What is technically the best or most popular base in 2.4 for infinity?
Is it Mancatcher, Stygian or is it still Thesher and Giant Thresher?
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Giant Thresher is always BiS.
Apprently, Dbrunski said mancatcher is the next big thing due to it having -20 base.
Some also input that Stygian pike would be good due to it being 4OS max which is easily larzuk-ed.
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For a spear yes. But you listed polearms too. So Mancatcher is BiS when you want to use a spear, but for polearms it’s still GT. But imo spears are overall better than polearms.
But ACT 2 mercs can use spears too, so it opens up a lot of possibilities in a way. I’m not a math guy so I’ll wait for the experts to do the calculations 
I just want to know which of the base would be preferred overall.
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The D2 character planner on maxroll will calculate it for you😉
Someone has calculated on here pretty elaborately and mancatcher turned out to be like a tiny bit better ¯_(ツ)_/¯
GT is gonna trade better by miles though
It depends on gear setup. With the classic treachery and 35 ias andy, GT will come out better as it will reach the same attack frames as mancatcher, while having a little more damage.
However with mancatcher, you only need 52 ias so you have more gear options, either using more defensive helm, or forti armor could do good even if you had one breakpoint worse attack frames with it (hard to do the math here, but maybe forti+mancatcher+35andy could do overally better than gt+treachery+35 andy).
60/160 archon + 45/120 helm would get you to 5 aps with mancatcher, which would be
impossible with threshers. This would do without any doubt more damage and more frequent cb than threshers- winner in terms of pure clearspeed. But probably not worth it as you would have no ls and resists this way. But maybe for boss farm the absence of ls will not matter much, also if you are tanky char and the merc don’t get hit often.
Mancatcher: 42 - 92 base damage (67 Avg)
| IAS | attack speed [ticks] | attacks per second |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 6 | 3.57 |
| 9 | 5.5 | 3.84 |
| 26 | 5 | 4.16 |
| 52 | 4.5 | 4.54 |
| 102 | 4 | 5 |
Giant thresher: 40 - 114 base damage (77 Avg)
and
Thresher: 12 - 141 base damage (76.5 Avg)
| IAS | attack speed [ticks] | attacks per second |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 6.5 | 3.33 |
| 8 | 6 | 3.57 |
| 22 | 5.5 | 3.84 |
| 42 | 5 | 4.16 |
| 75 | 4.5 | 4.54 |
| 142 | 4 | 5 |
PS. I did not mention stygian as it is a slow weapon, for infi you want fast weapon for the cb proc. Only advantage of stygian is easy Larzuk 4 sockets, so it’s a slightly better alternative to colossus voulge (has a bit faster attack) - easily obtainable, but not BiS.
Can Obedience be used effectively with a Fire damage class, eg Fire Sorceress or Fire Trapsin to break the Fire Immune mobs? I ask because Obedience is 1000s times easier to get than Infinity.
Also, my 85 Sorceress, 75 Trapsin and 75 Boiwazon would be practically unplayable if it were not for Insight. Is there a neat solution to this?
I tested eth. Giant Tresher, eth. Cryptic Axe and eth. Mancatcher in D2 character planner on maxroll, all with perfect stats 325ed/-55%lr, crushing blow included.
I tested it with the 35 IAS breakpoint you reach using Andariel’s Viasage with IAS Jewel on your act 2 merc. Normaly you will use Fortitude with this setup as BIS.
