D2R 2.4 Ladder ACT 5 Merc Builds - Best Runewords & Gears For Act 5 Mercenary in Diablo 2 Resurrected

In Diablo 2 Resurrected, your well-equipped mercenaries must be your loyal and reliable teammates, who can help you share damage and even fight enemies in battle, especially in ACT 5. So in this D2R guide, we break down the multiple ACT 5 Mercenary build iterations, covering the best gear and weapons for ACT 5 frenzy mercenary from the budget end of the spectrum to uber trust from support and poison crowd control support.

Diablo 2 Resurrected 2.4 Best Act 5 Merc Builds (Best Runewords & Gear For Act 5 Mercenary)

With D2R 2.4 patch, some changes to the ACT 5 mercenary have been made. The frenzy variant is the most desirable but across the board, the bash mercenary as well as the frenzy merc, got increased damage values life and defense. In addition to the bash mercenary skills, they added Battle Cry, this reduces monsters' damage and their defense so it makes it easier to hit. Then for the frenzy mercenary variants, they added taunt. So we think the frenzy variant is definitely by far the best because being able to dual wield opens up a lot of additional options so using some pretty powerful crazy rumored like the newly introduced flag that has been reworked or last wish. The combination of like the cleansing aura, low res, proc on striking for poison support builds or the mite aura and life taff or uber support builds or pure melee damage setups, it far outweighs, using like a really big hard-hitting dual-handed weapon on a bash mercenary.

Top 1 - Budget Sazabi ACT 5 Mercenary

• Weapon: Lawbringer Phase Blade

• Armor Set: Sazabi's Set

This is the new strongest budget mercenary in patch 2.4, it surpasses Treachery Tal Rasha's Mask and Insight. If you can get away without the mana support so blizzard sorceress potting occasionally ancient tunnels or maybe a fist evans paladin with sanctuary, it's a very powerful mercenary that will almost never die again. No CTA buff, this is a level 80 mercenary very budget gear, but it all centers around the full Sazabi set. With Lawbringer on the off-hand, gives a Sanctuary aura for crowd control against the undead which again works great in like the ancient tunnels, sanctuary. The Sazabi's Set gets one to skills, 40% faster run walk which pairs with the frenzy burst of speed, 15% life stolen per hit, 27% maximum life, 30+ all res which is constant so the res will always be capped you're not relying on a fade proc from treachery, 16% damage reduction and 25% poison length reduced.

Top 2 - Poison Support ACT 5 Mercenary Build

Weapon & Runeword: Plague Mythical Sword

Plague

                             

                           20% Chance to cast level 12 Lower Resist when struck
               25% Chance to cast level 15 Poison Nova on striking
               Level 13-17 Cleansing Aura When Equipped (varies)
               +1-2 All Skills
               +20% Increased Attack Speed
               +220-320% Enhanced Damage (varies)
               -23% To Enemy Poison Resistance
               0.3% (0-29.7) Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
               +25% Chance of Open Wounds
               Freezes Target +3                        

Helmet: Vampire Gaze

Armor: Shaftstop Mesh Armor 

The idea is we're trying to rock skill low resistance when struck off of the runeword Rumours as frequently as possible to support either rabies or poison jabs, it will work equally as well for rabies druid. Dual Plague for that 20% chance to cast level 12 low to resist when struck, the whole idea here is to telesnob, have the mercenary be hit as many times as possible rock that low res which will boost the poison damage. Keep the defense as low as possible because these mercenaries have iron skin, so the higher the defense, the less likely monster is to land a hit, so it's kind of counterproductive to throw like a Fortitude another really high defense gear because they actually want him to get hit as frequently as possible.

Top 3 - Stat Stick ACT 5 Mercenary

Weapon: Plague Mythical Sword & Azurewrath Phase Blade

Helmet: Arreat's Face

Armor: Fortitude Loricated Mail

The stat stick mercenary is essentially a hybrid of using the Sazabi mercenary and the poison support merc. So this mercenary is just combining Plague with Azurewrath. Use Arreat's Face for life leech and decent damage, pair with Plague and Azurewrath to Get the Sanctuary for crowd control in the Chaos Sanctuary cleansing or support, so we're never cursed or poisoned. This Mercenary has 1833-2200 and then 1670-2267 damage, with fortitude and iron skin he gain tons of defense. It is very powerful setup although it's maybe somewhat limited in its use. It probably benefits characters like the paladin, blizzard sorceress and other characters, you might not use this frequently but it's definitely a great choice for a photon.

