So I just did some testing on PTR with grim ward and want to report back my experiences as well.

*Does appear to work same way as amplify damage by removing phys immunity.
Confirmed by going into Arcane -> grim ward, Ghosts have phys immune label removed

*amp dmg effect only lasts while feared
As soon as ghosts move out of range (fear icon gone), phys immune label reappeared.

*Doesn't work whatsoever on uniques/champions

Some comments on running trav with this skill

-Won't work on 3 of the unique council members

-Would need to kill a council first, then use grim ward. this slows things down

-Using grim ward deprives a corpse from looting.

-Only upside is that feared enemies are extremely slowed (60-70% depending on +skills) so they won't run away too quickly.

Overall, extremely clunky to use and probably not worth it.

Yep.

Basically, at this point, what it needs to do is:
- Not use a corpse
- Instead of Fearing, Stun in place (like AoE warcry?)
- Apply something like Amplify Damage OR like Conviction, instead of this weird damage increase that requires the crowd control effect to be active

If they do that, there's a faint chance it becomes useful.
As of right now, it's still hot garbage.

ive got 2 questions in my mind for your merc build setup, wich came up while i was reading the latest ptr posts
- is cbnf not worth it for your merc (especially while we get a lot of random blizzard damage of other close minions) ?
- do you have any problems to keep your merc alive when he has 75% fireres or is he dead in a second of the hydras ?

- CBF is fine, just not mandatory. I personally use it on a DIY circlet (2x 15/40 + Cham), and I use it in Andy's or GFace depending on the rest of the setup, or even in a 4os 24FHR armor.
- 75% fire res you should be fine, but I personally can't wait to get Flickering Flame to see how it plays out on live

If merc using flickering flame would be eth treachery an option to replace forti would be +1 ias bp but clear speed slower than ?what u think ?

This post was edited by Spartacus160 on Jan 29 2022 08:21am

why treachery? you want or gf with wealth or dmg with coh or forti no?

more dmg ofc but treachery faster attacks if clear is faster with others then keep them ofc

This post was edited by Spartacus160 on Jan 29 2022 08:30am

The breakpoint is irrelevant compared to the ED on Fort/CoH. It's not close.

okay thx m8 wasnt sure bout that.

The only time you'll care about IAS breakpoints above all is when you're trying to Crushing Blow bosses is what I've found. And even then if your Merc dies all the time (Treachery pre-Fade dies a lot), you're still shit out of luck.