OK , what's wrong with Andariel

[BuFa]

OK , what's wrong with Andariel

I seem to have a serious problem with that freakish demon .
No matter how much poison resist my merc has , he always ends up dead in 2 shots ._. (Hell , NM doesn't even compare) .
I gave him a venom ward and although he improved a bit , still 2 shots from her nova are enough to send him to his grave . :rant:
I'm trying to mf with my blizz sorc , but it's getting a little annoying having to revive him every single run , for 2 or more times .
Anyone have any thoughts / strategies for that ?
Thanks in advance =)

 

[Pyrce]

I have the exact same problem with my 77 FW/Orb Sorc.

ActV (norm) Merc. Stats: lvl76, 1314hp, 2160def, poi. resist 75%

Sazabi's Mental Sheath
Basinet
Defense: 178
Durability: 17 of 30
Required Strength: 82
Required Level: 43
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x93f29fc
+100 Defense
Fire Resist +19%
Lightning Resist +19%
+1 to All Skill Levels

Sazabi's Ghost Liberator
Balrog Skin
Defense: 872
Durability: 19 of 30
Required Strength: 165
Required Level: 67
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x68831f4e
+25 to Strength
+53 to Life
+400 Defense
30% Faster Hit Recovery
+300 to Attack Rating against Demons

Sazabi's Cobalt Redeemer
Cryptic Sword
One-Hand Damage: 12 to 192
Required Dexterity: 109
Required Strength: 99
Required Level: 73
Sword Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xc9087b7e
+5 to Strength
+15 to Dexterity
+150% Enhanced Damage
Adds 25-35 cold damage over 2 seconds
40% Increased Attack Speed
318% Damage to Demons
Indestructible

I toss him a big purple, followed by an antidote after he shows damage, but by her next poison nova or whatever he's dead. Luckily, she's two seconds from death on my maxed firewall.

--Pyrce

 

[whomhead]

the thing about mercs and act bosses, is that bosses get a major bonus to damage dealt against mercs. especially in hell. this makes it tough to keep your merc alive.

make sure he's got max poison resist. this will knock down the initial blast of damage from the nova. another thing to look out for (in addition or perhaps as an anlternative to resist) is the poison length reduced by 75% mod. this is equal to or better than having high resists, and can be achieved with only one peice of equipment.

reducing poison length works like this (i think). lets say that Andariel's nova does 100 damage over 20 seconds, or 5 damage per second. with 75% resist, you will take (100-100*.75) = 25 poison damage over twenty seconds. if instead you had poison length reduced by 75%, you would take only 5 seconds worth of poison damage still at 5 damage per second, or 25 damage over 5 seconds. the end result is the same as 75% resist, but can be achieved with one nice item.

if you combine the two, you have 75% resist and PLRB 75%, then you take 25 damage over 20 seconds = 1.25 damage per second. but its only for 5 seconds, so you take a grand total of 6 poison damage. pretty nice, eh? if you can get both, then your merc will become an Andariel-tanking machine!

 

[Summoned]

What kind of damage is the initial spell? Somehow I doubt that it does only poison damage, since when she casts it, you take much more damage than the poison over duration, because poison damage is supposed to be consistent over time, not a curve. I suspect it might be either physical or magic.

 

[DriveC]

The damage could be over an incredibly short duration like Venom. That would account for the super fast merc death you are experiencing, and answer the question posed by Summoned. I'm sure that someone knows the exact answer, and I'm sure that they will post here soon enough.

 

[essojay]

With a bliz sorc, the trick is to kill her and leave game before your merc dies :lol:

(No, I'm serious. That's what I do with andy and meph runs.)

 

[LordDamien]

What kind of damage is the initial spell? Somehow I doubt that it does only poison damage, since when she casts it, you take much more damage than the poison over duration, because poison damage is supposed to be consistent over time, not a curve. I suspect it might be either physical or magic.

I've noticed this "initial hit" thing with poison attacks before. There is some amount of damage that is applied on every hit by a poison attack and that doesn't seem to be part of the damage over time.

I'll try to explain what I mean. As far as I understand, poison is supposed to do its damage over time and any repetition of said poison resets the duration. On top of that, poison cannot, by itself, kill a player, it will only take you to 1 life. However in practice this is not what I have observed with some poison attacks. First you will often see a sudden drop in the life orb every time a poison shot hits, then it resumes normal drain speed, as if a lot of damage was applied all at once at the time of impact. My guess is that some monsters' poison also have a bit of initial physical damage added but that's only a guess.

The first time I saw this "bug" (assuming it's one) in action was in classic in the 1.06 patch. It happened mainly with the poison potion throwing cats in act 2. Their potion was even capable of killing a character as if it wasn't just poison involved.

Andariel (1.10 this time) has the very same property in her poison spray and poison shot attacks. If you're at 1 life (presumably from previous poison attacks) and she hits you with more poison you will die. I know I've tried. I made sure nothing else cause my death, it wasn't a melee hit, it wasn't the little fires or a fallen I forgot to kill, I died the instant I was hit by the poison spray. So whenever you're hit by a poison attack whether first time or when the counter resets, you are hit by some initial damage that doesn't seem to follow normal poison rules. Maybe this damage once amplified by her bonus is what's damaging mercs so much.

