Is the mercenary worth the +25% monster life penalty?

The toe amulet and gentle touch gloves plus an extra curse ring can basically work on any merc and adds a good bit of defenses/damage. Is it worth it all the time probably not but 90% of the time yeah it's worth. If you take the merc further then that gear wise it becomes omega worth.

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newbutnot#7699 wrote:

The toe amulet and gentle touch gloves plus an extra curse ring can basically work on any merc and adds a good bit of defenses/damage. Is it worth it all the time probably not but 90% of the time yeah it's worth. If you take the merc further then that gear wise it becomes omega worth.

to add to the list of almost always useful stuff:
- frenzy charges via Victario's Charity
- 50% inc. damage from Leer Cast
- crit and slow immunity from Garb of the Ephemeral
- phys conversion from Kaom's Binding
- 1 free aura

The value is pretty insane even with just a few 1c uniques (so without Garb).

I run a Kineticist with all of the above except Garb. She also gives me Ele Weakness (not 100% uptime but still useful).

Probably the most useful merc item for me during the league has been eternal struggle, with exarch dominant to get 15% cull. Some of the eldritch implicit on it can be useful as well. Aura effect etc. + good anoint.

Let's see - scorch, covered in ash, max frenzy charges, massive damage increase via rallying cry - all for free. And I am probably gonna shove some curses too, like elemental weakness and flammability.

its 100% worth it, if you are choosing the right merc and gearing it correctly. Look up some videos on youtube on merc gear/builds.

Doryanis setup is most popular, but there are also magicfind and aurabot/support setups as well.

It's interesting that so many people are qualifying whether its "worth it" based on correct choice of merc and gearing.....


Even if you choose the wrong merc for your build and never equip it with any gear.....its still worth it. The health multiplier on enemies is basically nothing compared to the additional loot multiplier you get from simply having it. And I have pretty strong faith that folks can, at the very least, choose a merc with a curse or aura that will help them lol. long before we talk about broken and cheap merc buff items.

And even some of the worst builds I've ever seen can tear apart most monsters across white and yellow maps with ease at 50% more health. Bosses, depends. Red maps, a little tougher.

It's not universally better. I agree though, putting any small amount of effort into your merc choice/gearing will make it worth having.

The merc I was using, Flamehand, lvl 78, was not optimized or copied from theory crafting. It basically gave me temp chains, blind, 15% cull, enemies convert 15% phs to ele, enemies have -10 ele res, enemies covered in ash, a 50 and 35 reservation aura, with aura effect modifiers, added flat damage to allies. Was also reflect and ailment immune. I think that is way beyond the penalty. Probably could of had some other useful effects like scorched etc, if I was not getting them off gear on my AG.

Even though it was largely for buffs, it still did reasonable damage, clearing mobs in t16, even if it was too slow to be particular useful for that purpose. It was occasionally useful at helping when mods were bad for my build. Also is sometimes taking agro from mobs, while being relatively tanky, without much focus on defense.

It rarely died except when doing ubers. Often didn't die there either and might of survived more if I was better at using the heal/recall positioning. I'm assuming lvl 83 would be even stronger. I have a lvl 83 Flamehand, but the right skill combination is difficult to find, and my level 78 seems to be sufficient anyway.

Some of the gear can be expensive, but I think there is a lot of good options for cheap. The main limiting factor for choices being the attribute requirements.