Bow aura combos?

Looking for opinions or experience as to what would be the preferable combo between using wf + act1 faith merc, or using faith myself with an act2 might merc? I've been reading alot planning a bowie and noticed both setups come up...|||Indeed they do, both setups are fully viable and as such we cannot tell you what is best without knowing more about how you plan to use her, and even then it mostly boils down to player preference in the end.



I'd suggest looking into the bowzon showoff thread for examples and searching the forum for threads like your own.|||For what its worth. My preference has been player with with windforce or <runeword of choice> with a might merc with <runeword of choice>. I have played with the rogue merc with faith to the mid 80s and it did not work well for me.

I would constantly run out of range of the rogue mercs aura as she was running to catch up with me. The rogue would constantly reposition, run from aggro constantly. I could walk thru the worldstone fairly well with either set up. But it always seemed I was playing without the aura. What finally made give up on the rogue merc set up was boss fights.

It seemed and still seems that Diablo and Baal prefer the merc to the valk(I prefer to invest in the valk/decoy). The rogue was not durable enough to finish the fight.|||I swore by WF+Faith last season, because of IM in the CS, but this season I'm liking the Might merc a lot more. Not only is it better before you have full gear, since Might helps out any bowzon setup (A1 is pretty useless until you have a Faith for her, except for Vigor aura from Harmony), but it provides a second tank for you alongside your Valk.

I've found that often, one will be taking up the aggro from one angle and the other will cover another angle, providing extra safety for you. Plus, Obedience is a much more awesome runeword leading up to Pride than Harmony is leading up to Faith.

The one thing that can be said for A1 mercs, though, is that they do provide you with a nice elemental damage source for PIs if you're MS/Strafe, though not really enough to give up the Atma's altogether so its less important |||Im using windforce(8 frame setup with treachery) + might merc on ladder because im as poor as a whistle lol. And it gets the job done|||I enjoyed using faith and a might merc with pride.|||Quote:








I enjoyed using faith and a might merc with pride.




how was your merc's damage? did it kill things at all? was it able to leech consistently enough? what kind of gear did it have?

tell us details!|||My first attempt was a wf strafer, with a might merc, which proved to be a little weak.

windforce + 30%ed jewel

tal mask

20dex 220AR favenfrost

6ll 100+ AR ring +...

nosferatu

cats eye amu

trachery - lionheart -- (was hoping to make a fortitude here but I am still looking for a Lo or any other hr...)

nat boots or war travls

20 strafe - some penetrate - 10 piece- 2/3 critical - 20 FA- a little cold arrow, some points in valkyrie, reaching lvl 82-83

Merc:

duriel shell

andy visage + ral

insight cv.

the above setup did not have good killing power and neither good crowd control. Maybe it would if I had a fortitude like in the last ladder, but anyway... I noticed how FA served me against tal tombs in a2, and ancient tunnel runs. so, having full mavina set (collected before getting the wf) i decided to respec and now wearing:

full mavina

atma scarab (for dual immunes)

20dex 220AR favenfrost

6ll 100+ AR ring +...

war travellers

20 strafe(mistake?) 20FA, 20cold arrow, 18-20valk, 1 decoy, 1 penetrate (demon limb in stash), some in pierce.

result: easy runs in chaos sanct, wsk, river of flame and cows. The FA (apart from the oblivions) owns them all! It does need a LOT of mana, but my merc helps with the insight. The merc deals a lot of dmg (might aura), leeches due to the andy and has resists and cbf from duriel.

To cut a long story short:

A might merc has served me really well, in both situations:

a) wf + lionnheart/treachery 20 strafe (whatever other skills)

b) full mavina 20 strafe - 20FA+CA (mainly cold attacking)

Setup a needs probably a fortitude in hell (last ladder that setup was successful) and u dont need the insight, so you can give the merc an obedience for even higher dmg/leeching (btw he does tank well now too).|||Quote:








how was your merc's damage? did it kill things at all? was it able to leech consistently enough? what kind of gear did it have?

tell us details!




I'll put a screen shot of the vitals, damage etc in the Show thread for my current merc.|||Thanks for the input, exactly the type of experience observations I was looking for. I read alot about rogue merc falling behind, but I didn't consider the aggro issue. Seems act2 merc would be easier to deal with in the end, since he can take more abuse and it's not as crippling to lose might than fanat when idiot gets out of range.

Now here's another question for debate, which I hope doesn't trigger a war; I have both a 2skill 4os GMB and a 3skill 4os MB, and after days of comparison I'm still completely torn as to which way to go...I'm considering making Faith in the mat bow so I have more gear options instead of being totally cookie cutter, because honestly I don't know if I want to be locked into hitting 95 or 100 ias.

My options are basically GM @7frames standard setup, GM @8fpa with atma's, or Mat @7fpa with atma's. I'm just wondering if the damage difference would be significant between maxed GM and Mat at max speed if Mat had amp and GM didn't.