hammeridin merc

[Vdanee]

ok. defiance or holy freeze?
if defiance, shall i hire him in normal, and lvl him from there? i heard that if hired from normal he would have more hp (?) at his very highest lvl.

im lvl 50 now, just started NM. my gear is vipermagi, soj, ravenfrost, spectralshard, crownofthieves, hoz, silkwave, trangoulgloves, disciplineamu. thats the best i have yet.

[Vdanee]

and another one:
i have a bonehew on other char's merc... he's wearing eth.gaze and shaft.
any good idea that i should put in the 2 sockets? +min,max damage would worth it?
plz dont advice like Jah or something i dont have any... even if i had, i would not put in merc's wep :) so any low-med runes? or perf skull for more leech?

[Prosbloom225]

The trick is to hiring the merc in nightmare mode for the holy freeze aura. Just take him to cows and level him up a bit. As for the gear, any spear with a decent leech would work fine. P-skull would add quite a bit, but make sure you get some decent armor for him.

[Tanatus]

Well defiance merc is nice choice but only if you rich enouth to afford godly gear for him like doom + durance in eth elite armor.
HF merc can get away with much much cheaper things
Reapers toll (cast decrify very often and I dont think I need explain what it does :))
Upgraded Duriel shell as an armor (low str req (118 for great haurbeck duriel shell), - massive resistance to all, cannt be frozen, + life - preferct (as well as very high deffence on upped version)
Crown of Thieves for an helm - massive deffence, 12LL, life
With all those 3 things your merc by lvl 90 will have 75 resist all in hell, ~20-28LL and 5+K deffence with about 2200 life

[99RedSi]

Well defiance merc is nice choice but only if you rich enouth to afford godly gear for him like doom + durance in eth elite armor.
HF merc can get away with much much cheaper things
Reapers toll (cast decrify very often and I dont think I need explain what it does :))
Upgraded Duriel shell as an armor (low str req (118 for great haurbeck duriel shell), - massive resistance to all, cannt be frozen, + life - preferct (as well as very high deffence on upped version)
Crown of Thieves for an helm - massive deffence, 12LL, life
With all those 3 things your merc by lvl 90 will have 75 resist all in hell, ~20-28LL and 5+K deffence with about 2200 life

Sounds like a normal defiance merc with more hitpoints isn't as good as a nm defiance/HF merc, if you aren't super rich - is that the case? If so, I just wasted my time with my normal defiance merc ...

[Gerrod99]

You know, I went off the beaten path here and am pretty happy with the results. I knew I was going to use a Reaper's, so I figured I really didn't need the HF if my merc was decrep-ing. I really didn't need the defense merc either, since holy shield will be close to if not maxed. So I then thought, if no aura is really going to be a necessity for my hammerdin, what would be the best for my merc? I think the obvious choice is a might aura.

So I got myself an Act 2 offensive merc and he is schooling everything. Between the Reaper's and Crown of Thieves his ll is great, and he gets a nice jump in damage from his aura. I know it is not the recommended way to go, but if you find yourself thinking that none of the auras are that appealing for your hammerdin, you might want to try this route...

OK, now the flaming can begin... :scared:

[let's have a look]

I second the might merc. With a reapers he does 1k-5.2k damage, thanks to my conc aura. The only merc i've had that can actually kill instead of just filling a supporting roll

[mstrnicegui]

First, to the original poster, if you hire a normal defiance merc vs a hell defiance merc, its stats will be a bit better overall, actually has +1-2skills more at higher lvls, and more life. Personally, I don't find defiance mercs to be very useful with any character from any class I've ever built as they are superfluous to melee as they've already got high def, and too fragile for casters to stand on their own without godly gear.

Might merc seems to make sense if you want him to be able to kill things, but it's totally unnecessary with your conc aura. My hf merc does 4.4k max dmg with a normal reaper's toll, andy's visage (imo waaaaaay better than crown of thieves and not much more expensive), and of course my fav cheap merc armor duriel's shell.

As for socketing your bonehew, the best things to socket for a merc would be amns for their insane leech. You could always mix and match, with an amn and ed/2nd mod jewel. It's not necessary as he'll be doing enough dmg on his own. Having said that, I think bonehew does great dmg, but is waaaaay overrated and doesn't hold a candle to reaper's toll.

[Vdanee]

ill go for hf merc then... and amn seems to be good for bonehew's one socket... i dont have reapers yet, so thats the best i can give to the little monkey
thx for help...

i have another one :)
does merc always attack with the same speed? slow or very fast attack weapon matters? or for example andys visage's 20% ias works on him?

[Tanatus]

Let me explain why reaper toll so much better then bonehew and cost about same...
after decrify you merc litterally do 2X damage with listed damage ~1-5K (that how much my HF merc have at lvl 92 then my conc aura up) in reality do 2-10k damage per hit and actually danm very effective against baal (cut killing time on him by 50%)
About Andyvision helm - its good one but I truely hate this -30FR mode and not want to socket it with +30FR jewel/rune. My HF merc dies only by 2 things a) IM (obvious) b) ... elemental fire attack under conviction/amp damage/lower resist. Lighting dont scratch him, cold inneffective, he have huge built in regeneration and enouth HP so poison not treat either but fire ... now thinking that my merc will have instead of 75 only 45FR .... nah no way
About auras - well might looks like a waste to me because your merc will use your conc aura for damage anyway, blessed aim merc its other story... Defiance is always good but even given fact that decrify good crowed control I still prefer have holy freeze that cover 1.5 screen.
About IAS - yes IAS DO affect how fast your merc jab. And as such I highly recomend socket bonehew with 2 shael so merc will hit next brake point for his jab. Reapers toll I think already have very fast attack + some IAS builted in as well
Lastly then you do choice dont foget 33-144 cold damage from reapers toll so your merc can deal with PI monsters as well by his own. Bonehew have 50% chance cast bone spear lvl 16 - kinda fun to look but frankly not very effective while 33-144 cold after decrify will turns into 66-288 cold damage every hit

[mstrnicegui]

How about the fact that decrepify removes physical immunity from all but the toughest buggers, very few enemies in the game keep their physical immunity, so the cold dmg doesn't matter for most things anyways. I believe only boss monsters with natural physical immune stacked with receiving the physical immune mod randomly for being the boss.

What's so wrong with socketing andy's helm with a fire resist jewel? Where else are you going to find a helm with good def, ias, leech, +str, and +skills. All of those mods are very important in helping your merc survive longer. It's very easy to overcome the one downside about the helm, so it is by far the best merc helm you could ask for outside of a rare circlet.