Merc vs Andy pls advice

[Rodrigo]

Hello guys!

I'm doing Hell Andy runs with my blizz sorc, and my merc is being slaughtered. If I don't feed him juv potions, he dies. The problem is, I don't like having to stop between runs to pick up juvs, I'd like to make my runs faster, so anyone has any ideas on how to make him more sturdy? I don't expect him to kill her, just tank while I kill her on /players 5, or if possible, 7.
He's a lvl ** Town Guard, wears an eth Shatfstop, Reaper's Toll, and Blackhorn's Face. His resistances are 64 lightning, 49 the rest. I feed him an antidote before every battle to max his poison res. So I was expecting that, with poison res 85%, Andy being 20% slowed, plus decrepified, and him having a good chance to hit being Blessed Aim, he would pwn her. But in reality she rapes him all the time. What are we doing wrong? He's 13 lvls higher than her, besides, she's just ANDY! Only marginally better than NM Lister, which is a joke for him. So, why?
If I change him for a Defiance or Might, will their AR be enough to hit her? Do her attacks do any other type of elemental damage that he should resist, besides poison? Also, I noticed that if he attacks other monsters instead of Andy, he leeches enough life to endure her hits, but as soon as he focuses on her, his life begins to drop. The arreat summit says Andy has a drain effectiveness of 33%, but is that so? I don't recall seeing the red circles that indicate he's leeching from her. If so, should I chose Might to do more damage and leech more? Socket an Amn on his weapon?
So, to make this short, what should I change? My sorc is not rich, so ultimate uniques or high runewords are not an option. Does he need better resistances to other elements? More damage, more defense, faster attack speed, FHR? If anyone could help me with some strategy or an affordable gear setup, it would be greatly appreciated

 

[Darkthrone]

If it's the poison that's killing him and not her physical attacks, you could try a Venom Ward (try upping it too); it should be relatively easy to obtain. Also keep some antidote potions in your belt and shift-click. Since you're playing a sorceress, use your mobility to your advantage (AKA, teleport) to position him or retreat if necessary. Even if he's down to a shred of life at the end of the run, he will be fully healed when you start the next game. Lastly, the faster you kill her, the more likely he will survive.

 

[Maltatai]

Hell Andy is not marginally better than nightmare Lister. She is much better. She has 66% resistance to physical damage, along with being in hell which reduces the life leeching. Further, hirelings deal much less damage to act bosses than other monsters and according to the summit takes 10 times as much damage from them (but I find that hard to believe, even if they may take more damage than player characters).

How's it going against hell Mephisto? Or other bosses? I've never played twinked but hirelings always tended to die more frequently to Andy than Duriel and Mephisto, depending on the builds of course. The same goes for other minions.

My point is that I don't think your doing anything wrong when it comes to merc equipment. She is a hell act boss after all.

 

[Excalibur]

I doubt it's the poison that gives hireling that much trouble. You will actually notice that Andariel is the hardest boss to keep your hireling alive. Just as stated above Hirelings do receive increased damage from end game bosses and Andariel uses physical attacks constantly when is close to him while other bosses cast a lot of spells that barely harm them.

Andariels Helm may be a good choice for your hireling. It will get his poison resist up to 85% and all of the rest attributes are very useful especially extra life leach and attack speed. Plus, you can socketed it with anything you want. However, perhaps a Damage Reduced helm like Vampire Gaze would be a better option since it's the physical damage that harms him.

May I also suggest Kelpie Snare, a weak polearm in damage but slows down the target by 75%. It really slows her down. If only Andariel could also freeze from your spells she would barely move. But again your best way is teleporting back and cast Blizz. With Kelpie Snare she is moving very slow so you will have enough time to damage her. Only problem here is that your hireling is charging her..

Lastly, my personal hireling choice for Andy would be at least a Defiance Merc. With increased defence he will have less chances of being hit and therefore more chances in surviving. Have you also considered running her without a merc? Just let him die and do your Andy runs without worrying about him.

 

[pharaoh]

What Maltatai said- as an act boss, she gets huge bonuses vs mercs/minions.

Darkthrone's suggestion about Venom Ward might help, but make sure it's the poison, rather than heavy physical hits from her.

Also, swap him out for Might or Prayer (this latter is handy if you use Insight). Might will let him leech more effectively, while Prayer + Insight will give you and him double healing, which is nice. Holy Freeze is helpful for area runs, but pretty much useless for act boss runs, as it doesn't slow them. You want her slowed, slap on Kelpie Snare or something.

