Infinity on merc

It's a conventional Wisdom to have an emilio on a fire, lightning or cold build. I'm still stubbornly using rogues instead, and made an analysis showing how much more dmg an emilio allows you in the current meta:
It is indeed substantial, especially against higher non-sundered immunities. Emilio also has an added benefit of his aura, stronger attack and crushing blow

But, apart from rogues looking better...

1) the gap is not as high as it used to be when most people got biased towards Infinity on merc (there was less -res from items before)
2) most of this dmg is overkill anyways
3) emilio dies more often and not always activates his aura
4) it's so sad to waste the natural -res on Infinity

As for the specific alternatives.. Fire sorc is well supported by Insight, Ice or Faith in case of enchantress (but really no good reason to avoid emilio..)
Cold sorc prly least compelling to use emilio.. But not sure what serves her better
Ice zon kinda needs Faith or Insight on merc
Fire zon - Faith is nice

Lightning Fury - Insight is mandatory imo

Lightning sorc,

Lightning Strike zon, or lightning assa will self wield anyways. Other elemental classes prly ver similar to the mentioned above

What about with an elemental Zon?

Whero wrote: 46 minutes ago

What about with an elemental Zon?

Cold, fire, and

Lightning Fury Zons, are on the list.

ganseng wrote: 1 hour ago

It's a conventional Wisdom to have an emilio on a fire, lightning or cold build. I'm still stubbornly using rogues instead, and made an analysis showing how much more dmg an emilio allows you in the current meta:

Screenshot 2026-07-08 205535.jpg

It is indeed substantial, especially against higher non-sundered immunities. Emilio also has an added benefit of his aura, stronger attack and crushing blow

But, apart from rogues looking better...

1) the gap is not as high as it used to be when most people got biased towards Infinity on merc (there was less -res from items before)
2) most of this dmg is overkill anyways
3) emilio dies more often and not always activates his aura
4) it's so sad to waste the natural -res on Infinity

As for the specific alternatives.. Fire sorc is well supported by Insight, Ice or Faith in case of enchantress (but really no good reason to avoid emilio..)
Cold sorc prly least compelling to use emilio.. But not sure what serves her better
Ice zon kinda needs Faith or Insight on merc
Fire zon - Faith is nice

Lightning Fury - Insight is mandatory imo

Lightning sorc,

Lightning Strike zon, or lightning assa will self wield anyways. Other elemental classes prly ver similar to the mentioned above

Generally agree with this, with all the sources of negative res now, Infinity is more optional. I use Insight not Infinity on my

Ring of Fire WL that has -70 base negative res (-110 with apoc). I've just found my kill speed is similar on most mobs and I like not worrying about mana.

On 3), for fully powered characters it is very rare for Emilio to die on P1 except against Ubers, so not that important a consideration IMO. But the second part you mention on his aura activation is critical. The aura activates every 2 seconds. So if you are killing most mobs in under a second, the amount it helps is even less. And because the timing is in effect random versus when your attacks occur, I found myself often pulsing the full number of attacks as I can't react in less than 1/3 of a second (plus delay on spell reaching the enemy so reaction time is even less) to see that I don't need the last attack pulse, so all it does is result in me "overkilling" an enemy if the aura happens to pulse early in the 2 second period and happen to make the difference in number of attacks needed.

Against Heralds with high natural fire res, I do notice a difference. But I also like being able to spam spells w/o worrying about running out of mana against them.

ganseng wrote: 1 hour ago

It's a conventional Wisdom to have an emilio on a fire, lightning or cold build. I'm still stubbornly using rogues instead, and made an analysis showing how much more dmg an emilio allows you in the current meta:

Screenshot 2026-07-08 205535.jpg

Nice spreadsheet!

ganseng wrote: 1 hour ago

Ice zon kinda needs Faith or Insight on merc

Why is that? Mana sustain is not easy, so you could go Insight and

Sacrifice a lot of damage from Infi. But I would just try to some extra mana and mana leech + regen. My Ice Maiden has a Renewed Sunder with +55 mana, an SoJ and a gc with +58 mana (instead of a skiller). With CtA, I have 824 mana, which is enough for a

Freezing Arrow that costs 19 mana. From time to time, I have to chug a mana pot.

Fanaticism from Faith is not needed, either. The phys damage is irrelevant and you have plenty of attack rating through

Penetrate, that you can easily max, since you only need about 50 skill points for the damage skills (I went 20

Cold Arrow, 10

Ice Arrow, more is just not needed, 20

Freezing Arrow, of course). All the other skill points can be put in passive skills (

Penetrate 20,

Pierce 16

Valkyrie 7 etc. Plenty of points to "waste" here).


With an elemental build, I would never ever skip on Infi if damage is the most important aspect for me. And it usually is, because more damage means more kill speed. Infi's damage gain is just too huge to neglect. Mana and attack speed can be gained elsewhere for a lower cost.

Of course, you can always say that the game is too easy with high-end gear (which is certainly true) and you limit yourself. If you "ban" mana pot, for example, then going Insight makes much more sense.