Rod Stewart blinds crowd at range

[Crystalion]

I think my Assassin was 53 (started no-twink in v1.10 beta1) when beta2 wiped out my items. I'm now 56 and some of my equipment, thanks to the lucky drops, shopping, and the cube, is better than before the wipe.

I just did nm hellforge and a Lem dropped. So I looked up the recipes and was surprised to realize that I had the DolOrtEldLem for Passion, which I'd already mentally marked as one of the "uber" recipes.

Why? you ask... Arreat Summit is not in error when they list it as Hit Blinds Target ***+10*** (emphasis mine).

This is high enough to mostly overcome the ranged penalty (and, incidentally, in melee would let you blind things with certainty for long periods that are way way above your level). To wit, assuming monster level ~ character level, the chance is ~ 70% with a curse duration in hell difficulty ~ 2 seconds.

While the only ranged weapons you can runeword might appear to be bow type weapons, that is not the case for the assassin, due to the magic of Blade Fury.

In other words, an Assassin can use both stellar parts of the runeword: the ability to melee berserk and zeal and the ability to blind things at range (yes, yes, I know CoS is uber for that, but some people object to their screens going dark :o ).

Certainly putting Passion in a bow (and adding knockback is helpful to "break" the monster AI when you blind them) is potentially good for bowazons and any rogue merc (Howltusk is a reasonable helm for such a merc).

Another oddity is that a were-druid could use such a bow as a melee weapon (unless they finally patched that?).

So while playing around with it I noticed that Heart of the Wolverine (druid spirit that Passion has charges of) is Immune Physical in Nightmare (as are the other spirits, in nm, I discovered). What patch put that in?

I was unable to get my Spirit to show immune in normal/hell or show any new immunities even though I tried both a Paladin (Salvation aura) and a Necro (54% summon resist) as the wolverine's creator.

(I saved the runes before making a throw-away broad sword to test Passion with, so...) I'm looking forward now to finding a Phase Blade to socket and use Passion in for real. I considered its use for a merc but I'd really rather make my merc a malice again, as that worked quite well in beta1.

[adeyke]

The 1.10 beta patches introduced the nightmare physical immunity of all druid spirits as an addition to the nightmare/hell poison immunity they already had in 1.09.

[WarBlade]

So the spirits become the ultimate pin cushions versus the Ancients? They were already pretty good in that department. :huh:

Hmmmm a Spirit of Barbs, designed to reflect Physical Damage, is Physical Immune in Nightmare . . . Cute. :huh:

[Brista]

Spirit of Barbs, designed to reflect Physical Damage

For once I'm too cynical. I thought the purpose of this skill was to make other players go "Wow, a skill I've never seen before"

;)

[Pren]

It's a bitch and a half that the spirits aren't physical immune in hell, I imagine. I hope they fix that.

I COULD NOT keep an oak sage alive in normal difficulty, just got butchered. I actually found it to be detrimental in normal, stringing the monsters out when I wanted them to rush headlong into my fissure and die a horrible death.

Of course, crowd control in nm and hell is more important.