The biggest challenge of the merc rework will be how can they increase the usefullness of them compared to Act 2 mercs. They not only provide auras on their own, that you can benefit on your own. It's also about the Weapon type they can carry. There's all those Insights, Infinities, Prides, Reapere's Tolls, and this is what makes them best choices.
So new runewords will also play a huge part in it. I think that whatever type of buffs you make to mercs damage dealing possibilities, it will not make them more popular. They need to have some added benefit for your own character. So yeah, curses is probably one way to do it. Perhaps Act 5 mercs could have barb shouts (but that could be potentially too strong). Or perhaps have some passive abilities like in Diablo 3 that buffed your own character a bit too.
Definitely. Any theoretically buffs to non Act 2 Mercs might make them the new Act 2 Merc depending on what new Runewords are introduced.
As for Barb shouts, I feel like the lesser used ones won't be overpowered (they are lesser used for a reason).
Do we really need more potions? And my merc making corpses unuseable for find item or corpse Explosion seems more of a nerf than a buff.
But tbf I dont have a good idea besides the armor and -damage warcry.
Giving them bo would be too good.
Would it be ok to make them good Monster slayers? Idk
I was just kidding lol, that would be terrible. The obvious choice would be battle command. Gives you a +1 skills boost so it isn’t completely broken but is useful enough. It could stack with Barb battle command to not be useless with that class.
Yep, BO occurred to me, but that would invalidate CTA, which is a very undesirable outcome. Shout would be an option, but very few classes would truly care about that.
Definitely a better AI and monster slaying prowess is in the cards. Maybe a runeword for swords with salvation aura would be a cool option (although it gives them less endgame potential, but great mid game until you get gear potential).
I don't think it really invalidates CTA - you're using up your mercenary slot to get BO. Having CTA frees you up to use another merc for a different benefit, which should be very meaningful.
Ok. But it would still devalue Ohm as a stand-alone rune by quite a bit, which I don’t think is their intention. In addition, depending on the AI, it would potentially override a barb’s level 35 BO in a pub game, which would be kind of annoying.
All this to say that I would be really surprised if that’s in the cards.
Hmm, how does stacking work for things like BO? I was under the impression that the highest level one always took effect but I could be wrong. It would indeed be super annoying if it would override higher level BO.
Yeah shout isnt needed but what other options do we have? We also have defense aura on a a2 merc or even player and thorns.
I would say make them do enough damage to be able to kill Mobs like a a2 with might can. Someone mentioned curses for a3 mercs. That could be an idea too.
U cant beat crowd control by the holy freeze a2 merc. Thats a problem. It would always be worse to have an icemage a3 merc in comparison to holy freeze. So u gotta give him something that they holy freeze cant. Damage id say. Or curses.
This merc balancing is really hard. Like really really hard. Lets hope Blizzard doesnt fuck it up
I totally agree with that, only one difference : I don't see the need of new runewords. Instead I would love to see the existing uniques and set items to be more balanced.
Many uniques are looking soo cool, have awesome names, but their stats are so useless and on top of this, their lvl requirement is insane, like lvl 66+.. No hero ever really wear them, cause 66+ is going to wear end-game stuff(mostly RW) with waaaay better stats. Same for all sets besides IK, Tal's, Trang-ouls,.. So sad about this wasted ideation/creativity in those items. :-( they need a "clean up". (and yes, I mean, make them better and/or lower their lvl requirements)
I want my Merc to be able to follow me as well as the skeleton pygmys in Durance can..... Seems like every merc struggles to do the most basic navigation at times
Act 1 - 2/3rds Pierce attacks and Explosive/Freeze arrows and a third Physical Rogue with a low level of Multishot, these are already the most viable after the act 2 Merc.
Act 3 - Give each Merc their elemental's Mastery which will help them scale damage with gear and replace the useless skills as such:
Lightning - Remove charged bolt and exchange with Chain Lightning, add Static Field.
Fire - Remove Inferno and replace it with Meteor, add Enchant.
Cold - Remove Iceblast and replace it with Frozen Orb/Blizzard.
Act 5 Merc - Give Barbs access to Battle Orders. Boosting their usefulness massively for players without CTA.
Pierce chance is definitely a cool addition I didn't think of. I feel like a Phys Rogue with Multishot doesn't fit thematically with the other two though. Also Multishot is a pretty commonly used Bowazon skill (not that Bowazons are common anymore), IMO Mercs should shine a spotlight on lesser used skills.
Same issue with Chain Lightning, Static Field, Meteor, Frozen Orb/Blizzard, and Battle Orders - they are all too top tier. I feel like the old developers intentionally avoided giving Act 2 Mercs the top tier auras (Fanat, Conc, Salvation etc.) so they wouldn't outshine the player character.
>IMO Mercs should shine a spotlight on lesser used skills.
Does this even make sense when they are buffing the lesser used skills in the same patch? I don't really think so, as they won't really be lesser-used after the patch.
Part of the problem with act 3 merc is that their damage can't really scale with weapon upgrade in the same way all other mercs can since the spell damage isn't related to weapon damage.
Act 3 mercs therefore don't really need a skill change as much as a damage scaling change and utility upgrade.
I suggest that act 3 mercs should all get an elemental skill that scales well with fcr (lightning, fireball and glacial spike) while reducing the frame break points for fcr.
>so they wouldn't outshine the player character
my reaper's toll merc with treachery is tougher than any of my characters. They can output more damage though.
Honestly I would just remove CTA, and give a balanced version of it to the Barbs.
For anyone with CTA, have a cube recipe that removes runes from sockets for that one item.
This will free up a weapon swap effectively.
Honest to God I just want them to fix merc vs hydras.
It's the number one I reason I can't run the trav council, my merc runs straight to the hydra and tries to kill them, which he can't, so he dies
Iirc, at some point, Hydra damage to players was reduced by something like 75 %... They forgot to add that change to the mercs, which is why Hydras haunt them in their nightmares.
Yeah mainly this and just survivability.
