The Act 5 Barbarian Warrior can only equip one sword and no shield (don’t get me started on his inability to use axes and maces). Frankly, the selection of swords available has a hard time competing versus the awesome polearms available.
As the PTR has ended, the Act 2 Desert Warrior will still be king of the hill as nothing can match up to the awesome auras available, making the Act 5 Barbarian Warrior the inferior choice. I strongly urge the developers to at least consider giving the Act 5 Barbarian Warrior the ability to dual-wield whereby making him a more competitive mercenary.
Act 5 Barbarian Warrior decked out with Bul-Kathos’ Children would be cool!
12 Likes
I was immidiately thinking about Plague+Lawbringer combo on dualbarb. But he would cancel decrepify and lower resist with battle cry i think… such a shame
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Yeah, if they could dual-wield, it would allow for some interesting build diversity with aura combinations such as: Last Wish (Might Aura), Lawbringer (Sanctuary Aura), Plague (Cleansing Aura)
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Beast + Last Wish 
?
Guys to be honest a5 now need just remove of battle cry, cause it’s interfere with Decrep from Lawbringer…
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He should also be able to whirlwind and leap attack.
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I think this might be a little heavy on the mass aura weilding. Gonna get some crazy combo with two swords.
Id rather they give the A5 mercenary 10% damage reduction, 10% life steal, and +30 strength to make him hit harder and tankier than the act 2 merc.
I’m not sure about whirlwind, but could definitely see concentrate working for Act 5 Merc.
Barbarian merc should be able to use weapons like the barbarian character - Single or dual wield, and all weapon types.
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Dual-wielding Swords, so he can equip Bul Khatos children, that would be interesting 
. But I do agree Axes and Hammers/Maces should be added. Also, the Barb armor Myth should be made better, so Act5 Merc could equip it as well …
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Wow that would ve been best. Beast+Lastwish would have made barb an endgame merc for melee chars. Endgame that noone will play JahahahaJahaJahaSurBer
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Unfortunately, Beast runeword can only be made in axes, hammers, and scepters.
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First off: Yes. This is absolutely the way to making A5 mercs viable.
Last Wish. So so expensive that you will never ever get it.
Lawbringer - Azurewrath. Both achievable.
Crescent moon for static!!! and if dual wielded would have -70 light resist!!! Highest rune is an Um (from memory)
2x vile tusk for amp damage. cheap.
Theres loads of possibilities. This would be up there for one of my most highly anticipated possible changes.
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Agreed, as the developers are constantly talking about creating more build diversity, this would definitely make the Act 5 merc very enjoyable and offers tremendous variety/possibilities.
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New Grimward is better than amp dmg for endgame. Maxed offers -120% physical res over whole screen. And i guess it overrides curses when monster is in radius of grimward.
So it excludes of using Vile tusk amp, Lawbringer decrep. But also can partially work to get first corpse for grimward. But for bosses it would work great.
I wish Sanctuary aura is fixed to give that massive ±500% dmg to undead. So it will give an edge to use act5 lawbringer/azurewrath merc over act2 might aura. But not sure if it provide aura bonus to other members, or just for merc.
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Yeah, Act 5 merc using lawbringer/azurewrath would be a pretty cool setup.
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This is obvious, but it can crash fragile code
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I hope down the line they could improve the merc AI, but that is probably a long way off.
Two Hand & Dual Hand are good idea, but maybe no shield though (because of the ACT 3 Mercenary).
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Agreed, the Act 5 barb cannot use shields as that would step on Act 3 toes. Act 5 barb dual-wielding or two handed would make him unique in that regard.
1 Like