Fox powah?

Well, your best bet would be to read these 2 threads...

This is the arcane/robe guide stickied at the top: http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=234672

And this is the heavy/robe guide also stickied at the top http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=198681

The mage build is the easiest to follow from lvl 1. You can follow the heavy/robe guide from lvl 1, but it's hard to do from what i hear, since there's no stat allocation per lvl.

Reichle - Sanctuary wrote: »

I'm going fox too, my build is 6 mag, 1str, 3 vit every 2 levels
Got that build from the pwi wiki.

that's a typical arcane build with vitality. it has nothing to do with fox form.

VerenKaunis - Dreamweaver wrote: »

That's not a fox form build, it's a vit arcane build.

There's no real build for a fox veno since you aren't given enough stat points to use both heavy armor and a magic weapon for your level so you'll need to either find items with +mag/str or -requirement.

My new veno, which I'm leveling slowly, goes 5 mag, 4 str, 1 dex every 2 levels. She's 1 mag short of using a current magic weapon and 1 str short of using current heavy armor. I'll make adjustments every now and then if I find a really nice item in the auction (such as a piece of armor with -10% requirement and another -20% requirement which lets me skimp on str for a few levels) so even with a particular 'bulid' in mind you need to be extremely flexible with it depending on what bonuses your equipment will give you.

A light armor build would work as a cheap and easy alternative to a 'normal' fox veno build though. You'll get a bit of str and dex so your damage and accuracy in fox form won't be absolute **** (not great, but not terrible) and you'll get a bit of p.def from the LA.

Well, I still want to deal damage in human form. Fox is for debuffing in squad. O__O and fox doesnt necessarily mean heavy armor. the veno is a magic class...

I can't really point you to a good guide for fox form, since even the HA/AA guide has holes in it. I play mainly in fox form (yes, I melee rather then cast) but I'm also a decent enough caster.

If you really want to go with being mainly melee, your best bets are going Light Armor or Heavy Armor (though HA is really, really, really expensive to do for reasons already stated). If you decide to go Arcane Armor, you'll need to put a lot of extra points into Strength in order to have a decent physical attack stat.

How I do it: I went with a light armor build (translation: 3 mag, 1 str, 1 dex per level), because the added pdef allows me to take a hit if I take agro off my pet. The dex helps my accuracy (I rarely if ever miss, and the accuracy bonus of being in fox form is just insanely awesome), evasion (ok, this is less useful, since I still get hit most times, but I figured I'd put it out there anyway), and crit rate. (the crit rate also applies to casting skills, so I crit all the time with them, even if my base magic attack is less then a pure arcane veno)

I did the Light Armor build for one really simple reason: I could afford it while leveling up, AND I have a second set of Arcane Armor I always carry on me in case I need it. Because, sometimes, you just need the added mdef.

To help augment my physical attack, I have might rings rather then magic rings on when I'm in melee, BUT I also have a magic ring set for when I'm spam healing my pet while it tanks bosses.

I have also tanked bosses myself in fox form with a cleric healing me quite successfully when a barb or BM wasn't available as long as other party members held back initially to let me gain good agro. I am not nearly as good of a tank due to my inability to regain lost agro as a BM or barb, but in a pinch, I can do it. It generally involves shoving up bramble hood right at the beginning and spamming befuddling mist and fox wallop for a bit.

Advantages of this kind of build: (due to my level demon/sage skills are beyond my knowledge, so their advantages aren't listed)

1. Flexibility: Since I keep up on both my casting and fox form skills, I can look at any mob and not have to worry if it is magically resistant or increased defense, since I have something that can deal with that.

2. Survivability: I don't worry if my pet accidentally dies most of the time, I just attack the mob myself and use leech when I need HP. This works easily even when I'm getting mobbed by up to 3 things. With more then 3 mobs, it really depends on the mob, if I have any lag, and how 'on' I am at that moment in time.

3. Attack Rate: Aside from Fist BMs, magic instruments have one of the best attack rates in the game. Unless you use a pataka, your attack rate will be 1.25 attacks/sec without any negative interval gear. I always see numbers piling on top of each other when attacking, and as I've timed it, I take an enemy down just as fast in fox form as when I cast (barring any really lucky crits while casting when I 1 or 2-shot something)

4. Fox Form bonuses: Melee mastery is great. I mean, really great. The +120% weapon damage does great things. Also, the bonuses in fox form of added pdef (120% when maxed) and added accuracy (200% when maxed) allow light armor to be viable for venos in a way archers could only dream of. With heavy armor, this just becomes insane, and I've heard stats of something like 10K or 11K pdef with heavy armor at high levels. [slight edit: by 10K and 11K pdef, I actually meant 20K. We shall ignore my lack of catching that before.]

