Ultimate PVE/M dps merc set-up?/!

So i wanna try to get to the ultimate PVE/M merc, firstly in and of itself - its fun to find whats the best, then secondly for builds that don’t need build critical weapons like Infinity or Insight. I want this to be a P7 viable build.

I’ll be testing this throughout the week so, i don’t have the answer now. Let me know what everyone’s recommendations are and I’ll try it out!

My concept of play is for the merc to be the primarily dps, but the player can “throw down” if needed/wanted. The player normally will be a buff/mf stick. Mostly doing rune word base hunting, or mfing. I know those are very different play styles, but i think a good merc should be able to do both without much change.

Also i want to stay away from the ‘

Frenzy’ act 5 merc. I’ve got a dual Plague set-up, but don’t have dual

Eth headstrikers yet, and i don’t think anything can really beat that.

Here’s my initial thoughts:

Act 5

Bash merc: ebotd (GPA/

War Pike), Death or e reapers, efort and arreats face with 15 enhanced speed/30 ed (best i got)
Act 2 might merc: ebot (gpa/

War Pike), e reapers, efort, e Andy’s with 15ias/+14 fire res (best I’ve found)
Act 1 merc: don’t think it’s viable, maybe I’m wrong though?
Barb: dual wield Last Wish and Beast, probably a singer
Sorc:

Enchant, probably Beast, maybe wearing things like Dream/ or the fire auras
Pally: wow lots of options here, fanata,

Concentration, might, lots of weapon options too
Necro: Beast, then spamming either amp damage or decrep, I’ve tried making an Insight IG golem work and it just doesn’t on P7 without lots of babysitting - but maybe i need to just commit to it and use a Pride?
Druid: is it possible ? IDK. Maybe with buffing heart of the wolverine?

Amazon and assassin: not viable i think-they just can’t buff up as the others do, but maybe I’m wrong?

I’ll update as i try things out, but what would you all recommend and what hace people tried?

Thanks

A guy can still wonder how good can Act 1 can be on higher players count and with what gear. I would have to say probably a Fire one would have to revolve somewhere around Faith + Flickering Flame combo and Cold one around Doom +

Nightwing's Veil?

That being said you would probably have to be a Paladin running

Conviction + having Faith yourself for the Act 1 Cold part and I guess for Fire one you could use some other class (for example Necro with LR) with self wielding Infinity (but that is something you excluded from this post).

Just tested act 5

Bash with e Death, player was barb w/Last Wish & Beast: sucks - at least on p7, didn’t 1-shot much

Also tested act 2

Blessed Aim with ebotd gpa, player was barb w/ Last Wish and Beast - actually not bad, still got bogged down if the density is high, was 1-shoting most stuff, was still slow doing a

Baal run (he did all the work).

Not really dangerous for either, both weren’t ever at risk of Death

amp is the biggest buff a physical dmg dealer can get (triples dmg on a 50% res mob), therefore necro is the best companion for a merc.

might merc, gface@ias, fort, ebotd gpa (75ias hits last breakpoint with lvl9 fana -however if your goal is only to maximize mercs dmg, you can also wear a Faith yourself).

Pride golem (if it is all about the mercs dmg and you only cast amp, then you can max

Blood Golem and

Golem Mastery so it can have pretty high health)

I second Necro for being the best for what you're trying to achieve

Can Curse himself, can get an aura from

Iron Golem and get a Aura himself

How you'll Mix Up that Fana and

Concentration (because that's probably what you'll end up with) is a case of min/maxing or crunching the Numbers with different setups

But remember if that's what you want, then your merc will probably need cnbf from somewhere

Oooh that sounds fun to test! Could finally have a necro that doesn’t need

Corpse Explosion!

I tested a

Bash barb with ebotd gpa, with a dual wielding Beast barb, a dual wielding Last Wish barb, and one of each. The dual wielding Last Wish was best, just under 12k damage.

Then i went to my hammerdin, gave him a Beast and decked out the might merc with ebotd gpa, he was like 15k damage. I suppose if i wanted i could throw a Faith on the pally, max

Concentration, buff all the synergies for

Fanaticism, maybe get an extra couple k damage… could finally utilize the seraph’s hymn amulet.

