Only Act II nightmare diff mercs are really affected by this. 
With many minions running around the map all effected by thorns and with the possibility of an Amp Damage curse as well, this can create havoc for boss monsters that use physical attacks i.e. When you are being shown mercs to hire, the game lists the merc's name and type, along with cost, defense & life. Which melee merc to use, Act II or Act V? Two characteristics of LE monsters are that the more they get hit, the more sparks they generate. The Desert Warrior requires a little stimulus to use his aura and this means getting him involved in the action. You have +100% damage from WW. Then there's the resurrection costs. These guys are possibly the most used Mercs in the game thanks to their auras. Even high level Act II mercs have less of a lemming tendency than the other mercs and will retreat quite quickly if your character decides to leg it.
More equipment details may be found in the sections pertaining to the specific merc. Again thanks to Badf00d for this information. In this instance, where the player character is melee and the merc is ranged, simply go toe to toe with your boss monster and this should keep your merc out of harms way. The life regeneration that this aura provides is probably only of use to most characters as a way to ignore the effects of poison or of life draining items (Malice rune word for example). This means they can't fight their way out of a scrape very quickly and on hell diff it takes an age for them to hurt anything. When the conversion wear's off the monsters will still be affected by thorns for a few seconds afterwards. Sticking close to your barb merc does up the tempo of the game somewhat. A complete list of merc names can be seen on the mercenaries page. So, not only do the normal difficulty mercs have higher skills than their counterparts at high levels, but they have lower experience requirements to level too. E.g.. the Iron Wolves magical skills are capped at lvl 18 so + to skills here can lead to a significant improvement. The cold merc is also of least use to a Necro Overlord as the frozen corpses which shatter into nothingness are no use to the Necro for summoning or reviving. https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/index.php?title=Guide:Mercenary_Guide_v1.10&oldid=27956, experience_function(level) = (Exp/Lvl) * (level+1) * level ^ 2. Note: for 1.09 and before, if you have given your merc any +skills items you will prevent the bow from firing the stated arrows as the merc will never be using the bows regular attack. If you have 6 players with 6 mercs, all with the same aura, all the game will do is cycle through the aura effects for each merc.
A slowed creature can hit the merc less frequently and is therefore easier for the merc to fight. Basically, the Act II merc will only activate his aura when he has to pick an attack. Note: in 1.09, any +% gold find equip that a merc is carrying apparently does add to any increased% gold drop that the player character is carrying. Holy Fire: found on 'Hand of Justice' rune word for all weapons. Obviously, if you have equipped any + to all or + to Amazon skills items she will alternate between the special skill and her normal cold/fire arrow skill. The Necromancer Overlord is the character build that can make best use of this aura. If you want a particular name for your merc, say you want an Act 2 offensive merc on Nightmare diff called Azrael, just keep revisiting town until the merc with the name you are after appears. Mercs cannot be a higher level than your character and when a merc reaches the same level as the player character they cease to gain any experience until the player character levels up again. This aura is probably of least use to a Sorceress as it does not add any benefit to her magical attacks, but should she run low of mana and be caught in a corner with only a melee weapon then, this aura will give her a chance of fighting her way free. Can equip: Spears and Pole arms (and Javelins, but with no throwing ability), Level up: +1.5 Strength, +1.5 Dexterity, +9.5 Defense, +1.5 Resistances, +10 Life. As she levels she will use the cold or fire attack more often, until at level 25 she gets the following probabilities of using her various skills: Essentially a 50/50 split between using normal arrows and invoking her cold / fire arrow attack with a smallish chance to cast inner sight. with the boss in constant stun lock, you merc can then do the actual damage to the boss (given he's not Physical Immune as well, in which case you should just leg it). If you've just hired a new merc and want to level them to the same level as your character, compare their level to that of monsters in different parts of the game and fight in that area. You don't really need the godly items, to be honest, and a merc can be perfectly viable with items that you can buy from shops, take from monster corpses or from crafting/gambling. Because he's targeting a monster a distance away, he will fire at it regardless of what's in his way. In act 2 I have noticed this to be especially pronounced on the Scarabs. Ideally a sword with +1 to all skills or faster cast would be of most benefit to them. However, in cases where you don't exactly need the aura anyway, notably sorceresses and barbarians, a barb merc can be a fine companion. This aura is of some limited use to the Necromancer and his minions as the continual life replenish will help keep them alive for much longer. The formula below from Nikodemous from the Paladin forum explains how your might mercs aura factors into your damage. Another very useful for aura for any player character, more so for the slowing effect on monsters than any damage done. These monsters are very likely to take your merc apart quite quickly. Be very careful with melee attacks at this time. However for variant builds such as the Melee Sorc, Ranger (bow/crossbow Paladin) and Meleemancer (melee Necro) where AR is of critical importance, the blessed aim merc can be very useful. Updated by Sunbearie and Team (many, many, many people). Add in a Shaftstop and a vampire gaze (or crown of ages if you have one), and your mercenary will probably be able to last up to a whole minute. With the Ancients, there are three of them. Obviously the Act II merc is always favored for their auras. Also Rogues, having targeted a monster, they tend not to move until they have killed it, which means that if they are about to be surrounded