They're good if you are inexperienced, and great when you are experienced and have the required gear. I haven't tried leap, but i think war cry is great. You have to learn to use it correctly, along with gavel of pain on switch. I've played this only on hardcore, so my experience is from there. I use this strategy both for normal, nightmare and hell, but of course most of it goes for hell mode which is much more dangerous.
Use the level 23 enchant from demon limb on your merc first to increase his attack rating.
When you run to the travincal palace, analyze the situation. Usually most of them are situated inside the palace, and that's the ideal situation. If they are, run inside, let them run towards you a few paces so that they pack together a little bit, then run down the stairs to recollect the merc. Heal up from any damage. Run upstairs. Immediately cast war cry on as many as you feel comfortable getting close to, many will run towards you and your merc as well. Lightning will emit from lightning enchanted member bosses and some others will attack you, so you will start taking a bit of damage, but you will also stun about 70-80% of them. War cry works only 10% of the time on member bosses, so while you will not stun many of them immediately, casting war cry 5-7 times in quick session will stun -some- of them, for a good 5 seconds, allowing your merc to get a head start. After doing that, step back, switch to gavel and cast amp on the bunch. At this point, your merc should have started to kill a few of them. The stone skin boss member, toorc icefist, ususally takes many more hits than the others to kill even with amp, so if the merc is unlucky and starts off at him, you may have to run in and recast war cry after 3-4 seconds have passed. But you learn to read the game after 10-20 runs. The merc should have killed most of them in about 10-15 seconds. Then the possible remaining ones outside is easy to deal with.
If they are ALL bunched inside, AND if you get an unlucky roll on their auras, such as conviction + might or any of them + fanaticism, it may be a tough battle. At that point, you may learn from experience that the best thing to do is 1) Try to spend 20 seconds to kite/lure them outside a few at a time, or 2) Restart the run. But, you can try to charge as well if you dare (hardcore), run in, cast war cry as much as you are comfortable, and maybe you stun most of the boss monsters quickly. At that point, you can try to let your merc kill them and work with it. But if your merc goes down like a sack of potetoes, you know you're in a bad spot ^^ And then save and exit is the only option.
The artificial intelligence of the members are somewhat erratic. If you try to lure them outside, sometimes 2-3 comes running at once. If you are standing 10-15 paces outside, and you see some of them come running, immediately cast war cry. You will most likely get lucky and time them so that many of them get stunned. If they do, that's a lucky shot, and your merc gets a head start on them, killing them at once. This makes the run much easier. But usually, at the same time, ALL of the members cast hydra around the same spot, meaning you and your merc now how 30-36 hydra heads spouting fire bolts. Unless your merc gets in hits on them constantly with them amp'd, and unless you are shielding him from about 50% of the hydras or more, AND unless you have kira's guardian as helmet on your merc, he will die within 1-2 seconds and the run slows down significantly.
I always tp out and go to act 4 to speed up things, either if i want to ressurrect the merc, or restart the game. It is much faster than running from the starting spot in act 3 every time. Also using the vendors in act 4.
If they are all situated outside, they may follow you in bunches, and it may be a tough battle if a bunch follow you and the other starts casting hydra around you and your merc. At the same time, those pesky water snake monsters spits poison balls, knocking back you and your merc. And you typically don't have the damage to kill them. So you have to block their shots so your merc can attack freely. At the same time as you control the battle with war cry, amplify damage and blocking hydra fire bolts for your merc. So that's when things get interesting ^^ But you also get your instincts sharpened ^^
So that's my main strategy. When you get the flow down, it is very fast and relatively safe.
When the merc is working on them, use find item in the meantime and identify and sort items and pick up gold.
Merc setup is ebotd war pike, treachery or any armor of choice, and kira's guardian. Fortitude with the chilling armor sends out ice bolts, which sometimes chills members and they shatter, which is detrimental. But it doesn't happen so often and you may test it out. Eth guardian angel combined with a high res kira's gives him 90% fire resist, making him able to tank the hydra damage. But still makes him a bit susceptible to overwhelming physical damage, which the members can deal in spades. But which you should be able to stun with war cry, BUT can be dangerous if they have aura combinations and targets you quickly (hardcore).
So there are some things to think through. But when you do, and get the flow down, you run dozens of runs in short time, and rack up millions of gold in equally short time. They have heightened chance to drop high runes, you find a lot of jewels, charms and flawless gems. I've found a kira's guardian, wizardspike, other high-level unique items. The gambling aspect is fun as well. So i highly recommend it
This post was edited by Taurean on Nov 13 2021 10:20pm