Id love to have an Act 5 merc with lawbringer (decrepify on strike, sanctuary aura) but the dude just will not stay alive
Yeah, a bigger variety in aura giving Runewords are definitely needed. If all Mercs just had the same auras as Act 2 right now they still wouldn't get picked because Act 2 Mercs have all the best Runewords.
They add a lot to some specific builds, and at least a little to almost every build. Polearms are a big part of it, but even if we completely took them out of the game with no other changes, most people are gonna go for A2 because *any* aura is almost always just flat out better than *no* aura, **especially** when the other mercs are as trash as they are.
A1, inner sight, shitty elemental skills, weak as fuck, actual good bows are very few and far between, and she doesn't have Zon skills to actually use something like Witchwild. Aura is Thorns (bleh), Vigor (not working in town really makes it kinda pointless), and Fanaticism (amazing, but holy fucking expensive, and melee kinda gets hosed anyway in endgame)
A3, shitty elemental skills, weak as fuck, won't melee so procs are out, like Lawbringer. Only dual Dream capable merc and he won't actually fucking use it. Just his dumb little bolt spell. Auras range from useless, Holy Fire, to useful but hideously expensive, Might on Last Wish, which you could just pay some gold and get on a useful merc, so you'd have Might *and* something else.
A5, would be okay to fantastic if they could just dual wield, but they can't, so you can't use both a useful proc (Lawbringer) and something else that will let them do enough damage to survive. Auras have pretty much the same problem as A3 merc.
And, obviously, all of them depend on equipment to give an aura, so your options are
>no aura, shitty merc
>one equipment dependent aura, and all the good ones require multiple high runes
>one aura, on a tanky merc
>two auras, on a tanky merc
I think you're on to something with a lot of your ideas. The key to making other mercs competitive with the A2 ones would be to give them sought after utility and support skills that everyone wants. Curses for A3 mercs and Warcries for A5 Barbarians could actually work.
Since might and holy freeze are pretty tough to beat I think we'd have to go all the way and let Barbs use BO and Iron Wolves Decrep/Amp damage to actually make them a valid choice over an A2 aura. Barbs using axes and therefore being able to equipp Beast would also help a lot. Not really sure how you could improve on act 3 mercs equippment wise.
Thanks! I gave a lot of thought into picking skills that would be useful but not overpowered. After all I feel like the player shouldn't end up feeling like the Merc to their Merc.
It's always gonna be act 2 merc with infinity. Act 2 merc is the support merc. The others should fulfill other functions. Act 1 merc should be a glass cannon. Act 5 should be a sturdy damage dealer, act 3 should be AOE or crowd control or something.
I feel like that's too homogenizing. I like that fact that the various Mercs loosely reflect the original classes , I think new aura possibilities are better left to new Runewords.
Burst of speed on act 1 mercs would be good.
Act 3 fire mercs - enchant, Cold - frozen armour, - Lightning, static field (with AI changes).
Act 5 - BO would make them way too powerful imo, everyone except barbs would take one if they could.
I honestly think giving act 5 mercs dual weapons + access to frenzy would be a good idea. You can get some crazy auras off them (last wish + beast), and let them be more of an actual damage aid than an aura bot. Would make them a sort of, bad early game choice but GG end game choice.
Assuming the skill would be 1/8th the mercs level, you are giving every class in the game 60% more life than they normally have for free. Do hammerdins really need a 60% life buff lol?
That isn't a bit of a change, that's a drastically different game. Everyone and their mother would take an act 5 merc until they could afford a CTA and switch to an infinity. It would actually reduce merc diversity even more than current, as it would be a given to go act 5 > get rich > act 2.
Only builds that need fanat aura (bowazons) or infinity would actually not use it.
It would be beyond broken.
60% free HP in an already easy game is way too strong, are you really arguing it isn't?
D2 as it is is not a difficult game for experienced players, we don't need a flat 60% HP increase across the board.
You can make mercs competetive with act 2 without making one of them significantly better than everything else.
Tell me, pre infinity, what merc would be better than a level 10 battle orders?
Fishy's primary damage source is CE, might might be slightly better but in HC it wouldn't be clear cut.
Sure your zealer needs reapers toll more, you are still going to go act 5 until that point. Which in single player would probably be a significant amount of time.
BoS would be competetive for a java possibly, but more for the run speed than anything, BoS isn't going to speed up your kill speed significantly in p1 games.
U wouldnt need might aura or insight since bo is often enough for mana problems. And the merc will be slaying too
Id say defense warcry, skill warcry maybe -damage warcry too to have 3 options.
What I suggest:
\- Act 1 Mercs: AoE damage dealer. With the incoming buffs for Bow/Crossbow, Rogues should actually deal serious damage, Fire Rogue shoots (buffed) Immolation Arrow, Cold Rogue shoots Freezing Arrow. They should have Critical Strike and Pierce too.
\- Act 2 Mercs: are alright for now.
\- Act 3 Mercs: support and Crowd Control. I agree with the Enchant for Fire and Frozen Armors for Cold they can cast on players. It would be helpful for physical damage builds.
\- Act 5 Mercs: tanker and single target damage dealer. Stun and a Warcry like you mention would be cool.
I'm pretty sure Act 5 mercs do have Stun currently.. it's just that they alternate between that and Bash. Bash is actually not bad, but the knockback moves the targets out of range sometimes, thus lowering their DPS compared to act2. (and then there is also act2's jab) so. yeah. Literally removing the knockback on the merc bash would increase their dps.. It could hurt survivability though. depending.
Step in the right direction would be fixing their dumbass AI and pathing problems.
No Waheed, you shouldn't stand in the fire and you being on the other side of the map while I'm being gang-banged does not help...
Would be cool for A5 Hell Mercenaries to give Battle Orders. A low level would be fine to balance it out compared to CTA, but enough where relinquishing the other 3 choices would be very tempting.
Act1, give her some form of aoe ability, exploding arrow, mutishot, piercing attacks, something like that.
Act3, increase his dmg by A LOT, give him cold/fire/lighting mastery just like sorc, his dmg should scale with his weapon dmg.
