So I did a search for merc, mercenary and amazon and couldn't find much.

I'm trying to see if more experienced players have a better merc suggestion. I'm currently a level 88 plague jav amazon with an act 1 cold merc.

The only time I encounter any issues is obviously poison immune mobs and really its only when it's a boss as I can just throw a normal jav's, have my valk do its thing, just takes awhile. Bosses with this modifier are a complete no go, merc gets insta gibbed, valk takes a few hits and the CD is too long to instantly recast so I just have to restart the game.

My main complaint is the act 1 merc can be spotty on the damage either not in position to attack or dies pretty much instantly to Baal's minions on NM (but maybe all mercs do).

I have two trains of thought. I just noticed that the a3 necro merc has a -poison aura. So I figured since I'm already pretty much all poison damage as is might as well up it with this merc, because any immunes I can deal with, just slowly and any boss immunes I have no chance anyways.

The other thought is to get an act 2 or 5 merc to have another sort of tank and damage type, my valk and decoy do a pretty good job already.

I have access to mid/high level runes but no zod yet and this is for the solo player edition of the game.

I like a2 mercs on my psn javazons. Hook it up with an ardual for LR proc and otherwise make him a big tank.

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Or you can go a a5 combat merc with beast runeword .. This guy is my tank on my lvl 100 foh pally and he tanks just about everything.. Combat mercs have zeal and zeal in beast form is the same as fury almost .. Just a thought

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P.S. Have I superceeded your infininate need for proper English now or will your mind forever be locked in a perpetual stacis.

a5 combat? The only place I can find with merc info is

http://hellunleashed.ucoz.ru/index/0-4

Do you mean a normal barb, werebear or wolf type? I don't see anywhere with any merc type having zeal. Can you clarify?

A2 Might Merc with Beast in an Ethereal Warpike is very nice also. I'd throw atmas amulet and/or Gore riders on him as well. I'm sure your poison has no problem killing trash and the amp will help your merc stay alive in the trickier spots like a group of minion minions in wsk. You will need some Ias but you can still hit max speed on him with the warpike. A defiance helm and Frostburns help alot as well for survival for the merc and also make your Decoy/Valkyrie stronger.

combat mercs are the regular non bear non wolf ones

Alright, but what do they really offer that an a2 merc with a might aura does?

Well I decided on an A5 combat merc to do something different, I've always done the A2 might merc so I wanted to change it up.
Now I just need one last rune to make Beast Rune word.

Ugh can't find a good 2h eth weapon for my merc, I did find a superior eth crypic axe with 5 sockets however -_-

What is an ardual? I can't seem to find a runeword or unique with that name. I've made an eth thunder maul beast rune word, but recently found a zod.

Been thinking of changing the a5 merc to an a2 might one, but what would be the best weapon to put on either Last Wish or Breath of the Dying.

Thoughts?

PS Are merc's attack range altered by their equipped weapon? I.e. Maul has 3, wouldn't it be better to give him a 2h sword with 4?

Ardual is the lvl 70 unique amulet with chance to cast lower resist

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Don't think that drops in the single player version, at least I've never seen it.

Depends on which single player version you use. Ardural's wasn't around in 1.21z, but has been since 1.3a. The single player doesn't discriminate the way vanilla did. Anything listed for the patch can be made or dropped as if playing on realms.

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"The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits" Albert Einstein

Well I don't think I have the most current, I DL'd from the website a year or two ago. When I start the game says v1.10, D2Mod 1.03. In game the 1.10 is up if I have a map on. Can I update the game and still keep all my characters?

Those two items are correct. Theere was a single player version if 1.3c last year iirc, if it was before that it's 1.21z. Unfortunately, there is currently no single player version hosted on the site anywhere.

Not sure if you're aware, after reading back, you can use socket glyph to change sockets even if an item has them. I.E. find a 5 soc cryptic as, needs to be 3, use triple soc glyph in cube with weapon and viola 3 soc weapon.
If you're in fact playing 1.21z single player, refer to this site. http://critterkiller.arimyth.com/ most information is correct.

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"The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits" Albert Einstein

When a friend and I ran bone/psnjava, we both ran cold mercs as they were blatantly overpowered and covered the weakness of poison immune mobs.

Can you explain how they cover the weakness?
Also I'm disappointed because I discovered I can't break poison immune anything really, regardless of how much -resist I & my merc have (gul's wasted ). Now the only thing I want are the IK boots to complete the set to see how well an act5 merc does with that.

But I still don't think I can clear the keep just before Baal as there are too many PSN immune mobs and holy reduction in hit recovery on those curses WOW. I may try to just teleport past them and fight Baal's minions.

he was saying that with psn/magic damage, they simply ran cold mercs to kill all the trash. Mercs are a great way of dealing with immunities, so you just rely on your merc to kill trash that's immune to you.

