Finally: Obedience

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Hi,

Yesterday-evening I finally found another Nef, which enabled me to cube up
to an Eth, and complete the Obedience I was planning. The runes went into
an ethereal Thresher, and the result was a medium Obedience: +25x def and
+24 res-all. The damage numbers were something like 88-911.

When put on my skelliemancer's merc (a lvl 92 might dude, already wearing
a Fortitude armor and a Guillaume's Face), the damage numbers rose to
phenomenal height, especially when the Might aura kicked in, and the
Enchant was also added: the merc deals something like 1300-7000 damage,
IIRC. Enough to one-hit kill everything.

Since the merc is protected by The Horde, he doesn't seem to miss the Life
Leech on the upped Hone Sundan he was wielding before. The damage numbers
of that had higher min damage (about 1450) but a lot less maxdamage (a few
thousand less).

All in all, a very nice merc stick, though it, like the ethereal upped
Hone Sundan I was using before that, provides very little 'area effects'
(i.e. no curses, no aura, no CtC anything). It just a heavily hitting,
pointy stick, useful for a merc that should do just that: kill what he
hits. I'm not sure I'd like this on the merc of a melee character; I
rather like the CtC Decrepify on f.i. the unique Thresher a lot for a
Barb's merc.

I also have a spare ethereal Cryptic Axe left; might give that to Larzuk
and also make Obedience in it, to see how it compares.

I'll keep the Obedience on the merc a bit longer, to see how it goes. This
also indicates to me that I can indeed rethink my 'preferred' socketing of
a Hone Sundan: no longer will I put 2 x Amn/1 x Shael in, but 2 x Shael/1
x Amn. But maybe this works out differently with a different char (i.e.
one where the merc is not protected by The Horde).

Regards,

Patrick.

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

On Wed, 04 May 2005 10:24:06 +0200, Patrick Vervoorn wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> Yesterday-evening I finally found another Nef, which enabled me to cube up
> to an Eth, and complete the Obedience I was planning. The runes went into
> an ethereal Thresher, and the result was a medium Obedience: +25x def and
> +24 res-all. The damage numbers were something like 88-911.
>

Congratz with the finding

> When put on my skelliemancer's merc (a lvl 92 might dude, already wearing
> a Fortitude armor and a Guillaume's Face), the damage numbers rose to
> phenomenal height, especially when the Might aura kicked in, and the
> Enchant was also added: the merc deals something like 1300-7000 damage,
> IIRC. Enough to one-hit kill everything.
>

Yep, he is close to becoming a real bastard with that stick.

> Since the merc is protected by The Horde, he doesn't seem to miss the Life
> Leech on the upped Hone Sundan he was wielding before. The damage numbers
> of that had higher min damage (about 1450) but a lot less maxdamage (a few
> thousand less).
>

My experience too, i think i loose the merc in maybe 1 of 10 games when
it's not due to IM. The only thing that seems to bring him down if there
is a lot of those flying witches with bosses with very nasty mods, then
sometimes i will go down.
Againt IM nothing really helps.

> All in all, a very nice merc stick, though it, like the ethereal upped
> Hone Sundan I was using before that, provides very little 'area effects'
> (i.e. no curses, no aura, no CtC anything). It just a heavily hitting,
> pointy stick, useful for a merc that should do just that: kill what he
> hits. I'm not sure I'd like this on the merc of a melee character; I
> rather like the CtC Decrepify on f.i. the unique Thresher a lot for a
> Barb's merc.
>

There also some differenses in playing style, with a necro or other chars
that is not depending on their own physical killing powers you really need
a merc that can do the killing for you. But with barbs, palas fury druids
and chars like that where you are doing the most killing yourself you will
still need some other help from a merc where there is different sticks
that do a better job.
Myself i also used reaper's toll on my throw barbs merc so i could kill
PI. I uses insight in my ama's merc, since she uses lots of mana for
either lf or freezing arrow.
So yes i think different char benefit from diffent merc setups.

