Razortail or Thunder God's? What's a HC javazon to do?

**japanzaman** · 25-01-2013, 13:57

As the title stated, what's the best option? I also have a Verdungo's I'll keep handy for certain MFing. Ideally I'm interested in Baal, cows, Pindle, and perhaps CS. Is the extra pierce better than more life and extra damage? I'm playing untwinked with rather modest gear (No lightning faceted monarch or griffon's), and survival is obviously a must.

Yoroshiku

**mogar** · 25-01-2013, 17:55

I'd go for the extra damage from razortail. After all, they cant kill you if they're dead. But I would still keep the tgods in my inv for the lit absorb.

**zaphodbrx** · 25-01-2013, 18:22

Tgods is mostly useful against gloams.
Razortail adds more dmg via pierce, but it's not that much, and only really noticeable in cow level and maybe some other dense monster areas.

**crawlingdeadman** · 25-01-2013, 21:38

Razortail. <--period

100% pierce adds damage. The points you save by getting pierce from gear instead of skills raises it again since you can then put those points into a synergy instead of pierce.

**zaphodbrx** · 26-01-2013, 02:09

Razortail does not 'save' points in pierce. You need slvl 9 ( after skills ) for 69% pierce. Rtail raises it to 100 ( max ), and in case of not using T-gods, well, just keep it at that level. Pierce has diminishing returns and no need to get more than that.

T-gods isn't about +3 to lightningfury, that's just a bonus. It is to make you completely immune to ( even heal from ) lightning damage.
LFzon kills fast enough anyway without razortail in most areas.

I keep both R-tail and T-gods in my stash and swap them out depending on the need.

**japanzaman** · 26-01-2013, 03:08

Originally Posted by zaphodbrx

T-gods isn't about +3 to lightningfury, that's just a bonus. It is to make you completely immune to ( even heal from ) lightning damage.

From my understanding, TGod's only absorbs 20 lightning damage, not % damage like you get from a Lightsabre, meaning you would not be completely immune even with the 85 lresist. Still, I'm going to keep it ready just in case.

I'm leaning towards razortail, but I guess I will have to go out and see how well each perform before knowing for sure. The main issue besides the performance is stat point allocation. If I go with Razortail, I'll need to dump more points into strength to hit 156, even if I strength glitch the shield. Razortail adds to dex, so I need less dex than with tgods. Oh well, just have to experiment and see what happens. Thanks for the replies.

**crawlingdeadman** · 26-01-2013, 14:42

Originally Posted by zaphodbrx

Razortail does not 'save' points in pierce. You need slvl 9 ( after skills ) for 69% pierce. Rtail raises it to 100 ( max ), and in case of not using T-gods, well, just keep it at that level. Pierce has diminishing returns and no need to get more than that.

Sure it does. You'd have to be an idiot to not want 100% pierce.

**BobCox2** · 27-01-2013, 08:25

It's a GiRLs BelT ChoIce and They 0nLy GavE US two?

sad really

I mean the whole L00K changes.

I get you girls!

**Archone** · 29-01-2013, 07:31

Im totally for Razortail, always been, and Ive tried Tgods aswell. My only additional info I can provide here, is that +3 LS can be better for Non-LF users.

The absorb is calculated first though, and resists AFTER, so you cant be immune to an element with absorb.
UNLESS the spell does lower dmg then the absorb.

Peace

**onderduiker** · 30-01-2013, 18:49

Originally Posted by zaphodbrx

Razortail does not 'save' points in pierce. You need slvl 9 ( after skills ) for 69% pierce. Rtail raises it to 100 ( max ), and in case of not using T-gods, well, just keep it at that level. Pierce has diminishing returns and no need to get more than that.

With just two targets and one chance to pierce, 100% chance is ~18.3% increase in potential damage over 69% chance (2 collisions vs 1.69 on average); at most, level 31 Lightning Fury (555.5 average base damage) is ~15.6% increase over level 28 (480.5 average), and this percentage declines as skill level increases (level 43 LF is only ~9.6% damage increase on level 40).

Originally Posted by japanzaman

From my understanding, TGod's only absorbs 20 lightning damage, not % damage like you get from a Lightsabre, meaning you would not be completely immune even with the 85 lresist.

Unique Willowisps and their minions in level 85 areas of Hell apply 200-300 base lightning damage. Lightning Resist 75% will reduce this to 50-75, then Lightsabre's 25% Lightning Absorb will heal 25% of this (12.5-18.75) before reducing remaining damage by 25% (12.5-18.75): when current life <= maximum life - (12.5-18.75), the net result is 25-37.5 life lost (equivalent to the effect of LR 87.5% reducing damage to 12.5%, since (1-0.75) * (1 - (0.25*2) ) = 0.125).

LR 85% reduces 200-300 lightning damage to 30-45, then LA +20 will heal 20 before reducing remaining damage by 20: when current life <= maximum life - 20, the net result is -5 to +10 life (+2.5 on average).

Originally Posted by Archone

The absorb is calculated first though, and resists AFTER, so you cant be immune to an element with absorb.

Resistance is applied before absorb, but percentage absorb has a ceiling of 40% so it can never result in net life gain (at best, Resist 75% and 40% Absorb has the same effect as Resist 95%, since (1-0.75) * (1 - (0.4*2) ) = 0.05, or 5% damage). Integer absorb can result in net life gain when the damage remaining after resistance (and percentage absorb) is less than its healing and damage reduction.