From Salem to Salem: Witch Hunt Novels That Transport You to Different Eras

A witch hunt novel is a genre of literature that revolves around the theme of witch hunts or witch trials. These novels often take place in historical settings, such as the Salem witch trials in colonial America, or in fictional worlds where magic and witchcraft are feared and persecuted. In these novels, the main characters are often accused of being witches or involved in witchcraft, and they must navigate a society that is gripped by hysteria and paranoia. The novels explore themes of prejudice, fear, and the abuse of power. One of the most famous witch hunt novels is "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller, which is based on the events of the Salem witch trials in the late 17th century. The story follows a group of girls who accuse their fellow townspeople of practicing witchcraft, leading to mass hysteria and the execution of innocent people.

I have the Shaft atm, and using it. Before I was using treachery/duress, and they just totally suxed vs Andy/Meph, fade never kicks in (2% chance).

I d never up or Um a regular one, but it s good enough the way it is with the life res str cbf that given the choice between a regular durry s and a regular shaft, I d take Durry s pretty much every time. 150-200 Enhanced Defense varies 50 Defense Cannot Be Frozen 30 Faster Hit Recovery Poison Length Reduced By 50 Attacker Takes Damage Of 20 Damage Reduced By 15-20 varies Magic Damage Reduced By 15-20 varies.

The story follows a group of girls who accuse their fellow townspeople of practicing witchcraft, leading to mass hysteria and the execution of innocent people. Other witch hunt novels include "Hexenhammer" by Heinrich Kramer, "The Witchfinder's Sister" by Beth Underdown, and "The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane" by Katherine Howe. These novels often blend historical fiction with elements of fantasy or the supernatural, adding to the intrigue and suspense of the story.

Which armor is better for Merc?

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sudkamp

New member

Which armor is better for Merc?

My choices are an upgraded Shaftstop vs 700 base def sacred armor (use stone runeword makes it 3000 defense I heard. )

Conditions
- For a Normal Act 2 Defiance Mercenary.
- Used for MF exclusive runs mephisto/andariel

With the defiance aura, I would imagine the stone runeword would make the merc pretty hard to hit. However the damage reduction from shaftstop also sounds appealing.

I think both an Um rune ish.

Thanks for tips.

MYK

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

What character is this for?

Can an Act 2 merc wear a Sacred Armor?

What else is he using?

sudkamp

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

umm Kelpie and Kiras/Andariel Visage helm

Actually any glitched armor doesnt have to be sacred.

MYK

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

I'd pick the shaftstop. Ethereal and upgraded would be awesome.

I'm pretty sure the main thing that destroys mercenaries is Andy and her attacks. They don't seem to be defense rating based for the really hard hitting ones. So DR% is great, as is super quick teleporting to keep your mercenary from mindlessly standing there taking a beating.

MoUsE_WiZ

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

Wait. so you don't actually have the armour for the stone then? Or you just happen to have a few choices of glitched/able ones sitting around?

As such, gotta ask, do you have the shaft?

If you don't have either and you just want to know what to trade for. eth gbane is my merc armour of choice for mercs that are mostly there to tank. CBF, big armour, huge FHR, noticable MDR/PDR. totally beats Shaft into the ground. I take non-eth over shaft too. If you don't have the levels for it, just use something cheap like non-upped shaft in the meantime. Treachery (in anything. high def = harder to hit, low def = more fade) if they're there to kill. IAS is obviously huge, plus fade reduces decrep time, so doing things like baals with a Blizz sorc it *REALLY* helps on the CIs.

If you have your upped shaft, I'd still consider trading it in for one of the above two, but combinations of lazy&fairly minimal gains would likely prevent me. the other two are better, but honestly it's not like an occaisional merc death is that big a deal, and it won't die too often with upped shaft. I definitely wouldn't bother trying to get a Stone.

If you have armours to make Stone already, I'd probably use it over shaft. Just because it's neat.

Also: I never pick kelpie over reapers. But if I did, there's no way in hell I'd ever put Andy's mask with it.

