Seeking the critical path in single player

I got a Paladin defensive aura GC drop recently but no Sorc GC's yet. According to MacroBioBoi's video the enchant does add to the explosion damage.

I took a little break from my Sorceress and made a Barb for Gold Find and farming Hell Travincal for high runes and drops. He is now level 82. I was wondering if it would make sense to switch from A2 Might Merc to A5 Barb Merc for this character, since the Merc needs strong damage and do all of the killing. Here is why I was thinking about this...
* I got a 2nd Blade of Ali Baba drop and another Infernostride drop (now at 2x Baba swords)
* I got 2 ist rune drops
* I watched several videos on gold find barb but they were all made prior to the 2.4 patch
* I have the runes for a single Grief weapon and a Phase Blade for it
* Obedience RW has cold damage on it so its less than ideal
* I don't have the runes for Infinity yet

If I did make the Grief weapon and switched to an A5 Barb Merc I would need a second weapon. I don't think I have the runes for some of the ideal Barb Merc RW weapons. So I would need an alternative.

While on my journey on the Barb I got the following drops:
* Tal's Chest
* 2x Ist runes
* Demon Limb Tyrant Club (yay level 23 enchant)
* Chance guards
* Thunderstroke Javlin
* Baranar's Star mace
* another Bone Snap Maul
* several unique spears
* Sazabi chest and helm
* IK chest
* Mage Fist
* Frostburn
* Swordback Hold shield
* Bverrit Keep shield
* Trang's chest and off-hand
* Dark Adherent set pieces
* Haemosu's Adamant
* Laying of hands
* 2x Crystal swords (1 dropped with 4 sockets)
* 2x Monarch shields (1 dropped with 4 sockets)
* Goldwrap belt
* Dwarf Star ring
* Guardian Angel chest
* Boneflesh chest
* Rakescar axe
* Spire of Honor spear
* Nagel ring
* a bunch of common set pieces dropped
 
I'm not sure if the A5 merc is a better choice for that character, but he can be very damaging even without best-in-slot weapons. A lot of somewhat common elite unique swords work pretty decently, e.g., Bloodmoon.

Headstriker is an exceptional sword, but for the price of a Pul can be upgraded to elite and is an extremely damagingbecause of the way damage is calculated for A5 mercs. I'm fairly certain an upped eth Headstriker even out damages Grief, but those are rare. Because most of the damage comes from the 100% deadly striker and +XX to max damage, it seems to me even a non-eth one is worth upgrading for a merc weapon.

As far as Runewords go:
- Lawbringer - CTC decrepify, but does have cold damage so maybe not best for your situation
- Crescent Moon - CTC Static Field
- Oath - Massive damage, IAS
- Passion - good ED up to 210% max, though CTC monster flee can be annoying, this can be pretty damaging if you have an ethereal base lying around, e.g. eth Cryptic Sword will do 300-350 max damage depending on the roll

Those depend on the runes and bases you have, I suppose, but just throwing some options out there.
 
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