Act 3 mercs!

[Archon_Wing]

In typical blizzard fashion, they make certain things insanely overpowered (might merc) while othrs get the shaft

Seriously, act 3 mercs are very underpowered. They all do close to nil damage in hell mode and nil against the frequent immunes. The cold one doesn't do damage, but at least it freezes.

The Lightning and fire mercs may as well not be there. Lightning and fire don't have any special effects but to look pretty. Sure they might be useful against immunes, if you prefer waiting 30 minutes to kill anything. And nothing stops you from gemming a bow and putting on a rogue merc.

The lightning merc has lvl 28 lightning at max level which does a whoppinh 1-432 damage. Unforunately, that 1 damage sure hurts. It also does level 12 charged bolt which also does nothing

The fire merc does ok damage, although still nothing to write about. unfortunately since it has to get close for inferno makes it a lame melee merc who's also fragile. Ugh.

And so you might say, fire sorcs and lightning sorcs are be powerful too. That's true, but sorcs have masteries!

Well they can use a shield. But wait, they can't block! Yea... I guess the magic mods could be useful. You could put mf on it. But wait, none of it matters if it can't kill.

The sword? They jab with it once in a thousand years? Don't get me started on that.

They have low Hp, low killing power, and have no fashion sense. The only form of support comes freezing support but that comes from the cold one. Any immunes are better dealt with a rogue merc with an elemental damage weapon.

So, can anyone tell me why they would pick fire or lightning types over every other merc?

No, I don't care if stuff doesn't die in three hits or not. But when something is that lame you have to complain. And they don't use their swords and shields!! grrr...

[WarBlade]

Seriously, act 3 mercs are very underpowered. They all do close to nil damage in hell mode and  nil against the frequent immunes. The cold one doesn't do damage, but at least it freezes.

The Lightning and fire mercs may as well not be there. Lightning and fire don't have any special effects but to look pretty. Sure they might be useful against immunes, if you prefer waiting 30 minutes to kill anything. And nothing stops you from gemming a bow and putting on a rogue merc.

Have you tried one of these guys in support of a Conviction using Paladin yet? The Cold Iron Wolf is a good compliment to my caster Paladin and the merc alone (with Conviction support) can take things in Hell 8, Act 3 in around 3 or 4 shots.

By your assessment that would equate to one shot per minute . . . Your exaggeration isn't really supporting your argument. :unsure:

Similarly, my spectral attack Necro makes good use of one also.

They have low Hp, low killing power, and have no fashion sense. The only form of support comes freezing support but that comes from the cold one. Any immunes are better dealt with a rogue merc with an elemental damage weapon.

So, can anyone tell me why they would pick fire or lightning types over every other merc?

The extra item slot for the shield makes them a little easier to shape into something with more resilience than a Rogue. Also when one refuses to cheat in any way, the ability to find an appropriate bow for a Rogue can be a telling point and one that the Iron Wolves are not a slave to.

[Archon_Wing]

I know the cold ones are useful!! That's why I'm asking about the non-cold ones. :P Ok fine, the cold one does do damage :) But about the others?

But alas, they're really not very flexible, as in hell there are a lot of single-immune monsters that render them completely useless :( All the other mercs can overcome this difficulty.

And finding a six socketed bow and socketing it with tal, ral, ort runes is really not that hard using legit means :0

I did this thread on purpose, because someone can always find a way to make things work. :P But just wondering, what shield would work?

and I still think it's silly that they don't use their sword and shield :P

[WarBlade]

Well I have tried the flame guy before. He can do damage although unfortunately he's about the most likely of the three to get surrounded and overrun, it seems. :(

There are a few things I've used successfully for shields . . .

- Wall of the Eyeless is a handy addition, because it adds to the faster cast rate.
- Visceratuant and Sigon's Guard can add to the skill level although this becomes a minor concern later on.
- 3 Perfect Diamond is very nice and I actually used an old obsolete 3 Diamond Pavise from the pre expansion days, assisted by making the Strength runeword in a Broadsword.
- Not a shield, but Blood Cresent is a common sight among my Iron Wolves, purely for the +15% Resist All.

[RogueMage]

I've tried the A3 Cold and Fire Mages with a Conviction Pally, and I have to agree with you - an A1 Rogue merc from NM is much more effective. The big advantage of the Rogue is that you can customize her bow and socketed gear to deliver more than one kind of damage. A merc that does purely Cold or Fire damage is only marginally useful in Hell.

