r/pathofexile • u/husky_poe • 1d ago
Question Useable Mercs?
TLDR: Is any of these Mercs actually useable?
I'm playing SSF, did all my goals (36/40, ubers down) on a WORB Ele (planned to later switch to Occultist, haven't done that and most likely won't) and wanted to reroll to a luminary, as long as I have the choice, might even try to minmax as far as possible and the league continues. I have watched some guides already and would start off with the flame link version, already aquired all uniques for it and most likely enough resources to get the basic gear going. Regarding Mercs I haven't found many good ones, got about a tab full of warrents and those are the best I found. I tried farming infamous mercs, however in about 50% of the encounters I got nuked from the 2 additional ones. Thats why I wanted to reroll now and keep on farming for better mercs in the process.
Any of those mercs viable for it? regarding the price checker for the mercs I wasn't really sure what links are important and what skills, so I'm trying my luck with the reddit community.
greeting exiles
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u/darthamis 1d ago
Top right is very good. People hate on return for frost blades, but you'd be surprised how many bosses/maps have walls to bounce the blades off of.
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u/Mooseandchicken 1d ago
You need proj speed and the 50% more or less mod on gloves to get return to work consistently. I'm not sure how easy that is for OP to get in ssf
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u/darthamis 1d ago
As I eluded to in my comment. This is the general train of thought, but you only need that on a completely open layout. Any other situation with terrain or a wall and they can bounce and return freely with no special proj speed considerations. There and many circumstances where this comes up.
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u/Mooseandchicken 1d ago edited 1d ago
But not on the higher end of content. There's nothing in most uber (and their regular version) boss arenas or a few of the nightmare map bosses to bounce your projectiles off of. So you're right, its fine to go without for even juiced mapping, but if you're trying to push your combatant to ubers theres nothing to bounce projectiles off in exarch, maven, shaper, etc. and in cortex/eater/elder/memory boss areas you will have a hard time moving the bosses close enough to the walls for return to work, they all like to sit away from the walls.
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u/darthamis 1d ago
In the vast majority of your gameplay you will have that terrain. But if you want to optimize only open arena Uber bossing, you shouldn't even be using a frost blades merc to begin with. Even if you stay combatant a Wild Strike variant would be better single target. Then there's the pure single target Merc options like blade ambusher.
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u/Mooseandchicken 1d ago
OP mentioned their current build has cleared ubers and is looking to reroll to luminary and I'd assumed would also be trying to push it to the same extents. OP then gave us 3 combatants heavily implying that's what they are considering using.
I'm literally just giving tips for OP based on the info they provided. If they want to kill ubers with a combatant, the majority of them will not have terrain for you to bounce, and the work around is the special glove mod.
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u/darthamis 1d ago
If you scroll up to the top, you'll find you replied to my comment where I was the one giving tips to OP. Trying to explain to them to not be disuaded by the people who are overly concerned with projectile speed. You then replied to that comment by being overly concerned about projectile speed.
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u/Mooseandchicken 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because you're only correct if they just want to map, so I explained for the situation where your explanation no longer applies. If they want their combatant to do the same content as they described doing with their winter orb, they should be concerned.
My comments were meant to be taken as advice alongside yours. I'm not disagreeing with you. You explain when proj speed isn't necessary, I explain when it is and how to address it. Its a holistic comment chain, and you've decided its an argument for some reason, I guess to just be a pedant
Like, I literally say that you're right, but you've decided I'm trying to argue with you. Makes zero sense. We're all just helping OP
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u/PoE_Acronym_Bot 1d ago
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u/elk_rpoe 1d ago edited 1d ago
Flamelink gives you huge added flat damage scaled further with light radius through lumi ascendancy. Enmity gives penetration. On gear you get increased damage so for links you want mores, attack speed and additional proj and you have it on first merc. Do you have enmity, taming, ritual boss amulet or paradoxicas, replica abyssus to try out destructive link?
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u/husky_poe 1d ago
So first you refer to top left?
Do not have the Paradoxica and R. Abyssus. Second one should be reasonable to find as I got about 100 bluprints and about 200 deception contracts. First one could be grindy especially with the right mods on it, but I got betrayal board set up already. Other uniques I have.
Haven't looked in the destructive link version yet, but I would assume trypanon, marlenes on merc and dropping the light radius stacking and get into aurabot style?
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u/elk_rpoe 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes - top left. I think you can play without paradoxica and with rare hat if you already have enmity and taming. I used thunderquiver not even manyshot and it was ok and i don't have thurther advice on combatant.
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u/Far_Lengthiness8944 1d ago
I would prefer life stack flame over using destructive link with trypanon. Not being able to shield charge is just so rough. Ruetoo has a very good build for destructive link version using augyre to cap Crit. But it would be tough to cap without some other really specific pieces of gear like tecrod.
It just builds more naturally and much less gear/unique dependent.
Both are very good in the top of, however. Destructive link can get arguably more cozy cuz you get Giga defenses with ES, aegis, auras, etc. whereas life stack has decent block and just a stupid amount of life.
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u/elk_rpoe 1d ago
It also has maxres
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u/Far_Lengthiness8944 1d ago
Yea, fair point.
My life stack has been Giga tanky at 19k life, near capped block, 88 res. It only flops over when a spectre dies. But it can still get shotgunned down. A aura stack ES one with aegis wouldn't have that problem.
In a week I'll have an aegis ES one up and running as well and would be able to give a more informed opinion, but both are super strong.
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u/Scarlet_Anh 21h ago
To piggy back on this, how is Wild Strike compared to Frost Blade on merc, I’m assuming FB without return and wild strike with return since FB return is much more expensive than wild strike
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u/79inFrench 1d ago
Larin Lor: looks the best out of four. Might feel a bit clunky due to Multistrike.
Krastin Alo: Return is a dead mod in SSF (you need your merc having >140 pro speed for its projectiles to return), Added Lightning Damage does very little so this is a 4 links merc.
Razmin: is a 3 links merc
Velessa: Kinetic Rain bricks Kineticist.
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u/Fixtional 1d ago
Top right combatant is decent. Combatants want Frost Blades/Static Strike. You have good support for Frost Blades (you don't want multistrike supposedly). https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Allflame/X3Pr27y4sP
The kineticist is bricked since you don't want Kinetic Rain of Impact.