Which merc survives Andariel?

Life leach is nerfed so much it effectively doesn't work against bosses. I showed the calculations on an earlier post.

Regarding GA, poison is not the main issue, it is physical (although poison helps)

Lawbringer - Great, it has

Decrepify, which is great vs. bosses. 1/2 attach speed and 1/2 damage = 4x boss nerf. -50% physical res against 66% to start = 2.4x damage boost.

CoA - up to 31% physical damage reduction, which is also great.

Lawbringer + Coa with Act 5 merc might work. Only thing I don't know is if the Act 5

Battle Cry or

Taunt will overwrite the

Decrepify too often.

varangium wrote: 15 hours ago

- It's easier to boost mana than health with items like

Frostburn, soj, etc. Also rings and uniques tend to have higher +mana than +life. But you just have the frostburns and not the SOJ, so you are getting only +40%.
- Super fast regen with Insight. But you don't have Insight on merc. Mana regen is still better than health, but w/o Insight it's not too crazy unless you have a really high mana pool with an all out ES build.

Max Mana regeneration only dies to souls. They drain faster than any regeneration.

I tried it offline: 350 energy, 75% lightning res, 34 points

Telekinesis and 34 points

Energy Shield. No Damage reduction and no absorption.

World Stone: Souls, exploding mob and Vipers → dead, almost immediately

She did

Mephisto and Diablo fine but not

Baal.

ceving wrote: 1 hour ago

varangium wrote: 15 hours ago

- It's easier to boost mana than health with items like

Frostburn, soj, etc. Also rings and uniques tend to have higher +mana than +life. But you just have the frostburns and not the SOJ, so you are getting only +40%.
- Super fast regen with Insight. But you don't have Insight on merc. Mana regen is still better than health, but w/o Insight it's not too crazy unless you have a really high mana pool with an all out ES build.

Max Mana regeneration only dies to souls. They drain faster than any regeneration.

I tried it offline: 350 energy, 75% lightning res, 34 points

Telekinesis and 34 points

Energy Shield. No Damage reduction and no absorption.

World Stone: Souls, exploding mob and Vipers → dead, almost immediately

She did

Mephisto and Diablo fine but not

Baal.

I run 20 hard points into TK and level 40 ES with skillers, soj, maras/fcr ammy etc, and also CTA and mana charms. After CTA I have around 3300 mana/800 life if I am running 105 fcr, and if I drop down an fcr tier and use frostburns I think it is around 3800. At level 40 ES, 5% of damage goes to health, but level 34 is 11%, so it is a decent amount more. Also I use a vipermagi for 13 magic damage reduction, meaning it takes a hit of 13*20=260 elemental damage before anything elemental touches my health. I could have a bit more life and mana, but I balance magic find and run an upgraded vipermagi taking a little more strength. Also my skillers have

Gold find and faster run walk, not life, just because I'm generally fine and don't need more life. I use

Cham in a socket for QoL also. I play on console where you can't TP as precisely so I like the FRW to more precisely position my sorc and also to pick up all that

Gold

If I went full life skillers, and ran a non upgraded vmagi, I could probably hit 1000 life/4000 mana with frostburns, which would be cool, but is unnecessary in softcore.

But without fully maxed gear, I understand it is different. Also I use

Nova, which is actually a pretty good defensive skill as it 360's around you and knocks back all enemies. And I never go into hit recovery myself with only 5% of attack going to my health. So essentially I go into any mob, they have a split second to try to damage me, and then after that they are in constant hit recovery / get obliterated by

Nova.

I have no fear teleporting anywhere, and only time I have died is when I forgot to cast ES. I do have to be careful around souls and dolls in the sense I cannot just be completely unaware of my surroundings and blindingly spam

Nova, but they are not particularly scary or threatening. For souls I have to make sure I tp quickly versus stand still if they start launching lightning at me, and then just tp close enough to hit them with a

Nova or two. For dolls, I'm generally fine spamming

Nova immediately after I tp somewhere. Even if there are a few dolls in exploding distance, I can take a few explosions and the

Nova pushes the rest back. But I can't like delay and let all the dolls surround me, and then hit

Nova.

Blood mana curse when combined with Cure is just a mild annoyance, not a huge deal, but it does require being more judicious with

Nova casts until the 5-10 seconds after which it wears off.

For

Baal, sometimes I have to use 1 rejuv if he mana burns me or blood mana curses me.