A word in advance: All this is obviously a matter of how you are playing the game, not one about an absolutely best way, so even if I didn't make it that clear all the time, this is an opinion from my perspective.
I think we talk about different things in here. It is true you don't de facto "need" CtA, nor do you "need" any other item in the game to play it. I talked about the case where you do use CtA, you realize it benefits your characters more than whatever other switch you can come up with, with few exceptions ofc. It is not about doing anything without it, you can do it like than normally, but it is about doing everything as efficient and as safe as possible, now in that case CtA is that powerhouse I talk about.
I would like to hear what kind of switch could make sorc/necro/hammerdin faster and more safe runner of areas than CtA. MF switch? You could test can your 1k life sorc with different switch actually challenge other AT sorcs who use CtA.
With "CtA not needed", I meant it in a context about item finding. It doesn't make characters any more effective, at least not those I'm playing. For my main item finder (blizzard sorc), the opposite would be the case: Her MF capabilities would suffer. She's constantly and easily killing with her MF weapon+shield while using FCR/+skills/etc stuff just for teleporting and softening up Meph and Andy.
Or pitnecro. Or CS hammerdin. I talk about efficient farming, not farming that will take 10 minutes to complete or something like that just to be clear.
I'm not doing serious MF with them (what's a pit necro BTW?). I would agree that a hammerdin will benefit from more life becaue he needs a certain proximity to the enemies, but hamamerdins aren't really fun for me.
For my play style, my most efficient MFer is a cold sorc with tons of MF gear (more than 300% MF still adds a bit on finding rares and set items) in P1 Tunnels, so there are no other characters to consider
. The question who's most efficient might be a matter of play style, however.
BTW, if you need fancy stuff for being efficient, you have to calculate how long it would take for that character to earn back the investments. If you could find basically the same stuff with an already existing character in the same time, it was a useless investment, rationally spoken. A blizzardf sorc needs next to no gear at all in order to be able to kill in the Tunnels. I would do a certain minimum about resists and merc equipment, however
Here again I have a feeling you talk about some more untwinked or theme build kind of play.
Not at all. I'm never playing untwinked characters. Well OK, my blizzard sorc is kind of untwinked, she's my first character and she has found basically all her gear herself
I mean if someone really wants some thematic build around Dracul's or Atma's, he won't appreciate Toll. But otherwise, I didn't really hear someone using that items for optimized build, perhaps only if they are rather lowish on gear and have no other choice.
You don't need a themed build for Dracul's or Atma's. Dracul's are the best zealot gloves, Atma's the best strafer amulet. My opinion about zealots might have been influenced from my bnet times when I fought Übers with them. It still makes things a bit safer, however.
Most popular and arguably strongest gloves to use are Laying of Hands because that massive 350% ed to demons is powerhouse.
Not for zealots who typically have well more than 100% off-weapon without LoH. Dracul's offers more protection than CtA once its lifetap is triggered on non-PIs. You are basically unkillable, as long as non-PIs are near (drain effectiveness doesn't matter regarding lifetap) and my zealot can jump into the middle of a typical crowd of Baal minions and kill them all without drinking a single potion... although there are certainly a few nasty combos of boss abilities if Lister is involved.
Barb - from what I know, barb who uses warcries in general doesn't want Reaper's, but Insight because they need tons of mana. But any other non-berserker barb, he would use Toll on a merc without a doubt. What can possibly be stronger than Highlord's + Toll combo on them for damage output? Toll literally doubles your damage output (imagine Fortitude which gives 1500% damage) because most monsters have 50 DR. Same is true for other physical builds, that is really the influence of Toll on damage outut.
In the places my barbs are going, mercs are dying all the time (Trav, Baal+minions), so they are doing all their stuff without mercs. My conc barb wears LoH, however, he has enough life when BOed to ensure that he won't die from panic reactions by me caused by sudden, unexpected loss of huge amounts of life.
Reaper's doubles your damage in the time frame of the monsters, but I only care about that if the monsters could become a threat. That's not the case, so I'm doing things in my time frame which doesn't add anything to damage per second, except you count HF's cold damage.
Amazon - eventually bowa if she is not into using Atma's and would use Enigma. I'd use Toll anyway on a merc because what else? Unless I go act 1 merc.
My strafer is using Fortitude, of course, that armor is just made for strafe/MF zons! Atma's is needed as a means versus PIs.The Pits don't have PIs, but she can do WSK + Baal minions as well which is why she doesn't have a merc as well. Diablo and WSK monsters kill them allmost every time.
I could put CtA into the weapon switch, but she's suffering little damage. Almost no monster will ever get close to her.
Necro - he doesn't need Toll because he is not physical character + he has curses with 100% reliability.
Regarding summon necros, this is where my ethereal Kelpie Snares go to. This might actually be a good application of CtA, but having Beast in the main weapon/shield slot and a summon wand like AoKL in the back hand might speed up trhings enough to be better than CtA... and BTW, who cares if a minion dies if a dozen potential new ones are on the ground?
Paladin - Zealer? Definitely Toll + Highlord's. Atma's is too unreliable and cannot even come close to what other combo is offering. Gloves are LoH normally for any kind of optimized zealer, otherwise someone with slightly lower gear could, for whatever reason, use Dracul's. I wouldn't ever consider using those over LoH on him, ever. Don't see a point. LoH + lifeleech ring or whatever also offers nice leech for survivability + you kill considerably faster.
As said, I think Dracul's offers more protection for a zealer than CtA and he has so much off-weapon %ed that LoH doesn't add that much additional damage. 300%ed off-weapon on Grief is about 1000 damage. He could even put away Fortitude and wear Skullder's or Enigma, but that's not that much needed if you can roll up maps with the stairs around the corner. However, even if you don't need quick travel across otherwise impenetrable obstacles, another advantage of Enigma is that it brings minions back to your position, either to rescue them or to telestomp the enemy.
Assassin - no appeal there for Toll, her physical damage sucks too much. But, if you are pure physical build and don't have use of Infinity/Insight, then why not, Toll is nice to have as nice survivability bonus (and yes, more damage too!).
Assassins aren't really of my liking. I played a few trappers, but it didn't add much fun for me. Whatever I wrote, it soesn't apply to them. Trappers certainly benefit from Infinity, but just breaking immunities will still leave a 90-99% resistant enemy and -res gear won't have an effect because traps count as independent minions.
Sorceress - Infinity/Insight masterrace. Toll comes as solution if you don't have Infinity and don't need Insight, that's all.
Right.
Druid - fury druid could use Toll merc, but not having teleport is kinda meh. Even so, unless you use act 1 merc, you will use act 2 Toll merc because what else? Insight? Infinity? Botd? Maybe if you have Pride! (anyone building those anyway?)
For wind druid, Toll is powerhouse to use. Okay, Insight is nice, but more profitable is to solve your mana issues by not needing Insight and then use Toll for full power and much stronger/faster killing character. You would need CtA to make it work though, without it you can't even hope to not use Insight and be any sort of efficient runner.[/spoiler]
None of the druids I've played were really fun for me. I don't know much about them, but from what I believe to know, I don't think they are good at item finding.
