Act 3 Merc Questions Ok, I'm using an Act 3 Cold Merc with my HC trapper. Because he fires from afar I know leaching life is out of the question. I have a few questions. 1. Does the damage of the weapon (sword) actually affect the amount of cold damage he does? 2. Will +skill equipment affect him in any way? 3. If the answer to Q#2 is yes, then can anyone make suggestions to what equipment i might be looking to outfit him with. 4. I normaly use either act 2 or act 5 mercs so any help you can provide would be great.
1. No, not AFAIK 2. Yes they will. The act3 cold merc has 3 skills he uses. Glacial spike, Frozen Armor, Ice Blast. 3.For gear look for faster cast as that increases his attacks per second. -% to cold resistances or +% to cold dmg. For a shield, get one with a good CTB. For a helm, try for much of the helm, maybe with some resists. 4. The best merc to get is the normal one over the hell merc. This is because normal mercs can achieve higher base levels of the listed skills - their only downfall is the fact that they have to be leveled from a low point. Look here for info on those merc's skills and stats.
This is a post I saved by Alainpp. Awesome info about act 3 merc's. Covers wat is most important for them: +All Skills +to Skill Trees Both work with mercs. +skills and Faster Cast are the only way to increase the mercs damage. The interesting thing is, +skill Tree gains benefits from trees from ALL classes as long as the skill tree is in the same position. Ex: Sorc Cold Tree is in the Same Position as Barbs War Cry Tree. So you can put a +3 Warcries sword on an A3 cold merc and he'll have +3 skills. Here's the total list: A3 Cold Merc: Elemental Warcries Summoning (necro) Martial Arts Jav/Spear Defensive Auras A3 Fire Merc: Summoning (druid) Combat Skills(barb) Curses Traps Bow/X-Bow Combat Skills (Pally) A3 Lightning Merc: Shapeshift Combat Masteries Poison/Bone Shadow Disciplines Passive/Magic Offensive Auras So, a +3 Warcries Sword is a very successful weapon. The top of the line setup would be: Silence Crystal Sword Shako Naj's Armor (Or shaft) Stormshield Of course not everyone has these to put on a merc. There are cheaper alternatives that are still successful. +3 Warcries Sword +3 Circlet (for corresponding skill tree) Vmagi or anything with +life. Lidless Wall or anything with good resistance (Socketed shield with pdiamonds)
Well my act 2 mercs dont get bonuses anymore from + to offensive and + to defensive auras from equipment since 1.10 came. Weird that it still works with act 3 mercs. Oh yeah, and a cheap setup for an act 3 merc would be: Lidless wall Skin of the vipermagi Culven's point Peasant crown
AFAIK +skill tabs no longer work on mercs. Shadow_247: Act3 mercs can't block... so just give him a Lidless, it'll help him more than a Whitstan's Guard. Edit: The merc info on dii.net was from 1.09 and wrong as well. Can't give you the link to the correct ones, as they're on a competing forum...
I posted a question regarding act3 mercs in the stats forum before I saw this thread (otherwise I would have posted here). http://www.rpgforums.net//showthread.php?t=128285
I have to say it... Unfortunately Sin, that post and almost any info on mercs became useless as soon as 1.10 came into play. Blizzard has changed the way they note Merc skills. They used to just be listed as part of a Tab (1, 2 or 3; Hence the Tabs of other trees working) but now, from what I hear they're just listed as "Some Skill". +Skill tabs don't work. +All Skills does. +Sorc (Or any char class) Skills, I haven't been able to test. As for the other thread... VERY difficult to say without dissecting game code. Pure testing is hard to do if the stats don't show up. You'd only be able to try and find an average FireBall damage over time to try and find out... Since I don't have the trangs pieces at this time, I can't test. But knowing the game, he won't get the +18 Fireball. If he did, he wouldn't use it. (Same reason they won't use Zeal/Passion from runewords) but he might get that +3 bonus. Somehow, I don't think he'd get any boost from it... and even if he did get his +3, you could get better equipment with more +skills.
