@@MacroBioBoi I completely agree with OP. I've always found myself enjoying your builds the most out of all the content creators and I appreciate the honesty you put into the information you are providing. And now I ask myself... why am I not subscribed? Time to change that :P
I know this video was specific to a fire bug fix but the way you broke down pierce and how it relates to enchanted skills really helped me with my frost maiden build who just hit lvl 90. I switched from an A2 Might to A2 Blessed Aim and my Freezing arrows have been way more effective at spreading the damage through packs (attack rating went from like 4k to almost 8k). So much so that I can do P3 as easily as I was doing P1 before. Just need a Razortail to max my pierce (SSF so it's been a nightmare) to really tear things up. Since I am doing HC, P1 feels that much safer now. THANK YOU
Welp, I know what my season 3 starter will be! Non-traditional builds are the best! Thank you for always thinking outside of the box as well as the math behind this. Honestly, I think you're one of the top tier D2 content creators.
you gotta put that dragon armor on, the holy fire dmg applies to your explosive shot, furthermore the applied dmg is multiplied by your fire mastery. It's actually pretty insane.
Dragon actually isn’t as good as 20/-20 armour since the added damage from the aura is about the same as the flat dmg from 4 facets and an additional -20 fire res goes a long way to boost dmg back broken immunity mobs
I started with this, maxing Hydra synergies & ended up switching up to max energy shield. The damage difference is surprisingly underwhelming. ES is a much better option. I actually think throwing on 2 Wisp Projectors & maxing Lightning synergies is a much stronger option.
Oh 💩🤦. What a goof. I got this notification from a reply then glanced at my comment from 2 months ago & seen it as someone else & replied to my mufuckin self😅
The most impressive part of it is he has a heavy Boston accent when he isn't presenting; he showed it off in one of his recent videos and it completely took me by surprise. He is a really talented presenter.
I already know this build from a youtuber who likes to play off-meta builds, called DoubleBilly. That the build now becomes an S Tier build, makes me excited.
Mac, theory crafting question for you--I'd love to work with an Act 1 Merc on this build, particularly since I don't regularly use one on all my others. For example, on my GF barb, I've added in the Act 5 merc (that actually contributes and survives!), which has been a blast, and I want to do something similar here. So--looking at the setup with your enchant merc build, it's an up'd Kuko Shakaku, treachery, and wisdom. Fires explosive arrows with 83% pierce. Since we're the killing machines ourselves, what about a fire Act 1 merc with mist bow (100% pierce, freezes targets, conc aura), and then giving her a flickering flame as well so she has extra fire damage? The tradeoff is she isn't constantly firing explosive, but she's an insane crowd control, should be very strong damage, and when she fires explosive arrows, they always deliver. Thoughts?
It's very important that you watch my second enchant Merc video after the one you first watched. It doesn't work like we assumed but it's actually stronger.
Holy shit. This build is insane. It melted P8 cows and it even Melted P8 Diablo. On top of the Elite packs for the hit switches. S-Tier build fer sure.
Thank you for this content. I respec'd from a decent cold sore to this build. It's crushing everything. Arcane sanctuary, with it's long/straight hallways is so easy to clear now.
And here ppl were complaining about the auradin which falls off at p3-5 lol nothing wrong with this build though you do make some sacrifices with fcr and other things I think it's fair
Refreshing to see. A very creative build, nice work man. I am very interested in the new possibilities of the martial arts assassin with all the changes coming up. Once the changes hit could you make a video about it?
@@MacroBioBoi Sure, but the range of this skill and the power of it. It's a piercing fireball on steroids. I wonder what pvp will be like with a widowmaker enchant sorc.
Great video, just a thought - why not use Kuko bow? If my calculations are correct, you can achieve 10 and even 9th attack speed breakpoint with hustle.
@@MacroBioBoi was gonna ask you about this very question, Macro … as I’ve not gotten a D-Machine to drop yet (but have 3 Kuko’s 😅). Would the build ‘work’ with a Kuko, as a early stand-in, say on P-3 or P-5 Hell Difficulty… until such time as I find an actual D-Mach ?
you keep saying double dip, but you have multiple items that increase fire dmg by 300ish%. On the wowhead hero editor at lvl 51 across the board, enchant only hits like 4.6-5.3k So where would this 3.6x increase in damage come from? I also deleted the fire mastery completely to show damage to ranged before patch 2.6 and the enchant damage dropped to 960-1.1k like the patch is live single player, so i could test it there if i had a maxed char to use, but i refuse to download a sketchy hero editor to see if maybe the numbers differ from the online tool, but it seems to me that your whole video is bogus, the math just doesnt make sense to me, could someone please explain to me where all this extra damage is coming from if not those cheater items?
