Yeah I wouldn’t realy want to add another melee merc to the rooster, but this way they could actually proc on strike effects, which is tied to weapon attacks. Now they can only proc when struck effects, but they are usualy out of range, and too squishy to make it work. And mercenarys bigest usefullness is procing additional effects, further helping your clears, and also Heal themselfs.
I find the aura’s more useful, but procs can be depending on the build.
Wow, giving an act 3 merc the trang bonus would be kinda op…
Does the fire act 3 merc actually get +18 to his fireball with the 2 piece?
no, someone else tested this and they get the cap +3 that a sorc would get.
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So then they should get the benefit of +sorc only items, like ormus’ robes.
Yupp, this should be the way to go.
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For me, the main drawback is that the A3 merc can’t life leech. I’m cool to just use him for crowd control (cold), buffs (fire), and AoE (lightning). But until you have teleport and can stop him killing himself, he’s pretty useless…
So if he’s no good pre-teleport, I need to rely on a different merc as I level up and farm my Enigma. And by then, whichever merc I’ve chosen is probably already geared up nicely. So chances are I won’t bother swapping to A3 merc…
So yeah, he needs a little extra somethin’ somethin’ …
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my suggestion was to give him block animation and blockchance to give him better survivability. that would also give some extra itemization options (etheral spirit for offense vs stormshield or defense moser’s (for res) or high block % shields like Whitstan’s Guard)
Edit: this would also lead to interesting choices since even an etheral stormshield needs 146 str, meaning you would either only be able to use it at very high levels or you would have to sacrifice offense (facets for more damage) for amethysts.
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Yeah, those sorts of tweaks are perfect. Give him chance to block, give him a healing spell he can use outside combat to heal up, give him a small STR boost so he can equip a non-eth monarch a little sooner. Those would be my top wishes…
Extra damage would always be nice to have…
I expect Blizzard is reluctant to add masteries, because they don’t want the A3 merc to become an Auradin (dual dream or Dragon+HoJ etc). Makes sense to me 
they could add a defensive mastery with sort of like mana shield overlay and give him physical damage resistance, and cold, fire, lightning, and magic spell damage absorption as passive, i mean lore fantasy wise it would fit perfectly. physical damage could be ommited totally and engine allows up to 63% spell damage absorption per element so not only up to 63% elemental damage reduction, but also up to 63% healing from that damage. given proper resists and the merc could actually sustain. damage wise i think passive single element buffs are nice too, however as I mentioned in other thread i think it’s time to introduce 100% when struck rainbow facets and combat immunities with multiple elements instead of conviction/lower res.
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If you give them Masteries then, in addition to the extra damage that is desperately needed, the + to all skills give a good benefit as it not only raises the used skill but the mastery as well.
Survivability with the Wolves and the Rouges is just learning to play with them. You can’t play the same as you do when you have a Desert Snake or Barb, those thrive in melee range. For the Rouge I had to learn to jump in the fight first so she was back by default. I also stay aware when she is being attacked and do my best to clear those monsters first. Basically the tactics change from my Zealot to my Trapper…
I also suggested that when the first patch notes came out. But sadly nothing.
Whit 2p Griswold’s set they have enough strenght to wear a spirit monarch.
Yeah… so i got carried away by modding d2 recently, and came to conclusion 100% when struck facets of other elements are meh for the most part… not only they don’t proc from most elemental attacks, but most melee monsters don’t proc it as well… ( although they do hell of a good job aginst javelin throwers and bow wielders), and additionally only fire merc handles them correctly, cold merc has chilling armor, and increased armor class prevents im from beeing hit and proc, and him freezing monsters doesn’t help that either…
so i went back to the single element lore fantasy, and instead went the new skills route. have him two extra passives damage mastery both +xxx% to single element damage and -xxx% to enemy single element resistance. third skill is a copycat of conviction aura ( each has a different one) the AC% penalty is removed, only affects version element now, and -% res has been buffed in terms of gains and max cap upped… the cold one just mowed down Frozenstein on hell difficulty, using only cold skills 
So sky is the limit now…
Basically if You’re a single element caster, get one that shares the same element and immunities are only an issue if you rush onwards and don’t mind level difference between the monsters and your char… that is if devs would decide to implement this… 
Hopefully we’ll see some changes with the launch of 2.4
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Agree, hope Blizzard is still working on this.
Hopefully we’ll see some changes with 2.4.
Bump for visibility.
Pretty disappointed there were no more changes to act 3 mercs. Looks like it’s act 5 all the way.
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