Merc endgame survival gear setup

TLDR: what to put in sockets in

Guardian Angel and

Crown of Ages for merc?

Full storyXD
Since I have finaly did some

Larzuk rushes and can experiment with sockets, I would like to explore alternatives to standard setup for merc for sorc.
I already have recommended Infinity + Fortitude +

Andariel's Visage (jewel) and I rotate it between different sorc builds (except ES

Nova for which i run Insight + Cure + Chains of Honor and this won't change).
Anyway in all cases it has to be like 95+% time sorc does the killing, merc is mostly for crowd control and auras.

So now I'm thinking very specific anti-elemental setup. Lets say vs

Travincal or P8 Chaos, maaaaybe Ubers.
With rather quick research I mostly found "Guardiang Angel + Kira go!" and "put

Um in it somewhere". Let's go this path but dive deep.

I could change Kira for 2os

Crown of Ages and socket

Guardian Angel as well. What would be the best Rune/Jewel setup here?
With a little bit more levelling I could go without any additional all res in the sockets, at least for non ubers. Vs Ubers maaybe extra all res would be fine, but then again it all comes down to super short window vs

Mephisto where he can die anyway no matter what I do, correct?

So is it

Cham +

Ber/

Ber? Or maybe

Mal is good enough (for Trav/Chaos).
I know I can add some 15ias jewel, but there's no Life Leech in this setup so wouldn't it be "useless"?

Any other thoughts? Even different gear?

I think Kira is bit excessive when it comes to resistance. and not much else offered compare with

Crown of Ages.

there will be 3 sockets available then. for me, as I remember, my merc would die from amplified physical damage and fire elemental damage the most, so

I would go for

Cham/

Ber,

Um and

Vex, hopefully it will get fire res to 95%.

sure, no life leach would be less comfortable, especially when this setup does not have much defense like what you would get from Fortitude. but in my case, merc would die anyway with or without life leach. he would die instantly in those senarios, not slowly.

also I think with enough cold res, I dont need cannot be frozen on merc,

Now i didn't think of

Vex, thx for that:) I think I'll give it a try on armor.

As for defense I was lucky enough to find and upgrade

Eth Guardian, so it's not that much less def than my Forti.

And i admitt I also had doubts about cannot be frozen, so nice to had them confirmed. In the end there's no CBF on Visage/Forti and it works

Kira's Guardian

HaveANiceDay wrote: 1 day ago

I know I can add some 15ias jewel, but there's no Life Leech in this setup so wouldn't it be "useless"?

I don't need Infinity so my merc uses Breath of the Dying and it helps him to survive because that solid Life Leech.

Now you got me interested which sorc build doesn't need either Infinity or at least Insight on a merc:)
Hmm is it Blizzard?

And how about your setup for

Helm and Armor?

HaveANiceDay wrote: 1 day ago

Now you got me interested which sorc build doesn't need either Infinity or at least Insight on a merc:)

I have a MF one that hired act 5 barb merc, actually most of my mercs are barb. I figured that barb merc would have more customization options than desert merc.

My MF sorc barb merc, uses

1x Plague, to access a higher level

Cleansing aura
1x

Azurewrath, to access

Sanctuary Aura

Helm is an eth

Crown of Thieves, socketed with a

Vex and 12% Life leach
body is an eth Fortitude, total defense is around 20,000 when

Chilling Armor enacted

with this setup, both fire and lightning res will be 80%

My main skill is

Frozen Orb which has casting delay, and mana re-generate pretty quickly in between casting, so Insight is nice but not a must.
And

Cold Mastery is maxout, Infinity would not add much value compare to other skill trees and I can get rid of the annoying sound

HaveANiceDay wrote: 1 day ago

Now you got me interested which sorc build doesn't need either Infinity or at least Insight on a merc:)
Hmm is it Blizzard?
[..]

Blizzard and orb sorcs mainly.
The cast delay makes sure you're not using too much mana -> no need for Insight
And

Cold Mastery takes care of what Infinity would otherwise have to do -> no real need for Infinity (still a slight boost vs. immunes but far from critical/essential)

seansixsixsix wrote: 1 day ago

My main skill is

Frozen Orb which has casting delay, and mana re-generate pretty quickly in between casting, so Insight is nice but not a must.
And

Cold Mastery is maxout, Infinity would not add much value compare to other skill trees and I can get rid of the annoying sound

Blizz Sorc here. I use

Glacial Spike for Crowd Control or

Ice Blast for Bosses. I constantly spam

Glacial Spike (left mouse) when Blizz (right mouse) is on cooldown and therefore I need an Insight. Do you only use

Frozen Orb?

oOKIWIOo wrote: 23 hours ago

Do you only use

Frozen Orb?

haha, yes, I am lazy. I only have F1-F4, at most an additional F5 would take a mental toll on me.

