Act1 Faith merc any good?

I am thinking of making a fishymancer for Chaos Sanctuary runs. In order to get rid of the IM hassle, I thought that an Act1 merc was appropriate. Faith is also a nice RW with lvl 12-15 Fanaticism that will benefit my skellies. Rest of equipment will be pretty high-end:

Necro: Enigma, Maras, SoJ, 1xx mana / 2x energy ring, Anni, Torch, Shako, Arach, Magefist, Spirit Shield, HotO, Hotspurs (AoKL and Boneflame on switch). Also 5 summon skillers.

Merc: Faith (Hydra Bow or Great Bow), eth Hellforge Plate Fortitude, Andariels 'Ral'

Question is: will this character be able to do Chaos Runs comfortably on 6-8 player games, or plain old Beast on necro and Act2 offensive merc with pride is the only way to kill fast on 8 player games?|||I think you should be doing great since you have all (but i'd personnaly use trang gloves).

I think you're question is not about if he'll be confortable at doing this kind of run, but more at what level that would be...

My advice : as soon as you can wear enigma.|||Thank you. In any case, I will level him to wear Enigma first, in order to save str points for the equipment of the Spirit Monarch

I will try him in Single Player '/players 8' first I think. What worries me is that CE does not scale with more players and I will have to rely more on skellies+merc to kill monsters.|||I wanted to like Act 1 mercs more, but getting that first kill for the CE chain can be tough with them. They're coded to hang back anyway, and sometimes you can be doing a ton of fighting while they just sit back at their leisure. That can happen with an Act 2 merc 2, but they're much easier to get involved. And if they drag behind slowly and get jumped by some wandering monster, they're more capable of duking it out hand to hand, too.

If you get an Act 1 merc, hopefully she will stay close enough to keep all your skellies with an aura. That's easier with an Act 2, as they're standing right up with them fighting.|||Did some testing, Act1 Faith merc is slow. Unfortunately, Act2 might merc with Pride and a Beast on necro is the way to go (and raise skellies with AoKL and Boneflame on switch). Of course, its 2HR more expensive as well :/

BTW will +skill items on merc affect the concentration aura from pride (or conviction for infinity or fanaticism from faith)?|||I'd say act2 might merc + infinity made in the lowest damage weapon you can find and hope for a low damage roll. Cracked Scythe is less than 20 damage, so if you don't have fort on him you should be ok even with might + fanat from beast. Do the same with a super low damage insight and make an IG out of him and you have a pretty nice chaos necro. Oh and get a wisp projector for HoW.

Might + Fanat + Conviction + Meditation + HoW = awesome sauce|||Hmm, it is something to consider . I think Pride will be as viable as Infinity, as it does not provide enhanced damage iirc, just the aura, which should be roughly the same as ed from Infinity.

So, Might + Fanat + Concentration + Meditation + HoW = more awesome sauce?|||I've used pride and infinity, and IMHO infinity blows pride out of the water if you max mages, if you don't max mages pride is probably the way to go. You're right though, no ED on pride, so it might be easier to keep him alive if wearing fortitude.|||Personally, I like homonuculus with pdiamond over a Spirit because a fishymancer doesn't need the extra FCR. However, you can make use of higher block and lower str req on the Homonuculus.

I'm assuming you're wanting to MF with this char as well. I play a similar setup, but without the SoJs and 5 summon skillers. I summon with AoKL and then switch to a Blade of Ali Baba for general play. You really don't need the hoto (or beast for that matter) for general chaos runs. However, the extra MF from Ali Baba's is useful (for the filthy rich, toss in some ists).|||but then you lose fanat from beast if you use ali. Better to have alibaba or gull on switch and hold beast on primary, just keep aokl in stash and switch it out with beast manually before summoning initial army, or just don't worry about it and use aokl only when you're doing tougher runs. I do agree about homonculus, there really is no better shield for a summoner to use, pdiamond or um rune in there.