Mercenaries - can we have a discussion about them?

This is a copy-paste from the EU forums which are… desolate, to say the least.

Hello, just dropping by to say few things about mercenaries.

I’m not a professional game developer, nor I have any real experience in balancing. Just a fellow player, like you who wants to have fun while playing :slight_smile: .
Also, I know that many people want different things for Diablo. One guy thinks most important are new runewords, the second wants more character builds, the other thinks about new endgame activities and events and so on… I understand and accept that.

With that said, here’s my little request:

Please, please, please, PLEASE make Act 1, Act 3 and Act 5 mercenaries more viable. Not “just barely viable”. Make them really appealing to choose over Act 2 merc which I’m pretty sick and tired of…

With recent addition of new type of skillset for Act 5 merc I really see the light in darkness, but there’s still more work to be done.

Now, my thoughts:
Original Act 5 mercenary (stun/bash) needs just a little boost to compete with his new counterpart (which is very good at the moment). I’d say that he needs to get rid of Bash (knockback) and get better skill instead - maybe Berserk or Zeal?.. or change his Battle Cry to very good Battle Orders, so it will be a tradeoff - less damage but more sustainability for mec and your character?

About Act 1 and Act 3 mercenaries - their biggest problem… I think it’s their AI. Often they just relocate instead of fighting, and Act 2 and Act 5 mercenaries don’t have this problem since… they fight in melee, they RUN TO monsters, not FROM them. I don’t know if it’s fixable, but maybe a small tweak like… Rogue could RUN AWAY from danger instead of walking - with the priority to attack as soon as she would be in safe distance?
Pretty much the same with Iron Wolf with one potential small change - instead of running, he would have a chance (fixed or raising with merc level) to teleport to safe spot. If it can’t be done - he should RUN AWAY too. Once again - he needs to QUICKLY relocate and ATTACK.
Pathfinding may be a problem here too. Mercs do often get stuck walking back and forth… and when they do - they are useless, not doing damge they should.

Also, when talking about Act 3 merc being overwhelmed by monsters… why, why WHY in Diablo’s name sometimes he attacks with melee? This is a problem, since all gear he gets is focused around FCR/+skill/+elem damage/-enemy res - nobody even cares about value of his melee damage. And yet this merc still wastes time to attack with his sword, dealing tickle damage at best. He shouldn’t be allowed to attack this way… OR maybe this attack should be very powerful and/or useful somehow? I don’t know in what way… I know that this fits to the whole fantasy thing, but… it’s just hurting his current state.

Thirdly, I think Rogue’s and Iron Wolf’s damage output is vastly lower than Act 2 and Act 5 merc (especially Iron Wolf’s). Potential solutions:

  • Improve skill leveling / skill damage. I don’t really know about Rogue, but Iron Wolves deal laughable amount of damage since creatures in later stages of the game have very high resistances.

  • Make IAS and FCR values rise with merc level (Act 1 and 3 only, of course). I believe this would slightly help with the relocation problem.

  • Tweak the skills to be more useful.

  • Rogue’s normal attack could be Magic Arrow + Exploding or Freezing Arrow. Or maybe give her one of physbow skills: Multiple or Strafe? OR… remove Blessed Aim merc from Act 2, and give this aura to every Rogue?

  • Iron Wolf’s Fire variant could use Fireball + Enchant and… maybe straight Fire Wall (not horizontal) instead of pitful Fire Bolt? Or maybe high level Firestrike?

  • Cold Variant could get Frozen Orb or Blizzard instead of Ice Blast. Also I don’t know if change from Frozen armor to Chilling armor is a good choice… maybe if it would shoot Ice Blasts instead of Ice Bolts?

  • Lightning variant… just needs to get rid of Charged bolt. This skill is tickle damage too. Nova would be better, I reckon - but then, Nova has limited range so he could act more agressively. Static Field is brilliant addition and it should not be removed.

  • I know that giving Conviction aura to Act 3 merc would be broken, but maybe allow them to pierce immunities? Give -enemy res values rising with every merc level?

Act 3 mercs don’t leech life. This needs to be adressed if they ever aspire to be viable. I think that Redemption aura was a very good choice and I don’t know why the developers reverted that in changelog. If it’s too much - make them regenerate health much, much faster.

Lastly… I think Act 2 mercs could get some small changes too - only Might and Holy Freeze auras are viable - this could be tweaked too. Something like… change Prayer to Cleansing.

