With the recent 2.4 mercenary rework there has been a lot of discussion about what the new best merc is. The Act 3 mercs are universally thought of as nicely improved but, still not good enough to consider using. I have been working a few of them into my builds lately and they work a lot better than people seem to be giving them credit. That being said, I don’t see them ever being the mainstream option. This write up is about how to best leverage and equip them and where they fit in the mix. There are some edge cases where they are the best overall choice for a particlar setup. Hopefully, this will help some players decide if they want to give them another look and put all the options on the table.
Where they are the wrong choice:
So, let’s get the obvious point out of the way. The old strategy of selling your first born child and left nut for a slew of rainbow facets. Then equipping an Act 3 merc with gear as many sockets of possible will still work. But, if you are looking at these guys for overall DPS, then you are wasting a lot of resources. The Act 5 frenzy barb will out DPS any other mercenary hands down. Likewise, the Act 2 mercs are well documented with their 6 available auras along with insight, reaper’s toll and several high DPS polearms. Likewise, we also have infinity or pride if you can afford one.
If you are considering an Act 3 mercenary then it comes down to if their abilites are going to be more useful to you than the Act 2 and 5 mercs. In the vast majority of cases the answer to that question is no. Both of them out DPS the Act 3 mercs and offer better support options in terms of the Act Auras and the mana recovery of insight. That being said after reading below you might find something you want to try out and see if it better suits your needs.
The Basics:
The Act 3 mercs all come with 3 sorceress spells of their given element. Cold has Ice Bolt, Glacial Spike and Shiver Armor. Lightning has charge bolt, lightning and static field. Finally, Fire has firebolt, fire ball and enchant. Additionally, all 3 of them can use a sword, armor, helmet and a shield. The Act 3 mercs tend to have the lowest base strength and dexterity of the available mercenaries. However, they do have decent defense and the highest overall base elementa resistances of the choices on offer.
The Ice Merc:
So, the Ice merc has ice bolt, glacial spike and Shiver Armor. Overall, he has the lowest attack damage of three on a per spell basis. However, every spell he fires will chill and or freeze the target and disable them for at least a second. He is good at slowing foes down and stopping them in their tracks. Likewise, he also will cause a healthy number of them to shatter on death leaving no corpses behind for those annoying enemies to revive. This can go both ways if your character needs corpses for some skills, such as redemption, feeding the druids summons, find item or anything a necromancer does. If you are not one of those builds he is a good option if you want to keep from being overwhelmed and want to slow things down.
The Ice Merc’s shiver armor gives him very high defense boost. If he had decent base defense from his gear he can have the highest potential for that stat in the game. Likewise, any missle attack that impacts him will automatically get hit with a 1.5 second freezing is bolt in retaliation. This gives him the ability to freeze multiple targets at a range and slow the pace of combat down. The main drawbacks on an ice merc is his overall damage is realtively low compared to most other mercenaries. Secondly against anything that is cold immune he is basically a walking tv dinner. Last, as stated above he destroys about 40 to 60% of the enemy coprses leaving some classes without access to them for the relevant skills.
He is a good fit for any melee character who wants the enemies they are fighting to be chilled and slowed in compbat. Likewise, he attacks at a range keeping him out of harms way, unlike a holy freeze act 2 merc. He also has better resistances and defense potentional than an Act 2 merc or a act 1 cold arrow rouge. Finally, he attacks very quickly and can be brought to bear much faster than an ice rouge when it comes to overall crowd control. However, he cannot use the insight rune word as teh Act 1 and 2 mercs can.
Lightning:
The lightning version of the Act 3 mercs has the spells charge bolt, lightning and static field. He has a higher damage potential than the ice merc on each spell he casts. Additionally, charge bolt has a very wide area of effect and lightning pierces multiple targets when it hits. His level of static field has a very healthy range and he casts it pretty frequently. The Lightning merc will cast static field about once every 15 seconds once combat starts. This can easily whittle down groups of foes and bosses to half their total health in a minute or two if you struggle with groups. Likewise, his other spells blanket a wide area and can chip enemies down further.
The lightning merc is all about softening up targets. If you are a character who tackles one target at a time then moves onto the next. By the time you reach the last member of a pack of monsters. It’s health will likely be 60 to 80% gone letting you finish it off easily. Likewise, if you don’t deal lightning damage yourself and you come up against monsters immune to your damage types he can get the job done if you give him the right equiment and enough time to work. The lightning merc doesn’t kill stuff fast, but if something is not immune to lightling he can put a pretty good dent in its health pool before you get around to finishing it off.