MYK

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

Also: I never pick kelpie over reapers. But if I did, there's no way in hell I'd ever put Andy's mask with it.

rynke

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

pretty much doesnt make any difference

both are top end choices

MoUsE_WiZ

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

Because the only place Kelpie is even close to Reapers is on meph (where Reaper's is still better imo).
Mercs don't leech on meph.
Mercs damage doesn't help on meph.
So the IAS is a mild waste (still more pokes for slow so not complete), and the leech is a waste, and what else does it have going for it?
For meph hat choices are:
-blackhorns, if you have CBF, this can't be beat
-something with CBF, so he doesn't get chilled and slow is up more often
-something resisty and lifey. the Kiras is a fine choice, just the Andys confuses me

And even on things that aren't meph. IAS and leech are both more effective with higher damage weapons, which Kelpie is not. My solution to keeping a merc alive with bad damage isn't to add leech, it's to make his armour good.

If I failed to make sense, it's because I've been up for 27 hours now.

ZappaFan

Hardcore Moderator and America Trade Moderator

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

If you can get a Lo rune, pretty hard to beat a glitched hi def Fortitude. Pretty easy to get >3K def on the runeworded armor.

MYK

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

Because the only place Kelpie is even close to Reapers is on meph (where Reaper's is still better imo).
Mercs don't leech on meph.
Mercs damage doesn't help on meph.
So the IAS is a mild waste (still more pokes for slow so not complete), and the leech is a waste, and what else does it have going for it?
For meph hat choices are:
-blackhorns, if you have CBF, this can't be beat
-something with CBF, so he doesn't get chilled and slow is up more often
-something resisty and lifey. the Kiras is a fine choice, just the Andys confuses me

And even on things that aren't meph. IAS and leech are both more effective with higher damage weapons, which Kelpie is not. My solution to keeping a merc alive with bad damage isn't to add leech, it's to make his armour good.

If I failed to make sense, it's because I've been up for 27 hours now.

It makes a lot of sense. I was just trying to figure out why I had the terrible combination on my mercenary.
The extra poison res didn't make him any more of a tank for Andy.

So, it must have been used to switch out Kelpie for Insight CV when I was MFing. Maybe. I'm just too lazy to take it off now.

Tai.1

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

Don't mercs take like 10x damage from Act Bosses? Wouldn't that mean that a shaft would factor it's DR in against 1000% and make it basically worthless?

I've always heard the above, and honestly I've gotta go with Mousey here. Eth GBane is beastly, Eth Elite armor you socket is awesome as well. If you get 3 sockets you treach that bad larry up, 4 sockets and it's a fine stone.

sudkamp

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

Yeah, I am only using this sorc for Andy/Meph. Trading is a big problem in Asia realm. Not too fluent in korean.

I have the Shaft atm, and using it. Before I was using treachery/duress, and they just totally suxed vs Andy/Meph, fade never kicks in (2% chance).

Your right I have the glitchable armors available, but havent found Gladiators bane yet.
The shaft is okay (iwth kiras), but theres ogtta be something betetr. Like I said I dont plan on using this sorc other than Andy/Meph, until i get half decent gear.

Goooo Peasant Hat and Bladebuckle.

Also what makes GBane so attractive (non eth version)

+150-200% Enhanced Defense (varies)
+50 Defense
Cannot Be Frozen
30% Faster Hit Recovery
Poison Length Reduced By 50%
Attacker Takes Damage Of 20
Damage Reduced By 15-20 (varies)
Magic Damage Reduced By 15-20 (varies)

Does the Magic Damage, and damage reduced by 20 actually do much. Do I need to socket everything with SOL runes. POison length reduction be nice.

MYK

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

Don't mercs take like 10x damage from Act Bosses? Wouldn't that mean that a shaft would factor it's DR in against 1000% and make it basically worthless?

I've always heard the above, and honestly I've gotta go with Mousey here. Eth GBane is beastly, Eth Elite armor you socket is awesome as well. If you get 3 sockets you treach that bad larry up, 4 sockets and it's a fine stone.

It looked like Mephisto was easily pumping out 250-800 damage against my mercenary. Enough to smack him to half life(2.1k life) pretty fast.

30-50%DR would be really nice, I think. If you not quite at or over Mephisto's level (mlvl 87) then defense certainly won't play a huge part unless you can manage tons. Once you get to his level and over defense can be quite effective.