Frozen Orb on F1,

Energy Shield on F2,

Teleport on F3

if I am super lazy, then F4 would be

Battle Orders. if not, then F4

Battle Command, and F5

Battle Orders.

hahaha, I am such a noob. I dont even put a single point on

Static Field. funny me.

seansixsixsix wrote: 21 hours ago

oOKIWIOo wrote: 23 hours ago

Do you only use

Frozen Orb?

haha, yes, I am lazy. I only have F1-F4, at most an additional F5 would take a mental toll on me.

Frozen Orb on F1,

Energy Shield on F2,

Teleport on F3

if I am super lazy, then F4 would be

Battle Orders. if not, then F4

Battle Command, and F5

Battle Orders.

hahaha, I am such a noob. I dont even put a single point on

Static Field. funny me.

Well, admittedly I also never use

Static Field or

Telekinesis (despite having a point in it) My blizzard melts down everything - at least with p1.
But I noticed that safety (I do not use mana shield) and kill speed are significantly higher when I also use

Glacial Spike

huh.. I'm on the completely opposite side of spectrum then. I have twelve bindings "at the top of the keyboard" for fingers from Index to little not counting

Belt potions and then ALSO 2+ spammables, cube, char and swap under thumb.
I guess "binding science" could be whole another thread on the forum;)

Back to merc gear. Did I/we overlooked anything on the main topic? Anything more to be said?
I'm still thinking on importance of life leech.

Vampire Gaze could meet both LL and survival with damage reduction and even res if I put

Um in it/armor. Then probably should go with ias jewel as well, correct?

Am I overthinking this stuff?;P I know it all comes down to TP + 50k gold after all. But im getting some joy from analyzing it.

Does your merc really die to elemental attacks that often?

I mean..hydras, ok. I give you that. They can burn down any merc if you leave him just sitting in the middle of them. But unless you run trav over and over you really don't see those too often. And other than that, I really can't think of much (if anything, short of ubers) that actually has the capacity to take down a merc during normal play, provided proper higher end gear (read: your preferred aura stick + fort + ll head).

Then again, I also don't bother with andy's..ever..and haven't in like 20 years..so my merc gets to keep his anti-freeze instead. Perhaps that alone is enough to go from risky to ezmode? ^^

Either way, lowering dmg output and actively avoiding life leech sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Even ignoring lack of CBF.

Schnorki wrote: 21 hours ago

Does your merc really die to elemental attacks that often?

No:)
I do that for fun of knowledge if there is anything beyond standard setup provided in most build guides and reassuering myself if there's possibility to be more effective in specific scenarios like those mentioned in OP and you.

Schnorki wrote: 21 hours ago

Then again, I also don't bother with andy's..ever..and haven't in like 20 years..so my merc gets to keep his anti-freeze instead. Perhaps that alone is enough to go from risky to ezmode? ^^

Ok, so this is exactly what I wanted to read:), personal choices little bit different than standard setup. Would you mind sharing your

Helm/Armor choices for Infinity merc? If I understand correctly you go with

Cham in them?

I tried for a time Delirium + Gloom to maximize crowd control (I was leveling my L94 sorceress and wanted to mitigate eventual deaths by ranged monster... I only needed Merc for Infinity anyway and he had no problem in survive with this new setup)

HaveANiceDay wrote: 20 hours ago

Would you mind sharing your

Helm/Armor choices for Infinity merc?

Ok, I just tried Delirium out of curiosity vs TZ cows:)
It was bit fun, though sadly seems like there's never time for all those abilities to go off as I was killing them to fast.
Then again, maybe it would be different on P8..

HaveANiceDay wrote: 20 hours ago

[..]
Ok, so this is exactly what I wanted to read:), personal choices little bit different than standard setup. Would you mind sharing your

Helm/Armor choices for Infinity merc? If I understand correctly you go with

Cham in them?

Unless the build overall specifically calls for a deviation from the norm (e.g. Cure for regen-stacking or Chains of Honor and such to avoid cold dmg on merc for horkers) it always boils down to build-dictated aura stick + Fortitude +

Cham'd

Vampire Gaze. All

Eth + elite of course but that should be a given.

"Aura stick" in this case is more of a generalization and may include things like reaper's toll. Whatever the build gets the most out of.

A1/A5 mercs would look a bit different but they're in and by themselves more of a gimmick anyways so..mweh.
A3....just no.