Luminary Mercenary Support SSF HC Fresh Start - THIS CLASS SEEMS BROKEN?! 3.29 Curse of the Allflame

NOTES MERC SPAWN LOCATIONS IN CAMPAIGN (THEY ALWAYS SPAWN IN THESE ZONES) -Mercenaries will start appearing in Act 3, with guaranteed spawns in The Sceptre of God (A3), The Grand Arena (A4), The Ridge (A6), The Hidden Underbelly (A8), and The Control Blocks (A10). -Mercenaries found in these areas will not have any Rucksack items. -Only one Mercenary can spawn in a given area. -In Acts, the player must be no higher than 10 levels above the area level for Mercenaries to appear (except for the mercenary in Act 10 Control Blocks, which always spawns regardless). LEVELING -You can level with whatever you want early on, I leveled with Lightning Tendrils. -Technically you can switch as soon as first lab to pure Merc character, but likely want Flame Link which is Level 34 first. -First area to farm Mercenary is in Act 3 Sceptre of God, just reset entrance and run forward a bit, if you do not see a Merc, reset. -Look for any Merc with decent looking links, the goal here is not to be picky, a lot of Mercs can carry at this point, just look for something ideally not a Slammer, Trapper, or Minion Related (Absolution is very good however) -For early scaling look to get +Fire gem levels for Flame Link and stack HP as high as possible. Empowered Bond is an important link as well. -Make sure to use any support skills that increase damage for your chosen merc. For example Wave of Conviction + Combustion is nice early, or Stormblast Mines for bossing. -Assassin Mark is great for Power Charge generation if you put it in a blue socket. OR Poacher's Mark in a green socket for Frenzy Charges. (might be better early) -Haste can be used early on, but Purity of Elements is required later in order for Mercs to not get Frozen. -This character is best played with a Merc in mind but at the same time you want to be as versatile as possible until the endgame. (once you get Atlas points you can start targeting specific Mercs) LATER CAMPAIGN -Control Blocks is a very nice zone to farm for a decent map progression merc. Again the goal is to be versatile, at this point caster Mercs will do quite well. I'd recommend trying out any interesting ones. -I used a double Bladefall Bladecaster Merc, other good examples included below: -Flamehand with Rolling Magma, Stormhand with Arc + Chain, Thunderquiver (with no Galvanic), Manyshot (with no Icicle Rain), Kineticist (with no Kinetic Bolt), Combatant (with no Spectral Helix) -Most Mercs are pretty good but one skill can make their AI a lot worse, this comes with experience, try any that look interesting! -While farming Control Blocks make sure to keep an eye out for any high Life gear, this will scale your Flame Link even further, Light Radius on Rings, Hemet are also very important. -Make sure your filter shows a wide variety of items, worst case scenario you can do the league mechanic for gold to gamble for your chosen Mercenary. -Weapons are important early for both Caster and Attack mercs, and Cast Speed or Attack Speed make a big difference as well! % Increased Damage is also a high priority since Flame Link grants a ton of flat damage. LAB POINTS -Noble Blood early (to use a Mercenary) -Oath of Fealty should be taken second to make Flame Link permanent - but you can technically go for some Unique items if don't mind reapplying it. -Golden Glory should be taken third, if you have some Light Radius gear, this is a big flat damage buff because it scales Flame Link. Again if you do not have Light Radius feel free to take any Unique items you want to equip instead. -Later on Unique Rings & Unique Amulet is taken for Emnity's Embrace, The Taming, & Untouched Soul for Min/Max but this is MUCH later. You can take any interesting Uniques that scale your chosen Merc Early. -A good example is Unique Gloves for a Wander alongside Doedre's Tenure for some big % Damage early on! Or Arkhon's Tools Belt alongside a Summon Skitterbot Trapper, the combinations are endless! MAPPING PRIORITY -Once you have a decent Mercenary from the Control Blocks farm, get as much completion as possible from white/yellow maps - rush for Unwavering Vision for 20 extra passive points. -The biggest priority is to get 100% Mercenary spawn chance & the additional support nodes. These make it much easier to get a good Mercenary. -You can spam low level maps if you have a bad mercenary after you get these points before going into Red maps. EARLY ABYSS (for random Abyss Socket gear + Tecrods for attack mercs) -This is a great mechanic to go for early on for some starter mercenary gear, the random abyss socket gear can go a long way. -Later on delving for Hollow fossil + Fractured fossil replaces it, but this is MUCH later on. -Tecrods is a unique Abyss jewel that gives massive critical strike chance for main hand weapon scaling with # of Murderous Eyes jewels, this is a big DPS increase for Wander/Striker/Bow Mercenaries especially. SINGLE TARGET MERC FOR PINNACLES -Blade Trapper / Spectral Helix Trapper is a monster for doing Pinnacles on low gear. -Big priority on Multi-trap + Slower Projectiles, these are the main DPS skills. Spectral Throw is a lower priority. -Summon Skitterbots is also very nice, especially if you manage to get an Arkhon's Tools early on. -This Mercenary also scales off of attack items that can be shared with a Combatant. SCALING OF THIS VERSION OF THE BUILD FLAME LINK -This is a BIG flat added fire damage buff that can be given to your Mercenary. -Three ways to scale it: Gem Levels, Total HP, and Light Radius. -Gem Levels & HP Total scale the flat damage given to your Mercenary higher. While Light Radius is a big Multiplier (from the Luminary Ascendancy) that grants buff effect per light radius. EMNITY'S EMBRACE + FIRE RESIST STACKING -Since Flame Link adds fire damage, the logical next step is to get Fire Pen. -By far the best way to do this is by using Emnity's Embrace alongside Untouched Soul. -Emnity's Embrace grants Fire Pen from overcapping Fire Resistance, but it massively reduces the Fire Resistance you gain from gear. -This means you need a LOT of it. Untouched Soul is a good way to get a ton of resistances, so it has good synergy. MORE WAYS TO SCALE THAT THIS CHARACTER ISN'T DOING -The Flame Link + Emnity's Embrace is just one of many ways to scale damage from Mercenarys. -Destructive Link is also quite good. -Aura Stacking is very strong as well, especially much later with Armor Stacking. -Support Mercenary can be good too, where you deal majority of the damage. -Luminary has a ton of different scaling options with many different Mercenaries.