You'll hardly ever break any strong immunities with passive pierce from guls and gear. You need active pierce to break immunes (a big LR is the best for poison). Some people use the poison/bone a3 merc because his aura gives -10 active pierce, and he clears trash really well with teeth

there's lots of immunities for every element in the castle, it's really hard to clear it solo unless you're a hammerdin or teeth necro. Gotta have a really tits merc

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Like, with the act 3 merc, the PNB aura rarely if ever allowed us to break poison immunities beyond the scope of what my lower res could do already. So instead of focusing on that, we decided to create an a3 cold merc to deal with the mobs/bosses that were poison immune. Oddly enough, a maxed out a3 cold merc can kill just about anything in the game that isn't cold immune, even the act bosses, though fighting the act bosses is infinitely harder since they tend to die in 1 hit to them.

I think the auras on the a3 mercs do -10 active pierce, similar to the holy pali auras. Since those auras, conviction, and LR are practically the only sources of active pierce in the game, and because of how the resists are calculated, it can make the difference of doing damage or not. Sometimes you still can't break the immunity however, and end up not being able to do any damage, which is why I usually opt for the huge dps of cold mercs like Angel is saying

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I was always a big fan of keeping a Shadow on switch for the oskill Cloak of Shadows. With some +skills, CoS will break a good bit of PI's.

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I was never more at home than I was in battle. - Solomon Kane

CoS only lowers the resist for your attacks?

pretty sure it acts as a curse, like LR, meaning it would be active pierce

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We don't see any damage increase casting it against most champs and all bosses thus far. Both on the person doing the damage and another party.

doesnt work on champs and bosses but it works on trash.

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'may the force be with you' - Yoda??

So essentially it's utterly pointless, unless it works like an aura when cast which I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Trash dies almost instantly anyways to one plague javelin.

I thought the problem was poison immune trash on the way through WSK? I guess I miss understood.

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I was never more at home than I was in battle. - Solomon Kane

I always thought of the a3 mercs (any) to be weak and easy to die, with top end gear this isn't the case? I'd be willing to give it a try.

When they're high level and decked out they pretty much only die to act bosses whom deal massively increased damage to them. Unlike the melee mercs, they tend to stay out of range of everything and take little damage.

I don't really ever get them in normal, I just stick with the a2 merc. The normal mercs don't get the full skillset. IE; a3 cold mercs in normal don't get blizzard, and a2 mercs don't get conversion. Once I hit a3 nm I'll buy my merc that I will keep for the rest of the game. He'll be really weak until you level him up and give him gear. The thing that makes a3 mercs OP is they aren't restricted by the same skill cooldowns as players, so they can potentially cast 4 blizzards or meteors in a row really quickly, and with gear can almost deal as much damage as a sorc.

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Fixed.

ehhh, I still think the damage on sorcs are higher due to synergies

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A sorc's blizzard may do more damage, but at the same time they can't cast 4 or 5 of them in a row.

still, its a chance, they have other abilities to cycle through and possibly cast THOSE 4 or 5 in a row, OR SWING THEIR SWORD USELESSLY lol

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2 blizzards in a row outdamage a normal bliz sorc.

I have had a dozen fully geared a3 bliz mercs, and none of them could ever hold a candle to the damage output from khione (drrod's bliz sorc every ladder). Let's agree to disagree here

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Did ddrod's bliz kill andariel in <10 seconds flat?

easily

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Blizzard is absolutly awesome killer, but you must remember that it makes countners. Used on Mephisto can kill someone. Generally i always use a2 mercs. Weared for damage and CB, a2 might merc can kill a lot of hell prime evils, and with HP buffs, max amp and juvs, he can survive at Andy, Duriel, Meph and helps at Baal (with some luck or special tactic - Diablo too). So i love them.

Well then I may pick up a nightmare act3 cold merc, I have access to pretty much any gear I want to get, so I'll give him a whirl.

Also you have to remember that I'm playing the solo edition, so I just poison something and run around until I can safely repeat.

I feel I have a pretty decked out merc with a beast war pike, eth CoH shadow plate, drac gloves, perfect string of ears etc, he's doing 12-33k damage a hit. But it seems the last few bosses that are PSN immune also cast IM... which really really sucks.

Vampire gaze helm + Bonemarrow boots = boneprison on any class but necro that tanks everything. You can throw in szzak's bow for even higher levels.

Not sure if there is a bone armor charge on any item, but if there is it just makes it even more broken. Let the merc kill all the bosses for you.