*Dual Auras do stack my mistake* *WATCH THE FINAL THOUGHTS FIRST!!!! I'm impressed with the Eth Head Striker set up!!!! What do you guys think?* Discord: discord.gg/xy3EynP Twitch: www.twitch.tv/dbrunski125 Twitter: twitter.com/dbrunski125 Membership: ruclips.net/channel/UCFc8CBNDUFLc1hN5UayNR8gjoin Merch Store: streamlabs.com/dbrunski1251/merch Check out maxroll.gg/ for Diablo 2 Resurrected and Diablo 3 guides!!! Join my Arena GL club for community events arena.gl/clubs/ckmzh1f49196680vlb6ss2llzu
I am excited to try out the new mercs, I am also impressed. Do you think a Holy Bolt/Prayer healing Paladin could work with one of the mercs as a tank/DPS?
I've another viable act 5 setup. It doesn't fit in this test but you should definately see it. Try Hand Of Justice + Plague and a fire sorc with some high level enchant. Just up your enchant after finishing with hydras for example. This way your merc gets a decent damage holy fire + lower resist proc and identical IAS compared with Grief. The armor and the helm are anything you'd usally use. Yeah it's a bit expensive but 2 socketed eth headstrikers are still harder to obtain in my opinion.
the one variable not taken into consideration with the times is the fact that frenzy merc runs to the mobs very very fast so there's virtually no downtime between damage dealing -- this has a huge effect on regular play thank you for doing these tests, I had no idea headstriker was so powerful!
Yeah, totally, since act2 merc just sits around like a retard quite often. Horay for Enigma (which I don't have) in order to make him more useful as well in certain scenarios.
I saw a smaller youtuber test that just using 1 grief will make both his swings use the grief damage if you leave the other hand empty and it applies the unique A5 barb "2 handing" bonus
I would have loved to see a “Eth Headstriker/Last Wish” test done. Also, I’ve been playing around with CoA with IAS jewels (0-30ias), Demonhorn’s Edge(10-25ias), and Arreats Face(0-15ias) for the helm. It would be great to see a helm test as well for the act 5 frenzy merc.
Very excited for new act5 barb! Wish they would stop ignoring whirlwind barb. Everyone wants it and they continue to go right over it! Increase aoe and damage. Add magic damage to it or something. Barb is least played char and use to be a d2 staple.
i saw a video talking about how they still had something in their code for doing more damage with 1 weapon. Id love to see a 1 grief setup vs two grief.
miss u brunski... i'm using an eth hustle/ lawbringer right now frenzy merc and its pretty solid for players 1... ofc i don't have a fort rn. but what u said about the support is so valid. the damage to undead when i went eth hustle and eth head striker vs eth hustle and lawbringer, was just insanely different and i think its because u go from them having the 50% damage reduction to physical to getting that 500%+ increase damage to them, also as a cold sorc, being able to break through those cold immune physical immune undeads is such an important ability.. also the eth hustle offering the burst of speed and fanat aura, is essentially adding 30% ias to both of your weapons which lawbringer desperately needs. i ended up sticking with my eth hustle and lawbringer even owning an eth head striker. its better rounded for my needs atm.
Hey DB, nice vid. I think you only need to equip one weapon as the code of the game will duplicate the item. So you only need one grief or eth headstriker
Please do a test comparing a single weapon vs dualwield. Some content creators argue that a single weapon gets a double damage bonus and would actually do more damage.
Might be worth repeating the test with the new FOH/Smiter build running around; a lvl 30+ fanata will get both of them to some crazy frames. Personally I will probably keep running Insight on A2 as the mana is worth a slight loss in damage on basically all my characters and you cant argue with the cost.
barbarians were renound throughout history for they're lethal axe wielding skills, let the barbarians of harrogath weild axes, it's simple really, beast+last wish mercenary will be a true force to be reckoned with 💪
Yeah, other people discovered that one grief is counted twice, same with lw and headstriker etc. So you can save massively on runes (accept for auras) you don't get dual auras with one weapon but you do for all other stats.
Please optimize the setups for IAS breakpoints next time. IAS breakpoints on the A2 merc are well known. I know you said you used the cham vgaze because you only had 1 Cham, but hitting the ideal IAS breakpoints for mercenary comparisons is really important.
Great video. Now I'm running an Eth Headstriker with Pul (great advice from someone), Lawbringer, 15 IAS Guillaume and Duress and finally have a Barb merc that can wreck council and CI immunes. Not very expensive if you can get the headstriker for cheap (sometimes can buy for vex) and it really helps clear speed with blizzard sorc.
Thanks for sharing the idea to socket Pul. I use a barb merc on my singleplayer FoH paladin and had an Eth Headstriker drop a while ago before I even knew it was a solid merc weapon. Since I'm already farming exclusively demon-filled zones and I want to keep my 15 IAS/ED jewels for other gear, Pul seems like a great choice.
