If you were looking for a merc to help tank the toughest physical damage mobs, and were just looking for survivability, what merc would you choose?

I'm not looking to rely on a merc for tanking bosses, but if I was, which would you suggest? I just want one that can tank like a beast

I'll be doing ranged physical damage, not that it matters but yeah..

Also, I won't have any aura/life buffs of my own to give the merc. We're talking late normal, so... the best tanking merc without uber runewords and such.

act 5 wolf is in my opinion the best pure tanking merc bar none. great FHR, fantastic life leech, and decent damage with the right equip. From personal experiance I found them great boss tanks later on too. Equiped propperly for upcoming bosses they can hold them for you as long as you give them the ocasional juv. since you will have decoy and valk too he should be more than enough.
My old bow paladin used a wolf merc and he could tank nm council without any pots and tanked nm izzy easily too. Load them up with dr%, max res and i usualy use an eth obediance battle hammer along with shields untill better weapons are available later into nm

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Your decoy will be best mang I think anyways, maybe get a merc to help that.

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iz a secret

im with dod.

and can i just say, act 2 mercs are HORRIBLE.

ive had one on my necro (from 60-95) and i absolutely hate him, occasionally i kill him just to let him know im boss.

on a more serious note though, people talk about the level of 'aggro' each merc has, mine will happily stand back doing nuthing while im tanking 4-5 monsters, then finally dawdle over. when he is there he does crazy damage with his jab too, and aura's always help.

another con about a2 mercs, conversion... youd think that would help, giving more tanks... but it opens you up to a plethora of possible errors.

eg. once he converted the a5 ice breath things, (also use chilling armour) a uniq pack of succubus's started shooting him, mass proccing his armour so much my screen froze then the game crashed.

2nd example, converted units have tile size, so they will happily block doorways, and can occlude your merc from moving/attacking.

(p.s. i really hate a2 mercs now, its like there AI [what little they had] was massivly decreased)

I find uses for a2 mercs for dual aura purposes and obviously for conviction on a sorc. I also like the might merc with a faith/pride for melee builds. For a tank class, it can be a good thing that the merc stays outa harms way in order to keep the aura running, same with a sorc, I rarely use my mercs as tanks on a sorc. I much prefer to just use him as an aura provider.

The conversion is a serious pain in the maggot lair especialy, apart from that I find it usefull on sszak (converts can tank her for the whole fight. Sarina is also easily tankable by converts. As a pure meatshield though act 5 mercs > a2

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And what if you hire an a2 merc from normal, and stick with him? Normal ones have no conversion.

Hahaha! Wow that's awesome.

Tanking I still say Wolf, 'cus he goes into Wolf form and gets the life leech ability. Plus he's almost unstoppable. Never stops beating the heck out of things.