> I also have a spare ethereal Cryptic Axe left; might give that to Larzuk
> and also make Obedience in it, to see how it compares.
>
> I'll keep the Obedience on the merc a bit longer, to see how it goes. This
> also indicates to me that I can indeed rethink my 'preferred' socketing of
> a Hone Sundan: no longer will I put 2 x Amn/1 x Shael in, but 2 x Shael/1
> x Amn. But maybe this works out differently with a different char (i.e.
> one where the merc is not protected by The Horde).
>

--
Sonni

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

In article <pan.2005.05.04.09.29.57.774709@sonni.org>,
Sonni Skammelsen <news@sonni.org> wrote:
>On Wed, 04 May 2005 10:24:06 +0200, Patrick Vervoorn wrote:
>
>> Yesterday-evening I finally found another Nef, which enabled me to cube up
>> to an Eth, and complete the Obedience I was planning. The runes went into
>> an ethereal Thresher, and the result was a medium Obedience: +25x def and
>> +24 res-all. The damage numbers were something like 88-911.
>
>Congratz with the finding

Thanks! Though I was expecting something like a Nef to drop. And a Tir
would also have helped because of the cube-cascade following that.

>> When put on my skelliemancer's merc (a lvl 92 might dude, already wearing
>> a Fortitude armor and a Guillaume's Face), the damage numbers rose to
>> phenomenal height, especially when the Might aura kicked in, and the
>> Enchant was also added: the merc deals something like 1300-7000 damage,
>> IIRC. Enough to one-hit kill everything.
>
>Yep, he is close to becoming a real bastard with that stick.

Well, he already was. I think I'll probably keep the Hone Sundan on that
merc, because of the high req's on the upped Hone. The Obedience has very
mild requirements (lvl53 needed, and something like 85 dex/115str), so I
can use that much, much sooner.

>> Since the merc is protected by The Horde, he doesn't seem to miss the Life
>> Leech on the upped Hone Sundan he was wielding before. The damage numbers
>> of that had higher min damage (about 1450) but a lot less maxdamage (a few
>> thousand less).
>
>My experience too, i think i loose the merc in maybe 1 of 10 games when
>it's not due to IM. The only thing that seems to bring him down if there
>is a lot of those flying witches with bosses with very nasty mods, then
>sometimes i will go down.
>Againt IM nothing really helps.

Yup, when IM is cast, I know for sure I have to pay another 50k to
resurrcent the merc. However, if he gets into trouble, the life leech
on the Hone Sundan did help him to regain his life. I haven't gotten into
a situation like that with the Obedience stick yet. Will do some more
testing, but I will surely use the Obedience for mid-game use on act 2
mercs, due to it's low req's.

>There also some differenses in playing style, with a necro or other chars
>that is not depending on their own physical killing powers you really need
>a merc that can do the killing for you.

Precisely: I need a hard hitting merc there to create the first corpse, so
I can start CE-ing. This is less so for melee types.

>But with barbs, palas fury druids
>and chars like that where you are doing the most killing yourself you will
>still need some other help from a merc where there is different sticks
>that do a better job.
>Myself i also used reaper's toll on my throw barbs merc so i could kill
>PI. I uses insight in my ama's merc, since she uses lots of mana for
>either lf or freezing arrow.

Never made an Insight stick, but it sounds interesting if it really works
as well as described in the RocketSorc posting; regenerating life/mana at
huge rates...

And yes, Reaper's Toll is still very nice for that Decepify; really
settles down groups of monsters, allowing my Sorc and IK Barb (both have a
merc using one) to kill more quickly/easily.

>So yes i think different char benefit from diffent merc setups.

Yup!

>> I'll keep the Obedience on the merc a bit longer, to see how it goes. This
>> also indicates to me that I can indeed rethink my 'preferred' socketing of
>> a Hone Sundan: no longer will I put 2 x Amn/1 x Shael in, but 2 x Shael/1
>> x Amn. But maybe this works out differently with a different char (i.e.
>> one where the merc is not protected by The Horde).

Of course, an alterative would be to put some kind of ED% jewels in the
Hone Sundan, to further up it's physical damage. 3 x Ohm would add another
150%ED (very expensive, I know). 1 x Amn / 1 x Shael / 1 x ED jewel would
be more afordable, and would reach the first breakpoint, add some life
leech, and further up the damage done by it.

Or 1 x Amn, 2 x ED/IAS jewel would get me over the first breakpoint, but
not over the second. More expensive of course.

Regards,

Patrick.