Merc ACC Pathetic, Avoidance increase a crock!!!

First, I appreciate your trying to "balance" aspects of the game, but really, that pathetic AC you reduced on mercenaries is ridiculous.

You can make the argument all day long that avoidance is as good as AC, but I am here to tell you that is not true. While you may avoid more hits, the hits you take are so much harder, that with only a few your merc dies.

Much like when you chase the fly around your house with a flyswatter. Sure you sing at it a lot, but all it takes is one hit and its dead, dead, dead.

Next the Tank is a Warrior plate class. There is NO excuse or any form of reasoning where a level 105 Tank merc would have less AC fully buffed than my 105 Wizard with NO buffs.

I mean really, what were you thinking. Eve if I take a level 105 PC and equip them with Extravagant Plate, and extravagant everything else they have more AC than the current Merc.

You really need to fix that. I mean really. My fully buffed merc has 5062 AC. My unruffled Wizard has more than that.

While I can see and understand not giving Mercs the same AC as PC and not able to take on raid named, some of which know are pushing 14k AC, an AC fully buffed of 5062, is ridiculous, you just created a fly that has become totally useless in any REAL fight like basic named in Heroics. Also mercs have no ability to use the "Discs" like a player tank. The lower AC has really made the Merc tank useless, and sometimes they cannot even stand up against 1 slowed trash mobs in a heroic or even a straight Tier two zone in TDS. A couple lucky hits and the Plate Class Tank merc fully buffed dies faster than mi 105 Wizard who can tank better now.

Over the weekend, had some ... "fun" with tank mercs.

Single pull in Tier 1 and 2 TDS: no problem. (this was probably the bench mark they (or he) used to determine the new merc ac vs dodge values)

Multiples in TDS Tier 1 or 2 quickly down the merc.

A tank merc is viable in Tier 3 TDS when it is:
-a single pull
-not a Named or "Rare NPC"
-fully raid buffed
-has a bard playing full defensive songs
-cannot use a merc healer, helps as backup, but not as a primary source of healing

Whoever thought mercs needed a change decided to tune them around the lower tiers of TDS.

It's a shame, since if you have a PC-Tank, you only need a healer merc then you are *Good To Go* in any tier of The Darkened Sea. You definitely can't say the same for the opposite side of that coin.

Also... Tank merc aggro, especially at 105, is laughable. And that is even waiting 15 seconds for him to "establish" aggro.

Something needs to be done, but I'd rather Raid (raid chests full of loot despawning) and Item bugs (level 100 focus on a level 105 item) be fixed,

Was there ever a time when high level tank mercs were ever good?

Seems to me people have complained about their tank mercs not being able to tank for like .. forever.

Don't compare your mercs AC against your own either, they are considered NPC's by the game and use AC in a totally different way from how PC's use it.

Now what I think could help this is the creation of a new set of merc armour with greatly improved stats over the WK items, and extend them up to 105 level gear.

Also more merc AA's could help as well.

True, tank mercs shouldn't be better than PC Tanks, but that doesn't mean Tank Mercs should be nonviable.

There's a vendor in Arx Mentis that has "new" merc gear which is a joke of an upgrade to the current gear.

The reality of it is they didn't have time to tune or implement new merc gear, so the vendor in Arx Mentis may as well be selling you an Auto Destroy Button for your Pieces of Eight currency.

And yes, since mercs use stats differently than PCs, its even more confusing as to which stat would be most beneficial for a merc.

Whomever messed up 101+ Tank Mercs claimed "AC gains on mercenaries will mean more, since their overall AC is less" even with all 4 pieces of merc gear specifically dedicated to AC ONLY, it still makes a minute difference if the merc has the gear equipped or not.

99% of the time when my husband and I are grouping, we are using a tank merc (and have since they came out). I am seeing a lot more spikier damage since the AC adjustments and the tank merc ends up a speed bump often enough. We will play with a cleric merc and me, though I act as puller and crowd control as well which is why we use the 2nd healer. Even with both of us, if I'm asleep or just /because/ the tank merc is dying more often than previously.

I get that they want it more realistic to what player tanks face, but it seems like a bit more tuning is still needed.

(That said, I have been able to pull 2 mobs onto the merc in TDS tier 2 zones without him dying, 3 is hit or miss.)

I agree about the gear, it was probably designed with the older version of merc in mind and not the newer style seen in the 101+ mercs.

This should be re designed when they have the time to actually be helpful and let the mercs do their job.

if they lower the AC in order to boost avoidance, then HP must also be raised.

a lucky round in T3 zone and there goes the merc.

but then again, my wizard facetank better than a tank merc so...

I play Druid/Ench/Mage but like to use a tank merc because i find they pick up adds and incoming mobs quicker then me three boxing.

Even with 100+ merc aa's the level 100 AC only gear and The druid hitting all mobs with Ro and the Ench slowing all the mobs it can still be dicey on yellow cons.

On red con named I'll replace the tank merc with another wizard merc and use the Mage pet to tank... as they are still miles ahead of mercs in tanking power.

My level 102 ranger is out-surviving the tank merc at this point. Ranger is a box alt I haven't used in a while. Gear wise, sitting at a mix of voa t2 and rof t2 group gear (about 50/50 as well as missing many augs) and can easily survive fights that is destroying the j5 tank merc extremely quickly.

