Jurph brings up a related question (well, related in my head, anyway): full rejuvenation? Do these EVER drop? If not, how do you get them?
I’m 57th level now, and haven’t seen one in the game yet.
Daniel
The only time I’ve seen full rejuvs drop is from unique monsters. You can make them yourself by cubing 3 regular rejuvs or 3 mana pots (any size) plus 3 health pots (any size) and a standard gem.
First off, skulls in armor give life regen, which sucks. It’s a nearly worthless mod. You need leech, and lots of it.
Secondly, it sounds like you’re a sorce. If your merc is getting away from you and going where he shouldn’t, teleport somewhere close. Your merc and all your minions teleport with you, and away from where they were.
Thirdly, regarding Thorns. For Thorns to work, you need to get hit. Getting hit hurts. If you’re going to rely upon Thorns, then get damage reduction gear, like Shaftstop and Vampire Gaze. In fact, Vamp. Gaze should be a prerequisite for all melee mercs. The life leech (not life regen.) is crucial, and it has excellent DR for a helm.
Fourthly, barb mercs are the red-headed step children of mercs. They don’t provide an aura, can’t carry polearms, can’t carry a shield. Get a Might merc (offensive/Act II/Nightmare) to vastly increase your physical damage, get a Holy Freeze merc (defensive/Act II/Nightmare) to slow your enemies down as they wade through your Fire Walls, or get a Defiance (defensive/Act II/Normal or Hell) merc.
Equip all of your mercs with a high damage polearm/spear of some sort, socketed with as many Amn runes as you can find. The Hone Sundan is an excellent weapon whose value shot through the roof for 1.10 since it can be upgraded to an elite. Socketed with 3 Amn runes, and you solve all of your leech concerns with one item. An ethereal item is even better (items on mercs do not lose durability).
If you don’t have a spare Vamp. Gaze, use a Tal’s Mask. If you don’t have a Tal’s mask, use a Guilloume’s Face for the Crushing Blow. If you don’t have Guil. Face, Rockstoppers are cheap and plentiful, and offer both DR and leech. Skin of the Flayed One is an excellent inexpensive armor with Life Leech if you don’t have Shaftstop.
Glad to get your input on the life leech vs. the life regen; unfortunately, these are my highest level characters, so digging around in my hope chest for a “spare” Vampire Gaze or Tal Rasha’s Mask is something of a punch line to your joke. Your point is well taken, however – I’ll see what I can do about upgrading their weaponry for life-leech.
Worthless for everyone but sorceresses, at least. For sorcs, replenish life is pretty much the only way to heal (well, them and red potions, but you can’t carry enough of them to rely on them). You may even want to wear that skull helm yourself, instead of the merc.
And you shouldn’t be relying on mercs to kill boss packs. The merc’s job is to keep things in place long enough for you to kill them with ranged attacks. The only value in merc damage is for monsters immune to your element, and hopefully you and your girlfriend didn’t specialize in the same element, so (almost) everything should be vulnerable to one of you two.
As for what merc to choose, that depends on how often you team up, and how often you solo. If you’re always or almost always teaming up, then you want two aura guys, since they benefit everyone in the party, and one of them should be might (probably the amazon’s, since might won’t help a sorc if you should happen to play separately). Holy freeze would be a good choice for the second one, probably: Slower monsters hit you less, and are easier to hit with your spells. But if you play separately as often as together, then the barbarian isn’t a bad choice for a sorceress merc. He can’t use polearms, but I fail to see how that’s relevant, since by the same token an Act II merc can’t use swords. Good swords are much easier to come by, and that way, your mercs won’t be competing for weapons.
Either way, life steal is essential for melee characters of all sorts, including melee mercs. Replenish life will pale in comparison to the life they can steal, and mercs already have more replenish life naturally than you can give them with items, anyway. Unfortuneately, you can’t give them leech jewelry, and you need to balance leech against damage on their weapons, so lifesteal armors and helms like Skin of the Flayed One and Vampire Gaze are very useful. Defense is nice, of course, but it doesn’t make all that much difference, so it’s usually less of a sacrifice to trade defense for life steal than to trade damage.
Well, Fenris and I have become sort of the little brothers to punha and Voltaire. Where they mf in hell, killing Mephisto and Baal, we mf in NM, killing Baal.
We had a fairly good night, I got Trangs gloves to go with the armor that punha gave me. We also found Hwanins armor which leaves me a Bill short of having the set. The best find I’ll let Fen talk about. I’ll leave it to say that I never saw Baal in NM drop an elite before…
It’s a Djinn Slayer (sword). Wow.
