Which merc is most durable alone?

[sequoia]

I am actually making a gold find barb, but I came to the conclusion that a sorc player would probably have the best answer to this question...

which merc do you think would have the easiest time soloing trav with little to no intervention? act 5? act 2 defiance? act 2 might? I was thinking act 5, then I had to decide between an ebotd sword or last wish (life tap would be unbeatable for survivability). Would an act 5 merc have no problem regardless of weapon? Would ebotd kill a lot faster?

Thanks for your time.

[LordHoth]

Well as for act 5 mercs I don't have much experience with them. I, like most, usually go with Act 2 mercs for their auras. The ones most common for the sorceress are the defensive merc from act 2 normal, Holy Freeze from nightmare, or sometimes the prayer one can't remember which one that is off of the top of my head. The defiance merc greatly increases defense for you and your merc. While it doesn't do much for the sorceress herself, you can easily get 20k+ defense on your merc with the right etherial runewords/uniques. The holy freeze has less defense but chills everything near it, thus taking less damage. The prayer ends up just being a walking aura with mana and health regen for your guy through Insight.

It's all a matter of prefrence really. I'd just try them all, including the act 5 mercs, and see which one suits you best.

[Ed from Russia]

I'd say an Act 2 Defiance merc is the strongest as a pure tank. Equip him with Tal's mask for leech, Reaper's Toll for the Decrep and either Duriels (cbf) or Shaftstop (dr) and he should do fine. With the exception of Iron Maiden of course, that always kills him.

[korialstraz]

Keep in mind this is only for travi running (right?), so I would say a merc with maxed res and some extra +res.

Since it's gold find barb CoT springs to mind and Guardian Angel springs to mind. Reaper's Toll is a nice weapon and helps a lot with the Decrep curse. Also it can be socketed :thumbup:

Imho a might merc will serve you better. Crowd control is allready taken care of and so is life leech, with more damage you leech more which means better survivabilty. Whatever you do don't take HF merc since it will shatter bodies.

Good luck with getting a merc that will fit your needs :)

[sequoia]

I think you guys are underestimating hell trav a little bit :) Since I'm gold finding, I don't really do anything aside from leaping - and I would like to find a combination where I don't even have to do that.

As of now I'm using an eth tomb reaver, an eth fort, and an eth andy's... but it's still rough going and he needs assistance/tp'ing about 75% of the time. I'm currently using a might merc, but may try out defiance. The real issue is that I'm not sure what's giving him trouble, whether it's the hydras, the occasional LE mob, or if he's actually getting hit by the council.

There is an issue that he doesn't have CBF on his item set up, but without fort's chilling armor, hydras will rip him to shreds.

[korialstraz]

It is most likely the hydras (always gives my merc a hard time). Without hydras the council would be a walk in the park. That's also why I suggested some sort of max res equipment :D

[DH Amazon]

I think you guys are underestimating hell trav a little bit :) Since I'm gold finding, I don't really do anything aside from leaping - and I would like to find a combination where I don't even have to do that.

As of now I'm using an eth tomb reaver, an eth fort, and an eth andy's... but it's still rough going and he needs assistance/tp'ing about 75% of the time. I'm currently using a might merc, but may try out defiance. The real issue is that I'm not sure what's giving him trouble, whether it's the hydras, the occasional LE mob, or if he's actually getting hit by the council.

There is an issue that he doesn't have CBF on his item set up, but without fort's chilling armor, hydras will rip him to shreds.

Chilling armor don't help at all against hydras. It counter attack, but those hydras can't be killed. So its useless.

Its hydras. Those are bugged, so max fire resist needed. Better have max resist after conviction boss there. So Kira is one of the best for stacked resist. Ias jool. CBF is nice bonus here.

(Eth) Reapers toll for weapon, gives leech and slow. And breaks those immunes (quite often there). Ias jool too. This weapon is almost must there, those armor/helmet are there in case conviction aura(s) are there.

Reaper Toll (Thresher), break points for that are:
8% ias for 7frame jab
22 for 6.5 frame jab
44% for 6 frame jab (aim here)
75% for 5.5 frame jab (or here)
With fast attack, merc leech much better and less hydras.
And might merc, more damage more leech and faster runs.

Those hydras do (was it 6x or something) more damage against merc than to you, so merc needs good resist but also great speed and damage to leech more life than those hydras take away. Life tap wand at switch might help too, but so annoying to use.

And Threachery armor (total 75 ias for great attack speed), those hydras trigger fade quite fast, so extra resist and damage reduced. Clear curses fast too. First monster triggers venom, so extra 315 poison damage per .4 seconds helps too, at least stops monster life regeration. And 50% gold find (LEM in armor) don't hurt either.

Try first without extra ias from helmet/weapon, if not needed, couple LEMs there too.

[sequoia]

Chilling armor don't help at all against hydras. It counter attack, but those hydras can't be killed. So its useless.

Its hydras. Those are bugged, so max fire resist needed. Better have max resist after conviction boss there. So Kira is one of the best for stacked resist. Ias jool. CBF is nice bonus here.

(Eth) Reapers toll for weapon, gives leech and slow. And breaks those immunes (quite often there). Ias jool too. This weapon is almost must there, those armor/helmet are there in case conviction aura(s) are there.

