DR on mercs

[donzi]

My hamemrdin drags in toe a HF A2 merc with Steelskull, etherial insight and Leviathan 21% dr, yet he still gets rocked pretty hard mostly by archer classes.. does DR not work on them? should i just trade Leviathan an realize its just inevitable to hafto resurrect my merc every run?

[PhatTrumpet]

Archers as in Skeleton Archers? Skeletons can dish out quite a bit of elemental damage, namely fire damage. Give him Tal's Mask instead of Steelskull since his resists don't appear to be very good.

If it's archers in general, i.e. including the ones in The Pit, I'd say he needs some more defense and/or more Faster Hit Recovery. Try giving him something like an eth glitched 'Stone' or an eth Glad's Bane.

Levi is an okay Merc armor, but Steelskull isn't exactly the best Merc helm and 'Insight' isn't needed for a Hammerdin since you can just flash on Redemption after a battle. I'd switch out 'Insight' for Reaper's (eth if you got it) and switch out Steelskull for something like Kira's, Tal's Mask, 'Um' Gaze, or even Blackthorn's if you encounter a lot of Gloams/Scarabs.

EDIT: Info about glitching is readily available in about a million threads on these forums... make the effort.

[donzi]

what exactly is a glitched armor anyway.. i know its an etherial armor that gets way more def than it should but how is it done?

[emar]

Get an Eth armor (Non Sup) and use the socketing recipe Tal + Thul + PTopaz in lieu of Larzurk. This causes the item to roll a random (there is an equation) number of sockets up to 4. When this socketing occurs the 50% Eth bonus is reapplied to the armor, so it is glitched. So in the end you get your random socketed armor with a 50% Defence bonus reapplied.

However, as mentionned, it is oftentimes better to use the search function in order to answer your questions. Being spammed by the same silly question repeatedly is annoying.

[donzi]

so the same bug can be done with helms?


and i'm sorry to not use search usually i get diminished returns and it wasnt part of my initial question, it was a suggesion

[thegiantturtle]

so the same bug can be done with helms?Yes, and shields, but the recipe is slightly different. Check out the Arreat Summit (http://forums.diabloii.net/www.battle.net/diablo2exp), but make sure to take the information there with a grain of salt.

[donzi]

ya i looked at the recipes got them just wasnt sure if the bug worked with those items like the armor.. thanks

[flagergr]

Instead of the Stone runeword you might want to try Gloom. The defence is a bit lower, but it has 15% chance to cast level 3 dim vision when struck. Imho it goes off pretty frequently. When it does go off it shuts down the archer(pack) for almost 3 seconds. It sounds like a short time but it's enough, if not to kill but at least to cast a few hammers on the monsters before it wears out.

Oh yeah and with 45 to all resists Gloom should solve any problems with resists the merc has.

[krischan]

My hamemrdin drags in toe a HF A2 merc with Steelskull, etherial insight and Leviathan 21% dr, yet he still gets rocked pretty hard mostly by archer classes.. does DR not work on them? should i just trade Leviathan an realize its just inevitable to hafto resurrect my merc every run?
DR works on mercs. Apart from that and to confirm it, PhatTrumpet gave you a few good hints about merc equipment and using redemption.

[helvete]

DR works on mercs. Apart from that and to confirm it, PhatTrumpet gave you a few good hints about merc equipment and using redemption.
Redemption isn't as good as insight, for mana burn in general, and baal especially.

[donzi]

insight is soo sexy for mana burn i <3 it much.. like helvete said for baal, or any otehr mana burns out there you cant get but 1 hammer off..

plus redemtion doesnt work for mercs just for caster i thought..

i suppose i could change back n forth gear since alot of the time i just leave nature's peace on for nithlak runs, i always for get to switch