Guide The Mercenary Guide

Hey there,
i hope this guide will be usefull in answering some questions about your merc or wich merc to choose.
All credits go to Alterego.

Introduction
Mercs are useful little things and since the release of the expansion they have gone from being the most unused feature of my D2 games, to a key part of my gaming strategy.

They can also be slightly annoying. Mercs will run off and attack monsters that your character cannot currently see on screen, which can bring a whole load of trouble down on your head as well. Playing with a merc changes the tempo of the game and is something worth bearing in mind.

Merc Names

First thing you'll notice is that when you go to hire your merc there are a number of mercs available with different names. Their various stats and levels will be covered later in the faq, but at this moment you may well be blindsided by a merc with a cool name such as Azrael or amused to find mercs called Elly, Gaile and Flux.

The merc names are randomly assigned each time you visit the merc leader on each trip to town. If you want a particular name for your merc, say you want an Act 2 offensive merc on Nightmare diff called Azrael, just keep revisiting town until the merc with the name you are after appears.

Merc Stats and Leveling Mercs

When you are being shown mercs to hire, the game lists the merc's name and type, along with cost, defense & life.

The defense shown is the base defense WITHOUT the dexterity bonus. Once you have purchased the merc, you will immediately see that the listed defense is higher than that which was shown.

At each difficulty level (hence referred to as diff.), the mercs you can hire will be of a higher experience level than those of the previous diff., however their stats will be lower when compared to a merc from the previous diff. who has reached the same level of experience. In short, leveling up your normal diff. merc is better than hiring a new one at a higher difficulty level.

Note: The actual difference in the physical stats of a normal diff. merc and nightmare diff. merc isn't tremendous and there are only a few levels of difference in their skills. To give an example, at level 80, a normal rogue merc has 1290 life and 199 dex (dexterity). A nightmare rogue merc would have 1256 and 194 dex.

In short, it won't make a tremendous difference to your PvM (player vs. monster) game if you hire a merc in hell diff. Only Act II nightmare diff mercs are really affected by this. If you wish to have those particular auras then you are going to have to settle for slightly lower stats.

The mercs' levels per group and difficulty setting are as follows:

Code:

                  Normal      NM         Hell
Rogue Scout:        3-7      37-40       67-71
Desert Warrior:     9-13     44-47       75-79
Eastern Sorceror:  15-19     49-53       79-83
Barbarian:         28-32     59-62       80-84

The levels seem to follow a trend as you progress through the acts and the difficulty settings. Also note that if you go to an act before you are at the maximum level of the mercs in that act (level 13 in act 2 normal, level 19 in act 3 normal, etc.), the only mercenary that you will be able to hire are those that are equal to your level.

Mercs get the most experience when you are fighting monsters of a similar level to that of the merc. If you've just hired a new merc and want to level them to the same level as your character, compare their level to that of monsters in different parts of the game and fight in that area. With players 8 active, the merc will level up pretty quickly.

Mercs also get more experience for monsters they kill themselves, rather than the XP they get when your character kills monsters. Assist your merc by lowering monster HP for and backing off, or using spells/skills that effect whole groups of monsters to weaken them and allow your merc to finish them off. Try to pick monsters that are unlikely to hit your merc hard and often, eg. Frenzytaurs in the Ancients way. These monsters are very likely to take your merc apart quite quickly. Places like the Arcane Sanctuary, where your merc can take on monsters without being swamped are ideal.

However the area in question might not have the best experience for your character and may also have pretty lame item drops. Taking your merc to Act V of normal or nightmare diff (depending where you character is in the game) works almost just as well. Alternatively, running places with many boss packs near a WP such as the temples in Act III or Shenk/Eldritch in Act V may speed up the leveling process.

Mercs cannot be a higher level than your character and when a merc reaches the same level as the player character they cease to gain any experience until the player character levels up again. So when your character reaches level 99, your merc will remain at level 98 forever as they cannot gain anymore experience.

Barbarians are the hardest to level as they have the highest EXP required to level, also, the mercs you pick up from later difficulties have larger level requirements. So, not only do the normal difficulty mercs have higher skills than their counterparts at high levels, but they have lower experience requirements to level too.

Mercenary Equipment

A list and comparison of great items to use on your merc would probably be longer than this guide itself.

The most important mod to have on your merc equipment is Life Steal. While other mods (extra resists, faster attack, enhanced damage, damage reduction) are important, life steal and (to a lesser extent) life replenish will stop your merc requiring a rejuv every 5 minutes. As they cannot heal themselves using potions (and their life regen often isn't fast enough to survive heavy combat), the life steal will help a melee merc keep tanking for far longer. As a merc grows in experience and does more damage, the life steal will keep a merc near max health during most fights. The Barbarian is a minor exception to this rule in that as long as he isn't poisoned he will fully regenerate his life in 12.7 seconds compared to the others mercs who take 47 seconds to fully heal. A "cheap" source of equipment would be blood crafted helms/armours which come with in-built life leech although it wouldn't be very hard to find better equipment.

