Merc Decisions for a Wind Druid...Act1 or Act 3?!?!?

[UNCONKABLE!!!!]

Now I know everybody thinks I am a super noob or fing crazy, but I thought I would try and supplement my Wind Druid (for PvM) with a merc that can deal with Physical/Cold Immunes while surviving and mfing at the same time. I have usually went with the "Act 2 pick an aura that suits your character" merc, but in this case I figured I would try something new.

Anyway, the obvious choices are either an Act I Rogue with Fire Arrows or an Act 3 Merc with Fire abilities. I am leaning towards the Act 3 just because of the equipment possibilities, but which one would you say does the best overall in the three following(in order of importance):

1) Survivability
2) Ability to deal the most fire damage that a merc can
3) Ability to contribute to Magic Find?

Thanks for any help in advance,

conk out,
not a boring act 2 merc, just...

TRYING SOMETHING DIFFERENT FOR A CHANGE!!!!

[viamede]

1) tough call they both die alot but the act1 can leech so I vote for rogue
2) rogue does more damage overall as higher end weapons have more options...act 3 cap out pretty low or hell (I have been told anyway)
3) act 3 he has more sockets

[Rauth]

I can't see act3 fire merc doing much damage, or staying alive for more than .001 seconds.

Go with act1 if you feel the need to have a different merc.

[UNCONKABLE!!!!]

Rauth and Viamede,
Thanks for the quick replies :drink: I forgot all about the Act 3 Merc not being able to leech life so I have decided on an Act I Merc. I will probably just hook her up with a double jeweled Witchstring or Lycander's Aim and try to find some good leech helms (crown of thieves, vampgaze, or if I find neither then good ole Tal's) along with an armor with some decent resists.

If you can suggest any setups for act I mercs in regards to surviving, damage, and mf, please let me know.

conk out,
not a non leeching piece of shiot act 3 merc, just...

WELL, AT LEAST THE ACT 1 MERC WILL STAY ALIVE .003 SECS LONGER!!!!

[viamede]

Start with 3 socket hunters 2 chip topaz, 1 chip saph. Keep upping the gems as she levels until you get into a decent uniquebow. She will not need to leech a ton and won't anyway being ranged with low damage. Just ptopaz a tals helm when she gets there if you want some mf on her. Dont put medium/heavy armour on her, you want her nimble and quick, she's not shooting if she is walking around slowly. Get yourself a grizz who will tank and help keep the heat off your merc. There was anice rogue merc guide for 1.09 around here somewhere you may find which was helpful and likely still useful.

[MrGoth]

Just to add to the debate before you close it forever;

The a3 merc can use trangs helm & armor, which add +18 to fireball {which works for him}. If you also give him a hexfire and sigons/lidless, it will go up 4 more skill levels. If you throw out some facets, you will really increase his damage.

The damage might appear high at first, but do note a few other things;

The damage is only effective if your character itself can help him. A poison nova / LoM necro with massive lower resistance, or a foh pally with lvl 25 conviction would make him effective.

And the downside to the fire merc, he only really has one offense. The inferno might look pretty, but it is currnetly bugged{is it?}, where it only does its damage in a very small radious. The critters that take damage from it have to be exactly in the middle of the inferno, not on the edges, even if they are at the end of it, if they are not in the middle of it, it wont hurt them. This kills the use of the skill, and is why flamebellow & general inferno sorc's are not that popular.


I would give a KuKo bow to an act 1 fire merc. That would be, in the end, more effective than the a3 fire merc with all that gear i listed above. Dont forget knock back, put a nef in the bow, or get a helm with it {i'm thinking howltusk or something has kb, i know gaint skull has one too, this helm would be great for its crushing blow vrs boss's}.

[UNCONKABLE!!!!]

Hmmm, well, I just picked up an act 1 merc and popped a shaft, witchstring, and a steelskull on her for now. She is level 74 and doing alright, only dies to hydra bath(when a thousand surround her and bath her in fire balls), but sometimes her ai is such garbage. She will be right next to the cold/physical immune and just walking around not raining down any arrows. I might try out an act 3 merc as well seeing as how I only leveled her about 6 levels while mfing.

Thanks,

conk out,
not clear on which merc, just...

STILL CONFUSED, BUT TAKING ALL ADVICE!!!!

[Uzziah]

Just to add to the debate before you close it forever;

The a3 merc can use trangs helm & armor, which add +18 to fireball {which works for him}. If you also give him a hexfire and sigons/lidless, it will go up 4 more skill levels. If you throw out some facets, you will really increase his damage.

The damage might appear high at first, but do note a few other things;

The damage is only effective if your character itself can help him. A poison nova / LoM necro with massive lower resistance, or a foh pally with lvl 25 conviction would make him effective.

And the downside to the fire merc, he only really has one offense. The inferno might look pretty, but it is currnetly bugged{is it?}, where it only does its damage in a very small radious. The critters that take damage from it have to be exactly in the middle of the inferno, not on the edges, even if they are at the end of it, if they are not in the middle of it, it wont hurt them. This kills the use of the skill, and is why flamebellow & general inferno sorc's are not that popular.


I would give a KuKo bow to an act 1 fire merc. That would be, in the end, more effective than the a3 fire merc with all that gear i listed above. Dont forget knock back, put a nef in the bow, or get a helm with it {i'm thinking howltusk or something has kb, i know gaint skull has one too, this helm would be great for its crushing blow vrs boss's}.

I am not sure about your +skills and +oskill claim with fireball, if it works and I am not saying if it works or not, it should only add +3 fireball since fireball is a native skill, the act 3 mercs are based on the sorc skill tree as we all know.

secondly I am not sure about +skills working with mercs anymore Blizzard changed the mercs signifcantly in 1.10 the lightning hose no longer works I would not be surprized if they just uprooted the +skills to accomplish getting rid of that bug.

