That sounds more like a wizard class issue. Should they be tuned around a class that can't sustain that or against what should be a normal standard for a rogue? Either way it seems like they could design them to ignore all buffs / support and just be a flat damage no matter the situation or what support they have. Making them worse just to appease bad players seems like a bad standard to set.
1. No. The class of the merc has no bearing on their purpose in the game. By your logic the tank merc should sustain 300k DPS because that's what tanks can do.You get two options so that at least one is viable in any situation when you need to consider range/resists/immunities, etc. That's about all their class distinction is worth discussing. 2. Your average group geared rogue player isn't doing that much better than Wizards. I said I'm not an expert. That doesn't mean I'm clueless. Wizards may not be top tier when it comes to sustained DPS in a group but they're well within range for what's acceptable for a DPS class and these mercs represent DPS classes as a whole.
How are you going to argue rogues are doing too much DPS because wizards can only do 170k DPS while using 300k DPS of a tank as an example.
We already established that your average Rogue player has trouble sustaining that amount regularly and easily without ADPS. So, I also included information about Wizards to show how two traditional DPS classes are in the same boat. If you look at your average group geared player from most DPS class you're looking at a similar situation. Tanks doing 300k DPS is just an example of how the developers clearly don't intend merc performance to be similar to the associated player class. Tank mercs might be warriors but they're purely for tanking and have basically no DPS aspect to them at all. Unlike the player class. Besides, Ngreth did already state that the DPS mercs are a stopgap until you can find a real player and they're not intended to do as well or be used a as a replacement. So, that's not something we should continue to argue. The only new thing I believe that has been stated is that the rogue merc is intended to have higher aggro and be more difficult to use than the caster merc and should also do a bit more DPS than it.
Update. I tested with a level 59 J1 rogue merc. It was on Burn stance and tanking. It cast Strike of Impaired Vision when it was below 20% HP and caused a tank swap (to the PC). This was molo and it didn't cast anything prior to being low HP (it had plenty of time to do so). So I think I was right in my original post (Burn + SoIP casts) and it shows that merc AI has some complexity to it (which is nice to see) even without the many bugs. ps: The PC had group assist set to themselves, others unset.
Aggro seems to be a decent amount better on the Test server and DPS is only down around 15% for base damage. It could stand a little more adjustment but either way this current version seems better to me. Maybe I'll try burn mode later for spell counts but I did show what Balanced was doing at the end of the video. Combined (10): a restless Coldain in 716s, 85.77M Damage @119.79K, 1. Nuthille = 64.11M@110.54K in 580s
I tried Burn and got it to happen once... The DPS didn't seem too different. Combined (4): a cold skeleton in 537s Nuthille - 73 --- Assault - 2 --- Bite of the Shissar Poison - 1 --- Cloaked Blade - 7 --- Daggerslash - 3 --- Drachnid Blade - 2 --- Pinpoint Liabilities - 2 --- Received Bite of the Shissar Poison - 1 --- Received Cloaked Blade - 26 --- Received Crepuscular Rune - 6 --- Received Daggerslash - 3 --- Received Drachnid Blade - 2 --- Received Gift of Chromatic Haze - 8 --- Received Glamorous Visage - 2 --- Received Glyph Spray - 1 --- Received Thief's Eyes - 2 --- Slash - 2 --- Strike of Impaired Vision - 1 --- Thief's Eyes - 2
It's more about confirming that it's (Spider) being used for hate reduction. Or do you mean between balance vs burn stance?
My Skelly Assassin Merc (Slim), who I only recently started using does roughly 1/2 - 2/3 the damage of the highest parser in a group, but steals ALL of the agro from everyone in a group, including a Beefy Raid Tank. He has 0 damage AA's, because I've been putting all Merc AA's into Subtle Strikes, from 0 to 10/15, but this has done absolutely nothing to reduce his agro. Basically ALL Mercs are broken in some way. 1) Healer Mercs are not casting fast heals anymore, and I don't understand why they are casting Splash? That spell is slow casting, and a smaller heal than Group Heals. We only use Splash on raids to hit others outside our group. In a group, a Group Heal is the logical choice. Mercs aren't allowed on Raids. 2) Caster Merc has always been my Merc of choice, but the last time I parsed him in a group, he was a pitiful #5, with 14/15 damage AA's bought. That's not worth 1000+ plat per hour... 3) Tank Mercs have never been worth using imo. I rarely see anyone using them in groups. 4) Assassin Mercs have never been good DPS, until now. But there is definitely an issue with their Agro--and Subtle Strikes AA's which so far have been a waste of Merc AA's spent. But I use him anyway, and heal like mad!
This patch was a big step in the right direction. Additional adjustments are needed, but we're going to right direction. I have only parsed about 20 mobs and was trying a bunch of different things. These are my preliminary findings... Tank merc is up to about 45k DPS, up from about 8k DPS. This is pretty close to what I would expect from casual player knights using a sword and shield. The tank merc is holding aggro better and picking up adds again. The tank merc is keeping aggro off of the rogue merc with the rogue merc on burn. These changes to the tank are a really big deal and I am very pleased to be seeing them. The rogue mercs are down to about 120k DPS from about 170k DPS. I find this to be reasonable, as I am parsing casual players this low. My mage is just ahead of this. My mage and merc are both very low on DPS AA btw. Since the rogues lost DPS and the tank gained it, the net impact to my war/rog/clr merc combo is minimal net loss, but the aggro is working much more appropriately and the balance for which merc I swap out for a player is much more reasonable. I am still having an aggro issue however, with my mage pet, as even rogue on balanced, with almost maxed pet fury, rage swords, glamorous/horrifying visages, the mercs keep ganking aggro from the mage pet. The mage pet should be a functioning substitute to a player tank, but rogue mercs are not respecting the mage pets. They don't slow down for it on balanced like they do for other tanks. Mage pets will keep aggro from PC DPS, so it should be a viable option for Merc DPS. And again, this is with glamorous and horrifying visages.
Curious. Do you have the magician set as group tank? Are the rage procs being resisted? The mage pet rage swords have % hate so, over a longer fight, it should be impossible for anyone without a taunt abilitiy to take aggro. How long are the fights? under 1 minute? under 30 seconds? [29913] Frenzying Burst Target: Single Range: 150' Resist: Magic -20 Reflectable: No Focusable: Yes Casting: 0s 1: Increase Current Hate by 4% [60246] Frenzying Burst V Target: Single Range: 150' Resist: Magic -20 Reflectable: No Focusable: Yes Casting: 0s 1: Increase Current Hate by 6% 2: Increase Hate by 8125
