when you cant argue any of my points I cant take you seriously. I pointed out every way its better, broke the math down broke down the why for the choices of merc and rune words.
You talked about a higher lvl 43 runeword that has decrepify and rest of it kinda sux. Its for a non ranged merc so you have no ranged besides ravens. which is only physical. The fire merc uses exploding arrows that hit groups. Act 5 merc is single target and wont attack as fast and is reliant upon procs.
To further embarrass you, sense you felt the need to act superior, ill break it down even further to show you donât know sh*t.
EDGE (Tir,Tal,Amn) (is ranged weapon runeword)
level 15 thorns aura
35% increased attack speed
+280% damage to undead
+320%-380% damage to demons
+75 poison damage
7% life steal per hit
prevent monster heal
5-10 + to attributes
+2 mana per kill
15% lower prices at vendors
VS
Lawbringer (amn,Lem,Ko) and is non ranged
20% chance to cast level 15 decrepify
level 16-18 sanctuary aura
150-210 fire damage
130-180 cold damage
7% life stole per hit
slain monsters rest in peace
+200 to def vs missles
10 to dex
75% extra gold
so, as you can see your âchoiceâ of runewords is more expensive and has less benefits total to the build.
So, you talk down to me while suggesting a inferior idea and use nothing to back up why its better and then tell me to get educated. you make me laugh. shoulda stuck to being on same side
you are bowing out without really arguing a single point and are attempting to âhigh roadâ me now.(meaning too good to continue/will no longer continue due to inferred superiority) Come back when you can argue a better budget build that will get you from normal to killing dclone + in hell. your suggestion they couldnât even use to end of nightmare/beginning of hell and again is more expensive with less bonusâs and is on a non ranged character that is single target attack versus a ranged group attacker with higher atk speed
Well, today I was paying attention how my Defiance+Insight merc is preforming when accompanied with full zoo - quite often he was blocked by my animals, and couldnât reach an enemy (though he is equipped with thresher scythe, which has 2 range only. Giant thresher with range 5 may be a different story). In that case what @excala1 is speaking about a need of a ranged source of damage might actually be relevant.
yes, the build benefits more from having the ranged merc. it attacks faster(+35% to atk speed), attacks groups(exploding arrows) and can attack over your summons.
to expand for the people wanting to use lawbringer for decrepify, the frenzy barb has the skills
Frenzy which boosts atk rating 198%
atk damage 160%
with low to increasing walk speed and atk speed on successful hits
Iron skin which boosts armor by 150% but you will be dual wielding so its lower defense than if you had shield merc.
and finally taunt which lowers enemy atk rating and damage by 39%
decrepify has 20% chance to proc with the rune word and will lower their atk speed walk speed and damage by 50%.
all pretty decent by any standard but alot of these arenât as beneficial and I will individually break down why.
So, first off none of these abilities work to lower enemy targets defenses or resistances. they only effect atk speeds, chance to hit damage and move speed.
all good yes but none will help your âzooâ kill things faster. mostly just stuff to make the enemy attacks weaker making your pets more survivable but, they dont need survivabilty. they already live thru almost everything already and can be easily resummoned right back on top of a mob for low mp.
secondly the frenzy merc while being good yes is as I had pointed out earlier a melee merc and must get into melee range to even damage anything to be any kind of effective. Unfortunately, your pets can keep melee style mercs like act 2 and 5 from being able to even get to the enemies by âbody blockingâ enemies outside of hit range.
Now, comparatively the act 1 merc has inner sight which drops enemy defenses by quite alot at same lvl 90 as frenzy merc, the act 1 skill Inner sight lowers enemy defenses by -1515 and is cast ranged often on enemies. Also, casts both fire and exploding arrows at enemies with high rate of attack fire. ALso shoots over your summons to more easily be combat effective
Your build as listed is fine. It surely will carry you through the game. I am play HC SSF and I am doing fine just like that. You with all those +skills can have a lot of underperforming components and still do fine.
What Zenji is saying is that if you want your build to have better performance, you can make some changes.
The main source of your damage is your summons, not your merc. So naturally factors that benefit your summons will have greater effects than factors that benefit your merc.
What Lawbringer does is to benefit your summons. The fact that it has 20% chance to cast level 15 decrepify on hit is very potent. Decrepify not only slows and weakens the targets in its small radius by 50%, it also reduces their physical resistance by 50%. Considering how widespread physical resistance is in Hell difficulty (50% resistance is very common), having decrepify on means your summons will do 100% damage instead of only 50%. That is doubling your physical damage output. Decrepify can also remove a lot of physical immunity. All other features from Lawbringer are just icing on the cake.
The Act 5 merc is also the only merc that runs. If you choose the frenzy one, he will be even faster. He wonât take nearly as much time as the Act 2 merc to get a hit on a target.