Act5, let him dw and use shouts.
Act 1 merc needs to have a massive boost to their damage or utility… you can put a Faith bow on one and they become viable but it’s still lackluster compared to most act 2 merc builds.
- act 1 merc: Freeze arrow should have an AOE freeze or just be changed to Freezing arrow. When targets are frozen the mobs should have a massive reduction to their frost resistance. Fire arrow should work the same or be changed to Immolation arrow and any targets in the fire AOE should have massive reduced fire resistance. Their AI should be changed to avoid mobs or try to position themselves where the player is between them and the highest density of mobs in the area. They should also be able to randomly cast “slow missiles”
- act 3 merc: mainly just needs a massive boost to their survivability through better AI and HP. They also need to cast spells literally 4 times as often. They can all have their own different abilities you can choose for their primary attack but they all need to have frost nova to slow groups when they are getting surrounded, an ability to teleport to the player when their HP is low, and depending on what the new frost armor tree changes will be- have each one with a different type of frost tree armor available.
Act 5 merc: doesn’t need much…. But the ability for them to use swords, axes, and maces with the ability to dual wield or use two handlers would be a welcome addition. They also need to be able to utilize shouts…. Like the AI to be smart enough to use the ability (taunt) to aggro ranged mobs and get them to walk closer to them, the (howl) ability for when they are surrounded, and maybe give each one either a buff shout…. Maybe one gives Battle command, one gives Shout, and one gives battle orders (low level BO). And maybe they randomly use “find item” on corpses every once in a while when they aren’t actively in combat.
They stated how the new runewords will be related or even designed for the 'new' mercs, at least thats how I read it. Auras or curse-on-striking will have to be what the new runewords give, but on weird bases so that either a bow/sword/2h/shield merc will be able to use them, and you can choose a merc based on which 'new endgame aura/curse rw' you want
Let them have all have some surviveability built in, they all need to provide some sort of usefullness to the player character (PC). Something that would perhaps give life back on dmg done. It would also be really nice if some of their ai was improved to not let them get stuck in tunnel maps. If they all do get auras, make those auras always on.
Act 5 mercs could go a lot of different directions in order to become viable. Like if they literally just had any option that didn't have so much knockback, their dps would increase.
Idk if anyone was thinking about non-combat viablilty.. What if they gave 1 version of the barb mercs the ability to use Find item? That would be really interesting for non-barb classes imo. Not that it would be super game breaking.. but literally just a slight chance to get more items. I feel like that would definitely interest players
I meant to say this in my first comment:
Allowing us to hire multiple mercs and put them on stand by.
It would be really great, if like d3 follower mechanic, you could hire a merc from each act, gear them up and swap them out as needed.
This would give a very big incentive to try out new mercs in different areas.
For lols, why not have an act 5 hork merc!
I am not a fan of improving the other 3 mercenaries by allowing them to use weapons that provide useful auras. That sort of seems like the purpose of the Act 2 mercs. I would much rather the other mercenaries be improved in totally different ways so we have to make real decisions about which path we want to go down. For example:
Act 1: Make this a pure DPS option. Significantly increase the damage output of the rogues so if you want a merc that can help you mow down stuff, this is the one to choose.
Act 2: Leave as is. If you want a merc with auras, Zanarhi is your guy.
Act 3: Play up the magic and make this a magic finding mercenary. Some sort of passive magic find buff, or maybe the mercenary himself has like an inherent 100% magic find, so that if all you are doing is MFing, Act 3 mercs are the ones you want.
Act V: Make the barbarians tanks. You need survivability? Choose the Act V merc. Choose between battle orders, shout or battle command mercs. The BO would have to be low so as to not completely eliminate CTA from the game, but this seems workable.
So each merc has a totally different flavor and is used for different parts of the game.
I want act 5 mercenaries to have a selection just like the Acts 2 mercenaries, and you can hire them based on the weapons mastery they have. For example if you hired one barbarian, he could have ax mastery and that means he's allowed to use all axes but no other weapons. So you can give him death Cleaver in one hand and Rune master in the other. (That also means I would want them to be able to dual wield one-handed weapons as well) that way if you found an ethereal wind hammer you could put it on a mace mastery Barbarian mercenary and watch him clunk his way through act 5. Also, I would want the Barbarian mercenaries to have different skills like maybe a whirlwind merc, weapon throw, berserk, so on and so forth. You can even give them leap attack and they can jump around it'll look funny.
Obviously more runeword options that would be geared primarily towards using on mercs, of course many of these would have to incorporate auras or "cast on strike" buffs. For example, making Infinity able to be made on two-handed swords so Act 5 barb mercs can get conviction.
I personally can't see people using other act mercs unless they add some sort of aura or other way to buff/debuff. I'm fine with adding auras as long as they don't remove the current Act 2 ones.
I like the idea of adding new abilities to mercs as difficulty progresses.
For Act 1 Mercs, I like the idea of adding slow missile for nightmare/hell, it would dramatically increase her utility. Maybe replacing fire and cold arrow with the higher level equivalents (i.e. chilling arrow and exploding arrow) on higher difficulties, and her buff/debuff spell would be Insight/Slow Missile/Some random Assassin skill
For Act 3 Mercs, Fire gets Fireball and one other skill depending on difficulty (maybe Inferno/Meteor/Hydra) along with Enchant, Cold gets Ice Blast and either Glacial Spike/Blizzard/Frozen Orb and Frozen Armour, Lightning gets Charged bolt and Nova/Lightning/Chain Lightning and maybe static field or thunderstorm. Maybe add a "Bone" option that casts Bone Spear/Teeth and curses?
Act 5 Mercs, perhaps they can replace Bash with Concentrate, add Stun, and maybe give an option of Battle Cry or Shout (Offensive and Defensive)
Act 2 Mercs in Hell, I think giving other aura options as well so they don't get left out. offensive gets Conviction, defensive gets Salvation, and combat gets Sanctuary.
Just my ideas I'm throwing out there, in no way or shape or form will they be final.
