Overall, I like the fact that there has been an effort to improve the usefulness of the Iron Wolves. However, I feel that the damage is still severely lacking compared to the Act 2 mercenaries.
Here are some of my suggestions:
General:
- Add elemental masteries for each type to improve damage. This could become very strong at high levels, so I recommend adding only 1 point to mastery for every 10 levels of the character… or something along those lines. This would significantly increase damage for each element by being able to stack +skill items to improve the mastery level.
- I think the AI for these mercenaries has improved some, but there is still room for even more improvement. I think making these mercenaries prioritize champion monsters and monsters that are not immune to their element would be a good start.
Fire:
- Add Meteor or Hydra instead of Firebolt. Firebolt is useless and damage is already very lacking for this element. I think adding Fire Mastery would help, but fire is still very weak in Hell.
Cold:
- Add Blizzard or Frozen Orb in place of Glacial Spike. The damage on Glacial Spike is about the same as Ice Blast and I find the crowd control benefit of Glacial Spike insignificant. Adding Blizzard or Frozen Orb would allow the Cold Iron Wolf to have some significant crowd control. I see this pairing extremely well with a FoH Pally, a Fire Sorc, or a Fire Druid.
Lightning:
- Add damage. I think the combination of Charge Bolt and Lightning is good, but they just need to do more damage to be useful in Hell. Adding Lightning Mastery would be an easy fix for this issue.
I think if some of these changes are implemented, the Act 3 Mercenary could become very widely used in place of the Act 2 Mercenary for elemental builds that don’t rely on Infinity. They could even be used as a temporary solution until Infinity is obtained on a Light Sorc, Light Trapper, or Javazon.
3 Likes
the fire one can get to around 5k - 6k fire damage with the right gear.
1 Like
I second this. There is no amount of gear for the lightning or cold act 3 merc that makes them useful. They need higher base damage on their skills or double scaling with + skills items to make them useful. Seems like the fire merc has a niche with enchant but if they rarely cast that fireball, 5 k damage is more like 500.
Wow, in high skill gear the lightning merc just did like 1-2000. Ill have to test out the fire merc, that’s like the equivalent of a 10k lightning though.
Edit: after testing the fire merc there’s no way it’s getting up to 5-6k fireball. With 6 skills and an ormus it was only doing 2200. All act 3 mercs need a damage boost.
he casts fire ball 50% of the time, 25% fire bolt and 25% enchant.higher base skill level is a possibility, masteries or another synergy (which basically has the same effect like a mastery). cold will always suck damage wise, but they got CC, so thats justified. id say he needs a bit love damage wise though. lightning definitely needs more damage. he should be above fire because of the big rng in his damage (he makes it to around 4000-4500 max damage right now (ormus+facet, spirit sword, griffons+facet, headhunter with 3 facets)
his casting % are a bit suboptimal too: 18.9% static (35/185), charged bolt 30,9% (60/185) and lightnign 49% (90/185). also charged bolt is just useless. there is just no way around it. chain lightning would already help alot with aoe (since its not reliant on the mercs ai for aiming). but they still need a bit more damage.
I tried the act 3 lightning one and was severely disappointed. He never cast static field once as I fought Mephisto, Izual, or Diablo. And those fights took a while since I was testing a summoning druid.
I guess it is also worth mentioning his AI is decent so he was rarely in range to do so.
2 Likes
But what if he uses Trang Oul Helm and Armor +18 to Fireball ? The Chaos Armor can be upgraded for further defense (Shadow plate, IIRC ? ) and with -40% to requirements ,strength is not an issue. He can then equip Spirit Sword and either Etheral Spirit Monarch, or some other RainbowFaceted shield…? Trang Oul pieces can be further socketed ,via Larzuk…
now that is an interessting setup…not sure if the +fireball gets added, but if yes that would be better than ormus. and you could even socket it with facets.
at level 98 he has lvl 30 fireball, level 32 firebolt.
Setup 1: hexfire, trang ouls, 4 os eth monarch, all 7 sockets with facets
Fireball (lvl 51): 4883-5254 (6592-7093 with +fire dmg, without -35% res)
Facets: +35% Fire damage, -35% Res
Frames: 17 (0 fcr)
DPS: 9306-10014 ; without -35% res
Setup 2: Spirit Sword & Shield, Trang Ouls with 2 facets
Fireball (lvl 52) 5004-5382 (5504-5920 with +fire dmg, without -10% res)
Facets: +10% Fire damage, -10% Res
Frames: 12 (70 fcr)
DPS: 11008-11840 ; without -10% res
Setup 3: 6 os Crystal sword, 4os monarch, Trang ouls, all 12 sockets with facets
Fireball (lvl 48) 4518-4870 (7229-7792 with +fire dmg, without -60% res)
Facets: +60% Fire damage, -60% Res
Frames: 17 (0 fcr)
DPS: 10206-11000 ; without -60% res
Setup 3 would have roughly 16k dps with the -res, setup 2 roughly 12.5k, setup 1
13k
This is a fair question. Are they treated like sorceresses and do not receive more than 3 points into something they naturally have?
1 Like
Is it confirmed? I also think that it is O-skill and as merc behaves like a sorc, this should be considered as a bug.
Anyway I support masteries for A3, just this simple change solve their dmg issue. And my estimated lvl formula should be (clvl-26)/4 so they get it at lvl 30 and at 90lvl their masteries are at lvl 15.
no, its not confirmed. i read conflicting stuff on the internet. some say it behaves like ormus and you get the bonus, some say the +3 cap. guess we’ll have to wait until someone starts farming in ptr. it would make the budget option (double spirit) for this build much better.
even a flat lvl 1 mastery would already be great.
it can be tested in SP in converted char or not?
it can, you can use hero editor, yes.