You guys aren't gonna believe what happened during Hell Cows... :lipsrsealed:
I'll have Cosmo's final update posted tomorrow sometime.
@Thyiad: Love the sig. Thanks.
@Brak: I'm a big fan of alternate mercs. I've used cold/fire Rogues and cold Iron Wolves in several tourneys (by choice or because the rules said so) and I like them all. For naked play, I'd exclude Iron Wolves, because I need my mercs to apply special attacks like OW, CB, monster slow, etc... depending on the circumstances.
Yes, Act 2 mercs were my preferred choice due in part to all the fairly common unique polearms with nice mods. But if my drops were different, I'd be willing to switch mercs. For example, if Cosmo was approaching Hell Difficulty without any good Act 2 merc weapons, and a Witchwild dropped; I'd probably hire a fire rogue and max Grizzly. They would tear through the PIs that gave me problems. Add Boneflesh/Riphook/Guillaume's... hell yes!
Lawbringer (awesome!) is RWM and therefore not an option for my vanilla style. But there are several useful unique swords that might convince me to go with a barb. And if I found the right eth elite sword for a nice runeword, who knows?