What is wrong with my merc?

General Discussion
1

OK. So my merc is level 88 and his gear is the following: A non Eth Collossus Vaulge Insight, An Andariel Visage with a Ral rune and An Eth Scarab Husk Fortitude.

My problem is that when I thought that him finally having the fortitude which I was FINALLY able to get a Lo rune after trying to farm one for a month and then finally getting items worthy of trading for one, He still dies withing 1-3 seconds when I teleport over to the ***** on the travical and he dies easily. All His resists are really good and his fire resist is almost in the gold.

What am i doing wrong? I never had a merc with Fortitude back in the day but I always gave them stone instead and I never remember him dying so easily like that.

I even opted for the Hell Version of the act II merc and he has the Def aura so his Def is, and mine as well, is crazy stupid high. So with crazy stupid high Def and rest and being the act 2 merc having really good health, why is he dying so easily when I can just stand there and tank it with my sorc so much easier?

I want to do ubers for the first time ever and Since I am basically just missing a cold Facet, a soct of some kind for my tal armor and maybe some Cold GC’s I am basically considering myself 100% geared other than those since I got my non MF battle gear like the Sandstorm and Coldbelt. If he can’t handle them then wtf do I do against ubers?

2

Since insight does not have ias that means treachery is better.

Fortitude is better only if you have weapon with good ias.

You could try a 15% ias in the helm, but my guess is that will be too slow still

3

Even with ethereal colossus voulge, treachery, eth vamp gaze, he still dies at trav in an instant

4

For your Merc we need to know the following:

  1. What is his weapon damage?
  2. What is his weapon speed?
  3. How much life drain does he have?
  4. What are his resistances?

Thou regardless of this info he can still get swarmed and pop like a can of soda.

The gear helps but you have to micro manage him a little bit with large packs

5
  1. 64-551 + 228% ED + 202% Attack Rate + 5-30 Fire + 75 Poison.
  2. Normal Attack Speed
  3. 10%
  4. 75 Fire, 75 Cold 77 Light 85 Poison.

It’s like having even a Single Hydra out immediately Starts making his health go away like, super fast. With 75% fire res and that much def, that shouldn’t happen. Especially since I just sit there myself with less than that and tank it all for WAY longer.

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6

I’ve seen some use

  • Kira’s Guardian
  • Templar’s Might

when doing trav on their merc with some success.

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7

Right i see the problem’s.

  1. The weapon damage on that weapon is too low.
  2. The weapon speed is also horrible. You need either fast attack speed or very fast attack speed (preferably very fast)
  3. The life drain is okay but a second source would be preferable.

The basic principle for a Merc is more weapon damage equals more life drain which equals Merc staying alive.

My Mercenary uses:

Weapon - Tomb Reaver (it rolled 1 socket) which i stuck a amn in it.
Helm - Tals Mask
Armour - Duriels Shell

So he has 17% life drain and a very fast weapon

Mercenaries in Diablo II: Resurrected - Guides - Wowhead is good for ideas on merc stuff

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8

The Hydra’s are quiet deadly. They attack like a swarm of cows or like a swarm of venom lords. Even with high fire resistances.

Also take extra care around moon lords when they get windfury there attack speed goes through the roof and even with my decent gear 1-2 champion minions have pured my merc

9

Sigh going to turn into another crapfest about treachery vs fortitude but I’ll bite…

Fort is OVERRATED as a merc armor.

It isn’t a bad choice but Treachery is much better in regards to damage + survivability. More attack speed = more life leech, more damage, more chance to proc crushing blow/deadly strike if you have something like gface. and fade is amazing in itself.

The strongest merc combo to take out and survive trav is Eth Reaper’s toll with shael, Gface with 15% IAS jewel + treachery made in any armor (defense is very overrated in PvM, only important in PvP like Barb vs Barb or Zeal vs Zeal)

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10

I just did a trav run on my sorc to verify, they are pretty rough on the mercenary that is for sure. I first let him charge in to see how well he could tank and that did not work.