I won’t go intoall the details, but it raised my minimum damage by 500 and raised my max by about 200! It does like 250 fire damage (for those physical immunes) and it has a socket. Who_me? said it was a so-so build, but what the hey! The only problem with it is that it’s the most fragile f*cking weapon I’ve ever seen: 22 durablilty-I can’t do a single baal run without going and fixing it at least once.
We also found Duriel’s Shell, which is much better than the Silks of the Victor I was wearing. Coupled with my Rhyme Shield and the Blackhorn’s face, I’m actually able to deal with skeletons again! (Except that “Iron Maiden” spell that the oblivion knights cast. I keep dying. Any suggestions? Would “Thorns” block it?)
Anyway, punha: What should I put in the socket of the sword: I’m inclined to put in a perfect skull (I love Life Leech) but…?
Fenris
PS: I just tested my gear. In HELL, with the “protect from everything” aura? I’m maxed out on the three main resists (or close) and I was able to win against the council members in Travincal solo! 
only thing that could possibly “block” being Iron Maiden-ed is Damage Reduced by %. But since in 1.10 they capped it at 50% you’ll still take massive damage. In 1.09 you could easily whirlwind around with high DR%. That and good life leech negate IM’s effect.
I don’t think melee chars have much choice with being IM’ed. Either they have to go with a projectile attack, spell based attack or just go to town and get the curse off of them.
Okay, lots of things. But I have a reputation to uphold around here.
- Barb mercs are dumber than a box of rocks. They do not block (they have a percent chance not to be hit, but they CANNOT block), they do not have aurae, and their AI is suspect. I quite honestly would not recommend that a WW barb actually use a merc, but if you are going to use one, I solidly recommend a HF merc. Anything else is just too risky. Here’s why:
A) You can’t teleport to get your merc back close to you, so you’ve got to make the monsters slower to compensate for that.
B) If you really need help with damage, having a merc around who does less damage is not going to help a lot. Plus you need the pots.
C) HF will make your job, as tank, easier. Much easier. Stuff doesn’t move around, so you can assault it at will.
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Not to be rude, but I would sooner put Els in armor/helms for a merc than P Skulls. If someone is melee, you want them to have higher resists, not up their regen (mercs automatically regen). My recommendation would be to either find some of the objects listed above, put some P Rubies in armor, or craft some hitpower armor and helms. It may take several tries to get good mods. If you are able to do so, try to imbue a ghost spear or yari or such. Do you play closed bnet ladder? If so, I have a clean ghost spear just waiting to be imbued (vol got an eth hone sundin 5% shy of perfect, and we upgraded it, so he has no need for my ghost spear).
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I am rather ineffective in hell. Seriously. When I have appropriate gear to make a new barbarian, or someone else has a char such that it can survive with vol’s sorc, then I will make my dual-Honor scourge barb and … it will be bloody. Those things have a higher Max dmg than my Bstars, and that char will be more viable at lvl 85 than my old barb is now. But enough wishful thinking for now.
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Now that I remember to ask, Jurph, what lvl are your chars in question, and what lvl are their mercs? And where in the game are you playing? I wouldn’t even think twice about a merc surviving in Tal’s Tomb in Hell unless it’s an a1 merc with serious damage redux and psn res at 75, or unless you have a sorc who’s just teleporting through so her merc doesn’t have the opportunity to get hit.
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NM Baal’s TC is higher than NM Meph’s, and I have gotten Burizas off NM Meph. Check Darkness (it’s a d2.net affiliate) for mlvls and such.
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Fenris, I have a few words of caution on that sword (having not yet seen it, so feel free to throw a salt shaker at my post). Firstly, remember that you have leech with your scourge; the sword doesn’t. Also consider weapon speed. Also consider extra damage to those undead you hate with so fervent a passion. Also consider weapon range. I would do a few trial runs switching out the weapons to see which is the more effective tanker, and do be mindful that it will need to be repaired more often (I know of no way to add durability to an item save a Zod, which eliminates the need for repair anyway). I should also note that it is not possible to leech off elemental damage, so that extra max dmg you see is fire dmg and you can’t leech with it.
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Putting stuff in the sockets … I personally would wait on that, because while you could get some life leech from that, you might also one day find a really spiffy jewel (one that has IAS and ED) and opt for that instead. Plus it’s not like you have a lack of quality weapons to use.
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I would really love to be able to use the mace thing from ROTK on a barbarian … or anyone, really. Imagine Frenzying with that thing? Dual-wielding two, I do not think anything could kill me. I could go around with 1% life leech (not adjusted for Hell) and still be set for life. But the str req would probably be about 400.
