Act 5 merc (Unbending Will + Lawbringer): Does Taunt may override Decrepify? (and the opposite?)

If I have and Act 5 merc with Unbending Will + Lawbringer

How does

Taunt and

Decrepify interact?
(The last one stays? One of them have priority - please be

Decrepify?

You don't even need Unbending Will to make yourself hate your merc.

Frenzy mercs bring

Taunt by default. And said

Taunt will overwrite whatever curse you may currently have on the target.

Having even more

Taunt via Unbending Will just makes it even worse/more annoying.

There is no priority other than "whatever hits last wins" so whatever was your latest proc (or cast from the merc's own

Taunt) will be active until something else procs/is cast that overwrites it.

On the plus side,

Taunt is single target. So at least you keep decrep on the mobs that your merc isn't going after but that are close enough to still get hit by the decrep procs.

(Forget he has

Taunt by itself... crap...)

Thanks for clarifying the interaction.

I use the combination Lawbringer + Hustle.
The merc procs

Decrepify so often that the self cast

Taunt really isnt an issue.

My understanding was that an A5 merc can only wield one handed swords, which limits you to a

Phase Blade for Unbending Will. Given the low base damage compared with something like a

Colossus Sword, you'll be missing out on most of the enhanced damage benefit from the runeword.

I was aware of that
But what I was thinking is that Unbending Will is considerable cheaper than other runeword options and I already had a 6S

Phase Blade and the runes...
(also it has Life Leach - so I'm not forced to use an item with it on Body or Head)

Anyway... The

Taunt interaction, plus the fact that I need to equip +DEX itens form merc to use a

Phase Blade, made go another away

fredkid wrote: 6 months ago

I was aware of that
But what I was thinking is that Unbending Will is considerable cheaper than other runeword options and I already had a 6S

Phase Blade and the runes...
(also it has Life Leach - so I'm not forced to use an item with it on Body or Head)

Anyway... The

Taunt interaction, plus the fact that I need to equip +DEX itens form merc to use a

Phase Blade, made go another away

Can always just got with a second Lawbringer! Double the chance to

Decrepify, and I think Sanctuary stacks? Depends what areas you're running but I've been using it myself for a bit now.

It was the end goal but for now I could make only one Lawbringer ... so I needed to think something for the other weapon... for now I will just get the higher damage 1h sword I had...

They changed Dream to the Shock aura stack some patches ago. Don't know if the same thing happen for all items (but the

Decrepify proc doubles for sure )

fredkid wrote: 6 months ago

It was the end goal but for now I could make only one Lawbringer ... so I needed to think something for the other weapon... for now I will just get the higher damage 1h sword I had...

They changed Dream to the Shock aura stack some patches ago. Don't know if the same thing happen for all items (but the

Decrepify proc doubles for sure )

Not sure what change you're referring to for Dream (item aura stacking isn't new) but curses don't behave like that. They won't just double up in terms of "curse applied twice = twice as effective!". What will double up though is the proc chances since you can then trigger it on either weapon swing. So once triggered, it is the same as with one but you do get more uptime to to more frequent triggering. Whether that makes a 2nd Lawbringer worth it..I would challenge.

It's still a decent combo for leveling. And yes, they overwrite!

For the end gear I may suggest, from my own personal experience (that is also quite budget friendly), something like

Djinn Slayer

Headstriker combo or even 2

Headstriker is a very, very nice raw dmg output. If you are a specific elemental dmg dealer then you might want to consider something like Crescent Moon with Djinn or

Lightsabre, [if you can find yourself]

Azurewrath (cold + magic) or even

Bloodmoon (for big LL boost).
For a long time I was using Djinn +

Frostwind even (for that juicy fire + cold combo) and I have to say it's surprisingly good, even great (ofc this is on players 1 but still).

On the other hand, the true end gear most people use for

Frenzy baba is a Grief + Last Wish combo.

P.S. I founded out that for the pure raw physical dmg output, apparently is the best to have 2 ethereal

Headstriker. Now that being said, from all the drops in D2R I probably got about 15 Headstrikers and never an ethereal one.

