.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Any reasoning behind going Totem of Revelation, BTW, and not going Banded/Health/Tele Scroll at level 1? I find an increasingly common tactice among assassins (or rather, "non monk buyers") is to buy a tele scroll and tele to the front for an immediate flag capture, normally gold mines, or the health flag on Cataract, the debilitate flag, etc.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I just figured out that Ooze works while Orb of Defiance is active.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting TormakSaber,

reply 22

You spend too much time waiting at the item shop if you get health + teleport... and unless you are going to make up the time on teleporting to flag (Kinda a waste) I think saving the last bit of money to get your first real item a smidge early is worth it.

A lot of the first minute or two on any map is racing to be the first to cap and hold flags. A flag cap that is uncontested, or defended, is halfway to level 2 afterall, and only for your team.

That said, Zikkurat is a special case due to its starting gold mines, and I think getting the pot, tele, AND totem before leaving are not too unreasonable.

Successfully updated karma reason!

You have to wait at the item shop? Banded is 500, and Tele and Health are both 250, right? That's an even 500. Or if you go scaled armor you save 50 gp and could get your observation totem anyways.

I've never needed to wait at the item shop to grab my usual banded/tele/health kit as UB.

Successfully updated karma reason!