Weapon for a 2nd act mercenary when playing a summon necromancer

Hi. Interested in the issue of choosing a weapon for a mercenary from the second act when playing a necromancer summoner.

I'm considering two options:
1.

Eth

The Reaper's Toll
2. Infinity in

Eth

Giant Thresher,

Thresher or

Great Poleaxe.

Since both of these options are quite expensive, I want to choose one of them. Usage scenario - content farming and uber quests (not speedrun). That is, I need a weapon for a general use case. Also interested in the rest of the equipment for the mercenary when using one of these options (i have Treachery in

Eth

Archon Plate,

Guillaume's Face and

Andariel's Visage). Is it really necessary Duress and Fortitude armor?

If we talk about my character, then I have a Beast for the

Fanaticism Aura. Also I have an

Iron Golem from Insight for the

Meditation aura. As I understand it, it is better to use

Iron Golem from Pride for the

Concentration aura? is it really necessary and how do you fix the mana regeneration problem?

Please, tell me who has come across and tested similar solutions for the optimal ratio of cost and increase in dps. Perhaps in anticipation of the patch it will be necessary to change the mercenary and his equipment?

One of the

Key reasons to get

The Reaper's Toll is the

Decrepify proc.

You're a Necromancer.

I vote for Infinity.

Essentially, as a summon necro, you're looking at two options that tend to be (sadly) largely mutually exclusive:

1) Buff merc, skeletons and physical revives
2) Buff skeletal mages and caster revives

If you want to buff your skeletons and phys revives, you're looking at things like reaper's toll for

Decrepify, Pride for conc, might on the merc itself and so on.
If you want to buff your skeletal mages, you're looking at things like Infinity, soon Plague and so on.

Now, the thing is...you're a necromancer. A summoner at that, meaning you you yourself have all the time in the world to do whatever while your summons pound stuff, in addition to typically having plenty of skill points left over. Because of that, there is zero real reason for you to get curses from a merc when you can freely pick and choose and supply them yourself, depending on the situation. As a result, I for one would completely rule out things like reaper's (

Decrepify), Plague (lower res) and so on, simply because they do not offer anything you couldn't otherwise get.

Infinity on the other hand offers an aura you wouldn't otherwise get.
So does the Beast or Faith that you yourself may be sporting.
And so does Pride.

Now, typically, you do want to stick with an A2 merc here to get the free might aura on top (so no conc or fana from A1). That then mainly leaves you with a choice of either Infinity or Pride for your merc. Pride is an obvious significant buff to all of your physical minions. Infinity is a significant buff to mages and the like and only a typically somewhat minor buff to physical (due to the -def). However, there is one problem with Pride. And that's a big one. It has no weapon ED. As a result, while it may buff your skeletons and urdar revives and whatnot, it completely annihilates your merc's own damage (and hence survivability). That reduction in merc damage is relatively even more drastic if you yourself have a Beast or Faith equipped as the fana also has less base damage to apply to for him.

Because of that, I for one would most definitely go for Infinity. Even more so since you mentioned ubers and Infinity (as opposed to Pride) adds crushing blow for those.

If you have the runes to spare, you could still get a Pride via

Iron Golem and get the best of all worlds:
Quad-aura + curses.
Quint-aura if you run wisp and add the HoW from that. Albeit fairly low level on that one.

If you do end up with mana problems with that (which isn't necessarily true, depending on the rest of your gear), you'd have to settle for gulping potions. Alternatively, if you don't want to deal with that and/or simply don't have the runes to spare to blow on a despawning golem, just get an Insight golem and call it a day. In that case, I for one would still go with Infinity on the merc though.

And lastly, Infinity has one more added advantage as it actually buffs your

Corpse Explosion. Sure, that one does also have a physical component but it isn't a weapon attack so Pride wouldn't help it.


As for the other equipment:
Fortitude is ridiculously good on a merc. No questioning that. It is always worth it, considering the comparatively low cost. I would consider switching in a Duress for ubers though, solely for the open wounds. Infinity sadly doesn't offer those and prevent monster heal doesn't work on a merc, meaning you do want him to apply open wounds. Unless of course you yourself plan to attack as well and apply it yourself, then stick with Fortitude.
I for one actually use a Duress on my summon druid's merc for that exact same reason (as opposed to all but one of my other mercs who all use fort).
Between Infinity and urdars, you shouldn't need gulli. Even more so with Duress. So keep the head slot to actually add some life leech and such (anda, gaze, ..).

