Post your Controversial Takes Here

I'll start..

BiS merc gear for end game farming is not Andarial's/Fortitude or Andarial's/Treachery or Andaria's/COH. It is Cure / Gladiator's Bane.

Cure
1) In D2R, your merc's main job is to be a walking aura farm, not to kill things. Gives you a very useful aura for all characters, not just ES

Nova sorc. However, based on my experience it also IMPROVES THE MERC'S SURVIVABILITY vs. Andarial's or leach helms. The benefit of leach is more than offset by not having cursed

Amplify Damage DOUBLING the merc's damage taken pretty much non stop, as well as the reduced poison duration. And of course it very much improves your own survivability as well.

When you fly around with TP killing boss packs every couple seconds and the

Amplify Damage curse lasts for ~1 minute, without

Cleansing you are cursed nearly all the time.

Cleansing I believe reduces curse duration much more than the stated 39% reduction due to how the game applies it. I haven't timed it, but in practice it seems to reduce it to 7-10 seconds.

Note - the formula for

Amplify Damage duration from monsters in hell is 5 + (3*slvl), where slvl = mlvl/5 + 1. So for a level 90 monster it is 5+(3*(90/5+1)) or 62 seconds.

Gladiator's Bane
2) Perhaps the more controversial take. Gladiator's Bane lacks all the things you typically look for in a merc armor - Life Leach, Resistances, Percent Damage Reduction, IAS, Increased Damage. But in my experience, it is "best by test". Maybe it's the 30% faster hit recovery, or maybe it's the cannot be frozen, or maybe it is the 50% poison duration reduction, or maybe it is the 20 integer magic damage reduction, or maybe it is the 20 integer physical damage reduction, or maybe it's the insanely high defense - but I find when my merc wears this, he stays healthy better than with the other options. If you want to max out resistance, you can do so with an

Um rune or jewel in a socket, but I haven't found that to be necessary for most uses. Relatedly, integer physical and magic reduction are extremely underrated, they effectively provide an average pct damage reduction of around 20-25% in hell against your typical enemy.

Combined, these options have zero leach, but when your character is high level and kills things fast, the merch barely has time to leach. And if you watch it, Merc regen is somehow amazingly fast even without

Prayer, the leach is simply not necessary.

CHANGE MY MIND:
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varangium wrote: 6 hours ago

I'll start..

BiS merc gear for end game farming is not Andarial's/Fortitude or Andarial's/Treachery or Andaria's/COH. It is Cure / Gladiator's Bane.

Is this a blanket statement? Are you saying BiS gear for any merc supporting any farming build is Cure + Gladiator's bane?

If so, buckle up buttercup.

Any tank gear in excess of what you need to survive is a waste. Mercs do fine without Cure and with Fortitude, so why would you cut your dps for that.

Yes, BIS for all builds*

*Unless your build sucks and you need the mercs help to kill things

Knappogue wrote: 4 hours ago

varangium wrote: 6 hours ago

I'll start..

BiS merc gear for end game farming is not Andarial's/Fortitude or Andarial's/Treachery or Andaria's/COH. It is Cure / Gladiator's Bane.

Is this a blanket statement? Are you saying BiS gear for any merc supporting any farming build is Cure + Gladiator's bane?

If so, buckle up buttercup.

Lemzodistber wrote: 4 hours ago

Any tank gear in excess of what you need to survive is a waste. Mercs do fine without Cure and with Fortitude, so why would you cut your dps for that.

Any merc contribution is incredibly negligible, and Gladiator's Bane is better versus Uber Diablo

Firestorm and Uber

Lilith

Poison Nova, which do small integer damage across huge collision amounts.

But in fairness, yes if you are powerful enough, it almost doesn't matter what your merc wears against most enemies, if it is not contributing an aura.

None of my merc builds on any of my classes have the same gear. All of my classes and mercs are geared up for specific content.

That being said, I do not believe there is a "one size fits all" to mercs as each class has its own needs as well as each build in general.

Also, the damage output is for merc survivability, not to kill things. They need to land hits with lifesteal to really stay alive most times.

I don't believe

The Gladiator's Bane is bad, I just know there are like 10 other armors that come to mind that are better in most regards.

varangium wrote: 4 hours ago

Yes, BIS for all builds*

*Unless your build sucks and you need the mercs help to kill things

Blanket statements are dangerous. Especially since you didn't define your BiS. Overall BiS? Absolutely not. Cure is very good, I don't disagree. But Gladiator's Bane is a waste of an opportunity. It might be best for "my merc keeps dying" players.

Some examples of different armors that beat GB:

Bramble for Summon Necro for the

Thorns Aura
Chains of Honor for ES

Nova/Lightning Sorc for the +2all skills synergy with Cure and Insight
Fortitude for Hdin for

Baal runs (2nd wave)

Guardian Angel for

Hydra dmg mitigation for GF/Horker

Travincal zerker

I could go on

varangium wrote: 4 hours ago

Combined, these options have zero leach, but when your character is high level and kills things fast, the merch barely has time to leach. And if you watch it, Merc regen is somehow amazingly fast even without

Prayer, the leach is simply not necessary.

Most end game builds kill things very fast as you say, meaning mercs almost never die or even really get hit. Why would you over protect them?
If your merc dies a lot and you need it just to survive to provide the Cure aura and whatever else they are using for a weapon, then sure; Gladiator's Bane is great. Uber's and me-not-paying-attention-to-my-merc notwithstanding, I can't remember when my merc has died for any of my end-game characters.

P.S.: BiS for the most fun merc build is Delirium for the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Merc build.

Hmmmm, I guess i have 20 different mercs in use... even one Act 3 Firewolf for a Necromancer funbuild.

It all depends on your class, your build, your preferred farming area, your playstyle and your actual gear.

Physical damage classes want high IAS and

The Reaper's Toll or Lawbringer. Treachery / Hysteria is a must here.

For a stable tank merc, Fortitude is hard to beat. Extemely high defense, resistances, increased maximum lightning resistance, additional life and a big damage boost for increased life leech are the reason it is used by many players.

Cure is best used with Insight and

Prayer Merc. It loses a lot of impact if not used in conjunction. Some builds don't need Insight or want Infinity or need a Might aura.

What is about hybrid builds?

My

Freezing Arrow /

Strafe Bowazon is served much better with her Last Wish / Plague Barb. Level 13-17

Cleansing immediately removes all curses or poison and has a much higher range than Cure, which is important for a ranged hero. If I would use Cure, I'd never be in range for it.

Same is for my Dragondin, who can't wear Enigma and doesn't want to run after his merc all the time.

Due to its low range, Cure is best used in combination with Enigma or as a Sorceress and I consider it being BiS for an

Energy Shield build.

If you want a maximum of safety, Manic Pixie Dreamgirl with Mist, Treachery / Hysteria and Delirium does the trick! Hands down.

So, if you ask me, there is no BiS meta for all characters.

I also enjoy playing the game without BIS items.

I run a strafezon with Delirium + WF and some other gear for damage and IAS, and it is incredibly fun!

I have yet to make/trade Faith for A1 merc.

However, I have a zealer and

Frenzy barb and they both use pb Grief-but I am thinking about making a

Holy Freeze pally with Voice of Reason, nightwing, or perhaps something else-in other words trying something new instead of running an Enigma hammerdin for 15 years.

I don't have the time to grind as much as others do in this game, and I'm not spending money on buying items, but I enjoy the game!

You might have made a "What's your favourite budget item?" post instead. You could have still made the the same statement about GB but it have triggered a different response.