You can just run a single Grief (or whatever) with empty offhand and the game considers you dual wielding the same weapon (for now at least). Same thing can be done on a barb too if you equip a broken weapon in the offhand (unless if they fixed it).
My poison necro uses act v, eth upped headstrikers with p amethysts, eth fortitude, rare tiara with 2 barb skills, 8% life leech, 98% attack rating bonus, 60 attack rating, 7 max dmg, 30frw, with p diamond. Players 8 Eldritch with amp as my only support, 13.5 seconds. The attack rating helps sooo much. He hits wayyy more than he did with arreats.
Well thats sucks theb what do u think about to my merhaba second weapon current setup 2grief+gface+forty . Death , crescent moon , lawbringer ,azurewrath Those are in my options
part of the big draw for the A5 merc is his closing speed with his frenzy stacks, he moves from mob to mob much quicker so these flat dps tests just don't really illustrate one of his big strengths, also would like to see single grief vs dual grief, if dual grief even makes a measurable difference. and early ladder budget gear, curious more about how the damage is calculated with the double hit on the A5 merc than just a flat dps test.
What this video didn't really discuss, and what is really critical, is the fact that some SUPER BUDGET (nm countess) weapon runewords can make this merc do insane damage. Even with C-tier gear his damage is completely insane (don't need all this godly stuff). I honestly feel like this merc will do MORE damage than a lot of players who are walking through the game in NM-Hell on their first playthrough.
Honestly any DPS u get as a mele character from your merc is a bonus, this frenzy barb would be awesome support with something like a Lawbringer and Crescent Moon combination…yes damage would be low but you’d get the aura proc all the time and static field would be reducing monsters HP all the time.
@@Dbrunski125 Has this been patched by the Devs, as of today, Dbrunski ? (July-2022) // or can we still just put one single weapon, and the game ‘counts it twice’ for this Merc ?
@@AlekTrev006 I think so. But tbh i haven't specifically tested because I was running a plague azurewrath combo on my fohdin to get cleansing and sanctuary aura support
When, and why was this note ever reverted? 'The mouse-over functionality of hireling portraits has been changed. You now must keep your mouse cursor over your hireling for three seconds before the portrait highlights and the text "Drop potion on hireling portrait, right-click to open inventory" appears.'
are you 100% sure regarding the auras ? another youtuber said it worked with stacking auras. ( like 2x lastwish etc), He also claimed that you could use 1x weapon and it still counted as haveing gref in both hands. any comments regarding that ? :)
I saw that video too. I think because the original A5 Merc coding was to double the damage of a one handed weapon, they just modified it to double the weapon now that it can dual wield. I am curious if the doubling is a coding glitch that will be fixed.
@@erick3755 yea, it could be interfering with a lawbringer/grief setup. That should have absolutely slayed once decrep went off. We know the character sheet is a total lie. really hope they can update it to be accurate and make it so that each hand is calculated properly.
treachery, lawbringer and voice of reason are a really good budget setup, hes pretty beefy and dishes out decent damage, and the full setup barely costs an um. also, there has to be some cheap setup for a summon necro to clear uber with the merc (not with the gear i mentioned above obviously^^ ).
This is how I quick test weapons, Eldritch and his family are quite reliable, the poor things. In my experience, the best merc in the game damage wise is still act 2/might with reapers (eth ideally), fort, gface and a paladins fanat. He is stronger than some builds lol and costs 1 high rune, or none whatsoever if you use treachery or hustle :D Main problem with act v barb is attack rating, especially when fighting bosses. He is tanky and has good dmg but misses too much.
I think you should have done head strike as a static and then swapped out grief, lw, lb. It would have bene interesting to see it next to dual head strikers. Good video brunbrun.
Act 5 mercenary seems to have attack rating issues compared to Act 2 mercenary. I wonder if casting a level 10 or something enchant on each and re-testing, would show Act 5 being quite a bit better? (enchant fixes the attack rating issue). Which would mean if playing sorc A5 would be better potentially. (if not using /needing infinity, e.g. cold sorc).
@@catthebutcher9438 In what way do you think they are almost there? Personaly i am thinking their damage is low, they dont shoot their elemental arrow often enough and they wont tank for you. Personaly i am thinking to compensate for it, they could benefit from auras aswell. But at least they are not as bad as the Act 3 ones lol
@@catthebutcher9438If i am gonna be generous, then tanking can be removed from the list for that. But they still dont have anything they are good at so far. I realy want them to have some sorf of niche they excell at. Ranged alone cant be it when you lose a tank.
Why not test Crescent moon? I imagine an aoe -25% hp that doesn't get scaled down with higher player settings like crushing blow does would be quite impactful.
