Cronk wrote:Thanks for all that man!
There's sooooo many new skills/buffs in Median that it's hard to tell what to focus on and try to add to a merc. I used to have the time to deep-dive this stuff, but adulting is adulting, so I tend to rely on guides & the like for mods like this on what's best to use.
Much appreciated!
I would just point out that the choices referenced above are "end-game", and you will have to figure out how to dress up your Merc in the meantime. For the melee-oriented ones, I recommend items (even Rares, which are much easier to come by than Uniques) that have high damage and maybe a proc (e.g. "Punishers on striking" etc.) in the case of weapons, and that have high defense and maybe some FHR in the case of armor. The more sockets the better as you can decorate them with resist gems and so on. Also amulets that have some kind of proc are good.
Here's some easily-attainable low- and mid-level gear to carry your Merc through to at least mid-Nightmare :
All Mercs : "Epicenter" Runeword boots. (Nice health boost.)
All Melee-oriented Mercs : "Mercy" Runeword gloves, "Victory" Runeword armor (the cold attack proc is surprisingly effective), "Cathedral" Runeword armor, "Craton" Runeword boots (proc Shower of Rocks), "Enyo" Runeword weapons (lots of nice stuff including procs and reanimate), "Azrael" Runeword weapons (crazy fast attacks and spell casting), "Dreadlord" helm (proc Mind Flay). Also armor like Jitan's Kamon, Iceshell and Dragon's Blood, and gloves like Toorc's Gift and Vicegrip (all of which have various melee-oriented procs), are very useful.
One surprisingly effective amulet is "Hangman" because of the Magic Missiles proc... just get your merc something else that makes up for its life drain.
A1 Rogues : "Shockwave" Runeword bow, "Thelema" armor. Any decent unique bow too like for example Webspinner.
A3 Mages : Crystal swords that boost spell damage plus a high defense shield that boosts his normal Warp Armor defense value. It's good to get items that drop enemy resistances as well, as even a little in the merc's primary attack type (e.g. fire, cold, lightening) can make quite a difference, especially with bosses.
At least... that's how I do it, as always, YMMV.