Hey

Finally got my barb to Hell last night yay ... anyway, I'm playing a summon druid through the game as a side char. He is currently lvl35 lvling his merc in a3.

Points so far are:
13 Oak
11 Dire Wolf
Prerequisites and 1-pointers

I am going shockwave with him starting from lvl37 after I pick up bear and will then max maul after shockwave. His gear will keep his +skills with more caster and fcr items from lvl37.

The points I intend to spend as he gets to A5 Hell if he does:

20 Oak
20 Dire Wolf
15 Grizzly
20 Shockwave
15 Maul
11 Prerequisites and 1-pointers
-- 101 skill points, around lvl95.

Current merc is A3 Lightning

Playing him he will be mediocre summoner and a weak to mediocre caster, and I want some form of ctc curse, f.ex. amp or decrep to amplify shockwave and summons, while my merc does elemental damage on physical immunes to some degree.

That's my question and agenda.
I'm looking for a merc that does 1) Decent elemental damage on trash and weaker unique monsters and 2) Can provide good ctc curse.

I'm leaning towards an A1 fire or cold merc.
My question is,
What are your experiences in playing through the later difficulties with an A1 fire or cold merc on a physical based character. How is the ctc curse doing on them? Do they do enough elemental damage to kill superunique, physical immune trash?

A1 elemental merc is a good choice in my opinion, although it may not kill PI monsters super-duper fast. You could try tossing a point in frostbite or fireclaws. Even though it won't do a lot of dmg, it will do that dmg very fast and that will help a bit.

I suggest A1 merc because she has the easiest chance of casting amp wiht pretty easy to obtain gear. Rather than atma's amulet though, I would use Witchwild String (5% ctc lvl3 amp) for several reasons:

1. it allows you to use full elemental set on your merc which is powerful AND boosts her elemental dmg which seems to be a key component for you.

2. has a very high %chance of deadly strike. For mercs this doubles not only their physical dmg, but elemental dmg as well.

3. Is low level so you can use it early
4. has +40% all res which helps keep her alive
5. has 2 sockets.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

you are alot better going with a3 light merc for trash clearing or an act 1 phys, but you already said you want your merc to deal with phys immunes. I had a lightning merc up to level 99 this season and he rocked. although I did have maxed conviction, so he cleared as fast as an act 1 phys merc. I would max maul and shockwave personaly if its a shockwave build, with lycan and oak it still leaves 20 points to max a summon. I would recomend dire wolves over grizzly for a couple of reasons. 1: when fighting a boss, if you cast a grizzly and the boss bursts your oak right after, you have a loooong time to go without oak, and 2 : dires cover more ground so make it safer to use against trash. grizzly will already have enough life to last against trash with just 1 point , that means you can have spirit wolves, dires and grizzly up against trash and use dire wolves to distract bosses. Thats a personal preferance, its up to you really

as far as ctc curses goes, the a3 merc cant proc amp, you can however use a lawbringer on your switch for an almost instant level 16 decrep. once you get high enough puting andariels visage on your merc (I put amn in mine to keep him at 145%fcr) that will give you amp witch reanimates that cast amp for you. alot.

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