Concentration vs Fanaticism amd other warlock's merc woes

Background
Pure summoner warlock, teleporting with the throw weapon thingy, one point in Lethargy. Ran all of Norm/Nm/Hell with Act 1 merc with Edge Bow for Thorns. She's great.

Started using Hell Lister, which is great, but clear is slow. Note: I don't care about insta-deleting screens, but it gets dull recasting lethargy below uniques and bosses for 30-60 sec.

So, I switched to Act 2 Merc with might after getting a unique Thresher that procs Decrepify. Damage and clear is definitely better, but Act 2 merc is a pain to keep alive. I spent some resources and kitted him with Guardian Angel and Kira's for max resists. Still squishy, so at this point he's great until he dies, after which I would have been better off with my Act 1 merc and Thorns.

Fast Forward
I managed to bind a cursed Lister! But it got Blessed Aim... Still, the Amp Dam curse really helps clear. I love it. I'm sad, sad, sad they are nerfing it (what else do summoners even have? Goats are sooo slow). Then I got a cursed Lister with Holy Freeze and that is amazeballs.

BUT, now I don't want my Act 2 merc overwriting Amp with Decrep and there's still the squishy problem.

Solutions
1. I can go back to Rogue and give her Faith for Fanaticism or Mist for Concentration.. but which one is better? And what do I Sacrifice by losing Might from Act 2 merc?
2. Briefly toyed with the idea of giving a rogue Bramble and Edge for a lvl 30-36 Thorns. But is that any good in Hell?
3. I can give the might merc a Pride to have both Might and Concentration. To my knowledge, I can't get the Act 2 merc to have both Might and Fanaticism.
4. I can try to make the Act 2 merc less squishy. Is there a better chest/ Helm combo that will protect them? Fortitude? Andy or Vamp Gaze over Kira?
5. I can try to reroll a Lister with Cursed/ Fanaticism, but I might prefer to gouge my eyes out. Note: I've been getting Listers from Baal runs to take advantage of the increased health (and power?) of P8, which is of course a challenge.
5. I am also testing an Act 5 merc with Dreadfang for the dreaded Amp Dam nerf to compensate for loss of regular Amplify Damage. Guess we'll see what happens with the patch.

Mostly, I would love to go back to Rogue merc, but worried I need some combo of Might + Concentration/ Fanaticism to keep clear up. Any thoughts? If I had to choose between Fanaticism or Concentration (i.e., Faith vs. Mist), what would you choose?

Thanks!

kerph wrote: 3 months ago

Did u say bosses take u 2-3 mins? What is your setup exactly? I'm using Holy Shock/cursed lister w 2 defilers, switch to 2 goatmen for bosses and diablo/ Baal take a few seconds. I'm not using Blood Boil or Consume, just max Bind Demon, Blood Oath, Demonic Mastery, Death Mark for Goatman cb%. I'm using cold rogue merc for cc, w Harmony for mobility, Treachery, and Guillaume's Face just to speed up boss kills. It's not huge but she's like a 3rd Goatman, and she never takes damage behind my summons so i don't bother to gear her for better survivability. Absolutely love the Vigor aura from Harmony and could not live without it if i switched to a2 merc
I'm using Ondal's Wisdom + Ars Tor'Baalos, and the rest of my gear is into magic find and run/walk speed. I maybe spent like 4 Ist gearing him, certainly nothing like Faith or Pride or anything. And even with random non-cursed bound demons with like, might aura i find my clear speed in dense areas barely slows down - bosses take about twice as long but still well under a minute
Would be really curious to hear more about ur skills etc

You are absolutely right. Seems like 2-3 min,but actual stopwatch times seems too long. I'll measure later when I get on for a Baal run. Diablo seems much shorter than Baal for me. No idea if that's logical or not. I am geared with the following: HotO, Shako, Mara, Horazon chest, Horazon boot, Measured Wrath, Dwarf Star ring, Nagelring, Chance Guards, Goldwrap, and I have an anni in the inventory.

I'll count how many hits it takes later. For reference, I run a quick Pindle while waiting on the Baalrun teleporter to put up a TP, so that pack usually takes ~10 seconds (will get an exact average later).

This is very interesting to compare. I have 20 pt goat, 20 mastery, 20 mark, 20 Bind Demon, 1 pt lethargy and 1 pt weapon throw Teleport (and 2 prereqs), rest in Blood Oath.

I really like Lister, and he does a good job controlling packs and killing them, but there is a STARK difference in my kill speed vs locks that have the scissors thing or flame waves or the giant pentagram (sorry, I don't know what these are) or pallys and sorcs. Particularly evident in cow level.

