Minion damage optimization

[:1]Hi,

Been trying to figure this out but haven't had much luck.

Is it more effective in terms of damage to have...

- A full pack of skeletons and mages

- Infinity (on merc)

- Pride (on you)

OR

- A full pack of skeletons (and possibly mages, but they seem worthless without Infinity and/or Lower Resist)

- Pride (on merc)

- Beast (on you)

I understand melee skeletons are generally drastically better, being tougher, gaining the benefit of amp damage, and so on. I'm just not sure whether the benefit of having both Pride and Beast active outweighs the damage that could be gained from having mages boosted by Infinity.

I know there's always the option of straight-up making an Iron Golem out of Beast or Pride and then getting all the auras and all minions, but I've found Insight golems seem to die too often for me to find making a Golem out of a runeword very practical.

I've personally noticed that Baal seems to die a lot faster with the full pack + infinity + pride loadout, but I'm not really seeing all that much of a change against regular enemies.

Thanks for any info or thoughts on the matter.

Exact character and equipment stats can be found here, in case there's anything I forgot to mention.

http://vidya.dyndns.org/cgi-bin/d2stats?character=Zurp|||Quote:








I've personally noticed that Baal seems to die a lot faster with the full pack + infinity + pride loadout, but I'm not really seeing all that much of a change against regular enemies.




Baal dies a lot faster because your merc kills him with the crushing blow and much higher damage on infinity. Your skeletons are almost irrelevant.

Beast + pride of course gives your skeletons the most damage, but you shouldn't be concerned with optimizing your skeleton damage, you should be concerned with optimizing your total damage. With that in mind:

Infinity on merc for the good damage, the crushing blow on bosses, and to lower enemy fire resist so that your corpse explosions do more damage. (It will also make your skeletons hit more often) Beast on you (pride is good, but not good enough to not use a shield). Insight IG (like you said, dies too much to be an expensive runeword)

This setup will give your merc really good damage, getting a few corpses down right away so you can start chaining those corpse explosions - which will be boosted by infinity. Your skeletons are a walking wall of protection, yes they do damage (even decent damage with enough +summon) but damage isn't their primary function.

edit: looked at your link, infinity in a grim scythe makes your merc sad. An ethereal elite polearm (any of them really, I like threshers for the speed and 'cause they look cool) so he can kill stuff. The sooner he kills stuff, the sooner you are casting corpse explosions.|||Alright, thanks. A lot of elements there that didn't occur to me, such as the CE gain from Infinity, or Infinity's own use as a regular weapon beyond the aura.|||Pretty much what rectangle said. I've been testing various summoner setups for 3 ladder seasons and indeed, this is the most effective all-wise (area cleaning, boss-running, uber-running).

Well-geared merc does MORE damage than 10 skeletons together, and kills even faster with crushing blow.

About Insight, this is just 4 common runes and 4s polearm, can afford a pul rune or so per every golem death (some can spare a crappy insight for free even). I used to make IG from Beast and pride - but found insight to be more effective in terms of running speed, and still pul is easier to replenish than 2 hrs.