Diablo II Resurrected: A Comprehensive Guide to the Second Act Mercenary Aura

Jan-08-2024

 

 

Although Diablo II Resurrected has undergone some changes compared to the original, many gameplay strategies and combinations can still be applied from the old version. Choosing the right second act mercenary for each stage can greatly enhance your character's performance. It is recommended that players choose a second act mercenary with specific auras in the early to mid-game stages. Close-combat physical mercs can serve as meat shields and attackers, while auras can provide additional support abilities.

 

Based on the old version, this guide will introduce the types of second act mercs and their auras. Second act mercs can be hired in Normal, Nightmare, and Hell difficulties. The same type of mercs have the same auras in Normal and Hell difficulties, but the aura level of Normal mercs is higher than that of Hell difficulty at the same level. Therefore, players only need to consider Normal and Nightmare difficulties when choosing second act mercs.

 

There are six different auras for second act mercs in Normal and Nightmare difficulties:

 

1. Normal Difficulty (Attack Type): "Blessed Aim" Aura

This aura increases the chance of hitting enemies with physical attacks. It is suitable for early to mid-game stages where physical hit accuracy is crucial, such as low-cost dual-wield paladins without regrets, archery Amazons, claw assassins, and most physical damage-focused barbarian builds.

 

2. Normal Difficulty (Defense Type): "Resistance" Aura

This aura increases physical defense. It is suitable for builds with low base (including equipment bonus) defense, such as trap assassins and some spellcasting builds. In addition, if the main purpose of the character is to deal physical damage, such as in the Cow Level, it can also be chosen. However, there are not many late-game builds that choose this aura.

 

3. Normal Difficulty (Combat Type): "Prana" Aura

The effect of this aura is to restore health. In the early game, you can make a low-cost rune word "Eye of Want" for your mercenary, which provides blood recovery and mana recovery effects. The "Prana" aura and the "Meditation" aura are synchronized skills (the blood recovery effect of the "Meditation" aura is determined by the "Prana" aura), so there will be twice the blood recovery effect of the "Prana" aura. This is essential for lazy players in the early to mid-game stages.

 

4. Nightmare Difficulty (Attack Type): "Force" Aura

This aura increases physical attack power. It is suitable for most late-game builds that rely on physical damage, such as dual-wield paladins, archery Amazons, martial arts assassins, most physical damage-focused barbarian builds, pure summoning necromancers (the physical damage output of the minions), etc.

 

5. Nightmare Difficulty (Defense Type): "Holy Freeze" Aura

This aura slows down nearby enemies and causes minor cold damage. Its main function is to improve the character's survivability. Most early-game builds that need crowd control can choose it (including players with poor operation skills). The slowdown effect of the aura may affect the efficiency of group clearing in the late game. In addition, some builds that require corpses, such as necromancers who use "Explosive Skeleton", trap assassins (Grave Guard), and gold farming characters (Limping Devil in Act 3), are not recommended to choose this aura.

 

6. Nightmare Difficulty (Combat Type): "Thorns" Aura

This aura reflects close-combat physical attacks back at the attacker. This type of merc is the least used, and it has some utility in Normal difficulty. In the late game, the damage reflected by the thorns is not significant enough to be painful.