Mercs and gear

[kokal]

I have a few question about mercs. Since I dont want (yet) to change to every difficulty and mercs possible can someone give some feedback on what's changed about mercs (if any) and some cheap and obtainable gear solutions. I think i saw my amazon merc shoot with straf and cold arrow but I could be mistaken - I will check it out in a few minutes.

[Lampogriz]

From 2.1 patchnotes:

• Mercenaries have been drastically buffed. The following stats have been increased: HP, HP Per Level, AR, AR Per Level, Damage Per Level, Defense, Defense Per Level, Skill Levels, and chance to use Skills.

• Mercenaries have had their stats reworked as well. For example, Act 1 Mercenaries have the highest scaling damage, Act 5 Mercenaries have much higher HP than others to make it a Tank class.

• Mercenaries now have new skills. Act 1 Mercenaries use Exploding / Freezing Arrow, along with Strafe. Act 3 Mercenaries use their same skills along with others such as Blizzard, Static Field / Thunder Storm, Meteor and Hydra. Act 5 Mercenaries now use Taunt / Shout as well as their original Stun / Bash. Act 2 Mercenaries were already by far the most used, so while they received the stat changes their skills are the same.

[kokal]

Wow 10x for the reply. I will now switch to Act 5 merc when I find him a sword