rickcarson
23-02-2005, 16:29
I thought that others might be interested in my analysis of the new runewords. In particular I'm looking to see how many useful auras can be put on my mercs.
Please feel free to add anything I've missed.
When I use the term 'stacking', I'm referring to using two pieces of gear which grant the same aura. The effective level of the two auras will be added together (hence stacked). Whereas if the two pieces of gear were on two different characters (ie merc has Bramble, you have Edge, both of which grant Thorns) only the highest one counts.
In 1.09 there was a similar term, alternatively called aura 'flashing', which no longer works under 1.10.
Name Aura Level Equip
Beast Fanaticism 9 Axe/Scepter/Hammer
Bramble Thorns 15 to 21 Body Armour
Doom Holy Freeze 12 Axe/Polearm/Hammer
Exile Defiance 13 to 16 Paladin Shield
Hand of Justice Holy Fire 16 Any Weapon
Dragon Holy Fire 14 Body Armour and/or Shield
Dream Holy Shock 15 Helm and/or Shield
Edge Thorns 15 Missile Weapon
Faith Fanaticism 12 to 15 Missile Weapon
Harmony Vigor 10 Missile Weapon
Ice Holy Freeze 18 Missile Weapon
Infinity Conviction 12 Polearm
Insight Meditation 12 to 17 Polearm/Staff
Last Wish Might 17 Sword/Hammer/Axes
Lawbringer Sanctuary 18 Sword/Hammer/Scepter
Phoenix Redemption 13 Weapons and/or Shield
Pride Concentration 18 Polearm
Now to see what we can put on our merc:
All Mercs
Name Equip Party Friendly
Dream Helm No
Bramble Body Armour Yes
Dragon Body Armour No
Hand of Justice Weapon No
Phoenix Weapon No
Analysis: The only aura which is useful for our party/other minions is Bramble, which grants a hefty Thorns aura. Holy Shock/Fire have a small damage area of effect, but that isn't particularly useful to the party. Combining Dragon + Hand of Justice to get a level 30 Holy Fire only adds 267 fire damage (and 45 splash). Dream by itself does 325 lightning damage (and 54 splash). Redemption from Phoenix gives your merc a significant (but irregular) life boost.
Act 1 Rogue
Name Equip Party Friendly
Edge Bow Yes
Faith Bow Yes
Harmony Bow Yes
Ice Bow Yes
Here we have the option of doubling up the Thorns from Bramble (30 to 36 Thorns (1410% to 1650% damage returned)). With Ice we can turn our Rogue into a Holy Freeze merc, Faith adds a nice hefty Fanaticism, and Harmony adds Vigor.
The Rogue as a Holy Freeze merc is an interesting option, in many respects better than a vanilla Act 2 Holy Freeze merc. For one thing, she has less tendency to charge headlong into battle and die messily, leaving a huge gap in your defense. For another it can take the A2HF merc a long time to get up to or near the 15.3 yards radius. So the Rogue may provide an effective 'shortcut'.
Note that the Fanaticsim granted by Faith is better than that granted by Beast, also that they cannot be stacked.
Act 2 Desert Rat
Name Equip Party Friendly
Doom Polearm Yes
Infinity Polearm Yes
Insight Polearm Yes
Pride Polearm Yes
Analysis: The Act 2 Mercs already come with a 'built in' (if somewhat low power (until they attain high levels)) aura. In addition all of the polearm specific runewords which provide auras are of the party friendly variety.
This allows us to stack up to three party friendly auras on the one minion - quite a bargain.
One of them would have to be Thorns, the other would be the merc specific aura (depending on which difficulty hired in as usual), and then you have the choice of Concentration, Conviction, Holy Freeze and Meditation.
For style points you could combine Thorns + Holy Freeze on a Might merc, thereby collecting the 'full set' of Nightmare mercs, all rolled into one.
However the other options also look inviting, perhaps a lot more so. Conviction is helpful for breaking immunities, and massively increasing elemental damage (eg Dragon (Holy Fire) Body Armour, Dream (Holy Shock) Helm, and an Infinity (Conviction) Polearm on a Holy Freeze merc gives you a 'tri-elemental' damage merc - again, for style points you collect the whole set. Conviction also provides an absolutely enormous 'effective' increase to attack rating (588% cumulative (not additive) with your net AR). (Note: you have to give up the Thorns from Bramble, which may or may not be regarded as a big loss - many people feel that damage return is not effective in Hell)
Level 18 Concentration adds 315% ED, consider this on a Might merc for absolutely obscene amounts of physical damage.
