Inexperienced with Paladins, which mercenary would benefit me most?

[(Ø=M)^42]

Inexperienced with Paladins, which mercenary would benefit me most?

I'm currently playing a HammerDin, and I have a Defiance mercenary. Would a Holy Freeze one benefit me more? What do you think? (If you have the time, please list what equipment you'd give him, except any jewels and runewords)

 

[wildjinn]

The choice is not an easy one. HF mercs will slow your enemies and give you more time to keep them in your hammer field, but at a cost of great defense. I would choose Defiance. I played a hammerdin for some time and found that I was often right up to monsters, spamming hammers from directly underneath them. This means that I was in their range rather often and a Defiance merc makes it so that you can spam a few more hammers, safely, in that way.

Equipment would probably be a Tal's Mask, upgraded (or unupgraded) Shaftstop and Reaper's toll, although the runes for upgrading armor are rare and the Reaper's toll is not easily found. A Bonehew is another good merc weapon, especially ethereal and easily obtainable from hell meph. Really, any good polearm with reasonable damage and good mods like freeze or slow monster is going to work for you--your hammers will kill much faster than your merc, and he will basically be a meatshield and source of defense or freezing, in my experience.

 

[DX-Crawler]

I think you will do better with a HF merc. Even if you stand just beneath them they will be so slow that they won't be able to land a hit before they are dead. With some points in Holy Shield and some nice gear you will have a rather good defense and a good chance to block if they do land a hit on you.
But it's a close call.
When fighting normal monsters the choice would be the Reapers toll, Tals Mask and an armor of your choice. If he dies alot maybe a shaftstop would be good.
When you fighting act bosses like baal I would suggest a Hone Sundan with 3 Amn. And the set Winged Helmet. With those two you will have 75% crushing Blow which will speed up the killing alot. Put on a Rattlecage aswell and the CB will be at 97 I think.

DX

 

[NSXdreamer]

I would not recommand a HF merc from personal exp. They are quite fragile, you'll spend most of your time revive them instead of playing. Also shattered corpse is definately not good for a hammerdin who (should be) use redemption, as you won't have much mana with base energy, and hammer can get quite mana intensive later on, not to mention those mana burn monsters (which appears a lot in late hell).

With defiance, holyshield, and max block (and walk, don't run), melee monsters don't hit you much anyway, but they stand next to you, which is easy for you to him them with hammer. Ranged attackers won't affected by holy freeze merc anyway (who should not stay ranged as you are charging up next to them).

 

[Death_Dealer]

Equipment would probably be a Tal's Mask, upgraded (or unupgraded)

I did not realize you could upgrade set items

 

[NSXdreamer]

I did not realize you could upgrade set items

*cough* read the whole sentence *cough*

Equipment would probably be a Tal's Mask, upgraded (or unupgraded) Shaftstop and Reaper's toll,

 

[(Ø=M)^42]

I did not realize you could upgrade set items

There's a "," there, he's talking about upgrading the Shatstop, not the helmet.

Thanks for all advice. I'll probably continue with Defiance. Some monsters will not be affected (Mages), but I don't have enough tactic for letting the mercenary tank and fire hammers from one yard away. (This means I always run up to them before casting hammers) Plus the downside of shattered corpses.

 

[NSXdreamer]

I disagree with your first points. My Hammerdin's lvl 78 freeze merc is a good tank using Shaftstop, Vampiregaze, and PierreTomald Couant + Amn. He has LL and PDR. Also, with base NRG, my hammerdin has 800+ mana.

Wait till you start to do solo WSK/baal runs. (and yeah, my hammerdin is lvl 90 btw )

How much mana you have is irrevelent in front of mana burns. my sorc's 1600+ mana is gone is one hit. (yeah they are only suppose to burn 4x their damage of mana)

 

[Sergeant]

I'm currently playing a HammerDin, and I have a Defiance mercenary. Would a Holy Freeze one benefit me more? What do you think? (If you have the time, please list what equipment you'd give him, except any jewels and runewords)

Here is something that has not been suggested yet. If you have the runes for it, find yourself a good polearm and make the Doom runeword.