Life Leech is completely useless for Act III mercs though, as they hardly ever use their swords to hit anything. As a result life leech is not a practical mod to have on their equipment. Give them a caster type weapon instead or a 6-socketed sword having jewels with useful mods (+life/res),Rainbow Facet jewels. Items with -% to elemental resistance would be excellent.

The "brother" mod of Life Leech is "Increased Attack Speed". Outside of life steal on weapons, try to give your mercs the fastest attack weapons you can that won't sacrifice their damage too much. As there are few equipment slots on a merc to store IAS items (and no inventory for charms), you need to focus on the speed of the weapon. A slow attacking merc is really, really slow and very vulnerable to monster attacks. They will not get the most benefit from their life steal as the monsters will get more hits in on them, than they will on the monsters. If you have spare IAS jewels, Shael runes and a socketing quest, it can be just as worthwhile increasing the speed of your mercs weapon via socketing as it would your own.

Crushing blow and open wounds are one of the ultimate boss killers. Whenever possible, try to have such mods on your melee merc as well.

Mana leech is completely useless to mercs, even the magic using ones. Don't bother with mana leech when choosing equipment for your merc because they do not have a mana pool.

Because mercs naturally get quite high resistances, resist gear is not as useful to a very high level merc and it can be worthwhile equipping them with damage reducing gear instead.

Naturally any spare uniques you have lying around that could be used by your merc are probably best placed on your merc. If you've got it, use it!!! There is no point in equipping a merc with magical gear from Larzuk when you have spare Shaftstops and Vampire Gazes on a mule somewhere. Stick them on your merc and you'll instantly notice an improvement in their longevity.

The same applies to runewords/rares and any cruel weapons that might be appropriate. If the Cruel Colossus Blade you just made doesn't have the 40% IAS and 300% ED that you were hoping for, socket it with an Amn rune and give it your barb merc (or your low 300% Breath of the Dying Colossus Blade).

Slow target items for mercs are excellent, nearly as good as damage reduction items. A slowed creature can hit the merc less frequently and is therefore easier for the merc to fight. This mod can be very useful against the Frenzytaurs of Act 5 as well as all the act bosses. Mercs can also make use of faster run/walk items which can provide your merc with much greater mobility, allowing them to get into and out of trouble faster.

Mercs also make a good home for any Ethereal unique items that you have, since ethereal items do not lose durability when equipped on a merc.

Merc also get the benefits of the partial bonuses of Set Items as well. Sadly, most set items consist of too many parts un-equippable by the merc for them to get the full set bonuses.

In short, treat equipping a merc like you would your character. Try and give them the best gear you can spare. More equipment details may be found in the sections pertaining to the specific merc.

Also, chance to cast (CTC) items, especially curses or static field, are extremely useful to put on your mercenary. Items that come to mind are Crescent Moon, Delirium, and the Reaper's Toll. The Viperfork is also useful if you're in an undead-infested area and want to get rid of all the corpses before they get reanimated.

Stacking Auras

lets say you have an act 2 defensive merc, and he's equipped with an Infinity polearm, and Dream for helm, the auras that come with the gear are lvl 15 holy shock, lvl 12 conviction, and holy freeze because he's an act2 NM defensive merc.
The auras all stack on top of each other as long as the gear is equipped and your merc is alive. If at any point it appears that the conviction and holy shock are not active for whatever reason, unequipping the item with the aura on it and then re-equipping it should reactivate the aura. The only reason for the holy freeze not being up would be that he just died, as the merc has to fight a little before activating his aura.

2 of the same aura's do not stack.
Last Wish's might aura and the mercs might aura is not at all like dual dreams stacking. In short no it will not work. Think about running holy shock on your pally and then equipping dream, they do not stack, the game would use the highest one activated....like 2 hdins runnin concentration at the same time.

The only exception to this is Prayer, prayer stacks with prayer. It's the only aura that does.

Plus to Skills Items & Mercenaries

What + to skills items do mercs benefit from? is a commonly asked question. Furthermore what is the effect of the bonus skills when the item is equipped?

For all mercs, only the mod "+X to all skills" will work by raising their existing skill level by the equivalent of X entire levels of the equivalent player characters skill. While merc skills do improve with each level, it isn't in the same way as that of player characters, so + to skills can really benefit mercs. Eg. the Iron Wolves magical skills are capped at lvl 18 so + to skills here can lead to a significant improvement.

The general rule is only "+ to all skills" would have an effect on the merc skills. The sole exception would be the barb merc. Wearing a helm with +skills to Bash/Stun would work as the barb uses such skills in combat.