 

[pharphis]

I didn't read everything in detail but while skimming I didn't see mention that poison prevents your merc's natural regeneration. That is almost definitely part of the problem, but you can't really deal with that without using an antidote potion every second.

 

[Darkthrone]

I did some very quick experimenting this morning (didn't have much time since I had to go to work). My sorceress is geared for Lower Kurast runs, but that's okay because I just wanted to test out the mercenary.

With Insight + upped Duriel's Shell + Crown of Thieves at level 92 my mercenary died to Andariel in about 5 seconds on players 1. I teleported right on top of her to get him as close as possible as quickly as possible.

I then swapped out Insight for Kelpie Snare and Duriel's Shell for Venom Ward and did the same thing. He survived a little longer, maybe 8 or 9 seconds. I tried again but made sure his defiance aura was activated. He lasted about 10-12 seconds, but the aura wouldn't matter against poison attacks anyway.

I ran the second setup a couple times with mostly the same results. Note that I wasn't attacking Andariel at all, so my mercenary's survival would be greatly increased if I took a chunk out of her at the beginning.

I noticed that when poisoned, he lost ~100 life every 3-4 seconds at 90% poison resistance. I don't recall which poison attack of hers it was, but at 2,200 life and change, it's really a non-factor; however, do poison attacks stack? IE: If I did 100 poison damage over 5 seconds, if I attacked twice would I do 200 poison damage over 5 seconds?

Lastly, I noticed that shift-click doesn't seem to work with antidote potions; he remained poisoned though it may have just been luck that he was poisoned again the moment I did it.

Also keep in mind that of all the act bosses, Andariel is the only one that has a plethora of enemies surrounding her causing distractions and additional damage. Sometimes Mephisto has the blood lords or whatever they are, but you can avoid those in most situations.

 

[Rodrigo]

If it's the poison that's killing him and not her physical attacks, you could try a Venom Ward (try upping it too); it should be relatively easy to obtain. Also keep some antidote potions in your belt and shift-click. Since you're playing a sorceress, use your mobility to your advantage (AKA, teleport) to position him or retreat if necessary. Even if he's down to a shred of life at the end of the run, he will be fully healed when you start the next game. Lastly, the faster you kill her, the more likely he will survive.

I don't think Venom Ward will help, as I give him an antidote before the fight. He gets 85% poison res, and that usually lasts until Andy dies, if he manages to stay alive. Venom Ward gives only 5% more poison res, not worth the loss of a Shaftstop. Retreating and healing does save him, but the time we're healing is time I'm not attacking, that's what I don't want. I want him to stay alive, if only barely, until I can kill her and Save 'n Exit.

How's it going against hell Mephisto? Or other bosses? I've never played twinked but hirelings always tended to die more frequently to Andy than Duriel and Mephisto, depending on the builds of course. The same goes for other minions.

I haven't fought Duriel in a long time, but I don't think my merc would fare well against his charge/stun/HF aura. Probably would simply be shattered. Against Meph I use the moat trick and leave my merc home, but the times I do take him with me and let him go face to face, he also dies but lasts longer than vs Andy.

Andariels Helm may be a good choice for your hireling. It will get his poison resist up to 85% and all of the rest attributes are very useful especially extra life leach and attack speed. Plus, you can socketed it with anything you want. However, perhaps a Damage Reduced helm like Vampire Gaze would be a better option since it's the physical damage that harms him.


May I also suggest Kelpie Snare, a weak polearm in damage but slows down the target by 75%. It really slows her down. If only Andariel could also freeze from your spells she would barely move. But again your best way is teleporting back and cast Blizz. With Kelpie Snare she is moving very slow so you will have enough time to damage her. Only problem here is that your hireling is charging her..


Lastly, my personal hireling choice for Andy would be at least a Defiance Merc. With increased defence he will have less chances of being hit and therefore more chances in surviving. Have you also considered running her without a merc? Just let him die and do your Andy runs without worrying about him.

Poison res is already taken care of, so maybe the damage reduction will help him more. I'm going to try Vamp Gaze. Although he already has 30% PDR from Shaftstop, more will surely help. I prefer The Reaper's Toll over Kelpie, although Decrepify only slows her 50%, her damage is also halved. I'll try defiance to see how he fares.