A bigger problem is the pathetically slow rate that A3 mercs level. It's just not practical to nurse one of these guys through NM, only to have him neutered by CI's or FI's in Hell. An A1 NM Rogue starts at lvl-28, takes care of herself, and keeps pace as your character levels up. And she doesn't drive you up the wall with that incessant Ice Blast swoosh-swoosh either. <_<

[WarBlade]

Usefulness can vary wildly depending on character and play style, even beyond the melee versus ranged merc question. I agree with you that the Rogue has superior damage dealing options. However, there are some playstyles that make the Iron Wolves (particularly cold) a more effective choice, purely because of the survivability issue.

As an example, my melee play style usually tends more towards and interceptor/support class of meleer rather than a tank. Where a Werebear naturally tends to hold the line, my my characters will tend to guard the bear's flank, break off to intercept something breaking through to the ranged attacker behind, or do the 'behind the lines' raid to knock out the Shaman etc.

My highly mobile style of play is poorly suited to the ranged attackers in many cases, but for character builds where I feel a ranged attack merc is most appropriate I often find that the Cold Iron Wolf's ability to freeze targets is a self-protective blessing that can't be passed up. Plus there's a the corpse removal aspect . . .

I do like Rogues though. I use them mostly with builds that have summonable minions to shield her.

[Archon_Wing]

Ok, I've seen the goodness of mercs, but I do know that cold ones are good. ( I love my lvl 72 one) :) And I was sorta wrong in saying they do small dmg. But, you may note the subtitle of this thread was referring to the not-so--usefulness of the non-cold ones. :D

The cold one has excellent tatical advantage; he spams it really fast so my meleemancer can take his time killing them with his scythe. But, I've never seen a reason to pick lightning/fire over cold. Even in classic, it was always all about the cold ones. (Admitdly, they make the first half of act 3 in normal, nightmare, and occasionaly hell so cheesy you basicaly leech of them)

But what kind of tactical advantage does scorch (yea, i know he's not always fire) and Lightning guy provide?

[Flaming June]

While I can't truly add anything to a Lightning one (highest was some level 31 before he got canned), I did once have a level 86 Fire mercenary with high-class gear.

I found that it was his Inferno that was better than that of the Fireball. Granted, in Hell in a one-player game, he wasn't too awful against anything that wasn't highly resistant or immune to fire. Once the player count grew, however, he became nearly worthless. This, with the added fact that when they cast Inferno they only do so for about a second, diminished his worth tremendously.

The thing I found even more annoying was his absurd ability to die almost immediately when he left a town portal, even when he had an Inferno that reached across the screen. Even with a high-level Battle Orders he still did not last long enough to deal any damage that was worth his price. Afterwards, I simply never used him and gambled for circlets instead.

So, as to what tactical advantages would this one have over any of the others? I really have no idea. I suppose with Conviction or Lower Resist (even better with a Necromancer's possibility to have several minions to make his life duration somewhat tolerable) they could shine, but I simply don't have any characters to test such a thing.

[Master Oake]

I've always run with a cold merc as my artillery when I'm playing a combat char, like my barb or pally. the only use I've had for the lightning / fire mercs was for my necro zoo keeper. hard to have bodies around when my merc keeps blowing them into ice shards...

[Occhidiangela]

With drops, you can end up with Culwen's point, add 1 to skills, Sigons' shield, add one point, Silks or Spirit Shroud, add 1, and a +3 to lightning or fire skills, to add 6 levels of ability to the Lightning or Fire Merc, or Cold.

As Warblade suggested, you can then double the damage via Conviciton if you are working an Avenger sort.

With a little Holy Freeze Flashing, you can come up with some pretty nice synergy between and elemental Paladin and an Act III Merc. :)

[D2Player69]

Well, the Act 3 mercs, and especially the fire and lightning mages, are the least-used for a reason. They aren't bad, they just usually aren't as useful as their cold mage colleague or a merc purchased in another act.

However, they do have their uses and having one of these two mercs accompanying your character at least gives you the fun of being just a bit different than everyone else.

I have two Paladins who use maxed Conviction as their primary aura. One uses a fire mage, the other a lightning mage. The lightning mage and his "boss" are still in the early 30s somewhere and I think the mage is using the complete Isenhart set, which I just happened to have available. I'm still thinking about how to equip him properly for later. However, he is definitely helpful as the Charged Bolts tend to dispense with maggot young and other little spawned things quite nicely. I'm thinking of using as much fast cast equipment on him as I can without regard to skill bonuses - on the Act 3 mercs, even the lightning mage, fast cast speeds up all their spells, even Lightning (which is not the case for Sorcies, who need IAS to speed up Lightning and Chain Lightning).