With this method you can hire a defiance aura merc for big defense bonus and he will have the lvl 12 holy freeze aura for enemy slowing when his weapon is equipped.

Obviously you need the weapon with right # of sockets, the runes and your merc needs the stats to equip it but, that is an option that would work well as you get the best of both mercs in one package.

Just a thought.

 

[Sergeant]

Runes for a Doom? That would be rather difficult, and the original poster said he would like to know ideal EQ except for jewels/runewords.

That's probably why I said "Obviously you need the weapon with right # of sockets, the runes and your merc needs the stats to equip it"

Also, this is SP, with the right ethics, nothing is difficult.

 

[Sergeant]

Right Ethics? What does that mean?

Meaning there is an item database out there with unskilled lvl 99's and mules with every elite unique, set, rune out there.

Hence "right ethics" means if using items you didn't find or trade for don't bother you, it wouldn't be hard to do would it?

 

[Sergeant]

I think that's considered cheating by some people.

Indeed it is, that's why I said "with the right ethics nothing is difficult".

I'm not saying he should or shouldn't. You said it would be rather difficult and I simply responded saying it wouldn't be with the right set of game ethics.

It's also why you don't see me telling him where to get such things.

 

[WhiskeyJack]

For the ethics- to a certain extent, what's considered cheating by some is only considered cheese by others (such as atma, which i do use, btw). The item etc., packs that were posted here were 'legit' in sofar as being posted by the site admin. however, i think most of us consider them cheese.

anywho, for a merc- i will say that my only experience thus far with a caster+merc has been a sorc. I started out with a def. merc, and he rarely died. I now have a lv 79 HF merc, and he dies, a lot, to an annoying degree actually, I mean, really, a lot, such that I leave him dead often. Did i mention he dies a lot (this is in hell, btw). I'm guessing he's highly dependant on leaching, and I'm going to have to start playing with equipment, weapons with amn runes, etc, to get his ll up (and I don't have anything godly for him atm either). There are some tactics i'm considering, but they won't work with a caster pally, unless you have teleport charges (slow packs with HF, then jump backwards to keep the merc from being swarmed). Anywho, i liked the defiance merc better, but we'll see how things go with the HF merc after some serious equipment searching. So...Still a tough call- the defiant tanked better, but it is nice to chill and slow things.

The real question is 'what is your style of play????' This will make all the difference as to whether you want a HF or a Def merc to tank for you. Consider if you like things slowed so you can move back, do you have trouble with archer packs (fewer shots vs higher def- any of you number crunchers out there have an educated opinion?), do you like the excitement of being in a pack of monsters and demons while you spam hammers and possibly zeal for crowd control (that'll be me if i ever have a hammerdin)...so, which fits you better? :spy: There are some who don't use mercs at all even, so again, it's really dependant on how you play.

heh, you could buck the system entirely and get and act 1 merc :teeth:. I've got one as back up for a zealot (in actIV hell, no less), and it's fun. I'd recommend fire over cold, but that's just because they level faster, and you can socket cold dmg to a bow.

just my 2 ccs,
WJ

 

[Sergeant]

For the ethics- to a certain extent, what's considered cheating by some is only considered cheese by others (such as atma, which i do use, btw). The item etc., packs that were posted here were 'legit' in sofar as being posted by the site admin. however, i think most of us consider them cheese.
WJ

Correctomundo. The item and character packs were posted on this site for a time and are still easily obtainable. So, since this site is so huge on no cheating/hacks, I would think it's safe to say the SITE doesn't consider that item/character pack cheating.

Since all of the items are legitimate items that the game is capable of dropping and the characters have only the number of stat and skill points once could get in game, I don't think I would consider it cheating. Cheesy, perhaps, like WJ said but not cheating. I would consider item/character editors cheating because you can go beyond what the game would give you as to stat/skill points.

Since what I suggested to him could be done with materials that were provided on this site and done with programs widely accepted in this forum, I don't think I would call it cheating. Certainly cheesy but cheese isn't the issue is it?

All that aside, the suggestion stands and is a legitimate one. A defiance merc with a Doom'd weapon would allow him to have a defiance merc AND the holy freeze aura. It all depends on his play style as to whether or not he would actually want the HF aura or not.