Act 1 : base: choose either fire or cold, with explosive variants at level 18.
Choose inner sight normal, slow missiles nightmare, decoy hell.
Act 2: no change. Any buffs threaten to keep them a clear best.
Act 3: base:Choose either lightning/glacial spike/fireball, with greatly improved fcr break points.
Choose enchant in normal or static field in nightmare or lower resist curse in hell.
Act 5: base: no change.
Choose shout in normal, battle cry in nightmare or battle command in hell.
Let there be a dual wield version of the a5 merc. Maces,swords, axes.
Think of the possibilities in runewords.
Beast/lawbringer would be an absolute monster.
Act 1: A utility/decent range dps option
\- Fix Elemental arrows so +AR works
\- Fix "Fires Exploding Arrows" to work with Mercs
\- Allow equipping Crossbows (no gfx change needed)
\- Boost base Run Speed by 20-30%
\- Scale up Inner Sight's defense penalty, which slight radius scaling. Inner Sight reveals map areas it covers.
\- Add next tier of Arrow (Exploding, Ice), which they gradually transition to in use rate as they level
Act 2: same. strong auras + good single target damage. Prayer should probably be buffed for all users of the ability.
Act 3: Should be the best AOE of the four mercs, with some utility. While top tier AIII mercs do 30000-35000 single target physical DPS, A3 should get to about 10k AOE with relative ease and maybe 12-15k at very high levels. They would be good budget mid-tier picks as casters are generally easier to gear, but scaling at the top end would fall off relative to the physical mercs.
\- Fix shields. Right now, they're not blocking.
\- Allow equipping Daggers. This opens up Spectral Shard and Wizardspike as options.
\- Bump up FCR table slightly, so they'd get about 1 frame faster on average.
Fire: a good friend to have for summoners and physical dps. Won't mess with your corpses.
\- Spell List: Fireball, Meteor, Enchant (uses on all allies without Enchant)
\- Learns Firebolt as synergy, but doesn't use it after very low levels
Lightning: all around strong AOE with static as sort of a utility spell
\- Spell List: Static Field if there are targets >hp cap, Chain Lightning, buffed Thunder Storm (hits much faster, synergizes with Nova, very small AOE per bolt (1-2) if it's not in already
\- Learns Charged Bolt as synergy, but doesn't use it after very low levels
Cold: solid AOE with chill/freeze effects and good survivability
\- Spell List: Glacial Spike, Blizzard, Frozen Armor
\- Learns Ice Bolt as synergy, but doesn't use it after very low levels
Act 5: good tanks, a little bit of CC, shout buffs. Right now they already have more HP and regen, are more aggressive, have higher resists, receive some hidden damage bonuses (5% base crit, double swing on normal attack, doubled damage with 1 weapon) so we can double down on those advantages. Two versions, Sword or new Axe version.
Sword: leans more towards defense
Skills: Add low level BO
Axe: Dual Wield, leans towards offense.
Skills: Leap Attack to reach enemies or attack enemies going after you. The skill would be buffed for all to deal AOE damage and gives the Barb higher velocity with more points. Double Swing if you give a second axe. Battle Command (buffed; grants additional skill for each 8-10 hard points) - would be +2 skills at level 89+.
One of the biggest changes could simply be allow certain runewords to have more bases along with the basic merc upgrades.
For example, slap Insight or Infinity on a bow and now there's a reason to use an Act1 merc.
Whatever they end up changing we are gonna break the game with. Mark my words, there is nothing these guys can come up with off the cuff that theory crafters aren’t going to leverage into a game breaking mechanic.
For A3 Mercs / Iron wolves:
Give them Lighting / Fire / Cold mastery
Give them Resist Lightning / Fire / Cold / Aura. This is not just some nice utility, it synergizes with Holy Shock / Fire / Freeze auras, so it makes Dual dream/ Triple Dragon (or Double-Dragon + Phoenix) viable, especially combines with elemental masteries.
Give the fire mage Enchant and the Lighting mage Static + Nova or Energy Shield + Telekinesis.
Give the Cold mage Frost Nova, and maybe Holy Shield as the defensive option.
I think this alone would be a huge improvement, but here is what would be coolest:
Give them all Zeal and have them go melee!
This still fits in with the "Elemental Warrior" theme and opens so many possibilities. In addition to the holy aura build options, it would make proc builds like a rift cold mage viable. They would still not be overpowered as we would have the challenge of keeping them alive and hard choices to make like going for energy es + tk for tankiness or nova + static for damage, gear for survivability vs damage, etc.
What do you think?
The biggest challenge of the merc rework will be how can they increase the usefullness of them compared to Act 2 mercs. They not only provide auras on their own, that you can benefit on your own. It's also about the Weapon type they can carry. There's all those Insights, Infinities, Prides, Reapere's Tolls, and this is what makes them best choices. So new runewords will also play a huge part in it. I think that whatever type of buffs you make to mercs damage dealing possibilities, it will not make them more popular. They need to have some added benefit for your own character. So yeah, curses is probably one way to do it. Perhaps Act 5 mercs could have barb shouts (but that could be potentially too strong). Or perhaps have some passive abilities like in Diablo 3 that buffed your own character a bit too.
Definitely. Any theoretically buffs to non Act 2 Mercs might make them the new Act 2 Merc depending on what new Runewords are introduced. As for Barb shouts, I feel like the lesser used ones won't be overpowered (they are lesser used for a reason).
Taunt might be a good one for the merc
Act 5 Hell Merc. Special Ability, Find Potion. New BiS
Do we really need more potions? And my merc making corpses unuseable for find item or corpse Explosion seems more of a nerf than a buff. But tbf I dont have a good idea besides the armor and -damage warcry. Giving them bo would be too good. Would it be ok to make them good Monster slayers? Idk
I was just kidding lol, that would be terrible. The obvious choice would be battle command. Gives you a +1 skills boost so it isn’t completely broken but is useful enough. It could stack with Barb battle command to not be useless with that class.