Been rocking an act 5 for my ssf barb (LOD) for a long time. Have Durres, eth headstriker (no socket), and gface. He is pretty beasty even without the upgrade from D2R.
“Last Wish” was always annoying in that it always cast life tap; which for during most of the game, I’d much rather have amplify damage. It was otherwise an extremely damaging & effective runeword for staying alive though.
personally i think "death" for crushing blow and dead striek and also crescent moon would be amazing with static field on the frenzy. when i made my frenzy barb those were the best weapons to use through nm and hell before i got grief. i bet it would be an amazing combo on the a5 merc!
Life tap + open wounds + high crushing blow and it can be doable. I would be more worried about mephisto, unless you're running paladin with salvation.
i already saw one guy that managed to kill lilith with act 5 merc but he was using necro for decrepify,he managed to kill meph and diablo too but couldn't do baal cuz there was way too much monsters and merc couldn't focus on baal and kept dying :/ but its probably just a matter of time before someone soloes them with act 5 merc.
@@Pharisaeus ruclips.net/video/e8hsMmBGzJA/видео.html here's the vid if you want to check it out,i don't think he mentions anything about casting terror or something
@@aaakitsune there are other options to gain teleport than enigma. Charged amulets /staffs for example. But also if you don't have enigma you would still want a a2 merc for might. My example was a "best in class" example for necro
What if you could do infinity in swords so they can be used by act 3 merc and act 5? You could also make that an exception like cta that can't stack for duel weild. I'd consider either Merc and could help act 3 merc alot
i would like to have seen your test as a walk thru vs those mobs. let the merc try baals rooms clear, that would tell the bigger over all picture of where or what he could or could not stand up to and the strong vs weak points, vs having the merc beat up melee only cheezy mobs in the 1st waypoint
They patched allowing auras to stack on mercenaries , due the the lag dupe made public back in 1.12 lod , it was made public in order to get it patched. re-equipping dreams w/ autoit allowed you to disconnect the server when done long enough (1-2 hours)...the game was unplayable for a good couple months due to server crashes. The change in aura stacking on the Merc was an intentional quick fix to the dupe/lag caused by the process who knows why they haven't fixed it for d2r
Yes, work on the other merca now. Maybe give the other barb the life/mana buff shout for a budget cta till we get rich and makes him complete with frenzy
This is an insane budget way to make a VERY fierce physical damage monster. Wonder if its better than the budget veraikn of act 2 merc with Obedience, Treachery and gface tho
I absolutley like the support combo with Last Wish + Plauge. Put a A-Face Chamed + Fortitude on him and enjoy no curses and poisons + getting might + free lifetap proccs. and the damage is still not bad =) Using it for my Bowzon atm
The issue with this test is not that its a "vaccuum test", but rather the sample size. There is a lot of rng involved here. Chance to hit, damage range, and chance to crit all make the damage inconsistant. I would like to see 2 or 3 tests with each to see if the damage varries. However it is clear that the dos setups are faster than the lawbringer ones. A 10% chance to prec decrep for a 50% damage increase is not worth it. Jowever, none of these tests are really neccesary because you can just do the math. Calculate the average damage and you are done.
well this is a blind test. its great dmg but i still won't use it in many cases tbh. elemental dmg would prefer infinity. casters prefer insight. most melee builds i would assume would shoot for a reapers toll merc to get might and decrep (you could get this with last wish and lawbringer but it would be a lot more expensive and would sub perform in dps). so yes the "preaching" for auras is justified imo. these mercs are much better but still won't be used a ton imo
I am using 2 Kingslayers in eth cryptic swords. I feel they are pretty strong with their Crushing Blow and all the other good stats they have. They are also the cheapest sword option aside lawbringer. Maybe test them out too?
Honestly I think this would be a sick replacement for a goldfind merc. IK Helm, Treachery, Eth Headstriker and lawbringer would most likely wreck trav faster than an act 2 merc setup. I am surprised none of you guys have tested one for a GF barb.
What about putting a Jah rune in those Headstrikers instead of the 40/15 jewels? I don't play D2R only D2 LoD, so not that familiar with 2.4. But back in 1.14D the Act V merc had AR issues, so he missed alot (low chance to hit). Does the Frenzy Act V merc fix that? Obviously total dmg per hit would be less, but if he hits way more often then it would be more dmg per second. Also it would only be on regular mobs, as the ITD doesn't work on bosses. Just a thought.
Hey DB Any Chance you can do a Playthrough guide on the New Throw barb. I find it runs into a wall at level 35-50 have you tried any detailed testing on it already?.
