Crushing Blow or Open Wounds?

[MDBitter]

Sup all,
I read fishmancers guid and had a couple questions

1. I understand the whole crushing blow concept... with guilams face and all... but would it be better to have open wounds cuz it constantly drains life fast? or is crushing blow WAY better? I an NOOB to necro but making a MF baal runner.

2. I am a baal runner. (or trying to be) I wanted origonally to wear gull dagger rhyme mf everything, shako! GOT IT ALL. BUT, then I read and researched that they say to no use gull but rather a 6 socket sword with 4 eth and 2 shael and wear Guilames face INSTEAD of shako!!! all so I can get alot of crushing blow... my question is... is it worth it to sacrifice 172 MF for a faster kill? I really am stumped on this one.

well that is it for now...
~MDBitter

[JoJeck]

Sup all,
I read fishmancers guid and had a couple questions

1. I understand the whole crushing blow concept... with guilams face and all... but would it be better to have open wounds cuz it constantly drains life fast? or is crushing blow WAY better? I an NOOB to necro but making a MF baal runner.

2. I am a baal runner. (or trying to be) I wanted origonally to wear gull dagger rhyme mf everything, shako! GOT IT ALL. BUT, then I read and researched that they say to no use gull but rather a 6 socket sword with 4 eth and 2 shael and wear Guilames face INSTEAD of shako!!! all so I can get alot of crushing blow... my question is... is it worth it to sacrifice 172 MF for a faster kill? I really am stumped on this one.

well that is it for now...
~MDBitterCrushing Blow and Open Wounds do different things and are complimentary. When Baal has maximum hit points cb is very effective but as his points drop the effect lessens. Open Wounds does a steady amount of damage but it is not much compared to Baal's huge total... only 244 per second for 8 seconds with a level 85 Necro, this not much but is unaffected by resistances and is equivalent to a lot of Toxic 100 damage poison charms. Your skellies do not do much against Baal taking their 25% damage penalty for minions against Bosses and Baal's 50% physical resistance (probaly cancelled by Decrepify) so the extra damage from Open Wounds is useful to finish him off.

If you carry your shako and gull dagger in your inventory you can swap to using them just before you and your skellies and Merc kill Baal to get the full benefit. It only takes a little bit of organisation to gain a significant boost... it's what I do for Baal trips.

[lone_wolf]

first use both get gore raiders for boots and couple that with gulliames and the phase blade.


and when baal just got as sliver left swap on the mf gear and reap the rewards

the reason you use the phase blade is that it gives you about 100% chance to hit baal. and as hisd def drop your skeletons should have a easier time hitting him too.

[mes_uno]

the reason you use the phase blade is that it gives you about 100% chance to hit baal. and as hisd def drop your skeletons should have a easier time hitting him too.

I've gone for an alternative to the phase blade, with a Chu-Ko-Nu. Problem is that when i wear a manald heal ring (for the 20% mana regen) I found I was still only hitting about 50% of the time (judged by the mana leech swirls). Would putting an extra Eth in there, instead of the second shael increase you chance to hit, by giving the target effectively negative defense? (-125% targets def). If it does then this might give you more chances to trigger crushing blow than having a slightly faster attack speed.

Anyone know about this?

[MDBitter]

If you carry your shako and gull dagger in your inventory you can swap to using them just before you and your skellies and Merc kill Baal to get the full benefit. It only takes a little bit of organisation to gain a significant boost... it's what I do for Baal trips.

From what I thought... you get the possible MF while you kill? when I do mephy runs I wear MF gear the whole time for full benefits... isn't that the way it works? or can you switch it up right before they die?

~MDBitter

[Termapain]

From what I thought... you get the possible MF while you kill? when I do mephy runs I wear MF gear the whole time for full benefits... isn't that the way it works? or can you switch it up right before they die?

~MDBitter


You can switch right before you die. I kind of don't like going to town to switch my gear during a run though.
What I use and seems to work pretty well is Hone Sundan on my merc for 45% of crushing blow and and Toothrow for the 40% chance for open wounds. Then tals for res/leech. I used to use Hwanin's Refuge for the chance to cast static field but that only works for 1/2 the life and crushing + open wounds gets me there just as fast and also helps out past the halfway mark, not to mention the greater defense of Toothrow.