Act 3 mercs still bad 2.4

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).

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interesting! thanks for the info.

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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:

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.

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

Looking for more opinions on this.

Here are my thoughts below…

Act 3 Iron Wolf

  • Can now use staffs and orbs
  • Can now use Teleport for added survivability
  • Can now gain +sorceress skill bonuses from gear
    • As Act 1 receives +amazon skill bonuses and Act 5 receives +barbarian skill bonuses, then it makes sense Act 3 should receive +sorceress skill bonuses
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If rogues can use Amazon bows, ironwolves should be able to use sorceress orbs as well. They are mages and sorcerers after all. Having access to deaths fathom or eschutas might help them a bit.

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Just give them Masteries. Problem solved.

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Gotta keep the thread alive! Make sure the devs hear us!

I think the Act 3 merc would benefit greatly from the ability to use staffs and orbs and benefit from +sorceress skills. Death’s Fathom would be pretty cool with its boost to cold damage or Eschuta’s Temper with boost to fire and lightning damage.

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Give them all the caster items/orbs/staffs etc you want. They will still be nothing without Masteries. Their damage is abysmal, without a way to make it get much better, the merc is still useless.

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Good point, what level of mastery would you give all the variants of the Act 3 merc to make them viable? In addition to everything else mentioned.

I’d like to see a ‘natural’ mastery at lvl 90 of at least 11 (+100% before the +6 skills from gear). I’m totally fine not making mastery usable until lvl 40, 30 is the natural level for mastery but it’s fine if it comes in later.

This is of course a very rough guess, I don’t have the time for a more ‘accurate’ look.

First we have to understand what we want from the A3 mercenary.

If we want them to be a tank, then they need to be able to achieve 75% block chance (higher dex) and equip a Stormshield (higher strength). Their AI will also need re-work to not run away from attackers. Their spells will need to be melee viable (i.e. Charged Bolt/Nova, Blizzard/Glacial Spike, Meteor/Fire Wall/Hydra).

If we want them to be utility, then their AI will need to cast their utility spells in the proper way. I see that’s where they’re being led, but they should cast Enchant before a battle even starts. Static field should be spammed upon engaging any enemy and only stopped at 50% health, Glacial Spike should be all over the screen every second of each fight.

If we want them to deal damage… then they will be completely broken at the start of ladder. They would have to be doing 3-4 times the damage of a player when they first get to Act III hell mode just to be even considered at end-game. 4 pieces of gear will not be able to get them anywhere close to what 60-80 skill points in synergies can achieve.

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Could we give them energy shield or something? I still find the Act 3 merc’s biggest problem is surviving…

Posts above about more damage would be nice to have…

Regarding equipping wands and orbs - no… Diablo 2 has lore associated with it and Iron Wolves are a “spellsword” type character with sword and shield… This is great from the storytelling and RPG perspective of the game… I’m not a fan of breaking in-game canon just because it is “convenient”…

I’d rather they make some new uniques or runeword swords that specifically suit the Iron Wolves :+1:

Well, if there is a lore, then it would be at least nice to have them use daggers - Wizardspike or Spectral shard are also used by casters .

The other possibility would be to unlock HoTO to Swords as well, so Act 3 Merc can equip HoTO Crystal Sword for casting.

Watching a few videos and it looks like the act 5 merc is pretty much on par with the act 2 merc when it comes to clear speed. Hopefully the act 1 and 3 mercs see equal improvement.

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They need to make them able to use sorcerer only skill +, then make a runeword with swords that gives +2 to each elemental mastery(sorcerer only), +1 to all skills, 40% cast rate, +life, damage resists , chance to teleport when struck or cast fear, because other then spirit what good weapons can they use ? It would also make ormus robes better with them as well.

I would like to see orbs as an option for act 3 mercs, eschutas alone would be worth it. Though I’ve seen posts that it goes against the lore of iron wolves.

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