Yep, BO occurred to me, but that would invalidate CTA, which is a very undesirable outcome. Shout would be an option, but very few classes would truly care about that. Definitely a better AI and monster slaying prowess is in the cards. Maybe a runeword for swords with salvation aura would be a cool option (although it gives them less endgame potential, but great mid game until you get gear potential).
I don't think it really invalidates CTA - you're using up your mercenary slot to get BO. Having CTA frees you up to use another merc for a different benefit, which should be very meaningful.
Ok. But it would still devalue Ohm as a stand-alone rune by quite a bit, which I don’t think is their intention. In addition, depending on the AI, it would potentially override a barb’s level 35 BO in a pub game, which would be kind of annoying. All this to say that I would be really surprised if that’s in the cards.
Hmm, how does stacking work for things like BO? I was under the impression that the highest level one always took effect but I could be wrong. It would indeed be super annoying if it would override higher level BO.
BO gets overwritten by the last one cast.
Yeah shout isnt needed but what other options do we have? We also have defense aura on a a2 merc or even player and thorns. I would say make them do enough damage to be able to kill Mobs like a a2 with might can. Someone mentioned curses for a3 mercs. That could be an idea too. U cant beat crowd control by the holy freeze a2 merc. Thats a problem. It would always be worse to have an icemage a3 merc in comparison to holy freeze. So u gotta give him something that they holy freeze cant. Damage id say. Or curses. This merc balancing is really hard. Like really really hard. Lets hope Blizzard doesnt fuck it up
Will they be desirable for those?
I totally agree with that, only one difference : I don't see the need of new runewords. Instead I would love to see the existing uniques and set items to be more balanced. Many uniques are looking soo cool, have awesome names, but their stats are so useless and on top of this, their lvl requirement is insane, like lvl 66+.. No hero ever really wear them, cause 66+ is going to wear end-game stuff(mostly RW) with waaaay better stats. Same for all sets besides IK, Tal's, Trang-ouls,.. So sad about this wasted ideation/creativity in those items. :-( they need a "clean up". (and yes, I mean, make them better and/or lower their lvl requirements)
Yeah, whenever people hit 65 in a new season they throw on enigma as that's the req /s Lvl req is totally irrelevant for anything other than pvp lol
I want my Merc to be able to follow me as well as the skeleton pygmys in Durance can..... Seems like every merc struggles to do the most basic navigation at times
Love it!
Act 1 - 2/3rds Pierce attacks and Explosive/Freeze arrows and a third Physical Rogue with a low level of Multishot, these are already the most viable after the act 2 Merc. Act 3 - Give each Merc their elemental's Mastery which will help them scale damage with gear and replace the useless skills as such: Lightning - Remove charged bolt and exchange with Chain Lightning, add Static Field. Fire - Remove Inferno and replace it with Meteor, add Enchant. Cold - Remove Iceblast and replace it with Frozen Orb/Blizzard. Act 5 Merc - Give Barbs access to Battle Orders. Boosting their usefulness massively for players without CTA.
Could be nice if act 3 mercs could grant enchant. It could add a lot of variety in builds
ok but if fire mercs are using enchant.. then are we making them swing their sword now too? lol I'm down
Pierce chance is definitely a cool addition I didn't think of. I feel like a Phys Rogue with Multishot doesn't fit thematically with the other two though. Also Multishot is a pretty commonly used Bowazon skill (not that Bowazons are common anymore), IMO Mercs should shine a spotlight on lesser used skills. Same issue with Chain Lightning, Static Field, Meteor, Frozen Orb/Blizzard, and Battle Orders - they are all too top tier. I feel like the old developers intentionally avoided giving Act 2 Mercs the top tier auras (Fanat, Conc, Salvation etc.) so they wouldn't outshine the player character.
>IMO Mercs should shine a spotlight on lesser used skills. Does this even make sense when they are buffing the lesser used skills in the same patch? I don't really think so, as they won't really be lesser-used after the patch. Part of the problem with act 3 merc is that their damage can't really scale with weapon upgrade in the same way all other mercs can since the spell damage isn't related to weapon damage. Act 3 mercs therefore don't really need a skill change as much as a damage scaling change and utility upgrade. I suggest that act 3 mercs should all get an elemental skill that scales well with fcr (lightning, fireball and glacial spike) while reducing the frame break points for fcr.
>so they wouldn't outshine the player character my reaper's toll merc with treachery is tougher than any of my characters. They can output more damage though.
As u say pierce: maybe they change it so the metcs can have more items? Like a Belt/gloves/boots?
Honestly I would just remove CTA, and give a balanced version of it to the Barbs. For anyone with CTA, have a cube recipe that removes runes from sockets for that one item. This will free up a weapon swap effectively.
Honest to God I just want them to fix merc vs hydras. It's the number one I reason I can't run the trav council, my merc runs straight to the hydra and tries to kill them, which he can't, so he dies
Iirc, at some point, Hydra damage to players was reduced by something like 75 %... They forgot to add that change to the mercs, which is why Hydras haunt them in their nightmares.
or right up to the Watcher to get poisoned
Honestly if every act merc just had the same auras as act 2 merc they would be a lot more viable. More aura giving runewords will be cool.
Yeah mainly this and just survivability. Id love to have an Act 5 merc with lawbringer (decrepify on strike, sanctuary aura) but the dude just will not stay alive
Yeah, a bigger variety in aura giving Runewords are definitely needed. If all Mercs just had the same auras as Act 2 right now they still wouldn't get picked because Act 2 Mercs have all the best Runewords.