Mercenaries and Magic Find Equipment

When a merc is wearing MF gear, the value of that MF is added to the value of the MF your character is equipped with, but only when the merc makes a kill.

Example:
Merc as 100% MF
Character has 300% MF.

Whenever the merc kills something his MF is treated as being 400%. This does not apply in reverse however and a Mercs MF does not add to characters. So if you're out MFing with your merc, make sure he/she gets the last hit in on whatever Boss or Unique you're attempting to MF from.

Practically speaking though, you should consider whether the time taken for the merc to kill the boss could be used on another MF run!

% increase gold drop works then same way as % magic find. It only applies when the merc kills something

Merc Healing
Use rejuv potions wherever possible to heal your merc. As per your character, regular potions take time to effect a merc and if you're healing them in the heat of battle, odds are a regular potion will not stop them from being killed.

Also, when healing your merc, hold down "shift" and click on a potion in your belt rather than dragging the potion over to your merc. The first method is quicker and removes all the fumbling that can occur when you're trying to get an antidote potion to them in a hurry. Alternatively hold down shift and hitting 1, 2, 3 ,4 (for your belt slot) to heal your merc. This is even quicker and requires no mouse movement!!!

Incidentally, the duration of thawing and antidote potions stack.Hence feeding your merc several of such potions before any killing session basically gives you a merc highly resistant to poison and cold. This is especially useful in the undead-heavy areas like Act II where the merc just can't seem to stop themselves from walking through poison clouds.

Merc Resurrection

If your merc dies you can visit the leaders of the merc groups in each act and pay a sum of money for your merc to be resurrected. In act 4, Tyrael performs this roll. The cost of resurrection increases as your merc levels off, but peaks at the princely sum of 50,000 gold when your merc reaches around level 80. You can revive your merc at any time, even if you start a new game in a different difficulty setting.

Mercs Versus Bosses

If you're facing an act boss for the first time, then odds are your Merc is going to get killed in fairly short order thanks to the x2 damage done by the bosses, including normal boss monsters (such as Griswold). Mercs do - 50% damage against bosses in normal, 35% in nightmare, and 25% in hell difficulties.

While its down to the individual whether they want to use up an entire belt of rejuvs keeping their merc going, I would suggest its not worth the bother especially if your character can manage to fight on alone. After all, if you've used them all up on your merc, what're you going to drink? Then there's the ressurection costs.

However, if you are one of those magic finders, then there are several combinations to be used against the act bosses. For example, hitting hell difficulty Baal with a Kelpie Snare (slow) will make sure that he doesn't make any powerful attacks. And if you are capable of dispatching the other four act bosses quickly enough (sorceresses with static field and a strong elemental attack), then that spear will be all you need in order to keep a mercenary alive. Furthermore, the decrepify curse from the Reaper's Toll will make act bosses attack at half the speed with half the damage, hence quadrupling your mercenary's survival rate.

The ranged attack Mercs (Acts I & III) can survive a boss fight if you position yourself careful and keep the act bosses attention. This leaves the Merc free to throw ranged attacks at the boss until they are dead.

Mercs can be useful against an act boss though as they can buy precious seconds worth of distraction, allowing you to get the first few hits in on the boss and develop a bit of momentum. Against the Ancients they can help distract one or two of them and allow you to lead the third away to a corner for a private pummeling.

Boss Fight Tips

A basic rule of thumb I've noticed in boss fights is that the boss monster will go for the nearest character. If you want to keep your merc alive this is worth bearing in mind, though this can be quite an easy decision if you are playing a melee character and have hired an Act 1 or Act3 merc. An interesting point is that when the Boss focuses an attack on you, if you run away before the attack is executed, the Boss would often pursue your char, completely ignoring your mercenary. If that happens, you would need to tank the Boss while it completes its attack, then run away before it begins the next one.

Melee Character + Ranged Merc

In this instance, where the player character is melee and the merc is ranged, simply go toe to toe with your boss monster and this should keep your merc out of harms way. The only stumbling blocks for this strategy are Diablo, the ancients and Baal. Diablo is a big hurty thing and its not always advisable to go to toe to toe with him, especially on Hell diff, some running around is usually called for and a stray Pink Lightning Bolt from him, or his fire attacks, will waste your merc in next to no time.

With the Ancients, there are three of them. One of them will usually find the time to attack your merc, which is usually a pretty short conflict, especially on Hell diff. This is especially true if Korlic, the leaper, decides to leap attack your merc.

The problem with Baal is his tentacles. Whilst they don't hurt the player character much, they can surround and wear down a merc very quickly (thanks to the extra damage). As the tentacles attack when you character and merc are a distance away from Baal, ranged mercs will often fall victim to them.

Melee Character + Melee Merc

Where both the character and merc are melee based I've noticed that the boss concentrates on the character that hits hardest. Not the most often, but the character that does the most damage in a single attack. If this is the character then the boss will focus its efforts on you, if its your merc the same rule applies.

