don't know if everyone's tried this already, but i was using a cube slice which had several repeated elements on rows that was later merged. before the cells on rows are merged, it was copied -> then paste special 'formulas' back onto the merged cells. dbrw's can then reference the row relative cells after losing cell contents on merge.
hope someone finds this useful.
DBRW to merged cells
DBRW to merged cells
Yeon