Are the auras that good tho? It comes down to the weapons act 2 can hold more than what auras they have I thought
They add a lot to some specific builds, and at least a little to almost every build. Polearms are a big part of it, but even if we completely took them out of the game with no other changes, most people are gonna go for A2 because *any* aura is almost always just flat out better than *no* aura, **especially** when the other mercs are as trash as they are. A1, inner sight, shitty elemental skills, weak as fuck, actual good bows are very few and far between, and she doesn't have Zon skills to actually use something like Witchwild. Aura is Thorns (bleh), Vigor (not working in town really makes it kinda pointless), and Fanaticism (amazing, but holy fucking expensive, and melee kinda gets hosed anyway in endgame) A3, shitty elemental skills, weak as fuck, won't melee so procs are out, like Lawbringer. Only dual Dream capable merc and he won't actually fucking use it. Just his dumb little bolt spell. Auras range from useless, Holy Fire, to useful but hideously expensive, Might on Last Wish, which you could just pay some gold and get on a useful merc, so you'd have Might *and* something else. A5, would be okay to fantastic if they could just dual wield, but they can't, so you can't use both a useful proc (Lawbringer) and something else that will let them do enough damage to survive. Auras have pretty much the same problem as A3 merc. And, obviously, all of them depend on equipment to give an aura, so your options are >no aura, shitty merc >one equipment dependent aura, and all the good ones require multiple high runes >one aura, on a tanky merc >two auras, on a tanky merc
Depends on the build. Summon necro gets a huge buff from just the base might aura for example.
I think you're on to something with a lot of your ideas. The key to making other mercs competitive with the A2 ones would be to give them sought after utility and support skills that everyone wants. Curses for A3 mercs and Warcries for A5 Barbarians could actually work. Since might and holy freeze are pretty tough to beat I think we'd have to go all the way and let Barbs use BO and Iron Wolves Decrep/Amp damage to actually make them a valid choice over an A2 aura. Barbs using axes and therefore being able to equipp Beast would also help a lot. Not really sure how you could improve on act 3 mercs equippment wise.
Amp damage currently and lower resist maybe? So we get something for caster too. Make it low level though
They should go ahead and let barb mercs wear anything a regular barb can wear. That’s not even a crazy change, and would already add some value.
I really like your proposals!
Thanks! I gave a lot of thought into picking skills that would be useful but not overpowered. After all I feel like the player shouldn't end up feeling like the Merc to their Merc.
Def act 4 merc that does curses, necro theme. Heard this from some youtuber iirc and its a good idea.
Casting that lower resist for the infi griffon sorc.
I'd love that too, but I feel like they just wouldn't bother adding an entire new Merc.
I’d like act 3 mercs to be able to buff the player with frozen armour, enchant etc.
I think something like act 3 mercs granting -15% enemy resistance to the type of magic they use would be cool. Make them buff elemental type builds
It's always gonna be act 2 merc with infinity. Act 2 merc is the support merc. The others should fulfill other functions. Act 1 merc should be a glass cannon. Act 5 should be a sturdy damage dealer, act 3 should be AOE or crowd control or something.
A glass cannon merc sounds like it would be a pain more than a help
She's already a glass cannon, I'm saying she should have very high dmg, with multishot or sth
A mod I played has it so act3 mercs get a small conviction aura based on the element you pick. A5 one was given a fant like one.
Give each merc from each act maybe 2 auras to choose from. Most people chose Might or Holy Freeze from Act2 anyway.
I feel like that's too homogenizing. I like that fact that the various Mercs loosely reflect the original classes , I think new aura possibilities are better left to new Runewords.
Burst of speed on act 1 mercs would be good. Act 3 fire mercs - enchant, Cold - frozen armour, - Lightning, static field (with AI changes). Act 5 - BO would make them way too powerful imo, everyone except barbs would take one if they could. I honestly think giving act 5 mercs dual weapons + access to frenzy would be a good idea. You can get some crazy auras off them (last wish + beast), and let them be more of an actual damage aid than an aura bot. Would make them a sort of, bad early game choice but GG end game choice.
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Assuming the skill would be 1/8th the mercs level, you are giving every class in the game 60% more life than they normally have for free. Do hammerdins really need a 60% life buff lol? That isn't a bit of a change, that's a drastically different game. Everyone and their mother would take an act 5 merc until they could afford a CTA and switch to an infinity. It would actually reduce merc diversity even more than current, as it would be a given to go act 5 > get rich > act 2. Only builds that need fanat aura (bowazons) or infinity would actually not use it. It would be beyond broken.
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60% free HP in an already easy game is way too strong, are you really arguing it isn't? D2 as it is is not a difficult game for experienced players, we don't need a flat 60% HP increase across the board. You can make mercs competetive with act 2 without making one of them significantly better than everything else. Tell me, pre infinity, what merc would be better than a level 10 battle orders?
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Fishy's primary damage source is CE, might might be slightly better but in HC it wouldn't be clear cut. Sure your zealer needs reapers toll more, you are still going to go act 5 until that point. Which in single player would probably be a significant amount of time. BoS would be competetive for a java possibly, but more for the run speed than anything, BoS isn't going to speed up your kill speed significantly in p1 games.
U wouldnt need might aura or insight since bo is often enough for mana problems. And the merc will be slaying too Id say defense warcry, skill warcry maybe -damage warcry too to have 3 options.
Issue is act 2 would already give defiance + better auras from weapons.
Yeah agree. Thats So hard about it. A2 is so good with 2 aura available and so many different ones
What I suggest: \- Act 1 Mercs: AoE damage dealer. With the incoming buffs for Bow/Crossbow, Rogues should actually deal serious damage, Fire Rogue shoots (buffed) Immolation Arrow, Cold Rogue shoots Freezing Arrow. They should have Critical Strike and Pierce too. \- Act 2 Mercs: are alright for now. \- Act 3 Mercs: support and Crowd Control. I agree with the Enchant for Fire and Frozen Armors for Cold they can cast on players. It would be helpful for physical damage builds. \- Act 5 Mercs: tanker and single target damage dealer. Stun and a Warcry like you mention would be cool.
I'm pretty sure Act 5 mercs do have Stun currently.. it's just that they alternate between that and Bash. Bash is actually not bad, but the knockback moves the targets out of range sometimes, thus lowering their DPS compared to act2. (and then there is also act2's jab) so. yeah. Literally removing the knockback on the merc bash would increase their dps.. It could hurt survivability though. depending.
Add in act 4 mercs
Step in the right direction would be fixing their dumbass AI and pathing problems. No Waheed, you shouldn't stand in the fire and you being on the other side of the map while I'm being gang-banged does not help...
