Hello,
I run a sumonner druid with armageddon as support damage.
My question is about which of the two runewords listed above do you think would provide more dmg overall?
I know my spirit wolves and armageddon would benefit from infinity vs dire wolves and bear for Pride.
Which do you think is the better choice?
I would have tested it myself but I don’t have the runes yet.
Btw I use an act 2 merc with might aura and equip him with eth reaper’s toll right now , but as soon as I get the runes for Pride and Infinity I wont use it because I also have a way to cast amp damage.
I think pride with might merc is probably a lot more damage.
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In my experience Infinity is the way to go for both physical and elemental damage. Infinity removes more than 80% of monster’s defense on top of removing more than 80% of elemental resistances.
Pride’s use is limited and best turned into a necro’s Iron Golem (not made with Iron Golem charges).
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I did not know about infinity lowering an ennemy’s defenses.
That’s good to know!
So ultimately it would still help my dire wolves and Grizzly while breaking most fire immunities and increasing spirit wolf and armageddon damage.
I think the choice becomes easier to make ahah.
Thanks
Be aware that Infinity doesn’t actually break a LOT of fire immunes as well though. It mainly lowers the resists of non immunes for fire. It’s still probably one of the better options, but it might not put in quite the work you’d hope.
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Yeah it was either armageddon or hurricane as support dmg.
There’s a lot less breakeable cold immunes in the game from what I’ve read compared to fire but you’re right that I should manage expectations about breaking immunities.
Would you still go with infinity over pride?
Depends a lot on your setup.
Infinity lowers defense which helps a lot for damage output, but if your summons have enough attack rating the infinity’s lower defense becomes less effective in comparison with the damage boost of Pride.
In my calculation when I used Beast and Hearth of the Wolverine, the damage output of the Bear and Dire Wolves (with insane gear at lvl 99) dropped by around 20% when switching from Pride to Infinity with Uber D as a target, almost all other monster this will be more.
If you don’t use Beast and Heart of the Wolverine, this drops fast as the attack rating of your pets becomes lower, just like when your pets are lower level (Bear and Dire are lvl 45 with Spirit Wolf 42 in this example).
Think your best option is put your character in this builder.
As compleet as possible, summon all your pets, pick a likely opponent (don’t leave at the target dummy), give your merc one of the two weapon and check the effective damage of you main damage pets.
Then switch the mercs weapons without changing anything else en see what happens to the damage.
You can also check you own damage and take it into the equation.
Mind you that if you change gear on your character or skills, resummoning the pets is a good thing to do, the planner allows for buffing so the pets will not automatically update to the current setup.
ht tps://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/
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What Infinity offers:
- works with Ravens, whose are unaffected by any aura and if I recall Heart of Wolverine, by lowering defense.
- helps your Spirit Wolves in similar to Ravens way, by lowering defense, and also lowers enemies’ cold resistance.
- strengthens potency of your fire spells, and breaks some fire immunities.
- gives 40% Crushing Blow for your mercenary.
- gives 35% faster run/walk for your mercenary.
- can’t remember what Conviction level minibosses have, but it might be lower than 12, and therefore Conviction provided by your merc will counter enemy’s one.
What Pride offers:
- 285-345% increased damage with 20% chance to be uninterruptible. This however affects only bear and dire wolves. Technically you as well, but from what you write you don’t deal physical damage to benefit from the aura.
- occasionally casts Fire Wall, but in summoner build the mercenary won’t be attacked often.
- increases attack rating significantly, but only for the mercenary. Conviction aura offers similar effect, but for whole party.
So, if you focus only on dire wolves and bear, and you don’t use Heart of Wolverine you might consider Pride, otherwise Infinity wins hands down in my opinion.
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Thanks a lot for all the replies gentlemen.
Man…as much as I wanted conviction I think I have to go with the pride runeword. Lower defense from infinity is great but my summons dont really struggle with that to begin with.
This sucks because even if I wanted to get lower resistances from a plague it would cancel out my amp damage 
.
Ah well. Part of what makes the game interesting. Have to make choices.
Im still gonna test out both as suggested when I get the runes but on paper, for a dedicated sumonner pride seems to be the better fit.
Definitely infinity, pride is garbage.
