I'm playing a cleric and I have my wizard merc out. I'm fighting yellow con mobs and my merc sometimes will not engage. What is going on? I've tried setting it to passive, then to balanced, to burn, and combinations. Nadda so I end up running. Seems like a complete and utter bug to me. whats the scoop?
The merc casters can be finicky. Try these steps-Be sure the mercenary is set on balanced (or burn) not just highlighted that option but hit the "set to" button. Be sure you are fighting in an area open enough that a mob would not be part way in the geometry- like next to a building or tree. Anyone in group marked with the "puller" role can make the casters gunshy if they are too close to the group. Caster mercs on balanced will (seemingly) wait until the targeted mob has sufficient hate on a member of the group before attacking. Often, as a cleric, i notice that it wont start nuking until ive beat on the mob some and brought it's hitpoints down. Starting the fight with a couple stuns or weapon procs usually gets the merc into the battle sooner. Remember that mercenaries can get stunned or mezzed or otherwise debuffed like a PC. If you are fighting monsters with some of those type of abilities it isn't always obvious why your mercenary stopped casting and they can sometimes become bugged. As an example i have fought a monster with a silence aura and it bugged my mercenary as if it were permanently silenced. I had to zone out or reload the mercenary to fix it. Things like this are not entirely uncommon.
The roles you assign to your group members (both PCs and mercenaries) help the mercenary AI figure out what the mercenary should be doing. Here's a page I found recently with info about group role assignments and how they affect the mercenaries in a group: http://www.zlizeq.com/Game_Mechanics-Grouping Also, the in-game 'info' for individual mercenary types has some useful information about stances and group roles that might be helpful.
Claim / redeem / I forget the button name so the bayle marks show on the alternate currency tab of your inventory and are not in a bag in your main inventory. Once on the alternate currency tab your merc should consume them until exhausted and then consume plat.
To add on to that, if you don't already have bayle marks claimed, uncheck the "hide unused currencies" check mark at the bottom of the box, select Baylee marks, then redeem. Will add all marks in inventory. Vexed me slightly when I came back trying to figure that out.
