1.As others have pointed out Metamorphosis runeword is only usefull for druid right now due to the form buffs restricting the use of human form abilities when returning to human form. this ensures that Druid can’t cast his human form skills, and call to arms buffs, which limits the variaty of this runeword, to druid only.
I mean beast runeword with metamorphosis just for the buff is pointless, same way with folfhowl and metamorphosis on swap for barb it has no point if other barb abilities are unusable ( when returning to human form) during the time that metamorphosis buff lasts.
- Mosaic feedback:
While i appreciate the general idea of not loosing charge up skill charges, it will be very hard to determine how many charges there are left, when there’s a disco party on screen with all the multiple spell, curse auras, buff/debuff effects on there. all this might proove too distracting to notice how many small orbs are swirling around your assasin is it one, two, or three? besides the best way to utilise claws for kick sin is not by adding damage to the claws, since damage range comes from boots not the weapon, and sin mostly needs 40% attack speed on the weapon, plus fools mod and an additional attack rating roll -x% to enemy defense is a very good stat as well especialy when 50%+
even with perfectly made ar stats and a -25% to enemy defense via eth rune socketed to rare claws with perfect fools mod and perfect ar roll plus martial arts skillers, and 3/20/20 small charms one can’t reach 95% chance to hit uber meph, which is lame, checked via d2.maxroll.gg planer. and 20% ar is slightnly worse stat than -25% enemy defense tested by swithching back and forth apropriate runes on the rar claws socket +20% ar and -25% enemy defense…
So if you wan to make a hard hitter go for -75% enemy defense and huge attack rating boost. damage is irrelevant mostly since charg up skills sepose to deal next to no damage, and finishing mooves with the exception of dragon claw deal boots based dmg. the charge ups are prebuff to the finishing move.
3.regarding rest of the helmets:
I asume theese mid game runewords are gap fillers for the a3 merc buffs i was proposing, however the way the absorbs and poison length reduction are scattered amongst different runewords will not help.
I’ve done some additional testing, and came to conclusion that a3 merc, can stay alive if he’s equipped with uped eth guardian angel, stormshield, a both defensife/offensive circlet, plus 6x +5%/-5% rainbow facets sword and sundering power via passive.
the helmet i made for the purpose of merc strenghthening was a legit possible rar circlet 30%frw/20%fcr/75% poison reduction/2sox affix/two missing resses…
sox were 2x rainbow facets.
however it could be further perfected if there were like 3 new runewords:
30%frw
20%fcr
15% physical damage reduction
31lvl Cleansing aura when equipped
+30 life regen
and:
+10% lightning/fire/cold skill damage ( 1 of 3)
-10% lightning/fire/cold eemy damage reduction ( 1of 3 matching the element above)
plus only making a3 merc having sunder power to their native element as passive ( lore wise it’s even possible due to single element nature they learn to pierce enemy immunities of that given element).
This makes a3 merc a decent tank with semi viable damage.
stormshield and upped eth templar coat are larzuked + rar jewel -15% requiremets/10@res/+7fhr for both and one gets 30% fire and the other 30% poison as second resist roll since theese are lacking to cap the resists at 90% before reaching 94+ lvl. build is viable since lvl 82 as that’s when a3 merc reaches 133str required for stormshield with-15%req jool soxed.
build could be utilised as early as 73 but additional ~18 str need to be present on the helmet (73 is the min lvl for equiping stormshield, so it can’t go lower). the upped eth guardian angel with -15%req jool is 157 str but stormshield gives +30 str so it means at the needed 133 str +30 from stormshield, uped eth guardian angel will fit right in.
merc would end up with 90% actual elemental res 50% dmg reduction - to poison and curse duration ( main thing that normally killed him were low resistances caps amp damage and poison ( he acts like mobs and can’t regen life while poisoned) long poison duration, caused him to not heal for prolonged periods of time, and perish, amp dmg ate through his life almost instantly. cleansing aura would be here to help us.
2x+7 fhr means he’s just passed third breakpoint of 13% fhr. 30%frw definetly helps him to moove around while going from target to target and kiting AI, this asures he spends time engaging mobs than only kiting. i was proposing a boost to a3 merc’s native run walk speedin monstats.txt but 30%frw is also ok’ish. I settled on 20% fcr since circlets can give you this, and it wouldn’t nessecarily be best in slot for all caster classes. +/-10% is also not the best out there, however a3 merc is in dire need of the rest of the stats.