Even considering what others have said you would maintain pride is inferior in every scenario?
TBH I’d probably go Infinity just for the CB. Bosses are kind of your weak point and CB is going to help a LOT with that.
A Might merc with Infinity can solo clear hell Chaos in a 5 player game, including Diablo, if he is wearing either Duress, Fortitude or CoH, plus being equipped with a well rolled Blood Armet socketed with any damage type Jewel of Fervor. The only issue he’ll have is with IP, which is easily solved with Amp or Decrepify charges on switch.
Pride only increases unenhanced physical damage. A 19K ww damage barb is elevated to 22K ww damage with a Pride merc, yet the 19k damage barb clears Chaos and Throne faster with an Infinity merc. This is a 7 second example as to how good Infinity is with physical damage. That’s hell Diablo being killed in less than 1 second.
Interesting…is it because of Infinity’s crushing blow? Or because the barb’s 19k damage is somehow enhanced diferently and better than pride’s concentration?
Dammit there’s no way around this I’ll have to test both
Lowering monsters defence to 17% (Infinity) is better than increasing raw physical damage 345% (+20 Concentration Pride). The highest raw physical damage in the game comes from an eth Thunder Maul at 210 max damage, which +20 Pride increases to 724.5. The 210 eTM max damage is increased by Mace Mastery and WW, which I haven’t added in, but it is how Pride increases WW 3k – from 19k to 22K on the character I mentioned.
Hell Diablo’s defence is 2534, which is reduced to 431 by Infinity. Then add in the CB from Infinity and whatever the character happens to be using, and Diablo’s almost 114k hit points gets knocked down to 10% virtually instantly, which is where the 19K per hit from WW finishes him off. There are many other damage factors I’ve not included such as multiple sources of ED and double damage. Also, the TM max damage rarely hits as it has a 1 in 147 chance to be applied.
A side note: we are discussing the most powerful character in the game. It’s a character that can theoretically deal more than 600K physical damage with one cast of Whirlwind, but more often than not deals 50K to 100K per cast of WW, which also depends on all hits connecting.
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Ty for taking the time.
Very educational. The majority here agrees with you that infinity hands down is superior.
Well…let’s resume rune hunting!
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Idk you said you play summoner and Armageddon. You said yourself your pets don’t have a problem hitting creatures, Dire wolves are only 3 pets that deal cold damage, and I don’t know how much it would help hurricane if your investing more points into pets and Armageddon and also that infinity wont break many fire immunes. Players sound like they want you to depend on a mercenary as if you’re not relying on raw physical damage from pets.
I figured you be going for primarily physical damage from pets with heart of the Wolverine but it sounds like you’re leaning towards a hurricane Armageddon build that will benefit more from infinity. Anyways choose whatever kills faster.
Edit; sorry spirit is cold damage. Not dire wolves I am very bad at arguing for druids I never play them. Good luck!
Also according to max roll they recommend using a Reaper’s Toll for summon Druid with maxed HoW. So let that sink in. Why even bother using infinity for 5 measly wolves when you can just use them for cold affect and boost their raw power with physical dps boosters (assuming they benefit from them) Infinity isn’t good for a summoner build however it’s probably good for elemental build assuming you’re never using tornado.
The answer is Reaper’s Toll and I’d choose pride over Infinity on a summoner. Why would you say it’s trash sounds like you actually don’t know anything about the game for as much time as you spend pretending to on here.
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Ah an interesting perspective. It is true my main damage is physical in nature. Armageddon and the spirit wolve’s cold dmg is there to support. You are also correct in assuming my goal is to focus on my summon’s damage and not my merc.
I guess the question now is whether lowering enemies’ defenses further with conviction for my summons is better down the line compared to pride’s concentration aura. I have never faced ubers and have not yet tried playing hell in high player count games so It may be that in players 5 for instance my summons struggle to hit the ennemy ?
Based off the other who commented. The damage bump from pride is ok but it’s nothing incredible altough once paired with amplify damage which I will have it might actually be much better than infinity.
Bottom line I really need to test both and figure it out.
1sec diablo is nice 
. But it was players1 and lucky on hits and cb (considering diablo block) to tell the whole truth… Now we have no 8th frame guarenteed hit check, slowing effect susceptibility and worse ias table 
