Sunder charms worth using?

Hey people,
So i've been using sunder charms and honestly (apart from the Physical Sunder charm), the rest don't really seem all that effective. Was wondering if it's actually worthwhile using them. Currently using my Poison necro, just reached lvl75, been running around with it using Poison Nova and honestly, i cant see any real difference. Should I reroll my Necro and invest in Lower Resist instead? (Thinking that the Poison Sunder charm would do the trick, i kind of didn't bother using anything past Amplify Damage.)

sunder charm lower the resist only to 95%, so you would need other equip to lower it further.

However - resistance will only have a success of 25% if the monster was immune before.

So 120 resistance( Immune)
Break it with sunder 95%
Say 20% from griffons (5% effective)

You have Corpse Explosion so you don't really need a sunder.

Many other builds just play so much better using a sunder. A skill like Blizzard takes 100 points to max out. That does not leave much room for anything else, which is where a sunder comes in.

A sunder charm is not really enough by itself - if you have a sunder charm, you should always have a means of further reducing the monsters' resistances. A sunder charm breaks all immunities of a damage type, but it leaves them at 95% resistance, which means your attacks are doing 1/20 of the listed damage. So Lower Resist is always a good idea anyway (1 pt can be enough with +skills from gear), but ideally you want gear with -res too, such as a Death's Web.

• With a Death's Web, a sundered enemy's resistance would drop a further 40-50%.
• With Lower Resist, a sundered enemy's resistance would drop a further 10-15% ( Lower Resist works at 1/5 effectiveness vs immune & sundered enemies)
• Having both means the sundered monsters' resistance ends up at 30-45%.

(there are other sources of -res than Death's Web as well, of course)

Now, without a sunder charm, since Lower Resist only works at 1/5 effectiveness while breaking an immunity (-res from gear doesn't kick in unless the immunity has first been broken by either a sunder charm or Lower Resist), the highest immunity you can effectively break is 114% (that's with a level 15+ Lower Resist). Some poison immune monsters actually have more than that, but I haven't checked how common it is.

But like Liax says, as long as there are other monsters around (that aren't poison immune) that you can kill, you can kill poison immunes with Corpse Explosion. Someone with more experience with poison necros would have to provide some feedback if that actually works well enough in practice (I have too little experience with the build to have a feel for it).

phreak208 wrote: 6 months ago

Say 20% from griffons (5% effective)

-res from gear isn't subject to the 1/5 penalty - it always works at full effect if the immunity has been broken in any way

Ah thanks for clearing that out ShadowHeart.
Appreciate that information, I can tweak some builds then^^

Ahh.... so not as effective as the description says it is. Looks like i'll have to reset my skills and include lower resistance as part of my initial attacks. And unfortunately i've yet to find a Death's Web. Currently running around with Blackbog's Sharp Dagger. Cheers for the feedback guys. Muchly appreciated.

Sunder charms alone don't do much, as 95 res is still a lot (only 1/20 of damage goes through).

But when combined with otherenemy res reduction, they open up very powerful single element builds.

For poison necro, I recommend to use Trang-Oul's Wing together with gloves and Belt since this will provide -25 enemy poison resist, which basically means 6x the damage compared to sunder charm alone.

Lower Resist's effectiveness is reduced to 1/5th, so it's not as strong as Death fathom, Trang wing, or facets.

Fire and cold sunder are definitely worth using if your build uses those damage types because most fire and cold immune monsters tend to be at least 140-150 res or even much higher. Conviction aura or LR by itself ain't touching that.

Lightning sunder is one where it's of questionable usefulness if you already have Infinity or Conviction aura. Most lightning immunes sit around 105-110, with quite a few even being 100.

Having a -70-90% penalty to your own lightning res in order to break a monster's lightning immunity which can be done by Infinity or other source of Conv/LR without said penalty makes a good argument against the use of lightning Sunder in some cases.

Black Cleft obvs useless because there are no sources of -magic res.

Bone Break also of questionable usefulness sometimes. Probably the rarest one to drop (AFAIK) and physical immunities are uncommon. If you're on single player farming TZs for one you'll likely drop a hundred fire and cold sunders before you get a physical one.

There's also a great many skills and items that can circumvent PIs. Lawbringer/ Azurewrath/ Sanctuary Aura against undead PIs makes Bone Break totally irrelevant here. Berserk, Vengeance, etc just to name a couple skills on physical damage builds that might have trouble with PIs. It's also not hard to gamble a Dagger or any weapon with CTC amp dmg and slap it on weapon swap just to proc.

Animal physical immunes such as Blood Lords are one solid use case for Bone Break - especially if you run into an elite pack with Stone Skin because this puts their damage res well over 110, hence untouchable with Decrep or Amp Dmg without the use of Bone Break. Apart from that, you're probably not gonna run into many situations where you'd be totally cooked without it.