Invariably the player character is better suited to surviving a boss encounter at melee range and if the primary reason for having a merc is to take advantage of their aura effects it can be worth your while substituting their current weapon for something that does slightly less damage then your character does. Thus the boss will focus on you.

This strategy is pretty sound against all the boss monsters except for Diablo as his big hurty fire attacks are something that you don't want to experience at close range (especially on Hell diff), and the Ancients, because there are three of them. At least at melee range against the ancients, Korlic is unlikely to use his leap attack which does reduce a potential source of huge damage from these monsters.

Ranged Character + Melee Merc

Without insufficient support, often the merc simply charges into the fray and invariably dies. It does depend on the boss monster in question and a melee merc will have an easier time surviving Andariel and Duriel at close range than they will against Mephisto or Diablo. Mephisto's melee attack is just too powerful for mercs to stand up to very long and Diablo's attacks (especially fire and lightning) are lethal.

In the case of the Ancients, it is highly likely that your merc will be mobbed by them in the opening seconds of the fight while your character is going to range.

Ranged Character + Ranged Merc

The rule of the closet character applies here if the monster is going to melee attack you. If both characters are equidistant, then I guess the rule of most damaging applies. However, if you're not too concerned about your merc surviving the fight, tool 'em up to them max, send them into the fray and get ready to resurrect them after the fight is over.

Something to note is that ranged mercs tend to move away from monsters if they are too close. A tricky but possible way to keep your range merc (and yourself) alive would be to constantly run between the boss and your merc constantly shooting away.

Melee Mercs Versus Lightning Enchanted Monsters

Two characteristics of LE monsters are that the more they get hit, the more sparks they generate. The type of damage you are inflicting also makes a difference - cold damage generates more sparks than fire. At times the damage you are dealing out may kick up so many sparks that your merc can't life leech it back fast enough (at low and mid levels), especially if you are dealing elemental damage. Therefore, it may help prolong the life of your merc if you back off for a moment and just let the merc take care of the LE while you handle its buddies. Yes, he is still causing sparks to fly from his weapon, but he is also leeching it back with each hit and thus doesn't die.

In addition to this, I have also noticed that if your merc is equipped with an item which freezes the target then Lightning Enchanted monsters tend not to throw out less lightning bolts. In act 2 I have noticed this to be especially pronounced on the Scarabs.

The Mercenary Groups

Act 1 Merc: The Rogues of the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye

Hire from: Kashya upon reaching clvl 8 or receive as a quest reward after Blood Raven is defeated.
Can equip: Bows (with unlimited arrows), except crossbows
Level up: +1 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +6.5 Defense, +1.5 Resistances, +8 Life

These feisty lovelies become available once you've defeated Blood Raven and can be very helpful. They are restricted to using bows, but require no arrows in order to fire them.

Fire vs Cold

With ranged attacks, the Rogue makes good back up for a melee character freezing the incoming monsters, or thinning out the herd to ease the pressure on a Necro's minions, while at the same time staying out of trouble herself. Her inner sight ability allows the merc to start picking off monsters off screen which can be useful, but can also bring a Unique and his minions down on you when you least expect it. However with a decent bow (good damage + high speed) you could probably leave your Rouge to cut those monsters down by herself. This has the added bonus of thinning out packs of monsters that you might run into later. Inner Sight also has the ability to reduce a monster's defense by a fixed amount, hence being of some use to melee characters.

The key disadvantage of the Rogue is her low strength. She won't be wearing high def armour anytime real soon and if she is attacked, is likely to be hit and downed quite quickly as she doesn't have a great deal of health either.

Another big disadvantage is the AI for the Rogue. The way they move to target monsters often involves her being a distance away from the player, where she is a) unprotected and b) likely to attract more monsters to her position. This happens a lot and if the rogue does get surrounded she will be cut down in short order if she can't shoot her way free and your character is engaged in melee elsewhere. In such an instance a melee character will have to break off from the monster they are fighting to assist the Rogue. Ranged characters have an easier time by simply diverting their fire in the mercs direction for a few seconds, thinning the herd and allowing the Rogue to give them covering fire in return.

Also Rogues, having targeted a monster, they tend not to move until they have killed it, which means that if they are about to be surrounded the usual trick of running the player character about to get her to move won't work until she's picked off her foe. You have to run a long way to get her to move.

Finally Rogues have a bias for elemental attacks. Which means in Hell, she's good against PIs, but there will be large groups of monsters which she can't kill thus hampering her effectiveness. In addition to this elemental attacks will effect her ability to life leech thus making her less self sustaining in some instances. This also applies to any bow that fires magical or explosive arrows and equipping a merc with such a weapon will also effect her leeching.

