Mercs other than a2nm chill

I wanna try barb with Duress and

Executioner Sword... anyone have fav picks?

A1 Rogues are my favorite. Faith, Mist, Harmony, Insight. So many good options for whatever you need. Delirium

Helm is crazy good.

Also satisfied with my A5

Frenzy merc wielding Mania + Lawbringer, Treachery and Bulwark.

Unfortunately A2 merc is the only useful merc without proper gear. The rest are just useless unless you have expensive gear on them.

Semirotta wrote: 2 days ago

Unfortunately A2 merc is the only useful merc without proper gear. The rest are just useless unless you have expensive gear on them.

A5 with full Sazabi's and Lawbringer is super tanky and cheap. And any A1 with Delirium has crazy crowd control for just an

Ist.
Insight works on Bows, too.

Semirotta wrote: 2 days ago

Unfortunately A2 merc is the only useful merc without proper gear. The rest are just useless unless you have expensive gear on them.

I quite like Insight/Harmony on a1, you should give it a try! She's much more survivable than a2

Act 1 Harmony is very good when levelling a Barb. She helps killing immunes, too.

Act 5

Frenzy Barb with Grief

Phase Blade ( Alot of Raw DMG) + Lawbringer

Phase Blade (20% Proc on

Decrepify + alot of dmg vs Undead with lvl 18

Sanctuary Aura).

Eth

Crown of Thieves (+12% life leech &

Cham socketed to not slow down by freezing )

Eth Fortitude armor,
for bosses you could swap out his Lawbringer for a Last Wish with massive crushing blow + Might aura & have him wear Duress for Open Wounds & CB or also give him a

Guillaume's Face for more crushing blow.

more gear dependant and not cheap but fun.

kerph wrote: 2 days ago

Semirotta wrote: 2 days ago

Unfortunately A2 merc is the only useful merc without proper gear. The rest are just useless unless you have expensive gear on them.

I quite like Insight/Harmony on a1, you should give it a try! She's much more survivable than a2

Did they make the merc any better with its movement? I always used to have a problem where the a1 merc just runs to the enemies or does not avoid them in any way and just dies
Had to be constantly re-positioned and it got tiring.

Semirotta wrote: 2 days ago

Did they make the merc any better with its movement? I always used to have a problem where the a1 merc just runs to the enemies or does not avoid them in any way and just dies
Had to be constantly re-positioned and it got tiring.

I'm not sure if they changed it since i've only started using a1 semi-recently but
She likes to stick near you, particularly on summoners she stays very safe behind your minions
I haven't used her on melee classes, i could see her getting herself killed a lot with that kind of setup

Her

Inner Sight isn't as good as

Blessed Aim but still a huge bonus. Great budget uber support for warlock with

Riphook +

Kira's Guardian + Smoke. Or even better,

Witchwild String socketed with

Um. I used it for probably 100 runs before i gave her Mist

And the best part is she never dies!! No more spending 100k each run reviving suicidal a2

kerph wrote: 2 days ago

Semirotta wrote: 2 days ago

Did they make the merc any better with its movement? I always used to have a problem where the a1 merc just runs to the enemies or does not avoid them in any way and just dies
Had to be constantly re-positioned and it got tiring.

I'm not sure if they changed it since i've only started using a1 semi-recently but
She likes to stick near you, particularly on summoners she stays very safe behind your minions
I haven't used her on melee classes, i could see her getting herself killed a lot with that kind of setup

Her

Inner Sight isn't as good as

Blessed Aim but still a huge bonus. Great budget uber support for warlock with

Riphook +

Kira's Guardian + Smoke. Or even better,

Witchwild String socketed with

Um. I used it for probably 100 runs before i gave her Mist

And the best part is she never dies!! No more spending 100k each run reviving suicidal a2

If she likes to stick close to you, then its definitely changed a little. As it used to just run off somewhere not shoot enemies constantly unlike a2 merc goes straight up fighting. I always figured it was in its AI to avoid battles xD
I need to try that out some day again, really liked the a1 merc as it has the

Vigor aura from runeword and its hella good early on if no need Insight.
Thanks for the response

I have heard Ginger Gaming Mentor (english speaking YouTuber) say, that Act 3 FireMerc can be quite good for summoner chars, as he rapidly gives every group member, mercs and minions

Enchant, raising the damage output quite nicely.
What I can not say is, if that is only for those who want to use something other than the typical or if this constellation can keep up with the normal choices for summoner mercs...
Anyone here experience with Ironwolf Mercs?

