Im curious about what merc to use for my hammerdin and I am torn between an A1 Ice merc and A2 Insight Merc.

I intend on doing both CS and Baal and I have heard that an A1 ice merc is amazing for CS.

To that end however if I am running solo will an a1 ice merc be capable of killing achmel on her own?
Or should I use a High DMG insight merc (or defiance merc with Doom) for that purpose?

What do you think?

I would say no, and the act2 merc is surely better fit for that job.

After the changes to CS (removed IM and LR curses) act2 merc works well in CS too.

What would you recommend for gear on him then? What type for that matter?

Im using a defiance merc right now with andy's helm + 3.8k defense gloom (for dim vision > souls) and an insight.
Should I switch insight to doom or switch my defiance merc to a holy freeze merc?

Synonym has written a good guide on mercs:
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=42086445&f=87

You should study that

The best killer merc is an act 2 merc with might/hf with eth Reaper's Toll (IAS'd), Treachery, and guillaume's (cham'd).

best merc for cs is a3 cold with phoenix and azurewrath

but since you are doing brs, i suggest u to use a2 might merc

Am I the only one who thinks that Blizz should have made the last wave magic immune.
Now they made the most useless monsters immune to hammers

It's because wave 2 was already immune to magic, they simply fixed it so hammers actually would not have an effect on the monsters that were said magical immunes (Which prior to this was just beast type monsters with magical immunity, everything else with magical immunity would still die.)


I'd say use an insight merc, and smite the 2nd wave with redemption on. If you're manually doing this, that'll be easy. If you are doing it by other means you can always PM me.

For damage that would be insane. If he's a pure vita based hdin though an eth insight CA would do well to keep his mana up, eth fort, andys helm(ral) or guillaume's face . My level 98 merc did 10k damage with that gear and my conc aura

This post was edited by IdiotUSEast on Oct 14 2010 12:55pm

Since concentration already provides a lot of off-weapon %ED, treachery+Thresher Insight+andy IAS'd would be better than a fort setup.