Just watched a Macro video about this. Have you tried this test while only equipping one weapon? His tests were showing that the damage basically copies to offhand, meaning if you were only going for damage and not procs/auras, that it would be best to only equip one weapon
Nice! But for a proper test you should have repeated atleast some of them to see how consistent the time is.. E.g. dual headstriker was 30s, but on a second run could it be 45s? Do 5 repeats of the same and calculate mean and spread would be nice :P
Thanks DB. It's really sad that A3 mercs need TRIPLE the current damage to be even competitive. I hope there will be a day when using any of the mercs will be "meta". And the discussions about build won't be: which A2 setup is best.
@dbrunski125 have you tried the A3 fire merc with great gear? i tried it with phoenix+flickering flame, chains of honor and sword, was pretty solid, especially on Foh-din where you let him have the juicy concentration too :)
i wonder what dual kingslayers in eth cryptic swords would be like since kingslayer has decent damage and cb + ias plus reduce target def and increased attack rating %. i feel like his hit rate would increase enough to make it competitve but maybe not idk. seems like it could help his attack rating
Edit: can someone please tell me whether or not two Last Wish swords on the act5 merc will give me a lvl34 might Aura? I know the video said it would not, but the pinned comment has made me unsure So glad I watched this. I was about to roll a second last wish to get a lvl34 might Aura on the act5 merc. Now I'm thinking Last Wish + Lawbringer instead.
Was thinking the same. A Frenzy barb with dual Fury and also dual Fury merc. Would use Atma's Scarab for the Amplify Damage proc. Expensive build but should be blazing fast and fun.
*Dual Auras do stack my mistake*
*WATCH THE FINAL THOUGHTS FIRST!!!! I'm impressed with the Eth Head Striker set up!!!! What do you guys think?*
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I am excited to try out the new mercs, I am also impressed. Do you think a Holy Bolt/Prayer healing Paladin could work with one of the mercs as a tank/DPS?
Dual Hand of Justice, Dragon armor, and Flickering Flame helm. Lvl 46 holy fire, Lvl 9 resist fire synergy.. Do It!!
No synergies for holy fire he would do no dmg
I've another viable act 5 setup. It doesn't fit in this test but you should definately see it. Try Hand Of Justice + Plague and a fire sorc with some high level enchant. Just up your enchant after finishing with hydras for example. This way your merc gets a decent damage holy fire + lower resist proc and identical IAS compared with Grief. The armor and the helm are anything you'd usally use. Yeah it's a bit expensive but 2 socketed eth headstrikers are still harder to obtain in my opinion.
@@Dbrunski125 he said do it with 2 ! that means no arguing
the one variable not taken into consideration with the times is the fact that frenzy merc runs to the mobs very very fast so there's virtually no downtime between damage dealing -- this has a huge effect on regular play
thank you for doing these tests, I had no idea headstriker was so powerful!
Very good point. I totally agree.
Yeah, totally, since act2 merc just sits around like a retard quite often. Horay for Enigma (which I don't have) in order to make him more useful as well in certain scenarios.
I saw a smaller youtuber test that just using 1 grief will make both his swings use the grief damage if you leave the other hand empty and it applies the unique A5 barb "2 handing" bonus
Top Quality S+ Tier as always - Actual Act 5 merc that makes sense now. Thanks Dbrunski :D
Act 1 I’d agree with your suggestion.
A3 doesn’t just need damage, it needs to survive also
I would have loved to see a “Eth Headstriker/Last Wish” test done. Also, I’ve been playing around with CoA with IAS jewels (0-30ias), Demonhorn’s Edge(10-25ias), and Arreats Face(0-15ias) for the helm. It would be great to see a helm test as well for the act 5 frenzy merc.
Very excited for new act5 barb! Wish they would stop ignoring whirlwind barb. Everyone wants it and they continue to go right over it! Increase aoe and damage. Add magic damage to it or something. Barb is least played char and use to be a d2 staple.
i saw a video talking about how they still had something in their code for doing more damage with 1 weapon. Id love to see a 1 grief setup vs two grief.
Can you test with just one grief? I saw on another video that a single grief will act like dual grief
I've been wondering about all the new stuff - Insight in a bow - Nova Sorceress - Act 5 mercenary improvements . Thanks for posting !!
miss u brunski... i'm using an eth hustle/ lawbringer right now frenzy merc and its pretty solid for players 1... ofc i don't have a fort rn. but what u said about the support is so valid. the damage to undead when i went eth hustle and eth head striker vs eth hustle and lawbringer, was just insanely different and i think its because u go from them having the 50% damage reduction to physical to getting that 500%+ increase damage to them, also as a cold sorc, being able to break through those cold immune physical immune undeads is such an important ability.. also the eth hustle offering the burst of speed and fanat aura, is essentially adding 30% ias to both of your weapons which lawbringer desperately needs. i ended up sticking with my eth hustle and lawbringer even owning an eth head striker. its better rounded for my needs atm.
