Giant Thresher vs. War Pike for Infinity

For a Nightmare Act 2 Mercenary with the aura of Holy Freeze for my MF Frozen Orb Sorc I am going to get my merc Infinity for the Conviction Aura. My question is would it be better to get a 4-socket Giant Thresher that sacrifices damage for a higher attack speed OR a 4-socket War Pike that sacrifices attack speed for a higher max damage? Also assuming both of these are ethereal and Superior weapons.



On a side note, what would be the best Rune word for my merc's armor? I was looking at a few of the 1.10 Patch Rune words and picked these out because they looked pretty good:

Bramble - for the Thorns

Duress - for the Crushing Blow and Open Wounds

Enigma - for the MF

Gloom for - the Dim vision when struck

Stone for - the attribute and armor bonuses

Dragon for - the Holy Fire Aura, Hydra on attack, and Venom when struck

Chains of Honor - for the MF and Life steal

I am open to any and all of your thoughts. Thank you for your help and hope this helps anyone asking the same questions.|||Giant Threshers (and regular Threshers) are great. They're fast which lets your merc get more hits/life steal. War Pikes are fairly slow.

For armors, Duress and Gloom aren't bad. Treachery is another popular choice.|||War Pike is a spear, infinity doesn't work in spears.



Since infinity is a ladder only runeword I assume suggesting another for the armor would be ok:



Fortitude

20% Chance To Cast Level 15 Chilling Armor when Struck

+25% Faster Cast Rate

+300% Enhanced Damage

+200% Enhanced Defense

+15 Defense

+X To Life (Based on Character Level)*

Replenish Life +7

+5% To Maximum Lightning Resist

All Resistances +25-30 (varies)

Damage Reduced By 7

12% Damage Taken Goes To Mana

+1 To Light Radius|||Quote:








For armors, Duress and Gloom aren't bad. Treachery is another popular choice.




You seem to be very knowledgable, Doctor Clock. So, what do you think would be the BEST choice out of all the rune words for armor?

I was also curious if it would be better to use a Shako on my merc or a Rune word like Delirium or Dream. Out of the 3 what do you think is the BEST option?|||Fortitude for armor, Andy's Visage for helm.|||the best base type for infinity is usually great poleaxe, although it depends on your IAS. You can't make infinity out of a war pike, it's polearms only not spears.

i usually use fort for the armor for the high defense/damage, and vgaze with an IAS jewel for the helmet.|||Quote:








War Pike is a spear, infinity doesn't work in spears.




oops, missed that.

As others have mentioned, Andys/Fort is great. If you can't afford Fortitude for whatever reason, Treachery is great option.|||gpa, threshers, cryptic axe are all very close in dps output, gpa is unoptimal with the commonly used 35 ias setup though as hits same bp as cryptic axe|||Eth. Gladiator's Bane is a severely underrated Merc Armor. It has massive defense (2k+), cannot be frozen, 30 faster hit recovery, 50% poison length reduction. Stick a Shael in it for more fhr, and combined with an eth gaze + shael and Infinity, you have a super tank merc.