I don't think this gets talked about enough (or maybe I haven't been listening)

The -def from conviction aura is seriously underrated and I think a reason to use infinity for merc even for barbs and melee builds. My trav barb chance to hit goes from 60% to 95% and makes the runs so much smoother. Plus infinity hits very hard and has high crushing blow. I can't recommend it enough for a melee build unless your chance to hit is already 90+

Yes, the -def is incredible for hit chance. Weapons like Grief has native -25.

all you said is correct and thats why i hate this runeword... hardly any build has another viable choice

Yes, it's the ultimate merc weapon for mostly any character. I would say it's the third most broken runeword. After enigma and grief.

It is also excellent for summon/CE necro.

Your merc/skeletons kill stuff much faster, and you get -fire for corpse explosion (which is 50/50 phys/fire).

Also CB for doing bosses, which is the primary weakness of summonmancers.

I'm messing with a summoner on single player no edits all self found etc. So gear is bad for now lol. But I can't believe how well revives go with thorn Merc. Like on players 1 diablo and meph die like it's a javazon haha. Health bar goes down in chunks. Before the thorn Merc I was definitely having some issues with bosses though

on a kicksin with dragon tail its really op, since dmg is half physical and half fire... and death sentry also love it.
I just dont use it on throw barb, auradin, shapeshift and windy druid.

If you’re using grief you don’t need it, it already has ignore target defence vs monster

Actually ignore target defence doesn't work on bosses superuniques uniques and even champion packs. So itg doesn't help when doing trav. If you try with infinity merc and say reapers toll merc you will notice a lot of missed swings with repairs toll and hardly any misses with infinity