What do you think of Cloak of Night favor item with Oak? I've seen it work pretty well.

As a life long Oak player, I will drop the simple suggestion of always get Shield 1 first.

As a life long Oak player, i would say that shield is overrated   (let the flaming begin haha)  I Fully expect RAwwwrrrrr to comment on this (as well as you Poly and i can hear Pacov cursing me now.  And my response is the same:  Don't expect  shield to save your ass when you screwed up by overextending

I must give Pacov, kalel, trouser, purge, paint, helle, rawwr, hedgie, homestaar, klaxius, kestr3l, kokujin, epi,  c-hance, r3d, mujahid (and others)  props for helping my game improve.  Thanks!!

Anyways, my qualifying statement:  for Epoch II:  347 games played (currently 64%) 297 games played as Oak. I prefer Oak or full support Sedna (and damn i would like to be her support bra)

I've used many different builds, from full  minion to assassin, with different favor items including cloak, wings, swift etc. etc.

This is the one that I found most effective.

I'm sure the next question is:  What is most effective? My definition is that with this build I have the ability to push an opposing demi off of a flag, maintain lane staying, guard a tower in a 2v1 situation, RTB as little as possible.  (although sometimes i will take an opportune moment to run back) and support my team.  As we all know Oak is a late game demigod support class and is Most effective at assisting creep waves to advance forward into enemy territory.  This means that the Oak will not be the top demigod.  I also find Oak to be the most expensive demigod to stay relevant.  I typically play generals anyways, but erebus, sedna and QoT can get by on a lot less than an oak.

This build works great for anything but Domination game type (inwhich case getting shield III and teleport seems to be the best).  For those that don't know, foul grasp, silence and mass charm penetrate shield until shield level III. Shield IV is only marginally better and shield 5 is a waste.

SO why do i think shield is a bit overrated? 

Getting shield II before level 10 consumes 30% of your skill points.  Most people use shield as an effective way to cover up mistakes and for retreats.  It is also used to bail out teammates.  It is short lived even at level III (6 seconds)( I've found that personally shield saves my ass about 10% of the time.  Why would I want to invest 30% of my available skill points to save my ass 10% of the time?  Shield is most effective though, at eliminating burst damage (ie hammer slams, snipes and fireballs) which usually occurs at the beginning of an engagement which means the player won't have it as an escape mechanism.  To shield or not to shield is always the question with it.  So why not adjust my play style to minimize mistakes and over extensions?  (oh i still make plenty of mistakes though lol)

Favor item:  Blood of the fallen, no exceptions. 

Oak isn't about running away he's about pushing and support.  Using cloak, teleport, swift etc. only assists in fleeing from a fight and they don't help you stay in the fight at all.  These are pure defensive favor items.  A 250 gold teleport scroll accomplishes the same thing most of the time (you just have to wait until the enemy is out of stuns).  Please note that ganks are nice with cloak / teleport but overall they are ineffective.  (hence the definition of effective above).  The player should be able to recognize when it is time to run before the need to use a favor item to save their ass.  (i'm still learning that bit myelf lol) The bottom line is that those favor items add no offensive or staying power which is what Oak is about. 

As Oak players know Oaks skills are support for the ole Axe swing (and teammates attacks).  Penitence is direct damage, an interrupt, a slow and a damage increaser.  Surge of Faith is direct damage and an attack speed increaser for not only yourself but teammates as well.  These two skills are the bread and butter of any oak.  Using penitence to stop a hammer slam, snipe, fireball is great fun.  Using it to interrupt a heal is even more funner (but rare lol).  My point is that they are they for initial minor burst damage with DPS follow up so increasing DPS and staying power is paramount.  Waiting until you and your teammate is autoattacking is the best time to use surge

Initial purchase:  Monks and recently i've been getting totem which i find quite useful.  The monks help tremendously with health regen when dancing or after pushing an enemy demi or even getting pushed back in a defensive position.  I can typically hang out at a tower, farm some creeps instead of running back to the shop.

Build:

1.  Penitence (doing my best to manage my mana, this assists in an initial engagement to push an enemy demi off of the flag.  This works for every demi but the most challenging at level 1 is a UB with Blood, Banded & Scale).  Don't wastefully spam penitence until you have Vlemish And Plenor.

