How do you farm meph in Hardcore? Stygian dolls

So I have a lvl 84 fire sorc with an Insight mercenary. I do tower runs, andy runs and throw in some lvl 85 area clearing. I'd like to do meph runs, but I'm afraid I'll just lose my HOTO and CTA to a random Stygian doll. What kind of precautions do you need to take to safely farm meph?


Current defensive measures:

-All resistances at 80 or more, using

Guardian Angel
-Without CTA I have 1100 life and 500 mana. With CTA I'm att 1700/800 (or something like that)
-I run lvl 25 or something

Energy Shield with maybe lvl 8 synergy from

Telekinesis. This is where I'm dumping my skill points now that I'm done with the fire spells tree.
- Insight merc with

Holy Freeze slows down any monsters I pass as I

Teleport through the Durance Of Hate
- 105% FCR breakpoint when teleporting.

Can I do 2000 meph runs before I blow up? Do I need to get a throw away sorc for farming meph, equipped with budget gear that I can afford to lose?

How often do you die when farming him on SC with such gear/build?

I don't consider meph farming to be a dangerous activity for soso wearing end game gear.
But then again: i don't play HC

I can't imagine a 105 sorc at lvl84 having trouble teleing through there... I don't play HC but I think you should be fine.
The only trouble comes when they die and blow up, take away your mercs weapon so he wont kill them if you are really worried? (I think this is unnecessary, just keep moving)

Even if your merc kills them, you should be fine. A single doll blowing up should not kill a half-geared sorc. And since only your merc is attacking them and he is merely single-target, he won't get more than 1 (if even that) while you

Teleport through a pack.

If you wanted to do this as a summoner though, things would be different..those can actually kill an entire pack of dolls on accident just be teleporting into it..that'd be bad juju

I use this build specifically for blind tping through Durance. It's very well-made; I suggest reading all of it.

Your greatest concern when traveling to Meph is your merc's one shot potential on dolls (assuming P1 dolls; higher setting/count makes this less of an issue). Secondary concern is balancing FCR + FHR. FHR is important for the off chance that you TP into a Fanat doll pack that can interrupt you before you're able to TP away. The build I linked achieves max block as an extra buffer (can also block doll explosions), but that's entirely optional.

Doll explosions are purely physical, and the damage (which can crit) depends on their life. Obviously, popping a unique can be lethal. Also, dolls can't be chilled in Hell, so

Shiver Armor won't help when tping through them.

Holy Freeze works, but it takes a second too long to activate on mobs before it becomes pointless. I prefer a

Defiance merc for this setup.

Stormshield with max block is how I used to roll my sorc in HC. If I was doing it today, I would take a hard look at an upped Whitstans. The block chance on that is crazy high and you could get max block without a giant dex cost.

You rarely should have any issue with dolls as long as you don't let off the

Teleport trigger and you follow the maps which are pretty straight forward to use.

Others called it out, but when in doubt having SS on a Sorc in HC is always a plus. That or going Spirit for Speed ensuring you hit you BPs.

wait a tick until the tesladin pops the dolls.

SCNR

I'm running HC meph with my level 82 sorc, 1000hp with no CTA, FCR only on 63%. no DR and very low dex so little block chance. Whilst I do take hits I don't die.

As people say it is your Merc that causes the problems, if you are concerned use a low damage Insight if you need the mana. Good luck.