A great poison Merc Idea?

[Punkonjunk]

A great poison Merc Idea?

I just had a great idea... Equiping an act 2 merc with Ebotd in a high power eth 2 hander, like a ghost spear, and a bramble - Increasing damages from the poison nova, and a helm with poison facets, like CoA? With the life leech on BotD, would this be a great build? or am I retarded?
If not, whats the best act 2 merc possable?

 

[jake007]

or am I retarded?

I'm not leaning towards the otherwise...

 

[Sokar Rostau]

Bramble, Trang Gloves and the +% on Facets only work on skills, not procing skills or charges (I think). The best you could do would be to give him a 3 x -5% helm and a 4 x -5% Armour (still -35% Poison Resist). There is a possibility that Bramble and Trangs may work with some procing skills, like Grief's Venom, but certainly not with BotDs PNova.

As for 'the best' merc, I'm sure lots of people will tell you something different depending on your character's build and the type of merc you use. As far as max damage goes I don't think you could do much better than Mighty Merc with Pride, Fortitude and Biggin's Bonnet Shako soc'd with 40ed jewel (can't think of another helm off the top of my head (look, I made a funny!))...of course he wouldn't be surviving long with no life leech but he certainly would be hitting damn hard.

 

[Hacknshoot]

I just had a great idea... Equiping an act 2 merc with Ebotd in a high power eth 2 hander, like a ghost spear, and a bramble - Increasing damages from the poison nova, and a helm with poison facets, like CoA? With the life leech on BotD, would this be a great build? or am I retarded?
If not, whats the best act 2 merc possable?

It wouldn't add enough damage. Level 20 PN only does 427-468 damage over 2 seconds. Even with everything geared to poison damage, you only get a 65% increase in damage. That takes you to only about... 680 max damage over 2 seconds. Even if it does get a chance to kill off lesser enemies, you will still do nigh on nothing to the stronger enemies later on. if you're doing only 2% of an enemy's hp with PN every 10 seconds (if it's how long it takes to kill a single enemy later on), your merc will just get beaten. Sorry to lower your expectations for this idea, but that's just how I see it.

 

[Merick1]

Andy's visage with an ias jewel, and that runeword armor with 15%CB would be much cheaper and more damaging.

 

[Punkonjunk]

Hey thanks, jake! I appreciate the good humor!

I was just wondering if this would be an OK build. I guess not, just curious. I'll stick to my vamps/shaft/bonehew.

 

[Omikron8]

Mercs should concentrate on boosting their physical damage only, forget about the rest because there just isn't that much customizability in 3 equipment slots