Need Help With Melee Sorc

aknazer wrote:For Baal another option is the Bloodmage with honorific gear. While I won't say it's super reliable as it relies on your merc staying alive until Baal's fire resistance drops, but if you make honorific gear for a Bloodmage you can reach roughly +400% fire damage and -190+% fire resistance. This in turn can let the Bloodmage solo him...again if the merc survives until Baal's fire resistance drops. Or so another on the server told me, I haven't bothered to try it yet but I have this setup already for my Bloodmage and he can solo things like Infernal Device, Destruction Diablo, etc. I need to take him to tcow and see how he does there.

I crafted honofirics for my bloodmage and he totally owns non fire immune monster, not sure if that's a good thing to me, he just totally outshine my damage output in every aspect. :bounce:

He is now my secret weapon to deal with the reflect aura monster in Nihlathak temple, uh i mean he totally carried me there... kinda makes me wanna play a range casting char now =.=

Edit: he just carried me through CoF with the laggest scenario possible...

Lol, yea he can be pretty powerful, but he still gets overwhelmed fairly easily. For example in Terror Fautz mine dies pretty quickly unless I constantly feed him potions. Same goes when I cleared Destruction Tran Athulua (where I primarily survived by dropping Fusillade and running away before Arrow Trap can wreck me but he was too stupid to move away).

Also as you gear up you'll clear groups faster even if he has a higher single-target DPS. Throwing down a Fusillade and spamming Wraithsword will generally clear a group of non physical-immune enemies faster than the merc unless the enemies are some type that force you to run away (Trap Rats, Unseelie Curse, etc).

In general you should build mercs to fill in your weakness. For casters this means wanting a super tanky merc while they cast with near immunity. For melee chars this is a ranged merc that can deal with enemies while the player generally tanks. Of course with the right gear mercs can be almost completely pointless, but while gearing up they're still useful.