Mercenary Equipment Suggestions?

[Taem]

I don't exactly have the best gear in the world for my merc, but my mercenaries constant dying is breaking my piggy bank! Do you Lurkers have any suggestions for me for an Act 2 Mercenary over level 40 in Nightmare?.

Currently, he is using an ethereal Lochaber Axe with 4-free sockets as a weapon, Iron Pelt unique armor, and Sigons Helmet.

I just can't think of what to equip him with. If I had the runes, I'd put Passion in that Lochaber Axe. I think he really needs life steal, but I'm not sure what to focus on. Is ‘Life Replenish’ good for mercs? How about MDR and PDR (the Iron Pelt doesn’t seem to be helping in Nightmare).

Thanks for any suggestions ahead of time.

[Bob]

hmmm,
noggin covering I tend to go with a blood craft helm, lifesteal and a chance for double damage, as well as some potentially good random stuff. If you can get hold of one, a Rockstopper or a vampiregaze (although that has lots of stuff that is useless to a merc, so it's a bit of a waste.) Or a crown of ages (I suspect that if you had one of these, you'd be wearing it)

Weapons, well, an amn rune for lifesteal could be an option, but it seems like a waste of a socket, same for a nef/knockback. Don't suppose you have Sur Cham Amn & Lo, do you? Hand of justice is pretty powerful.

Hmm, about the only achievable thing that I've suggested is the blood craft helm, a lot of my mercs wear them. I've never found that a merc needs AR (this is probably wrong, infact, I guarantee you that it's wrong, I just tend to find that it makes little difference when I'm playing, mostly because I rarely have high AR items to give to my mercs to test), so, other than that the sigons is useless. Besides, you're not even getting the AR bonus... ditch the helm, a decent sallet will give you more defense and the +mana is useless.
You might be able to pay a high level character to buy you a magic armet (or get one with a different character & do the crafting there as well, be warned that you might get something with a high level req though)

Notes:
read this with a shovel of salt, most stuff that I say about D1 & D2 tends to end up being shown to be wrong.

-Bob

[ShadowHM]

Hi

I always do my best to equip my Act 2 mercenaries with some form of life steal, whether it comes from his hat or whether it comes from his weapon. It saves them in the thick of battle when I am too busy healing myself to feed the mercenary too. :lol: Also, I tend to dress the mercenaries better than I dress myself. If hard choices need to be made in equipment, give him the better gear. Mercenaries are not as good as you are about knowing when to retreat. ;)

Replenish life is nice, but not essential - very handy for an Act 3 mercenary but not so beneficial for the others. It can offset poison damage at times.

Magic Damage Reduction and Physical Damage Reduction will help a mercenary quite a lot, as will resist armour.

Iron Pelt is not a bad armour for a melee mercenary in Nightmare, although eventually you will want better defence and resists for him.

I would get rid of the Sigon's Helm and put a life steal hat on him, for starters.

As to the weapon, there are many nice merc sticks in the game. A deceptively good one is Woestave. Despite the low damage on it, the other mods on it make it very useful. I have used one right through Nightmare and have upgraded it to get use in Hell. The top of the line one would be the Reapers Toll. In between, take life steal over damage when making decisions. After all, he can't lend his useful aura to you if he is dead. Better to have him alive and tanking than only killing in between hospital visits, and, as you noted, those medical bills really add up.

[Brista]

Big stick, lots of leech

Sigons Armour would give you 10% leech, and surely you can find something better than an unenhanced ethereal Lochaber Axe. Malice in a 3 socket exceptional weapon isn't too bad

[bigeyedbug]

I think he really needs life steal, but I'm not sure what to focus on.  Is ‘Life Replenish’ good for mercs?

My favorite untwinked Town Guard weapon:

Rune word: Honor
Amn El Ith Tir Sol

Properties gained:

Required clvl: 27
+160% Enhanced Damage
+9 To Minimum Damage
+9 To Maximum Damage
25% Deadly Strike
+250 To Attack Rating
+1 to All Skills
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
Replenish Life +10
+10 To Strength
+1 To Light Radius
+2 To Mana After Each Kill

Effective and cheap. I do like the regeneration on it, as it helps keep the mercs life topped off between battles and I like to think it helps a little when dealing with unleachables. Too bad your current weapon doesn't have 1 more socket on it.

[[wcip]Angel]

Damage reduction is your friend. Eventually, your merc will gain enough resistances on his own, so he won't depend on gear to avoid elemental death.

I'd go for

Armor: Shaftstop
Helm: Vampire gaze or rockstopper. (Rockstopper at earlier levels for damage reduction + good resistances, vampire gaze for life leech and higher damage reduction at higher levels.)
Weapon: Honor is ok at low levels, but once your merc gains levels, you should equip him with a bonehew (unique ogre axe) or unique thresher.

Gather a few perfect gems, and these items will be easy to trade for. If you play on the European realm, you can have a rockstopper and a shaftstop from me for free. (Of course, if you want to throw a few perfect gems my way, I'm not polite enough decline :P )

[Wyrm]

'Honor' on an Ethereal Cryptic Axe is one of my favorite merc weapons of all time.

[[wcip]Angel]

But doesn't the cryptic axe have a high level requirement?

edit: lvl 58 for Cryptic Axe. Lvl 45 for ogre axe. I have a 15% superior ogre axe just waiting for a runeword, but seeing as I have a 238% ethereal unique thresher (*cough*brag*cough*), I have little need for it.

