thorny maul/ sapros the corrupter

[fighter.shepard]

which one is better and why?

Is there any other items in the game with 50% base pierce damage, like thorny? By far I saw only 30% pierce ratio

[pleasant_person]

Sapros got a huge nerfbat in anniversary edition. Not only does it have -25% life now, but it appears to have been changed from -resistance to -resistance%. Meaning, instead of doing say, -60 physical resistance (turning 50% physical resist to -10%), it's a 60% reduction in resistances (50% physical resist down to 20% physical resistance.) Reduction % has no effect if they don't have any resistance to reduce, unlike flat resistance reduction.

For thorny maul, unless I missed something while looking at the .dbz files, most monsters gain 1 armor per level, so a lvl75 monster has 75 armor for -52.5 physical damage, plus whatever equipment they might be wearing. It's not a very big reduction, compared to how hard you hit at higher levels, and the skills Hamstring, Batter, and Soften Metal will take care of most of the armor they have.

I don't know what the resistance bonus for monsters is in epic and legendary, but both maces will get around physical damage resistance in different ways (sapros reducing it, thorny piercing it via pierce damage.)

It really depends on if your build has a lot of +piercing%, and if you can survive with -25% health.

[NSFW]

Originally posted by Sadist:

Sapros got a huge nerfbat in anniversary edition. Not only does it have -25% life now, but it appears to have been changed from -resistance to -resistance%. Meaning, instead of doing say, -60 physical resistance (turning 50% physical resist to -10%), it's a 60% reduction in resistances (50% physical resist down to 20% physical resistance.) Reduction % has no effect if they don't have any resistance to reduce, unlike flat resistance reduction.

Are you 100% certain about Sapros' resist reduction being changed? It's still displaying as reduced resistance in-game, & in TQ Vault, rather than % resistance reduction.

[Force]

I would go for Sapros, this thing is still broken as hell, even with the nerf. I got both weapons, my Conqueror becomes almost invincible with Sapros since you leech life on most enemies like crazy, even though you don't have any other life leech buffs / armor parts.
Actually almost every meele class makes great use out of this, I once gave my Slayer 2 Sapros (but to compensate I also used a lot of items that boosted my health a bit since you get like -40% HP) and 2 Throny Mauls to compare them, you got insane damage with the Thorny Mauls pretty bad survival, with 2 times Sapros you get so much life leech that you will probably never die unless you fight undead or some other mobs that you can't leech life off.

[kennyomg]

Sapros is way overhyped. It's nice to have on the alternate setup and hit big and nasty things every once in a while to nerf their resists but otherwise it's crap compared to a decent Phonoi. 227-250 dmg vs 229-239, big deal. It gives 15% adcth which is only 3% more than Phonoi's. 75% life leech vs 40%, meh. Phonoi gives average speed, can have Veteran's or Relentless + of Reckless Power if RNJesus loves you, but even just suffix makes it better than Sapros. Then you can also add a relic for whatever you need/want. Achiles with speed or damage bonus and suddenly you have a Sapros that's Fast instead of Slow, hits for 1.7x damage (25 flat + 55% add dmg) almost twice as fast (procs!), leaches about 10-15% less and won't nerf the resists/armor. You do the math.

Same goes for Thorny, a bit less pronounced, unless you go all out on Pierce damage, in which case either your survivability or your attack speed (probably both) will go dow the toilet. And then 2 skeletons walk into the bar you're in and say hello....

[aries_perez23]

Originally posted by kennyomg:

Sapros is way overhyped. It's nice to have on the alternate setup and hit big and nasty things every once in a while to nerf their resists but otherwise it's crap compared to a decent Phonoi. 227-250 dmg vs 229-239, big deal. It gives 15% adcth which is only 3% more than Phonoi's. 75% life leech vs 40%, meh. Phonoi gives average speed, can have Veteran's or Relentless + of Reckless Power if RNJesus loves you, but even just suffix makes it better than Sapros. Then you can also add a relic for whatever you need/want. Achiles with speed or damage bonus and suddenly you have a Sapros that's Fast instead of Slow, hits for 1.7x damage (25 flat + 55% add dmg) almost twice as fast (procs!), leaches about 10-15% less and won't nerf the resists/armor. You do the math.

Same goes for Thorny, a bit less pronounced, unless you go all out on Pierce damage, in which case either your survivability or your attack speed (probably both) will go dow the toilet. And then 2 skeletons walk into the bar you're in and say hello....

I think you missed the one thing that makes Sapros truly special. That is the combination of FLAT reduce resist + reduce armor + poison damage along with the ADCTH. Mine has a relatively high flat value (71) of reduce resist so every hit to an enemy allows you to LOWER their resistances so that every hit that follows has a MAXIMUM damage effect compared to simply whacking enemies without lowering their resistances first. In legendary, your dps doesn’t matter if you can’t lower the resistances of your enemies. Hell, even a brigand dies in one shot due to damage reflect. So even if you have an insanely high dps in the case of brigand, none of that matters if it all goes back at you. So with Sapros, any enemy in the game becomes VULNERABLE to your attacks.

And that my friend makes Sapros truly one of a kind. Phonoi can come close but still way too far overall compared to it. Until now I am still looking for a weapon that doesn’t need me to rely on monkey king or shen nong relics just to have a tiny flat value of reduce resist and mind you, on my juggernaut build using Lævateinn, a SINGLE monkey king (flat -12 reduce resistaces) relic already does wonders.

So just imagine what a Sapros with a FLAT -71 reduce resistances can do to them. Even the undead bleeds from it.