Baal vs. Crushing Blow Merc

[GordusMxus]

A tangent started in a Baal Runner thread about Merc vs. Baal and what sort of weapon is best. I think this point is important enough to explore in its own thread.
The consensus is that a crushing blow weapon is best- so why is this?

I made the misjudgement of replacing my merc's Hone Yari with a high damage cruel voulge (700+ max dam), which on paper, seemed much better. Wrong. My merc with this weapon in a 3 player game hardly scratched Baal.

Heres why:

Baal Hell lvl has 493,701 HPs, according to the Arreat Summit.

With the cruel weapon my merc is averaging maybe 1200 dam per hit (maximum damage he deals is 2200). That would require 411 successful hits on Baal, assuming he didn't heal or fight back, which he does.. And those are stats for a ONE player game. In the 3 player game I believe Baal had grown to 1,481,103 HPs, which would have taken 1,234 merc hits under ideal conditions... (not including other players, minions, spells, etc)

What I found out is that a crushing blow drops a normal monster's hit points by 1/4 (25%). Boss monsters the effect is reduced to 1/10 (10%) These are melee amounts, halve that again for ranged attacks. These may be old stats-please inform if this has changed.

A merc equiped with crushing blow (whatever the %), in a solo game, should take off 49,370 HPs off Baal with the first successful crushing blow. The next crushing blow would take off 44,433 (10% of what was left after the first blow) and so on.
So thats roughly 41 times more damage than the cruel high damage weapon!

Scaling up to a 3 player game should provide a first crushing blow of 148,110!!

*most damage is dealt in the beginning when Baal HPs are highest

further questions:

*merc damage to bosses is reduced to 25% in Hell, however, this might apply only to weapon damage, and not to the CB modifier, so this is irrelevant?

*how does -target defense (eth weapon) work with crushing blow? From what Ive read it should further improve the results.

So it seems a weapon with 1 max damage but a % of crushing blow is far superior against Baal than a very high damage weapon without CB. Of course, high damage combined with high CB is the ultimate goal.

[lone_wolf]

first the correct CB amounts as posted by jarulf is:




Crushing Blow
This is a chance of reducing a monster's health by X% in a single blow.


-Default: 1/4th

-vs. Players: 1/10th
-vs. Hirelings: 1/10th
-vs. Champions, Uniques, Bosses: 1/8th
-with missile weapons, default: 1/8th
-with missile weapons, vs. Players: 1/20th
-with missile weapons, vs Hirelings: 1/20th
-with missile weapons, vs Champions, Uniques, Bosses: 1/16th
-The life removed is also scaled with number of players. So that if a monster has 450% more life due to 8 players (or whatever the value is) the life removed is further reduced by the same amount (450% would equal multiplying by 4.5 so the life removed by Crushing Blow is divided by 4.5).

Physical resistance does apply to Crushing Blow damage, but only if the resistance is positive. Crushing Blow Items stack in most cases. In 1.10 Crushing Blow is calculated before your normal damage. So, before doing the damage that you would normally do, there is a chance you will reduce the health of the monster by X% then normal damage apply to the resulting lower life. If you have more than one item with Crushing Blow, the probabilities will be added together. There will be one random check for a Crushing Blow. There is no check for each separate item, so one can not get multiple Crushing Blows in one attack.
taken from here http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/magic.shtml#sma

now if you read the text you also find out that your wrong about the amount of life the first CB hit will take of in a hell players 3 game

CB does NOT scale with players therfor it will be less effective the more players there is in the game. as it will still deal as much damage as it was in the players 1 game.

the info provided should help answer your other questions..

EDIT: note that CB is based on the monsters current health and not its maximum health. because of this it gets less and less effective the more you damage the monsters.

[gvandale]

if you unequip your merc's weapon, but he's wearing cb helm / armor (guillame's helm, and rattlecage armor) he will still get % roll's on cb. So so very helpful for the chaos sanctuary. Though cb hits less w/ no weapon, it's still a great thing to do for him to survive.

good merc cb gear is:
ETHERAL HONE SUNDAN, upgraded once to a ghost spear (about 100 max base dmg improvement) 45%
GUILLAME'S FACE, set helm 35%
RATTLECAGE, normal gothic plate up'd twice to a Laquered Plate (633-741 defense) 25%

That's a 105% to trigger Crushing Blow on a mercenary. Which boils down to EVERY FRIGGIN HIT DOING CRUSHING BLOW.

Your numbers are incorrect. I will try to find info on better ones. I do know that the CB dmg doesn't scale with the # of playersin the game. So it's ideally less effective with more players, but still helpful.

g

[lone_wolf]

gvandale if you meant my numbers are wrong your not paying attention it says both in the text from the AS that jarulf has provided and in my own more simple explonation of´how it works.

that CB does NOT scale with more players.

for example lets say a monster has 50000 life in a players 1 game now CB would in the first hit take that down to

50000/8=6250

if the merc now deals only deals 1000 damage to the monster the remaning hit after CB and the normal hit would be 42750

the second CB hit would now as CB is based on current hp take away

42750/8= 5343.75

so lets sat the merc again score 1000 damage to the monster

its now down to 36406.25 hp

so lets see how much damage Cb does to the same monster in a players 8 game

50000*4.5= 225000

so 225000/8=28125 now this damage is not correct as it has to be divided with 4.5 in players 8 games so

28125/4.5= 6250

see why CB is less effective in high player games?

it wont scale as blizz thought it would be to overpowered then.

[gvandale]

wolf: i was typing as your msg got posted. I agree w/ you, and disagreed w/ the original poster.

g

[Orcin]

Crushing blow is very helpful against Baal. You might go so far as to say critical. But, in my experience, one crushing blow item is sufficient to make Baal-killing comfortable.