Very nice test!
The faster run speed, hit recovery, and attack speed of the act V merc should play a big role in kill speed with more scattered mobs.
Thank you man, very informative video. Will be on the lookout for those eth Headstrikers. Good work.
Hey DB, nice vid. I think you only need to equip one weapon as the code of the game will duplicate the item. So you only need one grief or eth headstriker
Does this mean a single last wish will grant a lvl 34 might Aura?
@@BrinkMira Hey :) They have fixed this bug, you now need to equip two weapons.
@@chris5240 thank you, however I am still wondering whether or not 2x last wish will grant the lvl34 aura
Please do a test comparing a single weapon vs dualwield. Some content creators argue that a single weapon gets a double damage bonus and would actually do more damage.
Just tossing this out there. Your video thumbnails are SICK
I was really hoping they'd be able to use 2H swords. I'd love to be able to put the Bul-Kathos set on him for the flavor
Might be worth repeating the test with the new FOH/Smiter build running around; a lvl 30+ fanata will get both of them to some crazy frames. Personally I will probably keep running Insight on A2 as the mana is worth a slight loss in damage on basically all my characters and you cant argue with the cost.
barbarians were renound throughout history for they're lethal axe wielding skills, let the barbarians of harrogath weild axes, it's simple really, beast+last wish mercenary will be a true force to be reckoned with 💪
I mean they really should be able to use any 1h weapon. I'd like to see double eth stormlash with a coh and gface.
@@brosephbroheim6428 I totally agree, if they could weild any 1H weapon, there would be a lot of testing to do haha
beast + lastwish = gg
Yeah, other people discovered that one grief is counted twice, same with lw and headstriker etc. So you can save massively on runes (accept for auras) you don't get dual auras with one weapon but you do for all other stats.
The teleport position definitely plays a huge role due to FHR on whether they are attacking you and surrounding the merc.
Please optimize the setups for IAS breakpoints next time. IAS breakpoints on the A2 merc are well known. I know you said you used the cham vgaze because you only had 1 Cham, but hitting the ideal IAS breakpoints for mercenary comparisons is really important.
Commenting for the algorithm
I took a break from d2r for a bit and these videos are helping me catch up on all the newish changes as a refresher
Great video. Now I'm running an Eth Headstriker with Pul (great advice from someone), Lawbringer, 15 IAS Guillaume and Duress and finally have a Barb merc that can wreck council and CI immunes. Not very expensive if you can get the headstriker for cheap (sometimes can buy for vex) and it really helps clear speed with blizzard sorc.
Thanks for sharing the idea to socket Pul. I use a barb merc on my singleplayer FoH paladin and had an Eth Headstriker drop a while ago before I even knew it was a solid merc weapon. Since I'm already farming exclusively demon-filled zones and I want to keep my 15 IAS/ED jewels for other gear, Pul seems like a great choice.
Damn was hoping to see 1xGrief 1xHeadstriker setup too!
You can just compare the dual Grief/Dual Headstriker times. Simply averaging them will get you pretty close to the results of this if tested.
You can just run a single Grief (or whatever) with empty offhand and the game considers you dual wielding the same weapon (for now at least). Same thing can be done on a barb too if you equip a broken weapon in the offhand (unless if they fixed it).
that sounds broken
They are going to patch that don’t count on it going live like this..
Would be cool if A3 merc could teleport for a defensive, or if you could give him sorc orbs to use i'd give him an occy for sure
My poison necro uses act v, eth upped headstrikers with p amethysts, eth fortitude, rare tiara with 2 barb skills, 8% life leech, 98% attack rating bonus, 60 attack rating, 7 max dmg, 30frw, with p diamond. Players 8 Eldritch with amp as my only support, 13.5 seconds.
The attack rating helps sooo much. He hits wayyy more than he did with arreats.
One grief work same as two griefs. Frenzy varb can have also one weapon.
Well thats sucks theb what do u think about to my merhaba second weapon current setup 2grief+gface+forty . Death , crescent moon , lawbringer ,azurewrath
Those are in my options
Pretty cool test. I'm honestly surprised eth head strikers are so good
part of the big draw for the A5 merc is his closing speed with his frenzy stacks, he moves from mob to mob much quicker so these flat dps tests just don't really illustrate one of his big strengths, also would like to see single grief vs dual grief, if dual grief even makes a measurable difference. and early ladder budget gear, curious more about how the damage is calculated with the double hit on the A5 merc than just a flat dps test.
What this video didn't really discuss, and what is really critical, is the fact that some SUPER BUDGET (nm countess) weapon runewords can make this merc do insane damage. Even with C-tier gear his damage is completely insane (don't need all this godly stuff). I honestly feel like this merc will do MORE damage than a lot of players who are walking through the game in NM-Hell on their first playthrough.
