Venturing into Act V Mercs

So historically, I’ve stuck to the conventional Wisdom that you just hire a desert Merc and forget it because those aura options are just too good.

But I love the idea of branching out a bit and giving the barbarians a chance to get into the fight.

Maxroll has some great info about the build options, but I also wanted hear everyones’s views on what characters can really sync well with Act V mercs, whether you can start using them early or have to wait on certain gear, etc.

Assume that you have access to all 7 characters, who really does shine with our friends from Arreat?

Personally, I'm not using them on any of my active chars but that's not to say they don't have their uses.

A2 mercs have the obvious advantages of a) bringing solid aura choices by themselves and b) actually being able to wield the most desirable aura runewords. As a result, they are very hard (read: nearly impossible) to beat for builds where the character itself is intended to do the heavy lifting.

Exceptions apply, such as some builds reliant on Faith to hit their IAS breakpoints but those would shift to an A1 merc, more so than A5.

When you're looking at builds that have the merc actually doing a fair bit of work though, that's where A5 ( Frenzy) really comes in handy as they tend to outdps other mercs by a clear mile. In part because their inherent DPS is just that good (given the right gear of course) but also because their "blind zerg" AI, coupled with the run speed has them actually actively DPSing a tad more reliably than A2 and far, FAAAAAAR more reliably than A1 and 3.
That could be anything from certain summon builds over true merc-carry builds to a fair bit of just-for-fun stuff.
Additionally, Frenzy mercs are the one merc that can actually hit solid run speed, in turn making it the only merc actually able to keep up with (some) non- Teleport high run builds. There's a few use cases for that as well.

When I built my pitzerker barb I picked an Act5 Merc for the sole reason of wanting something different than an Act2 Merc. I equipped him with a Grief BP and a Last Wish PB offhand. With how fast he hits, he procs Life Tap almost constantly. He never dies and can take down packs of monsters with ease; even TZ trav. And the might Aura is a nice added bonus for my own attacking. Watching him dart around like a pissed off hornet on steroids is truly an entertaining sight.

I use with my Amazon an a5 Frenzy merc on a rather budget version: full Sazabi set (great for survivability) + Plague. Works really well, with the occasional Lower Resist proc that can help Lightning Fury.

Imo a Cold-sorc works rather well with Act 5 Merc. With Cold-mastery and sunder-charm you can go without Infinity.

Act 2 with Infinity is probably still technically best, but it's not mandatory anymore and the Act 5 has some unique advantages of it's own wich makes him quite comparable. IMO it's one of the places he works the best:
You can use Plague in a weapon for a lvl 15 Cleansing aura (wich is significantly better than the lvl 1 you get from Cure) and you can take advantage of him having both better damage (and run-speed) and better survivability than the Act 2. Depening on what you choose for his second weapon you'll get some other advantage as well.

Any pally that relies on elemental damage that is using Conviction himself will benefit from a dual Plague wielding Frenzy merc.

There’s a couple of good weapon combos for general use:

Up’d Eth headstrikers with Ohms or good rare jewels for pure DPS
Lawbringer makes killing the undead MUCH easier
Crescent Moon procs Static Field, so that’s awesome
Yea Last Wish is great - just the most expensive runeword ever
Hustle is a great option as well - even lvl 1 fanatism can be worth it

If you want to get really crazy and finally have a party that isn’t a sausage fest, I’d recommend act 1 rogue with Wrath. I play a mini game in which I chase down and try to slaughter whichever enemies she decrepifies kind of like a marked for Death thing where she’s the hunter and youre the rover.

I’ve run fire versions with ww barb extensively for item find and surprisingly enough she can make for a good trav companion with comparable, tho not quite as fast of times as an act 2 Infinity. But it adds variety and some extra skill components regarding positioning her in the right spots and chasing down the decreps. Your gonna want Guardian Angel and Flickering Flame. Added bonus, on tz zones of high enough level, she is superior to an Infinity merc when the council has their own Conviction.

Finally, with a Bone Break, you don’t even have to bother with berzerking which can cut extra seconds, especially when those physical immune bosses camp in the middle of a pack and absorb a large chunk of your ww hits and they all start sustaining in a healing loop.

It’s plausible, that a very well equipped barb with great ar could average quicker run times with act 1 Wrath verses Infinity desert merc on trav but I’ve never consistently pulled it off. Wrath is also less expensive than Infinity but still far from cheap and no one is going to buy it from you if you tire of it. Pretty sure I’m usually the only person who even makes it haha.