Top 4 - High DPS ACT 5 Mercency

Weapon & Runeword: Grief Phase Blade & Last Wish Phase Blade

Armor: Fortitude Armor

Spirit

Body Armor
20% Chance To Cast Level 15 Chilling Armor when Struck
+25% Faster Cast Rate
+300% Enhanced Damage
+200% Enhanced Defense
Sale[+210-214% Enhanced Defense]
+15 Defense
+X To Life (Based on Character Level)*
Sale[+1.25-1.375 to Life](Based on Charater Level)
Replenish Life +7
+5% To Maximum Lightning Resist
All Resistances +25-30 (varies)
Damage Reduced By 7
12% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+1 To Light Radius

Helmet: Guillaume's Face

Guillaume's Face

Defense: 217 (Base Defense: 85-98)
Required Level: 34
Required Strength: 115
Durability: 40
+120% Enhanced Defense
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
15% Deadly Strike
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
+15 To Strength

This is the pure physical DPS Act 5 frenzy merc, there are definitely some pros and cons to this setup compared to a traditional Act 2 reaper's toll mercenary. So the pros are good damage and great survivability, the cons are you lose out on the consistent decrep rock that you get from the reaper's troll mercenary. The reason this mercenary doesn't have source of life leach is that we get lifetap from Last Wish, this combination he has actually 100 crushing blow with every hit from Last Wish and deadly strike from Guillaume's Face, he's can't be slowed down and never frozen, tons of faster runway and damage from a setup with frenzy. S he actually does 4 000 to 4108 damage that's the grief hand and then 1824 to 2009 with the Last Wish. Guillaume's Face offers Tons of crushing blow deadly strike and can't be frozen, and repairing that with Last Wish and Grief.

Top 5 - Fire Sorceress Support ACT 5 Merc

Weapon: Headstriker with Ohm Rune & Grief Phase Blade

Grief

35% Chance To Cast Level 15 Venom On Striking
+30-40% Increased Attack Speed (varies)
Damage +340-400 (varies)
Ignore Target's Defense
-25% Target Defense
+(1.875 per character level) 1.875-185.625% Damage To Demons (Based on Character Level)
Adds 5-30 Fire Damage
-20-25% To Enemy Poison Resistance (varies)
20% Deadly Strike
Prevent Monster Heal
+2 To Mana After Each Kill
+10-15 Life After Each Kill (varies)

Helmet: Arreat's Face with Cham Rune

Armor: Fortitude Balrog Skin

Essentially we're trying to find a different way to support a fire sorcerer's character without using the rubric infinity, we're taking a hard-hitting physical damage mercenary and then pumping him up with a high-level enchant to add additional damage to support fire damage-dealing character.

Top 6 - Uber Support ACT 5 Merc

Weapon: Last Wish Phase Blade & Azurewrath Phase Blade

Last Wish

6% Chance To Cast Level 11 Fade When Struck
10% Chance To Cast Level 18 Life Tap On Striking
20% Chance To Cast Level 20 Charged Bolt On Attack
Level 17 Might Aura When Equipped
+330-375% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Ignore Target's Defense
60-70% Chance of Crushing Blow (varies)
Prevent Monster Heal
Hit Blinds Target
+(0.5 per character level) 0.5-49.5% Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based on Character Level)

Helmet: Arreat's Face with Cham Rune

Armor: Fortitue Balrog Skin

It's very cool that you can rock a mercenary that can survive uber trust room and mini uber, with this merc build, you can't face tank Lilith just have him do everything and nothing you do have to support him, but he did multiple times survive loath which is very cool. So you can now rock an expensive mercenary to always for the most part stay alive during uber runs. Using Azurewrath for the Sanctuary aura to knock back the undead against Mephisto, and Last Wish obviously for lifetap support and crushing blow.