Shrouded down to a level 20 gawblin (goblin) and got some poshunz (potions) and fewd (food) to make killing higher level mobs easier and faster, but I noticed when I looked at the AAs my merc has no experience bar. No idea if it's gaining experience or not. Guessing yet again shrouds are rendered useless in this aspect? Oh, and I put a point into caster merc DPS - damage went from 114894 to 115164. A grand total of 1% (rounded up). lol
Cannot say that I find anything wrong with that.. Quite the opposite, using shroud would be on the borderline of doing something that could be illegal to do. Since I am sure that leveling mercs is not intended to be done by using shrouds. So IMO better that they preventing that from the beginning instead of having some using it, and then others not able to.
The intended use of shrouds was to be able to play with friends who are much lower level than you. Has anybody ever used them for that purpose? Instead, shrouds became a cesspool of xp-related exploits. I'd rather they didn't give any xp at all. Even if somebody really has low lv friends - that's a temporary condition that doesn't last very long. Your friends level up. And shrouds themselves are terrible compared to real characters of even 10 levels lower, you want to get out of the shroud and play your actual character asap. No xp in shroud form = so many problems solved!
I did a test myself last week and as a 5 shroud killing mobs in CR the merc did show gaining AA, you have to open your own AA screen and check what the merc section is showing. There are some merc AA that can be gotten at level 20 so the Character level 51 does not apply to them.
I still use a goblin rogue shroud to sneak around and do faction hand-ins that way. If you can get merc XP at a level 5 shroud, something's definitely wrong. Or you're so cute Sebbina, it only works for you. :3 Just find it awkward mercenary AAs are relatively slow* to get for meager 1% bonuses, while a full set of mercenary gear can be obtained in a day with far better bonuses attached... if they work.
How do you get 3840 marks in a day? i'd love to know how you can get 960 marks in a day for a single piece. Unless this is another -- "you have to have the right group make up - tank, cleric - 4 wizards ... T4 raid geared and they all have to stay in the group for 24 hours .... and it has to be a full moon and there needs to be 4 unicorns in the zone and two of the unicorns must be covered in rainbow colored sprinkles. ... i'm doing these missions and they are taking 1 hour to 2 hours each. Especially the bixie ones ... those are pretty redonkulous --- time wise. If I were to chain some missions, i would choose Scouting Ahead in Dead Hills --- that seems like a mission that could be done pretty fast with a good DPS group. I'll prob hit that one up after i finish the rest of the zones.
Iirc, names and chests "can" also drop merc gear. No first hand experience with this, just something I am pretty sure I read somewhere. (lol, yes I know how lame that sounds )
Dunno. I (paladin) was grouped with a magician, a monk, sometimes a boxed shaman, and whatever spots we couldn't fill were healer mercs. At first we did slow crawl killing and moving, but eventually learned I can grab up 10+ mobs and turtle mode and hold aggro while the magician AE'd the mobs down. About 45-60 minutes per adventure in some cases. I guess group make-up was pretty good, but also the most important factor is that I'm a loser and play EQ a *lot*. The first day of doing heroic adventures I had enough to buy two pieces of merc gear, realized they weren't working (ALL MY RAGE), so never bought a third. I guess that wasn't a full set after all, but I have over 2000 marks now, and compare that to my... 18 merc AAs?... which gave dismal results. But again, since I play so damn much, I think I did all the bixie HA's in one day and then some. So yay, I got loads of Marks of Valor, but don't envy me. lol
The real problem is that lower levels gain merc AAs much faster than higher levels, imo. Kill rate at lower levels is much higher...and since it seems merc AA exp gained is actually linked to the exp you gain (evidenced by the fact that you get more exp for killing yellows/reds than you do for whites, blues, light blues, greens)...so the gain is much higher there than at other levels. Honestly, this probably wouldn't be a problem if there was a glyph we could buy to grant a merc AA. Have it cost 10-15AA. Aside from that, they should also rethink how mercs exp is gained. I understand it's 'supposed to take awhile', but...the exp gain is abysmally slow. As such, I'd recommend the following change to merc AA gain: Red con ----- 2 blue 3 levels above current level ----- 1 3/4 blue 2 levels above current level ----- 1 1/2 blue 1 level above current level ----- 1 1/4 blue Even/White con ----- 1 blue Blue con ----- 1/2 blue Light Blue con ----- 1/4 blue Green con ----- 1/8 blue Mobs "considered weak" would grant 1/2 the experience values listed above...so green weak con mobs would yield 1/16 blue, etc. Could even go so far as to say they would grant 1/4 the experience, so instead the green cons would grant 1/32 blue for a weak con, whereas a red con would only yield 1/2 a blue. Just example values, but you get the idea. This would make it more reasonable...and would 'smooth out' the AA gain between lower levels and higher levels. As it is, it's pretty unfair, imo, that a lower level can go and gain these at a much higher rate, solely because the mobs have less hp. Maybe something should be done about that, as well...so that those at higher levels gain more per kill than those at lower levels, to compensate for the much higher hp values...so that the gain is smoothed out (not the other way around where lower is lowered, etc).
If you have a decent dps group you can do any of the following in 20-30 minutes for each run or so if you don't slack: Into the Hills, Scouting Ahead or Disrupting the Ritual, there might be a few others. Takes about 5-6 runs per 960 point piece, so looking at like 1.5-3 hrs per piece depending on how fast you do it.
The exp for merc AA's at lower levels is really different. I love playing alts, and do that often. I wasn't even thinking of the merc AA's, so wasn't checking them. When I did look, I had 3 of them to spend and that was in a fraction of the time it takes at higher levels. Obviously you don't get AA experience at level 20, so I assume they base merc AA off of normal exp, and the amount per AA at low levels is very different from that needed at higher levels. I haven't tried shrouding down but I might try that out (since I am playing on Test server anyway). But I do like your idea of a glyph which grants an extra Merc AA. Even at 30 AA's per 1 merc AA, I think it isn't a bad deal because the glyph AA is gathered at the same time as the normal merc AA (the glyph would be a bonus). That, plus it seems to me to be easier to generate 30 normal AA's than one merc AA (given exp potions and the daily veteran reward bonus).
It's based off of the 'experience gain' message, i think. It seems mercs gain exp based on the con of the mob, to me (though it's hard to tell, unless the mob is under a blue con). The higher the con, the more you gain...at least in CotF zones (i haven't tested it in RoF zones, tbh). PC experience is based in the same way, in a way...it's just that after you 'gain' the experience it divvies it up wherever you have your exp set at. It might also have to do with the exp value based on the person's level...so the exp gain is lower in that way, too. Hard to say w/o a dev telling us... Keep in mind I don't wanna see low level exp nerfed...I wanna see the higher level exp made much more reasonable. ^^ Or...they could just make it so you can gain merc exp while shrouded and be done with it, lol.
