Lightning sorc EQ question

[jimmah]

I'm thinking of making a fully synergized Light/Chain sorc, but I'm not certain what route I should go with gear.

1) Wearing Infinity:

Using my low req schyte with -54% (1 off perfect), griffon, mara, viper, magefist, soj, fcr ring, arach etc

Since I don't have a fcr amu, I would only reach the 105 fcr and not the 117 for Light. Everything I have is tied to my gear so I don't have much to trade for. I would have to strip something from someone.

2) Infinity merc:

Things would be easy to reach the fcr breakpoints now. E.g. Hoto, spirit, griffon, arach, 10fcr ring would get me there. I could also use CoH instead of Viper now. I would have to trade my Infinity for a high dmg one to help my merc survive, but I'm not sure of the price difference.

I would have much more resist, skills etc with infinity on a merc so it's my favorite choice, but I wonder how much difference that -54% res would make. I can't make up my mind.

[Apophis]

infinity merc is a way better merc

[jimmah]

Yeah, I know with that gear you can hardly fail. I just wanted hear some opinions. :P

I guess I'll just try and try trade for the Infinity.

[WrathTalon]

Yeah, I know with that gear you can hardly fail. I just wanted hear some opinions. :P

I guess I'll just try and try trade for the Infinity.

Hm, Jimmah, I'm in the process of building a pure Lightning sorc of my own right now, and have decided to put the Infinity on her.

You're absolutely right: it imposes some painful decisions about gear. Putting it on the merc eliminates all those problems.

But I'm still going to put it on my sorc. Reason is that I do mostly Chaos runs. And I find keeping an A2 merc alive in the Chaos Sanctuary to be just about impossible. Iron Maiden makes them drop like flies, and in 8-player games, there is simply too much activity, too many fireworks, and too much lag to keep an ever-vigilant eye on my merc. Half the time I can't even see him, let alone observe which curse is on him... And constantly resurrecting your merc gets very very tedious very very quickly (not to mention, it becomes prohibitively expensive).

So my sorc will wear Infinity herself, for GUARANTEED Conviction. And, as you note, this has the additional benefit of the -enemy resist from the Infinity, which is lost when equipped on the merc instead. Even if I didn't run Chaos repeatedly, this fact alone would lead me to put Infinity on the sorc herself. That additional -(45-55)% to enemy lightning resistance will very roughly double our damage in Hell (depending on monsters' resistances). The true beauty of this -enemy resist comes when dealing with lightning immunes. Sure, Conviction breaks immunities--but then only operates at 20% effectiveness when breaking them. 20% of 85% is only 17%: not much. But if I understand correctly, the -(45-55)% from Infinity will stack with this. In cases of breaking monster immunities, then, wearing Infinity yourself will mean approximately a three-fold increase in your damage, compared to when your merc has it. And more generally, the higher the enemy's lightning resistance, the more comparative advantage you gain by wearing it yourself.

Only disadvantage of Conviction, as you know, is its relatively short radius of 13 yards, which will just barely cover all the screen except the far corners. Your merc charges forward, and attracts monsters, ensuring that most will be hit with Conviction if he's using it himself. But if you wear it yourself, it will mean getting a lot closer to monsters to ensure that they feel Conviction's love. For that reason, my gear will go heavily towards the defensive. I'll be wearing CoA, CoH, and Shadow Dancer, for PDR%, Resists, and FHR.

Yeah, this means sacrificing a lot of FCR. I'll only have 40% FCR (from Magefist and Arach). But so what?--I've crunched the numbers, and the extra damage from wielding Infinity oneself will still vastly outweigh the extra damage I'd get from a maxed FCR. 40% FCR will give me a 15-frame lightning attack. Whereas 117% FCR only gives a 12-frame. That means that with 117% FCR, I'd deal damage only 20% faster than with 40% FCR. Sure, 20% more damage seems like a lot--until I remind myself that the -enemy resist mod on Infinity ALONE will very roughly DOUBLE my damage in Hell (and that's not even including the effects of Conviction). The extra damage from Infinity is so ungodly ridiculously high that I'm considering switching my Arach for Verdungo's, for the extra 15% PDR. Dungos along with CoA, CoH, and Shadow Dancer will give me maxed 50% PDR as well as maxed 75% resists and 60% FHR: enough to laugh in the monsters' faces as they swipe at me while bathed in Conviction's sickly green glow... If I find that I don't need the extra 15% PDR from Dungos, I'll just go back to the Arach...

Let us know which path you choose, eh?

[jimmah]

I'm thinking of giving it a go to wear the infinity myself.

I made a nova sorc wearing infinity, but I wasn't very satisfied with the killing speed using nova. I was very safe though, with pumped mana, high lvl energy shield and insight merc.

I think I'll try the lightning/chain route this time. I'll guess I see how vulnerable I get without shield.

If I don't like it I guess I can slap it on the merc and see how it goes from there. :)

[WrathTalon]

I'm thinking of giving it a go to wear the infinity myself.

I made a nova sorc wearing infinity, but I wasn't very satisfied with the killing speed using nova. I was very safe though, with pumped mana, high lvl energy shield and insight merc.

I think I'll try the lightning/chain route this time. I'll guess I see how vulnerable I get without shield.

If I don't like it I guess I can slap it on the merc and see how it goes from there. :)

Sounds good! Plus, there's the all-important style factor: a sorc holding a huge scythe just looks so darn sexy. :cool: