Dev Discussion Episode 43: Artifact - M.E.R.C.Y Amazotron Matrix

Because it's not a damage pet and ultimately, this artifact was intended to be for Robot Sidekick like Solar Amplifier with Heat Vision and the reason why Fury and Crystal were involved were to make sure RSK didn't trump them.

I'll be honest, I'm having a blast right now. I have mine above 160. (Like 163, I think?) It definitely increased my damage loadout I had before with Suppressor Turret. Starting to get a feel for rotations and what not. I do wish I had one more slot, as I will hotswap Gauss with Taser right before bosses, I've also found myself lazy and just using straight Taser and the only AOE is from RSK. Which I take a big hit on damage in hallways, but I'm still playing around. I'm also getting the timing of lunge > pet trinket > jump out. (Which I wouldn't want to do in elite alerts/raids.)

Did anyone do the damage calculations on the melee pet spawn AOE? I've seen a very wide range. Like sometimes it hits like a truck and sometimes it's a feather. I'm not sure if it is a weird splitting issue or where your pet is at that time.

I think the only thing I've experienced to be by far the most annoying, is trying to re-summon RSK when it dies. Which, in clamped content, happens way too often. There is some weird health scaling issue in the clamp for it.

I have horrible AoE on the usual source build for sorcery. St is nasty tho. Can’t be all things all the time haha. I have been considering mercy for an AoE build tho. Have ideas but it’s down the road for the next double. Rsk respawns are painful. Maybe it’s health doesn’t scale in clamped stuff? Or maybe it’s something to do with your health being clamped so the heals in are too weak to get its health pool back up? Is it dying to big hits or just all the time?

The melee pet spawn AOE is might based attack, and can crit

All the time. Yes, it dies to all skull attacks that hit pets, but it also dies to adds and really, anything that hits it. I'm not sure what's going on, but it needs a fix, because turret didn't die this much, which means there is something wrong with the pet in clamped content.

Really? It's white numbers though, but that would make sense if it's might based. I have a lot of might.

That sucks. That means i wont rank that artifact up for my earth battle tank as that was my main reason to get it. It should be CR scaled. Just like pets.

I'll be honest, I thought it was, since it gave white damage. Which is sort of a catch all color for things not pet (orange) and not might (yellow.) Oribital is an example of white damage that isn't based on your stats, but scales to the enemy's health, IIRC. So if it is might based, I'm really surprised.

Firstly thank you for this, as a long term advocate for pet expansion (2015 see sig) this is a great addition!

Secondly.. slight oversight with Green/Yellow and Red Lanterns. Inspire for GL/YL doesn't trigger the pet shield. Infuriate for RL doesn't either.

Both of these are heals and can be triggered above 95%.
Inspire is a self-HOT and Infuriate is a group heal, based on damage out healing in.

I spent 4 hours testing them today* and did not see the shield trigger when the healing was triggered. (although I did see the shield trigger at other random times)

*PC Test Server

This is exactly the experience I am having. With my normal build I am getting more damage per 10sec parser WITHOUT the MERCY artifact. Levelled it up to 160 which cost me a bundle and completely disappointed. This needs buffing to make it a viable alternative as you sacrifice another artifact in its place and in my case I sacrificed Strategist Card so Fury needs to be doing at least the damage Tactical Advantage does to warrant using it.

Don’t take this post as defending it or attacking you or anything. I think that’s how the tone will come off so just want you to know I’m honestly asking/ trying to help.

Which sparring targets are you using for parsers? You CANNOT test pet builds on normal sparring targets. You have to use the new ones the devs (thankfully) added for us to test this type of build out. House of legends, up against the window. Old dummies will power your pets so your fury will be double dipping and massively increasing your parsers. It doesn’t affect rsk as much since his power bar barely decreases while fury empties his.

Strat card: looks good on dummies. Most adds don’t stay alive long enough for it to proc. It’s still a good artifact but it has become a situational choice. St elite boss, great. St duo boss, meh. Quislet has been the better choice especially if using low cost supers often.

How are you using mercy? With fury, it changes his reaction times and attack pattern. This is excluding all the massive perks this artifact gives/ does. If you’ve been using source build for a bit, then you’re in the habit of popping gw then offering. This isn’t the case with mercy. Now it’s more like feed, hit vengeance, pop gw, continue till reset. The hits it does (4?) should total up to a bit more than what 1 normal fury/ offering does.