He is for sure times better than my PTR Martial Arts assa that I tell you.
Buffing melee mercenaries only makes spellcasters even stronger..
Honestly any DPS u get as a mele character from your merc is a bonus, this frenzy barb would be awesome support with something like a Lawbringer and Crescent Moon combination…yes damage would be low but you’d get the aura proc all the time and static field would be reducing monsters HP all the time.
Can you also please test budget travi Merc.
Maybe arreats // treachery/duriels // double alibaba upped can be the new gold find assistant
Keep up the good centent! Cheers from the PvP community!
Very good high quality content DB, keep up the great work
Loved the video. Keep doing out the box things like this.
Can’t wait until we can make beast, pride, insight and harmony in swords :D
MacroBioBoi discovered that if you only use 1 weapon, it makes a copy of it for the second hand. so no need to spend 2x Lo's for dual grief setup.
Yup just learning about this now either way the speed test is still relevant.
@@Dbrunski125 Has this been patched by the Devs, as of today, Dbrunski ? (July-2022) // or can we still just put one single weapon, and the game ‘counts it twice’ for this Merc ?
@@AlekTrev006 I think so. But tbh i haven't specifically tested because I was running a plague azurewrath combo on my fohdin to get cleansing and sanctuary aura support
When, and why was this note ever reverted?
'The mouse-over functionality of hireling portraits has been changed. You now must keep your mouse cursor over your hireling for three seconds before the portrait highlights and the text "Drop potion on hireling portrait, right-click to open inventory" appears.'
are you 100% sure regarding the auras ? another youtuber said it worked with stacking auras. ( like 2x lastwish etc), He also claimed that you could use 1x weapon and it still counted as haveing gref in both hands. any comments regarding that ? :)
Yea they apparently do stack my mistake edited in the pinned comment
1 weapon will apply in both hands right now. So just one grief. Don't waste another Lo rune.
Oh really interesting. So the test speed is still fine but don't need a 2nd grief?
I saw that video too. I think because the original A5 Merc coding was to double the damage of a one handed weapon, they just modified it to double the weapon now that it can dual wield. I am curious if the doubling is a coding glitch that will be fixed.
@@erick3755 yea, it could be interfering with a lawbringer/grief setup. That should have absolutely slayed once decrep went off. We know the character sheet is a total lie. really hope they can update it to be accurate and make it so that each hand is calculated properly.
A1 Cold merc with An Ice is what i used to run for my chaos runner, the constant arrows and HF aura was so good at slowing everything down
They could either allow more bases for runewords or just allow them to wear axes they are barbs idk why they can only use swords lol
treachery, lawbringer and voice of reason are a really good budget setup, hes pretty beefy and dishes out decent damage, and the full setup barely costs an um.
also, there has to be some cheap setup for a summon necro to clear uber with the merc (not with the gear i mentioned above obviously^^ ).
Treachery, g-face, lawbringer and crescent moon is epic for cheap too.
Which out of the tested would you use to tank/survive for a struggling lvling sorc? :D
I so can't wait for this patch to release... want to play Infinity Spearzon so bad.
This is how I quick test weapons, Eldritch and his family are quite reliable, the poor things. In my experience, the best merc in the game damage wise is still act 2/might with reapers (eth ideally), fort, gface and a paladins fanat. He is stronger than some builds lol and costs 1 high rune, or none whatsoever if you use treachery or hustle :D
Main problem with act v barb is attack rating, especially when fighting bosses. He is tanky and has good dmg but misses too much.
PSA: Ethstriker damage was fixed since then. Dual grief should have the best DPS now.
I think you should have done head strike as a static and then swapped out grief, lw, lb. It would have bene interesting to see it next to dual head strikers. Good video brunbrun.
Act 5 mercenary seems to have attack rating issues compared to Act 2 mercenary. I wonder if casting a level 10 or something enchant on each and re-testing, would show Act 5 being quite a bit better? (enchant fixes the attack rating issue). Which would mean if playing sorc A5 would be better potentially. (if not using /needing infinity, e.g. cold sorc).
Finally there is more than 1 viable merc. Buff the other ones now
Act 1 merc looks like almost in the right spot. Just missing some 1 more small buff..
@@catthebutcher9438 In what way do you think they are almost there? Personaly i am thinking their damage is low, they dont shoot their elemental arrow often enough and they wont tank for you. Personaly i am thinking to compensate for it, they could benefit from auras aswell. But at least they are not as bad as the Act 3 ones lol
@@aaakitsune they will not go yolo when fighting against stronger enemies they keep distance
@@catthebutcher9438If i am gonna be generous, then tanking can be removed from the list for that. But they still dont have anything they are good at so far. I realy want them to have some sorf of niche they excell at. Ranged alone cant be it when you lose a tank.