I'd say you are wasting your 20 hard points on binddemon.
Try Blunderbore from A2 palace. With your points in skills he will get all nice things like aura, strength and speed. All is added to what he initially had. just need cursed one with as much Enchantments as you can. It have crushing blow out of the box.
Good skill-induced auras are Conviction (if you are boiler) or Fanatycism if you are summoner. Goatmans: I personally don't like. Too low damage. Defilers are better IMO. On a boiler I use 1 defiler and 1 Tainted (for Resist Fire aura+ 12k damage from him.) Min demon is Conviction Blunderbore.
Might merc with Pride + Cure.
Another good thing about Blunderbore: his life pool is smaller than Lester or Hephasto. And Blunderbore is actually leeching life after I use Blood Boil. For Hephasto it takes forever to restore his 50-70% HP. Need corpses to heal him.
My boiler is not optimal, but I have so good demon and don't dare to respec.

For your current merc set up there is cheap solution: give your merc Obedience + TalRasha Mask/Andy face + Guardian Angel. Merc becomes fast boss killer.

dionisy_cn wrote: 3 months ago

I'd say you are wasting your 20 hard points on binddemon.
Try Blunderbore from A2 palace. With your points in skills he will get all nice things like aura, strength and speed. All is added to what he initially had. just need cursed one with as much Enchantments as you can. It have crushing blow out of the box.
Good skill-induced auras are Conviction (if you are boiler) or Fanatycism if you are summoner. Goatmans: I personally don't like. Too low damage. Defilers are better IMO. On a boiler I use 1 defiler and 1 Tainted (for Resist Fire aura+ 12k damage from him.) Min demon is Conviction Blunderbore.
Might merc with Pride + Cure.
Another good thing about Blunderbore: his life pool is smaller than Lester or Hephasto. And Blunderbore is actually leeching life after I use Blood Boil. For Hephasto it takes forever to restore his 50-70% HP. Need corpses to heal him.
My boiler is not optimal, but I have so good demon and don't dare to respec.

For your current merc set up there is cheap solution: give your merc Obedience + TalRasha Mask/Andy face + Guardian Angel. Merc becomes fast boss killer.

I might give that a go. I have everything except Fal, which might not be too hard to get. Doesn't add an additional aura, but moght make the merc serviceable!

As a pure Summoner, you should max Bind Demon and Sigil Lethargy for the improved damage. Your demon is your main killer minion! Also constantly use Engorge to squeeze another IAS frame out of your demons.

I am doing well with the following setup:

Bind Demon, Demonic Mastery, Sigil Lethargy, Death Mark - Maxed

Summon Defiler - Enough points to reach 5 bound souls

Blade Warp - 1 point if no Enigma

Remaining points into Blood Oath and/or Goatman for survival and fighting bosses. I chose the latter.

Gear: Heart of the Oak, Coven, Authority, Spirit, Goldwrap, War Traveler, rare Gloves/rings for fcr, magic find and resists. Nothing high-end.

I am still using my cursed Fanaticism Vile Mother for extra meatshields and my merc is an Act 1 Fire Arrow Rogue Scout with Hysteria, Mist GMB and Andariel's Visage. The 100% Pierce is great and does a lot of damage on cursed, lethargied and bound enemies and she clears crowds of smaller enemies with ease. The demon one-hits several monsters at once and wrecks super uniques with a few attacks.

My minions kill /p1 Diablo in 5 seconds and Baal in half a minute.

What is your build? I run Blood Boil and do Uber Ancients without using BB with cheap Horizons build (without arachnid mash, soj, etc). Just get Demon with Fanaticism + Cursed and merc with Might. I want to get runes for Infinity (because currently merc is wearing Insight, even I have no issues with mana), but anyway they are dying from Bind Demon and goatmans + Death Mark and Sigil. Main idea to have "Prevent Monster Heal" on second hand weapon and strike them sometimes from distance with ES (1 point go get to TP)

Same build here and with bound Cursed Vile Mother with Fanaticism too (but as I'm lazy, I bound a regular one from a L96 Cursed TZ )
(I bound it at the beginning of Hell and it never died until now)
But I'm using Act 2 Merc Might (Pride, Bramble, Cure - Cure mostly for fun for "max auras" , but he has no much trouble in surviving even without life leech, as the other Minions kill the monsters first...)

DasNarf wrote: 3 months ago

As a pure Summoner, you should max Bind Demon and Sigil Lethargy for the improved damage. Your demon is your main killer minion! Also constantly use Engorge to squeeze another IAS frame out of your demons.

I am doing well with the following setup:

Bind Demon, Demonic Mastery, Sigil Lethargy, Death Mark - Maxed

Summon Defiler - Enough points to reach 5 bound souls

Blade Warp - 1 point if no Enigma

Remaining points into Blood Oath and/or Goatman for survival and fighting bosses. I chose the latter.

Gear: Heart of the Oak, Coven, Authority, Spirit, Goldwrap, War Traveler, rare Gloves/rings for fcr, magic find and resists. Nothing high-end.

I am still using my cursed Fanaticism Vile Mother for extra meatshields and my merc is an Act 1 Fire Arrow Rogue Scout with Hysteria, Mist GMB and Andariel's Visage. The 100% Pierce is great and does a lot of damage on cursed, lethargied and bound enemies and she clears crowds of smaller enemies with ease. The demon one-hits several monsters at once and wrecks super uniques with a few attacks.

My minions kill /p1 Diablo in 5 seconds and Baal in half a minute.