When you first get the rogue merc she will be heavily biased towards using her regular attack over her fire or cold arrow attack. As she levels she will use the cold or fire attack more often, until at level 25 she gets the following probabilities of using her various skills:

75 in 154 chance to use her regular
10 in 154 chance to cast inner sight
69 in 154 chance to use her mercenary type specific fire or cold arrow attack.

Essentially a 50/50 split between using normal arrows and invoking her cold / fire arrow attack with a smallish chance to cast inner sight.

A number of unique bows spawn with mods like "fires explosive arrows"or fires "magic arrows"
This would count as the rogue's normal attack (no explosive damage is done) and would not activate during the fire/cold arrow attack.

In choosing equipment, consider getting mods such as knockback and chance to cast monster flee (Rattlecage). These would noticeably improve her survivability.

Side note: the cold arrows seem to have a shorter range than the fire arrows.

Act II Mercs: Desert Warriors

Hire from: Greiz
Can equip: Spears and Polearms (and Javelins, but with no throwing ability)
Level up: +1.5 Strength, +1.5 Dexterity, +9.5 Defense, +1.5 Resistances, +10 Life

These guys are possibly the most used Mercs in the game thanks to their auras.

The Merc's aura is dependant on the difficulty you get them from. The Merc auras all have level restrictions with the exception of the Might Merc aura. The forumla for calculating the level of an aura is: 10/32 of a level per level of the hirling (hlvl). So a level 98 might merc aura would be 10/32*98 = level 30 might aura.

The level caps for the aura's are dependant on the difficulty from which you hire them and can be seen below:

Normal Difficulty

Combat Prayer (hlvl 9 = alvl 3, max. alvl = 18)
Defensive Defiance (hlvl 9 = alvl 3, max. alvl = 18)
Offensive Blessed Aim (hlvl 9 = alvl 3, max. alvl = 18)

Nightmare Difficulty

Combat Thorns (hlvl 31 = alvl 9, max. alvl = 17)
Defensive Holy Freeze (hlvl 31 = alvl 9, max. alvl = 17)
Offensive Might (hlvl 31 = alvl 8, There is no cap on Might level )

Hell Difficulty

Combat Prayer (hlvl 55 = alvl 18, max. alvl = 16)*
Defensive Defiance (hlvl 55 = alvl 18, max. alvl = 16)*
Offensive Blessed Aim (hlvl 55 = alvl 18, max. alvl = 15)*

The figures for hell diff show that where the same merc hired from normal diff, they would have an aura level (alvl) of 18 when they reached hlvl 55 but the max aura a Hell diff merc can have is 16. Hence if you want a higher lvl aura, hire a merc from a lower difficulty.

Normal & Hell Mercenary Skills

Offensive - Blessed Aim

Not the most popular aura for many characters, as most of the melee characters have sufficient skills to raise their AR and the Sorceress doesn't really need much AR as she hits with her magicical attacks. However for variant builds such as the Melee Sorc, Ranger (bow/crossbow Paladin) and Meleemancer (melee Necro) where AR is of critical importance, the blessed aim merc can be very useful. This merc can also be very helpful to Werebears who also suffer from AR problems. With the introduction of several new uniques items which grant AR (eh. Charges of enchant, zeal etc), the actual usefulness of such mercs has been somewhat diminished.

Defensive - Defiance

A high level Merc with this aura, and good equip, is very hard to hit, even in Hell diff. So a character who has hired such a merc is equally difficult to hit. The advantages of this are straightforward to any character, you'll get hit less often, therefore be less likely to die. This aura has a pronounced effect on the longevity of a Necro's minions, even when the Merc is of a low level. This aura is often a "must-have" for characters aiming to have a huge defence stat i.e. Ironman barbarians or for hardcore players. Just bear in mind that several of the monsters have attacks that completely ignore defense.

Combat - Prayer

The life regeneration that this aura provides is probably only of use to most characters as a way to ignore the effects of poison or of life draining items (Malice runeword for example). However to characters with life steal and high resists, this aura is going to prove to be of little use, and if the merc himself has a life stealing weapon, then the aura won't be of too much use to him. It is probably best used for characters with no form of life leech(ie. casters). Still, it is probably better to just drink a potion.

This aura is of some limited use to the Necromancer and his minions as the continual life replenish will help keep them alive for much longer.

Act 2 Nightmare Mercenary Skills

Offensive - Might

A very popular aura for almost any character, as additional damage is always useful. The Merc himself will be doing a godly amount of damage at higher levels and quite happily tank for himself and for those who think that "the best defense is a good offense" this is the way to go.

This aura is probably of least use to a Sorceress as it does not add any benefit to her magical attacks, but should she run low of mana and be caught in a corner with only a melee weapon then, this aura will give her a chance of fighting her way free.