The fire mage and his "boss" are both level 70. The mage is tricked out with an ethereal Viper Magi (+1 to skills and fast cast rate, both of which help), the unique sword with +3 to fire skills, a Sigon shield (+1 skills), and a Tarn (+1 skills). I'd like to trade in the Tarn and the Sigon for items with skill bonuses and fast cast, but I can only use what I have available, ey? He is very effective against all but fire immunes, which his Sacrifice-employing "boss" usually handles just fine on his own. His Inferno reaches from one end of the screen to the other in the longest dimension, although he tends to use it for only a second or two, then pause, then use it again which is, admittedly, not very effective use of Inferno. But his Fireball is awesome; he shoots them in rapid succession so over time he does much more damage with it than with Inferno. By positioning him at the right distance, a bit farther away from targets, I can get him to use Fireball more often than Inferno. His sword even does some decent damage when he makes the ocassional poke with it!

Now, both of these Paladins would be better off with Might, Holy Freeze, or even Defiance mercs based on a simple calculus of function. But the mercs I chose are fun to use and provide a different gaming experience than I'm getting with my other characters who made "wiser" choices.

Best wishes,
John H
D2Player69@aol.com

[AtomicKitKat]

I'll give you the reasons why I almost NEVER choose cold mercs:

Way back in classic, I heard a rumour that shattered bodies dropped less often than non-shattered ones. Not entirely true, but the psychological effect caused me to notice cold DID seem to lower drop rates.

I LOVE Inferno. The only thing that could make Inferno any better would be if there was a "Jet Propulsion" effect added to it, so that it could be used as an alternative form of transport(and incidentally, from a strategic standpoint, would cause more damage with it, since the monsters would have to chase the caster, thus running into more fire, etc) :D

EVERYBODY and his brother was using Orb-sorcs some time back, and I would never stoop to that level of cookie-cutterness(besides which Inferno Sorcs live life on the EDGE)

Now, as to the virtues of the individual mercs themselves.

The Ice Merc is the only one with a single-target spell(Ice Blast) I hate that.

Inferno/Lightning are PIERCING projectiles. The Lightning has MAXIMUM range from the start, but lower minimum damage(and don't get me started on the lack of masteries)

Fireball hits almost as many enemies as Glacial Spike, and the explosion has a bit of stun, which is the same no matter which difficulty you're in, unlike freeze/chill durations.

Charged Bolts cover the largest area of the screen(to tell the truth, I've never actually devoted any legit characters/mercs to that, so I really can't say, but level 20 CB at clvl 99 Merc should make MSLEBs look positively tame by comparison), and since multiple hits from the same casting are possible, the somewhat tame damage each bolt does on its own is offset by force of numbers. Main drawback to this is that if the bolts are spread over many targets, they're unlikely to kill anything(as compared to say 10+ bolts hitting a single target)

I hope that answers your first post.

[south]

I have never used a hi level act 3 merc, not even medium, but from other questions made and comments heard I ask ? please comment

If they used melee attack effectively, when surrounded they would be ok. You could count on them to deal some physical damage and if their elemental damage was upgraded ..... :D
You could equip him with a life leech sword and he would live and help in most areas and against most opponents, heck he would be a favourite for druids maybe.
So those would be the changes i would implement reliable physical damage output, heck he has a sword he should use it.
Has anybody equiped one with a life leech sword to see if he more or less uses it and if the damage is enough to keep him alive.?

[CrescentWindX]

I have never used a hi level act 3 merc, not even medium, but from other questions made and comments heard I ask ?&nbsp; please comment

If they used melee attack effectively, when surrounded they would be ok. You could count on them to deal some physical damage and if&nbsp; their elemental damage was upgraded .....&nbsp;&nbsp; :D
You could equip him with a life leech sword and he would live and help in most areas and against most opponents, heck he would be a favourite for druids maybe.
So those would be the changes i would implement reliable physical damage output, heck he has a sword he should use it.
Has anybody equiped one with a life leech sword to see if he more or less uses it and if the damage is enough to keep him alive.?

They don't attack in melee. Ever.

OK, they do attack in melee, but it's sooooo rare that you're not going to get much out of it. They also have very low hit points (because they are mages), so it's very easy for them to get mobbed and mugged very quickly. And then you're making another run to town and giving Kashya//Greiz//Asheara//Tyreal//Qual-Kehk another 50,000 gold, just to see the poor guy get himself mugged. Again.

