Plague Runeword revealed - Infinity gets some competition!

Now we're talkin'! Some possible variety at last!


3 socket swords

Cham

Shael

Um

20% chance to cast lvl 12

Lower Resist when struck
25% chance to cast lvl 15

Poison Nova on striking
Level 14

Cleansing aura when equipped
+1 to all skills
20% IAS
311% ED
-23 enemy poison res
+xx deadly strike based on level
25% open wounds
+3 freezes target


Do note that a lvl 12

Lower Resist is -57% as opposed to the -85% on

Conviction aura. Even a lvl 60

Lower Resist is less than the Infinity

Conviction actually. So it certainly isn't an end-game replacement for that particular purpose. But it should make for a solid interim solution to break some of those pesky immunities or (depending on your farming route and how high the immunity-resses are there) a full replacement after all. Plus unlike

Conviction, Lower Res actually helps for Poison. The

Cleansing aura is a nice touch.

Full size image for those who don't want to watch the video.

So act 5 merc?

or on a paladin with

Conviction aura.

Crushnasty wrote: 2 years ago

So act 5 merc?

Pretty much. Especially for a poison necro.

or

Rabies druid

I feel like I'm noticing a trend with a lot of these new weapon runewords... They all seem like they're at least partially intended to make the mercs other than A2 more viable.

Mist - A1
Plague - A3/5
Unbending Will - A5

Daeblana wrote: 2 years ago

I feel like I'm noticing a trend with a lot of these new weapon runewords... They all seem like they're at least partially intended to make the mercs other than A2 more viable.

Mist - A1
Plague - A3/5
Unbending Will - A5

That was a stated goal actually. Blizz mentioned they want to improve upon the non-A2 mercs and intended for at least some of the new runewords to help achieve exactly that (in addition to actual changes to the mercs).

Though realistically, the fact that A2 mercs bring their own aura on top of any runeword you slap on is bound to be hard to beat for most builds.

Good news for powerful fire builds as well. Infinity alone can't cut fire immunity from some mobs (Death Lord and Lister pack, for example) - but when

Lower Resist is added (even lvl 7 from

Medusa's Gaze), they lose the immunity to fire and start to burn nicely Tried and tested. So to kill them with fire nicely - you'll need both, and this new fancy

Blade on a5 barb merc will help greatly

Also: let's see how it'll affect

Cham price in comparison to high runes - perhaps even returning true hr status to it, instead of "some 3x

Ist or

Vex equivalent".

What if you held the Infinity and your merc held Plague? Now you're stacking

Conviction &

Lower Resist. That might be enough to break cold and fire immunes.

Expanding on the topic of breaking immunities, thanks to how lower res on immunes works, Infinity will break immunities from 116 res downward. This, at least with the known possible level, will break immunities from 110 downward. As a result, the only mobs that would get broken by Infinity but not by this would be ones ranging from 111 to 116 resist. Or, since they're in multiples of 5, only ones with exactly 115 resist.

Turns out that is actually almost none. Looking at hell immunities, you get the following picture:
- Cold: Literally no difference
- Fire: 11 mobs (decent amount) across all acts but act 4
- Light: 5 mobs, all of which are in acts 1 and 2

So if you're one of those folks who just runs

Chaos Sanctuary over and over, this is in fact a very solid alternative to Infinity for you. Breaks the exact same immunity levels. The radius is minimally smaller (1.3yds) but it should originate on the target mob(s) rather than your merc so that probably evens out. Ultimately, you're just replacing the wait for the

Conviction pulse to apply with a wait for your merc to get hit to trigger it. The latter will most likely take a little longer but if you

Teleport your merc right into the packs you're about to blow up, odds are it'll reliably trigger near instantaneously.



Res source: https://diablo-archive.fandom.com/wiki/ ... Diablo_II)

Beardozer wrote: 2 years ago

What if you held the Infinity and your merc held Plague? Now you're stacking

Conviction &

Lower Resist. That might be enough to break cold and fire immunes.

Actually not a bad idea. Combining both would allow you to break immunities on mobs up to 125 res (127, technically). Same source as my last post, that yields:

Cold: 11 more mobs breakable
Fire: 24 more mobs breakable
Light: 5 more mobs breakable

Whether that's actually worth dropping your +skill weapon for would then depend on your farming route.


*All numbers based on the assumption that I can still count...might be off by 1 or 2 overall

Asha wrote: 2 years ago

Also: let's see how it'll affect

Cham price in comparison to high runes - perhaps even returning true hr status to it, instead of "some 3x

Ist or

Vex equivalent".

Agree.