Disadvantages:

1. Pet Heal: yes, the main thing pure arcane venos totally kick my butt on is their pet heal. I can keep up with mine, mind you, but a pure arcane can tank bosses earlier then I can. My magic rings helps a lot, but I know I have limits.

2. Magic mobs: Well, if you don't have a set of arcane armor with you, these really hurt (even more if you have heavy armor only). I generally have to switch to AA armor when dealing with magic mobs, or at least do a blend of LA and AA.

3. People tend not to take you seriously at times: When working with people I don't know, a lot of times I'll get asked why on earth I'm running around as a fox and not casting, and they assume I can't take a hit. On the other hand, they stop questioning when I save the cleric from the mob running after him/her, soooo...

4. Light Armor is ugly. There, I said it, I hate how it looks, and this is why I have fashion. I don't know about heavy armor, but light armor is just...gah.

In the end, though, it's all about play style. I love running in and smacking things and stunning them with stunning blow, and just seeing the stream of red numbers fly up over the mob I'm killing. Makes me happy! I use negative channeling gear to help with my pet heal issues so I can get them off faster, and that helps deal with that issue in many ways. I do have a pure arcane veno as well, and I gave up on her when she hit her 40s once I realized that I preferred the flexibility of being able to both cast and do melee.

If you go fox form, make sure to keep your casting skills leveled as well, since you will find them useful (esp noxious gas due to it being aoe).

In summary: really, any veno build can work in pve, you just have to learn your own tricks on how to use it. If you want to focus on melee, then you need to add strength, because that's the stat your damage is based off of. You'll also need might rings to supplement physical attack. Play with it, see what works for you. It's a game, so have fun!

there are more disadvantages than those listed there (even more as LA) but there are plenty of threads about this and no need to repeat same things here

about what you said smurf, human isnt only for DD. you can debuff too.... ironwood, myriad, nova. human form has also all the surviving skills... hood, feral. what debuffs do you ppl use in fox? mostly amplify and soul degen if you are sage and paid for the book. no, befudding mist wont save anyone at higher lvls since there are mostly magic that kill ppl and mostly magic bosses plus ppl get more geared at 9x-100 so less chances to die to physical. even myself, im pure arcane with **** gear atm so almost 8k pdef buffed but its not the physical bosses that is annoying me but aoe debuffs and aoe magic

My daughter does fine in both human and robe form close to pure VIT, a little bit of DEX though. Here is what she'd be like endgame when I help her achieve these. Hopefully these are realistic. No refines on the first btw

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=fd8a808ee7dfb557 <-- human form
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=8bdcbf862ee54c04 <-- fox form
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=b099d1b4f0fd4763 <-- full buffs

Impressive for an arcane user IMO

Now with full refines
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=c60fbb76620b39f2 <-- human form
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=7e9ea7d874ebf503 <-- fox form
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=d0e4c8f0b1fb23ff <-- full buffs

Her veno have better survivability than mine but I'll deal more damage
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=c580cc785f519d26

LA melee? look at sins how they handle it but they also have skills to prevent hits or death.
its not only accuracy and crit (tho you dont really miss mobs even as arcane fox form, only in pvp) but also lower damage from lower str.
you are only 7x but you will see that there is no way you can have similar pdef/mdef as a robe, light armor is really not so good armor when it comes to defences and you want to tank with that armor?! i bet that i can tank better in pure arcane as melee fox. if you want that to work you really need much more refines than the other builds and better shards. my LA build that can hit more than HA is almost a joke and you could see that had better gear than other builds. also very expensive.