Likewise, if lightning immunity is one of the easiest to break. If you even have a lower resist wand in your off hand, static field will chew down anything’s health if you can break the immunity. This gives him a lot of utility against crowds and combat strategies. He makes a nice companion for any kit that takes on targets one at a time. He is also a good fit if you are using lower resist on a necromance or conviction on a paladin as part of your build. The main drawback here is that his damage is outdone by the more physical mercenaries and his overall kill speed is lacking.
Fire:
The Fire Act 3 merc is a mixed bag who has recieved a lot of attention lately. His two main attacks of fireball and firebolt deal around 1500 to 2500 fire damage to a target depending on your +skills and gear on him. Fireball has a spread of a few yards and fire bolt is a single target. Likewise, given the overall fire immunity on the hell difficulty his damage is not particularly stellar. Like his brothers, if you don’t deal fire damage yourself he can be an alternate damage type when you run up against something immune to your setup. But, his overall kill speed is lacking.
The main draw of the fire Merc is his enchant skill which starts in the low 30’s and can be rasied from there. This is higher than some player sorceresses who specialize in it tend to reach. However, the Fire merc does not have the warmth or fire mastery skills. So, while you get all the attack rating boost, it only adds about 200 to 250 fire damage at the most. As far as how often does he cast enchant. Once the fighting starts he will have himself, you, anthing you summon and anything else in your party enchanted within about 30 seconds and his skill lasts about 15 minutes.
The fire merc’s enchant offers more of an attack rating boost than anything else in the game unless you have a overskilled player enchantress in your party. It’s about 370 to 420% with the right gear. Likewise, if he dies during combat, you and everything he enchanted keeps that benifit for a while, unlike a blessed aim Act 2 merc who’s aura dies with him. Likewise, while 200 to 250 fire damage isn’t a lot. That an additional damage to every single physical attack made by everything in the party. It does add up and is worth considering.
If you need the attack rating and don’t need one of the Act 2 merc spears he is the best overall choice. The obvious place for him in a lot of people’s mind is on a summoner build. But, that can be a misconception. If you are running a summoner druid or necromancer who that is their main strategy. Basically, you are maxing out skeleton mastery and raise skeleton, or wolf, dire wolf and bear in the druids case. Then a Act 2 might mercenary will add more damage through their aura to your summons than what you pick up from the Fire Merc’s enchant.
That being said, if you or another party memeber is a tacit summoner. Basically, you put one point into each summoning skill and let your +skills gear give some some mediocer summons. So, you are a necromancer with 1 point in raise skeleton and 7 or 8 revives, or a druid with one hard point in each wolf to get to the bear. Then that 200 to 250 fire damage might be more than your low level friend can down on their own and the 400% attack rating will let them actually hit things. This can add a little bite to what otherwise is just a 1 to 3 hit kill meat shield from the enemies. It also let’s those summons damage enemies who are immune to physical. So, in the case of a summoner it comes down to your overall strategy and what you are going for. You can always animate an junk insight into an iron golem if you need that option to go with the fire merc.
Getting Equipped:
So, I’ve covered the basics of the mercenaries from act 3 and when you might want to consider them. If you decide one is the right choice for you let’s take a look at some options for how you want to equip them. That way you can get the most out of them. The idea of loading up on 5/5 facets is cost prohbitive and not really worth the investment but there are some good options and a lot of them are very reasonably priced. Let’s go slot by slot.
Swords:
So, the Act 3 merc’s have a sword slot. They do not actually attack enemies with their swords. So, it’s best to pick something that fills the build. There are a lot of good choices available to you.
Spirit: Spirit is cheap, makes the mercs cast faster and boosts all of their skills by +2. It’s a good option and fits all 3
Hell Plauge: This offers a +2 fire skills and you might find it early in the game or in a ladder situation before you get the runes for spirt.
Cresant Moon: This can be a nice addition to a lightning merc offer a -35% enemy lightning resist if you want to go that route rathern than loaind up on facets
Hexfire Shamshir: Again a sinple +3 to fire skills offering one more than spirt and some fire resist for a fire merc.
Lawbringer: While this option won’t be procing the decrepify aura it is often used for. It will provide a 13 to 16 level sanctuary aura. This will pulse damage and push back undead enemies. More importantly it will completely remove all the physical resisances from that enemy type. This will let you hammer them effortlessly to death with physical damage. Likewise, the slain monsters rest in peace ability only triggers if you kill them with the sword. So, this is a good way to get that aura if you still want corpses.
6 socketed crystal sword: Just a cheap way if you want load one of these guys up wiht a slew of options from extra, life, resist, magic find ect. Take your pick.
Silence: Silence is a very expensive rune word for this merc, but it boasts the same +2 to skills as spirit and 75 to all resistances.
Azurewrath: You will likely need about 20 to 25 dex in the level 80 range to equip this. But it provides the sanctuary aura from lawbringer and +1 to skills. Expensive but, another worth option if you have it.