Well, there it is. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad post. I just want more diversity in Diablo, a game that I like very much.

Cheers to you all, and have a good day!
Matt

4 Likes

Act 3 merc should have cold, Fire and lightning mastery. Old act 5 merc should have battle order and berserk. And ability to use axes.

Rogue should have multishot and should also use crossbow.

I dont like to see more auras on mercs tho.

2 Likes

I would have just divvied up the Act 2 Auras among all the other mercenaries…there’s no reason for Act 2 mercs to have all the auras. Give Rogue Blessed Aim and Might, give Iron Wolf Holy Freeze and Prayer, give Barb Might and Defiance, and hell you could even leave Act 2 merc with all the auras they already have, at least there would be some parity between all the mercenaries that way, at least every mercenary would at least bring an aura to the table. Combine this with some of the changes they’re already making, and finally Act 2 merc would have real competition.

2 Likes

A3 is now the least viable. A5 is almost better then A2.

Yes, iron wolves need synergies and masteries. And AI for enchant / static could be better. A tiny little logic instead of random skill choice could make an huge difference.

Edit: And if sorc cold armors could be casted on allies like enchant the cold iron wolve could be intersting too, at least for niche builds.

firebolt is a synergy. remove that and he deals even less damage. just like charged bolt for lightning. the only thing id be for is switching lightning bolt with chain lightning, since it does better aoe damage, is a synergy for lightning and would help with the attack frequency problem/relocation poblem you described.

Act 2 - Every aura is very good.

Prayer is sometimes stacked with meditation.

Blessed Aim is actually the best you can do with a Summoner until you get to Nightmare → accuracy is effectively a damage increase.

Thorns is quite viable as a summoner until hell, but that’s a thorns problem.

Defiance is very good as a Sorceress or similar class that lacks a defensive skill. I run Defiance often on my key-runner (because of all the archers) and it’s also decent on a Druid until you get Fort (because he lacks any defensive options outside of ablative HP, which is not sufficient in hell.)

A5 is 100% viable now. For my bliz sorc, where I just need a merc to kill immunes fast, I currently have an A2 merc w/ obedience/eth thresher + fortitude. After 2.4 I’m going with an A5, dual Griefs + fortitude and chammed shako. Haven’t played it yet, but I’ve seen a video of that merc and it slaughters things much faster than my current merc.

I like the 2.4 merc changes. Let’s play them awhile and give them a try.

After 2.4 I’m going with an A5, dual Griefs

id give etheral headstrikers a try, they get an extra bonus due to the way damage is calculated. think it was in the realm of doubling the damage. grief does not seem to get that.

My idea for act 3 merc is simple really.

Fire one can have fire aura cast meteor, armmagedeon, firestorm and hydra.

Cold one ice aura ice orb, blizzard, hurricane and freeze breath that them monsters do.

Light one holy shock could chain lightning, and when he gets hit the lightning comes out like monsters.

Posion one casts poison nova and attacks with poison
Making this one up

Well all of those don’t need to be on their just ideas. The idea here was the merc cam AOE monsters.

Act 4 merc can have curses and shapeshift and they equip 2 handed mauls, axes and swords. Yeah this is a wish list…

True, but if you remove the synergies, you can just adjust the damage scaling. Blizz proven that they can do that with latest patch.
In other words: Act 3 mercs Fireball =/= Sorceress Fireball, for example.

you would need something like fireball level 100 to adjust for that. with patch 2.3, even if the merc had a boost of 20 levels his dmg would have gone up from 450 to 800 or so. plus that your +skill items dont matter at all then,since their damage bonus is very low.

Can we brainstorm about how could A3 merc be actually good? I think a big rework should be in order. I mean their whole mechanic. And while I realy would not add a nother melee fighter to the mercenarys, I think makeing them actually use the sword and shiled is the way for them to be better. So basicly a caster melee hybrid. In their lore they excell in both swordsmanship and magick. So they should utilise the sword and board aspect more, whit casting elemental magic.

After playing PTR in HC: I’m pretty sure the Act 5 Mercenaries is better than it was. The battle order Act 5 merc holds twohanded weapon and the other choice is 2 swords or 2 axe, “but lacks strength.” to hold anything decent

In normal mode doesn’t hold up to Baal, but still pretty decent as a merc

It’s going to be tough to get rid of an insight merc for an act 5 merc while using energy shield on a hydra build or something. But who knows, maybe it will be the way to go.