Mercenaries

[Chameleon]

Your merc choice should complement, some diffency in your particular build.

Items, always try and get your merc an Etheral Items, as items do not loose durability while equiped on a merc.

Things to know about certain merc types.
A2 and A5 mercs are generally, overly agressive where monsters are concerned and charge into the middle of battle, head first; they fight hard and die fast. This often prompts me to choose an Normal A2 Defensive (Definance) or a Nightmare A2 Defensive (Holy Freeze). Defiance is will have very high Defense Rating, he doesn't get hit as often. Holy Freeze slows the monsters down enough that they can be killed before they make too many attacks.

There are situations of course where other choices are the right one:
Normal A2 Offensive (Blessed Aim) - Paired with Mace using char, since, maces require almost no DEX, these builds suffer from poor ToHit due low Attack Ratings.
Nightmare A2 Combat (Thorns) - Pair this boy with Skelemancer, enter a cow gain, and watch the "Lawnmower" in all its glory.

A1 and A3, spend a lot of time walking around looking for the right place to attack from and not enough actually attacking. They are also very very bad at retreating when you retreat.

A1 mercs used to be "bugged" and were awsome, +2 skills was the best IMO (The Lightning Hose of +3 just didn't shoot far enough to be worth it, although it was fun to watch). Now, A1 mercs are generally useless IMO.

A3; go lightning all the way, because of synergy between Lightning and Charged Bolt. Cold just doesn't do enough damage and Holy Freeze is better as it will slow Cold Immunes also. Fire just is waste, as neither fireball nor inferno are worth a tinkers darn without at least fire mastery or one synergy.

I like to call my merc, the "Walking Money Pit".

I am out of time now, so this will have to do.