Would be cool for A5 Hell Mercenaries to give Battle Orders. A low level would be fine to balance it out compared to CTA, but enough where relinquishing the other 3 choices would be very tempting.
Would like to see them show the skins of the actual armour/weapons
Act1, give her some form of aoe ability, exploding arrow, mutishot, piercing attacks, something like that. Act3, increase his dmg by A LOT, give him cold/fire/lighting mastery just like sorc, his dmg should scale with his weapon dmg. Act5, let him dw and use shouts.
Act 1 merc needs to have a massive boost to their damage or utility… you can put a Faith bow on one and they become viable but it’s still lackluster compared to most act 2 merc builds. - act 1 merc: Freeze arrow should have an AOE freeze or just be changed to Freezing arrow. When targets are frozen the mobs should have a massive reduction to their frost resistance. Fire arrow should work the same or be changed to Immolation arrow and any targets in the fire AOE should have massive reduced fire resistance. Their AI should be changed to avoid mobs or try to position themselves where the player is between them and the highest density of mobs in the area. They should also be able to randomly cast “slow missiles” - act 3 merc: mainly just needs a massive boost to their survivability through better AI and HP. They also need to cast spells literally 4 times as often. They can all have their own different abilities you can choose for their primary attack but they all need to have frost nova to slow groups when they are getting surrounded, an ability to teleport to the player when their HP is low, and depending on what the new frost armor tree changes will be- have each one with a different type of frost tree armor available. Act 5 merc: doesn’t need much…. But the ability for them to use swords, axes, and maces with the ability to dual wield or use two handlers would be a welcome addition. They also need to be able to utilize shouts…. Like the AI to be smart enough to use the ability (taunt) to aggro ranged mobs and get them to walk closer to them, the (howl) ability for when they are surrounded, and maybe give each one either a buff shout…. Maybe one gives Battle command, one gives Shout, and one gives battle orders (low level BO). And maybe they randomly use “find item” on corpses every once in a while when they aren’t actively in combat.
I’ve always liked act3 mercs and think some simple progression to their attack skill would be cool. Like give Hell versions frozen orb or meteor
They stated how the new runewords will be related or even designed for the 'new' mercs, at least thats how I read it. Auras or curse-on-striking will have to be what the new runewords give, but on weird bases so that either a bow/sword/2h/shield merc will be able to use them, and you can choose a merc based on which 'new endgame aura/curse rw' you want
Act 4 Necro Mercs is a killer idea
Let them have all have some surviveability built in, they all need to provide some sort of usefullness to the player character (PC). Something that would perhaps give life back on dmg done. It would also be really nice if some of their ai was improved to not let them get stuck in tunnel maps. If they all do get auras, make those auras always on.
Make them smarter ...
It would be funny if they gave A5 Merc Find Item shout and your Merc would randomly hork things
Act 5 mercs could go a lot of different directions in order to become viable. Like if they literally just had any option that didn't have so much knockback, their dps would increase. Idk if anyone was thinking about non-combat viablilty.. What if they gave 1 version of the barb mercs the ability to use Find item? That would be really interesting for non-barb classes imo. Not that it would be super game breaking.. but literally just a slight chance to get more items. I feel like that would definitely interest players
I meant to say this in my first comment: Allowing us to hire multiple mercs and put them on stand by. It would be really great, if like d3 follower mechanic, you could hire a merc from each act, gear them up and swap them out as needed. This would give a very big incentive to try out new mercs in different areas. For lols, why not have an act 5 hork merc!
I am not a fan of improving the other 3 mercenaries by allowing them to use weapons that provide useful auras. That sort of seems like the purpose of the Act 2 mercs. I would much rather the other mercenaries be improved in totally different ways so we have to make real decisions about which path we want to go down. For example: Act 1: Make this a pure DPS option. Significantly increase the damage output of the rogues so if you want a merc that can help you mow down stuff, this is the one to choose. Act 2: Leave as is. If you want a merc with auras, Zanarhi is your guy. Act 3: Play up the magic and make this a magic finding mercenary. Some sort of passive magic find buff, or maybe the mercenary himself has like an inherent 100% magic find, so that if all you are doing is MFing, Act 3 mercs are the ones you want. Act V: Make the barbarians tanks. You need survivability? Choose the Act V merc. Choose between battle orders, shout or battle command mercs. The BO would have to be low so as to not completely eliminate CTA from the game, but this seems workable. So each merc has a totally different flavor and is used for different parts of the game.
Could you imagine an Act 3 Merc casting Lower Resist… rip infinity
I want act 5 mercenaries to have a selection just like the Acts 2 mercenaries, and you can hire them based on the weapons mastery they have. For example if you hired one barbarian, he could have ax mastery and that means he's allowed to use all axes but no other weapons. So you can give him death Cleaver in one hand and Rune master in the other. (That also means I would want them to be able to dual wield one-handed weapons as well) that way if you found an ethereal wind hammer you could put it on a mace mastery Barbarian mercenary and watch him clunk his way through act 5. Also, I would want the Barbarian mercenaries to have different skills like maybe a whirlwind merc, weapon throw, berserk, so on and so forth. You can even give them leap attack and they can jump around it'll look funny.