Yea i could probably put a

Cham in Andy’s, after a certain level the negative fire res isn’t a huge concern anymore… eventually

So sometime today I’ll try out the necro and see how it goes! I recently finally put all the BiS gear on a

Bone Spear necro and was very disappointed: he’s like a slower, weaker version of a lightning sorc

Fana doesn't have Synergies, and using Fana for Damage from anywhere but yourself is wonky (other's get just a fraction of ED from what you get) so you should consider Fana as a mean of getting Speed. Depending on your Merc's base this opens up the armor slot for forti while still being at Max Speed

Since we are talking about Mercs and maximizing their effect in general, is it possible to make Act 3 Merc viable for at least players 1 in any case? For example about lightning one, can he be decent with Griffons + CoH + Spirit and for weapon something like Crescent Moon or another Spirit? Can he equip

Crystal Sword (how good would it be just plain CS with 6x 5/5 facets)?

TheDoo wrote: 6 months ago

Since we are talking about Mercs and maximizing their effect in general, is it possible to make Act 3 Merc viable for at least players 1 in any case? For example about lightning one, can he be decent with Griffons + CoH + Spirit and for weapon something like Crescent Moon or another Spirit? Can he equip

Crystal Sword (how good would it be just plain CS with 6x 5/5 facets)?

I enjoy the Act 3 lite merc on my

Revive novamancer. The merc runs Griffon's /

Ormus / and dual Spirit. The poison takes everything down, he just speeds it up a little from behind the

Revive meat shields.

So i tried out the necro, comes out to ~12k damage, but when that amp damage is up, whoa, he one shots everything. Still need to do a bit more testing, but yea that looks like the winner.

You could make an act 3 merc viable , or at least a decent support character in specific circumstances: a separazon wielding Infinity, or a

Conviction Palladian could make them work. You’d have to deck them out with the good helms (Flickering Flame, nightwings, or griffons), then runeword/unique swords, for the shield/armour yea coh is likely the best all around option, or the specific

Ormus robes, or a 4os one filled with facets.

Fire: good for the

Enchant, Ice: just ok (chills stuff, but so does an act 2

Holy Freeze), lightning is good for the

Static Field, but can get a better effect from a

Frenzy barb

I definitely want to make a Fire Bear so I'll probably slap an Act 3 Fire Merc on top of it, just for the funz and see how it goes. That's far in the future tho, but thanks!

What Merc setup you used with Amp Necro one (the latest you tested)?

That was a might merc with ebotd gpa, efort, Andy’s w/ 15ias/-~17(ish) fire res.

I still wanna try a Dream/thunderstorm/

Enchant sorc and see how that set-up goes

So for the fun of it i made a Faith in this +15ed

Crusader Bow i had kicking around, even with crap rolls (+1 all skills and lvl 14 fanatasism), it’s by far the best so far. So much so I’m going to try to optimize this.

My gloves,

Boots, belts, rings, Ammy and

Helm were all general +skills/mf gear.

Switching to better stuff… just what to put in a

Giant Skull… also maybe i should re-roll that Faith

Have you tried the famous Manic Pixie Dreamgirl build (a1 cold with Delirium / Treachery and a good bow, mine uses GMB with Ice) ?

In raw power it sucks, but it's the best crowd control possible for mercs. All monsters spend their time hitting... each other

Yea the MPD is a good bet, i think it pairs well with a

Berserk barb - which i may test out.

I just ran a might merc with ebotd gpa with my Dream sorc wielding a Beast

Axe. Again this is crazy viable, it only slows down in cows, and not because of danger - the merc is basically immortal and bear sorc is pretty tanky too, but there’s just so many of them.

But it’s the best use of the “

Thunder Storm” build to date. And while the Pride golem, Faith wielding necro is definitely faster, the thunderstorm/

Enchant/Dream sorc is way more afk.


This experiment on maxing the Merc’s DPS is resulting in some very interesting build options! I’ll probably do a build showcase for both the necro and sorc!