The Wolverine Cookie-Cutter Build (1.10.186) dps leveling pve pvp wolverine
Guide by Divismal Last update at Jun 17th 2013, 04:07

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The Best There Is 1

1 60

UPDATED for Patch 1.10.186

The build experienced a number of changes due to my character progression (Level 49) and the changes in the current meta.

Changelog can be found at the at bottom of the guide.

I'll use this to spread some of my theorycrafting as well.

Feel free ask questions, make suggestions or just tell me that I'm a clueless idiot.

Here we go!

LOADOUT*

Bloody Slash/Quick Slash (Hotkey'd F1/F2 - Apply Bloody Slash, then spam Quick Slash)

Leaping Slash (Opener - only use to apply bleed)

Adrenaline Rush (Movement Speed & Dodge Buff)

Can't Keep Me Down (Break free from CC)

**Berserker Fury (Atk Speed and Crit Buff - refreshes on kill)

Regeneration Boost (Heal over time - always keep up)

Cage the Beast (Spirit over time - Use when low on spirit ( d'uh :D ))

Furious Lunge (Movement ability - can be used to interrupt boss heals)

* I'm not running a medkit on my hotbar as wolverine

** Berserker's Fury lasts only for 4 seconds - which might not be viable, if you don't run Dr. Dooms Medal which increases Power Duration considerably.

SKILLS

The Good

Bloody Slash/Quick Slash Bloody Slash is our bread and butter DoT, since the DoT can't stack, use Quick Slash as a filler)

Leaping Slash Really only useful to apply the bleed - well worth the single point

Adrenaline Rush 10 points grant us 31,8% movement speed and 9.6% dodge for 11.5s. Keep it up all the time and once you get used to it, you'll never want to leave home without it.

Can't Keep Me Down Since the enemy-affix "Freezing" is now working - you'll use this skill a lot

*Berserker Fury Took a large hit with the Doom Medal nerf - but still worth the single point

Regeneration Boost Our Healing Ability. Always keep it up. NOTE: The boost from spending fury on this currently isn't working. Try to use it while below 3 Fury.

Cage the Beast Added it recently. It's just too good in PvP and when you want to charge across the map

Furious Lunge Spending the 9 points in it gives us 9.6% Dodge while Adrenaline Rush is up. Starts to fall off quickly with additional points.

Feral Senses I love to see the enemies marked as red dots in Limbos or Group Challenges. It's optional, but I find it very useful.

Adamantium Skeleton I finally decided to spend 1 point in it for the initial knockback resistance. Some people suggested getting 10 points to get immune to every knockback - sadly this only works for lower level content. And even there it's only partially useful since we can charge back in every time.

The Bad

Rending Sweep/Scattering Rend Radius is too small on both, Scattering Rend deals decent damage but its knockback makes it to inconvinient to use.

Brutal Slash While its damage might be a bit better than spamming Bloody Slash, it drains spirit too quickly.

Smell Weakness The skill is currently bugged and even reduces your damage.I'll test it when the skill is fixed but even then it might be subpar (see stats section)

Adamantium Skeleton While the skill sounds nice, the current defense mechanics don't give you a big bang for your buck (See stats section). You may invest points from healing factor into it, if you really want to.

Unleash the Beast I only found it useful to test skills on dummies, so you may put a single point into. I would suggest just carry a piece of gear with that skill around.

Bloody Victory Its just far worse compared to Regeneration Boost

Feral Growl Didn't really test it much, but the last thing I want is scattering mobs all over the place.

Healing Factor I removed it since it was barely doing anything. Maxed out it grants 60 health per second - which is barely 17% of a single tick of Regeneration Boost and the life on hit is so marginal you'll never notice it.

I'm the Best There is You might think I'm crazy to remove it from the build but let me explain. While the damage might look good you can a) only use it below 50% enemy health b) it'll never hit a moving target and bosses in this game move a lot c) it has a cast animation, which means you could just do 2 normal attacks in the same time while being more mobile and safe

GAMEPLAY & ROTATION

In the current state of the game with alot of damages spikes and defense being a useless stat, Wolverines playstyle is all about Hit 'n Run.

You want to get in a fight, apply your bleed effects, get in some Quick Slashes and always be ready to lunge out of the fight once you take hits. You stay out of the fight for some seconds to let your healing abilities bring you back to full and charge back in. This is especially true for bossfights and group challenges.

In daily missions you'll be able to just outheal the enemies most of the time.