Armor:
Unlike other merc’s the act 3 merc’s don’t need fortitude for the added damage or treachery for the fade and venon as they don’t make physical attacks:
Griswolds Armor: Griswolds set armor offers you +20 strength which is enough at level 80 to equip a monarch spirti shield along with 3 sockets for other goodies.
Spirit Shrowd: This armor offers the merc an easy +1 to skills and cannot be frozen. It’s a more budget option but it doesn’t require a lot of stats to equip.
Viper Magi: This armor offers +1 skills, all resists and increased cast speed with a lot stat requirement as well. It suits them all around and is a great budget option
Quahls Wisdom: Again we have a +1 to skills and faster cast rate in a low strength requirement package. It’s pretty cheap to find and equip.
Guardian Angel Templar Coat: Again, this armor is well within their strenght range and offers a higher max resist all around which the Act 3 mercs can easily fill.
Levathon Plate: This one will require to to socket it up with a hel rune to get it into the strength range. However, this armor offers up to +50 to strength and can be needed to equip some other gear that can be useful.
Naj light plate: Again this one has low strenth requirments and offers +66 life, +1 skills, and resist and a healthy def base. They are cheap and easily tradable for.
Any high def armor: This one really applies mostly to the cold merc, but with a good def on his armor, sheild and helm paired with his shiver armor skill he can be hard to hit keeping him alive.
Oramus’s Robe: These can have +3 to one of the skills on one of the merc s and offer a 10 to 15% damage boost to their skills.
Helmet:
Unlike most other merc’s the Act 3 mercs don’t need life steal so this opens up some other options.
Night Wings: This offers +2 to skills and added cold damage. However, it can also be a good choice for the other 2 mercs just from the high def and +2 skills.
Harlequen crest: Again we have a +2 to skills which is the main want for this merc type and a healthy boost to life as well. There are some other nice feathers like damage reduction and magic find as well.
Any + skills hat: This would be anything from a peasant crown to an Ort Sol hat you craft yourself. Gaining +1 to all skills can boost these mercs output a lot.
Andarial’s visage: Again we have +2 to skills and some high posion resists. However, with the right other gear the -30 fire resist might not be a factor on an Act 3 merc.
The Face of Horror: This helmet doesn’t offer +skills, but it does come with +15 to all resist and +25 to strenght serving as an alternative option to equip a spirit monarch or some heavier gear elsewhere.
Giant’s skull: This helmet offers +35 strength to help equip heavier items and leaves you 2 open sockets to customize your loadout with
Griffian’s eye: This one is very expensive, but it offers +1 skills, faster cast, lighting damage boost and - enemy lighting resist. If you have one lying around and pick a lightning merc it’s best in slot.
Shields:
The one unique option the Act 3 mercs have is they have a shield slot where other mercs don’t this opens up a few additoinal options.
Spirit: A spirt rune word in a monarch sheild is good def, faster cast and +2 to skills. Around level 80 you will need 20 to 30 strength to equip one. Hence why some of the strength increasing options are listed above.
Storm Shield: This offers a 35% physical damage reduction and good resistances with a healthy def stat and is a good filler if you want to keep them alive.
Lidless Eye: This is a +1 skills option if you don’t have enough strength for spirit.
Black Cloak: This shield offers a chance to cast level 5 weaken when struck, offers a ton of cold asorb and comes with about gives 100+ to life based on character level
3 perfect diamonds: 59 to all resists should max any of tehse guys out in a hurry if you cannot find something better.
Splendor: At eth and Lum this sheild offers +1 skills and enhanced defs if you don’t have the strenght for spirt.
Medusa’s Gaze: Yeah I now you are trying to figure out how to get 219 strenght onto one of these guys. You use a Giant’s skull to equip a leviathon plate then put a hel rune in the medusa’s gaze. This shield offers a ton of cold resist and a chance to proc level 7 lower resist when struck. The lower resist skill can break fire and lightning immunities or be nice add on for any elemental based character.
Well, there we have the best outline I could offer for the new Act 3 mercs. They are not the right choice for everyone. But, they do offer a few unique options that the more mainstream mercs dont’ So, if you have interest in their offerings I hope you give them another look. Likewise, if you play with a group, having a more diverse merc spread can make the game intersting. An Act 2 merc with a might aura and insight is a common best pick for a physical melee class. But if 3 of us all show up with one then they become redundant. If someone offers a fire merc from act 3 then we get the 400% AR, and a little more damage on top. Likewise, stacking enchant with blessed aim is just ridiculus. So, if you play with a group, they might be worth considering just for the unique variety they add to a situation.
Thanks for reading.
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