I played around with mercs a little after getting the new (Vigilant) merc items and came to a conclusion that they are way too weak. Tank merc in Defender's Vigilant gear cannot tank two trash mobs in Stratos even for a few sec while I mez the add. It blows Final Stand after 1 round from ANY trash mob in TBL because they all do enough damage in 1 round to trigger it. It randomly gets 1-rounded by yellow con armor model trash mobs even when they are fully Enchanter debuffed (slow/cripple/constriction). It gets roflstomped by any rares even in T1, no matter the healing. Healer mercs get 1-rounded by pretty much anything that hits them with the healer merc items. If I put the tank (Defender) items on them then they get 2-rounded. I don't know how merc items scale, but my tank has just over 50% of my hp (and I'm a caster). He has more AC but I'm a much better tank than him anyway. Please look at the mercs. They seem to be too far behind the mudflation in TBL.
Completely agree here. Steroid shots for tank mercs please. In my case, I am not asking that they be the equal of a player tank, but they have very limited usefulness over the last three expansions.
Holy crap, how many HPs do you have? I'm a scrub druid, 110, and have 167K HPs self-buffed. My merc has just under that, with 162K HP (including my druid skin buff). That's with the EoK merc gear (extravagant). Merc AAs for health is most of them, except maybe the last 2-3 ranks. Assuming your merc has about the same HPs as mine, do you really have almost 300K HPs? I totally agree with your points in general, the merc does a good job of picking up agro when adds come along. Other than that, it's pretty much a mana sponge. And I'm not even in the latest content with mine. I won't take him any deeper than T1 EoK.
For me they are cheap disposable stun/mezz-replacements in ambush situations. - they draw aggro - they get 1-2 shots - if they don't get killed in the first rounds, they add a bit to healing - enough time to get control over the situation when it happens Anybody has them AA-like maxed and with TBL gear to test? TBL gear alone seems not to do the task, afar I read here.
It feels like DBG is deprecating them, but they keep releasing new armor for them so who knows? I don't think it'd be bad design for them to be intended as something to help folks progress in 2+ expansion old content, but only be a speed bump in current content.
Then too, the dps mercs, both rogue and caster, seem to do a small fraction (very small) of what I can do, and I find myself wondering what good they are as opposed to, say, a second or third healer that we don't especially need, or a tank that is basically a speed bump and who is far less prone to survive tanking a mob than the squishy non-tank melee-dps he is supposedly protecting.
The healer mercs (and caster mercs, for that matter--don't know about melee mercs) are considerably behind as well.
I do not understand the logic used in making Mercs so weak. I know they want to make everyone raid, but many can not raid due to RL. They have to afk to much, or just have a full life. These people make up a big chunk of the recurring subscriptions out there. Many of them have multiple accounts to box, since they can not commit to groups or raids. So why alienate them, removing their ability to box using Mercs. Is it not more healthy to the game to have their subscriptions? There exists many people like this. They will just quit , not renew subscription, and play another game, instead of continuing to play and maybe being able to group and raid later in life. Many don't play tanks in the game due to the time it takes to farm augs nd equipment for them. Making Mercs so weak, will not solve that problem. In my opinion, having Mercs as weak as they are is costing DBG many dollars and lowering the player base. They need to look at this from a players perspective, and not from a Devs wishes perspective. If you don't have the recurring subs, you can not afford as much, you have less staff, period.
I'm RoS raid geared. TBL group gear is about the same quality, so this is what non-raiders are going to have. I have 270k hp buffed. My tank merc has 157k hp buffed. I have max merc AA from RoS. However, these are the numbers that non-raiders will have by the end of the expansion, after they farm T2 zones and get themselves T2 and maybe even some TS items and the Vigilant items for their mercs. But I'm not even in T2 zones, I'm in Stratos - the entry zone where you are still supposed to have RoS group gear and Extravagant merc items. Your RoS geared merc should be able to tank trash (and at least some of the rares with appropriate healing and debuffs) in this zone - otherwise how are you supposed to gear up? Alas, trash in this entry zone is already capable of 1-rounding mercs with the end zone gear. And don't even think about the rares. That is definitely a problem!
great analysis Axxius and I completely agree with you........ but you know what the "white knights of EQ " will say Lulz get a real tank lol they are much better lurn two play" This is why we can't have nice things
The mercs all need 30-50k more hp imo. I only use healer mercs (along with probably anyone fighting in Stratos+) and they are still quite helpful as-is, even if they frequently eat it. By all accounts, everyone is nearly exclusively using healer mercs in last couple expansions, and the caster/melee/tanks cannot perform their roles at all due to both limited survival amd limited dps in TBL. At least the healer mercs often get a heal off before dying.
Strongly agree with all these points. Mercs have been badly neglected for the last 2 expacs, and need a significant boost when the devs can find some time. It seems like the problem arose with the increase to level 110. We gained power but mercs fell behind. I know the tank merc has never been amazing, but I know of people who used one to complete every hunter in EoK with no problem (although with a real healer). The same just wasn’t possible in RoS, and is a laughable concept in TBL.
Merc stat stagnation probably isn't an intentional decision, but another result of limited resources. There's no currently implemented good way of enhancing mercs during a non-level raise expansion, much like pets. I'm sure it's on somebody's list of things to look at, along with a couple hundred other things. Healer mercs probably seem the most effective of the bunch because they're supporting your stats and strats, rather than you trying to support the merc (tank stats or DPS output) and its bad AI.
merc is the reason i quit playing this game and the reason i will only play on TLP's dumbest thing they ever did was add them now people are crying they are too weak like WTF do you just want them to level for you as well push a button and you can be max level and max AA? oh wait hero boost more or less does that.... all these people come from other MMO's and are WEAK lets go back to naked corpse runs and hell levels and reduced XP for iskars.
Try a real tank, healer, or dps in current content. If more people invited others instead of their clique to groups maybe the community wouldn't be so .