A1 freezing arrow mercs will be great with the new fire druid
Why not test Crescent moon? I imagine an aoe -25% hp that doesn't get scaled down with higher player settings like crushing blow does would be quite impactful.
I really, really love your content Dbrunski. Keep it up!
Been rocking an act 5 for my ssf barb (LOD) for a long time. Have Durres, eth headstriker (no socket), and gface. He is pretty beasty even without the upgrade from D2R.
Do you use plugy in your sp ssf?
That is good to hear even back in Lod a5 merc good. I will try it out wity my sp offline in d2r pc
Can't wait to use this setup on new ladder, great video dbrunski!
With a pally and concentration auras act 5 merc is just insane
Would be nice to have builds with prefered Merc for each , thanks
Why not try a cresent moon, static all monsters around while doing direct dmg...
Only thing i do not like about every d2 video ever is the insane gear always shown I doubt more than a hand full have these !?
For solo rushing through normal difficulty a act 1 frozen shot merc with Edge runeword is pretty sweet. Maybe just cuz the thorns and lifesteal.
“Last Wish” was always annoying in that it always cast life tap; which for during most of the game, I’d much rather have amplify damage. It was otherwise an extremely damaging & effective runeword for staying alive though.
personally i think "death" for crushing blow and dead striek and also crescent moon would be amazing with static field on the frenzy. when i made my frenzy barb those were the best weapons to use through nm and hell before i got grief. i bet it would be an amazing combo on the a5 merc!
Dbrunski: "Act 5 mercenary can solo Ubers."
**Lilith has entered the chat.**
Everyone has a weakness, lol.
Life tap + open wounds + high crushing blow and it can be doable. I would be more worried about mephisto, unless you're running paladin with salvation.
i already saw one guy that managed to kill lilith with act 5 merc but he was using necro for decrepify,he managed to kill meph and diablo too but couldn't do baal cuz there was way too much monsters and merc couldn't focus on baal and kept dying :/ but its probably just a matter of time before someone soloes them with act 5 merc.
@@sleepyhollow1188 sounds weird because as necro he could just cast Terror and get rid of all spawning monsters.
@@Pharisaeus ruclips.net/video/e8hsMmBGzJA/видео.html here's the vid if you want to check it out,i don't think he mentions anything about casting terror or something
A legit competitor to act 2 - my summon necro will get 1st kill muuuch faster now. Love i!
MIght want to consider using your a2 still as aura stacking is still the best way. Conviction + might + amp = fast clear on p8
@@jdlyons89 Im thinking thats only better if you have enigma to telestomp. Without it, the army will spread out too much.
@@aaakitsune there are other options to gain teleport than enigma. Charged amulets /staffs for example. But also if you don't have enigma you would still want a a2 merc for might. My example was a "best in class" example for necro
What if you could do infinity in swords so they can be used by act 3 merc and act 5? You could also make that an exception like cta that can't stack for duel weild. I'd consider either Merc and could help act 3 merc alot
Was thinking the same. Would definitely start using / seeing act 3 mercs just for that.
Great vid!
i would like to have seen your test as a walk thru vs those mobs. let the merc try baals rooms clear, that would tell the bigger over all picture of where or what he could or could not stand up to and the strong vs weak points, vs having the merc beat up melee only cheezy mobs in the 1st waypoint
hopefully now the act 1 and act 3 get some buffs so they are at least viable.
I've never seen such an effective mercenary, EVER! It looks like a good change to me!
They patched allowing auras to stack on mercenaries , due the the lag dupe made public back in 1.12 lod , it was made public in order to get it patched. re-equipping dreams w/ autoit allowed you to disconnect the server when done long enough (1-2 hours)...the game was unplayable for a good couple months due to server crashes. The change in aura stacking on the Merc was an intentional quick fix to the dupe/lag caused by the process who knows why they haven't fixed it for d2r
Yes, work on the other merca now. Maybe give the other barb the life/mana buff shout for a budget cta till we get rich and makes him complete with frenzy
I've played diablo for almost 20 years and have never found eth titans or griffins eye circlet . LoL !
Let's just hope this kind of testing does not lead to nerfing the only new viable merc other than act 2.