What i did was draw all of the hydras out at the front area and then teleported back near the orb. The delay on hydra’s is fairly long and i was able to kill the council before they were able to spawn the second set of hydras near the orb.

I have eth thresher insight, eth treachery, and vampire gaze not socketed.

edit: often times the key to keeping your merc alive is proper positioning.

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11

I agree, 9 times out of 10 treachery is better.

However, I am currently leveling my fishymancer and he will be using beast for the fanaticism and the merc will be using botd. He will hit the fast attack speed breakpoint without treachery. I will be putting my fortitude on him since that will be a big boost to my army’s dps.

12

I will also comment on this, if you want a defensive merc it is better to go with holy freeze. Sadly there are only 2 mercenary’s that should ever be used, holy freeze or might.

I go with might every time because the best defense is poking the bad guys to death.

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13

Trav is a very special case, 99% of the time only guardian’s angel and kira’s can deal with it

14

hmm even then i would prefer eth repears + gface + treachery over your setup. my friend’s hork barb who completely relies on his merc to kill trav just stopped using an ebotd wp + gface + fort and is now using eth reapers + gface + treachery - killing speed & survivability went way up. one thing people overlook is the damage boost repear provides, decrep provides 50% physical damage redution! and treachery means more attacks to get decrep to proc. fade is too good to pass up…

15

But since i am playing a necro i do not want reapers. I want to control the curses that are placed. This rules out reapers in this very specific use case.

Also, the additional attack speed from treachery is wasted since i already have so much IAS from other sources.

great poleaxe has a 0 base attack speed
level 9 fanaticism gives 29% attack speed
BOTD gives 60% attack speed

This gives a total of 89% IAS which is an incredibly fast 10 frame per attack/jab.

There are always exceptions to the rule, but you are correct, the vast majority of the time you want to go reapers/treachery. Unless you need the mana from insight that is.

2 Likes
16

your merc’s damage is only 551 as displayed in the mercenary info tab?

my merc is lvl 86, act 2 nightmare holy freeze merc

ethereal thresher polearm with the obedience runeword.

it’s MASSIVE damage. i’ve got him set with duress runeword armor, but that’s because i don’t have the runes for a fortitude yet. duress has decent resists, faster hit recover, and chance of crushing blows. tal’s helm for leech. obedience runeword has faster hit recovery, resist all, lowers target defense, 40% chance of crushing blows, and casts level 21 enchant on the merc’s spear every third or fourth time he hits. and he hits like a jackhammer, so it’s always up.

i prefer the holy freeze merc because as a sorc i use the merc more for crowd control than tanking mobs, i rely on his attacks to kill those double frost/fire immunes.

i haven’t tried him out with treachery armor yet, but i actually have one so i think i’ll move it from my assassin to my merc and see if he takes less damage on a quick trav run. i’ll get back to you in a minute

edit: did two trav runs. one with my merc using ethereal scarab husk with Duress runeword, one with a regular scarab husk Treachery runeword. result: duress wins hands down. my merc solo’d hell travincal council guys. with treachery, the damage was less per hit, and he did attack faster, but he died before the fade proc went off.

edit 2: forgot to mention, with eth obedience thresher, my merc’s damage is 3400 and change. he hits harder than my sorc does.

17

So sad. I spent so much time looking stuff up and I was certain my setup was going to be the best. I wonder what I can trade my fortitude and andariels for lol.

18

pop your merc 4x sol runes in the chest, use a faster weapon or try kira+guardian angel.

Mercs seem to pop in trav so fast because they take full dmg from the hydras, while players only take 17% due to pvp dmg reduction applying to players but not mercs

also try reapers toll / or better eth reapers and shael it.
Decrep is good
life leech is good
dmg is good

19

Insight no good. Need more bigger damages. Also the merc isn’t de way to kill the council unless you’re like an mf barb or some shiz. Just shoot them dead. If they’re immune you done pooped. Need Infinity maybe

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20

Both items are very sought after so you can easily sell them for a good bit. Gface, treachery and non eth reapers are all very cheap items. Eth reapers cost a little more ofc but they aren’t expensive.

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