Merc weap question

[donothegod]

Merc weap question

Based on weapon damage/attack speed, ect. What is the best weapon to put a runeword in for an act 2 merc? I was hearing eth colossus voulge but is that really the best?

 

[MrBill]

Re: Merc weap question

Based on weapon damage/attack speed, ect. What is the best weapon to put a runeword in for an act 2 merc? I was hearing eth colossus voulge but is that really the best?

Religious question really because it depends on the Runeword -- if it's one of the "uber" ones (example: Hand of Justice) with built-in IAS (of course with Runes that the honest D2 player will never see or get to use), almost any good high damage ethereal elite polearm (CV etc.) will do a decent job. The main reason that people like Colossus Voulges is that they always get precisely 4 sockets from Larzuk in the quest socket and can't get more than that if you use the cube formula.

Ogre Axes are out because, for some reason I can't fathom, Blizzard elected to max them out at 3 sockets. (Although an ethereal superior one does make a very effective Crescent Moon.) The other elite polearms (Great Poleaxe, Thresher, Giant Thresher, Cryptic Axe etc. have the opposite problem, you can get 5 or 6 sockets in them, which is useless for Insight.)

For Insight, which is a far more accessible Runeword, I prefer an ethereal (superior is nice but very hard to find) Great Poleaxe, which has somewhat more consistent damage output than the Thresher, because of the GP's better minimum damage, and it's only a bit slower than the Thresher. If, however, your merc has a lot of proc effects (particularly CB and OW), you may be better off with the Thresher simply because these trigger more often.

Finally, I always live off the land (don't like trading) so really the first 4 socket elite polearm that I get, especially if ethereal, usually gets made into an Insight. After all, if you find a better one later, you can always make a new Insight out of that one and upgrade Waheed... he'll thank you profusely, as will the lower level players that you give the old Insight to.

:thumbsup:

Cheers

Mr. Bill

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Merc weap question

Considering the high-stat-requirements, slow-speed, and low-minimum-damage, Collossus Voulges are actually one of the worst choices - possibly the very worst. But as MrBill said, the fact that they're the only elite polearm guaranteed to get 4 sockets from Larzuk makes them a popular option because they're much more common (relatively) than other eth 4-socket polearms.


For the Infinity runeword, I think someone did some math (with pre-planned armour & helm for the merc) and the damage-per-second was slightly superior on a Thresher*. <-- if I remember correctly. However, I always felt that with a lightning sorc your merc's not likely to get more than a hit or two anyways, so I always favoured the highest-damage-per-hit (Cryptic Axe) to get the most leech-per-hit.

For Insight I'm less sure, but I suspect it's the same as Infinity. Overall, the differences aren't that spectacular though - any option will work very well.


*Technically a Giant Thresher would be slightly stronger than a Thresher, but in my opinion when you factor in the differences in stat & level requirements between those, it's not worth that tiny difference in damage, in my opinion.

 

[arBitur]

Re: Merc weap question

I think a Eth Cryptic Axe would be a nice choice but getting one with 4 sockets will be a bit difficult, i'd go for Dia runs in hell to get a Eth Cryptic axe as ive gotten about 60% of all my socketed polearms there, the runeword i recommend for the Eth Cryptic Axe would probably be Insight if you use mana alot or if u want a cheap but functional runeword Honor (Amn + El + Ith + Tir + Sol).

Hope this helped