03-22-2003, 03:00 AM
Do you mean the numbers? I'm not sure those are correct, but the discrepency between IM by itself vs thorns merc+amp is about 5:1 in favor of thorns+amp, and about 3:1 in merc+amp:im+merc... in hell at least. In nightmare and normal the discepency is notably less, but still quite in favor of the merc+amp. Also of note is that amp in hell makes your summons do 3x their normal damage (mages aside, and they're just silly in hell anyways), which means that instead of doing 30 (60 is about the damage skeletons do at 20/20 iirc) they do 90 which gives them a 200% increase in effectiveness in hell without, as well as a 200-400% increase in effectiveness of damage returned. With these in mind your average monster will die a considerable amount faster hitting your skeleton less, less hits=longer skeleton life... that seems pretty simple and I'm sure you'd agree.
Now my arguement against the might merc is that revives/skeletons already do lousy damage, and amp works just as fine(well perhaps 12% less if you want to nit pick)... Amp is terribly party friendly as someone is likely to have their own might merc in most games, and not to mention throrns itself returns more then IM ever could realistically, AND stacks nicely with Amp Damage, whereas you cannot stack amp and IM. A slight twist on this would to be to run decripify instead of amp as it halves monsters attack damage. However, I feel the duration and raduis on this are real issues considering that with a number of minions you will be dealing with a spread, so why bother with a half dozen castings of decripify when you can just cast amp twice and not have to reapply 8 seconds later. Also, amp can function on just a few points, boosted by skills, whereas decripfy idealistacally needs to be maxed for any useful sort of duration.
The only advantage a might merc has is that with life tap it'd gain back more life, but a thorns merc with life tap will probably fill up his ball anyways, and you can always drop potions on him anyways... not to mention an ethereal pole or spear can do a considerable amount of damage *anyways*
But I feel the general efficiency from amp/thorns covers a few more dimensions then might, as it increases your damage output anywhere from 100, to 200% wheras might is around 200%, as well as having a much more impressive effect on returned damage then might ever could.
Also, AMP being more effective at lower skill levels then IM (when combined with thorns, it'd be more effective period really...) due to the fact that' it's 100% always allows you to turn extra points into skeleton mastery and support spells such as poison nova, and perhaps a bone-damage spell and putting points into utilty spells such as bonewall, and boneprison for when your corpse supply runs low or your team could use a little chargeup from whacking it.
Overall to me AMP/Thorns gives you more durability as well as being more effective on more levels then any other merc/curse combo available to a necro, as well as giving you more skill points to put into primary and supporting spells, giving you more bang for your buck at lower character levels, and much more flexibility at later levels.
-Saga_Keeper
Now my arguement against the might merc is that revives/skeletons already do lousy damage, and amp works just as fine(well perhaps 12% less if you want to nit pick)... Amp is terribly party friendly as someone is likely to have their own might merc in most games, and not to mention throrns itself returns more then IM ever could realistically, AND stacks nicely with Amp Damage, whereas you cannot stack amp and IM. A slight twist on this would to be to run decripify instead of amp as it halves monsters attack damage. However, I feel the duration and raduis on this are real issues considering that with a number of minions you will be dealing with a spread, so why bother with a half dozen castings of decripify when you can just cast amp twice and not have to reapply 8 seconds later. Also, amp can function on just a few points, boosted by skills, whereas decripfy idealistacally needs to be maxed for any useful sort of duration.
The only advantage a might merc has is that with life tap it'd gain back more life, but a thorns merc with life tap will probably fill up his ball anyways, and you can always drop potions on him anyways... not to mention an ethereal pole or spear can do a considerable amount of damage *anyways*
But I feel the general efficiency from amp/thorns covers a few more dimensions then might, as it increases your damage output anywhere from 100, to 200% wheras might is around 200%, as well as having a much more impressive effect on returned damage then might ever could.
Also, AMP being more effective at lower skill levels then IM (when combined with thorns, it'd be more effective period really...) due to the fact that' it's 100% always allows you to turn extra points into skeleton mastery and support spells such as poison nova, and perhaps a bone-damage spell and putting points into utilty spells such as bonewall, and boneprison for when your corpse supply runs low or your team could use a little chargeup from whacking it.
Overall to me AMP/Thorns gives you more durability as well as being more effective on more levels then any other merc/curse combo available to a necro, as well as giving you more skill points to put into primary and supporting spells, giving you more bang for your buck at lower character levels, and much more flexibility at later levels.
-Saga_Keeper