The effect of this aura on a Necro's minions can create a virtual wall of death to descend upon the ranks of diablo minions. A few revived Frenzytaurs or raised skeletal warriors with a might aura on them can easily sway the tide of battle in the favour of the Necromancer.

A point to note is that even if you have a might merc whose lvl is sufficient to provide 100% extra damage this won't automatically double the damage of your character. The formula below explains how your might mercs aura factors into your damage.

Lets say your weapon does 100 points of average damage. (that being the average of the minimum and maximum shown directly on the weapon). You have +100% damage from WW

200 str = +200% damage

and the might merc has lvl 7 might, which gives (40+6*10) 100% bonus.

Total damage is:

(100 * (100 [base] + 200 [str] + 100 [ww] + 100 [might]))/100 = 500 average damage

All elemental damage is added to the total, with no % bonuses on top.

Combat - Thorns

The essential problem with Thorns is that you have to be hit for it to take effect, though admittedly the effect at high levels can kill many normal monsters outright. With the high ratio of monster HP as compared to the damage they do, thorns is more or less reduced to a novelty aura. It is nice to have around but not entirely useful.

The Necromancer Overlord is the character build that can make best use of this aura. With many minions running around the map all effected by thorns and with the possibility of an Amp Damage curse as well, this can create havoc for boss monsters that use phycial attacks i.e Hephasto the Armourer, Duriel and the Ancients. By wading through the thorns-aura'd minions to get to the player character, these boss monsters will take an awful lot of damage.

Defensive - Holy Freeze

Another very useful for aura for any player character, more so for the slowing effect on monsters than any damage done. The only other choice besides defiance for hardcore player, this aura, at high levels, will bring many enemies to a near stop. Demon Imps stop teleporting all of the place, flayers slow right down and explody-headed Slayers are easily avoided. For characters using thrown weapons, bows or magic, the slowed monsters make ideal targets.

The Necromancer Overlord (or a Corpse Explosion Necro) is the class most disadvantaged by this aura, as the increased number of bodies that shatter upon death greatly reduces the Necro's potential revive, summon or corpse explosion fodder.

On Hell diff, cold immune monsters will still be slowed by this aura.

Important Note on Holy Freeze:

It seems that not all monsters are affected by this aura. Blood Lords, Moon Lords and Death Lords of act 5 seem resistant to its slowing effects. The Frenzytaurs are immune to freezing. So do not rely on your merc to slow these monsters down. Also its good to take into account the relatively small range of holy freeze eg. archers shooting at you from the edge of the screen is unlikely to be affected.

Act 2 Merc Aura Activation

Act 2 Merc aura's do not automatically activate when you hire them, or do they become active when you leave town. The Desert Warrior requires a little stimulus to use his aura and this means getting him involved in the action.

Basically, the Act II merc will only activate his aura when he has to pick an attack. The chance of activating his aura decreases every level up, to around 2.5% at lvl90+. So if your character kills everything before the merc gets a look in, the aura won't activate.

It can be a little more complicated than what is stated above and there do seem to be instances where a hired mercs aura will simply not turn on, or at least take a very long time to do so. Simply returning to town and then letting your merc kill more monsters should normally solve such problems.

Multiplaying Tip for Act 2 Mercs

Don't all hire the same merc in a MP game if you're all using Act 2 mercs. If you have 6 players with 6 mercs, all with the same aura, all the game will do is cycle through the aura effects for each merc. While the radius of effect may be huge (6 might mercs supporting 6 Zookeeper Necros would be a frightening sight) its not the best use of the abilities available. If you have 6 mercs all with different auras you'll have an entire party of hard hitting, life replenishing, accurate, difficult to hit characters, versus a load of monsters who are moving slowly and that get hurt whenever they hit your characters.

Desert Warriors use Polearms, Javelins (but with no throwing ability) or Spears (no Amazon-specific spears) and can therefore do a lot of damage. They attack using the Amazon "Jab" attack.

A Might aura merc can do a phenomenal amount of damage with such a weapon and can quite happily cut down any monster that crosses his path. The non-might mercs still do an impressive amount of damage and with a decent exceptional or elite polearm/spear, can easily top 1000pts of damage. They are also strong enough to wear heavy armour and can survive in the middle of a melee for some time. In addition they get a fair few hit points to boot.

Their AI is more focused on staying within aura effecting distance of the player, but as they level up and the range of their aura grows the distance they are inclined to wander for a fight grows. Even high level Act II mercs have less of a lemming tendency than the other mercs and will retreat quite quickly if your character decides to leg it.

The obvious disadvantage of the act II mercs is that when they die, outside of losing your support you also lose the aura effects a few seconds later. This can turn the tide of battle against your character very quickly.

The more damaging Polearms/Spears are usually quite slow. More than any other merc there needs to be a trade off between speed and power here in choice of weapon. In addition the weapon needs to have some elemental damage attached to it otherwise the merc will be useless against PIs on hell diff. This Merc, unless totally overwhelmed, can survive quite well in hell diff.

