Can an Act 5 Merc Beat Hardcore Diablo 2 By Himself? Diablo 2 Challenge Run

absolutfx: Definitely prefer seeing other mercs besides the A2 one. Keep em coming love the videos.
ape9273: song

cool vid, like these formats of playthroughs
kristianstenerson2608: Love the video
FinalMessenger13: So, autoplay destroyed my prepared comment consisting of a bunch of different timestamps and comments. Sadness.
But I will say: Thank you for the run! It inspired me to sing a lullaby song for my daughter, so she can dream of Ninajs surfing the peanut butter sea on plates, trying to rescue their mircowaves from the evil Balls!
ashketchum8431: Bro while magic finding, I found a crazy scepter with two sockets, 3 holy fire, 1 resist fire, and 2 to sacrifice. Non-magic too so I could make strength in it, it’s pretty crazy tbh.
jesselee9332: Yeah I've done a twin barb run before and it took my merc so long to kill hell baal
valerianschneider5084: ty for the video. in 30h playtime i wont have half the runes you got there.
a question: what am i missing, or do you even experience the following as well?
i have played different mercs letting them kill baal hell solo, not hardcore. the a5 merc seems better but he seems to miss a lot, so he takes 3 times as long to kill ball with comparable equip compared to act 2 merc. any tips to improve that?
plz no solutions with high runes, solo self found wont ever let me build those or even a bod.
kristianstenerson2608: lmao mercules nice
tomasd5743: Calling Grief already, lets go
einblutwolf: Mercules & Stan the Man in a monumental 5-way sausage fest atop Arreat Summit. No other fitting place. At least Oprah wasn't on the t.v.
lesliekurian3608: Song
kristianstenerson2608: raid boss merc lol
HotBrobarian: I never see D2 content creators use cube recipes as much as you do, and I love seeing it utilized more! There's so much that can be done with upping gear and adding sockets and making several runewords throught the run, it feels like you REALLY know the possibilities the game has to offer and you utilize them, so refreshing to see.

And like the other dude said, huge props for using something other than an act 2 merc.
EDIT: Song
quebecoi1992: song interesting vid
MagicMeatStick: Homie had better luck in 30 hours then ive had in the last 100 good stuff Z!