2.  Divine justice (usually) this helps regen mana and health after pushing an enemy demi off the flag.  It's also beneficial to your teamates.  If i need a little more pushing power I will get Soul Power.  Divine justice has deminishing returns after level I.

3.  Soul Power or shield I.  This is dependant on how the game is going.  Shield is best against burst damage and burst damage at the beginning is not usually prevalent.  However there are plenty of times that i get shield at this point.

4.  Pen II

5.  SOF

6.  Shield (or soul power if not gotten before)

7.  Penn III

8.  Spirits I (get and park them at the base)

9.  Hold

10.  SOF, Penn IV

11.  Spirits II   12.  Spirits III  13.  Spirits IV  14.  Shield II   15 SOF   16 shield III etc etc. 

Item build out:

Monks as stated before.

Vlemish + Banded + Scale (I try to wait to RTB until i can get Vlemish + Banded)

Nimoth

Bishops (or high priests depending on what teamates are getting so healers can stack)

***at this point i can tower stomp without assistance without worries)It is preferable to follow up with a creep wave so the tower targets them first.

Plenor (vlemish is only good for 1 engagement and the mana regen on cata is damn slow, farming creeps is the only effective way of getting it back up.)  Of course on Leviathon getting Plenor first is required.

Hauberk (replace scale)

L4 Siege Archers

Groffling (replace banded)

Total Cost:  14120

Citadel upgrades, i get them when it is the best choice.  ie. we hit war score level 3 and need currency Asap etc.

And rarely:

Narmoths*** (replace hauberk)

Mage Slayer***

For an Oak narmoths w/o mage slayer isn't as effective since the hit rate is low (especially with being effected by SoF).  Mage slayer makes it shine.  This one time at bandcamp i was able to get Mage Slayer with Girdle & narmoths and it sure made me feel better than watching a girl with a flute. 

I try to keep some consummables on hand, sepcifically teleport and flag locks. 

So why not unbreakable boots?  Plenor and vlemish handle my mana needs, i would rather give something to the minions (hauberk)

Gloves are nice to have as well but I tend to health stack instead of damage.  It has always been more effective for me. 

Anyways, if you've read to this point I appreciate it.  I should get back to work now though.

Thanks!

Jason

aka:  Jongalt26 (demigod) & Ragnar (every other game)

Also, I can post replays if anyone is interested.

Your doing it all wrong. Ive found the most powerfull oak build mehehheh.

And yes, dont get shield.

Shield 3 is fantastically good. 6 seconds of stun immune time is truly an epicly powerful effect. It is the best 'rescue' effect in the game, since it guarantees continued support from a player for 6 more seconds.  They don't HAVE to run away, and can sometimes get off one or two more abilities, and auto attack of course. Only reason I hold off on getting it earlier all the time, is because it is much less useful in a pug match, where most allies just run away to crystal when they get shielded, instead of Dread Tanking.

Shield 1 can be the difference between life or death on an ally. It counters Spit, Bite, Fireball, Snipe, and any other status affecting attacks, and gives you the edge in combat. It can be used offensivley. Penitence doesn't really become too noticeable until you're doing 600 damage with it.

Poly, I agree with that, i've found that with BoF and monks though that I don't even use shield until a bit later in the game, hence not getting shield I until level 3 or 6.

Sarmis & Zech, those are excellent points.  Im assuming you would recommend getting up to shield 3 before getting any spirit levels? (when i'm playing against a stun spam team i'll get shield 3 asap but thats rare.)

I've found that the DPS and damage buffs for autoattack with a full compliment of spirits to be excellent.

Also Sarmis, if i post a replay or two would you mind reviewing them?  I should be able to get them up sometime tonight/tomorrow.

Here's a couple that are already posted (but i would prefer to post a couple new ones)

(If i remember correctly i think i made some mistakes in these 2.  i think my wife stopped in to talk to me a couple of times lol.)

http://www.gamereplays.org/demigod/replays.php?game=51&tab=upcoming&show=details&id=97584

http://www.gamereplays.org/demigod/replays.php?game=51&tab=upcoming&show=details&id=96869

What bombs are you interrupting at level 1?

