Help me make a bulletproof merc.

**zaphodbrx** · 13-04-2012, 16:03

Physical damage. But they are ITD ( the red projectiles that is, not melee attacks ).

**magicrectangle** · 13-04-2012, 17:07

Their bloodstars (ranged attack) do physical damage that never misses (but can be blocked), so they're particularly troublesome when you get amp'd. Integer damage reduction is the best way to negate them - a sol'd gladiators bane or something. The act 5 hell ones do 47-84 damage (65.5 avg), that's 20-57 (38.5 avg) w/ sol'd gladiator's bane. Add in a nature's peace or two and it will be doing peanuts (idr is pretty good for your survivability in general, too).

**Karth** · 13-04-2012, 20:13

Originally Posted by Clervis

Yea, I know Prayer is probably the best way to keep him pumping, but I need the defense because my Bearsorc's block and recover speed are so lousy. I seem to be having quite a bit of problem with Stygian Furies. Anybody know what kind of damage they do?

Prayer's a good way to keep your life maxed while you're teleporting from a waypoint to somewhere else, but once you're actually in combat it doesn't heal fast enough. Defiance and Holy Freeze both do more to keep your merc alive in a tight spot. Might probably does too.

**gakky** · 17-04-2012, 00:21

Yeah sorry I forgot you can't teleport. Defiance or Holy Freeze would certainly be best.
A couple of ideas :
1. An alternative to teleporting your merc out of danger is town portal.
2. If you have 2 keys you could use a barb singer with a high level shout (level 48 shout (+570%def 11 minute duration) and 50 BO).

**Clervis** · 21-04-2012, 19:56

Originally Posted by magicrectangle

Their bloodstars (ranged attack) do physical damage that never misses (but can be blocked), so they're particularly troublesome when you get amp'd. Integer damage reduction is the best way to negate them - a sol'd gladiators bane or something. The act 5 hell ones do 47-84 damage (65.5 avg), that's 20-57 (38.5 avg) w/ sol'd gladiator's bane. Add in a nature's peace or two and it will be doing peanuts (idr is pretty good for your survivability in general, too).

I can deal with it fine. My merc is just a wimp and he can't use things like block or nature's peace. I get the feeling IDR isn't going to be so great considering that should I invest in a perf Sol'd GBane. That's 27 off of the 131 damage when amped (which is the real problem), and that's only a 20% reduction. Rather percent damage reduction from something like a Ber'd Vampire Gaze (28%), or BerBer'd CoA (31%), would be superior. One has Life leech the other has resists. So I have those two options, GA and Fort as armor options. I guess I just should try these options and see where the biggest threats are.

**Karth** · 21-04-2012, 20:54

Originally Posted by Clervis

I can deal with it fine. My merc is just a wimp and he can't use things like block or nature's peace. I get the feeling IDR isn't going to be so great considering that should I invest in a perf Sol'd GBane. That's 27 off of the 131 damage when amped (which is the real problem), and that's only a 20% reduction. Rather percent damage reduction from something like a Ber'd Vampire Gaze (28%), or BerBer'd CoA (31%), would be superior. One has Life leech the other has resists. So I have those two options, GA and Fort as armor options. I guess I just should try these options and see where the biggest threats are.

Integer damage reduction is applied before percentile damage reduction; it will be much more effective than DR% under Amp. Remember, too, that DR% is just physical resistance, and Amp applies -100% physical resistance.

**zaphodbrx** · 22-04-2012, 03:15

I was trying out some pdr stuff while trying Nihilithak running.
The merc had 3x Sol winged helm, Sol Gladiator's bane and eth Bonehew AmnShael.
One of the side effects I noticed was that it made him almost completely immune to blood stars.