The Meditation from Insight will completely refill your mana orb in approximately 10-15 seconds. This is amazing for spellcasters or any heavy users of mana - and may reinvigorate some older builds, or even make possible entirely new builds, based on combining powerful, but expensive mana inefficient spells. It can also help if your main character is melee based, but does not have any mana leech gear (or in other words, it can liberate you from the requirement to get leech gear, greatly expanding your gear choices). But wait, there's more: on top of all that, if you put the Insight on a Prayer merc (Act 2 Normal Combat) his Prayer aura gets counted twice for healing, once for the aura, and once for the synergy to Meditation. At low levels this isn't much, and at high levels it isn't much, but it can help.
Act 3 Iron Wolf
Name Equip Party Friendly
Dragon Shield No
Dream Shield No
Phoenix Shield No
Last Wish 1H Sword Yes
Lawbringer 1H Sword No
Analysis: The Iron Wolf has by far the largest number of combos and stacking opportunities. Unfortunately the only ones useful to the party are Might and Thorns. In addition the Iron Wolves attack by casting spells, never by doing melee attacks, so doubling up on Dream or Dragon to get a higher Holy aura is of no practical use.
You can use Last Wish to turn your Act 3 merc into something like a vanilla Act 2 Might merc. I occassionally use a Cold Iron Wolf if I want to improve my defensive options, since his Glacial Spike (group freeze) is the best defensive skill offered by any of the mercs. Alternatively an Act 2 merc covered in 'chance to cast Frost Nova' gear also provides a strong defense at very low levels. Act 3 mercs seem to be the best mercs for going through Act 3 and 4, so if I'm anticipating trouble, or planning on upgrading my normal Act 1 or Act 2 merc anyway (eg in Nightmare), I will upgrade to the Act 3 merc.
Overall there are no runewords which make me want to throw away all my other mercs and start madly hiring Act 3 mercs.
Act 5 Barbarian
Name Equip Party Friendly
Last Wish Sword Yes
Lawbringer Sword No
Analysis: the Barbarian has the fewest options, but makes a much more sensible Might merc (with last Wish) than the Iron Wolf did. In fact, Last Wish is quite the awesome Barb merc weapon:
Chance to cast Fade when struck
Chance to cast Life Tap on striking
Massive crushing blow (60-70%)
Level 17 Might (+200% ED)
Massive ED (approx 350%) (combined with Might: +550% ED)
Ignore Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
and some Magic Find for good measure
This thing has 'bend Baal over and insert sword A into orifice B' written all over it. The only thing its lacking is leech - oh wait, nope... the Life Tap more than takes care of that. In fact, it looks juicy enough to make the Diablo Clone sit up and take notice.
Please feel free to add anything I've missed.
When I use the term 'stacking', I'm referring to using two pieces of gear which grant the same aura. The effective level of the two auras will be added together (hence stacked). Whereas if the two pieces of gear were on two different characters (ie merc has Bramble, you have Edge, both of which grant Thorns) only the highest one counts.
In 1.09 there was a similar term, alternatively called aura 'flashing', which no longer works under 1.10.
Name Aura Level Equip
Beast Fanaticism 9 Axe/Scepter/Hammer
Bramble Thorns 15 to 21 Body Armour
Doom Holy Freeze 12 Axe/Polearm/Hammer
Exile Defiance 13 to 16 Paladin Shield
Hand of Justice Holy Fire 16 Any Weapon
Dragon Holy Fire 14 Body Armour and/or Shield
Dream Holy Shock 15 Helm and/or Shield
Edge Thorns 15 Missile Weapon
Faith Fanaticism 12 to 15 Missile Weapon
Harmony Vigor 10 Missile Weapon
Ice Holy Freeze 18 Missile Weapon
Infinity Conviction 12 Polearm
Insight Meditation 12 to 17 Polearm/Staff
Last Wish Might 17 Sword/Hammer/Axes
Lawbringer Sanctuary 18 Sword/Hammer/Scepter
Phoenix Redemption 13 Weapons and/or Shield
Pride Concentration 18 Polearm
Now to see what we can put on our merc:
All Mercs
Name Equip Party Friendly
Dream Helm No
Bramble Body Armour Yes
Dragon Body Armour No
Hand of Justice Weapon No
Phoenix Weapon No
Analysis: The only aura which is useful for our party/other minions is Bramble, which grants a hefty Thorns aura. Holy Shock/Fire have a small damage area of effect, but that isn't particularly useful to the party. Combining Dragon + Hand of Justice to get a level 30 Holy Fire only adds 267 fire damage (and 45 splash). Dream by itself does 325 lightning damage (and 54 splash). Redemption from Phoenix gives your merc a significant (but irregular) life boost.
Act 1 Rogue
Name Equip Party Friendly
Edge Bow Yes
Faith Bow Yes
Harmony Bow Yes
Ice Bow Yes
Here we have the option of doubling up the Thorns from Bramble (30 to 36 Thorns (1410% to 1650% damage returned)). With Ice we can turn our Rogue into a Holy Freeze merc, Faith adds a nice hefty Fanaticism, and Harmony adds Vigor.
