The only way to revive your merc ingame is by paying the hirer a good chunk of your cash, right? Meaning there’s no item that revives, like in your typical RPG, or resurrection spell that in D2R’s case a Paladin might have…
The reason I’m asking is I’m currently playing around with the act 3 merc–atm, I have spirit, ormus robe, griffon’s eye etc on him–and, instead of worrying about survivability, I thought it might be cool to just plop a couple rainbow facets on him and let him explode if there was a reasonable way to revive him. Or he resurrected automatically himself, from the equalivant spell–if it existed in the Diablo universe.
Anyway, I’m sure I know the answer already. Just really making conversation. What’s your thoughts on merc 3 survivability? I’m already familiar with the act 2 merc, but I wanted to experiment with the others.
Sadly, Act 3 mercs are still not viable. I’m not talking about being the best in his niche, but just being viable to chose him at a slight loss. During playthroughs i often don’t mind sticking to my act 1 merc for a longer time, since she’s not bad. But A3 lacks damage and defensive options. We theorized alot how to fix it, these are the suggestions:
Lvl 1 Elementary mastery for more damage, with +all skills it would almost double his damage. It still wouldn’t be good damage, but viable
Being able to block with his shield, even a low block chance of 25% would mean less damage taken. You wouldn’t even really need a blocking animation, alot of monsters don’t have either. It would also open up built diversity
+15% more strength sothat he can use eth spirit shield earlier than lvl 94
+15% Max Res for their corresponding element (would fit their Elementary damage theme)
Reprogramming AI to RUN when kiting away from enemies. Maybe even higher Run velocity (I don’t know their exact values at the moment, but it could be that walking and running speed are the same)
Even just some of these would already help their viability. But the most important is the damage. If you can’t kill enemies, every mob will overwhelm you. Act 1 and A5 mercs can kill depending on their weapon, which makes them more or less viable. A3 not.
Act 3’s main issue is that it can’t easily take advantage of Life Leech or Life Tap like the other 3 Mercenaries can. Meaning any damage it takes must be healed via Potion, via Prayer(or its synergies) or via Holy Bolt but not everyone can do the Aura or Holy Bolt route since not everyone plays Paladin(much less specializing as a Cleric). So the first thing holding it back is Life recovery.
Then there’s Damage mitigation. Despite having a Shield, it cannot Block and Block would do wonders on this Mercenary. Act 2 and Act 5 generally have decent Defense Rating while having Leech to fall back on and Act 1 is a Ranged Mercenary that when properly protected can deal decent damage, although she’s as squishy as Act 3 can be.
Finally, Act 3 royally suffers from poor Damage. Act 1, 2 and 5 all deal Physical Damage that is largely predicated on the Weapon they have equipped. Act 3 is an Elemental Spellcaster so they rely not only on +Skills but as many sources of %Skill buffs and -Enemy Resistance as you can apply. Since A3 lacks Mastery skills, their Damage output is quite mediocre. Even A3’s Enchant Damage is piss poor unless you’re looking for nothing but the Attack Rating boost.
One idea recently floated to help A3 out was to increase the Equipment on A3 while permitting Necromancer gear. Full Trang-Oul on an A3 Fire Mercenary actually makes it quite strong. Trang-Oul mobility is exceptional while having built-in Fire Mastery via the Set. This combined with Hexfire + Fire Rainbow Facets in Weapon, Helm, Chest and Off-Hand would yield an additional +20% Fire and -20% Enemy Resistance.
Above isn’t perfect as it doesn’t address Cold or Lightning but for Fire A3, it’s not a bad idea.
My merc is lightning. I’m a lore guy (as opposed to a theory guy); I would envision something along the lines having the Act 3 turn into a flying scimitar when he died and giving him some When You Die skills so I can turn him into a kamikaze warrior.
I can keep my merc alive with Prayer, and some added health regen, but it requires constant babysitting, especially when dealing with ranged mobs.
One thing that comes on top of the low A3 merc damage is that enemy elementary res are usually higher than physical res. I don’t know if the devs responsible for the latest balance changes just looked at pure damage numbers and forgot to reconsider the average resistance difference elementary and physical have. Could be that they thought “fire gets to 4k damage, similar to a1, so they must be the same”
Yeah… so was behind that trag-oul a3 merc idea… tough I never meant it as anything other than a Single Player shenanigan…
in fact the fix to a3 merc is quite simple as i stated somewhere else…
#1 he becomes sorc equivalent #2 orbs are specified as equipable in mainhand for him #3 devs fix the issue of class specific passives not working when given via item…
then simply find an orb with +3 to a given sorc tab with +3 to given tab mastery passive
+3 to utilized skill from that givent tab… Larzuk it and put perfect facets…
rar circlet +2 sorc skill +2sox +20@res 30FRW 20FCR 75PLR, agin put facets in
jewlerer light plate of stability ( 24FHR) agin put facets in, finally either eth jewlerer’s monarch of stability with facets or Phoniex runeword in eth monarch for survi. and yes facets still outperform +x to passive mastery per given item, however as you mentioned FRW FHR and FCR are mandatory for a3 merc, as he mooves as a fly in tar, especially when decrep’d or chilled.
