Mercs are worthless anymore. I don't care how they do it, greatly improve base stats, greatly improve gear. or w/e, but they are trash atm. Their AI / choice of spells desperately needs upgraded as well. I respect some peps opinion that mercs are bad, but I completely disagree. You can say "just find a group" all you want but we all know that's a load of crap. I can't even begin to tell you how many times friends would have nearly a full group but no tank, or no healer, or no dps. All it takes is one key class not present and your group is trash. Mercs are greatly needed, that's why they were added in the first place. But when a single AE in TBL straight DT's mercs, their is a huge problem. At this point, their HME and spells / damage need to be straight up doubled.
I can already see it, a quest that takes a full group so I can get a merc that’s worth a crap to help me solo.
While tank mercs have "traditionally" been very weak (even in EoK) and while i can not even speak for the RoS merc gear, i can safely say that the above quoted part about healer mercs is not what i experienced. I have maxed the new "general" merc-AAs though as well as the class ones for my most-used ones (healer). I use still the EoK merc gear (we did not get merc-drop-upgrades in RoS, did we? If we did, i am using those). And i am a tank, so i usually keep the mob's attention away from my mercs better than any caster can of course. But i have witnessed my mercs taking a beating in at least one occasion when i happened to be stunned (and several from AEs) and while after two rounds they were rather low, they survived at least the two rounds you mentioned - and in "lesser gear" than you referenced. I do NOT say that there is no merc-issue, i just say that i cannot verify/second this specific claim of yours.
Sadly, this is true. However, the reason for this isn't any Dev-related decison, but community behavior. I do ok with my merc-setup, but then i cover at least the tank aspect, and i mostly carry my own backup healer around too (though i usually use my CLR box to buff and "DPS" only and leave actual healing to the two mercs i use in my most common 3char-setup of either me 3-boxing or me boxing one with a live friend) For TBL i can, however, only speak about Strator at this point, due to well.. locked-behind-progression zones and stuff...
Community behavior is directly linked to the content in which we play. In TBL, we suffer the dev's decision of progression-locked zones. Which means everyone *MUST* start at the beginning, regardless of skill or capability. So if you weren't on with your regular groupmates while they were completing progression, they either stop what they're doing to catch you up, or you go it alone. Going it alone means you either make new friends, join PUGs, or use mercs. Mercs are nearly 100% worthless in TBL. The only merc not useless is healer. Healer mercs are so weak against TBL mobs so as to be considered nearly useless. Crazily, you blame the community for the necessity of mercs? Insane.
I agree that mercs (especially the tank and melee DPS) need some attention, but I did want to say that a guildie and I used a tank merc in Stratos last night for a task and it did fine. I have no idea how well AA’d it was and I assume it was in EoK armor (I didn’t ask), but it could tank 1-2 mobs when needed, a real, well-geared, cleric was healing the merc, but he virtually never went below 90% mana (I’m a bard and I was not playing a mana song). The biggest issue is that the tank merc couldn’t keep agro over my bard while using DoTs. That’s not a huge test. A real player is clearly better, but it did work. The main reason I point this out is to discuss two tangentially related issues. First, I tried to solo this task with a healer merc and it couldn’t keep me up. I don’t want to get into the various ways I could have soloed the task as a bard, but I do want to point out that an EoK geared healing merc that is not max AAs (but pretty close) cannot reliably keep a raid geared bard with a Wurmslayer and shield equipped while tanking a relatively tame Stratos even con. Second, I’m not trying to suggest that the bard is or should be considered a tank, but the tank merc was absolutely every bit as good, if not better, at tanking (specifically mitigating or avoiding mob damage; not necessarily at keeping agro) the mobs than I was. And just to repeat, I don’t want to delve too much into the specifics about what my bard was and wasn’t doing as far as what cooldowns I had running, what clickies I was using, what songs were up, etc., I just want to share my experience in the most general way possible and have you all take my word for it. As a result, I don’t have a strong opinion either way and the opinions I do have are perhaps a bit biased, but I’d say at the very least that the healing merc should perhaps be at the very least strong and smart enough to reliably keep up a raid geared bard while tanking one (slowed) mob in current content or maybe, just maybe, bards are perhaps a bit squishy, which could either simply be intended or an indication that bards could use a small defensive tuneup. I’m not trying to derail here and talk bard stuff, but it is an important aspect of my experience with mercs in both current and relatively recent content.* *I still have trouble tanking some 105 content with a healing merc backing me up and I think I hard before engaging a named mob even in TDS content. That’s not even mentioning RoS where I have a tough time moloing many regular mobs.
The main problem I have seen has been mercs getting AEd they drop to half life! They tend to carry on healing the MA another AE goes off and they go splat! This is just trash AEs not named and don't even think about trying anything which dots, they are evil for mercs to survive. 125K I think was the last one I checked the damage of. Really hating the huge AE range on names so other people in the zone get hit by them! AEs in indoor zones should not go through walls! Mercs getting a HUGE HP increase would go a long way to helping healer mercs.
As a class that can solo/molo current content, I will say that this expansion is definitely more intense/harder/more damaging/less healing/etc than before. In the past, I could have my merc healer heal my raid focused pet on a single mob and not worry. And I mean raid focused as having the raid focus from previous expansion. Anyways maybe on a named I would have to cast one heal spell, but that was rare. The pet could always handle one mob, and the merc healer could handle one mob. In TBL, I am finding myself using Host in Shell and Fortify a LOT on just trash (have not seen a single named yet to try). And even with Host and Fortify, I am having to cast pet heal multiple times to help the merc. Last night in Empyr, for example, I engaged in a single fire lord mob. With Host in Shell on pet, I had to cast Aegis AA twice and Renewal (pet heal spell) probably 5-8 times just to help the merc. And this is with ROS raid focus pet and all TBL pet defensive AA. So either the pet is taking more damage than before, or the merc is not keeping up with heals. And I have all heal over time spells blocked, so merc is (I believe/assume) just casting direct heals. But it is definitely different this expansion. My biggest issue so far, however, is when I fall off an island in Stratos. My merc gets instant death. I do not know if the TBL merc AA will push it past 200k hit points or not to handle the fall damage, but the biggest frustration is falling, I drop to like 30% health but merc dies instantly and now I have to wait 5 minutes. I do not mind the 200k, but I do mind the 5 minutes I have to wait cause the merc cannot handle that fall...
