Act 3 mercs still bad 2.4

PTR Feedback
7

Redemption aura would kinda suck for someone that just wants an enchant slave and needs to hork bodies.
Enchant slave sucks anyway, unless they make it so that the ai casts enchant on any nearby allies when you are on town, it would be great for having an extra afk player for higher player count.

8

I wory that masteries would be broken on mercs… Just thinkinng an auradin, with an A3 merc also kitted out with HoJ+Dragon+double Dream with mastery would be crazy… I’m sure it would break something…

9

What do you mean by this? Are Act 3 mercs getting redemption aura in the next patch? This would be awesome…

Phoenix shield is an okay option on the fire A3 merc, but less functional on the light/cold versions… so redemption would be very welcome…

10

The bonus would still be less than what a paladin can get from synergies. It would be good but not broken considering it would require they lose out on skills. They have no aura support so I would just see it as a positive option.

It’s not like it would get to level 45 like a normal light sorc.

11

I’ll say it again here also. If A1 merc can recive bonuses from +to ama skills, and A5 merc can recive bonuses from +to barb skills, than A3 merc should recive bonuses from +to sorc skills.

3 Likes
12

im not sure if that would be a good idea. im looking at giving a fire a3 merc trang oul’s armor and helmet + double spirit as budget option. if i didnt make a mistake the +18 to fireball should apply to him, since he has the spell, but it shouldnt limit the +18 to +3 because he doesnt count as sorc. i havent tested it yet, but it would be a budget option for damage. i calculated 3 gear setups here, the trang oul comes out quite well:

13

I don’t think our ideas would make eachothers un-viable. I don’t see any colision here.

14

if he gets bonus from +sorc skill he must count as such. if he counts as sorc, he doesnt get the +18 fireball, but only +3. similar as the barb only gets +3 from cta.

15

Ok. I understand it now.

1 Like
16

It was only in the patch notes for a short amount of time then it was pulled.

17

We need a better runewords or gear selection for these mercs. Without the gear to equip to them they will never be good, they are casters so weapon damage does not matter, attack speed does not matter. They have no synergy bonuses were casters get many of their damage buffs. If we could some how give them even low level elemental mastery skills through gear, this would be huge improvement.

The only other thing I think of while keeping them unique and not giving them auras, is give each of them a different curse, like fire with a lifetap curse. Lightning with decrepify, Cold with dim vision.

18

I think Iron Wolves need a bit more strength to be able to equip Monarch for Sprit Shield. So he won’t be stuck with Viper Magi to hit 86 FCR break point.

I think right now he is only viable with Fohdin. Since Conviction 25 and Healing from Holy Bolt works wonder for him.

  • Weapon: Spirit CS
  • Shield: Eth Spirit Monarch or Eth Lidless + 5/5 jewel
  • Up eth Viper + 5/5 jewel
  • Griffon or Artisan Circlet of Magnus (20% FRC + 3x 5/5 jewels)

Reach 86 FCR (10 Frames ~ 200 FCR sorc)

1 Like
19

Act 3 mercs need

  1. more skill points per level in all their skills (since they barely get synergy, they should cap near lvl 90 for their skills to do even remotely comparable dmg; it may sound excessive but I’ve modded a bunch of versions of this and that’s the only way to make them do dmg.)
  2. 6 skills instead of 3. That would make them unique. They should have 2 main dmg skills from their element, 2 utility skills, the mastery skill for their element, and 1 skill from an off element.
20

did you try to mod that into your modde version? i still have the suspecion that there is a reason why they havent put in more than 3 skills for him. i know there are like 6 slots i hirelings.txt. but maybe there ui is porblematic or there is some other reason why they restrict it to 3 skills only. even 1 more synergy which they wouldnt use (0% chance of casting in hirelings.txt) would go miles for them. lightning only makes it to 1-4k (2k average dmg), fire 5k-6k and ice was at something like 1.5k or so

21

Yes, and it works fine. In order for the merc UI to show the skills you just have to change other files (other than the Merc stats and skills file) but that’s not a big deal. Especially if you are adding passive skills, or adding synergy skills with 0 chance of casting (you can just not show those in the UI).

1 Like
22

interesting! thanks for the info.

1 Like
23

What I currently have on my act 3 mercs mod is:

Fire:

  • Inferno (moded to do very high dmg at a capped low range),
  • Fireball,
  • Hydra (modded with no CD),
  • Blaze (modded with a lot of +movement speed),
  • Chain Lighting and Frozen Orb

Lighting:

  • Charged Bolt,
  • Lighting,
  • Storm (moded to do really high dmg),
  • Nova (which I moded to knockback),
  • Frozen Orb and Meteor

Frost:

  • Ice Blast,
  • Glacial Spike,
  • Frozen Armor,
  • Frost Nova (moded to freeze instead of slow),
  • Chain Lighting and Meteor

Those are not ideal skill set-ups; nor I think Blizzard should use those for the act 3 mercs. I just find those set-ups personally fun. The ideal would be closer to what I mentioned earlier:

24

Well it’s good to know it’s relatively easy to add more skills to the mercs. Hopefully they can make adjustments since their damage is fully skill based.

25

Fire:

fireball
Hydra (modded with no CD),

Lighting:
chain light and static shock

Frost:
blizzard or frozen orb
Glacial Spike,
Frozen Armor,

fixed for you

26

Looking for more opinions on this.