Seems like this is as good a thread as any.  Hi!  I am a nigh brand new Oak player.  I've been reading a lot about him and I have a good idea on how I want to level his skills(emphasis on spirits and penitence) but I don't really know how I should be spending my money.  Does Oak need idols to be an effective general, or can he get by with spirits?  if you're going just spirits, is morale or minion boosting gear worth it?  Is Oak considered an equipment heavy general, or can you get by for the most part with just his skills while dumping money into the citadel?

These are the questions I am trying to find answers to.

tarranon.

if youre playing minion heavy, then go with monks (well , go with monks with any build theyre just sick) and go with minion enhancing items likt the haulberk and the gloves of del fur, as well as ring of divine  might favor item.  You will need some mana helms but no youre not very equip intensive. 

I can also highly recommend monks early on as an Oak. But the one thing you'd want to do is to somewhat keep them back and out of damage range when you're fighting in the frontlines. The M (Minion) and O (Regroup) keys are particularly useful to keeping them alive longer and summoning them when you need to heal up.

In particular, I like using higher ranked Priests as a sort of quick mini-healing center for nearby teammates when we're battling over a flag with the enemy. I position them a little bit behind us so that they're not completely wiped out by AoE from the enemy but close enough so that me or a nearby teammate can run to them. Granted, the priests won't heal them to full life, but sometimes it's just enough for them to take a sniper shot or special attack in order for them to run back to the healing crystal and escape death or enough to get back into battle. Surprisingly, this tends to happen quite a lot in my recent games.

optic -

wtf does the regroup command do?

Tells your minions to come to you if you manually place them somewhere.

I think this game is pretty balanced.  But if I had to choose one demigod as the most powerful, it would be Oak.  Since Oak has pretty much the most damaging auto-attacks in the game, strong minions and idols, an amazing penitance spell, and a shield, I think he is the best 1 v 1 character in the game.  I rarely engage Oak alone unless I'm playing Oak.  Well, or QoT because I can survive so well.

Yea, I just bought this game a few days ago, and I started with oak, maybe its just because he fits me well, but I havent had any of these problems you mentioned, of course, I am also totally comfortable with running like a chicken with my head cut off.

Its true though, levels 1-5 your basically stuck with just slowing the enemy DG's down/ creep killing for xp.

I love seeing a level 1 oak run at me with priests, I just eat them for free xp and gold... not to mention I'll have better gear cuz he wasted a few hundred on the preists... OM NOM NOM.

This is a bad strat. If you get preists, don't resell them they will just get killed by thte first decent player you see.

He has 2900HP...you're not going to get a kill, at best you'll drive him off if you've taken the same favor item.

Though I do agree reselling idols at the start is both poor form (it has been noted as an exploit by Stardock) and a waste of money.

Nothing quite like Hitting Oaks AoE ability to kill a wave a creeps, and healing everyone on your team in the area for a few hundred hit points.  That ability is good. It isn't high damage, but it is high effect.  Same with Penitence.  The combination makes for a good team effect.  Enemy takes more damage from everyone, friends get health, mana, and speed.

?? I played oak 2 times offline vs Ai, then i started palying him online, ip layed 6 games with by now online, and i won 5 of them. He is easy to paly for me, and i think in general too.

First, you won't even be touching the priests if the oak's micro isn't terrible. Second, they give neither xp or gold.

So have fun chasing priests into towers and them giving demigods 30 hp/s from level 1.