And after doing some runs with vol, we have another weapon in contention:
Devil Star. No IAS. 299% ED. 5m/4l leech. +2 paladin skills. Dmg is something like 171-211.
Pun: The Djinn Slayer has “very fast” weapon speed, same as Honor. Lemme find the stats for the specifc spawn we found…
One-Hand Damage: 78 To 135
Enhanced Damage 194%
Damage To Demons 146%
Adds 250-500 Fire Damage 252%
Mana Stolen Per Hit 5
Lightning Absorb 3
To Attack Rating Against Demons 292
Socketed 1
I think it’s that “enhanced damage” stat that’s making this so kick-ass. I’ve done a little experimenting: for this or Honor, even despite the lack of LL AND despite the fact that this thing is delicate and needs to be repaired, AND the fact that I’m missing the spiffy +1 to all skills, I think it’s the better weapon. I can’t take on the council in Hell (I’ve tried) with Honor. With this thing? I was going through them like snot through a cheap kleenex. 
I think it’s the “Min/Max damage” thing. If I turn on Conviction, with Honor I did 263-1845. With Djinn, I do 928-1681. Bringing up that “min” damage means that my average hit went from 1054 with Honor to 1254 with Djinn. (It’s that +1 skills thing that’s making the diff. If I turn off Convict for any reason (fanat. comes to mind as does salvation) the numbers are far better for Djinn. The average goes from something like 600 for Honor to 900 for Djinn
On the other hand, that Devil Star (is it a “Baranar’s star”?) looks to be even better yet, so what do I know?
I’m getting this guy pretty close to where I think he can survive hell. I’ve alway considered the Council a sort of graduation exercise. If you can’t survive them, you’re not ready to do the last two acts. You’ve got the Cantors (Zealots?) with their ice-storms swarming, those fucking poison spitting dragons and the council members tend to swarm all over you. Granted I survived by hitting and running, but still…
PS: ED-extra damage. I got that. IAS…? Independantly added skillz?
Btw: with Salvation on in Hell, my resists are maxed out. I have to use Salvation to survive for the time being.
IAS = Increased Attack Speed
On the merc subject, I think what merc would be best for you depends on the character that you’re playing and your playing style. For zons (when I want a merc), I like the “dumb as a box of rocks” barb. With my old 1.09 mf zon, her barb would normally only die when she did. The only reason for his existance was as a collection spot for whatever breasts that were around so the zon could multi-shot them all down. He wore 1500 def balrog skin armor, a 320 def helm, and used a cruel colossus blade, and had about 20% life leech.
In 1.10, I’ve already posted about my necro’s merc. I have a barb with my bowazon and I don’t really use any with my sorc and javazon although if I ever complete the “save the soldiers” quest in hell, I probably will get a barb for the javazon.
Normally, I hate mercs. With barbs, I never use them, with others I usually don’t. They’re a pain in my butt and expensive to resurrect.
BTW: Pun, if you’re around in next week or so, I could really use a Hell-rush. I may be able to take on the Council, but I doubt that I can take on Meph, or Izzy or (ha!!!) Diablo, etc.
So if and when you have a chance…
Fenris: The Enhanced Damage (or Enhanced Defense on armor) tells you how much better your item is compared to a normal item of the same type. The damage numbers shown for the item are the final totals after all the listed mods are factored in, not including elemental damage.
Stupid hamsters…
Regarding Iron Maiden, back in 1.09 barbs could get around it via Leap Attack, which was considered a ranged attack. Now in 1.10, not so much. It really hampers melee characters in the Chaos Sanctuary. Your best bet is to either use as much DR as you can, or let your merc do the work until it wears off. There’s a Pally skill that wipes curses off quickly, but barbs are out of luck.
This has been a pretty good couple of days for item finding. Gloves at least. I have bloodfist and frostburns and some other that I can’t think of at the moment. If only boots were falling out of the sky as fast as gloves!
Just found out some extremely important information for anyone who’s made it to Hell difficulty (v1.10).
The two best places to be looking for items are now Worldstone (as always) and The Pit (located in a hole in the Tamoe Highlands in Act I). Both are level 85, which means that unique and champion monsters (gold and blue, respectively) can drop any item in the game.
Happy hunting!
Fen, any hell rush I do has to involve vol. It’s just that simple. And the devil star is not a Bstar. I wouldn’t yet offer you one of those;)
Munch, vol and I and his friend did a Pit run. The xp was decent for them but we didn’t find much of worth. And vol is still learning how to TP to the back of worldstone so we don’t have to suffer through five groups of oblivion knights.
I also came across a nice little Jade Talon Wrist Sword. The bonuses are a little on the light side, but still an impressive little item. Now for the Shadow Killer 