The effect of this aura on a Necro’s minions can create a virtual wall of death to descend upon the ranks of diablo minions. A few revived Frenzytaurs with a might aura on them can easily sway the tide of battle in the favour of the Necromancer.

A point to note is that even if you have a might merc whose lvl is sufficient to provide 100% extra damage this won’t automatically double the damage of your character. Th forumlae below from Nikodemous from the Paladin forum explains how your might mercs aura factors into your damage.

Lets say your weapon does 100 points of average damage. (that being the average of the minimum and maximum shown directly on the weapon).
You have +100% damage from WW
200 str = +200% damage
and the might merc has lvl 7 might, which gives (40+6*10) 100% bonus.

Total damage is :
(100 * (100 [base] + 200 [str] + 100 [ww] + 100 [might]))/100 = 500 average damage
All elemental damage is added to the total, with no % bonuses on top.

Combat - Thorns

The essential problem with Thorns is that you have to be hit for it to take effect, though admittedly the effect at high levels can kill many normal monsters outright.

The Necromancer Overlord is the character build that can make best use of this aura. With many minions running around the map all effected by thorns and with the possibility of an Amp Damage curse as well, this can create havoc for boss monsters that use phycial attacks i.e Hephasto the Armourer, Duriel and the Ancients. By wading through the thorns aura’d minions to get to the player character, these boss monsters will take an awful lot of damage.

Defensive - Holy Freeze

Another very useful for aura for any player character, moreso for the slowing effect on monsters than any damage done. This aura, at high levels, will bring many enemies to a near stop. Demon Imps stop teleporting all of the place, flayers slow right down and explody headed Slayers are easily avoided. For characters using thrown weapons, bows or magic, the slowed monsters make ideal targets.

The Necromancer Overlord (or a Corpse Explosion Necro) is the class most disadvantaged by this aura, as the increase number of bodies that shatter upon death greatly reduces the Necro’s potential revive, summon or corpse explosion fodder.

On Hell diff, cold immune monsters will still be slowed by this aura.

Important Note on Holy Freeze
It seems that not all monsters are affected by this aura. The Frezytaurs, Blood Lords, Moon Lords and Death Lords of act 5, seem resistant to its slowing effects. This could because their Frenzy ability negates the effects of the Holy Freeze or they could just simply be immune anyway. Either way, do not rely on your merc to slow these monsters down.

Act 2 Merc Aura Activation

Act 2 Merc aura’s do not automaticaly activate when you hire them, or do they become active when you leave town. The Desert Warrior requires a little stimulus to use his aura and this means getting him involved in the action.

A basic rule of thumb is this. If you have an offensive aura, then the aura will become active once the merc has attacked something. If you have a defensive aura, then it becomes active once the merc is attacked. In short, if you character kills everything before the merc gets a look in the aura won’t activate.

It’s a little more complicated than this and there do seem to be instances where a hired mercs aura will simply not turn on, or at least take a very long time to do so.

The merc has percentage chance to do something when it chooses and activity to perform. Every time the merc changes his current activity there is a chance that his aura will become active.

The only tip in the case of where a Mercs aura is not working is take that merc back to the shop and change it for a new one (much like a car) and see if the problem continues with a new merc.

Multiplay Tip for Act 2 Mercs

Don’t all hire the same merc in a MP game ir you’re all using Act 2 mercs. If you have 6 players with 6 mercs all with the same aura all the game will do is cycle through the aura effects for each merc. While the radius of effect may be huge (6 might mercs supporting 6 Zookeeper Necros would be a frightening sight) its not the best use of the abilities available. If you have 6 mercs all with different auras you’ll have an entire party of hard hitting, life replenishing, accurate, difficult to hit characters, versus a load of monsters who are moving slowly and that get hurt whenever they hit your characters.

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Desert Warriors use Polearms, Javelins (but with no throwing ability and they cannot equip amazon specific spears) or Spears and can therefore do a lot of damage. They attack using the Amazon “Jab” attack which under 1.09 no longer ignores weapon speed. A Might aura merc can do a phenomenal amount of damage with such a weapon and can quite happily cut down any monster that crosses his path. They non might mercs still do an impressive amount of damage and with a decent exceptional or elite polearm/spear, can easily top 1000pts of damage. They are also strong enough to wear heavy armour and can survive in the middle of a melee for some time. In addition they get a fair few hit points to boot.

Their AI is more focused on staying within aura effecting distance of the player, but as they level up and the range of their aura grows the distance they are inclined to wander for a fight grows. Even high level Act II mercs have less of a lemming tendency than the other mercs and will retreat quite quickly if your character decides to leg it.

The obvious disadvantage of the act II mercs is that when they die, outside of losing your support you also lose the aura effects a few seconds later. This can turn the tide of battle against your character very quickly.

The more damaging Polearms/Spears are usually quite slow. More than any other merc there needs to be a trade off between speed and power here in choice of weapon. In addition the weapon needs to have some elemental damage attached to it otherwise the merc will be useless against PIs on hell diff. This Merc, unless totally overwhelmed, can survive quite well in hell diff.

