Majority of professional players will choose the following hirelings to enhance or protect their main characters.

1. Act 2 Hirelings(Nightmare Defensive type with holy freeze) - equipped with ethereal fortitude runeword armor (for any character) and ethereal infinity cryptic axe (for magic casting characters) or ethereal doom cryptic axe(for any missile and melee character) and ethereal crown of thieves grand crown(socketed with shael rune or 40/15ias jewel)
2. Act 1 Hirelings(Cold damage) - equipped with perfect level 14 fanatism faith runeword ward bow(not grand matron bow), ethereal fortitude runeword armor and ethereal crown of thieves grand crown(socketed with shael rune or 40/15ias jewel)
3. Act 5 Hirelings - equipped with ethereal fortitude runeword armor (for any character) and ethereal botd colossus blade and ethereal crown of thieves grand crown(socketed with shael rune or 40/15ias jewel) This hireling is good for missle characters like amazons and throwing weapon skilled barbarians.

The above is what people use most but not 100% representative.  What you eventually use really depends on what character and what game strategy you are using.

Hope this helps you somehow.  To recognize my good deed on writing this guide and to encourage me to write more in future, please vote for this guide ONLY if you find it to be helpful to you.  

Thanks for your reading.

Peggyseven

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