Note, if you use ravens, be mindful that the dim vision and decrepify overwrite each other. You will have to learn to control your ravens.
Now letâs take a look at Edge, the Runeword bow. The only thing it provides that benefits your summons is the Thorns aura. I mentioned this before, most of your targets will be perma stunned by your shockwaves. The Thorns aura wonât help you most of the time. Also, prevent monster heal doesnât work on mercs. The 75 poison damage does. So you can see, this bow compared to Lawbringer, is a much inferior choice for a summoner like yours.
If you like to stick with Act 1 merc (I do, I love archers), you can try Harmony (Tir + Ith + Sol + Ko). Itâs also a bow Runeword, and it has:
Level 10 Vigor Aura When Equipped
+200-275% Enhanced Damage (varies)
+9 To Minimum Damage
+9 To Maximum Damage
Adds 55-160 Lightning Damage
Adds 55-160 Fire Damage
Adds 55-160 Cold Damage
+2-6 To Valkyrie (varies)
+10 To Dexterity
Regenerate Mana 20%
+2 To Mana After Each Kill
+2 To Light Radius
Level 20 Revive (25 Charges)
The Vigor aura is great because your bear and wolves will move much faster to reach their targets. Plus, its elemental damage means there arenât a thing your merc canât kill, albeit slowly.
Again, your build as such is fine, and as you said, it rocks. But since you put it here to share, people will make suggestions, because your build has room for improvement.
first off, just logged into my necro to double check and decrepify ONLY does - enemy damage, - enemy attack speed and - enemy walk/run speed. NOTHING TO PHYSICAL RESISTANCES.
cool can he run as fast as arrows being fired at an increased atk rate and speed as the act 1 ? nope, and he can be physically blocked by your summons in tighter areas. where the act 1 would shoot right over it in say maggot lair or other tight areas.
another reason its not as good. there are no conflictions on auras or skills with my build.
complete lie I used it on dclone many times.
lol it isnât for the many reasons I already have stated. both in price and usability.
already tried a playtest with harmony and it isnt as effective as edge for the build. Just the 300% plus damage to undead and demons crushes it let alone the other benefits. The aura is wasted really (vigor)
Iâm not necessarily trying to be confrontational with all these other players especially when the whole point of this was to give a excellent build out to the community.
However, as you inferred with
well, something can look great on paper and not be as good in actuality. Though others acted like I was lying when I said I play tested everything. I really did. hours and hours and hours of it. To be honest Iâm half tempted to take this build down because Iâm not liking the community.
Sorry if I offended you. That is not my intention.
You made this build and you are having fun with it. That is all that should matter.
Sharing your build here with the community is also a kind act from you. I am sure many people will appreciate it.
However, this game is far from perfect, and has a lot of hidden rules. The new patch also added new errors, just like that tooltip. I checked on my necro too, you are correct, the -50% to physical resistance is indeed missing from the tooltip. It does exist though. With your necro, go to Hell Act 2, Arcane Sanctury. You will find those PI ghosts there easily. Cast decrepify on them, and see if they are still physical immune.
I think many players here in the community are more science based. When someone brings up an idea, a build, others will analyze it, and build on it. Critics are just part of the process to make something better.
not so much you in particular, the community, in general is sh*t. Point blank. Can get things improved in this game and people act like its trash or they could do better or âkeep it as is even if its brokeâ. I can only imagine as a fellow designer how the game team must feel, in terms of âwhy the hell do I even want to for these guys?â
I feel you. It is true that there is a lot of negativity in these forums. Try not to focus on that part of the internet.
The devs will have to decide. They can either choose to try to please everyone, which they canât, or they can take ownership of their product, keep their loyal player base, and let the rest go.
Anyways, happy hunting. I am going to pay Mephisto a few visit now.
I have to agree Ex about community stopping itself in tracks in many cases.I mean puritism i never understood for stuff which didnt work since 1.07 honestly Excala .I will try both Decrep and bow since decrep can reduce physical resistance by 50%.Started summoner druid grail SP SC so wel see for now i m using act 3 merc since he can enchant my summons but that skill is so low on merc âŚ
that actually. atm i run Act5 merc with Lawbringer and Uppded Headstriker till i find Reaperâs toll. He does pretty good and the proc of Decrepify is insane but sadly my ravens when they hit , they change the curse to blind.
But in general i think is the best budget option indd
I have been running a slightly different take on this same set up. I am running 1 point in the Werewolf line (5 points total). I was full summoner up untill NM andy where I farmed the unique cludgle and that was really all I needed to make it feel right. The move speed is great, and I have crushing blow from goblin toe and self crafted gloves with some crazy attack speed. seems good idk⌠haha I am decently tanky and when I find the enemy is a problem (lightning enchanted) I tend to just allow the massive line of wolves tank it out and the crows finally do some work⌠I feel like the big wolf in the pack running up front also. Truly a ton of fun.