Act III Mercs: The Iron Wolves.
Hire from: Asheara
Can equip: Swords and Shields
Level up: +1.5 Strength, +1.5 Dexterity, +4.5 Defense, +1.5 Resistances, +6 Life

The Iron Wolves are all sorcerers who come in 3 flavours, fire, ice or lightning with the following spells.

Lightning: Charged Bolt and Lightning;
Cold: Glacial Spike or Ice Blast with Frozen Armour
Fire: Inferno and Fireball.

Their spells reach the following levels as the mercs experience lvl increases.

Eastern Sorceror - Fire
clvl 15 37 61 99
Inferno 6 13 20 20
Fire Ball 4 11 18 18

Eastern Sorceror - Cold
clvl 15 37 61 99
Glacial Spike 1 5 9 9
Frozen Armor 2 9 16 16
Ice Blast 6 13 20 20

Eastern Sorceror - Lightning
clvl 15 37 61 99
Charged Bolt 4 8 12 12
Lightning 3 10 17 28


They can equip shields and swords, but, only use the sword in rare circumstances (such as when they are being mobbed) so it is worthwhile equipping them with a decent weapon. Ideally a sword with +1 to all skills or faster cast would be of most benefit to them. Life leach is less of an issue here, due to the infrequency of melee attacks that these mercs make.
Note: In the case of the Lightning Merc, a weapon with increased attack speed is most useful as lightning cast speed is based on IAS. A 6 socket Crystal Sword with 6 shaels will do the job very nicely here.

Like the Rogue these are ranged combatants and can provide useful back-up for a melee character. Again the cold mercs attacks will help against crowds of monsters but freezing them solid or slowing the monsters down.

As they use a shield they can block and this will help with their defence and also their resists if you socket your shield or simply give them a good unique or rare shield. They are strong enough to wear heavy armour and use large shields, which is useful as their defence increase per level is pitiful.

Their magic attack is also very useful against PI’s in Hell and Nightmare, just so long as the PI is not immune to the Sorcs chosen element or is magic immune as well. This particularly useful for those character classes that do not have a strong attack for dealing with PIs i.e. Werewollf Druids. The added elemental damage from the Mercs attack can assist whatever damage the WW has on his weapons.

Sorcs suffer from the same AI problem as Rogues though, they back off to range, target something and keep firing until its dead, irrespective of whether 20 Flayers have just run onto the screen next to them and are currently turning the merc into a swiss cheese. Again once this process has started it is very difficult to get the merc to move away. The shield will help the merc survive for a bit, but their low hp means that will be killed sooner rather than later, unless the player character has the opportunity to thin out the mob somewhat.
As these mercs only attack very rarely with their melee weapon the amount of damage these Mercs do isn’t very great. This means they can’t fight their way out of a scrape very quickly and on hell diff it takes an age for them to hurt anything. Add in the existence of elemental immunities on Hell diff and this mercs use becomes severely limited. This lack of damage can be compensated for if the Merc is accompanying a Paladin that uses the conviction aura.

However, because the act 3 merc’s damage is mostly unaffected by the equipment they use, there is an ideal niche for them to fill. Magic Finding. Its easy to equip these mercs with up 300% MF and because they tend not to go, toe to toe with monsters, you can shield them with your character while they get the last shot in on a boss monster. For the dedicated Mfer, this can be worthwhile niche to exploit.

In addition the cold merc is often in danger of trapping you or himself when surrounded. Because he’s targeting a monster a distance away, he will fire at it regardless of whats in his way. This can mean that you can find your retreat blocked by frozen, or chilled monsters, or him surrounded by a crowd of frozen enemies from which he cannot retreat. He will use his sword to fight his way out of these situations, but is unlikely to escape when surrounded by monsters. The cold merc is also of least use to a Necro Overlord as the frozen corpses which shatter into nothingness are no use to the Necro for summoning or reviving.

Getting your Act III Merc to Move – A Tip from Pantin

When my mercenary starts getting hit too often for its own good, I start running in a big circle from where I was to where I was with a radius just a bit smaller than half the screen's height. So I always end up exactly where I left off, and with some speed the monsters almost don't move from where they were.

The main GOOD thing is that the mercenary stops firing and actually moves back to follow you. But when you go back and restart fighting it stops where it is, usually half a screen behind you, safely placed.

Act V Mercs: The Barbarians
Hire from: Qual-Kehk
Can equip: Swords (only one at a time)
Level up: +2 Strength, +1.5 Dexterity, +7.5 Defense, +1.5 Resistances, +12 Life

These guys really are tanks. They are stronger than the other mercs and therefore capable of wearing heavy armour and wielding big swords.

Unlike the other mercs, barb mercs can wear class specific items which can greatly increase their strength. Wielding big swords and doing lots of damage coupled with either the barb skill stun, or bash, they are very keen to get into a fight. Fast attack on the swords is of great use to these mercs. The barb gets great strength and life increases as he levels up.

