OT: Make-a-Merc

OT: Make-a-Merc

Most people have probably wished, at one point or another, that they could hire a kind of merc that doesn't exist. Fanatamerc anyone? How about a Conviction merc for all those sorcs out there? Well, I'd like to know from everyone: If you could design a merc for the non-existant Act 6, what would it be?

Name: Like Rogue, Sorcerer, Barbarian. What would yours be called?

Skills: Act 2 mercs get Jab and their auras, Rogues get Fire/Cold arrows. What skills would your merc have? And what would their purpose be?

Weapon restrictions: Barbarians can only equip swords for weapons, Rogues can only equip bows, Act 3 mercs can only use 1 handed weapons, but shields. What would your merc's gear restrictions be?

Concept: Generally, how would your merc be useful, and what purpose would it serve? Act 2 mercs are excellent for their auras, enhancing your skills or decreasing enemy proficiancies. Act 5 Mercs are excellent tanks. Why would anyone use your merc?

 

Cause it's be an Assassin merc using Mind Blast

 

Name: Merchants


Skills: Telekinesis, Lock Pick(like Assassins), Loot(like Find Item, but only for gold), Enhanced Gold Find(an inate % per level), Applied Gold Find(Gold Find on Merchants is applied to your kills).


Gear restrictions: Can use any armor, any shield, and any helm. No weapon; you can't pick up gold with a weapon in your hand!


Concept: My idea for the Merchant was basically this: It's a pain to open every chest, pick up all the gold that drops, carry keys, etc. I've always wanted a merc that could interact with the drops somewhat. I figured it would be really cool to have a merc that opens and unlocks chests for you, picks up all that gold you're too lazy to grab, smashes urns, breaks barrels, etc.

I also thought the idea of a merc that didn't have any offensive skills at all would be pretty novel. And, since he isn't doing any damage, I thought it would be acceptable if his GF was applied to your kills.

Also, with Telekinesis, you can load him up with FCR and watch him zap the screen clean.

 

haha omg that would be awesome :lol: wealth armor anyone?

:thumbsup: great suggestion LS, im still thinking about mine ^^

 

I think it would be cool if instead of a "merc" you could hire 1 of 3 types of dire wolf from a kennel and equip them with pelts and furs only ie leather type equipment for armor. The better druid pelt you found would increase the damage output of your friend...like boots to an assassin.

Arctic wolf: Arctic frost
Fire wolf: Firestrom
Wind wolf: Tornado

All wolves will have the HotW aura otherwise no one would hire them

Their main attack is Fury. They would also be able to leap/leap attack in order to keep up with a barbarian and "Heel!" (retreat) on command.

Desired Armor and Pelts:

Armor: The Gladiator's Bane, Ormus' Robes, Skin of the Vipermagi, Skin of the Flayed One, The Spirit Shroud
Pelts: Jalal's Mane, Cerebus' Bite, Ravenlore, Spirit Keeper

I suppose to keep the theme of "merc" alive the hireling could be human in town only. But once outside they take on their true wolf form. Damage output from fury would be significant at higher levels due to the bonus from the pelt and %ED from the higher skill level.

 

Great ideas!

Mine is simpler, just a necro merc:

Teeth/Amplify Damage
Bone Spear/Dim Vision
Corpse Explosion/Weaken

 

why can't I hire more than one merc? just let me keep act1, act2, act3, and act5 merc all together. act1 and act3 merc are "free of charge"!

If I can have one new merc only, let it be:

FO sorc, Warcry/berserk barb, hammerdin, FA/multi zon.

I think everyone knows how useful they can be.

 

Equippable ShadowMaster would be awesome! (And possibly frustrating.....)

 

you know what i would like to see?, well prbnot otherwise you wouldnt be reading this, but once your merc lvls, you get nothing? i would like to see some skills in which you can invest some points when they lvl, for example for a act1 merc... crit strike, multi shot (max arrows is 5, lets keep it realistic here ) fire/cold/poison arrow etc
now that would be sweet... a box in which you can click which skills she must use and your set

would do the trick for me :thumbsup:

robin

 

2 great ideas: customizing your merc skills and meddling with your minion's equipment.

Only visualizing what your shadow or valk is wearing would be nice enough.

 

instead of a merc i wish you could use an exisiting character of my own. say for example my sorc would use my avenger as a merc. it would keep the equipment but have the mercs ai. think of the possibilities

 

A necro merc with CE would be really cool.

The merchant idea sounds like a grand idea! Think of the time savings.

