Best Merc for zeal/holyshock paladin?

[vanmorrison]

Best Merc for zeal/holyshock paladin?

I'm making a paladin that uses zeal as its main attack and holy shock as its main aura... hoping to beat hell for the first time in my short d2 career.

I just got to nightmare act 2. So far I've been using the defiance merc and its been pretty good, but I wonder if switching to holy freeze or might merc would be a better option? Might of course would improve my zeal, but most of my damage is elemental. Holy freeze would help crowd control but I'm unsure whether it is considered better than defiance for this build.

This is a softcore game.

edit: Also, while I'm at it, would it make more sense for this build to max zeal's synergy, or the lesser holy shock synergy (cant remember names of either a.t.m.)? I've already maxed holy shock and resist lightning and am in the process of upping zeal, so I'm wondering what I should put points in once zeal is maxed.

 

[LeWoVoc]

Re: Best Merc for zeal/holyshock paladin?

I'd max salvation, rather than sacrifice. I'd also recommend a holy freeze merc. Definitely better than defiance.

 

[Zylo]

Re: Best Merc for zeal/holyshock paladin?

Good question, I was actually thinking of this not long ago.

For my tesladin, I ruled out both defiance and holy freeze, because my guy is fairly decent at tanking. Since most of his dmg does come from elemental, that kinda tosses Might out of the picture. Not knowing what was left, I decided to rock something a bit more original than a standard A2 Merc.

I ended up using an A1 rogue. They look cool, they're different, they do pretty decent damage, and they cast innersight. Innersight lowers defense making it easier for you to hit, therefor the best option IMO.

 

[stephan]

Re: Best Merc for zeal/holyshock paladin?

I used a Blessed Aim merc. %AR is rather low on an ele aura zealot, even when you max Zeal.

 

[Rhone]

Re: Best Merc for zeal/holyshock paladin?

I used Blessed Aim merc for my Tesladin and was very happy with it. Without fanaticism, your AR is a bit low and your physical damage is a drop in the bucket compared to your lightning damage, so minimizing missed attacks as much as possible is the way to go, IMO.

But you do still want some physical damage, so you're not slowed down too much by LIs and you get some benefit from life leech. That's why I opted to max Zeal and Sacrifice instead of putting points into Salvation.