[Taem]

Thanks for all the great responses!

Alright, I was incorrect on the make of the polearm. It is actually an Etheral Partizan. I think I'll throw some life leech and damage gems or runes or jewels in there.

I traded for a Bonehew, and even thou my merc is the correct level, he does not have the strength to wield the weapon yet.

I found a rare circlet with MDR, PDR, and resists.

I also traded for a Shafttop and it works rather nicely, however with the rare circlet and the Iron Pelt, my merc almost never dies so I'm keeping the Iron Pelt for now.

FYI, my merc is now level 71.

[ldw]

One of my favourite items for a merc is tal rasha's helm as
it adds: leech, life, resists all of which help a merc.

[Guest]

Well, you said he is dying too much, so equip him with high armor level items. For example, if you dont need the mods for sig helm just use a regular elite helm (winged helms do nicely) For the weapon, use bonehew. And for the armor, iron pelt just won't cut it. Try to get exceptional armor like griz armor, corpsmourn,or enigma boneweave.

Referring to bonehew, it is not the ONLY thing he should use for example, A BoTD pike would do.

[Zingydex]

Referring to bonehew, it is not the ONLY thing he should use for example, A BoTD pike would do.
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And how many legit players have the runes for BOTD lying around?

[vmxa]

And how many legit players have the runes for BOTD lying around?
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My guess is none. I am in Act V of Hell and have only seen one Lem and one Lum and nothing higher.

[Taem]

My guess is none. I am in Act V of Hell and have only seen one Lem and one Lum and nothing higher.
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My two friends and myself were doing hellforge rushes. We had two high-leveled sorceresses and one level 1. Now if you have two high leveled sorceresses teleporting around like mad rabbits, you will find the area your looking for quickly enough. All in all, each run took us about 2 hours to get to Hell hellforge. The biggest problem was getting the level 1 partied with someone who had not killed the ancients yet, but the longest we had to wait was 10-minutes.

From our runs we got a LOT of really nice runes. I could see myself wasting the day like this doing about 3-4 runs and splitting the runes 3 ways. If I did this, I would easily accumulate the runes I needed for high-leveled rune words or at least could trade for them with a combo of other high# runes! So to surmise, it's not as hard as you might think if you’re willing to devote the time and have the friends...

[vmxa]

Hum, that does not sound like SP to me, so it is not relevant. The question was about legal SP players being able to make some of the harder runewords.

I don't think they will make any. It will take hundreds of run to have much chance to get even one rare rune. That is not something I would be willing to endure. Probably more like thousands, since the odds are .000x for most of them or worse.

[Munkay]

Hum, that does not sound like SP to me, so it is not relevant. The question was about legal SP players being able to make some of the harder runewords.

I don't think they will make any. It will take hundreds of run to have much chance to get even one rare rune. That is not something I would be willing to endure. Probably more like tousands, since the odds are .000x for most of them or worse.
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Since Diablo II is past its prime, blizzard spent time to restructure the focus to online play, and specifically ladder play. The high end rune words like Breath of the Dieing, etc were part of the draw to get people to play ladder season 1 online. They were not made available to regular battle.net players, and especially not for single player.

The sad truth is, single players won't (99.9% wont) make a Breath of the Dieing even if they play a character for the next few years. Blizzard never intended these rune words for Single Player.

Cheers,

Munk

[crumpuppet]

The sad truth is, single players won't (99.9% wont) make a Breath of the Dieing even if they play a character for the next few years.  Blizzard never intended these rune words for Single Player.
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Holy Cats. Thanks for killing a dream, there, Munk. <_<

[Assur]

[quote=Munkay,Oct 26 2004, 11:23 PM]
Since Diablo II is past its prime, blizzard spent time to restructure the focus to online play, and specifically ladder play. The high end rune words like Breath of the Dieing, etc were part of the draw to get people to play ladder season 1 online. They were not made available to regular battle.net players, and especially not for single player.

The sad truth is, single players won't (99.9% wont) make a Breath of the Dieing even if they play a character for the next few years. Blizzard never intended these rune words for Single Player.

Hi

All the runewords, except the last 4 work in SP, and you can cube right up to Zod in SP too. Just download ATMA and start working, you'll have highend runes coming out of your ears faster than you can fill out your tax return :D

good karma

[Munkay]

All the runewords, except the last 4 work in SP, and you can cube right up to Zod in SP too. Just download ATMA and start working, you'll have highend runes coming out of your ears faster than you can fill out your tax return :D [right][snapback]58486[/snapback][/right]

Well aware, I used the example that during the duration of Ladder Season 1 they did not work in SP to prove that Blizzards focus in on multiplayer. They work in SP now, but that is a moot point, since it was done after the fact.

Cheers,

Munk

[vmxa]

"All the runewords, except the last 4 work in SP, and you can cube right up to Zod in SP too. Just download ATMA and start working, you'll have highend runes coming out of your ears faster than you can fill out your tax return :D "

I am not sure I see how that going to work? Runes of the lowest level are not all that common in SP. I have not counted them or keep all I ever had, but I would say it is less than 100 of all types.

I have seen exactly 2 DOL and maybe 7 or 8 Sol, the same for AMN. So even if you keep them and the proper gems to cube them, it would be a long time before you go to any real rare runes.


Even if you had them, I am not sure they are worth the bother. I have found enough good gear to not see much I could make that would be worth swapping for what I now have.