This is an insane budget way to make a VERY fierce physical damage monster. Wonder if its better than the budget veraikn of act 2 merc with Obedience, Treachery and gface tho
I absolutley like the support combo with Last Wish + Plauge. Put a A-Face Chamed + Fortitude on him and enjoy no curses and poisons + getting might + free lifetap proccs. and the damage is still not bad =) Using it for my Bowzon atm
I am confused how insight performed similarly to infinity. Did the mana regen matter from a number of jabs potentially?
insight has crit strike so like 60 percent chance of doing double dmg
The issue with this test is not that its a "vaccuum test", but rather the sample size. There is a lot of rng involved here. Chance to hit, damage range, and chance to crit all make the damage inconsistant. I would like to see 2 or 3 tests with each to see if the damage varries. However it is clear that the dos setups are faster than the lawbringer ones. A 10% chance to prec decrep for a 50% damage increase is not worth it. Jowever, none of these tests are really neccesary because you can just do the math. Calculate the average damage and you are done.
This change to the barb merc is 100 times better than just giving it a default aura you been preaching for.
well this is a blind test. its great dmg but i still won't use it in many cases tbh. elemental dmg would prefer infinity. casters prefer insight. most melee builds i would assume would shoot for a reapers toll merc to get might and decrep (you could get this with last wish and lawbringer but it would be a lot more expensive and would sub perform in dps). so yes the "preaching" for auras is justified imo. these mercs are much better but still won't be used a ton imo
I am using 2 Kingslayers in eth cryptic swords. I feel they are pretty strong with their Crushing Blow and all the other good stats they have. They are also the cheapest sword option aside lawbringer. Maybe test them out too?
Good job.Thank you.
Honestly I think this would be a sick replacement for a goldfind merc. IK Helm, Treachery, Eth Headstriker and lawbringer would most likely wreck trav faster than an act 2 merc setup. I am surprised none of you guys have tested one for a GF barb.
What about Last Wish + Beast? Might + Fanaticism seems like it would be great for a Barb to have on a Merc
What about putting a Jah rune in those Headstrikers instead of the 40/15 jewels? I don't play D2R only D2 LoD, so not that familiar with 2.4. But back in 1.14D the Act V merc had AR issues, so he missed alot (low chance to hit). Does the Frenzy Act V merc fix that? Obviously total dmg per hit would be less, but if he hits way more often then it would be more dmg per second. Also it would only be on regular mobs, as the ITD doesn't work on bosses. Just a thought.
Honestly - a crescent moon (static procs) would greatly speed up the P8 kill speed. But not be relevant in lower player counts.
Yeah, that item is quite underrated. I'm aiming for it as well in more builds now.
Hey DB Any Chance you can do a Playthrough guide on the New Throw barb. I find it runs into a wall at level 35-50 have you tried any detailed testing on it already?.
Good content, but there were a lot of tests incomplete like headstriker + grief. To be truly definitive, need each weapon tested with each weapon.
Just watched a Macro video about this. Have you tried this test while only equipping one weapon? His tests were showing that the damage basically copies to offhand, meaning if you were only going for damage and not procs/auras, that it would be best to only equip one weapon
I wonder how dual last wish will perform. It should deal more damage than an Act2 might merc with pride even if the aura dmg boost is lower.
Sounds like my proc stick with plague act 5 merc needs to use a treachery for lower defense IAS and fade for damage reduction when he gets hit
Not what you were testing exactly, but it did seem like YOU survived better with the A5 merc as opposed to A2
Imagine wearing a “Stone” runeword as armor on Eth sacred armor , thats gonna be some fat fat defense
I find andariels treachery plus eth reapers or insight( because of hit rate) is best. The fade crushes chaos and baal
Nice! But for a proper test you should have repeated atleast some of them to see how consistent the time is.. E.g. dual headstriker was 30s, but on a second run could it be 45s? Do 5 repeats of the same and calculate mean and spread would be nice :P
you didn't test dual crescent moon for the static field bonanza
Thanks DB. It's really sad that A3 mercs need TRIPLE the current damage to be even competitive. I hope there will be a day when using any of the mercs will be "meta". And the discussions about build won't be: which A2 setup is best.
@dbrunski125 have you tried the A3 fire merc with great gear? i tried it with phoenix+flickering flame, chains of honor and sword, was pretty solid, especially on Foh-din where you let him have the juicy concentration too :)
i wonder what dual kingslayers in eth cryptic swords would be like since kingslayer has decent damage and cb + ias plus reduce target def and increased attack rating %. i feel like his hit rate would increase enough to make it competitve but maybe not idk. seems like it could help his attack rating
Edit: can someone please tell me whether or not two Last Wish swords on the act5 merc will give me a lvl34 might Aura?
I know the video said it would not, but the pinned comment has made me unsure
So glad I watched this. I was about to roll a second last wish to get a lvl34 might Aura on the act5 merc. Now I'm thinking Last Wish + Lawbringer instead.
What would happen if you used dual Fury on him? Would he get +10 to frenzy plus all the other useful mods?
Was thinking the same. A Frenzy barb with dual Fury and also dual Fury merc. Would use Atma's Scarab for the Amplify Damage proc. Expensive build but should be blazing fast and fun.