I know mercenaries are getting a boost with the patch but I wanted to add one thing for consideration. Mercenary AA's do make a difference but at this point in the game, with merc AA's being around 700 or so, can we just make them granted like group leader and raid leader AA's? Be done with Merc AA's. It takes a lot of exp to get a single Merc AA and it will take a very long time for someone to even come close to getting them to an acceptable level. My main account has several hundred AA's and my newer bot account has almost none, both are 110 of course but the difference in the 2 Mercs is considerable. If you dont use your Mercs all the time, it will take forever to get them up there. Just a thought, is it really even necessary at this point?
I would imagine the developers will never do that for the simple reason that they want players to group up. Having an automatic max AA healer mercenary mostly prevents you inviting a healer to replace said merc, whereas having a zero AA healer merc essentially requires you to invite a healer to replace the merc. Thus forming a group with players...
It's a oxymoron, though. If your merc is max AA, then you will use them more. If your merc is not max AA, then you will use it less, and thus, not gain more merc AAs. So, in order to get your merc to max AAs, you need to use it more, which means less full grouping with players in order to have a spot for your merc. It's kind of like when they create a reward for finishing everything in an expansion, and the reward is something that makes doing the expansion easier. At that point, you don't need it much, since you've already finished everything...
They don't need to grant them, but at least make them accrue faster, or let players "buy" them (spend your character AA to buy merc AA, for example).
If they want us to group, then they should allow normal AAs to be converted to merc AAs. This will allow everyone to work on merc AAs even without having one up and a full group of players.
Way back when they nerfed Merc AA gain into the Qeynos Sewers (2013?), I had managed to gain 50AA on my main's merc. In the 6 years since, the merc has gained an additional 120AA, to my main character's 10,000 AA. Merc AA rate is dismal. I would support autogrant or a boost to AA gain rate.
When i run a solo lesson i can get 60-62aa. Now i pop the merc to bring up his AA count in and that time i get about mid to low 40's. He gets 3/4 of an aa. I wouldn't mind a boost in their exp gain since they started upping the merc aa prices
Mercs take the same amount of XP as a player does by being in the group, however their xp gain was capped, so if killing a mob gives 100,000 xp per player, the merc gets 100,000 xp, but is capped at something awful like 1,000 xp so their gain rate is abysmal. (Note: made up numbers). The correct solution is to remove (or at least significantly raise) the xp cap on mercs.
Would like to see this. As a member of a great fellowship, I always have a group and rarely use my mercs. As a result, I've only accrued about 10 merc AAs over the years since they introduced it. Now, I don't really need a better merc, because when I do use it, it's just solo stuff and usually not very hard, but it would give me something to spend AA's on when I max out every year.
Wouldn't it be cool that if you were offline or on an alt you could hire out your merc to other players with a bazaar like ui. The other player pays you plat to hire your merc, it gains AA exp. The benefit to the hiring player is that they can use 2 mercs at same time. There would be a mercenary guild fee so the total cost could be about 3x what you would pay per hour for your one merc. You would have to hire a merc at = to or less than your current level. This way you can help your friends/alts mercs too. When logging into a char that has a merc hired out, you would recall him, and the mercenary guild would replace temporarily with a doppleganger merc of same quality till the hiring character chooses to stop using/logs out/ wipes etc. Feedback?
