I decided to roll a rogue and the obvious choice for a merc was a tank to help me backstab. But I can't seem to get him to take agro from me, even setting him as the "main tank" in my group he still doesn't seem to do anything. Is there some sort of option to taunt that I'm missing? Thanks!
I read it wrong sorry. Though I believe they produce the most aggro if set to aggressive and not assist.
It gets better as you level, pre lvl 20 or so the tank mercs really struggle to keep agro. But post 20, and once you learn how to use evade it gets much better
Ya in the early levels the tank won't hold aggro unless you are out of melee range. It's probably for the best as those early level of Defense are important!
To add on to Raptor's suggestion, let the merc tank take the mob down to 80-90% before you start engaging. Your fast stabbity weapons and backstab button are out damaging the tank's craptastic melee and even worse aggro locking abilities.
If you are in a group with another player and set yourself as the Puller, you may notice that the tank merc (set to Main Tank and Aggressive) might be slow to engage. This is usually because the merc will be tied to another group member's /loc as the camp's position, sort of like an anchor. This can be fixed by pulling the mobs further into the camp, or asking the group member linked to the tank merc (it feels random) to step forward a few paces. Also, tank mercs hate fighting on hills.
Additionally, the tank merc will give priority to the target that the person marked as "Main assist" is attacking. This is helpful in making sure it's dpsing the correct mobs, and makes doing things like mezzing etc much simpler as the tank (and other mercs) are not targeting the mob being CCed.
I cannot tell you how many times I have to tell folks this right here. We're talking long time players that are giving me advice and I quickly pointed out that mercs hate fighting on hills. Being a puller, I have to bring the mob to the person that the tank is assigned to, and freaking casters LOVE sitting on hills. It drives me nuts to the point of developing a bad case of tourrette's and even refusing to pull till they come down off the wall. First, I calmly explain to them how it all works, and that's good for a few pulls, but they inevitably creep back up the wall (in the same way people always creep forward during a raid or continuously engage the mob before the assist is called), and I have to stop and tell them to come down off the wall. After they creep back up the wall 3 or 4 times, I start losing my cool, and gods help them if I die because they're so far up the farking wall the tank won't engage, that's when I get all indignant about it! So, yes, this is very important. Find out who the tank is assigned to and let them know if they creep up that farking wall you will train them over and over and over and over, following them from zone to zone and making their playing experience horrid for making yours so horrid, or you, know, find somebody that actually knows what they're doing to play with. (and I know casters stand on walls to get a better angle to shoot at the mobs, the most infuriating thing as a caster is not being able to see the mob to cast on it because it's paw/hoof/foot is behind a rock the size of a baseball.)
I hate when weird geometry causes the mercs to freek out. Nothing worse than pulling a mob and the tank merc runs 2 miles away to try and find a path to the mob.
Pizacatto's post has some great comedic value. Much of that comes from the fact that everything he says is actually true.
Those little icons that show the Main Tank, Main Assist and Puller group roles... How about an Anchor icon or some such thing to show who the tank merc is tied to? The way it's coded is a mystery; to me, anyway.
It says below the merc name who it belongs to does it not? Taking a quick look before pulling is always a good idea. Be aware of your surroundings if you want others to be aware of theirs.
You are correct: it does say the owner's name underneath the mercenary's name. However, you're referring to something entirely irrelevant. To help illustrate: I often 2-box a druid (with tank merc) and enchanter (with cleric merc). I usually pull with with druid. So the group roles are as follows: Moogs, Druid, Puller (also usually Main Assist) Cenlakin, Moogs' Tank mercenary, Main Tank Faelwyn, Enchanter Faelwyn's Cleric merc (I don't remember her name because I don't swear at her as much as I do the tank merc) Druid goes to pull a mob to the camp. The enchanter sits back with the two mercenaries. In this instance, since the druid is the puller, the Tank mercenary is anchored to the enchanter's location. It says "this general area, within a certain radius, is the group's camp and I will stay here until the puller comes back". This becomes more complicated when there are 1 or 2 more people to fill out the group of 6. It's not always obvious to know which of those 2 or 3 PCs the tank merc is going to stand next to in order to wait for the Puller. This matters when - as Pizacatto points out - PCs shift around and adjust their location within the "camp". This could be as simple as looting corpses or moving in order to have line of sight for casting. Hope that helps everyone understand the problem.
Ahh, I see what you mean. Although all of that becomes irrelevant when you turn on call assist. I use this all the time, although if I pull with my cleric merc when I get aggro and he isn't on passive he walks so I just place him on passive and then when I get back to camp I have a hotkey that switches him to balanced.
Yes, you've pointed out the best workaround at the moment. I tend not to use it unless he's being a special pain in the butt. Trying to keep mouseclicks and such to a minimum when boxing. Especially when 3-boxing... I tend to save the Call Assist button for the Wizard merc, who gets eaten on inc unless he is on Balanced (which is useless). But he doesn't get to come out and play very often.
Oh, it would also be nice if the Tank mercenary would face in the direction of the puller until he is ready to engage. A lot of the time he is turned around facing a wall and doesn't know that a mob is 2 feet behind him. OP, I didn't mean to hijack your thread! Apologies.
bad info to get in someone's mind. not the part about letting merc build aggro first, but the out-damaging part. "fast stabby" is the aggro issue not the damage (merc tanks have huge dmg anyway but its irrelevant as melee aggro goes off swingrates and procs not off the damage)
While fighting turn off attack and hide. You'll get a message that says something like "You have momentarily ducked out of combat"(success) or "you failed to duck out of combat"(failure) This is the "evade" someone mentioned, it's some kind of aggro reduction/dropping mechanic that new players may not know about. Give your merc a buffer on aggro then go to town and use evade when it pops/as necessary. If you already knew about it disregard this post. If there's anything about it that happened in the last few years Somone else could expand on it. It was fairly important/useful back when I played, I quit OoW era and came back with ftp so Im not sure if/how its been changed but it was working for me on my newbie rogue.
No, evade is still VERY VERY important, specially at those lower levels where the tanks dont have alot of agro tricks