Given that Shaftstop and Vampire Gaze are both great DR% items and both have a good amount of defense it's a good setup for running Bosses.

Or you'll just noob out like I do and stick with Kelpie and Andariels Visage and Smoke Boneweave.

MoUsE_WiZ

New member

Re: Which armor is better for Merc?

Well, since you have both choices essentially available, I'd suggest making the Stone.
At the very least you can try it and see if you prefer it. If it turns out you don't. well presumably if you have an MF sorc you're going to want to build another character eventually, so having an extra merc armour sitting around isn't really a loss.

Especially since you say trading is slow there. no sense having perfectly glitchable armours sitting around rotting.

I would like to note two things though:
1) If you're lowish level, it doesn't matter what your merc's got, Meph will kill him. He won't hit often enough to keep the slow consistent, and he won't avoid hits often enough to stay alive. This is doubly true if your damage isn't that hot, as obviously the longer the fight the more damage the merc has to sustain. I often run Meph mercless until the mid 80s. a couple seconds spent dodging instead of killing vs a couple seconds spent running over to res him + a bunch of gold that could be handy for gambling.
2) Even if you're highish level, Andy eats mercs for breakfast. I dunno, I don't run Andy much if ever because it doesn't seem like either the time:reward or risk:reward are very good so I haven't really experimented with the best way to keep the merc up vs her, but I'm yet to try a setup that seems to work all that well.
Hell, even my singer barb, who was capable of providing solid BO&shout to the merc, and hitting Andy with Battle Cry for massively reduced damage, and tanking andy himself, had trouble keeping the merc up through the run.

I have the Shaft atm, and using it. Before I was using treachery/duress, and they just totally suxed vs Andy/Meph, fade never kicks in (2% chance).

Yeah, Treachery is definitely not my first choice for meph running unless I've got CTA or a BO barb, in which case the merc should be ok anyways and he'll poke that much faster.

The other choice I forgot to mention is Durry's shell. I'd never up or Um a regular one, but it's good enough the way it is with the life/res/str/cbf that given the choice between a regular durry's and a regular shaft, I'd take Durry's pretty much every time. An eth one is totally worth applying runes to, especially if you've got CV insight/infinity strength requirements to worry about.

Damage Reduced By 15-20 (varies)
Magic Damage Reduced By 15-20 (varies)

Yes.
Yes it does.

And no, you don't need Sols.

My choices are an upgraded Shaftstop vs 700 base def sacred armor (use stone runeword makes it 3000 defense I heard. )

Witch hunt novels serve as a reminder of the dangers of prejudice and mass hysteria, and the consequences they can have on innocent lives. They also explore the themes of female empowerment and agency, as many of the accused witches in these stories are strong, independent women who dare to defy societal norms. Overall, witch hunt novels offer a gripping and thought-provoking exploration of human nature and the power dynamics within society. They shed light on a dark chapter in history and provide a cautionary tale that is as relevant today as it was centuries ago..

Reviews for "The Accuser's Game: Witch Hunt Novels that Explore the Manipulation of Fear"

1. John - 2/5 - "Witch hunt novel" failed to captivate me from the very beginning. The plot felt predictable, and the characters lacked depth. The author's writing style was lackluster and didn't succeed in creating a captivating atmosphere. Moreover, the pacing of the story was inconsistent, with some parts dragging on unnecessarily. Overall, I found this novel to be a disappointing read that didn't live up to the hype.

2. Emily - 1/5 - I was highly disappointed with "Witch hunt novel." The storyline was unoriginal and filled with clichés, making it feel like a recycled version of similar novels in the genre. The characters were poorly developed, and I couldn't connect with any of them on an emotional level. Additionally, the dialogue felt forced and unnatural, further adding to my frustration. I had high hopes for this book, but it ultimately fell flat for me and I wouldn't recommend it.

3. Sarah - 2/5 - I found "Witch hunt novel" to be quite underwhelming. The plot was predictable and lacked originality, following the same tired tropes found in countless other witch-themed books. The world-building was also lackluster, leaving me with more questions than answers. Additionally, the romance felt forced and unrealistic, hindering my enjoyment of the story. While the concept had potential, the execution fell short, making this a forgettable read for me.

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