Wizard Mercs BURN, if you feel like it.....

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Kurayami, Feb 5, 2013.

  1. Kurayami Augur

    I have noticed a lot lately that my WIZ mercs will not cast in BURN mode on named mobs. Never any problems on trash mobs, they'll cast ethereal incand. as soon as they close enough. But for some reason they just stand there on named, when I want them to burn the most. I have gotten burn to work if I toggle between balanced/burn a few times, but who wants to do that every time in hopes they do their job? Never had this happen w/ rog mercs, they'd go after any mob type no problem.

    Has anyone else had these issues, is there something stupid I'm missing here? I always set myself to main tank and main assist. I do have a strong tendency to leave burn on at all times ever since I figured out how to keep agro from the beginning, but that shouldn't matter, should it?
  2. Nenton Augur

    I brought this issue up last year when the cleric mercs were having all their problems with spell casting as well but no one seemed to care. Had lots of named mob parses where the wiz merc would stop casting for 30+ second intervals. Incidentally, they still do better than melee dps mercs even with those pauses. I made my own wizard instead after that. He always nukes when he's supposed to (and pretty devastatingly hard this expansion).
  3. Qest T. Silverclaw Augur

    Make sure you don't have someone marked as "Puller."
  4. Tobynn Augur

    Have seen this time and time again. Caster mercs standing idling by, casting nothing whatsoever when Burn is set active. Standing 10 feet away from the tank, the puller, the assist, and the mob that I am trying to burn. Might as well rename Burn to AFK. Toggle to Balanced mid fight and they suddenly wake up.

    Also, a great number of times I have experienced caster mercs snatching agro from random mob pathing in close proximity to whatever mob I am killing. Just happened again in Kael today. I was killing feys (trying in vain to spawn the swarm -- don't get me started) and suddenly 3 giants are running crazy, they beeline for the caster merc, and promptly slay it. Then, the giants just walk away as if nothing happened. I must assume the merc is casting some sort of targeted AE spell even though I have never, ever, used the AE Burn setting. Never understood why AE Burn exists, I have yet to find even a situational use for it.
  5. Silv Augur

    AE burn is extra help when you pull all the mobs in LDON raids at once but of course, highly situational and minimal. There are *a few* RoF named where, depending on your strat, AE burn would be beneficial.

    But to the original topic- this happens to me frequently; it's more of a pain when I'm boxing if I have to toggle stances. The owner of the Wiz merc is never set to puller or anything either so I know it isn't related to that. Kindof feel like this is something that will not get fixed anytime soon.

    Balanced it is (although I've even had the AFK with that sometimes)!
  6. Kurayami Augur

    I can't help wondering if it has anything to do w/ certain flags connected to named mobs. I thought maybe it was all named, but I've seen them burn just fine on wimpy named mobs who can be snared, stunned, etc. Maybe it has something to do with no stun flags, as I know they burn just fine on non-snareable mobs. Not sure on no stun mobs though, this would be rather easy to check w/ my clr box casting a stun on mobs to check if they can be stunned or not. I would love to see this fixed so I can use my mercs perma burn strategy on everything, lol.
  7. Kaenneth [You require Gold access to view this title]

    Bard, Enchanter and Druid with DPS auras, and 3 wiz mercs on AE burn.
  8. silku Augur

    By chance is t he person on aggro in another group? Sometimes we break into two groups and pull out a couple cleric mercs when there is a particularly tough mob. If the person tanking is in group A the mercs won't cast from group B.
  9. Kurayami Augur

    Nope, my usual setup is SHD/CLR and then either ENC, NEC, SHM or MAG, and then 3 wizard mercs for dps including I'm not feeling lazy that day. Lazier days I'll use a clr merc too, lol.

    I did quite a lot of testing on this issue last night, I found that the wizard mercs would refuse to cast on typical boss type mobs when set to BURN, but would have no issue burning anything else from the beginning. One important thing I noticed was that they will BURN a named/boss type at ~68-69%, but you must use balanced until then. Not great, but it is possible to use balanced until about ~70 %, then switch over to burn to make things faster.

    I really hope the devs take a look at this, I'm not asking for much, I just want them to commence super nuking immediately on any mob I yank, is that so much to ask? :)
  10. Beimeith Lord of the Game

    It's a Wizard merc. Unannounced random AFKs are what we do.
  11. Obiziana Augur

    That and evacing the group randomly in the bottom of the dungeon, right before the namer was going down.
  12. Agrippa Augur

    I've noticed this using a wizard mercenary on my enchanter and on my paladin. I'm normally marked as puller, either way, but the other wizard mercenaries in the group do crap on burns, too. I use call assist on occasion and it seems to work a bit better, but they still need to wake up and keep their attention on a named. This seems to be worse in groups that they are the main source of dps.
  13. Kurayami Augur

    Hrrrmmm, that's a new one to me, is there a tell mercs to come assist me button I'm missing here?
  14. Agrippa Augur

    The mercenaries are on automatic assist normally. There's a "call assist" button in the default mercenary window that you press when you want it to assist the MA. Otherwise, I believe it stays passive. This is nice if you're pulling multiples and don't want it going off on the first mob in camp over the one targetted by the MA. Problem is if you set to auto again, it will often remain passive.