Mace of Disruption better than artifacts?

[icefyre]

hello all:

I am playing a lvl 47 high elf mage.
until now I've been using Chaos Blade of Gondolin (+21,+16) for dragons and demons (did average of 416 dmg) and swapping with Glaive of Pain (387.6 dmg) for anything else.

Just raided a vault and found two insane maces of disruption. Mace of Disruption of Gondolin (+16, +22) which causes 542 avg/dmg per round against dragons, demons and undead. Also, a MoD of Extra Attacks which does 788.4 dmg per round against undead and 451.2 against everything.

Just based on the stats it looks like I should dump the glaive of pain and the blade of chaos and just use the two maces of disruption.
Is there any reason not to?
How is it that these maces are so much more powerful than the Glaive of Pain which is an artifact?

[Estie]

Yes MoD +2 attacks > GoP. There are (a very few) artifact weapons that are as good or better than that MoD, you just havent found any (yet). In particular, a mage with only 4 attacks profits the most from those extra 2 attacks: it means his damage gets multiplied by 1.5, whereas other classes only get 7/5.

[icefyre]

Thanks!

I will dump my other faithful weapons then. I did enjoy the thought of my mage wielding a Blade of Chaos more than a mace but the damage difference makes it silly.

[Sky]

Im shocked that you could afford to lug around the GoP and not suffer from the weight/speed debuff.

[Pete Mack]

Yep, Mod +2 attacks is one of the best weapons in the game. Holy avenger is another. For Mage, MoD of Gondolin is great--you can't kill everything with it, but it's good against the vast majority of monsters worth killing.

[icefyre]

Im shocked that you could afford to lug around the GoP and not suffer from the weight/speed debuff.

I do suffer, significantly so. However, hasted I am at 36 speed which is more than enough for me!

[Monkey Face]

IMO for a mage damage is less important than other attributes a weapon has since a mage is much better off fighting at a distance using spells against most enemies since he'll receive much less damage.

[Grotug]

is the rChaos not useful on the BoC or do you have that covered somewhere else? It's rare (if ever?) I haven't found a better weapon than GoP by the late stages of the game.

[Pete Mack]

@Monkeyface--
Not so much for High Elf, where you need a lot of EXP. INT 18/220 is really easy to get; CON 18/200 and adequate speed are not too difficult. Enough EXP, though, that's hard. So a real fighting weapon--after stat gain but before zero-fail mass banishment--is a very useful thing. CL 46 is pretty much my target for a mage going after M.

[Monkey Face]

I'm a bit of a level clearer so I've been at level 50 for all my wins, including my first which was a HE mage. (They've all been mage except one as a dwarf priest.) In all of them, including the priest, I've tried to fight M from a distance.

[icefyre]

is the rChaos not useful on the BoC or do you have that covered somewhere else? It's rare (if ever?) I haven't found a better weapon than GoP by the late stages of the game.

It's covered by my shield of Thorin. Annoyingly, I can't find a way to equip rNether without losing around 200 HP, definitely not worth it. However, that makes fighting nether breather uniques heavy on consumables so I just tend to TO them for now.

[icefyre]

@Monkeyface--
Not so much for High Elf, where you need a lot of EXP. INT 18/220 is really easy to get; CON 18/200 and adequate speed are not too difficult. Enough EXP, though, that's hard. So a real fighting weapon--after stat gain but before zero-fail mass banishment--is a very useful thing. CL 46 is pretty much my target for a mage going after M.

I agree. Was relying on spells until I maxed my stats, then all of a sudden once I got a good weapon I found I am getting way more XP by playing my mage as a warrior and bashing most things on the head. This char is so far the most powerful I've ever had, but my spellcasting for the most part has completely changed. I used to rely on bolt spells and AOE spells but now I rely mostly on TO, haste, rune of protection and shield. I just killed Ungoliant by meleeing her to death and she never got me below 700 HP because I was always on a rune. Very similar story with Atlas. Eol lasted a good 20 seconds against my new MoD. It feels cheesy and kind of boring, like playing a warrior nortmally does, but it is definitely effective.

Now if I can find some nether resistance in a non-vital equipment slot...