Act III Mercs: The Iron Wolves

Hire from: Asheara
Can equip: Swords and Shields
Level up: +1.5 Strength, +1.5 Dexterity, +4.5 Defense, +1.5 Resistances, +6 Life

The Iron Wolves are all sorcerers who come in 3 flavours, fire, ice or lightning with the following spells.

Lightning: Charged Bolt and Lightning
Cold: Glacial Spike or Ice Blast with Frozen Armour
Fire: Inferno and Fireball

Their spells reach the following levels as the mercs experience lvl increases.

Code:

Eastern Sorceror - Fire
Exp Level             15   37    61   98
Inferno  lvl           6   13    20   20
Fire Ball lvl          4   11    18   18

Eastern Sorceror - Cold
Exp Level             15   37     61   98
Glacial Spike lvl      1    5      9    9
Frozen Armor lvl       2    9     16   16
Ice Blast              6    13    20   20

Eastern Sorceror - Lightning
Exp Level             15   37   61   98
Charged Bolt lvl       4    8   12   12
Lightning lvl          3   10   17   28

They can equip shields and swords, but, only use the sword in rare circumstances (such as when they are being mobbed) so it is worthwhile equipping them with a decent weapon. Ideally a sword with +1 to all skills or faster cast would be of most benefit to them. Life leech is less of an issue here, due to the infrequency of melee attacks that these mercs make.

Base cast rates for Act 3 mercs are (fast cast = FC)

0% FC - 18FPS
10%FC - 17FPS
15%FC - 16FPS
30%FC - 15FPS
40%FC - 14FPS
60%FC - 13FPS
90%FC - 12FPS
140%FC - 11FPS

Like the Rogue these are ranged combatants and can provide useful back-up for a melee character. Again the cold mercs attacks will help against crowds of monsters but freezing them solid or slowing the monsters down.

Although they can use use a shield, they cannot block. Thus a shield will only help with their defence and also their resists if you give them a good unique/rare shield. They are strong enough to wear heavy armour and use large shields, which is useful as their defence increase per level is pitiful. The cold sorc has an advantage here in that he also casts frozen armour which confers a defense bonus. Thus he can actually serve as a limited tank compared to the other two.

Their magic attack is also very useful against PI's in Hell and Nightmare, just so long as the PI is not immune to the Sorcs chosen element or is magic immune as well. This is particularly useful for those character classes that do not have a strong attack for dealing with PIs i.e. Werewolf Druids. The added elemental damage from the Mercs attack can assist whatever damage the WW has on his weapons.

Sorcs suffer from the same AI problem as Rogues though, they back off to range, target something and keep firing until its dead, irrespective of whether 20 Flayers have just run onto the screen next to them and are currently turning the merc into Swiss cheese. Again once this process has started it is very difficult to get the merc to move away. The shield will help the merc survive for a bit, but their low hp means that will be killed sooner rather than later, unless the player character has the opportunity to thin out the mob somewhat.

As these mercs only attack very rarely with their melee weapon the amount of damage these Mercs do isn't very great. This means they can't fight their way out of a scrape very quickly and on hell diff it takes an age for them to hurt anything. Add in the existence of elemental immunities on Hell diff and this mercs use becomes severely limited. This lack of damage can be compensated for if the Merc is accompanying a Paladin that uses the conviction aura.

However, because the Act III merc's damage is mostly unaffected by the equipment they use, there is an ideal niche for them to fill. Magic Finding. Its easy to equip these mercs with up 300% MF and because they tend not to go, toe to toe with monsters, you can shield them with your character while they get the last shot in on a boss monster. For the dedicated Mfer, this can be worthwhile niche to exploit.

However items with the mod "-% to enemy resistance" (Griffon's Eye) and "+% to elemental skill" (Ormus Robes) are usefull. Equipping such items would improve the damage done by the Act III merc.

In addition the cold merc is often in danger of trapping you or himself when surrounded. Because he's targeting a monster a distance away, he will fire at it regardless of whats in his way. This can mean that you can find your retreat blocked by frozen, or chilled monsters, or him surrounded by a crowd of frozen enemies from which he cannot retreat.
He will use his sword to fight his way out of these situations, but is unlikely to escape when surrounded by monsters. The cold merc is also of least use to a Necro Overlord as the frozen corpses which shatter into nothingness are no use to the Necro for summoning or reviving.

Getting your Act III Merc to Move

When your mercenary starts getting hit too often for its own good, start running in a big circle from where you were, with a radius just a bit smaller than half the screen's height. So you always end up exactly where you left off, and with some speed the monsters almost don't move from where they were.

The main GOOD thing is that the mercenary stops firing and actually moves back to follow you. But when you go back and restart fighting it stops where it is, usually half a screen behind you, safely placed.