Did you watch the mechanics section at all? I think you'd benefit from watching the mechanics section. It's actually stronger than what I show here, but I do explain all of this in the mechanics section.
@MacroBioBoi can we get the details on how this build would perform as a baby noob version.. say like with a Kuko Shakaku and a razortail, and a few +skillswould this build perform on p1 non fire immunes, now it double dips im was thinking it probably could do quite well in certain areas but id like to know from a professional
It crushes with any gear on P1. Kuko is actually harder to build around than Demon machine. Demon machine is the most budget version of the build and also the best.
Apologies if I’m missing something but does “fire skill +%” apply/work when pre-buffing? Or is the Eschutas just being used for pre-buff because its +3 skills and one-handed so you can get the +2 skills from Spirit as well. Jw bc my Eschuta’s is only +2 and would assume an Oculus would be better to use in my case unless ofc fire skill dmg +% does carry over when swap buffing.
Hey, I might have missed something in the video, I do not understand how you get the 332% fire skill damage on the eschuta. Is it some kind of secret jewel ?
Does it matter what the -enemy fire res is from the facets in ormus robe and eshuta when prebuffing or is it only the fire skill +% from the rbf that matters during this phase? I'm asking this because I want to know if I need to buy a perfect fire rbf or if a cheaper alternative suffices for the prebuffing.
did they nerf this? almost finished my build and can't even clear act2 hell p1. lvl44 fire mastery, warmth, and enchant. 3.5-4.1k enchant. My bow says 14-17k enchant, still need to socket the 15ias jewel.
Have you thought about putting a dragon armor on the merc for the holy fire? Would it add any decent amount of damage combined with the resist fire aura from flicker for synergy?
You should put dragon armor on you, not on merc. Yes, you loose 30fcr, but damage boost is really nice, because holy fire weapon damage is also double boosted.
@@pavellysenko8278 I really dislike dragon on the build. You get 2500ish damage and nothing else. You already 1 shot P8 packs after static so the damage is actually useless.
@@MacroBioBoi Built one last weekend and totally agree. Fun build. P5 cows seems like the sweet spot. A great build to farm up to infinity with! Best of both worlds of enchantress and ele-bowazon in a way. Thanks for sharing this info with the community!
Hey @MacroBioBoi help me out here. I just got a perfect fire facet dropped, but I don't know how to include it. I'm wearing flickering flame & enlightenment body armour. Should I get +3ench/15 ormus and put facet in it? I understood ormus is only for prebuff, doesn't make much sense to facet it. Should I go for vipermagi as my combat gear and facet that?
Edit: Forgot that sunder doesn't work for your merc.... so nvm... :D This fire mastery fix should also buff you're "Enchantress Human Merc" build...? Where you just buffed up and supported your act 1 explosive arrow rouge and she deleted everthing xD
So for the enchant sorc, based on how OP it is, just the crossbow and a fire sundercharm would let you clear everything easily on p1 right (and razortail for convenience)?
@@dennism.5145 Was the white cow by itself? This build does MUCH more damage when enemies are stacked together, due to how pierce and the exploding arrow work. Every time it pierces you're basically just hitting multiple times, because the aoe will explode on the enemy behind, causing multiple explosions from one arrow/bolt. So if you only attack 1 enemy at a time, it'll feel much weaker (even though as he shows in the video it's still decent by the looks of it, vs 1 enemy (boss))
@@asharedo yes, i know, i watched the video. unfortunately it took at least 4 shots for packs of cows. So the budget variant for me didn't feel that great tbh.
Holy crap, did this video explode like one of those arrows. Congrats! Also, do you write scripts for these, Mac? 'Cause some of the sentences were pretty insane complexity- and length-wise. You don't encounter them a lot in colloquial English.
Nah I can't write scripts xD. It messes up my ability to speak naturally. I've worked in sales and my degree is in science so Ive done a lot of presenting.
I'd recommend watching my video about how energy shield works. Also we don't stack Damage Reduction and Magic Damage Reduction so we still absolutely need resistances.
