Infinity base for self-wield nova sorc AND merc

Hey guys, I'm planning on making an Infinity soon (or maybe just fantasizing, still one big

Ber away lol). I know the question of best Infinity base has been debated to Death both here and in other places, but I have a slightly different case that I'd like to get your Wisdom on.

I currently have two chars that I'm really enjoying playing right now and want to invest in. One is a

Nova sorc (currently

Nova/orb) for MF. The other is a riftsin, and she's easily the most fun character I've ever played in D2 (highly recommend making one if you've never tried it) and I wanna take her to the max. Infinity would really take both of them to the next level, and I don't see myself being able to afford making more than one Infinity for a very very long time.

So my question is this: Assuming I wanna self-wield Infinity on the

Nova sorc and also put it on the riftsin merc, and juggle it between the two chars whenever I wanna play one or the other, what would the best base be? I know this will be a compromise. From what I've seen, ethereal

Giant Thresher is commonly rated as among the best for mercs, and ethereal

Scythe is the go-to for self-wield

Nova sorc.

So I could meet somewhere in the middle, and get something with less damage than GT or CV or CA for merc but where I won't have to put tons of points into str/dex on the sorc to wield it, or I could tailor it to the sorc and just have the merc do way way less damage with it and solely rely on it for the

Conviction aura on the riftsin. Which would hurt more? Anyone have any experience with this?

You can look up the stats (incl str reqs) in the item database here but just off the top of my head, if I recall correctly,

Colossus Voulge and

Stygian Pike were tied for the lowest reqs, followed by a

Mancatcher at like 1 more.

Caveat being that if you use a

Colossus Voulge, the requirements are very strength heavy, meaning your merc needs to be like lvl 91 or whatever it was to equip it and you actually lose some pts overall as the "str focus, extra low dex" means you've likely got more dex than that anyways, thanks to anni and torch alone, resulting in some of the "lower req savings" being wasted.

Stygian and

Mancatcher would hence generally remain preferred.

Mancatcher has the added advantage of also being the fastest among all of them, meaning your merc can more easily be brought to max attack rate.

Ethereal of course, seeing how it should always be ethereal for your merc, it lowers the req for your sorc and since your sorc isn't attacking with it, it won't lose durability on her either.

Thanks for the detailed info. So you think that spending those extra points into str/dex on the sorc (as opposed to more energy for better ES tanking) is more worth it in the long run?

I guess ethereal Stygian would require 158 str 87 dex. Really just a small dex investment if I'm planning on having a Spirit shield and COA on weapon swap. And as an added bonus, it looks like

Larzuk should punch 4 holes in it!

Yeah, if you're planning on Spirit anyways, you're not losing much more.

Though either way, it isn't ideal for the sorc. Acceptable but not ideal.

I wouldn't make your merc suffer through a non-elite base instead though, that's just..eww..