Of course the above is from observations only, I don't have anywhere near the skills to go look what actually happens in the code.

As a last note, I've also seen this happen with poison skeletal magi (the ones the necro summons). That would mean having more than 1 poison mage is not a complete waste thanks to the inital hit thing.

 

[AlTheKiller]

Maybe try LifeTap charges?

 

[CRG]

What skill are you using to kill Andy? If you are using a Met/Orb, screw the orb and focus on Met/Fireball, as Andy is VERY vulnerable to fire attacks (seriously, its rediculously easy to kill her with a Meteor or two).

Other than that more res and -X% duration works well.

crg

 

[Chaosfactor]

I seem to have a serious problem with that freakish demon .
No matter how much poison resist my merc has , he always ends up dead in 2 shots ._. (Hell , NM doesn't even compare) .
I gave him a venom ward and although he improved a bit , still 2 shots from her nova are enough to send him to his grave . :rant:
I'm trying to mf with my blizz sorc , but it's getting a little annoying having to revive him every single run , for 2 or more times .
Anyone have any thoughts / strategies for that ?
Thanks in advance =)

FE bug affects everything me thinks...

 

[corax1]

nekkid with nipple chains?? i see no problem.
when i used to mf andy i gave my merc a reapers toll and teleported right beside andy so she generally melee'd first in which time i could get off enough meteors to kill her.

 

[jiansonz]

Both the poison spray and especially the melee hits do major physical damage (in addition to the poison) in Hell.

Best character to kill Andariel is probably a Blaze Sorceress. She´s a laughable opponent for that build. :flip:

 

[Quicksilver1]

As a suggestion - if your merc keeps dying during runs, you probably don't need him anyway. Why not do the runs without him, then revive him when you don't want to do any more?

 

[Summoned]

It just seems easier to kill something when it's standing still and not chasing your tail all over the place. :lol:

Edit: And you DO need the merc. If you ever do Pindleskin runs with a sorceress, the mercenary will occasionally die from a cursed charge, but I'd rather let him die than have my sorceress killed, thank you.

 

[Spook_Cell]

Just slap Andy's Visage on your merc. The irony of it is too sweet to pass up :lol: .

 

[BuFa]

Thanks for all the great input =)
QuickSilver : I could get rid of the merc , but then the runs would last longer since she's not standing still (and running pretty fast ._.) like Summoned said .
And it's kind of annoying since my meteor only deals about 3k / 550 dmg .
I better get to completing tal's set soon and get some fire skillers =)

Btw , I heard the optimum /players to run bosses is 3 Is there any science to that , or is it just that place where it's not so hard and not so easy ?

Thanks again
BuFa

:drink:

 

[Merchant Man]

I never tackle Andariel without 4 antidote potions and 4 full rejuvenation potions in my belt. Often I use 3 of each to keep my act 5 mercenary alive.

Yours
The Merchant Man

 

[cryist]

I seem to have a serious problem with that freakish demon .
No matter how much poison resist my merc has , he always ends up dead in 2 shots ._. (Hell , NM doesn't even compare) .
I gave him a venom ward and although he improved a bit , still 2 shots from her nova are enough to send him to his grave . :rant:
I'm trying to mf with my blizz sorc , but it's getting a little annoying having to revive him every single run , for 2 or more times .
Anyone have any thoughts / strategies for that ?
Thanks in advance =)

a couple of questions for you? 1st what players setting are you using, players 8 is a lot harder to kill her than players 1, second what lvl is your merc and what type of merc are you using? venom ward isn't enough to keep from getting killed by her at players setting 1, try a glads bane if your merc is lvl 85+ with 50% prdr and the huge def you get from it will help your merc stay alive, next what type of weapon and helm are you using? we need to know that info before you can get a good response.

I use a def merc that uses a shaft stop(30% DR), a shako(10% DR), and a eth bonehew (160-804 damage) and he just drushes off andy attacks execpt when i run her at players 8. you mite also want to try and feed him antidotes when battling her also..

 

[BuFa]

Ah true , I totally forgot that info ..
I'm using a hf merc , lv 77 with shaftstop , stealskull and amn'ed kelpie snare .
Gonna try to find a gaze and reaper's toll for him , or maybe upgrade the kelpie ( the 75% slow works wonders o.o)
For the moment , I'll try to forget andy a little and level the merc some more , got a bonehew waiting , just need to find that merc some equip with + str .
I guess if I push my sorc to act 5 and get a few more levels (till 85-87) things should be easier too =)

 

[Zarhrezz]

Btw , I heard the optimum /players to run bosses is 3 Is there any science to that , or is it just that place where it's not so hard and not so easy ?

From players 3 onwards, the no_drop chance for Bosses becomes 0%, so they always drop the maximum amount of items in a drop. Players 4 or higher do not yield a better drop (exactly the same as players 3 drop) but they'll have more hps. Thus players 3 is the best for mf runs.