the usual trick of running the player character about to get her to move won't work until she's picked off her foe. You have to run a long way to get her to move. Holy Freeze: found on 'Doom' rune word for pole arms (Act II mercs only) With the introduction of several new uniques items which grant AR (eh. Its easy to equip these mercs with up 300% MF and because they tend not to go, toe to toe with monsters, you can shield them with your character while they get the last shot in on a boss monster. alvl = 15)*, (100 * (100 [base] + 200 [strength] + 100 [ww] + 100 [might]))/100 = 500 average damage, Level up: +1.5 Strength, +1.5 Dexterity, +4.5 Defense, +1.5 Resistances, +6 Life, Cold: Glacial Spike or Ice Blast with Frozen Armour, Level up: +2 Strength, +1.5 Dexterity, +7.5 Defense, +1.5 Resistances, +12 Life. It's not as cut and dried as that, the ranged attack Mercs (Acts I & III) can survive a boss fight if you position yourself careful and keep the act bosses attention. Therefore, it may help prolong the life of your merc if you back off for a moment and just let the merc take care of the LE while you handle its buddies. The Frenzytaurs are immune to freezing. In choosing equipment, consider getting mods such as knock back and chance to cast monster flee (Rattlecage). However to characters with life steal and high resists, this aura is going to prove to be of little use, and if the merc himself has a life stealing weapon, then the aura won't be of too much use to him. They will not get the most benefit from their life steal as the monsters will get more hits in on them, than they will on the monsters. Bash: This is the more useful of the 2 other skills to choose from. Basically a trade-off between experience and survivability. One of them will usually find the time to attack your merc, which is usually a pretty short conflict, especially on Hell diff. merc isn't tremendous and there are only a few levels of difference in their skills. It is nice to have around but not entirely useful. However, because the Act III merc's damage is mostly unaffected by the equipment they use, there is an ideal niche for them to fill. In addition to this, I have also noticed that if your merc is equipped with an item which freezes the target then Lightning Enchanted monsters tend not to throw out less lightning bolts. This page was last edited on 14 August 2021, at 09:22. Demon Imps stop teleporting all of the place, flayers slow right down and explody-headed Slayers are easily avoided. Desert Warriors use Pole arms, Javelins (but with no throwing ability) or Spears (no Amazon-specific spears) and can therefore do a lot of damage. who has reached the same level of experience. Also, chance to cast (CTC) items, especially curses or static field, are extremely useful to put on your mercenary. The Corpse Spitters in Act 4 will devour your mercs corpse rendering them unressurectable. ), the mercs you can hire will be of a higher experience level than those of the previous diff., however their stats will be lower when compared to a merc from the previous diff.
The first method is quicker and removes all the fumbling that can occur when you're trying to get an antidote potion to them in a hurry. In short, for 1.10, the general rule is only "+ to all skills" would have an effect on the merc skills. Sorcs suffer from the same AI problem as Rogues though, they back off to range, target something and keep firing until its dead, irrespective of whether 20 Flayers have just run onto the screen next to them and are currently turning the merc into Swiss cheese. The disadvantage of the barb merc is their enthusiasm for getting into a fight. This strategy is pretty sound against all the boss monsters (especially Duriel if you have a fat purple handy to help them survive the initial charge) except for Diablo as his big hurty fire attacks are something that you don't want to experience at close range (especially on Hell diff), and the Ancients, because there are three of them. alvl = 16)*, Defensive Defiance (hlvl 55 = alvl 18, max. The obvious disadvantage of the act II mercs is that when they die, outside of losing your support you also lose the aura effects a few seconds later. The non-might mercs still do an impressive amount of damage and with a decent exceptional or elite pole arm/spear, can easily top 1000pts of damage. Combat Prayer (hlvl 9 = alvl 3, max. Mercs also get more experience for monsters they kill themselves, rather than the XP they get when your character kills monsters. Use the Horadric cube to create rejuvenation potions via the following recipes: Also, when healing your merc, hold down "shift" and right click on a potion in your belt rather than dragging the potion over to your merc. You can revive your merc at any time, even if you start a new game in a different difficulty setting. At times the damage you are dealing out may kick up so many sparks that your merc can't life leech it back fast enough (at low and mid levels), especially if you are dealing elemental damage. They can equip shields and swords, but, only use the sword in rare circumstances (such as when they are being mobbed) so it is worthwhile equipping them with a decent weapon. These guys really are tanks. Don't all hire the same merc in a MP game if you're all using Act 2 mercs. Whenever possible, I would try to list an example of an equipment that is often used for the modifications described (e.g.. Shaftstop for physical damage resistance). In addition to this elemental attacks will effect her ability to life leech thus making her less self sustaining in some instances. They also have the slight advantage where they can stun monsters completely including bosses, and replenish life faster than their Act II counterparts. Give them a caster type weapon (e.g.. Culwen's Point, unique War Sword) instead or a 6-socketed sword having jewels with useful mods (+life/res), or if you're the richer type, Rainbow Facet jewels. The Barbarian is a minor exception to this rule in that as long as he isn't poisoned he will fully regenerate his life in 12.7 seconds compared to the others mercs who take 47 seconds to fully heal. As a merc grows in experience and does more damage, the life steal will keep a merc near max health during most fights. Simply returning to town and then letting your merc kill more monsters should normally solve such problems. Add in the existence of elemental immunities on Hell diff and this mercs use becomes severely limited.