Clarity on Merciful End mechanics

[CacaFresca]

I tried an experimental build on a Guan Yu Aspect spear run, and I would like to know if I understand merciful end correctly, because I didn't feel like it worked the way I thought it would. I chose Guan Yu because the spin attack hits multiple times, similar to Zeus Aspect shield throw, and you can rack up big time damage with massive/quick spin upgrades. When combined with merciful end, this seemed like an insane damage boost to me... Or so I thought

Apologies if this has been covered, I did a search and it looks like nobody has asked these particular questions about merciful end yet...


Here is what I did:

Used Vial of blood to grab Ares' Curse of agony.

I was lucky enough to get Divine Flourish on my very next boon.

I was extremely lucky to get Merciful end and then divine dash on my next two boons.

My first upgrade hammer also gave me massive spin.

PERFECT START!



Later on in the run, I get an Athena boon offering to replace curse of Agony with Divine Strike... And here is where things get strange.. I decide to replace curse of agony because I already have merciful end for the instant doom damage... But even though I have the duo boon (and yes it remains there even when you remove the prerequisite boon)... Does it still work without Curse of Agony??


Furthermore...

Does merciful end trigger on EVERY attack landed from a boon with deflect, or only when it actually deflects? The description makes it sound like it is additional instant damage on any deflect boon damage landed regardless if it actually deflects something or not. It does not feel as though it works that way.

I mean, I had ALL Athena attack/dash boons, I should be racking up insane damage with literally anything I do... IF it worked the way I thought it would.


I crushed the run regardless, but just looking for confirmation if this build does in fact work in the sneaky manner I went about "cheating" on the duo boon to get more out of it from each attack type.

[morbosfist]

From what I gather, you're confused about how Merciful End works. Gonna state the obvious a bit here. Sorry.

Merciful End causes your attacks that Deflect to immediately trigger Doom effects. Now, and this part is important, it does not cause Doom. Doom is caused by one of two Ares boons to Attack or Special. As you have noted, you traded out Doom Attack for Deflect Attack. By doing this, you took away your source of Doom, and as such Merciful End's conditions cannot be met.

[CacaFresca]

Originally posted by morbosfist:

From what I gather, you're confused about how Merciful End works. Gonna state the obvious a bit here. Sorry.

Merciful End causes your attacks that Deflect to immediately trigger Doom effects. Now, and this part is important, it does not cause Doom. Doom is caused by one of two Ares boons to Attack or Special. As you have noted, you traded out Doom Attack for Deflect Attack. By doing this, you took away your source of Doom, and as such Merciful End's conditions cannot be met.

That doesn't make sense. What use is Merciful End then? There are no doom effects which also deflect.

Doom effects trigger in under 1s from the time they are applied. By the time I would apply doom and then attack with one of Athena's skills, doom would have already applied on its own, for more damage than what I get from merciful end.

If this is how it works, then I don't see how its a beneficial duo boon. You're halving damage from an epic doom boon for a negligible increase in trigger rate. You're also eliminating the possibility of stacking doom with dire misfortune and impending doom. In the case of impending doom, it's even worse, because you're trading a significant damage buff to provide a longer window to apply less instant damage.

It sounds like a debuff to an already marginal and weak skill to begin with.

The idea of deflect attacks automatically and instantly triggering less additional doom damage would be a tradeoff that is far more useful (and logical). I would understand the requirement to still have an actual Doom source for it to work so you can't cheat the system like I tried to do, but in it's current form I would literally never take this duo boon again.

[letran.thai]

Merciful End builds typically work like this: Apply Doom with one attack, and immediately follow up with a second one dealing Deflect. Rinse and repeat.

You are right to say that Doom effects don't take that long to resolve (1.1s without modifiers), but you can basically cut that down even further, which does quite a difference on fast-hitting weapons. You also profit by being able to immediately put on another Doom effect on said enemy. What's more, if you have Impending Doom, you can entirely bypass the delayed effect. I don't know how it interacts with Dire Misfortune, but the combination isn't worthwhile.

Also take note that Merciful End adds another 50 bonus Doom damage.

A good example would be alternating Curse of Pain and Divine Strike with the Twin Fists, or Curse of Agony/Pain and Divine Dash with the Sword. It doesn't fare nearly as well with weapons that have charge-ups, like the Aspect of Guan Yu, as you have witnessed.