Sometimes I end up tanking with my bard main without issues (mix of t2 RoF raid and older gear). This is all without adds and represents a straight up 1 on 1 fight of trash mobs that are slowed on incoming in the various heroic missions. If a ranger with 3 year old gear and missing aug slots can out survive a tank merc, then there is a serious issue with the current tank merc design. They should be able to perform better than using a bard as MT and currently, they aren't even close.

For those that aren't aware of how raid gear stacks up...a full set of TDS group gear would be better than what my bard is currently using on average; however, a 3 year out of date ranger is also out performing the tank merc ...

I have noticed that even within the J5 tank class there seems to be a wide variability on survival. My 105 mage has a Guktan tank with a full set of gear. My monk's, 101 Banshee tank without gear seemed more capable of surviving and holding aggro. I played with both tank mercs in the group along with a 105 enchanter with a cleric merc.

This wasn't a case where the 105 was incorrectly sporting a shield in the secondary, I had 2 ATK weapons equipped. Additionally, I had the 105 set to Aggressive while the 101 was set to Assist and even then I had to click enchanter haste OFF the 101 so that it was less capable of getting aggro over the 105.

It was an interesting way to play, because the 105 tank would provide the speed bump long enough where the enchanter could mez and/or slow the bad pulls. Then the 101 had no problems tanking through. Then it was time to Revive and rebuff the 105...

Funny thing about the mercs in TDS is that the specialization doesn't matter. All merc types tank about the same. The tank one has the Final Stand disc, but after it's over he's not any better than the rest. I gave up on the tank merc and just use the caster one for everything now. It's a tank that also does dps. For the tougher T3 named I use the healer merc instead. I box ENC and BRD, so I rarely have to deal with multiple active mobs at the same time, the tanky and healy songs are always on, and the named get the MC treatment. But I don't see any difference in tanking ability between the merc types. They are all good enough to tank 1 mob in T3 with bard support, and they all keel over the moment they have more than 1 T3 mob on them.

Not to switch topics but is there an issue with tank mercs having a shield? (What is expected if they are using one?)

From other posts I've seen here on the boards, tank mercs with a shield do not dual-wield, thus reducing their ability to generate aggro.

Tank mercs are currently pathetic at everything they are supposed to do. They can't tank more than 1 mob and they can't hold aggro worth a piss. Just use a caster merc on Burn. Tons of aggro, and it tanks just like any other merc. And it will outdps most of your casual groupmates.

I think that is a whole issue or debate in itself. Axxius is right regarding every merc being the same blatant npc type with different abilities. Even if behind the scenes there is a difference (besides abilities) it appears non existant to the end user.

I personally have not noticed a difference in the tank mercs dps when I equip a mercenary sheild or not. I will admit this is a passive observation, and haven't directly tested it. Regardless, and I guess yhis is my opinion, but I'd rather have the tank merc not dual wield, to hopefully allow the shield to mitigate damage. I can wait an extra tick or 2 for the merc to establish aggro, its just... he wont.

I put the shield back on mine and am not having the same agro issues I was a few weeks ago. It's now keeping agro from both my rogue and wizard without having to mash every agro tool the rogue has. Something seems to have changed in the last patch making the shield usable again. Perhaps they are benefiting from the Phalanx of Fury disc.

My tank merc has a shield, and it has never had any trouble with keeping agro.

I've also heard about the killing of Duel Wield, but I have never parsed it out to see if its true or not.

I have parsed the tank mercs with/without using their shield. With shield equipped they do about half their normal DPS. Their difference in their ability to mitigate with/without has not been parsable to me, though I have always left AC equipment in their other 3 slots so the 1 shield slot may not make enough difference on its own.

What IS noticeable and parsable is the effect of avoidance buffs (Foresight in my case) on the tank merc. It is very noticeable, I don't even have to look at the mercs buffs to tell if it has foresight or not.

I think what may be part of the problem that we are noticing now is that before, the mercs high AC/mitigation let them have a somewhat steady damage intake. Switching them to more reliance on avoidance makes them much more prone to damage spikes, and even though the spikes may "even out" overall due to more hits avoided, what happens when a merc gets a big spike? Final Stand; and it tanks ok while Final Stand is running, but then Final Stand drops, and since it overwrites the Foresight buff the tank (probably) had, they are now tanking much much worse than they were. This happened before the re-tune too but since the re-tune it happens more often due to more damage spikes, and since they are not more reliant on avoidance, losing that buff hurts a lot more.

Can't Final Stand be made to stack with avoidance buffs with only the higher mod taking effect, similar to haste? I would prefer this since it would work for player tanks too.

Wasn't there a Dev post a few months ago saying they were looking at re-doing all melee damage in EQ with an eye to reducing damage spikes?

Seem to recall it was about the same time as the pet changes were going through, if this was to go ahead it would explain why they also did the changes to the mercs.

Merc tuning currently is really not good. Whatever they are using to get their numbers is off somehow. I use pretty much nothing but wizard mercs, and 105 merc goes down in about 2 rounds while 100 merc takes about 3-4 rounds.

I would be quite happy if merc hp was boosted by a good amount, but would be equally happy if they gave mercs spell/dot shielding. Is so ridiculous to have almost any named with a random DD effect or AE nearly wreck the mercs instantly. In fact a lot of the times it is instant. Be really nice if these npcs I dumped gear and AAs into could survive spell effects without having to spam group heal at all times, if they don't go from 100 % to 0 % in one hit that is.... Typically have CLR aura and HP buff going for them, full HP AAs, sometimes SHM hp buff as they still don't realize they get a shielding spell... Still instant death in many cases.