iwansquall wrote:One of old Laz idea for merc was to have 1 of the available merc (act 1,2,3) to be invulnerable and aura giver.
Then it break down into offensive, defensive and utility (the invincible with aura)
To make it more interesting, it also reward player that "trained" their hireling from early difficulty.
By number, you can have 9 x 3 (each difficulty) = 27 different type of hirelings
Remember cLoD have different aura on nightmare's aura than normal and hell? Some sort like that.
IMO that's the best way to implement mercs, as long as they do no damage and are untargetable.
Here's my logic:
1. They shouldn't kill things, because that's the job of the player, and having some dumb AI kill things instead of you takes away from the satisfaction. That sort of thing should be limited to summoners, for people who really want that playstyle, instead of being available for all builds.
2. They should be tanky enough to survive in ubers because they're too dumb to avoid OHKOs and you can't easily order them to move (unless your class has spammable teleport *and* your build doesn't have timers). Having to resurrect them is annoying.
Therefore they have to be untargetable and do no damage. If they're untargetable and do no damage, then they only way to make them useful is to give them auras (or active buffs on attack, same thing).
You could have mercs grant res/hp/avoid/def etc.
To stick to the theme of mercs, A1 mercs could have buffs/debuffs that boost ranged attack builds such as Doom, A2 mercs could have defensive auras, A3 mercs could have buffs that boost mage builds such as Lower Res and A5 mercs should have minion-specific buffs (like a buff that gives you %summon damage/life/res?).
Heathen wrote:If you chose between many different mercs for passive benefits, the mercs cease to be anything but an item you don't need to equip for functionality, or a free aura skill. And it would be incredibly hard to balance around the number of builds in Median (so, infinite?). .
I think that's a step up from what mercs are currently. Having a new set of passive skill combos that you can select among to best suit your build would be nice.
And if we can add minion-specific stats to items (Like '+x to merc auras') then there'll be an additional feel of progression on top of leveling the merc.
Heathen wrote:For me, mercs are almost like playing with someone, but that someone is a script AI instead of a person (forever alone blah blah lololol). I use them if I want to have an OP GG multiplayer experience, but without the hassle of them being like, real and stuff.
But mercs are too dumb to simulate real players, and offer none of the other benefits of MP (like being able to trade gear). I don't think changing them is that big a deal.