Is there some justification for apprentice mercs being almost completely useless after about lvl 70

Offensive? Not at all! In fact I like your thinking!!
Free-to-Players exist as cannon fodder and squeak-toys so that those of us who actually support the game can get stuff DONE.
I get it - and I like it!!
-Rat

A lot of people have weird ideas about what mercs were meant for.

I have said since before they removed Silver memberships that they needed to put in unlocker for what was Silver exclusive as well as for access to chat channels. The base free account needs to be excluded due to spam reasons but a way to pay for access should not be.

Question guys, Are the gold membership Mercenaries considerably better than the free 2 play mercenaries? I'm level 6 right now on the ROF program and considering subscribing ( all the benefits don't seem to be all that beneficial to me at my current level, unless of course the mercenary is a big help ! )


Thanks guys

You'll be fine till much higher levels with an A5 merc.
75 and up the difference is wide. 85 and up and you'd best subscribe.
-R

alright thanks, the ROF program gives a rank 2 Apprentice. Sadly the rank 5's are only available for silver accounts which my new one is not.

It depends. If you only fight blues and lower to start with, and eventually light blues at higher levels, the A2 will do fine also. But if you want to kill a red at lower levels, and probably a white at higher (40+ for an A2), you'd probably want an A5 or J1. This is for a tank merc. At higher levels, you may want to go with some other merc, and then it depends on how well you tank, and if the merc can pull it's weight healing / dps -wise. I've never played with A2 above 40, if even that high.

Like Ratbo said, A5s can take you to 75, if you're not overly aggressive at higher levels and become a descent puller or are a good crowd control class. Even if you are a good CC class, you have to learn how to deal with mercs wanting to run when you pull alot. i.e. Passive until you get them under control (mezzed), then active and break a single mezz. A5s aren't near as bad as A2s at running away, and J1s even better.

Most everyone that tries a J1 tank merc at low level, and pushes it, is amazed how tough it is. 5+ hard (7+ levels higher) reds, a J1 can usually take by themselves, unless they have lots of dots, or huge dps, or what not. I think an A2 might run versus a single hard red, and definitely wouldn't win without alot of DPS or healing. A5s are in-between with handling a single hard red at lower levels, but not continuously without some med breaks in there.

Hopefully that gives a descent description of the differences in types and tiers of tank mercs. A2 confidence is horrid, imho. But you can make them work, by not pulling more than 2 or 3 and keeping it to easier cons, especially as you level up.

At low levels:
A2 = undergeared player tank
A5 = very well geared player tank
J1 = super twinked player tank

At mid levels (60-80)
A2 = unsure, but probably worse than a descent geared non-tank (like Ranger, Monk, Bst, etc.)
A5 = lower group level geared tank, or raid level non-tank tank
J1 = high end group geared tank (by today's standard, which would of made them raid tanks back when the content was new).

At high levels, from what I'd expect and have heard overall
A2 = completely unusable
A5 = probably mostly unusable as a tank
J1 = passable for easy group content in single pulls
J5 = doable for most group content that can be single pulled, but not all, especially versus nameds or harder hitting trash.

I went for the average or middle of the road responses on the high end. Some people say J1s are useless at higher levels, and J5s are just passable for easy content. It also depends on how high you are talking. J5 at 80, is much different than one at 95-100+.

Oops, you only cared about low level and I started rambling.

Yther Ore.

Eq is designed to be a group based mmo and gives huge advantages to grouping over soloing, unlike all the mmo's that came after. So if you want a grouped based mmo this is your only choice, if you want a solo based mmo you have a lot to choose from.

Cheers Rat!