Amazon v1.10 Phys => Lightning (Bolt)--

[Crystalion]

can add...

2c) open wounds, hit blinds target, slows target all work via LB

The no-point-wonder of Berserk (edit: as suggested: via Passion weapon runeword on switch) is a good idea indeed, except that it isn't ranged, so its drawback of trashing your DR for a while comes into play in a bad way (edit: although a zon with 75% blocking and high % dodge and high life might work well as a BerZonk ™ :) ).

Since LB does not carry poison it is nice to know it does carry open wounds. I still have not tested prevent monster heal or crushing blow with it, but it sure is looking likely PMH will xfer. CB would be quite a win, as then you could be dealing 3 kinds of damage (phys+lightning=>lightning, open wounds, crushing blow) without needing AR (again, I know I know, not having leech means this is potentially very mana spendy--my topic is 2pt wonder, not: primary skill).

edit...
2d) crushing blow works via LB

I took a level 83 zon into hell and pulled a lightning immune dark lancer into the inner cloister (after clearing) from the tamoe so I could toy, er, test with it across the planters (ranged attacks go over just fine but the lancer stands still since it can't figure out how to get to me). Although the LB converts physical to lightning and the lancer is immune, both open wounds and crushing blow work just fine. Over approximately 8 seconds the lancer would bleed away roughly half its life so OW was doing on the order of 1000 to 2000 points of damage total while also preventing regen.

I was surprised at the 8 second duration in hell. Given that poison is typically much shorter duration these days I'd have to say OW is looking like a much better Prevent Monster Heal than poison. As a test I have given a Malice Polearm to my Holy Freeze merc, along with Rattlecage and Howltusk (pity that the Flee is probably overstacking here due to v1.10 beta bug, but I don't think the concept is relying on the bug). Other than the merc's sometimes unfortunate tendancy to chase after fleeing monsters (that weren't slowed by HF/chill) this works rediculously well. That is, knocked back slow monsters, never healing, fleeing, bleeding to death (and occasionally crushed and jabbed by the merc, of course).

At the same time I ran this test (level 48 blade fury bootsin in nightmare) I finally dumped points into Shadow Master on the theory that, since Valks get all sorts of (hidden) benefits from points like equipment (including, apparently, a hidden +2% resist all/pt. synergy from decoy, according to an mpq reading poster at the amazon basin), possibly Shadow Master would be studly, er, sorry, wrong gender, "bitchin" when maxed out. It certainly visually looks like the Shadow is now rolling higher type armor. And she and the merc totally kicked butt.

In one test, with my merc away (killed for testing), my Shadow simultaneously took on two Rocky Waste act 2 boss packs, died right after killing the first boss, and upon recasting (with no time to buff herself) cleaned up the second pack without any trouble.

I also noticed the v1.10 patch readme "Boosted the effect of Health potions upon hirelings" seems very true (shift 1,2,3,4 is a handy way to give the hireling a health potion to drink--and yes, the antidote and thawing potions do perform their new special effect on hirelings, not just players).