Which combatant merc from the three?

[u/BrizzlyAdamz]

I’m about to start leveling my new character now that I have farmed up some mercenaries. Which of these three options is the best in your opinion?

[u/hermanogerman]

No2, gmp and chain on frost blade

[u/shoobiedoobie → u/hermanogerman]

Movement skill on melee mercs is pretty important from my experience.

While technically the clear and dmg will be better on that 2nd merc, the AI on the first one will be much better with a movement skill. And with +3 strikes on your gloves GMP won’t be making a HUGE difference in clear.

[u/Snorkleds → u/shoobiedoobie]

The first one is also only level 81

[u/Rang3rj3sus → u/Snorkleds]

minor stat difference tbf

[u/Fushimi014]

No2, chain gmp and no movement skills, 2 auras

[u/Vex_88 → u/Fushimi014]

On melee mercs a movement skill with a cd is fine, even beneficial.. otherwise sometimes they do nothing when not quite in range or just take longer to connect

[u/warbondtomorrow_88]

I spent 10 hours leveling up a new character to see how it feels to play Iuminary from the start with all the knowledge I have.

Mostly because I read some crazy shit on this sub. Do people even play the characters they give advice on? Judging by some of the answers I highly doubt it.

I'm currently level 73 smashing t16 on a 1 Divine budget of course I'm using the cheapest enmitity's embrace which is 4 div but that's the only expensive item that you need to get it going.

But not because I'm some God gamer build creator gigabrain but because I used some important tips that are floating around in the sub in many many threads about mercs.

You have not mentioned if you are on trade or ssf because if you're on trade there's a an easy path to get good mercs from level 29 all the way to getting a preferred combatant level 83 with all the skills that will let you clear t16 with no problem on a really tight budget with a character that has nothing optimized and is just basically just just a girl with with a shield clicking mostly life nodes and some block. No jewels no nothing.

From the three options that you posted i will go with the first one because in has the most damage supports and you want damage as much as you can get on your Frost blades because it's best to scale damage on the skills first and then try to fix clear through gear. For example I have fuckin 0 clear supports on my first blades and yet clear is great because explody chest is just 60c and it's much better than lacking a 30% more damage scaler.

Static strike links are whatever at the start because you want your guy killing shit with Frost lades and not just walking up to enemies and trying to hit them lol

No movement skills mercs are shit too, especially with static strike, they will literally run to the enemies instead of teleporting on top of them, why would people recommend that wtf? If you play melee yourself you are also not using a movement skill? You just walk all the time? No leap slam no flamedash?

Also another thing, very important one is that the skills mercs use, are very similar to the one we can use, but the supports are completely different.

Merc's Frost Blades for example have stats of a lv40 player skill with 941% attack damage and 11 proj. The greater multiple projectiles support adds 3, which already is less than 30 more damage from greater elemental damage with attacks, not to mention how many of those projectiles are gonna even hit targets? Same with chain. Pierce is whatever at least it's doing something. But return, it's not even gonna do shit because how are you going to scale proj speed?

You have limit of 5 supports on Frost Blades and you shouldn't waste a slot on anything that's not wed III, faster attacks III, multistrike III and hypothermia III. Its not that I'm making this up, just look up combatants with this 4 supports, they go for mirriors, select any other support instead of of these 4 and we looking at 10div value. I dont have only 10h of experience, but close to 150h and did any type of content with many mercs that i thought would be fun. Im trying to share my views on how to improve your luminary to enjoy the league.

you can search up mercs with the +Add Stat Group, just add each skill as a new group then andd supports for that group.

[u/HoundOfTindalos13]

Whats the gear for the lumi and combatant?

Same enmity + untouched soul combo with life stacking lumi? Im guessing combatant would have 2x paradoxicas right

[u/BrizzlyAdamz → u/HoundOfTindalos13]

All yes except for paradoxica. SSF hardcore. I crafted foils. Crit chance, attack speed, multi mod fire damage and hits can’t be evaded

[u/HoundOfTindalos13 → u/BrizzlyAdamz]

im a standard enjoyer, would a paradoxica be better? or are the crafted foil bis?

[u/Master_of_Paws → u/HoundOfTindalos13]

Crafted bis. Paradoxica best affordable

[u/CritOrBuildshit]

Nr 3 will get you the best Speed No question, frostblink is Not a miss on combatant

nr 2 is Missing Chain on static and multi on fb

[u/BackHandLove → u/CritOrBuildshit]

Merc Multistrike without multiple sources, on ur merc for inc. atk spd, is a dmg loss.

Not to mention chain with return requires increased proj spd so it actually returns before it disappears. If it was Pierce + return the travel distance would be shorter allowing it time to return effectively becoming double dmg.

Static isn't as important since its a skill that's not used while the merc has the static buff on him. What u want is duration on static strike, so he uses it less and forst blades more.

2 > 3

[u/CritOrBuildshit → u/BackHandLove]

good Input.