Also, swap him out for Might or Prayer (this latter is handy if you use Insight). Might will let him leech more effectively, while Prayer + Insight will give you and him double healing, which is nice.

I didn't read everything in detail but while skimming I didn't see mention that poison prevents your merc's natural regeneration. That is almost definitely part of the problem, but you can't really deal with that without using an antidote potion every second.

I'm going to try Prayer too, just to see if poison also stops life regeneration from Prayer aura.

I then swapped out Insight for Kelpie Snare and Duriel's Shell for Venom Ward and did the same thing. He survived a little longer, maybe 8 or 9 seconds. I tried again but made sure his defiance aura was activated. He lasted about 10-12 seconds, but the aura wouldn't matter against poison attacks anyway....


Also keep in mind that of all the act bosses, Andariel is the only one that has a plethora of enemies surrounding her causing distractions and additional damage. Sometimes Mephisto has the blood lords or whatever they are, but you can avoid those in most situations.

Another suggestion for Kelpie, so I'm going to try it too. With enemies surrounding her, my merc actually survives longer, as he leeches enough from them to stay alive.

 

[pharphis]

it won't stop regeneration from prayer aura, just the natural regen of the merc (and maybe "replenish life", if that even works on mercs to begin with I don't know)

 

[NoisemakerArrow]

According to the AS, Duriel doesn't use Charge.

I run Andariel from time to time with a Orb/Hydra sorc or with a Blizzard sorc. In both cases, I teleport around and cast until Andariel is dead, without letting my stupid merc get to her because he will die. That's really the best option. No amount of gear will ever allow him to survive for too long.

 

[helvete]

Could always have a life tap wand on switch. Takes about as long as feeding the merc a potion, and if he doesn't stay alive with life tap active, you probably use a mod to replace andy with lilith or something...

 

[onderduiker]

Do her attacks do any other type of elemental damage that he should resist, besides poison? Also, I noticed that if he attacks other monsters instead of Andy, he leeches enough life to endure her hits, but as soon as he focuses on her, his life begins to drop. The arreat summit says Andy has a drain effectiveness of 33%, but is that so?

Both her poison bolt and her poison spray also apply physical damage (40-42 and 42-45 respectively). While the frequency of her melee attacks and poison bolts are affected by negative attack speed modifiers like Decrepify, that of her poison spray is not. Evils like Andariel apply 200% damage to mercenaries, so each poison spray missile collision applies 84-90 physical damage to your mercenary. A Sorceress who teleports onto Andariel is hit by up to 7 missiles, so a mercenary may take up to 588-630 physical damage per spray (if not more if there are more collisions, or critical hits). Decrepify's -50% Damage doesn't affect her poison spray either (or poison bolt), but neither does higher player count.

While your mercenary can technically equip magic socketed circlet and body armour with a total of Damage Reduced by 89 to almost entirely negate non-critical physical spray damage, it's more reasonable to equip DR 50% from Vampire Gaze Grim Helm and Shaftstop Mesh Armour (preferably ethereal and upgraded to Elite), particularly since the latter also adds (6-8)% Life Stolen per hit. If this isn't sufficient to keep your mercenary alive, you might want to try using the charges from a magic dagger or wand of Life Tap with another weapon like Kelpie Snare (since Life Tap's percentage isn't reduced to 25%, or subject to drain effectiveness or difficulty level penalties).

Andariel does indeed have 33% drain effectiveness in Hell, and life returned by Life Stolen per hit is also reduced to 1/3 in Hell, but more importantly mercenary damage is reduced to 25% against Evils in Hell... as is the percentage Life Stolen, rounded down: this means the Reaper's Toll Thresher's (11-15)% Life Stolen per hit is reduced to (2-3)%, which applies to 25% damage before being further reduced by Andariel's damage resistance (66%, or 16% when Decrepify is cast), at which point the life returned is reduced by her 33% drain effectiveness and the 1/3 Hell penalty.

May I also suggest Kelpie Snare, a weak polearm in damage but slows down the target by 75%. It really slows her down.

Slows Target has a 50% ceiling when applied to boss monsters like Andariel, although aside from Decrepify it's the only other way to slow her down since she has 0 chill effectiveness.

Also, swap him out for Might or Prayer (this latter is handy if you use Insight). Might will let him leech more effectively, while Prayer + Insight will give you and him double healing, which is nice.

