best merc gear for MF meteorb sorc

[AlabasterFilth]

Hi all,

So I have a lvl 79 meteorb sorc. She is used only for farming hell andariel + hell glitch mephisto.

I need merc gear for him to be able to tank andariel/mephisto

Right now he dies nearly instantly against mephisto. If I'm lucky, he can survive against andariel, since my fireball is high enough level to stun andariel.

I have an andariel's visage, but that requires level 83, which is very hard to get to without going past Act 3 (since I am glitching mephisto to get quest drops)

Does anyone have any good ideas for gear to help my merc survive? Right now he is using some pretty crappy gear (bone hew/duriel's shell/natalya's totem) but I'd like an idea of what to shoot for.

[Zaneus]

A vamp gaze helm is great to use on him in the mean time till andy's is usable. Get him a fortitude armour, has massive defence and cant go wrong with 300% increased damage.

For a meteorb sorc im doing to assume you have an Insight polearm. the fort will increase the damage massively and help the life leech keep him alive. Plus there's also the DR on vamp gaze which will also keep him alive longer.

[stephan]

It is not possible to leech from Mephisto, so that won't help. If you can go without a Insight (which you are doing now anyway) get a Kelpie's Snare for the slow. The rest of your merc gear is ok.

You could try to level in the Pits and/or Ancient Tunnels.

[Shanksie1337]

For leveling the merc, as stephan pointed out there are 2 good lvl 85 areas accessable to you (well more if you include the smaller places in Kurast Causeway etc), but Pits & AT's should easily help you both level higher.

For merc gear:
Tals mask / Vamp Gaze / Crown of Thieves
Duriels / Shaftstop
Reapers Toll / decent Insight (non eth elite / eth exceptional) should do the trick.

With both these bosses the easiest way to ensure your merc survives is to simply kill the boss faster. Obvious i know, but it does the trick. If you don't need your merc to tank, you can always tele into some trash pack and leaving him hitting those whilst you nuke the boss down. You also don't mention what aura your merc has, Holy Freeze / Defiance & Might are all good choices. It will also get easier to keep him alive as you both level higher, but i'm sure you knew that :).

I'm not saying Zaneus is wrong, but you really shouldn't need hr runeword items to keep a merc alive, none of the mercs on my chars have anything better than what i've listed and i don't have any problem outside of IM that kills them.

[Asrrin]

vamp gaze/crown of theives
Fort armor
Insight.

[AlabasterFilth]

Yes Ideally I want insight in an elite polearm.

And yes, HR runewords are out for me for a loooong time, I just started back up again and I don't have a lot of wealth.

I think I'll try for upped kelpie snare/andariel's visage/shaftstop, and just grind the pits/tunnels until I can get to level 83 to equip visage. I think kelpie snare slow + frozen orb + 30% dr from shaftstop should keep him alive long enough for me to kill mephisto/andariel

He is NM act 2 defensive merc btw (holy freeze).

[jackthelad]

He is NM act 2 defensive merc btw (holy freeze).

Same as mine. He still has problems v andy (my fb takes her down easily tho), meph is pretty easy, baal ditto. As long as I keep an eye on him & tp out if he starts getting low, he hardly ever dies & is a perfect tank, as he is supposed to be.

Mine has a ral'd andys face, Forti in an eth shadow plate (~3,3k def iirc) & Obediance in a non-eth elite polearm (I forget which one).

As has been said, before I could afford better gear for him he had a tals mask (huge leach) insight (infinite tele/mana for you) & any form of armour. I am a big fan of 'smoke' (def v missiles, resists, FHR) 'Lionheart' is also decent. All the usual ones too ofc, duriels, leviathan, almost anything with resists/big def is good.

[obiwansbane]

keep in mind when deciding on fort or shaftstop.. mercs dont lose durability, so you can get an eth shaftstop for the increased defense.. and the huge damage reduction should help him survive for longer.. inbetween your meteors blast meph with as many fireballs as possible... the damage will be small but amount of time saving in terms of bringing him down faster will help!

good luck!

[AlabasterFilth]

Same as mine. He still has problems v andy (my fb takes her down easily tho), meph is pretty easy, baal ditto. As long as I keep an eye on him & tp out if he starts getting low, he hardly ever dies & is a perfect tank, as he is supposed to be.

Mine has a ral'd andys face, Forti in an eth shadow plate (~3,3k def iirc) & Obediance in a non-eth elite polearm (I forget which one).

