yep i'm curious whether grief+lw pbs can out dps a2 now with fury stacks but without the bugging. my guess is no, but will have to test to see exactly how it works.

This is actually very surprising to me, that with 3x less damage, it only ends up saving a few seconds. I have the same issue as you, 1-4s load screens. Same mentality as well, don't like all the micromanagement associated with gavel or even the merc - i'd rather be less efficient and play something I enjoy which in turn motivates me to put in more runs.

I should clarify, when I was using gavel I wasn't using demon limb on top of it, that was too cumbersome or my taste, so really I'm weighing gavel only + a4 repairs + more loading screens for more overall damage vs. demon limb only + no repair/less loading screens for the increased AR but lower damage

And yes, the 1 downside to this setup is skipping phys immunes, but that's 1 council every 5 runs or so, no big deal.

Demon limb adds something like 6-7% dps from increasing chance to hit, depending on your level. Phys immunes is slow AF even when amp'd (still like 80% phys resistance), and the merc being a derp focusing on the immune is another annoying issue - have to teleport reposition him to change his focus

I'm really surprised you're saving only "a few seconds" off Gavel. When I run that test still occasionally the difference is waaaay larger. Is it just attributable to loading screens?

Partly yes, the bigger factor in practice, I think, is that gavel's advantage scales pretty linearly with how focused you are on the micro-management side of it.

If you are into that part of it and optimizing every second you can, then gavel is awesome no doubt. In the sample size I timed when I switched (which wasn't a ton, I just don't care THAT much about the 3-10 second difference or whatever), I found it negligible enough given the way I usually play my GF barb (not trying to make a video capping under 20 mins/optimizing and being really focused all the time) to not want to deal with gavel.

I would also add, my merc is pretty close to maxed, gavel's advantages also become more important the less maxed your merc is, I would think.

And there are some very small advantages vs. the gavel setup too, 116 more life and no chance of kills occurring when swapped to gavel vs. lem'ed ali's/6s swords

Really, it just comes down to: How much of an average increase in seconds/run would you sacrifice to not have to deal with the micro-management of gavel?

For some people that might be 1 second, for others, maybe 30 :shrug:

This post was edited by Ateamer on Mar 2 2022 10:34am

Yeah, I can see how my own experience might be skewed by how much time I've spent "muscle learning" the play patterns. Habit definitely is what helped push down my times from 1 minute~ to 35-45s/run

Did some quick testing with a5 frenzy merc on ptr, and I have to say, it is VERY viable. Maybe could even be the new meta. Without gavel, runs were ~50s using dual griefs. He attacks like an absolute maniac.

Some quick thoughts
-Last wish is not going to be viable. Has too many procs that will override curses you want
-Frenzy skill has +300%ed, which is basically equivalent to A2 might aura
-A5 frenzy merc cannot use 2h swords, and can ONLY use 1h swords (i.e. no axes maces etc)
-the merc does have an annoying habbit of taunting its current target, which may override amp or decrep
-video below is with lvl 84 merc, he whiffs A LOT. should be much better demon limb, or at higher clvl.

Did you try dual Headstriker? Could be even better, by far.
I'm clocking 30-40s runs on live, so 50s for a5 merc is still kinda weird.

Curious to see how this develops.

Edit: oh wow 50s without Gavel. That changes things. He still Battle Cries to override it anyway, right?

This post was edited by Exokek on Mar 2 2022 02:56pm

have limited access to items, no headstrikers, much less eth lol. My guess is that the double dps bug is gone.

Edit: this merc doesn't battlecry, he casts Taunt a lot, maybe on his current target, which may override yes.

Is your 30-40s with gavel amp?

This post was edited by daanno2 on Mar 2 2022 02:57pm