Act 5 with eth death cb/fort/guillaume or act 2 might with eth botd wp/fort/guillaume

Always teleport in blindspots too.

better use it as a meat shield. Therefor yes a2 and a5 are the only acceptable options. dmg vise you could bring something up like open wound, which would be better vs casters (and specialy es sorcs) than any high ed weapon.

a2 merc with frost aura also definitly bm vs bowas and melees

Dont need a meat shield if you’re good at teleporting in blindspots.

yeah thats why the best players never recast oak..

When did I say that you wouldnt need to recast oak, or revive your merc?
They both die often when dueling in general. In HvH and fighting things like a Druid you need to blindspot.

The answer is : depends

imo the act 1 bow merc with faith and e fort and a 40/15 2 soc giant skull would be fun on a caster

Yepp!

Using a cold bow sorc with:

Faith
Nightwings 5/5,cold
E forti

Hardest hitting one i could make so far.
Unless they got stacked cold res, and then the physical is still decent

Just make a zookeeper and use act 2 holy freeze merc have him wear bramble use beastz and just tele stomp em lol. High level pets destroy people in pvp, its rather fun actually.

Well, anyone saying that a merc isn't op in pvp hasn't tried to play against the anti-melee setup I described in post #4 haha

50% slow from HF + 50% from decrep = your ias breakpoint are completely fucked
A typical bvc with 40ias grief zerk + beast zerk would now have a WW at 9fpa instead of 4fpa

Your merc means that he also now splits his hits between you and merc, further reducing his dps by half.

Then you have lvl 21 thorn, 1050% dmg return, paired with -50% DR.
Most melee builds would lose even if you afk and let your merc 1v1 them.

VS casters there's no real good bm merc tho...
Like I said, the best option is just getting a fast and heavy dmg jab for telestomps.
You ain't gonna benefit from defiance/thorn/holyfreeze/blessed aim against casters... a1 merc would never hit any opponent unless they're litterally afk. A3 merc is a joke, and a5 merc is less dmg/ar than a2 merc minus the extra aura.
Alternatively, you could put pride on him and use resist fire/cold/light aura instead on your hdin vs those dmg types... you'd lose dmg but you could in exchange get stacked 95 res.

Well now that I think about it... I guess that a1 fire merc could be good against a zoo/summons.
Chant + 100% pierce would trigger multiple explosions hitting the full army and druid/nec.
You'd get 100% pierce by using Mist, which also comes with lvl12 conc, allowing you to use holy freeze instead, making it nearly impossible for summons to land a hit on you.
But I don't see it being good in any other situations compared to a2 merc.

This post was edited by SinsOfTheSun on Sep 14 2025 09:10am