What is the Best merc for a Holy fire Pally?

Act 1 for the fanat bonus's
Act 2 With Pride and a might merc for heavy dmg bonus
or Act3 for the Enchant bonus.

I plan on using lava gouts which do have % chance to cast Enchant.

If you plan to use Lava Gout, then don't take Act3 as the Enchant bonus from Gauntlets will be overriden by merc's. Or choose another pair of gloves.

If by Holy Fire you mean a zealer with no Dragon and no Hand of Justice, then yea, you can go with might/Pride.
If you do use the mentioned rune words, might+Pride will do you no good - your physical damage output will be utterly abyssmal and that's the one boosted by auras.

Act1 for Fanaticism is a fine choice.

There is no best.
It is just a question of what to want from your merc? A support or someone who fights with you?

+1 to what what Queegon said.

Additionally the Act 1 Merc can do some crowd control too via frost arrow plus Pierce gear or a Delirium Helm for the curses. Potentially ok physical damage too on low player counts.

The "best" is probably an Act 2 with Infinity. That would give Holy Fire the craziest damage increase. The Crushing Blow will also do wonders against bosses.

Also +1 to Queegon's post

I find act 2 Prayer with Cure+Insight to be best--either for standard dragondin or (my preference) hybrid with FoH. You get decent health regen, better or at least more consistent than you get with leech from your (crap) physical damage

I messed around with an act1 Faith merc, but I found it difficult to control my merc without Teleport. And the radius of Fanaticism is small, so it was always 50/50 whether I was hitting my Zeal breakpoint. Or (it felt like) 0% chance I had 4 frame Zeal when I needed it most

Maxroll recommends an act 5 merc, but I haven't explored this because I ended up liking this hybrid build best, which needs Insight

Act 1 for the fanat bonus's is useless if we speak about the Dragon build. Usually, he already has a 72% Zeal IAS breakpoint with Hand of Justice made in PB.

I usually run with the following mercs:

* Act1 Harmony (most fun cause Dragondin is most fun with maxed FRW)
* Or Insight Act2 for healing
* Or Plague Act 5 for the extra fire dmg vs fire immunes broken with Sunder Charm.

Elvir wrote: 2 years ago

Act 1 for the fanat bonus's is useless if we speak about the Dragon build.

I wouldn't go to such extremes as saying "useless" here.

Elvir wrote: 2 years ago

Usually, he already has a 72% Zeal IAS breakpoint with Hand of Justice made in PB.

That's exactly the thing though. You have extra leeway in your gear choices when you have an act1 Faith mercenary. Depends on what you want him to do. Dragondin is an all-in-one package and needs no mercenary at all to shine. Some do complement them better than others, however.

• Act 1 Faith opens your glove+amulet slot for more resists or MF ( Chance Guards + Mara's Kaleidoscope, as an example, boosting your BO in the process as well). The AR gain is not negligible either. Ignore target defense takes you only so far. Uniques and bosses will laugh at your 45-65% hit chance, if they survive the aura of course. Higher player count talking here. The pathing of merc with you charging around definitely sucks.
  Unsure about Harmony's Vigor as you will be outrunning her a lot. Her boosted speed won't matter as much as she never goes purely forward but rather sidesteps and backtracks quite a bit. Would she Teleport back to you more often as well, so you are affected most of the time? I'm using Harmony on my Bramble poisonmancer's merc and she can't keep up even there, without Charge.
• Act 2 merc Insight+Cure+ Prayer package. Definitely an option if you don't want to quaff any potions, with much bigger radius than Fanaticism. All other options seem wasteful.
• Act 3 Enchant - you let him Enchant you once and then you no longer care about where he lags behind you. You get some 300-400 fire damage and 400+% AR bonus (meaningful for act bosses and ubers). You still need to get IAS from gloves and The Cat's Eye ( Highlord's Wrath is inferior here)
• Act 5 merc can keep up with you, that's about it. Brings nothing but extra DPS to the table, so for higher player counts. Grief+ Headstriker for highest physical damage output. Double Plague would only apply to immune monsters at 1/5 of its effectiveness, so -11% fire res. Didn't check but I don't think there's any 80%-99% fire resistant monster for it to give more than 11%, and anything less than 80% you strip to -100% anyway (convi, hoj, 2x facet in CoA)

Queegon wrote: 2 years ago

I wouldn't go to such extremes as saying "useless" here.

Hi! Yes, you're right. I didn't take into mind the opening flexibility with amu / gloves.
As for the AR bonus from Faith, it doesn't play much role. My Dragondin has about 3k AR and level 25 Conviction that grants -93% to enemy defense.
I didn't make calculations but expect that this huge "- 93% enemy defense" makes even 3k AR almost always hit on bosses that don't suffer "Ignore target defense" on Hand of Justice.

Elvir wrote: 2 years ago

makes even 3k AR almost always hit on bosses that don't suffer "Ignore target defense" on Hand of Justice.

You are right, too. The AR bonus from Fanaticism or Enchant, resp., does something only against big butt bosses and ubers.
I'm running the Enchant merc just so I have a reason to use one. He feels like the "natural" fit with extra fire. ^_^

I see no mention of Flame Rift GC or Flickering Flame in the thread, how would those item work on this build?

We have never managed to know what build the original poster referred too. To get a precise answer, which one do you mean ? With or without Dragon/HoJ

I'm making dragonadin now. I was thinking might merc + reaper's to increase phys damage to increase leech, it was a big thing with my light strike zon.
I'd hate doing Faith cause no Enigma. Might has a larger radius.
But what you're all saying here is really interesting.

If you wanted to try something different could go with dessert merc, Holy Freeze either via it’s innate aura or Doom, Andy’s and chains of honour.

Make it a song of Ice and fire!

Nate2.0 wrote: 2 years ago

If you wanted to try something different could go with dessert merc, Holy Freeze either via it’s innate aura or Doom, Andy’s and chains of honour.

Make it a song of Ice and fire!

The saddest thing I think I experienced with mixing stuff and auras is a fact that there is no possible combo where you can stack 2 sources of Holy Freeze since both Doom and Ice sources are from weapon slots. Unlike Holy Fire and Holy Shock that can come from 2 different sources and thus stack up providing noticeable boost. But yes, any fire+cold combo sounds very attractable to me too!

Yea you could either go with Holy Freeze and a Pride/ebotd/Insight, or Doom with might, Defiance, or the lesser auras.

Meant to have a more inclusive post, but the kid had other plans

TheDoo wrote: 2 years ago

The saddest thing I think I experienced with mixing stuff and auras is a fact that there is no possible combo where you can stack 2 sources of Holy Freeze since both Doom and Ice sources are from weapon slots. Unlike Holy Fire and Holy Shock that can come from 2 different sources and thus stack up providing noticeable boost. But yes, any fire+cold combo sounds very attractable to me too!

Anyway, Holy Freeze is there rather for CC than for damage. If it did the same damage as Holy Fire or Holy Shock and froze enemies, it'd be too good.