Bramble on mercenary?

[Pasky]

Bramble on mercenary?

I used to do this last ladder (talking about a summoning necromancer), however, not sure if it is worth it or not. Does it make any difference to have a mercenary with a thorns aura for the minions? I know thorns alone, it doesn't make a big difference because of monsters in hell regenerate so quickly, but maybe with amplify damage it does help somewhat...

Opinions? Thoughts? Experiences?

Thanks.

 

[The Son Of Disaster]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

From my experience as well as what I've heard, it doesn't really speed things up all too much. Monsters have much higher HP than the melee damage they deal, thus making the damage returned barely a scratch. However with alot of Revives out it could be useful to throw on. Could be nasty with Thorns+Iron Maiden on Revives, and even Spirit of Barbs from a Wisp Projector muahaha

 

[comson]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

go with fort or coh instead

 

[cynicalcat1]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

i got the runes up to try a bramble on my merc.in my experience the thorns aura is not worth it.i switched back to a fort and had faster kills.the worse part is i made the bramble in a wormhyde so i cannot even use it as a iron golem.:cry:

 

[Pasky]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

Hrmmm, looking at monster damage from arreat summit, those mega demons in act 4 do 93-143 pts of damage, a level 20 thorns would reflect back:

939.3-1444.3 damage

and a level 15 thorns:

753.3-1158.3 damage

Add amplify damage which would put them at -50% physicial resistance (I think all hell monsters have +50% resistance to physical naturally, correct me if I'm wrong).

Adds up to:

Level 20 thorns + Amplify damage (Mega demon):

1408.95-2164.95 (per hit)

Level 15 thorns + Amplify damage (Mega demon):

1129.95-1737.45 (per hit)

That's really not bad at all if I calculated correctly. Bramble really doesn't seem to bad as long as amplify damage is in effect.

 

[Pasky]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

i got the runes up to try a bramble on my merc.in my experience the thorns aura is not worth it.i switched back to a fort and had faster kills.the worse part is i made the bramble in a wormhyde so i cannot even use it as a iron golem.:cry:

Well, iron golems already have a thorn aura I think =P.

 

[The Son Of Disaster]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

True, iron golems dmg reflection over powers thorns from anywhere including itself. Thought provoking math there Pasky. Unfortunately I just don't see such results while it is in use. I'm sure when my new summoner is up and running I'll work on buying a nice Bramble and see how it goes. But the Thorns issue seemed to be the same reason Revives aren't "too" effective as an army vs hell minions because they don't really kill fast. Albeit offensive auras certainly help there. If you come up with some in game test results let me know you've got me curious

 

[Pasky]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

Well, in my own personal taste, the faster I can kill 1 enemy, the faster I can set off the chain reaction for corpse explosion which is my only goal. The only time I care about raw damage is when fighting bosses, which really doesn't matter when you have 36+ minions pummeling down on them, they go down either way and fairly quickly. I sometimes switch my merc over to a 3socket tomb reaver with 3 bers for the crushing blow just during the boss, otherwise he is wearing an insight for all the corpse explosion madness.

So if the thorns can reflect back about 1000+ points of damage per swing on the monster, I'll be a happy camper, may not notice a big difference, but as long as that first monster drops faster I'll be satisfied.

I'll try it out as soon as I get a spare ohm, only rune I don't have for the bramble and not really in a rush to get one, just curious of other peoples opinions on it.

 

[handofnaz]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

I'll try it out as soon as I get a spare ohm, only rune I don't have for the bramble and not really in a rush to get one, just curious of other peoples opinions on it.

How about testing it with an A1 merc and an Edge bow? Way cheaper and you won't have to wait to trade that Ohm first.

I remember reading somewhere around here that Amp + Thorns works great in small games, but isn't so hot in bigger ones.

 

[Wizdomm]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

The problem with thorns is it requires monsters to actually hit you and your minions to actually hurt them. Most of the time your minions will kill the monster before he ever has a chance to damage himself with thorns. So I would just use fort on the merc (to increase his killing speed).

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

I have bramble on a poison/summoner, and have not seen an increase in killing speed. Looking at Pasky's math I would think that it would work too. But what I have seen from experience it doesn't seem to help much, if at all. I am not always using amp with this guy though, sometimes I do.

The only thing that I can think of to explain this (someone already mentioned) this season the poor relation between monster damage and monster HP. Also, maybe the monster attack speed is too slow in relation to it's regeneration. Like if it regenerates 90% of the damage back before its next attack.

 

[canudig]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

well if you pimp out your merc, then you'll get the first body drop with one poke of his all-mighty stick most of the time anways.....

 

[Pasky]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

well if you pimp out your merc, then you'll get the first body drop with one poke of his all-mighty stick most of the time anways.....

Well, there are times where you can't place your merc on top of an enemy in fear of a huge mob, so you can't tele in the middle of it to place him correctly and you need to sit back and let the mob duke it out until its safe enough to tele stomp a mob. This is where I would figure it would help when mobs are beating on the skellies.

 

[canudig]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

hmm....personally I dunno what problem you are referring to.....If I tele into a large mob, I just usually tele close to the edge of the safest side and it takes one step for the merc to meet the monsters, and 1-2 pokes to get me a corpse.....

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

I agree canudig, the reason I have bramble is for the 50% poison damage for poison nova, not for the thorns aura. That might be the other reason I have not noticed thorns helping, my merc usually gets first body dropped before thorns has a chance to work.

 

[canudig]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

yeah kinda OT, but I find a bramble poisoner is much more fragile then a tele or tranger build......

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

yea, he was my 1st poison/summoner, I was going for max damage. He isn't fragile at all though, and with -90% enemy poison resist (not counting LR), nothing gets close to him, everything dies in one nova, even most broken immunes.

He actually clears areas almost as fast as my fishy, little slower on bosses though. Was thinking about getting him a nigma, but I don't think he will ever be quite as fast as the fishy so I have not bothered, I haven't used him in months.

 

[Pasky]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

hmm....personally I dunno what problem you are referring to.....If I tele into a large mob, I just usually tele close to the edge of the safest side and it takes one step for the merc to meet the monsters, and 1-2 pokes to get me a corpse.....

Say for instance, a large mob of succubus couple with glooms, you don't wanna tele on a succubus to get swamped by lightning bolts coming everywhere so you sit back and wait for a corpse to pop.

 

[canudig]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

dim vision....use it and love it.....also pretty sure thorns only reflect physical damage anyways so you won't get damage returned on gloam's lightning or succubus's ranged attack.....

 

[Mad Mantis]

Re: Bramble on mercenary?

I think all hell monsters have +50% resistance to physical naturally, correct me if I'm wrong.

Consider yourself corrected. This was dropped when 1.10 came out.