Also don’t forget A3 mercs will stab with their sword when enemies are close! Lol it’s hilarious! You’re a sorcerer you sword does 0 dmg. Dude is drunk.
So yeah remove that AI calc from a3 merc and give them the sensible A1 merc AI of staying a safe distance away. Also I’ve played with the masteries on a3 merc. They actually DO DMG IN HELL. Idk what to do to get the damned lightning one to static bosses though. I wish there was a way to prioritize it only when monsters have high health
we already know by modding what are the results for that
i have two takes on merc equip
1- with aditional gear slots they will cap their resistences very easily, nerfing the res/lvl they get would be necessary
2- summonecro is already very dependent on his merc and with more gear slots this spec would be even more so buffing summonecro is necessary to reduce/mitigate this dependence
even with more gear, i find their dmg/def output irrelevant when paired with the most popular casters specs
phys melee/ranged is another matter bc those specs are really in need of some buffs
I haven’t said they do block if i remember correctly…
I said they do benefit from high block chance, because with this setup they seem tougher than with my previous setup also with imba @res tons of armor class and 35DR… ( in previous setup he had 34% effective block chance due to meh dex value. now he has 70% and he withstands clubbing quite fine).
there is no possibilty he can block, since in monstats.txt he is set to be unable to block, however the block chance might be treated by the engine differently then like CtB%=DR% or something like that. i don’t know, all i noticed is that when upping the effective CtB from 34% to 70% it does give a significant boost to his toughness aginst physical attacks, with the same ~@rez ~same armor class and 35% DR less. so it does make a difference somehow, just don’t know exactly.
i personally think that boosting a3 merc by 60+ Dex on final level is a must. that way one could skip the KoKo… sword and move to rainbow facets instead.
simply put instead of 123 dex he couild end up with 183 dex on his final level. It’s still less than the rogue ( as rogue has 235 dex on final level) and even in D1 sorcerer had less strength than dex, so it shouldn’t be the other way around in d2 either. No sorceror class has less dex than str. besides dex is an importand stat for sorceror (at least in d1 spells had chance to hit same way as wariors weapons, though the formulae was different).
as for AI and kiting, the best fix for kiting is to limit it a bit ( best base it on x%of total life in 1 hit over a certain threshold he woudl kite and only then), besides that the best way to solve sluggish kiting is to force him to run not walk when kiting, and boost his run/walk speed by a minimum of 30% at the least. after this it’s just the matter of 90% all res high effective block chance, and decent level BO cast 35+ and he should be fine.
damage wise he needs masteries ( both mastery and a passive pierce for the -x% enemy element resitance. then it would only be a matter of giving him a sunder charm and rainbow facets.
Yup point 1 for sure, it’s already easy enough to cap their res. I think they have an adjusted - res per difficulty so you could just change that to the one characters use
Point 2, I think it goes without saying that summon necro needs serious love. Regardless of talk on mercs. Necro summon mages genuinely need to be gutted and redone. Adjusting their power scale doesn’t really seem to do much. So many skills in the necro arsenal are 1 point wonders
yeah, you re completely right
the problem is within the class and not on this hypothetical merc buff
anyway, giving mercs more gear slots dont seem to me that drastic, even if they dont nerf merc’s resistances
if you didnt imply it, why give him high block chance gear and +dex items? have you ever thought that giving him a bo and high eth def gear + high res gear might contribute to him being less sqishy? and not some hidden block chance formula benefit outside of the regular formula we all know. ockham’s razor.
What purpose would itemizing the mercs serve? If it’s just for extra power, that’s just power creep for the sake of power creep.
It serves to give more build options. Mercs don’t do a ton of damage even when given BiS gear. Many merc centric sets have belts in them too which means you can never equip the full set. Also for A3 merc it’s impossible to attain max FCR in any capacity. Allowing for a place to stuff eth arachs is only a good thing to me
for the same reason phys builds need a buff
mercs, specially the melee ones, were left behind when mobs were buffed in 1.09 and again now with TZs
its easy to see they were never supposed to be that far behind so they need to catch up
If the developers added a belt slot to mercs, it would it cool if this allowed the player to put potions on the merc belt so they could use them automatically when in trouble.
It’s because i’ve tested the build in question, and compared it to a previous build that only lacked high CtB%. the previous build on top of other stats had also 35%DR from stormshield, 20FCR( i know irrelevant) 75% PLR (a huge deal when merc is poisoned in hell) and 30%FRW ( toghether with an AI that runs when kiting this actually fixed all the ai engage issues because merc gets faster to the destination point, and mobs aren’t behind his back, so he still has time to attack).
both a3 merc builds were tested in single player with fire merc, althouth the one with high block chance fared significantly better in terms of a3 merc survivability.
I’m not implying blocking works for a3 mercs, but there is definetly some mechanics that we don’t know existing in D2R that boosts a3 merc toughness based on block chance, because that’s what i’ve experienced. despite beeing hamered by physical monsters, he just stayed at full health for the most part with the 70% block build, where with 34% effective block chance his life would slowly chop away. Both setups were tested with same level BO, and ~AC, both setups had capped 90% rez, although the second setup could maintain 90% rez cap even with 20lvl conviction aura and 60 lvl lower resists, ( if lvl 8 fade from spirit ward shield procced).
Honestly, improve just the AI and I’ll be more than happy. Power buffs are meaningless if the hireling still gets stuck behind a wall.
If such AI improvement was implemented, it should be applied not only to hirelings, but to other minions as well. And monsters too.
I wish ironwolves can cast cures like lower resist
Merc Act1 need learn Vigor Aura level 18
Merc Act3 learn in level 30 cast Lower Resist
Merc Act5 have chance for cast Battle Command
I would like if Frenzy merc Taunt did not interrupt other curses, like Decrepify from Lawbringer.
If Taunt skill was changed to give -% physical resist to monster instead -% attack rating. I think it would be awesome new change
I disagree with most of that, out of respect for the lore. the enchant casting and static field casting are good, the barb merc ideas are good(and quite frankly the whole 2h dual wielding is part of barb lore…so wtf happened that it’s not possible?), a new rogue with magic arrow and multishot sounds cool too.
I’d like to equip them with rings, boots, gloves, ammy, and belt too…or atleast add boots and gloves
I thing barb shouts, shrine buffs, and curses should not over-write eachother, and should each have their own slot of exclusivity. 1 curse, 1 shrine buff, 1 barb shout debuff. this way taunt and amp damage can stack instead of your merc messing up the whole game plan every 2 seconds
There may be some interractions tho that it would mess up monster if both curse + shout is applied.
Taunt + Fear. Monster would be asking Shakespeare question of Run or not to run.
There are debuffs that work together tho, like Amazon Inner Sight with Amplify damage. I think that something like Battle Cry could work like Inner Sight does, so it can be coupled with any curse. But things that change behaviour like Howl, Taunt should not be able to stack together.
Thats why I think simply changing Taunt to -% physical resist is the best way possible. Also helps Frenzy barb as player since its synergy. Gives Unbending will runeword new meaning to break physical resist after Sunder charm applies, etc.
Both Howl and Taunt are already on Myth, and don’t see the issue with that. Maybe I’m missing something?
since they increased max level of mercenary to 99 from 98.