Re: Brand + Piercing = Bonesaw?
So with ITD and 85% Piercing, you should be doing a decent amount of damage to large packs of mobs.
Noticed the bow has super knockback too, via exploding arrow and regular knockback, which is ridiculous. Anything in your line of fire would be decimated.
The Unique Razortail Sharkskin Belt only has 33% Piercing Attack, and a Brand 'JahLoMalGul' bow has none.
Exploding Arrow's explosion doesn't apply Knockback: I think you might be confusing it with an Assassin's Dragon Tail. Each arrow will apply Knockback to targets it hits, but it's only 100% against small targets, 50% against medium targets and 25% against large targets. There are also monsters to which Knockback cannot be applied.
No idea what extra ias you'd need to hit break points though, I'll have to check on that.
For a Necromancer, bows have maximum 10 frame attack rate while crossbows have maximum 11 frame attack rate. This
Attack Speed Calculator can be used to see how much Increased Attack Speed you need to reach particular speed break-points.
You'd still have spirit on backup, but yeah boss killing would be tough. You have enough crowd control (example, maxed out BW and BP) along with plenty of curses to remove defense from mobs if it's not effected by ITD.
The point is the piercing allows you to break the 9 frame rule via striking many mobs in a row. One arrow could feasibly turn into 10 bone spears, all with explosive knock back, and can be rapid fired so it may even stack to the point where you have nothing but a white streak in front of you.
None of the Necromancer's Curses lower defence rating, but if you're equal or higher level to a normal monster or minion you'll normally have 95% chance-to-hit thanks to Ignore Target's Defence.
Arrows can pierce a maximum of four times, hitting five targets and thus only a maximum of five Bone Spears can be cast on striking. However, even with 95% chance-to-hit and 100% Chance to Cast Level 18 Bone Spear On Striking, the fact that you only have 33% Piercing Attack means you will rarely achieve this maximum:
Code:
# SPEARS 1 2 3 4 5
___________________________________________________________________________
% CHANCE 95.0 29.8 9.3 2.9 0.9
MAX DAMAGE 1,108-1,174 2,216-2,348 3,324-3,522 4,432-4,696 5,540-5,870
Furthermore, the only targets that could be hit by all five Bone Spears would be those behind the first four, since the Bone Spears are fired from the target, not the Necromancer. Even if we compare a 10 frame attack rate against a 10 frame cast rate, simply casting fully synergised Bone Spear would apply greater damage at the following skill levels:
Code:
# SPEARS 1 2 3 4 5
_________________________________________
SKILL LEVEL >18 >28 >35 >43 >49
However, the
average Bone Spear damage applied per arrow or bolt to all targets behind the first four is only about 2,200-2,331, so practically any Necromancer could apply more Bone Spear damage over time by casting them himself.
I'm not saying that a Brand bow isn't an interesting weapon with which to equip a Necromancer, but it isn't a superior way to cast Bone Spears.
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