So the idea here is to build a powerful mercenary and use the own character as support. The character ive chosen is ofc a paladin since it can have very high level auras.
the main aura will be Fana on the paladin, with maxed out fana in skilltree + offensive aura skill charms etc.

i need some ideas of items to put on the paladin, like adding more auras from items.



the merc ive choosen is the act5 barbarian, its very fast and hits very hard (and i like the look of it)

idk what items to use on this one tbh, eth botd or kingslayer maybe, need ideas. Gface/CoA/Shako/Other and either duress or forty armor. kingslayer/duress might be good for stacking CB for bosses and botd/forty for trash.


Give me ideas! when ive got enough ideas ill build the king or mercs and reck the entire game with it. both ideas for killing trash/bosses. freeze wont be necessery as i will keep healing the merc when needed. lets do it!

Act 2 merc can get might aura and can use reapers roll for decrep or pride for concentration aura.. probably better than a5 merc for this.
Also you’ll probably add more damage as a Druid using faith bow for fanat and heart of wolverine spirit, since fanat is only adding 50% of the Ed bonus to your party. Plus then you can use shockwave to completely immobilize everything to ensure merc survival. I think a pure merc build will be very difficult vs p8 mobs unless you have a way to stun them or have a tank to take the damage. You won’t always be able to heal your merc effectively with holy bolt.
Just look at all the different items that add auras, and all the different classes that have party damage buffs, especially ones that can also stun. I think you can come up with a better plan that fanat/holy bolt pally with an act 5 merc. I think if you are a pally using fanat you’ll want to wield pride weapon on the pally himself. But yeah, I think the merc will just get really overwhelmed in some situations and not be able to survive without a tank or some stun

This post was edited by Belarathon on Oct 1 2019 11:25pm

This.
Or if you insist on pala, you can use conversion to help your merc in crowdy situations

What Belarathon said
If you want to use A5 you need Headstriker, Guills and Forti. Guills Cham
You need decrepify/amp from yourself and that makes things ineffective

A2 with Reapers Ber, 160/60/str and 80/30/str/cham or Guills cham
This way it has tons of ias by himself, cbf and decrepify. Using Palading offers pretty much medicore fanatism only that can be gotten from Beast or Faith on any other char. Maybe self conc + faith/beast as Pala. Druid has HoW instead and has crowd control and summons that gets same benefits as your merc

This post was edited by wupa on Oct 1 2019 11:43pm

A strong BotD with Amplify should do better then Reaper with Decrepify...

Sure is but casting amp will be awful

Maybe you should get Cruel ctc amp weapon with 2xLo for merc
Then you need 8ll/80/30/Cham

This post was edited by wupa on Oct 2 2019 01:28am

you can be a nec with pride and fana golem and cast amp
you can use wisp for lvl5 wolverine
your a5 merc can use headstriker and jeweler armor and helm with flat dmg and ias jewels

With only those two things considered of course

But considering the character as a whole you need to look at more than just those factors. You’d need to consider how it will all work together with the crowd control and the auras combining to make a workable character. I haven’t actually sat down and tried to plan out a mercenary only character, so I’m not sure what the ideal layout would be, but surely just saying amp/botd > reapers/decrep can’t be used as a blanket statement here. It would have to be a necromancer at that point since he doesn’t plan on attacking the enemy himself it seems, so you’ll automatically lose out on either HoW from Druid, an aura from pally, or enchant from sorc. Necro would be decent with golem to tank though. So I guess it would be necro with golem tank, amp curse, faith bow and might from merc (a2 botd), vs Druid with grizzly tank (and possibly shockwave), faith bow, HoW, and decrep/might from merc. So in that case it would basically be amp vs HoW + decrep. Or his original idea of paladin with fanat/holy bolt, might merc with decrep
Otherwise he could make a zealot with saracens ammy for the amp, but no doubt a zealot would outshine the merc to the point of it not being a merc char anymore.
One thing to mention is just the strength of shockwave. If he did go Druid with shockwave, the merc will be able to take care of the game easily with mediocre gear

Using wolverine off wisp would only be good for a screenshot. It dies way too often in pvm to be practical to use it that way. Fanat golem is a good idea, but I think it’s a bad idea for single player. Iron golems poof all the time. Not from dying but just from either being too far away from your character or whatever other reasons I don’t know. But I had an iron golem necro and they poof all the time. On bnet it’s fine, I just made a new one with 5fg runewords. On single player it would mean losing out on a ber or a jah that would take a lot of effort to replace

i made the char with editor
the a5 merc can do p8 cs without needing potions or cc (just merc and iron golem, no extra summon)
monsters die quickly
diablo took a bit long but that version didn't have any cb so it's to be expected