Atma's Scarab vs Highlord's Wrath

[smeer]

Which one do you prefer on a bowazon?
Atma's Scarab vs Highlord's Wrath
Is it Atma's for strafe and Highlord's for multi?

[crawlingdeadman]

i prefer highlords. i dont think one is for x and the other for y. dont forget cat's eye too.

if you need the ias you need it. if you dont then i think it's prefrence. i dont want to wait on something to "proc" to do double damage i want the chance to double my damage all the time.

edit: oh, i see what you're getting at...since only middle two arrows carry ctc amp then atmas is definitly out on a "mostly" multi zon.

[PMurillo]

If you desperately want that amp trigger then go for WWS unique short siege bow (upped version would be great) on switch to trigger it.

[Bjam]

For strafe I'd definitely go with Atma's. Once you've tried it, you'll never go back. It magnifies damage up to 3x and it goes off constantly (5%x10 per volley). It also solves any PI issues you may have.

For multi, either Cat's Eye or HL. HL isn't as good as it may seem, because of the way deadly strike and critical strike work. Personally, I have critical strike of 72%, but lets take 70% as an easy number. At level 88 you'll have a 33% chance of DS (but only if CS doesn't trigger). That means it really only gives you another 10% chance of double damage. For that reason, I'd go with Cat's Eye for a multizon.

EDIT: WWS is a great little bow, but it gives only a 2% CTC Amp vs. 5% for Atma's. It's enough to get by, but there is a big difference.

[museamazon]

well im a multizon and i used atamas just becasue its all i had, was working fine but after i found i highlords ive not gone back. i cant belive that the triggering of amp adds more dmg then the speed increase highlords gives me. plus im loving the +1 to all skills

gosh 100th post!

[rachil0]

It's possible to get enough IAS elsewhere that you can hit the deepest multi breakpoint without a 20 IAS amulet. I'm playing around with:

shael wf
LoH
fortitude plate
ias andies visage
faith merc
atmas scarab

the rest is pretty flexible

Hits 7 frame multi, 100% pierce w/ razortail, 5% CtC amp and about 800% off weapon ED (400 dex or so). My favorite strategy is to FA/strafe into a crowd until amp triggers and then smash the whole bunch with multi. It'll never clear cows or CS as fast as LF/infinity but it's still pretty speedy.

It's a real tossup between (i) wf / faith merc / atma's amp damage and (ii) faith GMB / might merc / reapers decrepify. If the amp damage proc'd a little more often it'd be no contest though.

I don't think might merc with pride really stacks up to either of those in terms of damage - in Hell so many monsters have innate physical resistance, you've got to chop it down with curses to be competitive.

[curby]

I don't think might merc with pride really stacks up to either of those in terms of damage - in Hell so many monsters have innate physical resistance, you've got to chop it down with curses to be competitive.

Interesting insight. Can anyone else comment on the relative effectiveness of Decrep and stacked ED?

I was going to go the Might+Pride route, but I can see where you're coming from. With such a setup, my zon might even easily clear the Arcane Sanctuary without using Cold skills (relying on a 5% proc to quickly kill so many PIs is pretty much futile even with 2-frame strafe).

Decrep's also the favored curse to use against bosses, so that should work quite well as long as the Merc's got enough AR to hit reliably.

Alternately, one might try a Wrath bow on an A1 merc for immunity from Iron Maiden... it also procs Decrep at around 30%.

Edit: if there was some armor/helmet that granted a piercing attack, Wrath and that item on an A1 merc might get very effective.

[Virility]

I agree with rachil0 regarding curses being important in Hell difficulty.

Like crawlingdeadman I like to have an affect always available for this reason I prefer Pride polearm over Reapers for my Might merc.

Reapers requires the merc to engage the mobs, Pride does not. It does not matter where the merc is in the room or where the mobs are located, I will always get the damage boost from the concentration aura. In my case about 1200-1500 damage boost to my strafe/100% piercing arrows. My merc follows me most of the time thru Worldstone. Chaos Sanct where I use multi arrow skill he will get ahead of me but rarely has a chance to engage the targets to trigger any type of curse.

Decrip works great with ED, but I prefer to have the always on Concentration aura magnified by Atma's effect.

[curby]

I've been going through all sorts of combos with my zon. As Virility said, Reaper's Toll needs better AI than Azrael was given... he's often seen standing behind me and bravely guarding my back while I pump arrow after useless arrow into a Physical Immune group. Also, IM + stacked auras + 1 hit makes for a dead merc, and it's hard to reposition him without Teleport.

Pride's nice, but Azrael still dies to IM. Also, the Blind effect kills my Amp, which is between minorly annoying against most critters to very annoying against PIs.

So I'm giving my Ice Bow to my new Frostmaiden, and doggedly sticking to the Magic Arrow tree. My new test will be Faith on an A1 Merc, and I'll hold a windforce. For PI's I'll switch to an upped Witchwild String, which combined with my Atmas should proc often enough to not be a problem.

Whoops, we're severely highjacking this thread... go Atmas. Even if you need 95 IAS, you can get it without using the Amulet slot. And if you're willing to not use Fortitude, you've got even more options.

[SkyMind]

It's possible to get enough IAS elsewhere that you can hit the deepest multi breakpoint without a 20 IAS amulet. I'm playing around with:

shael wf
LoH
fortitude plate
ias andies visage
faith merc
atmas scarab

the rest is pretty flexible

Hits 7 frame multi, 100% pierce w/ razortail, 5% CtC amp and about 800% off weapon ED (400 dex or so). My favorite strategy is to FA/strafe into a crowd until amp triggers and then smash the whole bunch with multi. It'll never clear cows or CS as fast as LF/infinity but it's still pretty speedy.

It's a real tossup between (i) wf / faith merc / atma's amp damage and (ii) faith GMB / might merc / reapers decrepify. If the amp damage proc'd a little more often it'd be no contest though.

I don't think might merc with pride really stacks up to either of those in terms of damage - in Hell so many monsters have innate physical resistance, you've got to chop it down with curses to be competitive.


almost the same as my set up, only i have decided to wear 120/45 and 40/15 wf. andy's face is too ugly to been seen on anything other than a merc imo.

[Hyphy]

Highlord's > atmas, if you want' amp, Use Lacerator on switch, that's what I do when I pk in pubs AKA I NK