Doom on a act2 merc?

has anyone tried this?

IMHO that's a waste for

Ohm +

Lo +

Cham. If you want

Holy Freeze for survivability just take a

Holy Freeze merc and give him an Insight polearm.

Or Breath of the Dying for a big life leech.

There's a couple builds I used to run this with.

Essentially, if you want A2 for their inherent aura (other than freeze, obv.) and you don't need them to wield a different aura stick (Insight, Infinity, ...) then Doom ends up a pretty solid choice, both for their damage and for adding on a solid defensive aura.

Kriss_De_Valnor_ wrote: 22 hours ago

Or Breath of the Dying for a big life leech.

BotD works pretty well actually. Also means you can skip that life leech on the other gear slots!

I used it along with

Defiance on a Hammerdin build for maximum safety. It worked very well! Add a Fortitude and some LL/DR

Helm and you end up with a VERY solid tank merc.

Doom can be a good alternative for all builds that don't need Infinity or Insight and opens up the option to combine

Holy Freeze with Might,

Prayer or

Defiance.

I am actually building this way also, currently looking for a good Doom base. What I have in mind is this:

This act 2 merc will supporting my

Fireball sorc. He will use

Prayer as main aura and Doom for

Holy Freeze.

atari wrote: 22 hours ago

IMHO that's a waste for

Ohm +

Lo +

Cham. If you want

Holy Freeze for survivability just take a

Holy Freeze merc and give him an Insight polearm.

The problem with native

Holy Freeze is that, it takes sometime for this aura to get activated. I often finish one run before native

Holy Freeze would get activated. But

Holy Freeze on the Doom will always be activated once I get into the game.

Prayer aura would be very benificial to my fire girl. for typically 3-5 runs, I would find myself need to drink a health potion, if she would have the

Prayer aura, I dont think she will be needing any potion at all.

For other gears,

Fireball girl will pass

Resist Fire aura to the merc, so it is safe to use

Andariel's Visage. And I have secured a near perfect ethereal

The Gladiator's Bane for the armor.

I am also thinking put one

Vex rune on the

Helm and one

Um rune on the body armor. havnt decided yet.

[/quote]

The problem with native

Holy Freeze is that, it takes sometime for this aura to get activated. I often finish one run before native

Holy Freeze would get activated. But

Holy Freeze on the Doom will always be activated once I get into the game.

[/quote]

yes, so i'm thinking Doom + might for my bowazon's merc.
Faith + 2 frame

Strafe +

Atma's Scarab = quick amp, so emilio does not need reaper's toll

anyway thanks for the feedback!

krathkor wrote: 18 hours ago

yes, so i'm thinking Doom + might for my bowazon's merc.
Faith + 2 frame

Strafe +

Atma's Scarab = quick amp, so emilio does not need reaper's toll

anyway thanks for the feedback!

Sounds like a good plan to me.

krathkor wrote: 18 hours ago

yes, so i'm thinking Doom + might for my bowazon's merc.

I built one just then when I get my base. I think the only important roll on this one is minus cold resistance. luckly, I got -59%.

the native

Holy Freeze from the merc without minus cold resistance does little to these mobs. now with -59% CR, I feel like mobs are super slowed.

I think your choice of might and my choice of

Prayer or

Defiance are both good, but for different purposes.

seansixsixsix wrote: 7 hours ago

I think the only important roll on this one is minus cold resistance. luckly, I got -59%.

Since -res only applies to the wielder, it will only help the merc's own cold damage output, which will be negligible (an unsynergized level 12

Holy Freeze adds a measly 85-90 cold damage to attacks, and the pulses do 17-18 damage). In other words, the -res is pretty much meaningless on a merc.

The -res roll is important when you self-wield Doom (most likely in a one-handed

Axe on a sorc), but for a merc Doom, only the ED% really matters. Your ED% was on lower end, but it's not going to make a huge difference (a max rolled one would have had 803 max damage instead of 774, whoopeedoo ).

EDIT: Also, the target's cold resistance does not affect the slow applied by

Holy Freeze. The only thing that will impact

Holy Freeze's slow effect is the target's chill effectiveness, which is not the same as cold resistance (you cannot affect a mob's chill effectiveness, it's hardcoded per monster type).

ShadowHeart wrote: 3 hours ago

[..]
EDIT: Also, the target's cold resistance does not affect the slow applied by

Holy Freeze.
[..]

That's the important piece here.
If you want to confirm that for yourself, you can simply walk up to a cold immune and have the aura still slow it. That wouldn't work if res/-res mattered.

The only reason you'd see "now with -59% CR, I feel like mobs are super slowed" is because..
a) You were going after different mobs before and as such possibly facing very different chill effectiveness (which is actually unlikely in typical normal gameplay)
or b) You're comparing to a low-lvl merc with an aura level still <<12

Part of the beauty of Doom is that you really can't roll a bad one. The aura is always 12, meaning you always hit the target -50% with it. The -res roll really doesn't matter in any note-worthy way whatsoever. And even a minimum dmg roll is still a very solid amount of ED and far from bad.

Mind you, the -res does technically make a difference for the actual on hit freeze effect on Doom (adjusting the duration in your favor) but that, too is typically fairly irrelevant in normal gameplay and will make no actually visible difference.