Act V Mercs: The Barbarians

Hire from: Qual-Kehk
Can equip: Swords (only one at a time)
Level up: +2 Strength, +1.5 Dexterity, +7.5 Defense, +1.5 Resistances, +12 Life

These guys really are tanks. They are stronger than the other mercs and therefore capable of wearing heavy armour and wielding big swords.
Unlike the other mercs, barb mercs can wear class specific items which can greatly increase their strength. They are also affected by +skills to bash or stun available on such helms. Wielding big swords and doing lots of damage coupled with either the barb skill stun, or bash, they are very keen to get into a fight. Fast attack on the swords is of great use to these mercs. The barb gets great strength and life increases as he levels up.

Barbarian Mercenaries' Skills

The Barbarians have three attacks which they use as and when they feel like:

Normal Attack: The barb merc hits twice when doing his normal attack.

Bash: This is the more useful of the 2 other skills to choose from. Outside of doing more damage and having increased AR the attack knocks the monster away, thus buying the barb and the player character extra breathing room. This is especially useful for when fighting through a doorway.

Stun: The stun is quite useful because it leaves monsters standing around looking stupid for 2 seconds or so, giving free hits and preventing the monsters from swarming the merc and the player character.
Conversely monsters with stun attacks are bad news for mercs because stun effect leaves the merc unable to keep the monsters off balance and is liable to get swarmed. Against a pack of Urdars in Hell, even a very tough well equipped merc (irrespective of which Act the come from) is likely to be killed in short order.

The disadvantage of the barb merc is their enthusiasm for getting into a fight. Of all the mercs they have the greatest tendency to run off at speed to kill a nearby monster, irrespective of how many there may be. This does help to keep monsters away from the player character (useful if they happen to be a Sorc or Necro) but invariably gets the barb killed. The barb has good defence (not as good as the Desert Warrior) but its not good enough to survive repeat attacks on nightmare or hell diffs. If you can back your merc up though, his Bash attack will keep the monsters at bay and give you room to kill monsters at a more leisurely pace.

Barb mercs don't work well if your playing style is to stand around and pick through chests, study you gear or think about where you're going next. Odds are he's already decided where you're going and has shot off after the nearest monster. Sticking close to your barb merc does up the tempo of the game somewhat. However, if you give your barb a fast attacking weapon, with big damage and life steal you shouldn't have to worry about them too much.

A hidden trait of the barbarian merc is that he comes with an in-built addition 70% resistance to poison.

The barb merc should also have some elemental/magical damage on their weapon if you wish for them to be of use against PIs. An alternative would be to equip them with swords that has a chance to cast amp damage which would remove the immunity.

Other Frequently Asked Questions.

Which melee merc to use, Act II or Act V?

Obviously the Act II merc is always favored for their auras. However, in cases where you don't exactly need the aura anyway, notably sorceresses and barbarians, a barb merc can be a fine companion. They also have the slight advantage where they can stun monsters completely including bosses, and replenish life faster than their Act II counterparts.

Which act II merc is the best, HF, Defiance or Might?

I don't have a proper answer for this age-old debate. Basically, if you have no problems with crowd control, you can use might. Between Defiance and Holy Freeze, it comes down to playing style (being hit less or the chance not to be hit at all). Do bear in mind that normally you would need to equip at least a decent (ie. elite) armour to have a viable defense while holy freeze has a limited range.

Who would actually use an act III merc and why?

Well, a cold merc works fine with a lightning zon and the fire/lightning merc adds some fireworks to a frost zealot. Ultimately, it is all about the style points.

 

Hi, merc does not benefit from attack rating gear. Try to find rings with life steal for melee mercs.

 

infinity is great to make a 100% crushing blow build.
(If you want to know how conviction can benefit you, you can check guide here: http://forum.europebattle.net/threads/how-does-infinity-conviction-work.541691/)
On my Energy shield sorc i use insight, wich makes you nearly unkillable cause of the high mana regeneration.
Personally i like ETH BOTD War Pike or Ghost Spear to reach 105 IAS breakpoint on merc. Wich gives it super fast attacks and combined with high life leech, makes your merc nearly unkillable.
Guillame helmet with IAS/ED jewel
Steelrend gloves, laying of hands, or rare IAS gloves with stats (see screenshot)
Life leech ring with str (see screenshot)
Highlord Wrath Amulet
Gore rider Boots
Nosferatu belt
Eth bugged forti for body.

 

I remember @Atox making an act 3 merc once, maybe he can tell you more about this.
Act 5 merc is great if you dont need the aura from act 2 merc.
I had Last Wish Collosal Blade on my act 5 merc. The might aura is awesome on act 5 merc, also great if you are a melee char yourself.
That way you dont have to get an act 1 faith merc who usually dies fast or an act 2 might merc.