Will this be applied to TLPs, or will the TLP need to join up to live for this to occur? I am hoping the latter, and TLPs that have mercs will not be impacted.
In typical Daybreak fashion they made changes so everyone in a group earns Merc aa's now and you can get massive amounts of them through the Overseer and then when the last expansion came out they said oh yea, we are not going to do merc AA's anymore... This change is a boon for leveling up alts and true free to play players as they were always limited to A2 mercs, having access to A5 will definitely be a help. Only group that will see no change will be the Silver players.
They did it to remove the unused tiers which reduces the amount of work that they need to do for each new level that is added to the game. I would assume that most people would just use the most powerful merc that is available to them and not bother with the lower tiers which would mean that the work to upgrade them each expansion is just wasted.
I seem to recall from beta it was discussed adding new AAs/gear in non level expansions. In level expansions they get levels to improved them, giving them new AAs and/or gear in non level expansions to improve them would make sense.
This brings up the question, if you Krono one month for all access, get your journeyman merc, then go back to FTP, does your merc revert back to an apprentice, or does it just get blocked, like prestige gear?
If you no longer have All Access then the Journeyman merc you were using unsummons itself and cannot be used with a message warning you of this. It does not get replaced and remains unavailable until you sub again or consume a Krono.
I would assume that you are no longer able to use it as you don't meet the requirements. They are unlikely to change the tier of the merc as there are implications on hiring/firing once you are subscribed again.
It does not revert. If you have at least two merc slots, you can keep a J5 merc and an A5 merc, both hired but suspended. If your J5 merc was active when your sub expires, you will get a message it can't be used, at which point you can simply switch to your A5 merc. With only one merc slot, you would have to dismiss the J5 merc and then hire a new A5 merc at a vendor.
no you cannot. its a bug. you cannot unsuspend or buy or anything with a free account and mercs right now See bug forum