@solandri
i tought it was obvious that is in fox form and yes when i get all my gear done i hope i get close to 10k-11k buffed which is enough for me. staying with half or even less than half magic defences is a nono for me... not only that sometimes is bad in pve but in pvp is like asking to get 1 shot. even now with no pdef buff there is still more than 3 shots from a mob. hitting me for 500-700 damage... still long way to get almost 6k down. i do use leech too at some easier bosses, along with ST to have always plenty of mp. in a squad i try to take advantages of blue ball or group heals and do ST before for free mp :P

Barb or BM stat build doesn't work for fox form veno. There's this little matter of needing a magic weapon (or being bare handed) to transform...

every veno actually be a magical hamster.
b:avoid

Yulk - Heavens Tear wrote: »

My daughter does fine in both human and robe form close to pure VIT, a little bit of DEX though. Here is what she'd be like endgame when I help her achieve these. Hopefully these are realistic. No refines on the first btw

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=fd8a808ee7dfb557 <-- human form
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=8bdcbf862ee54c04 <-- fox form
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=b099d1b4f0fd4763 <-- full buffs

Impressive for an arcane user IMO

Now with full refines
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=c60fbb76620b39f2 <-- human form
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=7e9ea7d874ebf503 <-- fox form
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=d0e4c8f0b1fb23ff <-- full buffs

Her veno have better survivability than mine but I'll deal more damage
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=c580cc785f519d26

you know, if you would stop **** around with pwcalc making builds that require thousands of dollars and gear that doesn't exist, maybe you would be leveling a little faster. ijs

Kittennice - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Though I just go barehand and use fox for very few things, I do pretty well in it. I can give a heavy armor (pure/ no arcane stuff) advice, but I believe your best bet is asking the fox pros like Fiona. For I use melee weaps. XD

aw, thank you for that compliment!

In terms of weapons: if you want to use a magic weapon, you need to stat 3 magic points per level. heavy armor requires 5 str and 1 dex every 2 levels. So, put those together and you need for every 2 levels: 6 magic, 5 strength, and 1 dex. This is the catch of going HA and why people say you either need equipment with good adds, or equipment with negative requirements. If I recall correctly, by level 100 you somehow need to get: 300 magic, 252 strength, and 54 dex. This adds up to 606 total stat points. At level 100 you only have 514 stat points total (including the initial 20 you start off with). This means you somehow have to find 92 stat points (possibly 95 since you can't put your vit below 3) through gear adds. It IS possible, just bloody expensive. Someone who has actually done it would be a much better person to ask, since I only have the theoretical side, not the practical application.

kenlee wrote: »

LA melee? look at sins how they handle it but they also have skills to prevent hits or death.
its not only accuracy and crit (tho you dont really miss mobs even as arcane fox form, only in pvp) but also lower damage from lower str.
you are only 7x but you will see that there is no way you can have similar pdef/mdef as a robe, light armor is really not so good armor when it comes to defences and you want to tank with that armor?! i bet that i can tank better in pure arcane as melee fox. if you want that to work you really need much more refines than the other builds and better shards. my LA build that can hit more than HA is almost a joke and you could see that had better gear than other builds. also very expensive.

Venos DO have skills to prevent hits or death, they are called pets (esp with skills like roar (in pve), pounce, slow, and threaten), and if hit while in fox form, we have leech, befuddling mist, and stunning blow (to run away). Human form has bramble hood, feral concentration, and nova/lucky scarab (again, to run away). It's all about using them well.

As to damage, as I've said, I take an enemy down just as fast as a fox as I do in human form, and it isn't because I have slacked off on my casting skills.

And please read what I say before telling me I'm wrong. I specifically said that heavy armor venos have me BEAT on everything BUT accuracy and crit rate, but especially at my level it isn't financially reasonable for me to put the money into heavy armor. I also pointed out that the benefits of my higher accuracy and crit rate are insanely easy to compensate for through gear. But, without gear needing to do that, I almost never miss. As in, I might miss once an hour or so while grinding.

Also, a LA/AA hybrid has higher mdef then a HA/AA hybrid but less pdef. All of my gear is refined to +2 without me having to spend any money at all thanks to getting mirages from MQ and TT runs, and this is why I refine gear before I shard it.

Even with that, I don't pretend to be better then a HA veno build, but mine is much more cost effective thus far.

As compared to a robe? An AA veno has higher mdef then I do when I'm in LA and a marginally higher mdef when I'm in AA assuming the AA veno has a higher magic stat then I do. With my own armor sets I know this much: when I have on equally refined and statted AA and LA, my pdef in cut in half in AA. In order to get a similar pdef from AA to that of my LA, I would need to spend at least 15 million coin to get the shards, and I wouldn't have any sockets left for citrine shards. AND I still wouldn't hit the pdef of my LA. If I decided to spend that money on garnet shards in my LA, my pdef would get to around 3/4 of the pdef of unsharded HA. I just prefer HP shards to pdef most of the time, since HP gives better over-all protection.

