Blade Fury Analysis

[bpward]

Ok I noticed that the merc Pride weapon gives me around a 2500 damage boost with infinity on. So I might have to stick with Pride on the merc. I'm not sure if that counts the might aura too or if the might stayed on when I took the pride off, but that boost alone is huge and is bigger for the 2H weapons than for the Famine/Phoenix combo. The pride boost was only around 1000 when I had those on.

I'm going to make Destruction tonight and see how it works out...

[Karth]

Don't forget that Infinity is giving you the benefit of very, very greatly reduced enemy defense. This could be a large part of that extra damage you're talking about.

[stephan]

Hey I've been playing with the blade fury + blade sentinal assassin combination lately.

At first I was using an Eth Famine Small Crescent (350-420 damage) paired with the Phoenix shield (370% ED). Other relevant equipment is Fortitude armor and Giant skull with 70% ED. Combined with a Might + Pride merc, this put me to around 8,500 maximum damage for blade fury on the damage screen.

There is no point to look at the LCS for your damage because it doesn't accurately display your BF damage in any kind of way. You will have to do the calculation by hand.

If you look at the base average damage of an eth Famine Small Crescent (49*1.5*4.7 = 345 max) and an eth Infinity (91*1.5*4.25 = 580 max) and then apply the 3/4 and 3/8 penalties you get 345*3/4 = 259 and 580*3/8 = 218.

Raw damage wise it is quite easy to see what wins.

[bpward]

Yeah this build is a lot of fun. I found Eth Destruction works best for me over Eth Infinity and the Famine/Phoenix combo .

Then I add the Rogue merc using Wrath bow, Eth Treachery armor and Eth Delerium helm.

I ended up cutting the act 3 merc because his damage boost isn't enough to keep me from dying. The Rogue does major crowd control PLUS decrepify for phys immunes. Chaos dual physical immunes were impossible without the rogue merc.

[Ceramic Weasel]

... does the character screen accurately reflect the damage of blade fury? ... I am wondering if the 2H weapons are just being dismissed prematurely without proper testing?

When wielding 2-Handed weapons, the BF 3/4 penalty increases to 3/8. This is widely known and has been confirmed throughout my testing many times over. What isn't widely known, however, is that the LCS will continue to display damage as though the penalty were 3/4. Do not trust your character screen!

I tested this quite thoroughly at the time. Your character screen is lying to you. The perceived damage increase you're experiencing is most likely due to the CB and reduced monster defense from Conviction.

Compare it against a high damage 1H weapon with a high % CB, and put Infinity on your merc. It'll probably be more effective than your Might + Pride merc.

[bpward]

Yeah I actually am going with an Eth Superior Death Ettin Axe now, which has major deadly strike and CB, plus the Phoenix Shield. Merc has Eth Destruction Cryptic Axe. I think having cloak of shadows plus infinity is a bit of a waste. If I need to drop defense I can just cast cloak and focus on pure power. I'm thinking about switching to a more kick based build now though because I really like using dragon strike (teleport kick).

With the death axe I can use blade shield too and if I switch to mostly kicks I have the gear to run 75% crush blow and 90+% deadly strike, and be able to make use of it all with combined Teleport kick (dragon strike), into Regular kick (talon), then Blade fury if I don't want to teleport kick the ranged guys (1 skill point) and have Blade shield running.

This would let me use all the mods most effectively since only some spells use CB and others DS.

[onderduiker]

I think having cloak of shadows plus infinity is a bit of a waste. If I need to drop defense I can just cast cloak and focus on pure power.

Cloak of Shadows does not apply to bosses; Conviction does.

[crawlingdeadman]

imagine that, Arreat Summit contradicts itself:

Cloak Of Shadows' "Blinding" will not work on: Unique, Champion Class, Super Unique Monsters and bosses. Defense adjustment will always work for you and monsters.

http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp...n-shadow.shtml

that at least to me it seems to imply that the -def works for all monsters.

[Ceramic Weasel]

http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp...n-shadow.shtml

that at least to me it seems to imply that the -def works for all monsters.

It certainly does. Unfortunately, it's wrong. :(

[onderduiker]

imagine that, Arreat Summit contradicts itself:

http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp...n-shadow.shtml

that at least to me it seems to imply that the -def works for all monsters.

I linked to the Arreat Summit's recently created Bosses page for the convenience of a list of the bosses to which Cloak of Shadows does not apply -% Defence (it does apply to Super Unique, Unique and Champion monsters, although it doesn't blind them).

I know Cloak of Shadows doesn't apply -% Defence to the bosses listed on that page because I actually tested it before submitting the update which resulted in that page's creation on 1 March this year (which is still visible on the AS News page).

I have no idea when the Shadow Disciplines page was last updated.