Well, I never played that character normally. I played as a summoner nec to 120 and then respecced after I found all the items. So no, I didn't use a merc for the TA runs and yes, I only used shimmering crafts for most of the gear.
However, Aero used a different approach and went with the celestial orchard set as you can see in his video (the last one)
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3156Sorry, but that's all the information I can provide, since such a build is yet to be optimized. I gave up in act 2 terror with a melee version of it. But that was way back, when melee nec was different. You'll probably have lots of fun brainstorming a bit more. If you encounter any problems, I'm sure we can help. You just need to say what you're lacking - damage, survivability, boss killer?