02-06-2004, 05:47 PM
Quote:Um... which is it?
They aren't affected.
In 1.09, mercs were affected by +skill tabs equipment. Too much so, in fact. All sorts of "+top skill tab" gear would boost a merc's "top skill tab" skills. The same applies to "middle skill tab" and "bottom skill tab."
In 1.10, this was removed and no sort of +skill tab affects them at all. This can be easily tested (with a mod) by giving +defensive auras gear to a defiance merc or +offensive auras gear to a might merc. These don't have any effect on the defiance or the might.
The act 5 mercs are harder to test since they don't have any effects of their skills listed on their LCS. However, in a modded game, with mercs having natural resistance as skill, they still weren't affected by +skill tabs gear or +barbarian skills gear.
Quote:Another question: Would a barbarian helm with +Natural Resistance/any other passive help them out?
No. They don't benefit from +specific skills they don't already have. If there was an item with a +natural resistance oskill, they would benefit from that, but as it is, the only +specific skills boosts they benefit from are +bash and +stun.