Life leech
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It doesn't suffer from diminishing returns, but the actual % is reduced by a fraction in NM and hell. I forget how much.
Frost zealot, I've erred on the side of caution and have about 35% leech because I don't do much physical damage and don't have life tap.
I just want enough to run baal without dipping below 50% health very often.
well increasing your leech any more won't help you much. It's probably easier to increase your physical dmg
For your build, unless you get a decent weapon and max Sacrifice (for the damage synergy), I wouldn't focus too much on leech. I'd focus instead on damage reduction/avoidance (defense, block, PDR, %DR, MDR, resists) and life per kill if you can get it.
Slightly off-topic, but I was under the impression that you couldn't leech off act bosses in nightmare and hell, but I just finished nightmare and I was able to leech off all the act bosses. Maybe it's just hell then that you can't?
Also, regarding life (and mana for that matter) leech, is it a percentage of your base damage, not including any bonuses from other items or auras?
Also, regarding life (and mana for that matter) leech, is it a percentage of your base damage, not including any bonuses from other items or auras?
You can leech from all act bosses except Mephisto in Nightmare and Hell, and Diablo in Hell. Check out the drain effectiveness for act bosses here.
Life and mana leech is based on your physical damage and the target's leech effectiveness. Basically, it's physical damage inflicted x leech x drain effectiveness. Many monsters in Hell have the drain effectiveness at 50%, so you only leech half of what you would in Normal. Anything that affects the physical damage you do (skills, curses, auras, etc) will in turn affect how much you leech. Likewise, if the monster has physical resistance, this reduces your leech as well (since it reduces your physical damage).
If the target is cursed with Life Tap, you heal 50% of the physical damage you do, regardless of drain effectiveness. This is the only way to leech from skeletons and some other monsters.
Life and mana leech is based on your physical damage and the target's leech effectiveness. Basically, it's physical damage inflicted x leech x drain effectiveness. Many monsters in Hell have the drain effectiveness at 50%, so you only leech half of what you would in Normal. Anything that affects the physical damage you do (skills, curses, auras, etc) will in turn affect how much you leech. Likewise, if the monster has physical resistance, this reduces your leech as well (since it reduces your physical damage).
If the target is cursed with Life Tap, you heal 50% of the physical damage you do, regardless of drain effectiveness. This is the only way to leech from skeletons and some other monsters.
That's weird. Maybe my eyes deceived me. There were some blood lords or whatever running around when I was fighting Mephisto, but I could swear I was leeching off him. I guess I'll have to double-check tonight.
I was curious about the base damage vs. enhanced damage because I have heard people say it's difficult to keep their mercenary alive with Pride because it doesn't have any enhanced damage, but I figured the enhanced damage from the aura would compensate for that, no? Even at level 16 you get a 285% enhanced damage bonus.
I was curious about the base damage vs. enhanced damage because I have heard people say it's difficult to keep their mercenary alive with Pride because it doesn't have any enhanced damage, but I figured the enhanced damage from the aura would compensate for that, no? Even at level 16 you get a 285% enhanced damage bonus.
onderduiker
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There is a big difference between on-weapon %ED and off-weapon %ED. Imagine you have a conquest sword. The base damage is 37-53, assuming it is non-ethereal. If it is ethereal, the base damage is increased by 50%, becoming 55-79 (I'm not sure, but I think the game rounds down here; unrounded it is 55.5-79.5).
Now let's say your ethereal conquest sword has four sockets, and you stick Oath in there (210-340% ED). Let's say you get 300%, for a nice round number. The total weapon damage is now 220-319. If the sword had a superior bonus to ED, this would just add to the runeword ED, so you can get Oath with up to 355% ED on a perfect roll.
Now comes off-weapon %ED. All of this is summed up, and then affects the total weapon damage. Examples include stat bonuses (generally 1 point of strength = 1% off-weapon ED for melee weapons, but it depends on the weapon type), non-weapon %ED like from Fortitude armor or some paladin shields, damage boosts from skills, and any damage boost vs. undead or demons (such as on Laying of Hands gloves).
Now let's do a comparison. Imagine you take 55-79 damage sword. You need at least 132 strength to wield it, so you already have 132% off-weapon ED. Now you use level 9 Charge (+300% damage). Total damage is 292-420. If you move that 300% damage from Charge to the sword itself, by making Oath as we described, and then use a normal attack, your damage is 220-319 + 132%, total of 510-740.
As you can see, having a higher weapon damage dramatically improves your damage. Generally speaking, on-weapon %ED counts for a lot more than off-weapon %ED. About the only time off-weapon %ED counts for more is when you have lots of straight +damage (such as Grief), or +min/max damage. Both of these get multiplied by off-weapon %ED, but are unaffected by weapon %ED.
In a nutshell: off-weapon sources of %ED are all additive with each other, but are multiplicative with on-weapon %ED. Since strength and/or dexterity will function as off-weapon %ED already, you want as much on-weapon %ED as possible. That Concentration aura from Pride, along with the merc's native Might aura, do a lot more to help you and your party than they do the merc himself.
Now let's say your ethereal conquest sword has four sockets, and you stick Oath in there (210-340% ED). Let's say you get 300%, for a nice round number. The total weapon damage is now 220-319. If the sword had a superior bonus to ED, this would just add to the runeword ED, so you can get Oath with up to 355% ED on a perfect roll.
Now comes off-weapon %ED. All of this is summed up, and then affects the total weapon damage. Examples include stat bonuses (generally 1 point of strength = 1% off-weapon ED for melee weapons, but it depends on the weapon type), non-weapon %ED like from Fortitude armor or some paladin shields, damage boosts from skills, and any damage boost vs. undead or demons (such as on Laying of Hands gloves).
Now let's do a comparison. Imagine you take 55-79 damage sword. You need at least 132 strength to wield it, so you already have 132% off-weapon ED. Now you use level 9 Charge (+300% damage). Total damage is 292-420. If you move that 300% damage from Charge to the sword itself, by making Oath as we described, and then use a normal attack, your damage is 220-319 + 132%, total of 510-740.
As you can see, having a higher weapon damage dramatically improves your damage. Generally speaking, on-weapon %ED counts for a lot more than off-weapon %ED. About the only time off-weapon %ED counts for more is when you have lots of straight +damage (such as Grief), or +min/max damage. Both of these get multiplied by off-weapon %ED, but are unaffected by weapon %ED.
In a nutshell: off-weapon sources of %ED are all additive with each other, but are multiplicative with on-weapon %ED. Since strength and/or dexterity will function as off-weapon %ED already, you want as much on-weapon %ED as possible. That Concentration aura from Pride, along with the merc's native Might aura, do a lot more to help you and your party than they do the merc himself.
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