I completely agree, however boxing is a natural occurrence on other servers out of necessity (lack of players). Here it is solely done for personal advantage (power, convenience, etc.) Lowest tier of mercs would be LESS powerful than even two boxing in most cases. As long as it's monetized, it is no different than boxing. (I'm against both, just playing devil's advocate because defending boxing but shooting down mercs makes zero sense.)
Oh yea, on live it is pretty perfectly balanced. A j5 merc is dirt cheap but functions about as well as 1/3 a player would with adequate gear and skill for the given role (at max level 105). Boxing is much more powerful and effective partly because it allows for an additional merc. So a boxed player is really like 1 & (1/3) extra player contribution, lessened by how difficult it is to box that extra char
Exactly! Believe me I do NOT want mercs on TLP, but to argue against them while defending boxing in any form is just super hypocritical. It's okay to pay for power the boxing way, but not okay to pay for less power via mercs? Does not compute.
This is false. Apprentice 5 tank merc is still way overpowered compared to any PC. I just tested it on a 47 monk I had sitting around. Bought a Apprentice tank merc, ran down to the FBSS camp in LGUK. The merc was able to take the three camp spawns plus the wanderer, at once, with no problem. He ended the fight at 70% and was back to 100% a minute later. No player tank is able to do that. I stayed FD the entire time on the monk and just let him go to town. No heals, nothing. A raid geared 50 war couldn't do that with no heals. Much less walk away with full health a minute later. And, the tank merc put out about 60 dps. No player DPS class is putting out that kind of DPS outside of wizards and mages on short burns. The tank merc will do that dps sustained with no downtime, forever. I am not going to test further but based on what I just saw, I doubt there is any group content that an apprentice tank + an apprentice healer could not easily duo. Mercs in their current state will completely trivialize all content, for a long time to come. As trivial as the content already is, there is no reason to make it any easier. Maybe, if DBG wanted to invest to the time to rebalance them at various levels, it would be workable and not completely overpowered. But, I doubt that is happening any time soon.
Appreciate the clarification and detail on this. I wonder how the bottlm barrel mercs fair (or fare?). Either way I don't want them either, just playing devil's advocate. I'm eagerly awaiting this alleged "no boxing/limited boxing" server.
If my post made it seem like I was defending boxing then perhaps I failed. I was trying to outline the difference of the two in the hypothetical that was given. I am severely against boxing. I know most think of it as a necessary evil and I understand to each their own. I heard and seen all the back and forth on the issues for over 10 years. So inb4 all the rehash of that subject. When it comes to a progression server, if a developer seems it's necessary to put in mechanics at the beginning of the servers lifespan that shouldn't show up till towards the middle, I see no point in progression.