Cham is showing up in a lot of these new runewords. Wouldn't it make sense to buy

Cham right now while its value is low, speculating that its value is likely to increase?

sweabs wrote: 2 years ago

Asha wrote: 2 years ago

Also: let's see how it'll affect

Cham price in comparison to high runes - perhaps even returning true hr status to it, instead of "some 3x

Ist or

Vex equivalent".

Agree.

Cham is showing up in a lot of these new runewords. Wouldn't it make sense to buy

Cham right now while its value is low, speculating that its value is likely to increase?

Remember these are ladder-only runewords. So anything you pick up right now isn't going to apply, unless you sit on it non-ladder and wait for the ladder to end and hope they let non-ladder make these runewords after the ladder ends. I think they've talked about doing that, but even then it's probably a solid six months out or something.

Beardozer wrote: 2 years ago

Remember these are ladder-only runewords. So anything you pick up right now isn't going to apply, unless you sit on it non-ladder and wait for the ladder to end and hope they let non-ladder make these runewords after the ladder ends. I think they've talked about doing that, but even then it's probably a solid six months out or something.

Yes, ladder only...but if

Cham increases in ladder value as a result of these new runewords, wouldn't it also increase in non-ladder as ppl prepare for the new runewords to be released / available on non-ladder?

sweabs wrote: 2 years ago

Beardozer wrote: 2 years ago

Remember these are ladder-only runewords. So anything you pick up right now isn't going to apply, unless you sit on it non-ladder and wait for the ladder to end and hope they let non-ladder make these runewords after the ladder ends. I think they've talked about doing that, but even then it's probably a solid six months out or something.

Yes, ladder only...but if

Cham increases in ladder value as a result of these new runewords, wouldn't it also increase in non-ladder as ppl prepare for the new runewords to be released / available on non-ladder?

It should slowly increase in value non-ladder as well, getting closer to relative ladder value as we get closer to end of the season (so..a while still). Even more so once we get definite confirmation that you can make new ones in non-ladder after season end. So far, that was noted to be the plan but not stated as a definite.

The same should be true for

Zod. Given, there hasn't been any new

Zod runewords yet it seems but they did specifically mention both,

Cham and

Zod. That also makes me believe we have at least a couple more runewords to go still.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Beardozer wrote: 2 years ago

What if you held the Infinity and your merc held Plague? Now you're stacking

Conviction &

Lower Resist. That might be enough to break cold and fire immunes.

Actually not a bad idea. Combining both would allow you to break immunities on mobs up to 125 res (127, technically). Same source as my last post, that yields:

Cold: 11 more mobs breakable
Fire: 24 more mobs breakable
Light: 5 more mobs breakable

Whether that's actually worth dropping your +skill weapon for would then depend on your farming route.


*All numbers based on the assumption that I can still count...might be off by 1 or 2 overall

Wouldn't stacking

Conviction and

Lower Resist also just further reduce resistances in general, increasing damage across the board to all targets? Seems like that could be in the same ballpark of added damage as whatever other +skill weapon you'd be holding.

Beardozer wrote: 2 years ago

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Beardozer wrote: 2 years ago

What if you held the Infinity and your merc held Plague? Now you're stacking

Conviction &

Lower Resist. That might be enough to break cold and fire immunes.

Actually not a bad idea. Combining both would allow you to break immunities on mobs up to 125 res (127, technically). Same source as my last post, that yields:

Cold: 11 more mobs breakable
Fire: 24 more mobs breakable
Light: 5 more mobs breakable

Whether that's actually worth dropping your +skill weapon for would then depend on your farming route.


*All numbers based on the assumption that I can still count...might be off by 1 or 2 overall

Wouldn't stacking

Conviction and

Lower Resist also just further reduce resistances in general, increasing damage across the board to all targets? Seems like that could be in the same ballpark of added damage as whatever other +skill weapon you'd be holding.

It would, but in most cases not that much. Res reduction is capped at -100, -85 of which you already get with Infinity. If you have a Griffon's, 3 facets or anything similar to that, you're already at -100 and an added lower res would have no effect at all on anything other than mobs that come with inherent resistance to begin with. Though between act bosses and light enchanted boss packs and the like, that'll still be at least a handful.

On mobs that don't have resistances, even if you don't have any -res gear on, you'd only go from -85 to -100 by stacking this onto Infinity which is a relative dmg increase of a little over 8%. In more cases than not, that'd not be worth giving up even one skill point for, let alone the 2-3 you'd realistically drop minimum to pull this off.

Definitely merc-only gear. 20% when struck has extremely niche builds that might benefit I guess? But yea nice for a tanky merc, similar to Reapers Toll in a way, but boosting elemental instead of phys damage with the curse.