As has been said, before I could afford better gear for him he had a tals mask (huge leach) insight (infinite tele/mana for you) & any form of armour. I am a big fan of 'smoke' (def v missiles, resists, FHR) 'Lionheart' is also decent. All the usual ones too ofc, duriels, leviathan, almost anything with resists/big def is good.

I never thought of using obedience, it appears to be fantastic for a MF meteorb merc! does the -25% fire resistance help out my fireballs/meteors? I also really like the crushing blow, +10 str, +20-30 resist all, %ctc enchant, and +def. And 370% enhanced damage is nothing to sneeze at.

I think Smoke/Shaftstop will be a good armor to suffuce until I am able to get Fortitude. Looking over the list of cheap-ish runewords, Duress seems to be a good choice too, put in a elite armor for good defense, has CB + decent resists all.

I'm of the understanding that %DR is much better than resists/def, is this not true for running andariel/mephisto?

Remember that the sole purpose of my sorc is to run andariel + mephisto as fast as possible, over and over.

I think andariel can be handled pretty easily once I get about +4 or +5 more skills and get slightly better gear for my merc.

The main problem is mephisto, and since he cannot be leached, things like tal's mask/vamp gaze/crown of thieves don't really help me that much. My meteor/fireball are not very high level yet (both level 27) so it takes many many meteors + fireballs to take him down. However with better merc gear I could get close enough to static him down to 50% then finish him off much more quickly.

I think for medium setup I will use Insight/Smoke/Ral'd Andy Visage, and For high-end setup I will use Obedience/Fortitude/Ral'd Andy Visage (once I can afford the runewords).

Do you guys think it is worth it to use upped Kelpie Snare for slow? Or should I keep looking for good polearm for insight? I have no qualms with using a few potions to kill meph as long as my merc survives and I can kill mephisto reasonably quick, so the extra mana from insight would really just be icing.

Thanks for all the replies

[stephan]

I never thought of using obedience, it appears to be fantastic for a MF meteorb merc! does the -25% fire resistance help out my fireballs/meteors?
No it won't.


I think Smoke/Shaftstop will be a good armor to suffuce until I am able to get Fortitude. Looking over the list of cheap-ish runewords, Duress seems to be a good choice too, put in a elite armor for good defense, has CB + decent resists all.
Fortitude does very little to make your merc survive against Meph or Andy that can't be done with much cheaper options. It's a waste of Lo for this purpose.

I'm of the understanding that %DR is much better than resists/def, is this not true for running andariel/mephisto?
%DR and res are of equal importance. Def is not really important at all.

Do you guys think it is worth it to use upped Kelpie Snare for slow?
No need for it to be upped. His damage doesn't matter.

My Mephisto runner merc uses Kelpie's, Rockstopper and Shaftstop. None of these are eth and none of these are upped. He never dies. Of course you do need to be willing to teleport near Mephisto, because if the merc can't hit him, he also can't slow him. However, this also gives you the opportunity to use static right away.

[AlabasterFilth]

Ok I will try using kelpie snare/shaftstop/rockstopper and see if he can run them without dying.

[Aplostra]

Why use a merc for mephi runs ? Go from the right side, ignore the council members, static field him and then meteor shower with moat from left side. Just get mana pots with you. No need to do both andy and mephi ,imo. Save your time for mephi. As for the "best merc gear", infinity fortitude and vamp gaze / crown of thieves. If u can live without the meditation aura and can afford the runes, get an infinity. The damage sky-rockets and u dont have to worry so much about the immunes. If not, insight is really great and helpfull.

[AlabasterFilth]

I can run meph fast enough to temp ban after a few runs. So I add Andariel in as well.

And I don't really care for the top merc gear atm, since I am relatively poor and just want to run meph/andariel together as fast as possible.

Using merc is faster than moat trick for meph.

And with my first infinity I'm making a lite sorc.

I already have kelpie snare, if he can live with that, there's no need to buy a 4soc polearm.

[Shanksie1337]

Yeah i kinda agree, for a sorc the merc is simply an Insight holding companion. Tele onto boss, static to 50%, spam spell of choice, loot (and if you are kind/low on gold/bored feed merc a pot or 2).

Any semi decent gear will keep your merc alive aslong as you kill quick enough.

If you want to be your mercs biatch, and sit and wait for them to do some killing, reroll gf barb :p