Hey there, people here are usually so helpful, i just wanted to check with you guys about a few questions on mercenary gear (act5).

I play warcry, i use an act5 merc with dreadfang, so that's the only thing set in stone.

I have two dreadfang setups, one with a protectors stone and one with shael.
With speed in the dreadfang i can use andys visage with a 15/40 to hit ias breakpoint and that lets me wear fortitude. But that lacks CBF.

Dreadfang (shael)
Andys (15ias/40 or 15/30res)
Fortitude

another setup is

Dreadfang (prot jewel/amn)
eth-upped COT or gface
armor 4s 100life (3x 15/40 + cham)

Now i have a ton of doubts about this. In some sense the alpha/omega is making him hit fastest possible to proc amp dmg more/faster - but can i optimize his *amount* of hits in some obvious way? Eth rune inhis sword? Jah rune in his sword?

is there some other obvious helpful thing im ignoring?

This post was edited by emiq on May 1 2026 03:45am

Nah, you're set

I have no idea what you mean, you just saying you think warcry is bad?

Hes just spamming to get posts.

I never use act5 merc so i dunno. But he probably has enough ar to go along, so the only way to maxmize strike chance is -def% (ignore def works only on white mobs so thats not an issue anyway).

Now you need to calculate does he strike more often with - 25% def or with 1 more attack per second and thats that.

But in my experience more attacks usually do the trick better.

- merc's DPS : How important is it?
- merc's survivability : What kind of content are you aiming for? Can you afford to resurrect him from time to time?

Utterly terrible, and nothing you do to your merc is going to change that

optimality, lol its not mortal kombat....

a5 mercs have absolutely horrid AR and they really need some kind of outside help for it. Conviction/Lethargy/ITD/Eth rune/Enchant/Visionary something. At a reasonable level 95 they have roughly a 53%~ chance to hit Lister with a normal attack and it gets worse from there for tzones. Stun and Bash have a better chance (72-75% - 62-75% tzone) but its never happy on its own.

You could try out something like a 8%ll/3os helm with 2 ias/ar jewels and a Cham, might work well enough for your needs but he'll be whiffing a lot no matter what you do. Maybe a 2os Visio LL helm and skip the CBF

i have no idea what you mean - do you think optimization would have been more appropriate? English isn't my first language.

This post was edited by emiq on May 1 2026 06:51am

Thanks for this info, exactly what i was looking for.

I did actually have some visionary/ll circ laying around. Might check out how much that changes!