Meditation only heals units with mana, so it only heals players; mercenaries (and any pets) are only healed by Prayer, once every two seconds.

I noticed that when poisoned, he lost ~100 life every 3-4 seconds at 90% poison resistance. I don't recall which poison attack of hers it was, but at 2,200 life and change, it's really a non-factor; however, do poison attacks stack? IE: If I did 100 poison damage over 5 seconds, if I attacked twice would I do 200 poison damage over 5 seconds?

Poison from multiple attacks doesn't stack: only the highest rate (damage per second or frame) applies, and applying an equal rate will simply reset poison length. Monsters also apply a frame of poison with each successful attack or missile collision, but this shouldn't significantly increase the underlying rate of damage.

Although the cumulative poison damage is likely to be significant once its run its full course and you shouldn't neglect poison resistance, it shouldn't be sufficient to kill your mercenary in a matter of seconds.

Against Meph I use the moat trick and leave my merc home, but the times I do take him with me and let him go face to face, he also dies but lasts longer than vs Andy.

Mephisto has 0% drain effectiveness in Hell (as does Diablo), although he doesn't apply poison damage as a matter of course like Andariel.

I'm going to try Prayer too, just to see if poison also stops life regeneration from Prayer aura.

Being poisoned doesn't affect healing from Prayer, although it does highlight how insignificant it is compared to the mercenary's damage regeneration.

it won't stop regeneration from prayer aura, just the natural regen of the merc (and maybe "replenish life", if that even works on mercs to begin with I don't know)

Replenish Life works for mercenaries, and being poisoned doesn't stop it in the same way it stops damage regeneration, but once again it's insignificant in comparison.

 

[DoomBoy]

I like to use Treachery on my merc because it gives fade and venom, on top of increased attack speed and FHR

 

[japanzaman]

Reaper's, Shaftstop, and Kira's or Vamp Gaze depending on what's hurting you the most, are essential for boss survival in Hell with your merc. If you have a socket quest to burn, you could socket shaftstop or vamp gaze with a Tal Rune to make sure your merc is at max Poison res. This, combined with CtA will give your merc a fighting chance. Without CtA, it might be a little difficult depending on player level and your kill speed.

Still, why exactly are you running Andariel?

 

[Korlic]

Use Andys Face, that gives him 85% Poison Resist, 20 IAS and 10 LL. Then maybe Upped Shaft with Um. Reapers sound good, though.

 

[krischan]

You don't need a merc versus Andy, so the best way to keep kim alive is keeping him away from her poison attacks, like teleporting when he approaches her or a poison wedge or bolt is coming, casting blizzards inbetween.

BTW, if this is actually about the best way to kill Andy and Meph, forget the merc altogether. Apart from him not being useful, time is money and if you have to buy antidotes every third run, you could as well pick up junk and sell it to fund resurrections after every third run.

IMO, the most effective way to make Meph+Andy runs (speed, MF, gear costs, low risk to die) is probably a Tal Rasha meteorb who is better off without a merc, as he will just stir up uninteresting monsters and spoil your battle tactics, in particular the moat trick versus Meph. She still has one, of course, for the Tunnels and Pindle. Versus Meph, you apply the moat trick and Andy is killed in a fireball shootout after having killed the mobs close around her, preferably without stirring her up before.

My Andy attack plan:

                /\
               /  \
              /    \
             /      \
            /   A   /
   /\      /       /
  /  \    /   C   /
 /    \  /   C   /
/      \/F2 C   /
\          C   /
 \        C   /
  \       Z  /
   \        /
    \     Y \
     D       \
      D     F1\
       \  ##   \
        \  ## X/
        /\    /
       /  \  /
         W \/
            \
             S
              \
              /

A: Andariel
C: Carpet
F1, F2: Fallen+shaman packs (will always appear)
S: Stairs
#: Crates
D: Doors
W-Z: Positions to take during the fight

Go to W, teleport to X, kill F1, go to Y, kill F1 and kill random packs which notice you there, go to Z (right of the bottom edge of the carpet, Andy will notice you), shoot her with fireballs.

That strategy should work with blizzard as well. You can probably fight Andy while running around the crates (#). Andy isn't slowed by cold, however.

 

[NoisemakerArrow]

Great diagram.

Andariel will move in a straight line, so shoot a Blizzard in her path, then spam Ice Blast at her while waiting for Blizzard to recharge.