merc weapon

[iomanip]

hi!
I'm currently in the (vacant?) "Make no Bones About it" tournament, and have gotten as far as act I NM as of now. Since no bone spells/summons (except for golems) are allowed, my necro is mostly cursing enemies and let the merc kill them. It has worked well, and is still working, but i feel that in the near future, my merc won't be able to kill the evil guys as readily...

Right now he's equipped with an eth battlebranch, which i upped to partizan (~100-190 dmg, 7% ll), but that won't do it in hell, if i get that far.

Do you guys have any suggestions what i can do to get a better weapon (besides mf obviously). What do you normally do?

peace!
/iomanip

[Skinhead On The MBTA]

If you don't want to MF, then IMO runewords are your best bets.

Honor (AmnElIthTirSol) is a nice, cheap runeword, if (big if) you can find a ethereal five socket polearm or spear.

Malice (IthElEth) is also very cheap - doesn't have much enhanced damage, but it does have 100% chance for Open Wounds. Not really sure if that's end-game material though.

Strength (AmnTir) has a little %ED, and 25% chance for Crushing Blow. Could be useful for Bosses.

However, my favourite is Insight (RalTirTalSol) - very cheap, huge ED for the price, and a Meditation Aura thrown in for a bonus. An Ethereal 4 socket Polearm is the hardest part to find.

[HC Gunther]

In Hell, you want to use chippies to re-roll a Cryptic Axe, a Great Poleaxe, a Giant Thresher, Ghost Spear or a War Pike until it gets a "cruel" prefix.

[iomanip]

allright!
i always tend to forget that recepie, as well as those low lvl runewords.

thx guys!

edit: how many rolls does it usually take to get a nice cruel polearm?