lol my merc does more dmg than i do at the moment. All my nice finds have ended up on him.
life leech and a fast attack speed go a long way to helping stay alive OP 
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I have an Act II Holy Freeze Merc with insight in a none eth base. I use Treachery armor and Tal helm for life leech. His purpose is not to kill much but just to stay alive to hold Insight so to keep him alive I just keep him away from things as much as possible. I use frozen orb so I can slow monsters down and I teleport enough to prevent him from staying in one place. In places like cows you pretty much have to teleport backswords continually.
i miss my 25k dmg barb merc on pd2 with a 1600 top end eth thundermaul
actually i became the merc
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You might not know but there is a way to bug your merc so monsters wont target him.
If you go so fast or get the merc stuck so he is out of range and not seen on the minimap for long enough, and he appears next to you, sometimes he becomes “bugged”.
Most consistent way to do this is go to outer cloister, run to a door, go through it, but close the door before the merc can go through. then run out of range so he derps out on the wall. As soon as he appears next to you, voila, he is bugged.
Repositioning the merc using teleport is the most sure way to keep him alive in hell.
the intended way : Life leech and gear, he can become almost unkillable.
The Diablo way : Bug him. Act 2 mercs cant open doors, go somewhere, easiest place is the outer cloister, then close a door in his face and run away, when he appears next to you hes bugged, for the remainder of that game monsters will ignore him. However he still takes aoe dmg and ranged attacks because their AI is different.
as an enchantress he IS my damage lol
While we are on this subject my merc is dying while doing Andy runs due to poison. I use Treachery with Tal Helm and have 64 all resist. Do you guys think maxing his poison resist would help enough?
It’s important to be aware that poison will kill mercs, even though poison doesn’t kill the player. Aside from that, their gear should be focused on survival. Frankly If you really want them to just not die, i’d say stack a lot of replenish life and they will recover faster, particularly with potions. They have some replenish life natively, but more does help.
Act bosses do multiple times more damage to mercs. It is very hard to keep them alive on act bosses. But for andariel specifically, use antidote pots on them, and max poison resist.
Drop one antidote potion on him before the run. Or after he gets poisoned. Or just leave him dead while running Andy.
My act2 might merc does ok, he only dies now and then when amplify magic gets applied to us doing like a council or baal run and i am not quick enough getting us (him) the hell out of dodge by running out and taking a more dosed approach.
For this he gets fed plenty of big pink pots by me when need be and he’s wearing treachery runeword in an archon plate, tals mask as a headpiece and reapers or obedience for a weapon (both are treshers).
TL;DR :
Supply him with plenty of life leech and a treachery runeword armor and a relatively fast weapon and/or some increased attack speed on the gear. And apply plenty of rejuvi pots.
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If your merc dies while fighting away from you then, you have to follow the merc.
Actually, with mobs on open map this is best way to move if loosing merc hurts your health.
This is common in early game before you have all gg gear or BIS.
also being a higher level makes a big difference
You can prebuff a potion?
Well, a timed effect like antidote, yes. It’s a lot like a resist shrine that gives max resist to something for some period of time. Only the pot is +50 resist and cures all poison at the time of use.
If keeping him alive is really of concern in mere Andy runs, then use one slot on the belt for 3 or 4 poison pots and keep curing him just before he dies.
I personally would just leave him dead for the duration of my Andy runs though.
I’ve just been following traditions in regards to Treachery… is it actually true that having a lower defense base procs it more?
Been using a basic balrog skin treach with tals helm, it works quite well.
You need gaze + duriels/treachery and a LL pole arm.
For me on andy it makes all the difference if i get a little headstart damaging her before my merc does, as long as she’s aggrod to me he’s fine with the poison.
I’m a melee char though, not sure how this works for ranged.
What weapon are you using? Different weapons have different base attack speeds. If your weapon is very slow your merc also leeches very slow
Mercs get end game kits just like players do. There’s lots of different options for decent merc kits too many to go into here.
You can make your merc so tough he can tank almost anything if you want. Until then though looking after your merc is part of how you play. You’ll get the hang of it
Depending on what class your playing obedience is a decent cheap polearm, there is a unique pole that casts decrepify called the reapers toll. Always use a life leech hat crown of thieves is cheap and easy to find vampire’s gaze or Andriel’s visage if your lucky. Ethereal gear is really good on a merc since it does not take damage back in the day I liked ethereal shaft stop armour and vampire gaze but there are a ton of options check it out on google lots of information out there.