Reaper Toll (Thresher), break points for that are:
8% ias for 7frame jab
22 for 6.5 frame jab
44% for 6 frame jab (aim here)
75% for 5.5 frame jab (or here)
With fast attack, merc leech much better and less hydras.
And might merc, more damage more leech and faster runs.

Those hydras do (was it 6x or something) more damage against merc than to you, so merc needs good resist but also great speed and damage to leech more life than those hydras take away. Life tap wand at switch might help too, but so annoying to use.

And Threachery armor (total 75 ias for great attack speed), those hydras trigger fade quite fast, so extra resist and damage reduced. Clear curses fast too. First monster triggers venom, so extra 315 poison damage per .4 seconds helps too, at least stops monster life regeration. And 50% gold find (LEM in armor) don't hurt either.

Try first without extra ias from helmet/weapon, if not needed, couple LEMs there too.

Chilling armor is bugged, it deflects an incredible amount of damage.

Can I link to youtube videos here? If not, youtube search "chilling armor" (The video chilling armor 2 and chilling armor 3 are the ones we want to look at) - a D2 player did numerous tests to see just how effective it was. Kira's and some form of life leech are an option that I may look into.

[sequoia]

I'd also like to point out that reaper's toll has a bit less damage (even before socketing), less attack speed, and cold damage. Shattering corpses is something I will definitely stray away from. My main two weapon considerations were still ebotd war pike or an eth tomb reaver.

[DH Amazon]

I'd also like to point out that reaper's toll has a bit less damage (even before socketing), less attack speed, and cold damage. Shattering corpses is something I will definitely stray away from. My main two weapon considerations were still ebotd war pike or an eth tomb reaver.

Cold damage is only downside. Best helmet for those other two is vampire gaze, cold damage there too. But cold slow monster little more, so easier for merc to survive.

But not less speed or damage. And in 10 runs, there are usually 2-3 psysical immunes, so decrepify curse is only option against those.

It does more damage than eth tomb reaver, about same when 33% deadly is calculated in, but when decrepify kicks in, its about 2x more damage than with tomb reaver. And often psysical immune boss there too, with reaper you can kill it, but need to park it with tomb reaver.

Tomb reaver is cryptic axe, so need 92% ias for 6frame jab or 147% ias for 5.5frame jab, so both are about same speed, but both needs lots of ias for good speed. Little easier to get speed with thresher.
War pike is both slow, 7frame or 6.5frame and does less damage than thresher.

Run takes about 30-60s, so taking tp back to town takes much time than losing couple of bodies to cold sometimes. And you can hork bodies right away, no need to babysit your merc. You might lose some gold in one run, but can do much more runs within hour, so overall gold is more.


But if those two weapons are only options, it easy to pick up winner. Just do test runs with both setups. Your goal is to get full gold, around 2.3M as fast as possible, right? Do test runs with both setups, getting that shouldn't take long, couple of runs and 5min-10min. Or even faster, not sure how fast barb can get gold.
How fast you get that max gold, is it less or more than 10min?


edit: Council Members in hell have 50% damage resistance, so Decrepify curse from Reapers drops that -50, so its double damage/leech. Hard to beat that, if you can't provide amp curse with your char.

[sequoia]

I can max out gold in under 10 minutes regardless of the weapon, but if I join too fast I start to get fail games, which makes it double the time. I am not sure how often reaper's toll will shatter corpses, which usually provides half if not more of the gold. I'd also say that an eth tomb reaver does have more damage than the reaper's, especially if you start to put Lo in for the deadly strike. It doesn't have decrep which would be nice, but if I want to do some long term gold finding I have to take breaks anyway to avoid an RD, so as long as it's doable, I don't really mind.

My main concern was whether a defiance merc or an act 5 merc holds up better than a might merc.

I don't want to seem argumentative, I really do appreciate your input. I just don't find reaper's toll to be all that great, especially when you factor in shattering.

[ekarisor]

I have an act 2 might merc with crown of thieves, eBOTD ghost spear and an eth-glitched fort shadow plate. He does all the killing and I'll only leap in a couple times per run. His life never goes below half unless he's amped and a council member has might or fanaticism, but even then I can take the stairs to the durance to chill for a bit while his life fills up.

It really is a great setup, 10+K damage, close if not max resists, 33+K defense when chilling triggers and life leech in the mid 20s.

[Tarantella]

Off the wall I would suggest an Act 2 merc with Delirium(extra gold find), obedience thresher and treachery. You get to carry a life tap wand :)


Swap helm for Guillames with ED jewel for a boss killer.

[sequoia]

I have an act 2 might merc with crown of thieves, eBOTD ghost spear and an eth-glitched fort shadow plate. He does all the killing and I'll only leap in a couple times per run. His life never goes below half unless he's amped and a council member has might or fanaticism, but even then I can take the stairs to the durance to chill for a bit while his life fills up.

It really is a great setup, 10+K damage, close if not max resists, 33+K defense when chilling triggers and life leech in the mid 20s.

ebotd sounds like a winner (I've always figured people underestimate how much better for survival extra life leech > extra damage). I'll probably try that.