It's a mix of the Deadly Strike + way faster speed on Arioc's + the CBF and FHR. It's all of it, hah. eBOTD War Pike slaps, but if you miss a hit with that slow attack speed you get very sad.

There's also the value of attack speed after a Telestomp; Merc springs into action really fast & that kinda translates into a smoother sequence.

If you use eBOTD you can try Cham'd Andy with CoH. It's solid as well.

This post was edited by Exokek on Jan 8 2022 08:59am

Hey there.

Another question regarding ariocs: how much value does the +skils bring us dps wise. More speciffic: is it better to go for highest ed affordable and 2/3 skills or only +4 no matter what?

Thank you.

+1 is worth about 10% ED iirc

Thank you.

Did you test BotD Giant Thresher aswell? In the exact setup you describe with BotD WP you hit 2 breakpoints faster with giant thresher, but weapon dps of the base is lower.

It's almost the same overall, and GT is also smooth; one of the reasons I went with WP is because you generally want to make sure that when you DO hit, the enemy explodes, since Council tends to heal.
You can switch between WP and GT at will, but WP is a bit burstier; the WP speed makes miss streaks a bit worse, but Council is more likely to just blow up.

The burst is the same reason Arioc's is better than many alternatives; while you might be able to hit similar DPS with other setups, the swingy burst makes it easier to confirm a kill rather than just wear them down while they heal.

Stone Skin is always a pain in the ass paired with healing, hence I tend to prefer burstier options. GFace is good for DPS when the timer is short & you have Life Leech elsewhere (BOTD or CoH).

This post was edited by Exokek on Jan 10 2022 06:00am

I am thankful for your insight. Due to Family obligantions I can not put as many houres in d2r than I used to in the 2000s so your expertise is helping me out a great deal.

Thank you and keep on doing what you do.

great job @ Exokek

soon will try that ebotd/forti/andy setup with the gavel of pain

i just was confused about the skills:

why maxing shout instead of warcry ?

and

is it necessary to use ed/fire res jwl on andy or is ral fine too ?

can % demon dmg jwls have fire res ?

This post was edited by Spartacus160 on Jan 11 2022 01:23am

shout over warcry for bo synergies i would guess.

andy with ral works fine from my experience, but 30/30 eg fr is obv better and not that hard to get i think.
demon with fire res cannot be on magic jewel, but you can get them together on rare jewel.

makes no sense only duration from bo will be increased but its anyway bad to use that warcry i guess cause it will overwrite the amp curse...xD

atm iam playing with eth reapers toll and everytime i warcry amp is gone ^^

cool good to know, thx m8 !

that rare jwl is awesome i didnt know that this ones exist

This post was edited by Spartacus160 on Jan 11 2022 02:37am

you dont wanna overwrite amplify yea.
the jewel probably dont exist, but it could