Act 5 Mercenary Guide

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Taem
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Nice guide, but perhaps you can better explain some things. Does "gay" mean the Uber is "easy" or "difficult", because you seem to use the slang as a negative connotation for both and I can't tell rather the Uber is easy or hard for the merc. I'd also like to see a list of areas the merc can farm without any help from you (the player), as well as tips for how to tell of your merc is in trouble and how to help him (such as feeding him pots directly from the belt), and tips on getting quick money to help raise your merc, and finally areas which are better to not bring your merc; i.e. let him die and leave him dead. Pehaps some good skill combos that compliment the merc with every character class for those looking to min/max the merc experience. Then this would be a complete guide. It's still a good guide atm, but definitely lacking quality content of a full guide that these little things can fill in.
Coldzero
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Updated.
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Goodkidscc
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Nice guide sir. I haven't really ever used an A5 merc until now. Good work on this.
cronos
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Use crafted balefire flamberge, matheals boots and belt, cinnandes gloves and armor, any proc barb helm boarfrost hellmaw etc. Now you have evil proc truck barb that is unstoppable :) for most parts :) also rare crafted lave pit on attack proc
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Jaedong
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idk if its worth to point out things like:
vit doesnt have any bonus/use for the merc
and the real weakness of a5 merc is the lack of tcd


sure early game pretty much anything works but theres still ez to make and more efficient items:
for early and midgame game damage its easiest way to use double mo item with eiter t2 greatsword and 350% ed
or earlier with 20 max dmg orbs
cheap and easy
Algiz
Algiz
Barbarian Helms

'ThulEth'
Runeword Level: 28
10% Combat Speeds
+3% to Cold Spell Damage
-3% to Poison Spell Damage
3% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(40 to 60)% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Dexterity
Fire Resist +(3 to 10)%
Cold Resist +25%
Poison Resist +(3 to 10)%
(11 to 15)% Bonus to Defense
(4 to 9)% Gold Find

TCD/CB/STR/Thunderhammer
Epicenter
Epicenter
Boots

'Ith'
Runeword Level: 18
0.0625% Chance of Crushing Blow (Based on Character Level)
+(4 to 15)% Enhanced Defense
+(40 to 60) to Life
Elemental Resists +(3 to 5)%

15% max life since vit doesnt work and CB

for everything else i only can agree to my previous posters, especially:
50% balefire craft
7% stormblat creepy craft
Visegrip
Visegrip
Light Gauntlets (4)

Defense: 29 to 56
Required Level: 6
Required Strength: 30
Item Level: 10
5% Chance to cast level 5 Crucify on Melee Attack
+(3 to 4) to Maximum Damage
(21 to 50)% Bonus to Attack Rating
(4 to 5)% to Strength
2% to Dexterity
Socketed (1)
Defense: 120 to 176
Required Level: 24
Required Strength: 60
Item Level: 31
6% Chance to cast level 10 Crucify on Melee Attack
+(6 to 7) to Maximum Damage
(75 to 100)% Bonus to Attack Rating
(8 to 9)% to Strength
(3 to 4)% to Dexterity
Socketed (2)
Defense: 273 to 381
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 210
Item Level: 51
7% Chance to cast level 19 Crucify on Melee Attack
+(8 to 9) to Maximum Damage
(105 to 125)% Bonus to Attack Rating
(12 to 13)% to Strength
(5 to 7)% to Dexterity
Socketed (3)
Defense: 375 to 522
Required Level: 50
Required Strength: 420
Item Level: 77
8% Chance to cast level 30 Crucify on Melee Attack
+(9 to 10) to Maximum Damage
(130 to 150)% Bonus to Attack Rating
(14 to 15)% to Strength
(8 to 10)% to Dexterity
Socketed (4)
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Prime_Evil
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rha flamberge, yul great helm/crown , erawan ancient armor , vith plated belt , nih greaves , lai gauntlets, all rws with ber crafted jewels ofc. everything piece of armor %enhanced defense MO + tcd%. amulet is whatever, i go normally with klaatu or teganze but he can be naked of amulets and still roflpwn fauzt destruction /shrug

MO flamberge with ctc miasma after the whole %ed thing is done. Immortal barb except for 1shot ubers.

tl;dr - MIASMA
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Nitz
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I need a merc that does 0 physical damage, a guide would be nice.

And in your guide you forgot to mention to hire the merc at Hatred difficulty for more stats.
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shnurr214
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Nice guide! Cookied
Coldzero
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Taem
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Some really useful merc info your guide desperately needs: You should add section after "Known Bugs" with same heading called "Tips for Survival"

http://www.kuponut.com/games/d2lod/mercenary.html

-Healing a Merc: you can drop a pot on their portrait. Or you can hold Shift and press 1,2,3, or 4 - which correspond to your belt slots. Yet another way is holding Shift and right-clicking on a potion in your belt.

-Merc Damage: 17% vs players, 25% vs other mercs, 50% vs hatred bosses, 35% vs terror bosses, and 25% vs destruction bosses. When defending, hirelings take 100% from all sources except other Hirelings, which is 25%.

-Vitality and Mana: +vitality and +mana have no effect on mercs because they don't have these stats.

-Working Effects: Prevent Monster Heal does not work with a merc. +mf and +gold combine the players with the mercs when the merc makes a kill. All other effects work as normal for the merc

-Mercs cannot leach off Bosses in Destruction such as Mephi and Baal
http://www.diabloii.net/forums/threads/ultimate-merc-guide-v3-0.306061/

-The act 5 mercanaries have a 5% chance of doing critical hits

-The Act 5 merc's normal attack has 2 hits.

-IDK what a mercs base resists are, however they receive +1.5 Resistances per level up

-A hidden trait of the barbarian merc is that he comes with an in-built addition 70% resistance to poison"
http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Guide:Mercenary_Guide_v1.10


You really need to include the following information on breakpoints:
Merc IAS Breakpoints

Merc FHR Breakpoints

Other things needed:
An FAQ Section:
-Are +skills useful for a merc?
-Is LAEK or LL better for this merc/worth MO'ing?
-What is the Highest merc level attainable
-Type of skills that compliment the mercs own natural attacks, such a skills with +ias, or +ed