Mercs...

[Guest]

Recently, I equipped an act 5 merc with a ccb. It had an eth in it. I tested it on a friend.

Friends level: 74
Merc level: 80

In normal PvP, the eth bug would make it (almost) always hit.

My merc took about 50 swings before he connected.

Also, the merc was a higher level, so the AR level difference wouldn't have effected it. Also, it wasn't desynch or the merc swinging from too far away. A

Am I missing something, or does this not work with mercs?

[AtomicKitKat]

Hmm. What exactly is the Eth bug aout? Does it mean that you're (effectively)at 75% defense with 1 Eth, 50% with 2, and 0 defense with 4? I never completely understood. Also, while I'm here, if I have a MAGIC weapon with both a prefix and a suffix, what happens when I try to socket it using the Larzuk reward? Will I get ANY sockets? Will I get up to 4 sockets? Will I get the maximum number of sockets for that item?

[ShadowHM]

Hmm. What exactly is the Eth bug aout? Does it mean that you're (effectively)at 75% defense with 1 Eth, 50% with 2, and 0 defense with 4? I never completely understood. Also, while I'm here, if I have a MAGIC weapon with both a prefix and a suffix, what happens when I try to socket it using the Larzuk reward? Will I get ANY sockets? Will I get up to 4 sockets? Will I get the maximum number of sockets for that item?

The Eth bug confers ITD (even against Act Bosses) on a weapon that has a single Eth rune socketed in it. In other words, it does what the Jah Rune is supposed to do, and then some.

Regarding Socketing: Larzuk follows these rules. He punches one hole in Rare, Set or Unique Items. He punches one or two holes in any Blue item (random selection on that). He will punch the maxmimum number of sockets only in White or Grey Items that are of sufficiently high item level, and will always punch the maximum number in them. For lower level White or Grey items, my recollection of the rules is hazy.

Regarding the effects of the Eth bug on mercenaries: I have a mercenary with a Fury Lance. As far as I can tell, he never misses against a regular monster. Of course, Act Bosses still kill him rather quickly anyway. I never do PVP gaming, so I cannot say on the accuracy effect there, but I am wondering whether this would be part of the penalty that mercs have against players?

[AtomicKitKat]

Thanks Shadow(By the way, you look good for a mother)

So now I'm left wondering, which gives the most poison damage?

A 6 socket Long War Bow with 6 P Emeralds
A 2 socketed Pestilent Bow of Blight (with 2 P Emeralds)
A Venom bow

Probably nobody will answer, but I just thought I'd throw the question out there.

My Venom-sin Lolth is doing pretty well right now with:

Triple Socketed Superior Ring Mail(60 PD over 2 seconds from Envy, one had cold or lightning resist on it as well)
Triple Envy Socketed Short Bow(recently switched to a Short War Bow of Anthrax(100 damage over six seconds)
Snakecord Unique Light Belt
A buttload of 6/3 sec poison based charms of various sizes(most prized being a septic grand of blight doing 21/6)

The listed damage is somewhere in the high 200s(300+ now that I switched bows), but we all know that missile-based poison damage is buggy(estimated about 40 seconds duration on my poison, using Griswold and Andariel as early level tests)

She still needs about 4 shots to kill Normal Diablo though :/

[Professor Frink]

So now I'm left wondering, which gives the most poison damage?

A 6 socket Long War Bow with 6 P Emeralds
A 2 socketed Pestilent Bow of Blight (with 2 P Emeralds)
A Venom bow

from The Tao of Poison:

P. Emerald: 14.3 hp/s for 7 sec
Pestilent Weapon: 45.9 hp/s for 6 sec
Weapon of Blight: 2.34 hp/s for 3 sec
Venom Runeword: 30.5 hp/s for 7 sec
Tal Rune: 15.0 hp/s for 7 sec
(the Tal rune in venom is counted seperately)

Total Poison (for ranged weapons, sum of rate for sum of durations) :
6 P. Emerald Long War Bow: 86.1 hp/s for 42 sec
2 P. Emerald Pestilent Bow of Blight: 76.8 hp/s for 23 sec
'Venom' runeword Bow: 45.5 hp/s for 14 sec

Both the rate and duration are best with the plain socketed emerald bow, so the final damage should always be highest with it (otherwise you'd need to consider what other equipment and your level of venom skill you're wearing to decide which is more important, boosted duration or boosted damage rate) IMHO, a slvl 20+ venom and the 6 Perf bow gets you enough rate that you should mostly look for boosted duration on your other gear.

My Venom-sin Lolth is doing pretty well right now with:

Triple Socketed Superior Ring Mail(60 PD over 2 seconds from Envy, one had cold or lightning resist on it as well)
Triple Envy Socketed Short Bow(recently switched to a Short War Bow of Anthrax(100 damage over six seconds)
Snakecord Unique Light Belt
A buttload of 6/3 sec poison based charms of various sizes(most prized being a septic grand of blight doing 21/6)

The listed damage is somewhere in the high 200s(300+ now that I switched bows), but we all know that missile-based poison damage is buggy(estimated about 40 seconds duration on my poison, using Griswold and Andariel as early level tests)

She still needs about 4 shots to kill Normal Diablo though :/

My venom/traps-sin did pretty well using a 6 p.emerald bow, two rings of blight, and some low-quality poison charms, but never managed to achieve the fabled one-hit kill on any bosses (unless you count the summoner). There's something going on besides the listed hp and resistence of bosses in the arreat summit, becuase by doing the math mine should have been able to take hell nihlithak in one hit, but it actually took several. Is there global poision duration reduction in hell, like there is for cold? Or maybe Arreat Summit doesn't include the 8x Unique hp bonus for the nihlithak.

