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:
( (
) )
........
|------|]
\------/
`----'

(please excuse bad ascii art due to spaces being filtered out)

varangium wrote: 17 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: 15 hours ago

varangium wrote: 17 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: 15 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: 15 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: 15 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.

Cure + Insight are nice options if you need nothing else from your merc or on a very tight budget. If your merc keep dying mean you don't kill Mobs fast enough. Improve your gear /skills/choose other content/go to lower difficulty.

There's theory-crafting which was way more interesting before the game became data mined to Death. And then there's turning off your brain and following Maxroll instructions.

If I put that gear on my hork barb merc he would just die every Trav run and I would kill slower lol

Knappogue wrote: 14 hours ago

varangium wrote: 15 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: 15 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.

Hehehe ... so you finally got onboard with the CoH also <3

I swear that I am not trying to annoy you !!!

vued wrote: 12 hours ago

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.

Yes, but where is the engagement bait in that? This is supposed to be controversial takes.

I like the responses, many good points.

My hot take is that D2 is a lesser game with Warlock in it. It's awfully balanced, it's allowed to have superuniques as pets unlike Necromancer and have them scale with players in the lobby which is ridiculous, and being able to wear 2-handed weapons plus offhand is inherently broken as well. Even the class renowned for 1-handing 2-handed weapons, the Barbarian, has to accept a loss in damage for doing so. And I'm pretty sure that every awful, arrogant, toxic person I have met in games was a warlock. But that might well be on account of small-minded, abusive or potentially sociopathic people leaning towards any build that is OP so they can force their will upon everybody else. Just to be sure, I don't want to call all warlock players these names, but the other way around, if that makes sense.

I'm speaking of things like enabling PVP and griefing and spawn camping the entire group, soloing bosses and stealing all the loot before anyone could reach them, splitting from XP groups killing all the elites and champions or attempting to spawn the

Herald in order to solo him. It's also inherently annoying and offputting to have a warlock in the group simply dominating everything with his DPS, with no fault to the player. The mere understanding that Warlock players do not share the same experience with regular old well-balanced, struggling classes is jarring. You simply have a god class and most lobbies have at least upwards of 4-6 Warlocks. Even if Blizzard manage to balance Warlock well, I might never get over my resentment towards that class.

Hot take:

I want the old dangerous parts of d2 back in d2r, because it is way too easy:

- High damage from fire enchanted

Corpse Explosion enemies
- Deadly mana draining Burning Souls
-

Iron Maiden in CS
- Multi-charged-

Bolts from enemies with lightning enchanted + multishot that really makes you avoid any touching of those big balls
- ...

I like the WL, I was getting tired of grinding for marginal improvement. I just spent about 40-50

Jah upgrading my ES

Nova Sorc and she is... marginally better than fairly budget gear costing about 2-3 Jahs total.

The solution to both of your takes is to buff other characters and add a super hard....

ACT 6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LFG

They should add a dozen or two new monster enchantments, and make them actually troublesome and dangerous. One of them should disable

Teleport in a small radius, so you can

Teleport in but not out.

In

Terror zones bosses should get an additional modifier beyond the TZ roll.

Yes, these are all good points. You have changed my mind

Some context. I used to run COH with my ES

Nova Sorc, but I was switching to GB when fighting Ubers. I found that I didn't really need the small bit of extra

Prayer healing, and I preferred my merc being studlier and also not having to switch gear back and forth, so I have just left it on GB. For me, based on what I have been wanting, it is BiS or at least comparable to, depending on preference. Whereas it goes for pgems and I believe is almost never mentioned as a viable option in build guides.

More recently, I have been leveling up an ES WL after previously leveling a flame WL. He was wearing

Stealskull and Bane's armor, just because I hadn't bothered swapping out his gear since nightmare and generally wasn't having problems with him. As I have been searching for the perfect cursed / HF aura demon, I have been pausing sometimes around boss packs to assess the aura and cursed status before obliterating them. And the problem is one cast of ES and the pack and boss are often gone, so I have to let my demon and merc slowly kill the minions around the boss.

Anyways, so long story short, my merc was taking some serious damage when I was doing that. Also, my ES WL even with 3k life at level 85 and level 13

Blood Oath was taking reasonable damage in some cases when cursed. Yes, I can use a healing or rejuv, but I like my characters and my merc feeling invincible. Swapped out to match my ES

Nova Sorc merc setup and all problems gone.

I did however FORGET THAT MERC AURA IS BOOSTED by +skills, so perhaps I will put CoH on my merc just to get a little more ES damage (not that I need it). But then again, once I go after Ubers with him I might prefer to have my merc have GB, and I prefer to gear swap less, I'll have to test it out. My characters feel most powerful when they can go anywhere w/o gear swapping and my merc has no issues.

I retract my original statement, but would replace it with this. Cure/GB is arguably BiS for many build situations, or at least is comparable depending on your preferences, but is very underrated and rarely mentioned by build guides outside of Cure for ES

Nova Sorc. Also available for pgems.

Knappogue wrote: 14 hours ago

varangium wrote: 15 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: 15 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.