And as for the patch changing your merc/equipment:
2.4 does offer a few more options in general and sometimes significantly improves on alternatives to A2 mercs (A5

Frenzy is kind of awesome). However, in the case of a summon necro (and most other builds actually imo), A2 still rules supreme, simply because the extra free aura makes too much of a difference. Sure, you can get might on an A5 merc as well..but since they can only use swords, that's it. Similar to A1 offering only

Fanaticism or

Concentration but never both. Though if they ever add axes to the A5 mix and you can get a Beast + Last Wish A5 merc to add both, might and

Fanaticism, along with 90% crushing and OW (while still using Fortitude)...yeah, that's when A2 would really get some competition.

Thanks for the extended answer. It turns out against the Ubers I put on a mercenary

Guillaume's Face and Duress for open wounds and crushing blow? And for farming the rest of the content I use Fortitude and

Andariel's Visage/

Vampire Gaze?
In doing so, I will aim at Infinity for my merc. But without Infinity it will work against Ubers? For example, now the mercenary is wearing non

Eth

Tomb Reaver with 3 sockets on damage (Total 350%) and IAS (Total 75%). On condition usage revives such as Cows or

Blunderbore

Rezvei wrote: 3 years ago

Thanks for the extended answer. It turns out against the Ubers I put on a mercenary

Guillaume's Face and Duress for open wounds and crushing blow? And for farming the rest of the content I use Fortitude and

Andariel's Visage/

Vampire Gaze?
In doing so, I will aim at Infinity for my merc. But without Infinity it will work against Ubers? For example, now the mercenary is wearing non

Eth

Tomb Reaver with 3 sockets on damage (Total 350%) and IAS (Total 75%). On condition usage revives such as Cows or

Blunderbore

I'm a little perplexed at how you are able to afford these setups / have played long enough to farm them, but don't have the knowledge to answer/research these questions independently.

Andariel's Visage >

Vampire Gaze

Katonda wrote: 3 years ago

Rezvei wrote: 3 years ago

Thanks for the extended answer. It turns out against the Ubers I put on a mercenary

Guillaume's Face and Duress for open wounds and crushing blow? And for farming the rest of the content I use Fortitude and

Andariel's Visage/

Vampire Gaze?
In doing so, I will aim at Infinity for my merc. But without Infinity it will work against Ubers? For example, now the mercenary is wearing non

Eth

Tomb Reaver with 3 sockets on damage (Total 350%) and IAS (Total 75%). On condition usage revives such as Cows or

Blunderbore

I'm a little perplexed at how you are able to afford these setups / have played long enough to farm them, but don't have the knowledge to answer/research these questions independently.

Andariel's Visage >

Vampire Gaze

That's why I came to the forum for answers, in my environment there are no people who could tell. And I played D2 more than 20 years ago, at that time, little was understood at all. And now I'm trying to figure it all out. Unfortunately, I don't have much experience playing other classes to see the all picture. I'm sorry if the questions sound stupid

Rezvei wrote: 3 years ago

Thanks for the extended answer. It turns out against the Ubers I put on a mercenary

Guillaume's Face and Duress for open wounds and crushing blow? And for farming the rest of the content I use Fortitude and

Andariel's Visage/

Vampire Gaze?
In doing so, I will aim at Infinity for my merc. But without Infinity it will work against Ubers? For example, now the mercenary is wearing non

Eth

Tomb Reaver with 3 sockets on damage (Total 350%) and IAS (Total 75%). On condition usage revives such as Cows or

Blunderbore

Duress is the important piece for ubers here. Specifically, the open wounds on it. As a summon necro, you tend to still go in with Urdar revives either way, giving you a fair bit of crushing blow no matter what. Anything extra on your merc is of course nice but not really necessary. Open wounds though...you tend to really want that.

Personally, I'd just go with Infinity and Duress and call it a day. But that's because I don't like having to switch gear just to run some ubers or whathaveyou. If you do feel like switching..then yeah, fort for most other things.

Rezvei wrote: 3 years ago

That's why I came to the forum for answers, in my environment there are no people who could tell. And I played D2 more than 20 years ago, at that time, little was understood at all. And now I'm trying to figure it all out. Unfortunately, I don't have much experience playing other classes to see the all picture. I'm sorry if the questions sound stupid

Not stupid, just perplexing. You're asking fairly basic questions while having some of the most expensive gear.

With any of the items you've listed, you will roll through anything diablo 2 hast to offer.

I concur with Schnorki. Infinity and Duress make for an obliterative combination. Your merc will lay waste to anything he faces and your team as a whole will benefit. Just make sure to get a helmet with life leech.

Before you get Infinity, Obedience or Insight will do well.

People, thank you all. I managed to get through the

Pandemonium Event. The mercenary was equip Obedience, Duress and

Guillaume's Face. There was a little lack of survivability, but now everything is in order with damage. Obedience made me very happy. Thanks again for the advice