I always get Penitence first.  The snare aspect of it is very handy, it does a small but respectable amount of damage, and it's handy if someone trys to sneak in a full pot.  But mostly, you don't need shield for anything - the only time you need that 3 second shield is if someone really screws up.  That penitence, however, you can use if your OPPONENT screws up.  And frankly, the latter is a lot more common.

Thanks for your constructive help. I'm glad you've gone to join the HoN community now, since you will no doubt fit in well... but why do you continue 'helping us' learn to play over here? Not that we don't appreciate the ultimatums you lay down for us, what with your magnificent 56% win percentage, but seriously... why?

I agree 100% with this.

Plus shield at level 1 is purely defensive.  What significant burst damage are you preventing by getting it? Removing Level 1 spit?  woohoo.

Hey Zech, Stack3d has posted a lot througout the forums and has helped quite a bit.  He's australian so he should be forgiven for his utter lack of tact & trolling lol. (No offense to the other Aussies lol)

We could look at it from a numerical standpoint though.

1 shield will stop all damage for 3 seconds.  Assuming a 1v1 situation against a UB (if you're in a 2v1 then you shouldn't be there)

Assuming each autoattack for the beast does 168 average and with his rate of fire is equivalent to 121 dps.  This means shield prevented 363 dps.

Assuming the UB spit at the beginning of the engagement doing an addiitonal 50 damage on impact and you used shield 5 seconds after he spit.  (i know this is a lot of time but it's best to pop the shield to reduce autoattack damage so the 5 seconds is the assumed time it takes to close the gap for autoattacking)

5 seconds of level 1 spit removed is equivalent to: 225 Hitpoints.  Now the moment your shield expires he's going to recast spit.  You have no counter for that.

Total damage assumed by the shield is 588 hps.  Which is quite a bit actually. 

2 casts of penitence is 400 hps.Their movement speed is slowed for a total of 14 seconds.  The amount of damage increased though autoattacking is increased by 7% for 14 seconds. 

Oaks average DPS is 110 so the increase of DPS over the 14 seconds is an additional 108 damage.  Bringing the total of damage output to 510 for 2 casts of penn.  588-510 is 78  This means shield by the numbers is a bit better than penitence at level 1.  Monks will certainly make up for the difference and if the UB has any favor item other than BoF then he'll retreat.

However, my personal experience is that Pen is more helpful at level 1 in most situations but perhaps maybe i'll start getting shield 1 against a BoF  UB.

j

numbers taken from:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pmbS09ByNPGE-hT1mq5_XBQ

http://www.demigoddb.com/

I'll also note here that damage taken by an oak is worth less then damage given.  Your monks heal a sizable percentage of the damage taken, but their heals certainly don't add to damage given - although they deal damage directly either way, of course.  This matters more against the stated BoF UB then it does against another general, of course.

ya.. would definitely suggest getting shield 3 over dj3 .. but I do go up to rally by 15.

1. Pen I

2. Shield I or DJ I (depends on which lane im in.. unimportant side - dj I.  fort / dmg side - shield I)

3. DJ I or Shield I

4. Pen II

5. Surge

6. Shield II

7. Pen III

8. Shield III

9. save

10. Pen IV + surge

11. DJ 2

12. DJ 3

13. DJ 4

14. Save

15. Surge + Rally

16 - 20 = Maaybe finish out shield.. usually includes Soul Power (w/out spirits yaya.. w/e where else will the points go w/ this build )

Shield III is quite simply amazing.  You can do w/e you want.. shield III and teleport out.  Great for sitting at their portal until they decide to come deal with you.  They bring in one person? NP fight them off. Oh, another 1-2 joined the fray?  Keep fighthing the first.  Fight til you're low.. if you are goign to die -> Shield III, caplock the portal and teleport out.  The whole time your teammates are doing w/e they want to as you've distracted the team.

Also great for any fight.. "oh you were going to gank me?  No I dont think so.."  They spent a teleport, and 2 people spent a great deal of mana on you only to have you leave and your teammate(s) are off doing whatever they want.  Or they don't choose to kill you but want to kill your friend instead.  That's great.. let him get to about 500-1k hp or however much you think you can get away with w/out him dying then give him a 6 second shield.  The whole time you nuke them.. and you gave him 6 seconds longer of fighting.  Oftentimes people will over extend to kill that guy who is sitting at 500 hp.. then they end up NOT killing him but dying.