Additional information on hirelings can be found at the Hirelings section of the Arreat Summit and Mercenary Leveling: How It Works (sort of). For more information on listed equipment for hirelings, please refer to the Weapons & Armor section of the Arreat Summit. For even more information on hireling stats, life, resists, attack and defense ratings, and skill levels, I would strongly recommend downloading Zath's Complete v1.10 Hireling Stats, available here as a zip file. To open the file, you'll need WinRAR; to use the file, you'll need an MS Excel reader.
Hirelings are arguably the biggest change to LOD; they're a new and improved minion that either improve your bowazon's strong points or act as an extension of your character, making up for her inherent weaknesses. For technical information and general questions, please check the links above; this is mostly about the hirelings that work best with the bowazon and what equipment would be best for them overall.
Because your bowazon is somewhat self-sufficient, she works well with any hireling, but generally, she works best with a melee fighter with a heavy-hitting weapon, which rules out the rogue and Iron Wolf from Acts 1 and 3, respectively. It's not that the ranged hirelings are bad, it's just that anything they can do, your bowazon can do better (unless you're that strapped for elemental damage). Remember, the bowazon is already offense-heavy, it's her defense that needs the most work. With a melee hireling, you now have a valkyrie, a customizable tank, and a decoy. Any monster that wants to get to you, has to go through those first; considering how strong your valk and merc can get, that's quite a bit to chew through.
If you can, hire your mercanaries from Normal difficulty only: the higher the difficulty level, the harsher the life, attribute, and skill penalties a merc is going to receive. A lvl-55 barbarian hireling hired in Normal is going to be more effective than a lvl-55 barbarian hired in Nightmare and much more effective than a lvl-55 barbarian hired in Hell. The exception to this rule is the Act 2 town guard: town guards hired in Nightmare use different auras (Might, Holy Freeze, Thorns), but given how good these auras are, the penalties they're going to take are a fair trade.
For the standard physical damage bowazon, the most popular choice is the A2NM offensive town guard with the Might aura — there's really no good reason to not pick this guy. Their Might aura can go up to slvls-1-20 for a damage increase of 40~230%; because the bowazon doesn't have a lot of sources of enhanced damage, this guy will probably be your first choice, and it's a good one — but here's a couple other options.
For an early jump in the game, try out the A2 offensive town guard with Blessed Aim, a wonderful choice for magezons. Because he's been hired in Normal, his stats and skill levels will be higher than a merc hired in the other difficulty levels. Whether his aura is on or off, his attack rating (which isn't listed) will be better than most other mercs (which is good if he's using a weapon with CTC effects), and when it's on, your attack rating will be much higher than normal. If you're trying to skimp on points, this is invaluable because Blessed Aim is just as good as Penetrate: while a bowazon usually has incredibly high dexterity and AR by herself, only her elemental arrows have built-in AR bonuses, and any bowazon who's going to invest heavily in more than one elemental arrow won't have enough skill points for a high-level Penetrate. Because the Blessed Aim merc is an uncommon choice, he'll be good for the rest of the party as well.
If you're that dedicated to making a secondary valkyrie, consider the A2 defensive town guard with the Defiance aura. Generally, defense won't save a merc, but with the introduction of Stone rune word armor with its capacity for 2,000-3,500+ DR and the Reaper's Toll thresher with its 33% CTC Decripify, this hireling might just be able to break that rule of thumb. The Defiance aura won't help your bowazon at all, but it'll be good for your hireling, valkyrie, and the rest of the party. Just remember that the runes for Stone and ethereal elite armor in the 850-950+ DR range aren't going to be easy to find.
A barbarian hireling will be nowhere near as effective as your valkyrie at tanking, but for those who can make him work, he's a good choice: they have the most hit points and due to their 70% poison resist bonus, have the best poison resistance of any hireling. They don't have auras, but they make up for this by being the most aggressive minion in the game, with the fastest running speed, attack speed, hit recovery speed, and regeneration of any minion — while it takes other hirelings around 42 seconds to regenerate all their life, barbarians can do it in around 17 seconds. They're not fancy, but they work: a barbarian with enough life leech can cut through just about anything vulnerable to physical damage.
For all hirelings, I strongly suggest obtaining ethereal equipment — it doesn't lose durability when used on a merc — and anything with bonuses to life. With the exception of the A3 Iron Wolves, life leech is a must-have. End-game equipment qualifies as any gear that your merc will be using by clvl-70 (the merc, not your bowazon); these are simply suggestions.
It should be noted that two sets can be completed on a merc: Isenhart's Armory can be completed by Iron Wolves (which won't do them any good) and barbarians can wear Sazabi's Grand Tribute. (which will do them some good)
In most cases, you'll be making do with anything, but as your resources grow and the game becomes more difficult, you'll want more suitable equipment for your hireling, preferably something that can help keep him alive: the following are quite possibly the best ready-made end-game armor choices for most hirelings. The rule of thumb for merc armor isn't to look for enhanced defense, but extra life, +skills, +strength/dexterity, faster hit recovery, faster cast rate, +damage, and resistances with low strength requirements: hirelings often get themselves into situations where defense rating won't save them, so it's best to focus on increasing their life, damage, skills, and ability to regain life.
Suggested sockets are usually a perfect ruby or a prismatic jewel. Rune word armor ranges from the sensible, moderate stuff like Lionheart to the specialist, high priced stuff like Chains of Honor.
Choices for helm generally mean anything with resistances, life bonuses, or life leech; this includes Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest, Vampire Gaze, and the Crown of Thieves (with Arreat's Face reserved for barbarians). The exception here are the A3 Iron Wolves, who would do best using a circlet with 20% faster cast rate. My personal suggestion for a town guard would be Duriel's Shell and Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest, both socketed with perfect rubies: this combo gives a ton of life, excellent resistances, and a good amount of life leech when completed.
Like armor, any weapon with damage and leech will do, but there are optimal end-game weapon choices. The favored weapon for the A1 rogue is an Amn'd Cliffkiller Large Siege Bow, as well as some of the rune words listed above. The town guards from A2 can use spears and polearms; polearms hit harder, but spears attack faster: suggested end-game weapons include the unique Kelpie Snare fuscina, Hone Sundan yari, Blackleach Blade bill (for bowazons who don't have items that cast curses), Husoldal Evo bec-de-corbin, or any of the listed rune words.
An A3 Iron Wolf would do well with a Shael'd Culwen's Point war sword with its +skills. Suggested weapons for A5 barbarians include almost every unique, cruel swords, or any of the listed rune words (It would've been nice of Blizzard to allow barbarian mercs to use axes, really.)
Interesting factoid: According to a few folks, it's better if your barbarian merc uses a one-handed weapon because the merc applies his full damage bonus to one-handed weapons, but not two-handed swords.
Some, but not all, suggested (and affordable) rune word weapons for hirelings include:
Interesting factoid: If a deadly strike is scored by a mercenary, it doubles all damage types, not just physical damage. Thus, a barbarian using a high damage sword with heavy elemental damage and deadly strike can be quite the damage dealer.
Why no rune word armor or helms, you may wonder. Well, when stacked against the life and resistance benefits given by Duriel's Shell, none of them can really compete on a cost-versus-benefit scale. As for helms, not only are there very few word for helms, but none of them can compete against Tal's Mask when it comes to life, resistances, or leech. I mean, if you have no problems putting Bramble, Chains of Honor, Delirium, or Enigma on your merc, then go right ahead.
last updated: Thursday, August 26, 2004
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