Hi everyone. So, my merc is an act2 one, with defensive aura. He got a tal mask, a eth tresher with insight and a eth duriel’s shell. He survived baalruns, chaos run without problem. But since today, he can’t stand sh*t. He dies against Mephisto, he dies agaisnt Trav council, he dies literally everywhere. What the hell is going on ?
EDIT : forgot to add that the “cannot be frozen” from Duriel’s shell isn’t applying anymore. Undead mages from Baal’s wave 2 rekt the hell outta him
Get vamp gaze and shaftstop so you’ll get atleast 30% melee reduction on your merc and he’ll stay up with max resistance and some ll.
Yea, the big question i would have, is does that merc have LL on anything to any appropriate degree… Vamp gaze is a good idea for sure.
I am surprised that your merc used to be useful. It seems my merc runs away from combat a lot, when he does move (He has just stood still for hours on end four separate times now) and he keeps despawning and respawning randomly, worse than the druids wolves but without the momentary blindness. I swear the AI is broken at times.
Our merc gear setups are near identical except mine’s using an Eth CV insight. My merc usually gets starched my Mephisto anyway… Tagging this thread for later tonight to see if I notice any issues.
Pay attention to the mobs that are bodying him. Skeletons and physical immunes kill the self sustain they get from LL. I’ll toy around a bit tonight once Im off work and will post my findings.
~ looks at the corpse face-down by the stash ~
uh…you don’t want my help here
Yup - this can be a pita.
Tal mask has 10% Life Leech
Hmm, he listed that? I missed it, just saw insight and duriels. Carry on.
Holy Freeze aura on enemies doesn’t count as a cold/freeze attack and will still slow or freeze your merc even with cannot be frozen gear. It’s strange I know!
even with max rez and a godly set up you still need to watch him. once i see trav council put up their hydra minefield that he likes to stand in i teleport and reposition him.
Them Hydras, holy moly, was hopin’ the bug would be fixed, but it still seems they are a merc killer. There’s a few mob types in game that for a long time, have had bugged damage out puts. Maybe they will see a fix one day, i think we all just got used to it. IIR, the bug doesnt even exist on all difficulties, but id have to go diggin.
people are started explaining it here but here are some basics.
baal can cast decripfy, which slows your merc
holy freeze ignores CBF
not all monsters can be leeched from
wave 2 posion from the magic immune horadrim ancients is incredibly scary
wave 2 sksles also have no leech value…a dn your are also probaly hit by decripfy.
if u are under holy freeze and decrepify anything melee is basically negated, as it will basically always be thrown into hit recovery before it gets an successful attack off
this isnt just you though, you can abuse this to your own advantage
take baal… if u give your merc a kelpies snare… baals animation and attacks will be so slow they will end before they go off and he will be a sitting duck the entire fight
Awww I miss that little weapon, I have a soft spot for it. Everything gets so slow after it…it’s like getting hit with decrep and clay golem at the same time.
yeah its always my iron golem when i play necro XD
I dont even bother to equip my mercs anymore. Sometimes they live through stuff that will kill me a thousand times over and other times a monster looks at him and he dies instantly. No sense at all. Why waste gear on a merc? I just end up hiring one that is thousands gold cheaper and maybe 1 - 2 levels lower than the one I was using or myself. I continue on without one. I’ll get another when I go back to town to sell stuff or put goodies in stash.
So, yes, my merc actually have 10% LL and maxed res. I’m not talking about freezing aura, but just a little cold bolt. It freezes him while it shouldn’t, or have I missed a current bug ?
And yeah, hydras are a no match even with this setup. Which is actually driving me insane. I only have a sorc to farm, and now I’m not even able to do as much as I want to do. That’s another topic. And for AI problem, I mostly telestomp my merc, since this crappy AI won’t get a rework.
I already was in for a merc balance, but damn, how the hell can he gets so bad sometimes…
its usually cause hes hitting a phys immune, even if he does a million damage and has massive lifesteal, the phys immune will take no damage and then the other enemies will surround and kill him. If you notice him attacking a ghost or a hero mob with pi you have to get him to stop attacking or have decerpfy somewhere.
It happens a lot in cows too i noticed as hero cows might have immune to phys and then the rest of the cows surround and hes dead in no time regardless of gear and hes not smart enough to switch targets he just attacks the nearest enemy phys immune or not. If hes surviving most of the time hes prob fine, you just have to ensure hes not being an idoit and attacking the wrong enemy.
bosses also do double damage to him so him attacking a phys immune and hydras and other attacks will do him in. And many times in hell trav at least 1 or more of them are phys immune so his chance of dying is really high.