@@MacroBioBoi I'm testing it but visually I can't spot the fireballs being cast. It could be that it's only visual, cause I'm pretty sure I saw it once. Thanks for responding
This is really interesting, especially since Blizzard ruined Bears. How would it be with absolutely trash gear? Spirit sword and +1 ammy bringing your skills to 23. No Razor Tail. No minus to enemy res. Just clawed your way through Hell with similarly geared randos on Bnet and ready to make your fortune. You traded your only runes to get the Demon Machine. Only farming places where fire is strong. Pindle, Shenk, Eldritch, Stoney Tomb, Tombs and Hell cows. Do you struggle or can you be a boss in 1 to 3 player terror games? Edit, again on a super budget, Act One Merc using a Kuko bow? And thinking it over, Leaf would be better and Lore would give another plus so it would be a 25 enchant.
interesting build and look a lot of fun. not a fan of pre-buffing though as anything beside pre-buff on weapon swap I see it as "tedious" (inventory/stash swap, etc) I know it take just a few seconds to do those stash swap pre-buff but the tediousness wasn't about time consuming but its all about how many time you have to do it again and again. I can't imagine myself doing this everytime clicking on stash every run instead of just running straight to waypoint.
@@MacroBioBoi yep, that's my plan. since this build using only one runeword (beside merc) I think its possible for me to farm all stuff with my solo self-found :)
@@MacroBioBoi if i understand correctly, sunder charms dont help mercs, so the sorc support build with the a1 merc as the main hero cannot utilize sunder charms and only farm in areas with no fire immunes, is that correct and the reason why this new build is better?
11k dmg with the demon machine. First time playing with infinity on my merc and TBH it feels LAME and boring. On the other hand the sorc itself feels squishy on p1 with 900-1000 HP and max energy shield.
@@MacroBioBoi when I get close to them I get hit hard. Tried to clear P8 chaos and most of them die in 2 or 3 shots without static. I have only 1 fire skiller/3 to enchant sorc wand for the prebuff phase/arach for prebuff/1 soj/ viper with 3/3 rbf./4-6 cta with spirit on swap
I wonder how this ultimately will pan out in practise once the real patch drops in, and with the prebuffing, slower teleport casting and not firing super fast, and keeping in mind that most people won't be soloing players 8 content as well. Would like to see how this fairs in a series of timed players 8 cow runs. It's going to be a good build regardless and a good showcase from you all the same.
It's weird, it's a build that strives in P8. On lower player count you'd get better efficiency out of a higher geared fireball Sorc. But for "equivalent" gear value it out performs most things other than LF.
@@MacroBioBoi Fireball - if build correctly - is a P8 killer, like any geared-for-it non cold sorc :) Plus the greatest thing about a sorc are the fcr frames (that's why a sorc (given a good build) solo clears most things faster than a javazon - which is much stronger once she is there). Also pre-buffing is a big nono for online play IF one cares about efficiency. Like making the run 5%-10% slower is a big deal (I didn't test this but no pre-buff might be even more efficient, of course it will, among other things, be highly dependent on the run length). There are a lot of choices which change the time to complete a run by a few % so the cumulative affect of all choices of a build is quite big (10% would be huge already if you are a grinder). Nevertheless this seems like a nice buff to a previously super niche old build which was played by very few people only.
So you can also make this build almost invincible too with a +9 ES Memory Staff which isne even that hard to get or find. This is hands down the best build in the game. If you get a Memory with +3 on the base you can hit lvl 38 (max) energy shield. Use an A2 Prayer merc with insight, Cure, and CoH - now you have insane mana and life regen, and it removes curses and poison for you. you're basically indestructible now due to the lvl 38 energy sheild and this. I tried this with a lower energy shield and I ripped way too many times when energy sheild is at like lvl 28 - You REALLY need the levl 38 energy sheild with memory for this thing to be not only durable, but damn near indestructible. You lose some Attack rating and of course the -resistance from conviction but it honestly to me almost makes no difference. Tested this multiple times switching between mercs and its really only noticeable past players 3 and chances are if youre in a players 8 game... its chaos or baal runs anyway and someone likely already has an infinity. I don't even use battle orders 1700mana/450 life. Just swap memory off after using energy sheild, switch to eshutas and spirit.. use enchant on me and merc and youre good to go for 1000 seconds aka 15 minutes.
