Throw barb mercs

[Tao_of_Xero]

for those of you that have/play throw barbs, what is your preference for a merc? I'll be making a HC throw barb soon, strictly PvM and was wondering what your experiences have been merc wise.

[holabuster]

There is no question. Holy freeze merc is the best. Deck him out with ethereal bonehew, high def ethereal stone, and a gaze and he'll own. Btw, this stuff is usually not too expensive.

[mstrnicegui]

EDIT: to answer the poster's question about mercs, with a barb, a might merc is always the way to go for me. A barb has his cries that help the merc's defense out, so it's unneccesary to go with defiance. My conc barb's might merc can pretty much be left to his own devices and get swarmed by anything except monsters that stun or cast IM or black souls, so I'd say any other class isn't neccesary as the added dmg will help you out just the same.

I've done some testing with an eth bonehew (dual amn'ed) and a non eth reaper's toll on my conc barb's might merc. I have found conclusively that reaper's toll with half the max dmg (1k less dmg with might) kills at the same speed and survives at least 3 times as much crap (physical he's virtually impervious, elementally he feels the pain a bit), exclusively because of decrepify. I have only done cursory tests on my defiance merc on my sorc, but his survival difference isn't as high as my barb's merc, but it is still noticably in favor of reaper's toll. I haven't tested on my hammerdin's merc (I haven't leveled merc cause pally doesn't really need one), but I bet the same results would occur.

[Tao_of_Xero]

that's kind of what I was thinking. It's almost the exact same setup I used on my axe WW barb, for pit runs and that always worked well.

Anyone else? Might merc? Defiance? Just trying to get an idea what everyone here has used...

[[D]Rui[D]]

HF merc....

same old theory of him freezing everything up so you can happily throwing ya stuff at the enemies.
basically i recommend HF merc for all PvM non-summoner type, summoner type would benefit most from might or defiance merc for the aura he provides..

[memememe173]

I'm a might man mself, though in HC, HF might be the way to go

[boochie61]

I'm a might man mself, though in HC, HF might be the way to go
me you are so dead on in this. HC, death instant. You dont want anyone getting to you as a thrower ever. Even with high shout, you have no shield so you need to get the baddies off your a _ _. Although the might is much sexier, the reality is in hc, you have to make some concessions for survival. With a might merc, you are only one fan aura cluster from death. At least with HF, you have a chance to get away and q & s.

[LeTHaL_BaNaNa]

hf is a good idea, monsters are waaaay to quick to kill them all without htem getting to you. equiping merc with reapers toll is therefore very nice, as it gives superslow monsters :o

personally i went with a might merc as it gives more dmg, but the extra dmg added was around 400ish on a total of 3-5k or so with dual gimmers, so next time i would go HF i think :)

[GenXCub]

My only problem with HF is that it takes a few seconds for it to even work. for individual monsters, they're usually dead by then.

[boochie61]

My only problem with HF is that it takes a few seconds for it to even work. for individual monsters, they're usually dead by then.
while hf sometimes take a sec to activate, it always ends up working. The problem isnt individual monsters but the cluster of champion/ aura enchanted that will take you down instantly, not to mention those miserable little dolls in act 3 or those things that explode in act 5. These things might will not save you in hc. Remember this was a hc question.