I still am not saying that any build is better or worse, because they all have their flaws and benefits. But, until you tell me your exact build and level and I get to that level? It's all theoretical, and I prefer specifics to theory.

FionaAdamina - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I can't really point you to a good guide for fox form, since even the HA/AA guide has holes in it. I play mainly in fox form (yes, I melee rather then cast) but I'm also a decent enough caster.

If you really want to go with being mainly melee, your best bets are going Light Armor or Heavy Armor (though HA is really, really, really expensive to do for reasons already stated). If you decide to go Arcane Armor, you'll need to put a lot of extra points into Strength in order to have a decent physical attack stat.

How I do it: I went with a light armor build (translation: 3 mag, 1 str, 1 dex per level), because the added pdef allows me to take a hit if I take agro off my pet. The dex helps my accuracy (I rarely if ever miss, and the accuracy bonus of being in fox form is just insanely awesome), evasion (ok, this is less useful, since I still get hit most times, but I figured I'd put it out there anyway), and crit rate. (the crit rate also applies to casting skills, so I crit all the time with them, even if my base magic attack is less then a pure arcane veno)

I did the Light Armor build for one really simple reason: I could afford it while leveling up, AND I have a second set of Arcane Armor I always carry on me in case I need it. Because, sometimes, you just need the added mdef.

To help augment my physical attack, I have might rings rather then magic rings on when I'm in melee, BUT I also have a magic ring set for when I'm spam healing my pet while it tanks bosses.

I have also tanked bosses myself in fox form with a cleric healing me quite successfully when a barb or BM wasn't available as long as other party members held back initially to let me gain good agro. I am not nearly as good of a tank due to my inability to regain lost agro as a BM or barb, but in a pinch, I can do it. It generally involves shoving up bramble hood right at the beginning and spamming befuddling mist and fox wallop for a bit.

Advantages of this kind of build: (due to my level demon/sage skills are beyond my knowledge, so their advantages aren't listed)

1. Flexibility: Since I keep up on both my casting and fox form skills, I can look at any mob and not have to worry if it is magically resistant or increased defense, since I have something that can deal with that.

2. Survivability: I don't worry if my pet accidentally dies most of the time, I just attack the mob myself and use leech when I need HP. This works easily even when I'm getting mobbed by up to 3 things. With more then 3 mobs, it really depends on the mob, if I have any lag, and how 'on' I am at that moment in time.

3. Attack Rate: Aside from Fist BMs, magic instruments have one of the best attack rates in the game. Unless you use a pataka, your attack rate will be 1.25 attacks/sec without any negative interval gear. I always see numbers piling on top of each other when attacking, and as I've timed it, I take an enemy down just as fast in fox form as when I cast (barring any really lucky crits while casting when I 1 or 2-shot something)

4. Fox Form bonuses: Melee mastery is great. I mean, really great. The +120% weapon damage does great things. Also, the bonuses in fox form of added pdef (120% when maxed) and added accuracy (200% when maxed) allow light armor to be viable for venos in a way archers could only dream of. With heavy armor, this just becomes insane, and I've heard stats of something like 10K or 11K pdef with heavy armor at high levels. [slight edit: by 10K and 11K pdef, I actually meant 20K. We shall ignore my lack of catching that before.]

Disadvantages:

1. Pet Heal: yes, the main thing pure arcane venos totally kick my butt on is their pet heal. I can keep up with mine, mind you, but a pure arcane can tank bosses earlier then I can. My magic rings helps a lot, but I know I have limits.

2. Magic mobs: Well, if you don't have a set of arcane armor with you, these really hurt (even more if you have heavy armor only). I generally have to switch to AA armor when dealing with magic mobs, or at least do a blend of LA and AA.

3. People tend not to take you seriously at times: When working with people I don't know, a lot of times I'll get asked why on earth I'm running around as a fox and not casting, and they assume I can't take a hit. On the other hand, they stop questioning when I save the cleric from the mob running after him/her, soooo...

4. Light Armor is ugly. There, I said it, I hate how it looks, and this is why I have fashion. I don't know about heavy armor, but light armor is just...gah.

In the end, though, it's all about play style. I love running in and smacking things and stunning them with stunning blow, and just seeing the stream of red numbers fly up over the mob I'm killing. Makes me happy! I use negative channeling gear to help with my pet heal issues so I can get them off faster, and that helps deal with that issue in many ways. I do have a pure arcane veno as well, and I gave up on her when she hit her 40s once I realized that I preferred the flexibility of being able to both cast and do melee.