Yes, but not exclusively. You are right, we are seeing bad decisions (from a player's persoective, at least from this player's) thrown at us and yes that has it's part on our behavior. However, i have seen a lot since i created the world and i can say that in the same environment (e.g. a SciFi MMO with full PvP i have played) you see the different personalities "at work" in the very same, unchanging, environment. PvP does, in my experience, make the differences that much more visible, but they exist in every game. For EQ, that is people ROFLstomping over others, campstealing and all that - or simply segregating themselves as much as possible from everyone else.. But it also brings out some good... You mentioned being late and having to start at the beginning: That is exactly what has happened to me, due to my injury at release. But i have experienced some very helpful people. I guess it is much "as you shout into the woods, so does it shout back" as we say here - or in english i think it is: what goes around, comes around. See, you cannot expect much beyond the mercs if you keep to yourself and box. I see many people in general on my server that are lfg, often for long stretches of time. Yes, they need your, mine, our help certainly and yes, they might be "behind". But i maintain that the investment is worth it, even if you succeed with precious few people (and believe me, i know what i talk about there, i have ran so many people through EoD1 that i can not count them, most of them just disappeared, but a FEW remained and a few of those even became friends or at least comrades). So yes: Mercs are lacking, ESPECIALLY in positioning. And yes, the AEs going on, or at least some of them, render them almost useless (healer in the Hero of Empyr for example). For a few cases, there are workarounds. But for the rest, i am back to the community behavior that has come to rely a bit too much on mercs for my personal taste. (and just for the record: yes i know that mercs are regarded a band-aid to the overall reduction of server populations and that in some instances whole servers almost rely on them. But it is my opinion that what is good for one place need not be just as good for the other.)
Yes AEs are bad, especially if you simply pass by (Empyr, phoenix' ) and they break your invis... For the mercs however (speaking about maxed or near-maxed merc-AAs and EoK dropped merc gear) normal AEs from trash are NOT an issue i have personally witnessed so far. Yes they drop (not to 50health in my experience but enough) but they do cast group heals. I have done a lot of killing in Empyr these last 2days, and i have no specific issue with my merc despite all the mob's AEs and in Stratos i have certainly not an issue at all, except for the knockback the mercs do, but that is not merc-related. AEs from nameds or in missions are another matter entirely, here mercs can help (depending on some factors the group can in part control too) but never "do the job" imo, at least not alone. The AEs through walls, i think there was a reason for that - not a good one imo, but dimly recall some explanation about exploits ("pulling tricks" or such). There is some geometry that blocks AEs and others that do not, i have no clue if it is intentional that AEs are not blocked, but we all know we have to be careful with cone spell and AAs and such, so it's nothing new and not exactly merc-related either but a matter of it's own. I do not say that i am against inreases for mercs, some merc types more than others. But i DO say that apparently my personal experience differs a bit from much of what is said here, especially when referring to healer mercs (which i as WAR use most of the time).
Tank mercs have always been pathetically useless on anything that gives experience. It was pointed out repeatedly to the devs in SoD beta, to no effect. The DPS mercs are pretty lame but at least they do something if you have an empty group spot. The healer mercs are still OP, especially since they are stackable. Even a cleric main is better off using a healer merc to heal him/her while he/she tanks and DPSs; and them using a cleric merc will give them rank2 buffs to boot without them ever having to loot or pay for a spell. Its easy to see the discrepancy stop and think how many tank, melee and pet classes you see running around all over every expansion since mercs came about, moloing 90pct of everything with a healer merc. Then stop and ask yourself when if ever you have seen a priest or non-pet caster doing the same thing with a tank merc...,. They tried and repeatedly failed back in SoD. The tank mercs were training and killing full groups of priests in oceangreen. I often use my chanter pet to tank, with two healer mercs, it is a million times a better tank than a max AA max geared, fully raid buffed but still completely useless tank merc. I often see shaman doing the same thing their pets, and are definitely a better combo for a healer merc than a chanter; or even more pathetic a druid or cleric who have no viable means to do anything "molo.": Since no effort has been made to make tank mercs viable since Sod, Why would any of you even bring them up or expect a change now? It would of been nice if an effort was made before all those priests and non-pet classes quit/main-changed. Since this was the foretold and expected result of horrible design, you can only garner that it was intended. Why stir the pot now?
Rage against the dying of the light? If they've heard it a thousand times and done nothing, maybe they just need to hear it 1001 times.
Yes, Tank Mercs are by far the most pathetic mercs in existence... I'm at least thankful Shaman pets got a boost, at least my pet can tank trash with a healer merc and me spot healing/dpsing. Cleric mercs are at least still semi useful, ya they're not quite as good as before, but they're still a viable option. I'd like to see the Tank Mercs get a huge boost so they can at least tank trash mobs. I don't expect them to be able to tank names consistently but they need to be more than the current speed bump on a pull that they are.
What about just letting healer mercs have the cleric HP aura? This would at least help mercs survive the AE and would be an overall help to everyone. Not sure why the healers mercs can’t cast this to begin with. Would be easy to implement and help solve or at least bandaid a lot of the issues mentioned in this post.
