For the upcoming Patch 2.5, I strongly urge the developers to consider a few more changes to the mercenaries to add QoL feature, expand gear options and buff their skills as follows…
Quality of Life
Add option to “Unfollow” from Mercenary NPC (e.g. Kashya). Your mercenary will stay in town. This could be useful for players that want to pvp, do Travincal runs, or test out a new build without their trusty companion. To undo, select “Follow” from Mercenary NPC.
Act 1 Rogue Scouts
Act 3 Iron Wolf
- Can now use Staffs and Sorceress Orbs
- Gains +1 mastery level every 10 merc levels as one of their base skills
- Gains +sorceress skills from gear
- As Act 1 receives +amazon skills and Act 5 receives +barbarian skills, then it makes sense Act 3 should receive +sorceress skills from gear
Act 5 Barbarian Warrior
- Can now use Axes
- Can now dual-wield 2H Swords, which allows merc to equip Bul-Kathos’ Children
7 Likes
Personally I’d love to see them all have default attack removed and have a scaling of skills
Ie: Act 1: 100% fire arrow, each level=+0.5% to cast explosive arrow
Act 2: jab on single monsters, each level=+1% chance to fend on multiple
Act 3: 100% chance to fire bolt, each level =+0.5% Chance to fireball, +0.1% Chance to meteor
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Act 3 has terrible AI, goes and runs in a lot of the time to kill itself instead of staying outside range and firing shots.
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Agreed. I think out of all the mercs, Act 3 AI is the worst and tends to get himself killed.
I don’t mind A3 using/benefitting from Sorceress items provided the character art comes with it showing them using 2-H Staff or 1-H Orb, etc. In other words, I object to the aesthetics as opposed to the principle of the proposal. Their AI needs re-work too but this game is 20 years old so I doubt there is much they can do at this point.
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Decent AI would actually be a major improvement.
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Auto attack toggle would be amazing. Sometimes you just need them as a mana battery and sometimes as a meatshield. Would like to choose the difference.
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Yes, it would be great if the mercenary model for Act 3 would be updated accordingly with this change.
Personally I would like to see them add an amulet slot to the mercenary. Then act 3 merc could use a 2/20 amulet and hit higher FCR breakpoints and synergize with other suggestions you have put here.
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act 3 merc is actaully quite good if u have summons to tank for it, if he is alone he is ganna die, but act 3 fire his enchant is particually nice, becuase u can use ormus and flickering flame and even a plague wep for +2 skills and a cleansing aura to remove curses, which when coupled with fade basially makes u uncursable… and you can stick lidless on him
he is quite amazing on my fury druid with just a single point in my summons and they rest and buffbuffs from + skill items
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Good insight, never considered using him with summoner based characters.
I’m not a fan of giving staves and orbs to act 3 merc nor crossbows to rogues.
instead I’d give full 6 skills to act 3 mercs the extra other 3 would be:
the remainder is to equip them with Plague or Medusa’s Gaze for at least a bare minimum of immunity piercing, (remember passive -x% resists does not break immunities, it could only lower resists after immunity has been broken and merc needs new passive pierce mastery just because pplague/medusa itself isn’t going to enable dealing significant damage to mobs after some weaker mobs get their immunity pierced). And additionally some FCR (86%) would be an icing on the cake.
act 1 mercs are fine as they are with amazon bows and amazon skill buffs i think
act 2 mercs other than might and holy freeze should be looked at as well ( although i have no idea how to buff them)
act 5 yeah barbs could get 2x1handed axes frenzy merc alternative ( at least the game has models for that, so no extra work required on devs part), as for bull kathos set I really think the set should be changed to 2x1handed swords instead of how it is now 1x2handed+1x1handed for offhand), I mean it’s not like there’s a character class other than barb that could equip this set in both cases anyway.
oh yeah and bring back the unused merc models from LoD act3merc with ankh emblemed kite shield ( a.k.a. D1 sorceror in heavy armor style) and “heavy” act 5 merc pauldrons type. theese were unused in LoD but I liked the look of those an used them for purpose of modding, yet now my act 3 merc has to run around with a "puke"ler in offhand, instead of beautiful ankh engraved kite shield. and act 5 merc looks waay less badasie, with only “med” type pauldrons
Expanding gear options for mercs would feel less restrictive while adding more excitement to the item hunt. With access to Sorceress Orbs, the dps of Act 3 mercs would definitely to be move in the right direction.
As for Crossbows, they simply need more usefulness in the game and allowing Act 1 mercs to use them feels less restrictive.
A3 merc should decide, what they want to be. Ranged casters, but then don’t go into the fray attacking. Or melee, but then don’t linger behind casting spells, and make their shields usefull.
I think they should remain casters, bacause then there will be two melee, and two ranged merc. But then their AI should not engage in melee combat anymore, and needs more dmg to it’s skills, and more usefull items to help them out. Let them have bonuses from sorc only items, unlock orbs and give them masteries. And make them use their shield allready, blocking attacks for f***s sake.
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I agree with suggestions.
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Agreed. Unlocking orbs and giving them masteries is what Act 3 mercs need to finally become viable.
I’d say the most important thing would be that the AI needs to be improved, not just for mercenaries, but for summons as well. The issue is particularly important for mercenaries, though.
Among the most annoying issues with mercenaries is when the AI tags a distant point to walk to, and won’t interrupt that movement even if there are monsters everywhere, leaving them to do whatever they want while you are in desperate need of the mercenary’s firepower.
I am personally not a fan of trying to give mercenaries a multitude of choices in gear, but there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the suggestion.
I would, however, suggest rethinking how to approach the equipment question (it is a suggestion) :
Have a third version of the Act I rogue. The current types still only use bows, and that third type uses only crossbows, exclusively with the skills magic arrow and strafe (or something along those lines).
The idea is that different equipment corresponds to a different skillset.
But that’s just how I would approach it. Even if I dislike the approach (especially the orb usage and dual-wielding of two-handed swords), there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the suggestion.
That being said, it is indeed weird that the Act III mercenary doesn’t benefit from sorceress skill bonuses, especially since they are so reliant on skill level.
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Agreed. It was seem weird that Act 3 merc does not benefit from sorceress skill bonuses.
The more I think about this, I hope the developers improve the AI for mercs and pets. This would be a significant improvement to the game.
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