Kuko with a act 1 fire merc is a good and bad idea, the kuko will guarantee a piercing shot (50% IIRC) with an explosive arrow. But when the merc fires her explosive shot or fire arrow the damage will be lowered for her, also there are faster bows for the merc than the kuko, take the rogue bow for example. You may even be able to make a HoJ bow for your act 1 fire merc that would be quite powerful for an act 1 merc no matter which one your using. The auto aura would add damage to every shot fired, the other affixes will help the merc out as well, and since it requires 4 sockets it will be an elite bow most likely.

[viamede]

I dont think the act3 guys are much faster on the attack. With a sorc you can tele your merc around to the right range...for you moving means she moves and doesn't fire. Hunt that guide down it gives some nice tips on getting your rouge merc firing instead of walking and shaft is too heavy for her...go lighter if you have something else to use...perhaps more res instead of the DR.

[MrGoth]

If i recall i remember seeing a post by -rtb or some member from the general strat/ statistic forum speaking of the +18 fire ball issue. I'm not 100% positive, but i'm pretty sure that since the a3 mage cannot use a sorc only type gear such as orbs, that he is not classified as a sorc himself. I'm sure if a sword/armor/helm gave 4+ to a barb skill it would be limited on the act 5 barbs, since they have access to barb only helms.

Overall + skills do work on merc. Easy check, take the average might merc & give him a +skill armor after his aura is on, see if it causes your damage to go up {even if your a mage, check your physical / main attack damage, even if its slight it should go up}.

I must disagree with the HoJ bow. Although the speed is impressive, and the -fire res, & the itd are nice, the freeze target is redundant being that this is a wind druid, who should have hurricane up, and the life leach and deadly strike are not realy that useful due to lack of physical damage.

The weak level 16 holy fire looks pretty, but it only adds 78-87 damage to attack, and 12.5-14.5 fire damage at a radious of 14. The only effect the aura would be is that it would act like a necromancers fire golem, and cause more critters to come towards the merc, which would most likely kill her.

I'd stick with kuko. If you are in need of speed, riphook would be neat also for its chance to cause open wounds.

On a side note, if you are kind of poorish, howltusk {unique great helm} does have kb, along with 25% chance to cause critters to run, which might be useful if you are being swarmed by monsters.

If you were inclinded to try and get your merc's physical damage up, then the deadly strike from a HoJ might be useful if you add in more to her gear, as in orphans helm. This also has fhr and crushing blow, which is great to have vrs boss's.

If you would like a novel way to take care of immune to physicals so that your attacks are more effecive, keep your witch wild.

To help with her ai, if you have access to an enigma, teleporting always sits her on top of you, so she will target anything that seems to target you as you get in its range. If you do not have teleport, walking instead of running in some tight areas can help too, all merc's have poor ai, and tend to wander.


Very important; if you are considering changing your merc do to the lack of ai / the point that she doesnt target what you want it to, do note that the a3 mages are worse in ways. They tend to want to keep away from battle, even if that means disengaging who they are attacking, and they will walk out of range or to an area thats just off screen or the edge of screen that you might not have even been to before, causing more critters to come to you.

A1 ai > a3 ai imo.

[Joshua]

My MF wind druids merc is an act one fire rogue.

WW string
Howl tusk
Duriel's case

My experience with her has been great. She rarely dies unless I do, actually kills her share, and is a reasonably effective answer to the PI's (if you have the patience to wait for amp to go off from the WW string).

Also, I can't say for certain but, it seems that the mercs AI gets better at higher levels. Mine is mobile, aggressive, and quite good at sniping the run up behind you sneaky monsters. This is at level 92 by the way.

[UNCONKABLE!!!!]

I have kept with the a1 merc and she is doing great actually. She has only died from hydra bath, but now I am starting to get the hang of getting out of there so she doesn't get peaced(no enigma yet to tele out of there due to trading ists for a jah, having it poof on me, then having to rebuild my assets. Wow what a hard first lesson :rant: ). Lately, my friend's 91 hammerdin with enigma has been running bosses while I run pit in the same game and I have leveled to 81 while my merc got to 80. She is doing great so far so I think I will keep her.

As for pit running(I know, off topic), I didn't realize that one extra person in the game makes such a difference in the extra drops. I used to mf pits with my meteorb sorc, but stopped due to not finding anything after countless runs in private games. This time with my wind druid I had all kinds of uniques, gcs, 30s duskshroud with good d, runes, etc dropping all over the place. The uniques I found were all garbage, but if they are dropping all of this stuff, it is bound to be something good eventually.

Thanks for the equipment suggestions everybody, I will try it out and get back to all of you. :drink:

conk out,
not a1 or a3 merc, just...

A1 MERC FOR NOW!!!!

[FrozenSolid]

Too lazy to read all other posts :P
I use an act1 merc with my windy druid (although Im thinking of turning him into a mule).
She uses 2* shaeled wws, gaze and najs light plate with ias.
I think you need 15 more ias if ur going to use double shaeled wws to hit the next fpa. Since amp doubles your Tornados dmg, you want her to attack as fast as possible with wws, so either give her andys visage, upped twitch or 15 ias jewel in armor/helm :thumbsup:

edit: Just saw her gear.
Use Andys w/ 15ias jewel and skullders w/ 15ias jewel instead. That would give you 90% ias, thus reaching 10 fps (yours is now 12) and have a nice amount of mf on her.
Alternatives are Mavs Diadem with 15ias jewel if u dont havea andys for her,
and shaft with 15ias jewel if you need the DR.

Since youre going to do most of the killing, dont bother with mf on her since it wont pay off that much in the end.
More amp --> faster killing --> more runs in shorter times --> more finds!