I see a topic every day asking which infinity base to use for act 2 merc. Best base is often argued, because it is not trivial to include crushing blow damage in an analytical calculation, so I decided to make a simulation and write a guide about it.
Detailes are excluded for better visibility, I don't think anyone cares how many attacks per second a merc does, just wants to know what to use. I can share the details if there is interest.

Only the most used ias values are taken into account. 0 ias || 15 (ias jewel) || 20 (andy helm) || 35 (andy helm with ias jewel).

1. Average DPS for act2 merc. You can use this table for insight base too. Numbers will be different, but their relations to eachother are the same (Crushing blow damage excluded)


2. Average seconds it takes to kill an unique monster in player 8. The smaller number the better! (Crushing blow included). Example: in a p8 run your merc would take this many seconds to kill Ventar the Unholy.


3. Average seconds it takes to kill an unique monster in player 1. The smaller number the better! (Crushing blow included). Example: for p1 travincal boss, your merc would take around twice this many seconds, because they all have 50% dr.


Conclusion:
- Not surprisingly all values end up being very similar. Higher avg dmg weapons are slower, lower avg dmg weapons are faster.
- Cryptic Axe is the best for insight if you use andy helm with ias jewel.
- Mancatcher is not the best infinity with any of these ias values.
- War Pike is always the worst infinity.

Notes:
- 10000 simulations were done on each number that you see in the tables.
- All tables are for infinity damage, but you can use the first table to decide on Insight base too.
- Every table assumes that forti and high level merc with might aura is used.
- Hit chance is not included in the calculation, because enemy defense and lvl highly varies. Merc almost always hits. Infinity removes the enemys defense. Insight has huge AR% bonus. Jab attack would have a slightly higher chance to hit, because the skill has AR% bonus, this is not considered.
- 0.85 jab and 0.15 normal attack chance is assumed. This is true if merc aura is already active.
- Physical damage reduction on enemy doesn't influence the best base. DR% applies to both crushing blow and the integer physical damage part equally. It would just make the fight twice as long.
- Calculation against act bosses is not included. Merc is usually used to kill immunes, and for tranvincal barb.
- Crushing blow damage is divided by the monster's hp increase with more players. In 8 players, it is not 1/8 but 1/36. However, because of the integer damage part, CB is still more effective with higher player count.
- Not related to act2 merc, but bugged calculation for act5 merc with headstriker was fixed a few weeks ago. Now double grief is the fastest dps weapon for an act 5 merc, previously it was eth upped headstriker by far.

This post was edited by Ethreain on Jun 20 2022 11:29am

Good calculations. Usually people give weapon base of infy more thought than it should. You only see some (small) difference when the merc is the main killer for the boss, then the chance to crushing blow and attack speed really matters.

aplomb
means
humility
lowliness
means
lawnmower

It means, that CV or Stygian pike is very underrated in compare with GT.

why does war pike have higher dps than ghost spear at 35ias but rquires more time to kill?

Because crushing blow is included in the second and third tables. In the first table it is not included.
You cannot really calculate dps with crushing blow included, the average dps will be different with every passing second.

Not all monsters have 50% dr in hell (I swear I'm not trying to shit on all of your threads - just trying to help you chase down all the right info and have it in the same place )

Edit: also ty for doing this, I been kinda half assing it and putting it together as best I can with limited info.

Edit 2: nvm I reread the context of your 50% dr and youre talking about trav specifically my bad

Edit 3: I know it's not included in your tables and maybe it's too much info that nobody's interested in but decrepify really changes what qualifies as the "best" options and has a huge amount of uptime in baal/chaos runs. Also I think for certain builds the "time to kill" metric is a bit deceiving. For example the summon necro wearing beast example that fearoftdark posted. The CB value is tremendous for a build like that and MC is without a doubt BiS even if time to kill speed doesnt reflect it. It would be easier to visualize this with the weapons graphed to account for CB. Something like a MC would have incredible short term dps because of the CB but would fall off and be outpaced by the raw dps of a CA. It's probably more work than it's worth but I figured I'd throw it out there to see what you think.

This post was edited by BrianPeppers on Jun 21 2022 08:50pm

this is kindergarten math that takes nothing but raw, simplified values into account

it's completely useless information

Yeah, the purpose was not to find the best merc weapon for all situations. It's more like a guide to help people decide the base when building infy or insight. I saw every second day someone asking what base to use when deciding infi.

The first table is analitical calculation, second and third are simulations including crushing blow.
It is guide to decide on infinity base.

Best is always going to be subjective to the use-case tho. I think that information is important to know if the person is primarily or exclusively running a certain build or a certain part of the game.