But what I really want is some customizable controls over my merc. Such as aggressiveness and sight distance settings. Also, say you have like 3 leash settings: 6 yards, 10 yards and 15 yards distance from your character. And a "recall" button would be a godsend, whereas you hit, say, Ctrl-R and your merc pops back to your side. My Shadow Master causes me no end of grief because she is SO aggressive. She insists on teleporting into large crowds off screen, ultimately bringing them to me or simply getting killed. Also, a sound byte when your merc reaches 1/3 or less of their hp's would be handy.

Hergrom

 

Name: the knights that say NIE! (watch monty python...)

Skills: war crys and curses like taunt, and maybe a new skill that just plan annoys monsters, causing them to run away before they even get into comat

Weapon restrictions: can use druid only stuff and bone armour of any kind. weapons will be spears or polearms.

Concept: by annoying enemies with there NIE! chants and cufusion curse they stop mosnters from attackign you. kinda like having grim shields aroudn you, but with onyl a 25% chance of working maybe and higher the lvl of the merc, the bigger radius and the longer it lasts for. for ranged builds that dont want close company, thsi will be a great help!

 

Yeah that was what I was thinking too. It would be great! This would also give you pretty much infinite possibilities of char-merc too. :thumbsup:

 

and if you could shift-s between you and your other character playing as a merc (so you could be both in the same game) - talk about coolness!!! maybe Diablo III.

 

Priest

Weapon: Scepters only
Any armour, helm and shield

Skills:

Aura (Prayer, Meditation, or Salvation)
Holy Bolt (improved from the Paladin's version to affect Demons and Undead)
Fist of the Heavens

Recieves bonuses from +Paladin skills of appropriate abilities

Concept: Since Act 4 has been historically devoid of mercenaries, why not have an entourage of priests available to you? As humans, they wouldn't be bound by Tyrael's non-involvement issues, and could actually be quite useful for dealing with the minions of Hell.

 

I think a Cleric kind of mercenary would be cool. With healing and buffing spells like in Baldurs Gate.

 

I would like to see a trapper loosely based on Assassin skills. One Assassin-quality trap apiece, one single-monster trap(with an activation area the size of a "mat" from a druid vine), and one projectile weapon. Projectile weapons would be cast as needed. Max of two single-monster traps would be on the screen at once and they do not count as sentries for the max sentry count.

Skills would be laid out as follows:

Cold Trapper:
Wake of Arctic Blast: Self-explanatory
Freezing Trap: Freezes the next monster that runs over the trap until you attack it. Attack includes your own trap, physical or magical attack. Max of 2 on screen.
Cold Blast: Chills all monsters in a blast radius, similar to the third BoI charge

Fire Trapper:
Wake of Inferno: Similar to Assassin trap with slightly larger effective fire damage particle size
Burning Trap: Stops a monster and Immolates them for 8 sec or so, then releases.
Fire Blast: As the Assassin skill but doing a lot of damage in the small radius.

Lightning Trapper:
Lightning Sentry: Similar to Assassin skill
Chain Static Trap: Stuns monster--if another monster touches the stunned one, it will be stunned as well, etc... Lasts for 5 seconds on the first monster, then releases. Range on additional stun is 3, and it works like chain lightning in selection of additional victims. The additional stuns will happen every 1 second for a max of 4 stunned monsters. All release at the same time.
Static Blast: Does 1/10 of total HP lightning damage to all monsters in radius, similar to a weak Static Field

 

For me just a few improvements on Act 1 rogues.

At higher levels they would get either MS or Strafe as the main attack.
Freezing/Immo Arrow would be the special attack.
And a slowly advancing Pierce %, maybe every 4 levels = 1 level Pierce.

And the Rouges could use Crossbows. Mmmmm Hellrack, Mmmm Buriza :drool:

 

I'd really like to see the Act 3 sorcerers improved.

As I see it, there is no feasible roleplaying reason why Asheara trains her Ironwolves to use heavy armor, sword, and shield unless she intended them to FIGHT. Obviously, their magical skills are unmatched, yet they hardly even swing their weapon of choice, instead choosing to loose their magics at range.

I propose a new set of MELEE sorcerers, designed to use their mind AND body to defeat the evils threatening Kurast.

Cold: frozen armor/frost nova
Fire: enchant/inferno
Lightning: energy shield/static field

The improved Ironwolves would also be nice enough to cast their buff spells on you, sharing their skills like the Act 2 mercs. I like it.

GG