If you go fox form, make sure to keep your casting skills leveled as well, since you will find them useful (esp noxious gas due to it being aoe).

In summary: really, any veno build can work in pve, you just have to learn your own tricks on how to use it. If you want to focus on melee, then you need to add strength, because that's the stat your damage is based off of. You'll also need might rings to supplement physical attack. Play with it, see what works for you. It's a game, so have fun!

That seems about the same way I play. I spend about 50/50 time in fox and human. I first ran across the HA/AA build at lvl 60, and thought about restatting to it. But decided to restat to LA instead, because the HA/AA build seemed too much to handle at that lvl. I didn't like it at first, but after awhile i got used to it. I started handling things like i never thought i could. By lvl 80, I had made my final decision to restat to the HA/AA build at lvl 90. I've been collecting +stat ortaments, I have my mantle of ghost lord (TT90 cape) and my heavy set. Only thing left to do: Make my weapon. So really all in all, it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be to come across.

Ms_HopToIt - Sanctuary wrote: »

That seems about the same way I play. I spend about 50/50 time in fox and human. I first ran across the HA/AA build at lvl 60, and thought about restatting to it. But decided to restat to LA instead, because the HA/AA build seemed too much to handle at that lvl. I didn't like it at first, but after awhile i got used to it. I started handling things like i never thought i could. By lvl 80, I had made my final decision to restat to the HA/AA build at lvl 90. I've been collecting +stat ortaments, I have my mantle of ghost lord (TT90 cape) and my heavy set. Only thing left to do: Make my weapon. So really all in all, it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be to come across.

Nice! I keep going back and forth about restatting to HA/AA at lvl 90 myself, so it's good to know that it might be easier then I expected to do it! Are you going to be able to wear at-level HA with what you've found? That's my biggest concern, honestly. I'd prefer to wear armor that's my level along with a weapon that is my level as well.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Hyperbole is bad when you're trying to give advice, especially if it's not obvious and someone could take you seriously.

The pdef/mdef of the various armors works out to:
11% / 100% - Arcane (total 111%)
43% / 67% - Light (total 109%)
100% / 43% - Heavy (total 143%)

Light having (marginally) the lowest total defense while having a 2 stat points/level requirement is what makes most people frown upon it. With heavy, at least you're getting significantly higher overall defense for the 3 stat points/level it takes to wear it.

Whether the added defense is worth it depends on what you value. An arcane can put those extra stat points into vit or mag. In a one-to-one tradeoff between vit and garnet/citrine shards, the arcane pretty much beats light at everything except max pdef. And as you can tell from above, the difference in max pdef isn't that much since such a comparison also includes lots of pdef from ornaments and shards. That's why most people consider light an OK leveling build, but a poor end-game build (you tend to shard and refine a lot at end-game).

I never did finish a similar comparison for heavy.

Thank you so much for putting so succinctly what I was trying to say! My main argument FOR light armor at my level is that I don't want to need to refine and shard just for my armor to do what I want it to do. So, rather then spending millions of in-game coin in refining and sharding, I've been able to upgrade pet skills and buy other things as well.

I don't really expect to use LA if I ever decide to PvP, and I would definitely restat to HA/AA in that case. In fact, I sort of assume that once I hit 90+ I'll most likely restat to HA/AA.

HA/AA seems to be a build that requires money to make effective, so I want to wait until I'm much closer to end-game to acquire armor that I'll put that much money into, since at that point you need to put money into the armor anyway.

That same argument goes for garnet-sharded AA. Before end-game armor, I don't want to sink that kind of money into my gear. I don't cash-shop (with the exception of my herc, which I only finally acquired this week), so I'm not rolling around in money by any means.

Thus, as you said quite well, LA is great for leveling, since I don't have to shard it or refine it to get the stats I want. And, just to be clear, the OP is just starting a veno. Leveling up as a HA/AA veno would be painful financially, and the same goes when it comes to an AA veno who fights mostly in fox form (since she'd need to shard with garnets to avoid death when you're in the middle of the fray).

But, if the OP wanted to go AA from the beginning, I would then suggest statting 3mag, 2 str every level and occasionally throw in 1 dex at the cost of 1 of the str points with the intent of eventually going HA/AA later in the game. But that's only a suggestion, and it may be a bad one since I've never tried it myself.