help with Avenger

[bagels]

Hello!

I have a singleplayer level 73 avenger that has served me perfectly throughout normal and nightmare difficulties. But now that I've made it to hell difficulty he seems severely gimped. Before I go further, here are his stats and eq:

lvl 73
254 vitality (1047 hp)
3724 defense with holy shield on
2154 attack (between 50-70% chance to hit creatures in the Pit and Tamoe Highlands, which is where I currently am)
resistances: -50 fire, +54 cold, +57 lightning, -46 poison

items: Stormspike, Peasant Crown, War Travs, Manald Heal, Arctic Binding.
Then I have a superior dusk shroud (about 600 defense, 1 socket), a defense 227 Protector Shield (+1 to paladin skills and decent resistances), a +25 to light and cold res ring with good leach, and a +2 defensive auras amulet with decent res.

skills are maxed vengeance and conviction, points into holy shield and then resist cold/light/fire for the synergy with vengeance.

The items are not good, I know this. I am a purist and play singleplayer only, so I cannot trade for better items.

I'm not having too much trouble staying alive. I die occasionally, but it's a difficult game. In reality though I just feel underpowered. With level 22 conviction and level 22 vengeance I'm still only dealing between 600-1100 damage a hit, which isn't much considering the hell-difficulty monsters have high reses and are often immune. It literally takes me close to an hour to clear out the pit (someone suggested I do pit-runs to get better items so I've been doing that, but so far no luck).

Another thing I'm unsure of is merc. I've been using chapter 3 nightmare ice-merc because he was so excellent through nightmare difficulty, freezing any enemies that came close to me. But he isn't very effective in hell difficulty. Most monsters only stay frozen for a split second, some can't be frozen at all, and his damage is negligible.

I assume that my major problems are terrible reses, low attack rating, and low damage. Any suggestions on what to do with my character and merc would be highly appreciated.

Thanks.

[hellsing293]

Would a might merc from a2 nm be any better as far as enhancing your damage?

Also, What act are you in? Are you stuck on a specific boss?

A better weapon would help. I know the lightning resistance must be nice, but damage could work better. Maybe make a runeword like passion or Honor (I wish I knew what you're str and dex were so I could have an idea of what kind of weapons you can use)?

[bagels]

Hellsing, thanks for the reply. I'll try a might merc from a2nm. One other thing I forgot to mention is that I'm really having trouble keeping my merc alive, so I'm somewhat hesitant to try a merc that doesn't even have a shield. But it can't hurt to try, since my current merc isn't doing much.

I'm still in chapter 1 hell, just doing pit runs, trying to get some decent items and runes.

My str is 105 and my dex is 109. I have terrible luck with runes. So far just have a Dol, Hel, 2x Shael, Amn, Ko and assorted lower level runes. I'd make Silence runeword if I had the requisite Vex.