The Rogue as a Holy Freeze merc is an interesting option, in many respects better than a vanilla Act 2 Holy Freeze merc. For one thing, she has less tendency to charge headlong into battle and die messily, leaving a huge gap in your defense. For another it can take the A2HF merc a long time to get up to or near the 15.3 yards radius. So the Rogue may provide an effective 'shortcut'.
Note that the Fanaticsim granted by Faith is better than that granted by Beast, also that they cannot be stacked.
Act 2 Desert Rat
Name Equip Party Friendly
Doom Polearm Yes
Infinity Polearm Yes
Insight Polearm Yes
Pride Polearm Yes
Analysis: The Act 2 Mercs already come with a 'built in' (if somewhat low power (until they attain high levels)) aura. In addition all of the polearm specific runewords which provide auras are of the party friendly variety.
This allows us to stack up to three party friendly auras on the one minion - quite a bargain.
One of them would have to be Thorns, the other would be the merc specific aura (depending on which difficulty hired in as usual), and then you have the choice of Concentration, Conviction, Holy Freeze and Meditation.
For style points you could combine Thorns + Holy Freeze on a Might merc, thereby collecting the 'full set' of Nightmare mercs, all rolled into one.
However the other options also look inviting, perhaps a lot more so. Conviction is helpful for breaking immunities, and massively increasing elemental damage (eg Dragon (Holy Fire) Body Armour, Dream (Holy Shock) Helm, and an Infinity (Conviction) Polearm on a Holy Freeze merc gives you a 'tri-elemental' damage merc - again, for style points you collect the whole set. Conviction also provides an absolutely enormous 'effective' increase to attack rating (588% cumulative (not additive) with your net AR). (Note: you have to give up the Thorns from Bramble, which may or may not be regarded as a big loss - many people feel that damage return is not effective in Hell)
Level 18 Concentration adds 315% ED, consider this on a Might merc for absolutely obscene amounts of physical damage.
The Meditation from Insight will completely refill your mana orb in approximately 10-15 seconds. This is amazing for spellcasters or any heavy users of mana - and may reinvigorate some older builds, or even make possible entirely new builds, based on combining powerful, but expensive mana inefficient spells. It can also help if your main character is melee based, but does not have any mana leech gear (or in other words, it can liberate you from the requirement to get leech gear, greatly expanding your gear choices). But wait, there's more: on top of all that, if you put the Insight on a Prayer merc (Act 2 Normal Combat) his Prayer aura gets counted twice for healing, once for the aura, and once for the synergy to Meditation. At low levels this isn't much, and at high levels it isn't much, but it can help.
Act 3 Iron Wolf
Name Equip Party Friendly
Dragon Shield No
Dream Shield No
Phoenix Shield No
Last Wish 1H Sword Yes
Lawbringer 1H Sword No
Analysis: The Iron Wolf has by far the largest number of combos and stacking opportunities. Unfortunately the only ones useful to the party are Might and Thorns. In addition the Iron Wolves attack by casting spells, never by doing melee attacks, so doubling up on Dream or Dragon to get a higher Holy aura is of no practical use.
You can use Last Wish to turn your Act 3 merc into something like a vanilla Act 2 Might merc. I occassionally use a Cold Iron Wolf if I want to improve my defensive options, since his Glacial Spike (group freeze) is the best defensive skill offered by any of the mercs. Alternatively an Act 2 merc covered in 'chance to cast Frost Nova' gear also provides a strong defense at very low levels. Act 3 mercs seem to be the best mercs for going through Act 3 and 4, so if I'm anticipating trouble, or planning on upgrading my normal Act 1 or Act 2 merc anyway (eg in Nightmare), I will upgrade to the Act 3 merc.
Overall there are no runewords which make me want to throw away all my other mercs and start madly hiring Act 3 mercs.
Act 5 Barbarian
Name Equip Party Friendly
Last Wish Sword Yes
Lawbringer Sword No
Analysis: the Barbarian has the fewest options, but makes a much more sensible Might merc (with last Wish) than the Iron Wolf did. In fact, Last Wish is quite the awesome Barb merc weapon:
Chance to cast Fade when struck
Chance to cast Life Tap on striking
Massive crushing blow (60-70%)
Level 17 Might (+200% ED)
Massive ED (approx 350%) (combined with Might: +550% ED)
Ignore Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
and some Magic Find for good measure
This thing has 'bend Baal over and insert sword A into orifice B' written all over it. The only thing its lacking is leech - oh wait, nope... the Life Tap more than takes care of that. In fact, it looks juicy enough to make the Diablo Clone sit up and take notice.