Adding perfect emerald to wand

[bphays]

I have a necro and find that some uniques in hell heal faster than I can do damage to them so it is an endless battle. One exception is if I have a poison skellie with me and then eventually the dmg I do along with the poison damage will kill the tougher uniques. The question I have is if I socket my wand and add a perfect emerald to it, will my bone spear spell do this additional type of poison damage to the monster as if I have a poison mage with me? Also, I have a merc from Act 3 which shoots the cold blasts and freezes monsters. In the same way, if I socket a sword with a perfect emerald and equip him with it, will his shots not just do cold dmg but the additional poison dmg as if I had a poison skellie mage?

Thanks.

[Indemaijinj]

The answer is No!


The poison damage mod from an emerald only works when you attack with the weapon itself (IE hitting things with it).

[jmprockstar]

Inde is right.

You can do a number of things to stop monster heal in hell. Assuming you have a mercenary, you can use the unique Lochaber Axe the Meat Scraper which has Open Wounds on it (as well as a little MF). Also, big poison weapons on your merc help, like Vile Lance (which I use on one my mercenaries) has poison and a pretty decent chance to cast poison explosion or summon lots of poison mages, if you have the patience. This, of course, doesn't work with Poison Immunes. There are weapons with other mods (like, er, Prevent Monster Heal on Bonehew, the Unique Ogre Axe) that help with this.

Some summoners throw a few points into Poison Nova, a tactic I dislike, since the duration is so short. There is some discussion in favor of this, although I believe you could spend points better elsewhere.

However, I don't find that I have much trouble with monster heal when dealing with unique monsters in Hell. I'm hardly overpowered, but I do make liberal use of corpse explosion + amp damage as a way of killing tenacious monsters. I find that you can't rely on minions alone to kill in Hell difficulty.

Hope this helps. :wave:

[BDs]

~8CE + (amp or decre) works well in hell.

[bphays]

of my Merc is that although I love the cold attack because it freezes enemies, on the uniques, unless I have a poison mage some of these uniques have a ton of hit points and heal as fast as I damage them with my bone spear, cold attack from my merc and my fire golem's attack while having lower resist at 51% cast.

Are you saying that if I equip a prevent monster heal weapon or armor, that even through his cold ranged attacks from my merc that this would prevent monster heal? If so, that would be great. I am using the cold range attack merc from Act 3.

Another negative of the cold attack is that the monster's "shatter" and I cannot use corpse explosion (unless they are uniques and then the cold attack doesn't seem to freeze them but may slow them a bit).

Thanks!

[tl998]

Get an act2 or act5 merc. Act3 mercs don;t use their weapons at all, sot he prevent mosnter heal won't work.

[Necrochild313]

Holy freeze merc is much better than Act 3 cold merc. Holy Freeze leaves corpses, and it slows the crap out of ALL of the monsters in the radius around the merc, not just the one that the merc is targeting.

Spells such as the cold merc's ice ball will not take on the attributes of the weapon, IE poison and the PMH attribute. That's why your bone spear won't add poison damage.

[Megaritis]

Inde is right.

You can do a number of things to stop monster heal in hell. Assuming you have a mercenary, you can use the unique Lochaber Axe the Meat Scraper which has Open Wounds on it (as well as a little MF).

Well concerning this, I have noticed that merc prevent monster heal does not work. I hope I'm wrong!

I was fighting uber diablo and my merc had PMH but his life was still rising while my merc was hitting.

[bphays]

When I was reading the guide, it said the Holy Freeze merc (Act II) only uses Holy Freeze on Nightmare mode but in Normal and Hell casts Defiance in its place. Is this true?

[JoJeck]

When I was reading the guide, it said the Holy Freeze merc (Act II) only uses Holy Freeze on Nightmare mode but in Normal and Hell casts Defiance in its place. Is this true?
No. A Holy Freeze merc is always a Holy Freeze and only uses that aura regardless of which act they are playing in, and the same for a Defiance merc. It is just that you can only recruit one from Nightmare.

[Zazu]

These are the skills of all types of 2nd act mercenaries. Aura depends on game lvl difficulty when you hire merc, and their description - defense, offense and combat. Aura is always the same on your merc, just choose which one you want.


Skills:
Combat/Normal Difficulty: Jab/Prayer
Combat/Nightmare Difficulty: Jab/Thorns
Combat/Hell Difficulty: Jab/Prayer

Defense/Normal Difficulty: Jab/Defiance
Defense/Nightmare Difficulty: Jab/Holy Freeze
Defense/Hell Difficulty: Jab/Defiance

Offense/Normal Difficulty: Jab/Blessed Aim
Offense/Nightmare Difficulty: Jab/Might
Offense/Hell Difficulty: Jab/Blessed Aim