Once my merc procs his slow, Baal actually can't do anything - his animations take longer than his attack cycle, so he begins his next attack before the animation completes (meaning no attack actually comes out).ĭiablo is kind of rough since he does still attack and his lightning hose still obliterates your merc, but slow helps out here too. For instance, on my WSK-running Javazon, I keep a Kelpie Snare and Thunderstroke in stash to swap out for killing Baal. Some Baal runners will keep a Kelpie Snare in cube to swap out on the merc for killing Baal (since you have to wait through his animation after the minions anyway).

It's not high-end gear by any means, but it gets the job done. Duriel's Shell / 'Treachery' / w/e you like really.Eth 'Insight' Partizan (working on finding an eth elite base).Some eth rare 2.1k defense armor I found.So on my Meteorb, for instance, I have two setups for my merc depending on what I want to do. Instead, it's better to reduce the number of hits the merc takes: by reducing the boss' attack speed, by pushing the merc's defense as high as possible, and by increasing the merc's level (since relative level plays a large role in hit rate).Īlso, you can tank a few hits yourself (since you take only 1x damage and will most likely have some block) until your merc lands a hit and procs the slow. But against act bosses it does almost nothing. Reducing the amount of damage the merc takes per hit by a few percent isn't going to do much, especially given how hard they get hit.Īgainst normal mobs while questing and clearing areas, %DR is great (since merc takes 1x damage, so you get full value out of the DR).

So 35% DR results in the merc still taking 965% damage (-3.5% effective damage taken) rather than 650% (-35% effective damage taken). Specifically for act bosses (Diablo, Baal):Īct bosses do 1000% (10x) damage to mercs.

Diablo 2 mercenary sorc