Summoner Merc Armor
If you had a fairly deep wallet, what would be your ideal Merc armor and helm?
There is a lot of questions inbedded within each setup so keep your eyes open.
He is welding an infinity Eth CV.
Armor:
My first instinct is to go with
1. Fortitude.
The chilling armor will make him very tough to hit, and he gets that juicy 300% ED. Chilling armor says the user gets a 115% def bonus, is that bonus multiplied on the base of the armor or the def after ED is calculated? better yet does it calculate it based upon total def? 25-30% Res is solid, max LR and life is just a bonus making this an awesome armor.
2 Duress has the 15 CB, but I already have 40 CB from infinity. Does it make sense or is it more effective to have 90 CB [add on Guilumme's]. Note that I will be playing most of the time, solo in 8 player games. So my SW might not be as much as a wrecking force so maybe CB is the way to go?
3. CoH
Res is awesome, but merc would have maxed res under option 1 and be close with option 2. As far as I know, correct me if i'm wrong, plus skills don't add to the aura or his jab skill? If that is the case then the plus skills would be useless. Not too many positives aside from the damage reduction and LL.
4. Bramble
I don't have much experience with the use of thorns, so anybody want to share their experiences? I use a iron golem and haven't really noticed a benefit from his thorns aura. Aside from that most of the mods aside fmo the FHR and resistance attributes make this a second tier armor as well. Again correct me for those who do use this setup with their summon army.
5. Stone
Very nice mix of stats, Big Ed boost but not as nice as fort after chilling armor? (see question under Fort) Decent res at 15 all and has very nice stat points.
6. Prudence
On the look of things to me this is a nerfed stone and not worth the price.
7. Treachery
I'm just going to throw it out there because of the Ias and fade. However based upon my experience using this armor on mercs is that the increased attack speed isn't worth the survival costs of the merc.
8. Guardian Angel
I currently have my merc using this. Main reason is for raising the max res levels.
9. Dragon
This armor I am especially curious about simply because the conviction off the infinity. Any summoner especially with a merc using a 300+ed weapon like infinity would probably say that there are no issues with getting physical damage. Therefore to further maximize use of the infinity and to supplement damage from mages I like the fact that holy fire adds damage to attack. Venom is also nice in adding mix of elemental and stopping monste heals. The biggest kicker for me atm is the chance to cast to hydra. It procs more often then you might think at least based upon my experience with a merc using rift [tornados]. Anyway i'm going to ignore poison and just focus on fire damage. I believe holy fire adds like 80ish which isn't much but convictions helps boost that. The hydras add 93-113 per head [three adds] and I'd guestimate that they would proc once every 3 seconds? To me that would be like adding a couple of skeletal mages? Has anybody tried this?
So if you have input on your own experience please rank them?
Just guessing I would rank it as:
1.Fort
1a. Duress
2. Stone
3. Coh
4. Guardian Angel
5. treachery
5a. Prudence
not going to place bramble or dragon as again I have no idea how they would work in reality.
If you had a fairly deep wallet, what would be your ideal Merc armor and helm?
There is a lot of questions inbedded within each setup so keep your eyes open.
He is welding an infinity Eth CV.
Armor:
My first instinct is to go with
1. Fortitude.
The chilling armor will make him very tough to hit, and he gets that juicy 300% ED. Chilling armor says the user gets a 115% def bonus, is that bonus multiplied on the base of the armor or the def after ED is calculated? better yet does it calculate it based upon total def? 25-30% Res is solid, max LR and life is just a bonus making this an awesome armor.
2 Duress has the 15 CB, but I already have 40 CB from infinity. Does it make sense or is it more effective to have 90 CB [add on Guilumme's]. Note that I will be playing most of the time, solo in 8 player games. So my SW might not be as much as a wrecking force so maybe CB is the way to go?
3. CoH
Res is awesome, but merc would have maxed res under option 1 and be close with option 2. As far as I know, correct me if i'm wrong, plus skills don't add to the aura or his jab skill? If that is the case then the plus skills would be useless. Not too many positives aside from the damage reduction and LL.
4. Bramble
I don't have much experience with the use of thorns, so anybody want to share their experiences? I use a iron golem and haven't really noticed a benefit from his thorns aura. Aside from that most of the mods aside fmo the FHR and resistance attributes make this a second tier armor as well. Again correct me for those who do use this setup with their summon army.
5. Stone
Very nice mix of stats, Big Ed boost but not as nice as fort after chilling armor? (see question under Fort) Decent res at 15 all and has very nice stat points.
6. Prudence
On the look of things to me this is a nerfed stone and not worth the price.
7. Treachery
I'm just going to throw it out there because of the Ias and fade. However based upon my experience using this armor on mercs is that the increased attack speed isn't worth the survival costs of the merc.
8. Guardian Angel
I currently have my merc using this. Main reason is for raising the max res levels.
9. Dragon
This armor I am especially curious about simply because the conviction off the infinity. Any summoner especially with a merc using a 300+ed weapon like infinity would probably say that there are no issues with getting physical damage. Therefore to further maximize use of the infinity and to supplement damage from mages I like the fact that holy fire adds damage to attack. Venom is also nice in adding mix of elemental and stopping monste heals. The biggest kicker for me atm is the chance to cast to hydra. It procs more often then you might think at least based upon my experience with a merc using rift [tornados]. Anyway i'm going to ignore poison and just focus on fire damage. I believe holy fire adds like 80ish which isn't much but convictions helps boost that. The hydras add 93-113 per head [three adds] and I'd guestimate that they would proc once every 3 seconds? To me that would be like adding a couple of skeletal mages? Has anybody tried this?
So if you have input on your own experience please rank them?
Just guessing I would rank it as:
1.Fort
1a. Duress
2. Stone
3. Coh
4. Guardian Angel
5. treachery
5a. Prudence
not going to place bramble or dragon as again I have no idea how they would work in reality.
With aura, he does over 6K with his "Treachery." Wowzers. Unfortunately, neither "Fort" or "CoH" have IAS... I usually like IAS on Mercs so they poke fast and trigger special effects for me.