I returned to EQ in January after a 4 year break. The past 3 months have been great, and my box crew is now 105, reasonably equipped, and working on TBM progression. I have been boxing a Ranger, Mage and Shammy, with J5 cleric, tank and caster. Now I have hit a bit of a wall, as my merc tank drops like a rock against TBM named (and sometimes even against a "boss" at the end of a heroic mission.) Even if I switch out the caster for another cleric, the tank dies way too easily. Wiped last night to High Bokon Cleric in "Fate Rewards the Bold" and to Putrid Brute in "In Defense of Health." Any tips for making the merc tank more robust? (And yes, the obvious option is to replace it with a real tank.) - Clerics are on balanced and reactive. Is there a better combination? - Shammy slowing and then spot healing with either group heal or hot, and sometimes direct heals to the tank. Guess I could create spam heal macro and just spam it. . . - Merc has CotF AC gear and max merc tank AA. (Is it worth doing TDS progress for TDS merc gear? Looks like small upgrade. . .) Thanks for any thoughts.
The mage pet is twice as powerful as any tank merc, ditch the tank merc and use the pet .. youll like the results
You can block some buffs that the mercs cast on the pet that are not really as useful as they should be, and then the mercs won't cast those spells to heal that pet. A good example would be that in harder situations, you may not want the merc to cast promised heals or heal over times when the only thing that may have saved it at the moment would be a faster return heal, since they don't do HOT's as intelligently as a real healer.
I am impressed that you've made it as far as you have with a merc tank! I wouldn't have even tried taking them past CotF, myself
Playing a 105 rogue, I like to use my tank merc to keep the mobs back to me. I have found that having the merc AAs maxed helps. But more important is the merc gear. Upgrade it with the newer expansions. I keep 2 sets of merc gear - one for the cleric and caster - the other for the tank. I still have to be careful in stealing aggro from the merc though.
I pretty much unequivocally believed that merc gear was useless in practice, and even detrimental in some situations. But it sounds like you guys are finding the gear to be viable?
I like this plan, because it also solves what to do about the fact that the Tank merc is just stupid and regularly runs off to hit stuff that's safely parked. Assuming that Earth pet is the best strategy. Are there any pet focus items that this group could go pick up?
>I pretty much unequivocally believed that merc gear was useless in practice, and even detrimental in some situations. So, equipping primary/secondary on a tank or rogue merc is a bad thing. All slots are fine for wiz/cleric. The AC pieces are a reasonable boost as well.
You need the shaman to go full healing. One single healer merc is not nearly good enough to keep up a merc tank vs current group content. If both healing and tanking roles are going to be filled by merc, you need to supplement it with one of your boxed toons. I box bard/mage/cleric with tank/caster/healer as mercs. I use AC songs and buffs to help the merc mitigate and the boxed cleric goes full spam healing. I haven't done much in TBM but I've been farming Arx Mentis named mobs consistently with this setup. You could go with the mage pet tank, that's certainly viable and a much, much beefier tank than the merc. I go with a merc over pet because I like how the merc picks up adds and I don't want to micro the mage pet.
Merc tank with one healer merc is more than enough for any TDS or TBM trash mob. Healing with the shaman would be the better option, however. It will be sufficient for some named as well. Others, not so good. Mage pet would be much better on named.