I'm sure that a variant build would benefit quite well from these mercs, sometimes (read - Conviction paladins :P). However, for most all characters, there are better choices.

And my Druids are too happy with their Thorns/Holy Freeze/Might mercs to switch, TYVM :P

[WarBlade]

They don't attack in melee.&nbsp; Ever.

OK, they do attack in melee, but it's sooooo rare that you're not going to get much out of it.

It's not so rare. It's often pretty hard to spot though. The bigger reason why people won't get much out of it is because of the Iron Wolf's pitiful strength and inability to equip weapons of appreciable damage. Add the inability to hurt to the low frequency of attack and you quickly reach the conclusion of "why bother?"

That sword slot quickly becomes a 'wand slot' of sorts, reserved for everything from +skills to Resists. :(

[Orbert]

That sword slot quickly becomes a 'wand slot' of sorts, reserved for everything from +skills to Resists. :(

I always thought Iron Wolves should at least be able to wield a Wizardspike. That would rock, with the Fast Cast and resistances, and for a dagger it's pretty big, and thus wouldn't look too bad in the graphic. That alone would almost make them worthwhile. Oh well.

When they decided you could equip mercs in D2X, they were constrained by the in-game graphics. Rogues had to equip a bow, not even a crossbow. Same with Desert Warriors with the polearms or spears only. In the limited graphic, at least he's jabbing with something, just as your Rogue is shooting some generic-looking bow.

But the Iron Wolves were mages that carried a sword and shield. Problem! Being able to equip him is cool, but how many swords are truly designed for mages? (That's right, none.) But the graphics would really be stupid if you could give him an Orb or Staff or whatever, and it showed him running around with a sword in his hand. It wasn't a problem originally, but it became one. They kinduv painted themselves into a corner with that one, and the only solution would've been to provide new in-game graphics depending on the mercs's equipment, which would be kinda cool too, but not if it meant not having all the other plusses of the "improved" mercs.

On the other hand, there aren't currently any swords for mages, but they're promising us some new uniques in 1.10. Hmmm....

Orbert

[Archon_Wing]

You could pass a dagger off as a short sword ;)

The closest "mage sword" is Culwen's point. Or maybe hexfire.

[LavCat]

...
But the Iron Wolves were mages that carried a sword and shield. Problem! Being able to equip him is cool, but how many swords are truly designed for mages? (That's right, none.) .
...
On the other hand, there aren't currently any swords for mages, but they're promising us some new uniques in 1.10.&nbsp; Hmmm....

Orbert

How about Hexfire as a sword for mages? Plus three to fire skills and ITD. I am not very experienced with act III mercs, but I have one level 86 fire mage. In addition to Hexfire, his equipment is Skin of Vipermagi, ethereal Tiamat's Rebuke, and a rare circlet with 20% faster cast and plus two to fire skills.

That gives 50% faster cast and plus six to fire skills.

I don't think I would make another fire mage, but I can report that he is quite effective and not all that fragile. His average damage is 450 when he actually has to use his sword.

The barbarian he's working for is lazy and does not like to jump around. We tend to ignore the imps or leave them to others.

[Orbert]

Argh. I suck.

I forgot about both Culwen's Point and Hexfire, and I even have one of each.

Of course, as soon as I found them, I thought "what is this, a melee sorc weapon or something?" and promptly forgot about them. Yeah, that must be what happened. Either that or I just don't try to maintain the encyclopedic knowledge of every item that some folks do. That's not a put-down, just a statement of fact. A lot of folks make it their business to know about any possible item for any situation. I just can't keep track of it all.

:lol:

Orbert

[CrescentWindX]

They don't attack in melee.&nbsp; Ever.

OK, they do attack in melee, but it's sooooo rare that you're not going to get much out of it.

It's not so rare. It's often pretty hard to spot though. The bigger reason why people won't get much out of it is because of the Iron Wolf's pitiful strength and inability to equip weapons of appreciable damage. Add the inability to hurt to the low frequency of attack and you quickly reach the conclusion of "why bother?"

That sword slot quickly becomes a 'wand slot' of sorts, reserved for everything from +skills to Resists. :(

The only Act III mercs I've ever seen melee anything are the fire mercs, and that's because they have to be close to use Inferno. The others (for me anyways) always stay in range, contemplating a blade of grass while I'm dealing with a boss pack :angry:

I dunno; I've been thinking of using an Act III cold merc for my chargeadin, but am probably going to opt for a Cold Arrow Rogue - they do more damage and are heartier. Plus they have cooler names :)