Reviving mercs is not worth it in early game

Gold is much better spent on gambling than reviving mercs in early game. I don't know the gold sinks later on, but right now it makes no sense that mercs cost gold to revive, since they anyway cannot be revived in the area they died in.

The mercenaries are exactly what they've been since the very first ARPGs: bad. They do no damage and die every three seconds. That's why I completely ignore the mechanic these days. There's simply no one who can program mercenaries in a useful way. I've played every ARPG so far, and the mercenaries/companions have never been any good.

I somewhat agree. Melee merc is not. But nuker surely is.

I had 4 different nukers so far, and they have each only died once. And early on in game they killed monsters before they were barely visible on my screen.

So stop making big claims over something you clearly haven't tested enough.

I currently have a merc making tons of pets. Totally worth it for me. I am never in danger, lol.

Bastions can definitely stay alive. My lvl 35 didn't die once until mid 50's.

In the early game don't invest in mercs, just hire one for every few levels. Since the mercs don't level up, you need to swap them quite often anyway.

The only case when you might want to revive them during campaign, is if they die to another merc. If they die to random mobs, they will die to random mobs in next area as well (higher level mobs, same level merc), so they are not worthy of your gold.

Edit: My act 5 Infamous Kineticist with Haste aura is still alive in act 7, but I'm playing minions, so he does not need to tank anything.