Needs life leech?

I find steelshade(mal) + coh + insight great. Can die to conviction still but u can telestomp that guy. Occasional conviction death never other deaths.

I run a zerker and insight is just for mana convenience, don´t like to kiss ormus even if he smells good.

Edit: As for budget option, you can run insight + steel shade(um) + gbane. You have to babysit your merc a bit more due to no leech but if your killspeed is good and positioning ok he will not die. Obedience has cold-dmg, horker don´t like that.

Don´t run gbane with mal, lowers healing, so you would run gbane(um) and steelshade(um).

This post was edited by Schmeden on Mar 27 2026 05:08am

Can´t edit: Did the budget option a bit sloppy. Guardian angel + steel shade should be superior like Goomshill said.

I went Eth Reapers Toll, Eth GA, Kiras.
Said F it for the cold dmg on Reapers.
Losing a corpse every once in a while, but I feel like its fine for the comfort the build gives me on all other sides.
I heard BOTD is a good option but never tried.

This post was edited by Azomon on Mar 27 2026 06:11am

According to my calcs this is what u have to deal with. As u can see steel shade is superior. Gangel + kira can be seen as a temp cause u don´t have sockets basically. You are better of with anything that has good resist on chest + steel shade than kira even with gangel..

Setup Fire Res MDR Absorb Avg Life/Bolt
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shade+gBane 75% 20 11 +2.53
Shade+gAngel 90% 0 11 +7.65
Shade+CoH-Mal 75% 7 11 +5.12
Shade+CoH-Vex 80% 0 11 +5.15
Shade+no-mdr 75% 0 11 +1.92
gAngel+something(kira) 90% 0 0 -7.90
75-0-0 75% 0 0 -19.75
---------------------------------------------------------------------

This post was edited by Schmeden on Mar 27 2026 07:38am

I tryed a bunch of setups and found that this is optimal, the merc still dies once in a while but alot less frequent:

Eth reapers tool with Shael
Eth Kiras with 15IAS jewel
Eth Guardian angel with 15ias jewel.

if youre wearing enigma, using teleport to move him around is really helpful for keeping him alive

taking hydras' aggro by getting closer to em than him can help too.
teleing around can actually kill him if not done properly since you mitigate his LL if not teleing onto an enemy

This

they also have warning labels on hammers now saying you may injure yourself if you hit yourself with it...