I was yelling at my monitor "Leave! Leave! Leave!" (like for Save & Exit) when you got trapped. Then you died I cried "AHHHHH!" at the same time you did lol! Oh man, so sorry. In any case, I'll still share some thoughts I had before that. ;) Since Inner Sight will stack with Slow Missile as well as benefiting both the merc and the Valk regardless of the enemy attacks they're soaking, a default opening rotation of IS+SM whenever ANY monster appears (and then obviously moving into Magic Arrow/Guided Arrow/Multi-Shot as usual) would be consistently helpful. Duration for both of those skills are low at level 1 so refreshing them often is critical especially when a new monster appears on the screen. Inner Sight reduces enemy defense which further increases the merc and Valk successfully hitting enemies. This helps maximize the occurrence of life leech gains for the merc. The Blood Lord's Inferno ability is considered a missile, so Slow Missiles reduces the damage that the merc and Valk will have to soak. I think the biggest weakness on your merc is that Insight being in a normal weapon base. Upgrading that to Exceptional or Elite would REALLY bump up his survivability because the life leech is going to be pulling in bigger heal procs while helping kill mobs MUCH faster. Getting more weapon damage would make such a huge change that at this point I would suggest just vendoring/gambling some random blue/yellow elite ASAP (unless you have something sufficient in the stash already). Even an Exceptional blue/yellow with added damage mods would make all of the difference especially if it's ethereal. Obviously it is unknown how much time will pass before a better base for another Insight will drop. The IAS on Treachary is GG. And yes, progressing without the Meditation aura means spending more on Mana pots, but that's cheaper than ~50k gold for a merc res every 5 minutes. XD Defense stat on the A2 mercs is as mandatory as the weapon damage/life leech stats in Hell A4/A5. Though enemy spells don't have to calculate attack rating, physical melee/ranged attacks do, so getting an elite armor base is always worthwhile (and almost always mandatory for survival). Of course if a Lo Rune drops in the meantime, just roll Fortitude in an ethereal elite armor. ;) I think the Treachery as you have it now will suffice probably until the Ancients. If the merc survival remains difficult between now and Ancients, you might consider armor swapping on the fly with a higher defense armor (with helpful mods of course -- resist, defense, etc. etc. etc.) So AFTER Fade has proc'd on him, swap his armor to a higher defense armor. That means keeping his other armor with you at all times. Obviously it will probably be a tad cumbersome (even annoying at times lol! been there, done that, totally worked though) but it would easily be a viable option to consider if needed. Luckily, the duration on the level 15 Fade is pretty good. Hopefully, this swapping strategy is NOT needed. ;) There have been a lot of Merc changes in D2R since LoD making Mercs from Acts 1, 3 and 5 ACTUALLY viable for end-game. The Act 5 Fury merc (dual-wields 1h swords and can use Barb helms now to get Barb affix bonuses) uses Taunt which reduces enemy Attack Rating AND enemy damage. They also have the highest base defense stats (higher than Act 1, 2 and 3 mercs). I like giving him like a Crescent Moon runeword (Shael Um Tir) and Strength runeword (Amn Tir) in Phase Blades as a cheap yet powerful setup because of PB having base speed -30 (fastest base weapon speed in the game). IMHO, speed is more important than the max attack damage in that particular gear setup. One slight obstacle is the barb merc does not reach base Dex 136 until level 86 (level 78 merc has 126 base Dex). Depending on the other gear I have for him at the time, I might go with Cryptic Swords (base speed -10) or Conquest/Mythical Swords (both having base speed 0). The attack speed with all the Crushing Blow and Static Field procs chops monster group health pools down quick! My favorite part is that Crescent Moon has -35% enemy L.Resist which makes Static Field effective past the 50% cap in Hell mode. o.O Fun Fact: Antidote potions increase max poison res +5 and give +50 poison res for 30 seconds. Thawing potions increase max cold res +5 and give +50 cold res for 30 seconds also. If you drink multiples of either (or both if you like lol), the durations will stack! You can also stack these on a merc! :) Fun videos, man. If you make more, I'm sure I'll watch them.
