wow, thats great info. Def 10/10 and hope to see this get stickied soon

1 word:
Finally.

It's not mentioned, and this probably because it's not to common , but nevertheless :

Using a conviction pally makes some of the elemental wep picks very powerful on the mercs.

Rift thresher+nightwings+ LL armor like Coh or Boneflesh (nice ll and OW!) make those frozen orbs procs really hurt. Not to be overlooked or underestimated. If lifetap is in use, you can then use Ormus ias'd or faceted (check the bp)

Voice of reason a5 barb , same idea as above, but cheaper.

not enough +% cold dmg and -cold res for making rift on a merc useful

Wrong.

with a conviction pally, that merc's elemental damage is getting -150 res



Level 21 frozen orb , by itself pulling about 270-275 damage per shard.

Nightwings 15% boost, Ormus 15% boost , if using 2X facets thats another 10% for 40% skill

275 + 40% skill boost = 385 damage per shard. After negative res from conviction and the facets your essentially getting double to most all monsters.

385X2 = 770 orb damage

At what level FO does a sorc need to have 770 orb damage and -160 res.

the answer to this is a level 28 frozen orb and a level 27 cold mastery. Anyone who's made a two tree sorc with FO as backup , or used FO to rush the early ladder knows that this damage is good.


Ive been a fan of FO for many years. It is one of the most powerful skills in the game. Even though the character screen shows that the dmg is low you must remember that the dmg listed is for each shard FO emits. The FO carries 16 shards and releases an additional 26 shards when traveling.

The premise of my Riftsin uses this same idea, only the Rift on the merc paired with the conviction pally its even more powerful on a proc

This post was edited by Master_Zappy on Apr 14 2010 02:00pm

Waheed the Rifter
Waheed's rise to power come from joining teams with a Conviction Pally. This capitalizes on elemental pwnage from -150 res* This wepon will always hurt with it's multi source damage
Recommended Hiring Difficulty- Nightmare.
Recommended Merc Type- Offense (Might Aura). (helps the leaching from a lowish physical damage setup.) Holy freeze is also worth mentioning with the slow and cold skill boosts.



Weapon
Eth Rift Thresher , GPA , or CA. Thresher gets the nod for speed reasons.
4 Socket Polearms - Hel + Ko + Lem + Gul




Helm
#1- Nightwings - The Cold damage specialist's hat - +2 skills , up to 15% cold skill boost before socketing, Dex and cold sorb.


Armor
#1 Ormus Robes - up to 15% cold and fire skill boost, used for drastically up'ing your procs and increasing the the fire damage on rift which then gets "doubled" via your pallies conviction aura. T
#2- Treachery Runeword- 5% Chance to Cast slvl 15 Fade when Struck, +45% Increased Attack Speed, +20% Faster Hit Recovery, Resist Cold +30%. The IAS here will help reach the IAS breakpoint with ease. Fade is also great %CTC.
#3 Coh - Lifeleach , +2 skills , extra damage to most monsters and amazing res with a sprinkle of DR.


What happens when this is thrown together?

level 21 FO with the % skill boost turns your effective orb level to level 27/28 with the effectiveness of a level 28 Cold mastery via your conviction aura.

Nightwings 15% boost, Ormus 15% boost , if using 2X facets thats another 10% for 40% skill

275 + 40% skill boost = 385 damage per shard. After negative res from conviction and the facets your essentially getting double to most all monsters.

385X2 = 770 orb damage
(to monsters based on -100 enemy res to cold after facets and conviction. Please consult arreats to configure your true damage based a monsters inate cold res. The general avg in hell is 50 res.)

it's like having a melee sorc merc with physical damage at your side giving you a free pally aura while casting a level 28 frozen orb for some extra AOE fun.









This makes me sadface and I sincerely bid you the best

This post was edited by Master_Zappy on Apr 14 2010 03:05pm

Amazing.
Will def be making some of these combinations.
Didn't read 100% of it, sort of skimmed and read pieces I liked, but I'll def read through the whole thing one day.
Gz

Bump

slow is capped at 50%

so its basically a overkill

rather use a different combo

btw nice guide

10/10 get stickied

This post was edited by Djsem on Apr 17 2010 04:23am

nice i like to put a lawbringer in an eth cs, treachery, and andys helmom an act5 barb merc for chaos runs works better than act3 mercs the ctc decrept imo is better than the skills the act3 mercs get.