Schnorki wrote: 6 months ago

fredkid wrote: 6 months ago

It was the end goal but for now I could make only one Lawbringer ... so I needed to think something for the other weapon... for now I will just get the higher damage 1h sword I had...

They changed Dream to the Shock aura stack some patches ago. Don't know if the same thing happen for all items (but the

Decrepify proc doubles for sure )

Not sure what change you're referring to for Dream (item aura stacking isn't new) but curses don't behave like that. They won't just double up in terms of "curse applied twice = twice as effective!". What will double up though is the proc chances since you can then trigger it on either weapon swing. So once triggered, it is the same as with one but you do get more uptime to to more frequent triggering. Whether that makes a 2nd Lawbringer worth it..I would challenge.

I didn't mean that aura stack is new, I meaned that its not a thing that existed since the start of the game (https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Dream_Rune_Word - says it starts in patch 1.14D), so I don't discard the chance that they didn't apply this change to all cases...

About "

Decrepify proc doubles", I meaned what you explaned, two Lawbringer will make you feel like "~40% Chance To Cast

Decrepify On Striking"

TheDoo wrote: 6 months ago

It's still a decent combo for leveling. And yes, they overwrite!

For the end gear I may suggest, from my own personal experience (that is also quite budget friendly), something like

Djinn Slayer

Headstriker combo or even 2

Headstriker is a very, very nice raw dmg output. If you are a specific elemental dmg dealer then you might want to consider something like Crescent Moon with Djinn or

Lightsabre, [if you can find yourself]

Azurewrath (cold + magic) or even

Bloodmoon (for big LL boost).
For a long time I was using Djinn +

Frostwind even (for that juicy fire + cold combo) and I have to say it's surprisingly good, even great (ofc this is on players 1 but still).

On the other hand, the true end gear most people use for

Frenzy baba is a Grief + Last Wish combo.

P.S. I founded out that for the pure raw physical dmg output, apparently is the best to have 2 ethereal

Headstriker. Now that being said, from all the drops in D2R I probably got about 15 Headstrikers and never an ethereal one.

I will try Lawbringer +

Frostwind for now.
(already have a

Frostwind)

Last Wish is for billionaries only

I don't want to invest much on the second weapon for now... To inve$t in something, seems to be a better option get a

The Reaper's Toll and go with the Act2 Mercenary

Aura stacking works like this since auras from runewords became a thing

(That behaviour of Dream, as "as of patch 1.14d ...." was already present when Dream was released back in ...
...

1.10?

...

It was one of the first ladder only runewords right?)

There was a "minor" aura stacking bug with A3 Mercs though. Were some Strange times when everyone was running around with a3 Mercs.

But that was a bit overpowered and got then fixed by blizz

Edit:

For clarification: the bug was probably universal for all Mercs, not only a3 ones. It was that those were the ones that were most abused for that.

I don't know for sure how the bug manifested because I haven't played much at that time. But I think it boiled down to giving the Merc 2 dreams and then remove and reequip one of those a few times. The aura didn't reset and the merc then had a, let's say, LVL 120

Holy Shock aura

Flippy wrote: 6 months ago

I don't know for sure how the bug manifested because I haven't played much at that time. But I think it boiled down to giving the Merc 2 dreams and then remove and reequip one of those a few times. The aura didn't reset and the merc then had a, let's say, LVL 120

Holy Shock aura

I can confirm that this (or rather similar) bug still exists but only when you do a reset via

Akara or Token. If you have an aura or a skill that adds something on top of your damage and you reset, and then you unequip or not use the said skill and you go out of town things magically stack (for example you have a Dream shield and after reset you unequip and switch to Dragon). You can also visually see both auras as they are both still active even tho you actually have only 1 of those. Now if I properly saw (never really invest time to test more on this matter) it goes off even when you change Act (aka tele to other act from wps) not maps/areas tho (I think or maybe if you use wps in general? dunno). I definitely remember this aura bug being there for hours sometimes... It ofc resets back to normal when you exit game (not the whole game, just save & quit and remaking game does the trick). Don't know about the Merc's bug tho.