Thanks man,i appreciate it! It never occurred to me to save and exit, and the full rejuv went to the Merc ( i had shift pressed). Well, live and learn! I'll wait until 6 December to start a Summon Druid....looked fun in a MrLlamaSC clip i saw. Cheers
Rip, you forgot this is hc, if you just played Amazon and none of that teleporting staff that every speed runner is using , you’d still be alive to finish hell😢
![ACT I HELL: Here's your Hammer, Charsi! Zoo Summon Druid D2R HC Ladder Playthrough [Hell Pt.1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QUifgk35Vyg/mqdefault.jpg)
![ACT I HELL: Here's your Hammer, Charsi! Zoo Summon Druid D2R HC Ladder Playthrough [Hell Pt.1]](/img/tr.png)
![ACT IV HELL: Hephasto, put the Hammer DOWN! D2R HC Ladder Physical Bowazon Play [Hell Pt.10]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Nx6ZLS0-QJI/mqdefault.jpg)
I was yelling at my monitor "Leave! Leave! Leave!" (like for Save & Exit) when you got trapped. Then you died I cried "AHHHHH!" at the same time you did lol! Oh man, so sorry. In any case, I'll still share some thoughts I had before that. ;)
Since Inner Sight will stack with Slow Missile as well as benefiting both the merc and the Valk regardless of the enemy attacks they're soaking, a default opening rotation of IS+SM whenever ANY monster appears (and then obviously moving into Magic Arrow/Guided Arrow/Multi-Shot as usual) would be consistently helpful. Duration for both of those skills are low at level 1 so refreshing them often is critical especially when a new monster appears on the screen. Inner Sight reduces enemy defense which further increases the merc and Valk successfully hitting enemies. This helps maximize the occurrence of life leech gains for the merc. The Blood Lord's Inferno ability is considered a missile, so Slow Missiles reduces the damage that the merc and Valk will have to soak.
I think the biggest weakness on your merc is that Insight being in a normal weapon base. Upgrading that to Exceptional or Elite would REALLY bump up his survivability because the life leech is going to be pulling in bigger heal procs while helping kill mobs MUCH faster. Getting more weapon damage would make such a huge change that at this point I would suggest just vendoring/gambling some random blue/yellow elite ASAP (unless you have something sufficient in the stash already). Even an Exceptional blue/yellow with added damage mods would make all of the difference especially if it's ethereal. Obviously it is unknown how much time will pass before a better base for another Insight will drop. The IAS on Treachary is GG. And yes, progressing without the Meditation aura means spending more on Mana pots, but that's cheaper than ~50k gold for a merc res every 5 minutes. XD
Defense stat on the A2 mercs is as mandatory as the weapon damage/life leech stats in Hell A4/A5. Though enemy spells don't have to calculate attack rating, physical melee/ranged attacks do, so getting an elite armor base is always worthwhile (and almost always mandatory for survival). Of course if a Lo Rune drops in the meantime, just roll Fortitude in an ethereal elite armor. ;) I think the Treachery as you have it now will suffice probably until the Ancients. If the merc survival remains difficult between now and Ancients, you might consider armor swapping on the fly with a higher defense armor (with helpful mods of course -- resist, defense, etc. etc. etc.) So AFTER Fade has proc'd on him, swap his armor to a higher defense armor. That means keeping his other armor with you at all times. Obviously it will probably be a tad cumbersome (even annoying at times lol! been there, done that, totally worked though) but it would easily be a viable option to consider if needed. Luckily, the duration on the level 15 Fade is pretty good. Hopefully, this swapping strategy is NOT needed. ;)
There have been a lot of Merc changes in D2R since LoD making Mercs from Acts 1, 3 and 5 ACTUALLY viable for end-game. The Act 5 Fury merc (dual-wields 1h swords and can use Barb helms now to get Barb affix bonuses) uses Taunt which reduces enemy Attack Rating AND enemy damage. They also have the highest base defense stats (higher than Act 1, 2 and 3 mercs). I like giving him like a Crescent Moon runeword (Shael Um Tir) and Strength runeword (Amn Tir) in Phase Blades as a cheap yet powerful setup because of PB having base speed -30 (fastest base weapon speed in the game). IMHO, speed is more important than the max attack damage in that particular gear setup. One slight obstacle is the barb merc does not reach base Dex 136 until level 86 (level 78 merc has 126 base Dex). Depending on the other gear I have for him at the time, I might go with Cryptic Swords (base speed -10) or Conquest/Mythical Swords (both having base speed 0). The attack speed with all the Crushing Blow and Static Field procs chops monster group health pools down quick! My favorite part is that Crescent Moon has -35% enemy L.Resist which makes Static Field effective past the 50% cap in Hell mode. o.O
Fun Fact: Antidote potions increase max poison res +5 and give +50 poison res for 30 seconds. Thawing potions increase max cold res +5 and give +50 cold res for 30 seconds also. If you drink multiples of either (or both if you like lol), the durations will stack! You can also stack these on a merc! :)
Fun videos, man. If you make more, I'm sure I'll watch them.
Thanks man,i appreciate it! It never occurred to me to save and exit, and the full rejuv went to the Merc ( i had shift pressed). Well, live and learn! I'll wait until 6 December to start a Summon Druid....looked fun in a MrLlamaSC clip i saw. Cheers
Rip, you forgot this is hc, if you just played Amazon and none of that teleporting staff that every speed runner is using , you’d still be alive to finish hell😢
I know! I'm sooo sad 😢
😭