What is better for starter mercenary for survival?

Running cure + insight.

Random, just curious on your thoughts.

Duriel for the cannot be frozen effect, but some form of life leech would probably be better if your merc gets swarmed

Duriel

There is no such thing as cure in diablo 2.

Correct, he is playing D2R though.
RW exist there

Correct, but he posted in the diablo 2 forum, not the d2r forum.

Guardian angel if using kira's guardian or have max res, for insane elemental resist. For example vs council member's hydra. For general survival, duriel's shell.

neither - what i do is its really easy and fast to make 4 socket (any high level armor) ebug on lod. i usually make stone then hel + tp to remake fort since i already have base armor. another good option since i usually find a 3 socket crap base armor is treachery it only costs a lem rune and i consider these junk runes.

as for "temp" armors almost anything will do hes happy with anything with defense then res so..


arkaines valor
black hides
corpsemourn
duriels shell
iceblink - he freezes stuff thats useful
leviathan - solid temp
grey form
guardian angel
shaftstop ++ very solid
rockfleece again very useful as temp
skullders ire - eth or non eth it has defense
gladiators baine
toothrow

always look for does it have defense? could it have any res of any kind, could it have life?
basically fort is #1 merc armor and look for similar stats