I’ve been using the Act 5 Barbarian Mercenary since .10 (almost 19 years now) because it’s fun, different, and still somewhat viable. I believe, however, that if Battle Cry is added to its rotation it will become completely useless.
Battle Cry overrides all Curses. This hurts the Necromancer class hardest (and any class borrowing its Curses through items such as Dracul’s Grasp) because invalidates an entire skill tree. All melee classes will suffer because items like Dracul’s Grasp, Exile, Last Wish, and Atma’s Scarab won’t function properly as their debuffs will be immediately overriden randomly and negated. It will also override Cloak of Shadows, the recently buffed Grim Ward, Ravens blind effect, any items with “Hit Blinds Target,” and items with “Hit causes Monsters to Flee.”
It should be the player who determines what debuffs enemy monsters have, not an AI. The Barbarian class has so many flavorful and unique skills to choose from, I don’t understand why the Mercenary version of it has to be so restrictive. If I were to suggest a skill to give the Act 5 Barbarian Mercenary it would be one of the following: War Cry, Sword Mastery, Increased Speed, or Frenzy.
War Cry would be amazing because it would fit the theme that Bash and Stun both share. The player can pummel the monsters with their attacks while the Mercenary holds the demons at bay with its stuns and knockback abilities. With the minor buff coming to War Cry in 2.4 it might also do a decent amount of damage to enemies in its small AoE.
Sword Mastery would bring the Barbarians generally lower-damage more in line with the Act 2 mercenary when it comes to damage output. Obviously it would have to be a low level of mastery, because otherwise it would be too strong. Still, it would give other options when it comes to weapon choices, as players are generally forced to look for items with Deadly Strike.
Increased Speed would also be fitting because the Barbarians are supposed to be some of the most physically fit warriors out of all classes in Sanctuary. It would be awesome to jump into the fray and see your Act 5 Mercenary immediately lock eyes with an opponent and chase them down with lightning speed.
Frenzy would be similar to Increased Speed, but would also increase damage output like Sword Mastery. Just like Sword Mastery I believe this would have to be a low level, otherwise it might make the Act 5 Mercenary too strong.
I sincerely hope the developers rethink the move to add Battle Cry to the Act 5 Mercenary. If I was only given the option of Battle Cry or nothing, I’d say nothing is the way to go. If it ain’t broke, don’t “fix” it!
12 Likes
Or we could have more options to choose from. A Battle Cry merc, a War Cry merc, a Shout merc and a Battle Orders merc. Pick what you like. They can buff, debuff or CC.
12 Likes
Just a bo merc would make him good enough. He is as good of a blocker as one could get. Only shout or battle orders would make him viable compared to other mercs.
5 Likes
My only issue with Shout and Battle Orders is that they could potentially override stronger levels produced by players.
2 Likes
Then you shout or bo again. He doesn’t cast battle cry that often either. One should also think who would use a barb as merc, not a barb for sure (act1 or act2).
or you could simply let battle cry not override curses. very easy change. in states.txt you delete the 1 in curses for battle cry and it wont override them. similar like inner sight.
5 Likes
Yeah you bring up a good point. Even more so, the CtC lower resist from the new weapon that can only be rolled in the swords will get overridden… what a mess.
Overall the “shrine\curse” override system in D2 is quite messy. There are those “hit blinds target” and “hit causes monster to flee” that are messed up most of the time.
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Thats why there are multiple to choose from bro. if u have stronger level skills just pick another merc. Anyone not playing barb or having cta on weapon switch would be able to use this as an alternative to act 2 merc
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Yes Please make a different choice of skill or just step back and remove 3rd unwanted skill from barbarian skill „tree”.
Save The Lawbringer a5 merc!!!
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War Cry or Battle Command are the way to go.
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Well Barb is in a pickle when it comes to spending points on skills, so maybe this way you can let your A5 do those war cries, on whatever lvl, and you freed up points for your self as a Barbarian. Yaaaay. Problem solved. You’re welcome. 
1 Like
OK, I know the proper solution to it.
Some of the debuffs need to be moved to a different category that don’t conflict with each other. This would allow some debuffs stack and some not.
We already have this category actually. It has Inner Sight in it. So right now inner sight stacks fully with curses.
So battle cry should be in the same category as Inner Sight is, i.e. they should override each other; and fully stack with curses.
This would actually be a very significant overall buff to barbs
as far as i know there is only auras, curses, and nothing (meaning it can stack with everything. inner sight is there. you can look it up in states.txt. im pretty much in favor of that suggestion, but i would have to know if debuff enemy damage would is capped similarly as reduce enemy damage on armors. otherwise weaken and battle cry could get like 90% damage reduction or so. if it was capped at 50% that suggestion would be a very good one.
No. The A5 merc should not have BO. That would be giving him slightly too much power. There are options. If you’re using a necromancer, use a different merc. Problem solved.
2 Likes
thanks for pointing me to states.txt
I have found this description on phrozenkeep: https://d2mods.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=51635
The group property is something that can be used for this
Stacking with weaken is a very edge case, i don’t see why it should be a problem. Necros won’t bother using weaken; CtC weaken from the new runeword… ok whatever 
it’s a zod rune and from staves only…
Btw is there a cap on weaken anyway? it starts at 33% and at level 50 it will be 82%. Could be a fun BM spell in PvP 
its actually much easier: just delete the 1 in curses for battle cry
1 Like
Give merc a Lawbringer.
Monsters are shouted over and decrepified.
-90% damage
-90% defense
-50% attack speed
-50% physical resistance
I guess that dual wirt’s leg frenzy barb is going nicely.
*-49% damage at lvl 98
with a cap at -50% that would not be a deal
When stacked with decrepify, even with a -50% damage cap ( stacked it would be -90%), you still have -90% defense, -50% damage, -50% physical resistance, -50% speed. A touch OP, in my opinion.
clay golem’s also get stacked with -50%speed though, and you have to consider that sword doesnt do physical damage (no Enhanced damage), so the -50% damage is quite neglectable. the only thing in question is the -enemy damage stacking with slow down from decrept and there we got the clay golem example with similar mechanism
