I'm getting 130ish on my mercs as pal bst shm I don't have the aa yet so uhh they can be rough agro wise but usually as long as I'm paying attention as a paladin I can out agro them.
Ad has been pointed out these are prolly the base lvl minimum.. devs believe casual players shpuld be able to beat. Of a casual can not consistantly beat out a merc.. this is not the game for them. Perhaps they should try an easier game like pong.
I'm explicitly stating that the DPS disparity between caster and melee DPS indicates it is unintended and not a statement from the devs on what the baseline DPS players should hit is. I do think that if I brought in a DPS class that got outperformed by even the broken melee merc I'd have to do this to them at the end of the night. https://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m56bbd6Imd1r1vq2i.gif
I think it's fair to say that the cleric and tank mercs are absolutely horrible compared to a real tank or real cleric. So, the DPS mercs should also be absolutely horrible compared to real DPS classes. 50k DPS would be more than enough for a merc.
I don't see why showing the disparity between caster & dps merc should be assumed that the dps merc is OP and that it's a nerf thread (not to say that it being nerfed isn't possible). The wizard mercs have been garbage and stagnated for years and it's probably lack of attention rather than dev intent for them to be chucking out the rubbish dps that they do (at least that is my assumption, you would assume they would scale up better as we get more expansions and levels, and have just not received dev attention). I often see my melee dps merc at 220k dps, the wizard merc i have never seen break 50k (not that i'm actively trying to stack him with caster adps). Not that I really care, but i'd propose that they nerf the melee dps merc, and boost the caster merc, so that they both put out 100k or so dps. I think that much at minimum without adps still makes them worse than group-geared dps players that know what they're doing, without making the dps mercs trash that sap your xp gain without "putting out" at all. Mercs are anti-social and encourage boxing/keeping the loot to yourself though, so I can see an argument to have them do 1k dps or be removed from the game too. Though devs pushed on with mercs in spite of that argument for years and I've not seen anything to suggest that they will change their mind about them.
My main character is a magician, since around lvl 20, waaay back in 2000, i realised that if i didnt use a debuff, aka the malosi line, my nukes didnt do squat for damage, some times they were resisted completely. So i am vouching for the mercs nuke dps that when you cast a malosi type debuff first on a mob the nukes are better dps then the melee. now if you dont have a debuffed mob, then of course a melee will out dps the caster every time in all situations. I am shocked that such an old solution to this has not been figured. My guess is that all these new players that 3 and 4 and infinity box, do not take the time to really learn the class they choose to play. a Wizard properly buffed with mobs properly debuffed should do the best dps in the game.
DEBUFF YOUR MOBS!!! For any nuker, TASH AND MOLOSINI are paramount to doing dps!!! even druids get some debuff to fire and cold based magic nukes. yes EQ requires one class to enhance another, thats why they we are supposed to group with other players and not expect a comp. program to run boxed groups.
I would like the cleric mercs to stop arbitarily deciding to cease healing. The little bastards killed me in Kael last night, they were healing my tank, then my logs showed them healing themselves once, after which not a single heal was cast until the real players in the group were dead....then they resumed healing themselves until they were killed as well. They can be very unreliable at times....they just seem to stop healing at all for some unknown reason.
I'd like the healer merc to use more of his spells like omg don't cast light real clerics don't cast light!
Reactive stance and buff block (single target) Elixirs pretty much does that. Caveat being that everyone in the group has to do that including pets. Group tank designation might help too (hard to tell). Other mercs in group taking damage interferes with the strategy since you cannot block their buffs.