TLDR:

Fire, Cold, and Poison definitely worth using.

Lightning and Physical, nice to have, but debatable sometimes.

Black Cleft, useless.

vued wrote: 6 months ago

Sunder charms alone don't do much, as 95 res is still a lot (only 1/20 of damage goes through).

But when combined with other enemy res reduction, they open up very powerful single element builds.

For poison necro, I recommend to use Trang-Oul's Wing together with gloves and Belt since this will provide -25 enemy poison resist, which basically means 6x the damage compared to sunder charm alone.

Lower Resist's effectiveness is reduced to 1/5th, so it's not as strong as Death fathom, Trang wing, or facets.

Funny you should say that. I (for some reason - probably my habit of squirrelling away set items like an aussie magpie), have Trang-Ouls chest, gloves and shield.... but using just the gloves. I had a Smoke and Ancient's Pledge for the resistances. Don't have the Belt at this time though. So after reading ur post, chucked them on and now have an additional -25% poison resistance. cheers

Have reset my build and with Lower Resistance now at 56%, -25 PR with Trang-Ouls and the Sunder Charm, it's now coming along rather nicely. Thank you all for your advice and support on the matter. Means a lot

phreak208 wrote: 6 months ago

sunder charm lower the resist only to 95%, so you would need other equip to lower it further.

However - resistance will only have a success of 25% if the monster was immune before.

So 120 resistance( Immune)
Break it with sunder 95%
Say 20% from griffons (5% effective)

After the immunity is broken, -enemy resistance from items work at 100% efficiency, not 25%.
The only penalty is 20% (1/5) of Lower Resist, Conviction and Cold Mastery applied to originally immune monsters.

ShadowHeart wrote: 6 months ago

Now, without a sunder charm, since Lower Resist only works at 1/5 effectiveness while breaking an immunity (-res from gear doesn't kick in unless the immunity has first been broken by either a sunder charm or Lower Resist), the highest immunity you can effectively break is 114% (that's with a level 15+ Lower Resist). Some poison immune monsters actually have more than that, but I haven't checked how common it is.

Here is a handy reference:
https://diablo-archive.fandom.com/wiki/ ... )#Poison_3

Trang Oul wrote: 6 months ago

Here is a handy reference:
https://diablo-archive.fandom.com/wiki/ ... )#Poison_3

Thanks!

ShadowHeart wrote: 6 months ago

Trang Oul wrote: 6 months ago

Here is a handy reference:
https://diablo-archive.fandom.com/wiki/ ... )#Poison_3

Thanks!

Cheers Trang

On /P1, my Poison Necro doesn't even need Corpse Explosion. I've spent only 1 point into it for clearing narrow spaces or online play, where poison loses a lot of impact.

Most of the time, I just run ahead spamming curses and poison. One or two Poison Novae are enough to kill anything on screen (except act bosses of course).

Gear: Bramble, Rare Circlet, Death's Web, Trang Gloves, Belt and Shrunken Head (those 3 give you -25% res and +25% damage), Crafted Amulet, FCR rings, Silkweave, Poison Sunder, Anni, Torch and 6 PnB Skillers. Rogue Merc with Cure, Harmony and Hustle.

This guy is rocking -85% resistance (-96 with Lower Resist) to immunes and 11k Nova damage ---> that's 101% damage to immunes thanks to the Sunder Charm.

I have very few heroes that are not using a Sunder.

DasNarf wrote: 6 months ago

On /P1, my Poison Necro doesn't even need Corpse Explosion. I've spent only 1 point into it for clearing narrow spaces or online play, where poison loses a lot of impact.

Most of the time, I just run ahead spamming curses and poison. One or two Poison Novae are enough to kill anything on screen (except act bosses of course).

Gear: Bramble, Rare Circlet, Death's Web, Trang Gloves, Belt and Shrunken Head (those 3 give you -25% res and +25% damage), Crafted Amulet, FCR rings, Silkweave, Poison Sunder, Anni, Torch and 6 PnB Skillers. Rogue Merc with Cure, Harmony and Hustle.

This guy is rocking -85% resistance (-96 with Lower Resist) to immunes and 11k Nova damage ---> that's 101% damage to immunes thanks to the Sunder Charm.

I have very few heroes that are not using a Sunder.

I think I have exactly the same build. Insight IG as well?

vued wrote: 6 months ago

I think I have exactly the same build. Insight IG as well?

Nope, I am using Skeleton Warriors and low level Blood Golem/ Clay Golem. 13 Mana after each kill does the trick for me.

And yes, I am aware of that minions do reduce poison damage, but I don't care. I prefer themed and/or party-orientated builds over min-maxing.

What I am wearing a Thorns aura for, if not for an army of whipping boys?