vs. Baal Players 1:
Giant Tresher needs 31,55 sec to kill
CA needs 31,78 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 30,5 sec to kill
vs. Baal Players 8:
Giant Tresher needs 59,2 sec to kill
CA needs 61,34 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 56 sec to kill
vs. Diablo Players 8:
Giant Tresher needs 25,72 sec to kill
CA needs 25,93 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 24,85 sec to kill
vs. Diablo Players 1:
Giant Tresher needs 9,91 sec to kill
CA needs 9,63 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 9,86 sec to kill
vs. Diablo Players 8:
Giant Tresher needs 25,72 sec to kill
CA needs 25,93 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 24,85 sec to kill
vs. Mephisto Players 1:
Giant Tresher needs 5,9 sec to kill
CA needs 5,71 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 5,89 sec to kill
vs. Mephisto Players 8:
Giant Tresher needs 16,02 sec to kill
CA needs 16,08 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 15,53 sec to kill
vs. Duriel Players 1:
Giant Tresher needs 12,58 sec to kill
CA needs 13,92 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 12,11 sec to kill
vs. Duriel Players 8:
Giant Tresher needs 35,09 sec to kill
CA needs 40,25 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 32,81 sec to kill
vs. Andariel Players 1:
Giant Tresher needs 8 sec to kill
CA needs 7,68 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 8,05 sec to kill
vs. Andariel Players 8:
Giant Tresher needs 24,19 sec to kill
CA needs 24,01 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 23,66 sec to kill
vs. Target Dummy Players 1:
Giant Tresher needs 0,24 sec to kill
CA needs 0,23 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 0,25 sec to kill
vs. Target Dummy Players 8:
Giant Tresher needs 0,93 sec to kill
CA needs 0,9 sec to kill
Mancatcher needs 0,94 sec to kill
Conclusion: the weaker the monstes get, the weaker gets Manchater, CA beats GT and Mancatcher in most cases and CA is best in normal game situations if you have troubles vs. immunes.
You can look at the details here, but the summary is this:
Mancatcher is the fastest base, while Giant Poleaxe or Stygian Pike has the most damage per a second. If you care more about applying Crushing Blow the Mancatcher is probably better, if care more about damage per a sec Stygian Pike is best, (slightly better than the GPA because it has a lower strength requirement). Thresher and Giant Thresher are sort of the in between bases that are faster than the Stygian Pike, but does more damage than the Mancatcher.
However, all the bases with the exception of the War Pike (far too slow) and Colossal Voulge (low damage and slow) are close enough that it probably doesn’t matter to most players who aren’t trying to optimize an extra hundred damage per a second.
Since the above post mentions the Cryptic Axe, the Ethereal Cryptic Axe is both slower and does less damage per a second than the Ethereal Giant Poleaxe or Stygian Pike so it seems that no matter what you favor the Stygian Pike is always superior to the Cryptic Axe. Though as said it’s good enough that most people won’t notice a big difference.
Cryptic & G-Thresher
Cryptic 7 Frames per attack(35% ias with an andy helm using 15% ias 15 all resists jewel)
Giant Thresher 6.5 Frames per attack(same ias as above)
Mantcatcher 6 Frames per attack(same ias as above)
this account for merc using Fortitude Armor
with treachery Cryptic reach .5 frame faster
Giant Thresher gain 1 frame faster
Mancatcher gain .5 frame faster
other words if your seeking speed contest for maximum Crushing Blow then Giant Thresher is the winner…but by using Treachery…your merc does crap dmg vs non-boss monsters…thats where Cryptic Axe is the clear winner
between 7 frames and 6 frame
Cryptic 549 dmg
G-Thresher 462 dmg(thats equal to 497,53 dmg if was slow to 7 frames)
Mancatcher 402 dmg(thats equal to 469 dmg if was slown down to 7 frames)
base weap dmg X 1.5 X 4(fort)…i didn’t add up the enhanced dmg on weapon but…if you want to… multiply all of the above by 255-325%
realisticly you want it on Eth Cryptic so your merc shred non-bosses enemies
but if you want your merc to specialize in boss and being awfull on thrash monsters…then by all mean go for Giant Thresher + Treachery
With Fortitude and Andariel’s socketed with an IAS Jewel you reach the 35 IAS Breakpoint. So CA has the same speed (6 ticks) like Stygian Pike and Giant Poleaxe but the dam output is much better, so the only alternative would be a Tresher or GT, but I still think CA is the best base in most scenarios.