I’m referring to those “Death Brigadiers” or equivalents in each difficulty level that you can find for example in the A5 Ice Caverns and so on. They have a carapace of spikes on the back and they walk slowly but are typically found in groups of 6 to 10 or even more.
Is the damage being done by those big red spikes that they fire at you from underground, “bugged” or something? Because playing as a Necro, they constantly shred my army almost before I can execute a retreat. They have almost killed several of my characters and would have done so if I hadn’t been playing very carefully.
Those d*mn big red spikes do FAR more damage than, for example, Frenzytaurs. I remember that this kind of monster was already dangerous in the D2 LoD days – but it sure seems like the damage that they do has been significantly ramped up for D2R.
Anybody else have this kind of experience with them? Also, it doesn’t seem like blocking really helps here. Is there any way to lessen the damage?
I believe the base type is called death mauler and has a few variants, one of them being death brigadiers. Yes the ranged spikes that come up from under the ground are pretty deadly especially when there are many in a pack attacking you from range and they do seem to be particulary good at killing summons at lower levels. Best advice is kill them fast and avoid the spikes and i would recommend using decrepify on those when playing summon necro since it reduces their speed, damage and phys resistance by 50%, other slowing effects like clay golem or cold damage will stack with decrepify since they are separate calculations. Clay golem + decrepify is the easiest way to kill bosses too. combined they can almost make baal unable to cast his skills and make him a dps dummy
Death Maulers hurt and the best way to limit their damage is to have high Defense, high Block and SLOW THEM DOWN with Decrepify if you can. That combined with Slow from Holy Freeze(A2 Merc), Slow from Clay Golem and they literally get slowed to a crawl where they barely move.
Yup holy freeze merc is another option and for a budget char/playthrough i often use the act 1 freeze merc since she can also wear an insight bow to help with mana issues + she is very good at staying out of harms way and survive which helps a lot when you dont have the gear needed for your act 2 merc. She can get by with really crappy gear and if you make her a hustle armour she can really dish out some of those freeze arrows which helps a lot keeping ur summons alive at lower levels
High poison resistance usually does the trick. Sandstorm treks, andy face, charms, cleansing aura etc. lots of options to max ur poison res and reduce poison length, you can even get poison length reduction as an affix on rare items. When i play energy shield sorc i combine high poison res with an act 2 prayer merc wearing insight, cure helmet and either upped skin of the flayed one or chains of honor , depending on my budget. This combo almost completely counter poison damage due to prayer, meditation, cleansing synergies giving u an insane amount of life regen + reducing the poison duration.
I don’t have anything to add regarding summons specifically but those Death Maulers are quite annoying because their spike attack lingers for 1-2 seconds even after they’ve visually disappeared, so even if you think you’ve successfully dodged it and run back over a spot that was spiked then you still take damage. Gotta wait like 2-3 seconds.
It does add another layer of strategy to the dodging but it seems to linger a touch too long in my opinion.
The A5 quill rats are some of the nastiest monsters I’ve encountered, especially on melee builds since they have built-in thorns so if you have a fast attacking build like a zealot or WW barb you can shred yourself really quickly. It’s even worse in D2R since Attacker Takes Damage applies even if an attack misses so you still take the damage even if you miss.
That’s on top of their high poison damage that their extremely fast moving projectiles apply, and sometimes you get the occasional “super poison” that makes the poison damage do a ton of damage and last what feels like forever.
Poison Resistance is your first line of Defense + Poison Duration reduction. The latter can be obtained on Rare’s or Unique items but also can be achieved via Cleansing Aura, which is really easy to obtain via Cure Runeword(Shael + Io + Tal) in 3 Socket Helm. Yields a level 1 Cleansing Aura that is a perfect Helm for a Mercenary or you could use Plague(Cham + Shael + Um) in 3 Socket Swords for an Act 5 Mercenary or equip yourself as a Cleric Paladin to bestow a level 13-17 Cleansing Aura. Cleansing will not only cut the duration of Poison significantly but also Curse Duration, which is very, very advantageous in all areas but none other than Chaos Sanctuary(unless you want the Curse for say Thorns Aura to return more damage).
Unfortunately summon AI doesnt include dodging ground effects and attacks better make sure to CC monsters as much as possible when dealing with dangerous mobs like death maulers
Yup quill rats are definitely annoying as a melee char but i still think bone fetish (dolls) take the top spot here My favorite melee char these days is actually a Fury/summon hybrid druid, with the changes made to this char in D2R i can now have all wolves and bear summoned at the same time which helps a lot vs these kinds of mobs + it has soo many great weapon choices available with the new changes to shapeshifting IAS frames. When u see those pesky dolls just take a step back and let ur wolves handle them, they will be reduced to nothing but dog food little know fact, summons dont take damage from bone fetish explosion. A reapers toll is one weapon i like to use on this build, its basically like a Grief with decrepify proc when used by a fury druid especially if u can get ur hands on an Eth reapers with a zod rune in it
better make sure to CC monsters as much as possible when dealing with dangerous mobs like death maulers