The Barbarians have two skills which they use as and when they feel like.

Bash

This is the more useful of the 2 skills to choose from. Outside of doing more damage and having increased AR the attack knocks the monster away, thus buying the barb and the player character extra breathing room. This is especially useful for when fighting through a doorway.

Stun

The stun is quite useful because it leaves monsters standing around looking stupid for 2 seconds or so, giving free hits and preventing the monsters from swarming the merc and the player character

Conversely monsters with stun attacks are bad news for mercs because stun effect leaves the merc unable to keep the monsters off balance and is liable to get swarmed. Against a pack of Urdar’s in Hell, even a very tough well equipped merc (irrespective of which Act the come from) is likely to be killed in short order.

The disadvantage of the barb merc is their enthusiasm for getting into a fight. Of all the mercs they have the greatest tendency to run off at speed to kill a nearby monster, irrespective of how many there may be. This does help to keep monsters away from the player character (useful if they happen to be a Sorc or Necro) but invariably gets the barb killed. The barb has good defence (not as good as the Desert Warrior) but its not good enough to survive repeat attacks on nightmare or hell diffs. If you can back your merc up though, his Bash attack will keep the monsters at bay and give you room to kill monsters at a more leisurely pace.

Barb mercs don’t work well if your playing style is to stand around and pick through chests, study you gear or think about where you’re going next. Odds are he’s already decided where you’re going and has shot off after the nearest monster. Sticking close to your barb merc does up the tempo of the game somewhat. However, if you give your barb a fast attacking weapon, with big damage and life steal you shouldn’t have to worry about them too much.

The barb merc should also have some elemental/magical damage on their weapon if you wish for them to be of use against PIs.

Character Specific Tips

Ranger Merc Tip from Wassup

The Blessed Aim merc is especially useful to the Shock Ranger should you fail to find a weapon that shoots fire, explosive, or magical arrows (these special arrows have the side effect of always hitting) since you'll be using Holy Shock as your main aura and use Normal Attack to shoot arrows, you'll suffer from serious Attack Rating problems rather quickly. also when facing Lightning Immune/Lightning Enchanted bosses, I found the following tactic useful - turn on Fanatism/Salvation for Lightning Immune/Enchanted bosses respectively and shoot arrows at the boss with him and knockback (thus requiring Knockback equipment) into a wall. with the boss in constant stunlock, you merc can then do the actual damage to the boss (given he's not Physical Immune as well, in which case you should just leg it)

Assassin & Might Merc Tip from bablyon_f

One thing to be aware of using Might Merc with an Assassin is that your Shadow Master companion becomes a bit of a liability.

The Shadow Master seems to spam Mind Blast all the time & converts some monsters, these then pickup the Might aura from your Merc. This is all very nice until they go hostile again and KEEP the Might aura for a while (5 secs-ish).

This is normally more than enough time to completely annihilate your Merc who isnt clever enough to get out of the way & can even be nasty for yourself if your not watching closely!!

The only answer is to keep a close watch & run as soon as conversion ends - this gets very boring very quickly though.

A similar effect can occur with a Paladin, Thorn's merc and a conversion aura. When the conversion wear's off the monsters will still be affected by thorns for a few seconds afterwards. Be very careful with melee attacks at this time. - Thanks to Psychotron for this tip.

Thanks to

Badf00d for the providing lots of technical data on the mercs for the faq and increasing my understanding of how mercs use their skills.

Wassup for the info he provided on Ranger mercs, Werewolf Mercs, Merc Leveliing, Merc healing shortcuts and Ironman barbs.

babylon/F for the assassin tip.

Mikrobe for the advice on the usefulness of Stun Barb mercs.

Mavis Cruet for previewing the first draft and letting me know what was missing (content, any meaningful useful info etc etc etc)

Jude for her encouragement in writing this faq, the merc bonuses per level data and for sharing info from her own excellent merc faq.

Drandimere for his info on Holy Freeze mercs and using mercs to fight LE uniques.

Greybeard for his support and enthusiatic comments on the faq.

Cogline, Pantin for act 3 merc info.

Muddy for proof reading and Tazoz for his list minute additions.

Demonmyst for investigating the difference between merc stats from normal, nightmare and hell diff in game.

Owisu and Ruvunal for knowing things about the lightning hose skill bug and generally being decidedly more knowledgeable than moi.

Etdlahq for tirelessly hunting down any and all information he could find on the Rogue + to skills and the Lightning Hose bug.

Necromancer Lord & Maxbeedo for curse and resistance info.

And last, but by no means least:

Lone Wolf for his continued support and bumping of this faq. Which has acted as a constant reminder of my need to update it. I hope this updated faq brings him many hours of bumping pleasure.

The SP forum members for being so full of questions and answers about mercs over the last 9 months, that I have been able to pull this faq together