Standard Rotation:

Keep up Adrenaline Rush

Use Regeneration Boost & Cage the Beast when needed

Use Can't keep me Down when you get stunned, slowed, frozen

Use Berserker Fury when you have extra fury to spend

Use Leaping Slash -> Bloody Slash -> 5-6 Seconds of Quick Slash -> Repeat

STATS

Power Duration

The best stat you can get in the moment - it will extent your buffs and DoT duration from Bleeds. For unknown reasons it even buffs bleed damage and selfheal.

Dodge

In my opinion currently the best defensive stat to focus on, since almost every attack can be dodged. Hardcap is around 71.3% which is fairly out of range for wolverine.

Defense

Note: With patch 1.10.186 Defense on Wolverines Items have been increased by 100% - which doesn't change anything. And the text below will still hold true. They have to come up with a much bigger buff to defense to make it viable.

You'll get smashed at endgame content so it natural to think that defense will help you ,which isn't really the case.

For each point of defense or specific defense (eg mental defense)the damage from an attack will be reduced by 0.2 , but can never reduce an attack by more than 50% of its damage.

If you have 500 Defense and 500 Mental Defense and you get hit by a Mental attack that deals 2000 Damage you'll receive

2000 - 100 - 100 = 1800 Damage.

If you have 500 Defense and 500 Mental Defense and you get hit by a Mental attack that deals 200 Damage you'll receive

200- 100 - 100 = 100 Damage.(Can't be less than 50% of the initial amount).

Bosses in endgame mission will usually hit you for 4000-7000 damage - so you can already see what is the problem with the defense stat. It will help you against weak mobs (which you should be able to outheal anyway) and doesn't help you against against hard hitting enemies. No stat i want to focus on really.

Damage

Pure damage is a straight forward increase of bleed damage and normal damage - our second best stat.

Attack Speed

Might be interesting to stack since it shortens your attack animations, which allows you to stay more mobile.

Critical Strike

Everybody loves big numbers, but as long as Crit can't affect our bleed damage, I wouldn't try to stack it.

GEAR

Medal:

Dr. Doom (40-50% Duration and +damage) OR Modok (+70-100 Damage)

I still prefer a Doom Medal for the longer Buff and Bleed duration but both are viable.

NOTE: Be aware of the taunt effect that comes with the Modok Medal.

Costume Affixes:

I suggest defensive affixes. Go for Dodge Chance or % Base Health.

Costume Core:

I went for +1 Strength, but it seems to be bugged and only adds 1-2% Physical Damage. Durability would be a viable alternative.

Gear Stat Priority:

Power Duration = Damage > Dodge -> Health -> +x to skills -> Attack Speed -> Rest

Artifacts:

Once all artifact procs work, I would suggest Fist of Farallah and Vita-Ray Projector for their awesome synergy. Until that day just pick 2 from the following list:

Edge of Infinity

Vita-Ray Projector

Starstone Tooth

Fearsome Fist of Farallah

Xerogen Crystal

Changelog:

1.0 Initial Guide

1.1

Removed "Brutal Slash", "I'm the Best There is"

Removed Points in "Healing Factor"

Added "Cage the Beast", "Adamantium Skeleton"

Added Points in "Furious Lunge", Adrenaline Rush

Changed Loadout, Skills and Stats section

Added Gameplay & Gear section

Gramorum, Xrafice, SOKETH, playaboi, broot007, darkalex1421, Vioc, Kheld, ozerbefost, Asho, Zisthon, Malesur, Talisman, wrathnar, losludvig, Logan4, Kanglor, MidBlaze, Flowen, Maishogg

You need Login to comment.

Xrafice

on 25/1/14

You've had a ton of upvotes for this guide in the past... And you've done a ton of work on it. Would hate for it to continue falling into irrelevance. You should update.

Sekket

on 17/9/13

I really hope you keep this guide up to date or someone could i think overall this is an awesome little guide

Auscomando

on 26/8/13

DOES BLOODY SLASH CAUSE BLEED?

Sheppard77

on 12/7/13

i want to know how good is Wolverine actually with the recent updates. i'll maybe buy him but i dont want a boring hero, or a hero without any utility when end game comes. What do u think about that ?

EvilNorton

on 6/7/13

You have 20 points in Hack N' Slash, but no mention of it in the guide. Is this purely for the synergy? Or is there a use you're not mentioning?

The Wolverine Cookie-Cutter Build (1.10.186) dps leveling pve pvp wolverine Guide by Divismal Last update at Jun 17th 2013, 04:07