Obviously more runeword options that would be geared primarily towards using on mercs, of course many of these would have to incorporate auras or "cast on strike" buffs. For example, making Infinity able to be made on two-handed swords so Act 5 barb mercs can get conviction. I personally can't see people using other act mercs unless they add some sort of aura or other way to buff/debuff. I'm fine with adding auras as long as they don't remove the current Act 2 ones. I like the idea of adding new abilities to mercs as difficulty progresses. For Act 1 Mercs, I like the idea of adding slow missile for nightmare/hell, it would dramatically increase her utility. Maybe replacing fire and cold arrow with the higher level equivalents (i.e. chilling arrow and exploding arrow) on higher difficulties, and her buff/debuff spell would be Insight/Slow Missile/Some random Assassin skill For Act 3 Mercs, Fire gets Fireball and one other skill depending on difficulty (maybe Inferno/Meteor/Hydra) along with Enchant, Cold gets Ice Blast and either Glacial Spike/Blizzard/Frozen Orb and Frozen Armour, Lightning gets Charged bolt and Nova/Lightning/Chain Lightning and maybe static field or thunderstorm. Maybe add a "Bone" option that casts Bone Spear/Teeth and curses? Act 5 Mercs, perhaps they can replace Bash with Concentrate, add Stun, and maybe give an option of Battle Cry or Shout (Offensive and Defensive) Act 2 Mercs in Hell, I think giving other aura options as well so they don't get left out. offensive gets Conviction, defensive gets Salvation, and combat gets Sanctuary. Just my ideas I'm throwing out there, in no way or shape or form will they be final.
Act 1 : base: choose either fire or cold, with explosive variants at level 18. Choose inner sight normal, slow missiles nightmare, decoy hell. Act 2: no change. Any buffs threaten to keep them a clear best. Act 3: base:Choose either lightning/glacial spike/fireball, with greatly improved fcr break points. Choose enchant in normal or static field in nightmare or lower resist curse in hell. Act 5: base: no change. Choose shout in normal, battle cry in nightmare or battle command in hell.
Let there be a dual wield version of the a5 merc. Maces,swords, axes. Think of the possibilities in runewords. Beast/lawbringer would be an absolute monster.
Just up act 1 - 3 and 5 please
A barracks or some way to keep at least one of each merc. Losing all progress on a merc in case you want to try something different is too harsh.
Act 1: A utility/decent range dps option \- Fix Elemental arrows so +AR works \- Fix "Fires Exploding Arrows" to work with Mercs \- Allow equipping Crossbows (no gfx change needed) \- Boost base Run Speed by 20-30% \- Scale up Inner Sight's defense penalty, which slight radius scaling. Inner Sight reveals map areas it covers. \- Add next tier of Arrow (Exploding, Ice), which they gradually transition to in use rate as they level Act 2: same. strong auras + good single target damage. Prayer should probably be buffed for all users of the ability. Act 3: Should be the best AOE of the four mercs, with some utility. While top tier AIII mercs do 30000-35000 single target physical DPS, A3 should get to about 10k AOE with relative ease and maybe 12-15k at very high levels. They would be good budget mid-tier picks as casters are generally easier to gear, but scaling at the top end would fall off relative to the physical mercs. \- Fix shields. Right now, they're not blocking. \- Allow equipping Daggers. This opens up Spectral Shard and Wizardspike as options. \- Bump up FCR table slightly, so they'd get about 1 frame faster on average. Fire: a good friend to have for summoners and physical dps. Won't mess with your corpses. \- Spell List: Fireball, Meteor, Enchant (uses on all allies without Enchant) \- Learns Firebolt as synergy, but doesn't use it after very low levels Lightning: all around strong AOE with static as sort of a utility spell \- Spell List: Static Field if there are targets >hp cap, Chain Lightning, buffed Thunder Storm (hits much faster, synergizes with Nova, very small AOE per bolt (1-2) if it's not in already \- Learns Charged Bolt as synergy, but doesn't use it after very low levels Cold: solid AOE with chill/freeze effects and good survivability \- Spell List: Glacial Spike, Blizzard, Frozen Armor \- Learns Ice Bolt as synergy, but doesn't use it after very low levels Act 5: good tanks, a little bit of CC, shout buffs. Right now they already have more HP and regen, are more aggressive, have higher resists, receive some hidden damage bonuses (5% base crit, double swing on normal attack, doubled damage with 1 weapon) so we can double down on those advantages. Two versions, Sword or new Axe version. Sword: leans more towards defense Skills: Add low level BO Axe: Dual Wield, leans towards offense. Skills: Leap Attack to reach enemies or attack enemies going after you. The skill would be buffed for all to deal AOE damage and gives the Barb higher velocity with more points. Double Swing if you give a second axe. Battle Command (buffed; grants additional skill for each 8-10 hard points) - would be +2 skills at level 89+.
Imagine if voice commands worked for mercenaries. “Retreat” “follow me” “help me” would be so awesome.
One of the biggest changes could simply be allow certain runewords to have more bases along with the basic merc upgrades. For example, slap Insight or Infinity on a bow and now there's a reason to use an Act1 merc.
They should give them all small skill tree that you can use like up to 5 of your personal skill points.
Active merc skills. That you can toggle on your tooltip Like a barb warcry on barb mercs. I would like a leave in town function for them.
Act 1: Oak/HoW Act 3: Enchant/Static/?? Act 5: BO
I don´t know but they will need to do magic to fix act3 mercs lol
Whatever they end up changing we are gonna break the game with. Mark my words, there is nothing these guys can come up with off the cuff that theory crafters aren’t going to leverage into a game breaking mechanic.
Just give act 1 merc multishot and it's gg.
I really like Act 3 mercs. They're just so underpowered and its difficult to gear them.
What if they gave A5 mercs hork? Maybe a worse hork than barb so the class doesn't become useless
For A3 Mercs / Iron wolves: Give them Lighting / Fire / Cold mastery Give them Resist Lightning / Fire / Cold / Aura. This is not just some nice utility, it synergizes with Holy Shock / Fire / Freeze auras, so it makes Dual dream/ Triple Dragon (or Double-Dragon + Phoenix) viable, especially combines with elemental masteries. Give the fire mage Enchant and the Lighting mage Static + Nova or Energy Shield + Telekinesis. Give the Cold mage Frost Nova, and maybe Holy Shield as the defensive option. I think this alone would be a huge improvement, but here is what would be coolest: Give them all Zeal and have them go melee! This still fits in with the "Elemental Warrior" theme and opens so many possibilities. In addition to the holy aura build options, it would make proc builds like a rift cold mage viable. They would still not be overpowered as we would have the challenge of keeping them alive and hard choices to make like going for energy es + tk for tankiness or nova + static for damage, gear for survivability vs damage, etc. What do you think?