A happy medium can be found between taking a nap during the battle and killing him in 10 seconds. I use Guillame's Face (35% cb) with a Tomb Reaver and my merc kills Baal quite fast.

I don't like Rattlecage too much because it requires upgrading to get a decent defense rating and has the very annoying "hit cause monster to flee" attribute.

I disagree that you need to equip three CB items at once. This seems to be a waste for most situations, and I think you could find a balanced setup that would be more effective overall. I would recommend picking one item with crushing blow, and selecting other items to balance the setup.

By the way, crushing blow chance is capped at 95%, so you cannot get 105% chance.

[gvandale]

dig it.

i don't like that setup 1 bit. i hate rattlecage. i don't have a eth hone, so regular's can suk my ballz.

for me, it's big dmg wep / levi armor / guillame's face.

g

[lone_wolf]

wolf: i was typing as your msg got posted. I agree w/ you, and disagreed w/ the original poster.

g
aha ok i see. yeah CB is effective but i think we all agree on that its enough with 1 high CB% item for it to work its wonders.

[MelFrank]

By the way, crushing blow chance is capped at 95%, so you cannot get 105% chance.

Crushing Blow is not capped at 95%. Of course 105% will never happen either. :)

Mel

[sexyfool]

Picked up unid warpike in trade recently so imagine my delight when I checked out arreats and discovered 600 damage and 15% cb. This and guillames will make my merc very happy and Baal very unhappy. Btw is baal running with a summoner worth the time and effort?

I will have 400 mf with merc or 300 by myself and use full trangs.

(note how I skilfully returned the thread to the correct format for this forum :thanks: )

[Dazuni]

think about the probability, say that the merc has only 45% CB, form that yari, but he also have jab, which hit multiple times, say 3 times, assume that all 3 hit is successful, then after these 3 hits:

the chance of none of these 3 hits triggered crushing blow is:

(1-0.45)^3 = 0.166375

the chance of at least 1 of these 3 hits triggered a crushing blow is:

1 - 0.166375 = 0.833325

which is like 83%. approx 10th in 12.

so there you have it, as long as the merc can hit, then
in every 12 attacks (jab with 3 hits), 10 of them will give you of at least 1 crushing blow (in fact it is 1 to 3 crushing blow).

only 2 of those attacks out of 12, will leave you without the crushing blow effect.

lets take this further, post the AR of your merc % hiting baal, and all the other parameters, I do the maths for you.

[GordusMxus]

I too have to disagree with the numbers of the original poster ( ;-), but then, thats why I posted this topic- my info was admittedly sketchy/outdated/ assumptive, but I knew you guys would correct it. This is just what I wanted.
Thanks Lone Wolf for the link to the AS magic items page- I was looking all over there for this info and could not find it on that site- could not figure out which topic it was under.
Nice to know the actual boss damage is 1/8 rather than 1/10, and also good to know the damage doesn't scale in multiplayer.

The AS states that -target defense equipment doesnt work on bosses, but I've heard the eth weapon bug does work on bosses- I've got an eth and amn in my Hone...

Another question about armor upgrading: My merc uses ethereal boneweave that I had socketed. Im not sure of its norm/exec/elite status, so can it be upgraded? It features 1320 defense as is.

I salute you guys and your depth of knowledge.

[Mad Mantis]

The AS states that -target defense equipment doesnt work on bosses, but I've heard the eth weapon bug does work on bosses- I've got an eth and amn in my Hone...

Eth does work on bosses. So four Eth in a weapon would yield -100% defense.

[Necrochild313]

Only uniques/rares can be upgraded Gordus, and boneweave is an elite already, so it need not be upgraded :D

:thumbsup:

[JoJeck]

Eth does work on bosses. So four Eth in a weapon would yield -100% defense.
The latest thinking is that the Eth has half effectiveness against bosses so 4 X Eth gives -100% defence against normal monsters and -50% against bosses.

[Mad Mantis]

Still makes it effective. How did they test this? :scratch:

[JoJeck]

It sure does make a big difference to hit chances for low AR characters like a necro.

I'm not sure how the gurus found this out (it was published in the Statistics Forum a month or so ago) but maybe they examined that bit of the game code.

[Mad Mantis]

Still with a little help a Necro can achieve an acceptable chance to hit.

[illa]

Theres a cap of 95% on CB afaik?

[Salo]

Theres a cap of 95% on CB afaik?


nothing does 100% but theres no 95% cap.
try a 100% pierce on a zon. sometimes it wont pierce!

guillames face with a Cham would be a good merc hat if you to jab baal to death with cblow. plus, it triggers deadly strike and has high fhr% on it.

i bet with Stone this is perfect merc wear.

i havent found any high defense elite ethereal armour yet though on nonlad

[ShivonM]

But does Crushing Blow on a merc get reduced by the 1/4 that all merc damage against bosses is reduced by? I know that my merc, using ethereal crescent moon cryptic axe doesn't take too much life off of baal when he triggers statics, and i figured it was affected by the 1/4 penalty.

[JoJeck]

But does Crushing Blow on a merc get reduced by the 1/4 that all merc damage against bosses is reduced by? I know that my merc, using ethereal crescent moon cryptic axe doesn't take too much life off of baal when he triggers statics, and i figured it was affected by the 1/4 penalty.
I think the Crushing Blow damage is reduced by 1/4 as all damage by mercs and minions is. Another good reason to get in there and whack Baal yourself... and it's so satisfying to kill bosses by your own hand :)

[Dazuni]

I think the Crushing Blow damage is reduced by 1/4 as all damage by mercs and minions is. Another good reason to get in there and whack Baal yourself... and it's so satisfying to kill bosses by your own hand :)


yeah, like the other day NM acients died in my hand of Malice poison dagger.