- frink

[Ruvanal]

"Or maybe Arreat Summit doesn't include the 8x Unique hp bonus for the nihlithak."

They did not include the hit point bonus for Nihlathak being a boss.

[AtomicKitKat]

The irony of killing Andariel in one hit from a poisoned bow! :D

Admittedly, I twink heavily with this character. She has most of her inventory(sans cube, both tomes) filled with poison charms, the majority of which are 6/3, with the notable exceptions of a large charm of 15/6 and a grand with 50/7(I think) All in all, I'd say she's well on her way. I wish I'd found the Wormskull on my own, instead of with my brother's Necro(who is now wearing it) Still, I'm happy for him, since his level 20+ Poison Nova/Bone Spirit(with about +4 to P/B tree gear) allows a few Baal runs when I'm bored, and is always a good complement to my Thorns Pally(I don't think anything is Phys/Poison/Magic Immune all at the same time...)

Thanks for the info. My paladin found a Long Battle Bow in the pits of Abbadon yesterday, and I'm hoping that he can 6 socket it. Is the ilevel high enough?(I think a minotaur or a demon imp dropped it)

[AssA]

Ilvl doesn't matter. If it's found in normal, it won't get 6 sockets, if it's found in NM/Hell, it will get 6. (Unless battle bows have a lower maximum number of sockets, ofcourse :P )

[Ruvanal]

Ilvl doesn't matter. If it's found in normal, it won't get 6 sockets, if it's found in NM/Hell, it will get 6. (Unless battle bows have a lower maximum number of sockets, ofcourse :P )

Actually it is the ilvl that does matter, not the difficulty that it was found in. For a bow to get 6 sockets from the socket quest would require that the bow itself have a max of 6 gemsockets (which Long Battle Bows do) AND that the ilvl be 40+ (based on the itemtypes.txt max sockets by ilvl data). Only a few of the monsters in normal difficulty will have a level of 40+ for this. In the Pits of Abaddon, only the minataur boss packs would have a mlvl of 40 (43 for the boss himself). The rest o fthe monsters are too low.

In normal difficulty a randomly dropped socketed item will be limited to 3 sockets and in nightmare these randomly dropped items would be limited to 4 sockets. To get more sockets you will need to use the socket quest on an item with a sufficent ilvl or wait till hell difficulty to find one.

[AtomicKitKat]

Actually, I think the minotaurs in the pits in A5 are not strong enough. I'd probably do better hoping for the minos/furies in the ToD to drop me one, since those monsters are virtually guaranteed to be mlvl 40

Blood Witches are mlvl 40, Hell Witches are mlvl 42
Hell Lords are mlvl 40, Death Lords are mlvl 43
Minions of Destruction are at LEAST mlvl 55(max 60)

I don't know about the boss packs which Baal spawns(apart from Lister's gang), but I'm willing to bet none of them will be high enough.

Edit: Apparently, only Colenzo and his gang is also guaranteed to be level 40(higher for Cole himself)

The other packs don't seem to have a different level from their normal counterparts, although the bosses themselves MIGHT be higher than mlvl 40...

[Brista]

Long battle bows and Long war bows with 6 sockets drop rather frequently in Hell games. Most people don't check them

I generally find that if I need one and start checking grey bows I find one within a week

[the Langolier]

Point being: Don't waste your socket reward on an item you can find socketed. Save it for the high end uniques.

[Brista]

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that - if I found a good unique armour that would do me for a Lionheart I might socket it

Similarly a superior weapon with 15% ed already there would be great.

There is also the option of deliberately rushing your mules for the socket quests (and a Hellforge drop) which should give you spare socketings

Similarly anything with + skills on might be a contender. A +3 Meteor +3 Fire Mastery staff would be +6/+6 with Leaf

The table of max sockets is here:
http://www.diabloii.net/items/sockets.shtml

Note that you are not guaranteed the maximum - it's stated as +/- 1

It needs to be read against the listing of what is the max for any specific item (not all shields can have 4 sockets for instance)

[Ruvanal]

The table of max sockets is here:
http://www.diabloii.net/items/sockets.shtml

Note that you are not guaranteed the maximum - it's stated as +/- 1

It needs to be read against the listing of what is the max for any specific item (not all shields can have 4 sockets for instance)

The page that you directly linked to has a number of inncorrect information listings on it. This is the type of misinformation that Jarulf and myself have attempted to have corrected in the past (and would continually have our statements twisted around and posted again).

If you look in the middle of that page, there is a link that does have the correct information for max sockets as prepared by Hammerman. The only thing that Hammerman did not account for there is size of the item will also limit the max sockets that it can get.

You can find a better listing of what is going on with the socket situation in this thread.
http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/in...ST&f=93&t=21638

[Hammerman]

The only thing that Hammerman did not account for there is size of the item will also limit the max sockets that it can get.

Hm, true, but the list at http://www.geocities.com/hammermand2/files/sockets.xls takes the size into account. I updated a week or so after it was put on dii.net, but forgot to mention it to Flux.

[Brista]

Thank you both