This arti is working great for earth from what I’ve seen and heard. It’s also a viable way to make any class a pet class which was its main intent. You have to play to its strengths and that involves it’s sonic boom type of attack and trinket cd. I’ve posted since day 1 that it seems like sorcery is best not using it. Others have echoed the comment. It wasn’t hidden comments and the devs sure didn’t delete them or even argue about it. This artifact is still a great choice for low sp high cr toons since pets only care about cr. Do mercy/ grim/ quislet and henchmen and a pet trinket combo and they’ll put out good numbers.

Meant Triage, *not* Inspiration.
Fixing within the quote, will also report as bug.

Thanks for taking the time to feedback.

I was aware of the sparring targets in the HoL that were added so yes I know the normal ones would effect the figures.

I spend a lot of time on Test and also use the combat log analyser probably 90% of the time after a raid just to see what's working and what's not, and my Tactical Advantage damage is significant; significant enough to justify its use, especially in instances like the latest raid where its boss after boss and it procs constantly.

I don't have any experience with pets and it was purely on the release of this artifact that I thought it would be nice to have a pet build and mix things up to keep things fresh, so I am not going to pretend that I am all knowledgeable on the topic, but when it does come down to it, the basic buff it gives to fury just doesn't make up for the loss of another artifact and one slot in your loadout tray for MERCY's Attack Protocol. Yes there are other benefits such as trinket pet cooldown which is significant as my tier 3 phoenix does double the damage fury does throughout a raid, so having it out quicker is definitely a plus.

I haven't read every thread in this post but I also noticed that a couple of people had underwhelming response with sorcery builds, which I think is a shame cos when you think of pets the first power that comes into your mind is sorcery!

I will play around with your suggested artifacts etc on test and see if there is a different way to approach it but I do think the devs could look at adjusting it to make this a viable option for fury users.

Is it intended that the M.E.R.C.Y. attack protocol (Ability) is only unlocked at Rank 120?
The text isnt greyed out entirely below R120 so i assumed it should be available from R80 onwards. Just no extra pet cooldown reduction on use, as its 0 seconds on R80.

When u gonna made an artifact for controller to buff the might ?

Tetrahedron of urgrund already does that. The 3 buff artifacts trolls use are tetra (which can be swapped with cog for prec boost) amulet of rao and claw of aukelund. Might players love a troll with those 3.

The problem with claw of aukelund , this artifact remove ur ability to restore power , i use this artifact but not all the time cause i cant restore power . And Tetrahedron of urgrund is made for might dps , not controller . They should made a controller artifact that boost might and maybe dom , but that not remove ur ability to restore power to the group .

I don’t want to go too far off topic here since this is about mercy but that isn’t a problem with claw, it’s the function of claw. Every tray move you do will restore power to the group. So you’re still giving power all the time. Claw and tetra are 2 of the 4 buff troll artis. Tetra is for any role really but trolls make the best use of it because they can get a higher health pool. If the troll doesn’t have a tetra then a dps should but ideally it’s on the troll

Yes , is a problem , with the claw u cant dump power immediately to the group . When u use a power in ur loadout ( Power over time ) , it dont restore power immediately , the group have to wait 3 seconds , in raid , u cant use this artifact all the time , some ppl gonna miss power . For the tetra , This artifact is not made specifically controller , i would like an artifact made specifically for controller that boost damage when u use debuff .

Using a debuff does technically boost damage. Since it lowers the defense of an enemy. Trolls use tetra and cog because they can hit over 400k health and still do their job well. Dps don’t usually have that high of health. More health= bigger buff. Claw, again, is working how it’s intended. You still use your group power heal, it becomes a buff. All your moves now give out power so I’m not sure what you mean by having to wait 3secs. If a player is struggling, hit defense debuff/ group heal/ heal debuff/ group heal/ damage out debuff/ group heal repeat. If anyone is still struggling while you’re doing that, they’re more of a problem than you as the troll assuming you’ve built correctly. I can run any elite end game without spamming while running all dom augs and have no one with power issues unless they’re doing something wrong.

And the artifact you’re looking for that buffs a group’s damage is the claw. It boosts your teams output when you use the power heal and it’s made for trolls. Combo that with stronger debuffs from amulet and add the stats boost from tetra and cog and you’re group will be buffed thru the roof.

Lol , u dont get it , ur group power heal is disable when u use claw , it increase ur dom , resto and might , but group power heal no longer work . This is why , i think it would be great to have artifact that increase might and maybe dom , but that dont disable group power heal