[Gregor]

Originally posted by letran.thai:

Merciful End builds typically work like this: Apply Doom with one attack, and immediately follow up with a second one dealing Deflect. Rinse and repeat.

You are right to say that Doom effects don't take that long to resolve (1.1s without modifiers), but you can basically cut that down even further, which does quite a difference on fast-hitting weapons. You also profit by being able to immediately put on another Doom effect on said enemy. What's more, if you have Impending Doom, you can entirely bypass the delayed effect. I don't know how it interacts with Dire Misfortune, but the combination isn't worthwhile.

Also take note that Merciful End adds another 50 bonus Doom damage.

A good example would be alternating Curse of Pain and Divine Strike with the Twin Fists, or Curse of Agony/Pain and Divine Dash with the Sword. It doesn't fare nearly as well with weapons that have charge-ups, like the Aspect of Guan Yu, as you have witnessed.

If the duo boon adds another 50 damage, that's something missed on german.....

[Uli Minati]

Doom deals about 100 base damage in 1.1 seconds (about 90 dps)
Impending Doom increases it to about 170 every 1.6 seconds (about 110 dps)
Merciful End increases it to 220 every Doom+Deflect combo, which depends on your attack/special speed. You can probably get it down to about ~1 second for one Special+Attack (about 220 dps)
So it's pretty nice if you didn't find any strong Chaos boons or Hammers which can go much higher

[SirKimestry]

OP, to add, Doom + Merciful End works better and noticeably on fast hitting weapons and bulkier enemies(like bosses).

@Uli Minati did the math on I think epic(?) rarity & level 1 and I'd invite you to try it on the following build.

Aspect of Zeus(Shield)
Doom on Attack(Ares)
Deflect on Special(Athena)
Impending Doom(Ares)
Merciful End(Ares/Athena)

Use special then constantly attack. Merciful end will constantly proc at every attack. Let's assume you can attack twice per second - that's 440 dps! That's signifcant boost considering shield is typically low dps.

[CacaFresca]

Originally posted by Kimestry:

OP, to add, Doom + Merciful End works better and noticeably on fast hitting weapons and bulkier enemies(like bosses).

@Uli Minati did the math on I think epic(?) rarity & level 1 and I'd invite you to try it on the following build.

Aspect of Zeus(Shield)
Doom on Attack(Ares)
Deflect on Special(Athena)
Impending Doom(Ares)
Merciful End(Ares/Athena)

Use special then constantly attack. Merciful end will constantly proc at every attack. Let's assume you can attack twice per second - that's 440 dps! That's signifcant boost considering shield is typically low dps.

you can actually attack 4x per second with the proper shield double attack upgrade, which also prevents knock back.

interesting. I may give it a try, but I dunno how applicable it would be high heat... Worth a go though.

[Ondrej Petrzilka]

Merciful end becomes really powerful with fast hitting weapon and Divine Dash.
Weapon applies doom and dash procs it immediately.

Now you CAN do it even faster with Dash-strike, first dash strike applies doom, second dash-strike procs doom and applies another doom.

Now combine it with Extra dashes from Hermes (+1,2 or 3 dashes) or Gilgamesh fists and you have truly powerful build. If you're able to get Epic Hermes with Gilgamesh fists, it gets INSANE - 7 dashes!!! That's 6 doom hits while you're dash-striking and deflecting most attacks! And it's AOE, since fists dash-strike is large swipe.

And it can even get better, there's Artemis duo boon which gives you 20% crit for two seconds after deflect...yes, it applies to doom as well.

It melts everything including bosses, in my opinion it's the strongest build regarding raw DPS and very fun to play.

Now regarding consistency:
- take Doom attack first (Ares keepsake)
- try to get Athena Special (preferably) or at least Dash in Tartarus by random chance
- then take Athena keepsake
- if you already have special, you can roll for Merciful end and take Dash if roll fails

Two boons should be easily guaranteed by keepsakes.
The other two you must get by random chance (keep 150 gold for mid shops)
- fated persuasion from mirror is highly recommended

[CacaFresca]

congrats, you have necro'd a thread over 1yr old.

[tri.sapphire]

Originally posted by CacaFresca:

congrats, you have necro'd a thread over 1yr old.

If that dash-strike really can trigger and apply doom at the same time, I'm glad he did. Gonna have to test that next time I boot the game up.