Yeah, that works, but solo only. I have a "fire summoner" Necro fun-build.

With gg gear your Ironwolf spends ~350 fire damage to each minion. This isn't much...

And the Ironwolves' damage is not able to keep up with other mercs. He does 0 damage to immunes tho. Ironwolves also lack good auras.

My old main merc was an a5 with

Azurewrath back in the day, but I've made my new one a Lawbringer and given him a

Lightsabre offhand for extra protection. He's absolutely great at protecting me from undead dolls and even cleaning up wisps if they aren't too crazy, and has even managed to hold his own against some pretty nasty undead

Herald spawns that killed the rest of the team. It ended up that my merc was the only one able to damage a particularly rude Unraveller

Herald that was hyper-resistant to damn near everything... we would have been hacking away at it for an hour if I hadn't gone back to get him (made a note to get our team more crushing blow than just a single

Goatman after that...) so he definitely earns his keep. The a5 barbarian mercs are my favourite, while

Frenzy is great because it lets you give them more gear, the ones with

Bash I've found are also very helpful if you're a bowazon who has yet to get a source of knockback.

My Warlock is also using an a3 fire merc for

Enchant until he can complete the Horazon set and do it himself. Once that happens, I'm planning to switch him to a lightning guy, they cast

Static Field to take chunks out of monster health... very handy if you don't have the skill yourself! I also had my melee mercs using

Hwanin's Refuge for a while, for that chance to cast a

Static Field when struck. Shame that set has a

Belt, though... it's soooooo close to being a budget option for an a2 merc like Sazabi's is for the a3/a5. Makes me sad every time.

Meanwhile, one of our team has stuck with an a1 from the start and given her a Goldstrike just to stay on theme with his paladin. Then my partner has gone with an a1 merc and had me put Insight on a bow for her, he got sick of his a2 walking up to the melee and dying even with good gear on. I haven't heard any more complaints since he switched. Many of our party members have been abandoning the a2 guys as time goes on. The auras are nice and all, but they can't share an aura if they're dead.

Some thoughts from me:

Act 1 Rogues totally rock if they get aura/curse/debuff support from you. Mist is the bow of choice if you want her to do maximum damage. Mist also pairs extremely well with Delirium. Wrath is great versus heralds, mix in Wisdom and she can curse stuff. Or they can be great crowd controllers. Ice + Delirium is a game changer if you want safety first.

The best companions for such a Rogue are summoner builds: Warlock, Necromancer, Druid.

But Barbarians or Paladins do work as well, often coupled with a Faith Rogue.

A3 Ironwolves have two uses:

The fire wolf spends a lot of AR. He's quite useless aside of that, but he can die and no one cares. Give him as much +skills as possible.

The lightning wolf cuts life of a

Herald party by half in seconds. At this point, his damage is neglectible but he gives you a strong edge in big fights. His most important stats are FCR and -resistance.

The cold wolf sucks.

Ironwolves are very restricted in aura support, they can't even wear a

Phase Blade due to low dex. But they may wear Plague, a really nice weapon and a strong, underrated aura. Flickering Flame can make your minions immune to fire and can be used to compensate a fire sunder. At higher levels, Wolves are strong enough for ethereal

Monarch, giving access to Spirit and Phoenix. But don't try Dragon or Dream on them, it's a waste...

The

Bash-Barb is a mixed bag.

Dreadfang is obviously made for him, but the knockback slows his attack rate and his

Battle Cry overrides Amplify. He is a lumbering guy and needs

Vigor or

Fanaticism to shine. If you want aura support, he is the worst choice of all mercs.

The

Frenzy Barb is great. Lots of interesting weapon combos. Cheap stuff like

Headstriker, Lawbringer or Sazabi totally rocks. He scales even higher with expensive runewords. He is the most aggressive merc, and can be a heavy hitting tank. Similar to the Rogue, he really shines when supported with %ed auras. If you are crazy, give him two Last Wish and see him fight

Uber Talic...

oh, don't worry at all about her getting too close to the enemy with a melee char. you will rather be concerned about her staying too far back in the rear guard..

kerph wrote: 2 days ago

Semirotta wrote: 2 days ago

Did they make the merc any better with its movement? I always used to have a problem where the a1 merc just runs to the enemies or does not avoid them in any way and just dies
Had to be constantly re-positioned and it got tiring.

I'm not sure if they changed it since i've only started using a1 semi-recently but
She likes to stick near you, particularly on summoners she stays very safe behind your minions
I haven't used her on melee classes, i could see her getting herself killed a lot with that kind of setup