Make Mercenaries only die when you die

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One thing that I find super annoying is mercenary uptime. Mercs die almost instantly in any 120+ zone (about 65% of the time in Fauzt, depending on positioning and a vigilant eye). Would it be completely unreasonable to just make them invulnerable until you die?

It isn’t about the gold... You can farm 1M in a single Vizjun run. It’s about the annoyance of constantly resurrecting him or just forgetting about him completely during higher content cuz “what’s the point?”.
Fumbles
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Have you tried a5 merc in Fauzt?
Krall
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Seems like this might risk getting exploited, surely? Since it mean you can basically just have him facetank a boss while you are standing away from danger?
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Fumbles wrote:Have you tried a5 merc in Fauzt?


Yes. Put some decent gear on him too. ~4800 strength and he lives through a full run maybe 30% of the time. On players 3+, he dies almost instantly.
tranvanhieu
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Bad suggestion. Mers is there to help you sometimes, not to carry you through the game.
melonenpflanze
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my act 3 abjurer always survives until i die. full crafted gear.
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tranvanhieu wrote:Bad suggestion. Mers is there to help you sometimes, not to carry you through the game.


He only makes a significant difference during early game. Even with top of the line endgame gear, he still puts out a fraction of the damage you do.
Fumbles
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Primarch wrote:Yes. Put some decent gear on him too. ~4800 strength and he lives through a full run maybe 30% of the time. On players 3+, he dies almost instantly.



Unless there is a new item where strength grants a life bonus or maybe a synergy of a skill that does the same, I don't know why stacking it would be a priority. Damage reduction %/flat, resistances, defense and life are going to improve survivability for harder areas. After that, any procs that provide crowd-control will benefit the mercs high life regen, which only needs a few seconds of not taking damage to fully heal. Unfortunately nearly every source of teleport when struck and on striking have been removed from gear. Hellfire Plate looks like the only one left.

As far as deaths due to multiplayer, it could be that mercs can't handle the increased damage from mobs. (Should mercs scale with player count?) Maybe try skipping the strength stacking and instead improve defense to see if that changes anything.
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Love me a targetable invulnerable allied tank
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Fumbles wrote:
Primarch wrote:Yes. Put some decent gear on him too. ~4800 strength and he lives through a full run maybe 30% of the time. On players 3+, he dies almost instantly.



Unless there is a new item where strength grants a life bonus or maybe a synergy of a skill that does the same, I don't know why stacking it would be a priority. Damage reduction %/flat, resistances, defense and life are going to improve survivability for harder areas. After that, any procs that provide crowd-control will benefit the mercs high life regen, which only needs a few seconds of not taking damage to fully heal. Unfortunately nearly every source of teleport when struck and on striking have been removed from gear. Hellfire Plate looks like the only one left.

As far as deaths due to multiplayer, it could be that mercs can't handle the increased damage from mobs. (Should mercs scale with player count?) Maybe try skipping the strength stacking and instead improve defense to see if that changes anything.


I remember reading that they received “heroic XXXX” that granted them a ridiculous amount of life regen based on STR.... Could it be that people are making things up on the internet again?