Optimal gear for Act 2 offensive merc? (fishy)

[Duality]

Wouldn't Pride be the way to go? I would think that the conc aura would help. Of course, it's freaking expensive, so I'm going to be using Ob on my merc whenever I get around to finishing my Fishy, but it's a thought. :grin: (especially since I found a 5os eth CA the other day)

[NumtyDoo]

Pride is ok. Most of your killing speed will come from CE, not from skellies. Infinity boosts the 50% fire damage in CE by 85% (assuming monster has 0 initial fire resist),with amp and conviction in a 1-2 player game this means one CE kills everything.

Your first kill usually comes from your high damage merc, pride raises skellie damage, but lowers merc damage, so really it increases the time needed to get that 1st body. Merc leach is based off of damage, so with lower damage from pride he is more likely to die.

Your fastest boss killer is CB, Infinity has 40%, pride has none. Infinity increases merc's/summon's chance to hit bosses, increasing application of CB. With more hits landed by everyone, damage per second is actually higher with infinity than with pride. (This statement is true for bosses only as skellies don't have a bad chance to hit against non bosses)

So in my opinion, infinity wins on all accounts.

[naskali]

Make Doom into your 5soc eth CA. I have one and when my merc has it and might on, he does over 6k dmg and has insane speed. It also gives the helpful Holy Freeze and some open wounds. But Doom in EXPENSIVE so i prefer getting 4sock eth CA and making Infinity in it(Infinity is cheaper)

[bill_n_opus]

Pride is nice and bleh at the same time. I like my mercs to dish out the damage (although the conc aura is very nice). No onboard damage modifer apart from + to demons? Huge AR and some DS is nice, can work better if paired with Guillame's Face. I haven't used Vamp Gaze in a long time even though I have an eth one for the merc. I prefer the GFace or even Delerium for crowd control (not really necessary for a summoner with curses - although that depends on the skill of the player)

I like Infinity as well, eth upped Hone Sundan with high end jewels is really nice, Obedience is nice for raw damage output, but but suffers from lack of IAS and overall damage output since other weapons hit faster thus triggering CB more often etc.

Doom is great, shattering corpses is overrated IMO, you can always raise skellies and very rarely are the times when it comes back to bite you in the arse. Same with shattering corpses and CE, there's usually enough bodies around.

Insight, well, is nice but I find the meditation aura overrated for a summoner. That's what blue potions are for. What are you going to use in your belt slots anyways? Purples, blues, ID and TP is what I do.

Has anyone mentioned Crescent Moon? Underrated.

Or you can go crazy with Lawbringer with an Act 5 merc ... i've never seen one but might aura plus huge, huge CB would probably take down Baal quickly while minion-stacking him.

Body armor is usually a Fort for me, hence the preference for a bigger damage weapon (that's why Pride makes baby Jesus cry) CoH would work great too, Stone is nice as well as Duress ... Gloom is very nice but not on a summoner for the most part because of the CTC.

If you don't have access to that stuff then Leviathan is good, upped Shaft etc ...

[dcrunk]

I am having the same problem with my merc I have a sundan shaeled and amn and just recently got a nigma for my summoner so I picked up a insight... bosses go down faster with the sundan...but insight helps in the tele and CE department i'm torn on this issue.

[phool]

You could IG the insight.

Infinity is the way to go for weapons. Thresher and giant thresher are the ideal socketing options.

Vamp gaze isn't that good, andy's will boost the level of might and the ias will mean more CB and dps. You don't need the dr mercs don't take that much punishment with skeles.

I haven't tried using thorns on a summoner so I can't comment on bramble but forti is a very good choice as always - the highest def option and biggest damage booster which will also top up the merc's res (coh on the other hand would mean a higher might which may balance out idk).

Anything like doom or tyraels which means less corpses is bad. Anything with sanctuary is also apparently bad, in some way(s) affects your own skeles too.

[dcrunk]

I was abit hesitant on making the insight on the IG as life leech on him is impossible... but as i was lucky to make an obedience on my merc so pretty much nothing is hitting my golem cause my merc is tearing through stuff pretty fast... Thanks again.

[UberB]

Andy's w/ Ral
Fort
Infinity

Poorer people can go Insight or Bonehew.

[canudig]

Andy's w/ Ral
Fort
Infinity

Poorer people can go Insight or Bonehew.

you mean

eth andy's with ral
ebugged fort
eth CA infinity (or sorc infinity to prevent IM deaths)

[bogie]

you mean

eth andy's with ral
ebugged fort
eth CA infinity (or sorc infinity to prevent IM deaths)

You mean, eth CA infinity AND a sorc infinity in stash for chaos switch ^^
If your that close to perf merc gear, go for it all T.T