Good morning, Sadly, one of my regular group members has to take a bit of a break (get well man!) and last night we added a wizard merc. DPS was pretty good but several times in the night he (i am assuming he, it is a fungus after all ) would teleport away randomly and come meandering back at his own pace. And once he teleported somewhere got aggro on 3 mobs (showed in extended target) got killed then aggro dropped. What is going on here? Is there something i can do to prevent this or is it a 'feature' Thanks!
Make sure you have the group roles set: main tank, main assist, and puller. If you don't have puller set, and the merc's owner is the puller, it will go out with that toon (and usually get killed).
As Velasis mentioned, the puller role can cause some issues. Make sure it’s on if your puller is out of camp, and if you find you have issues with a merc getting stuck somewhere across the map and not coming back, removing puller tag, and reapplying once the merc has warped back usually sorts it out.
It isnt the pullers merc, but i do have roles assigned. I SUSPECT he is getting hit and using sidestep or whatever that is but it is baffling for sure
Even on balanced and burn modes, the wizard mercenaries occasionally use ae spells. It is unfortunate, but that is probably what happened to you.
Also, zone geometry REALLY affects the caster mercs...way more than it affects the others. I've had times where my caster merc just stands there doing nothing, I tap the arrow key to take a step forward, and suddenly they start casting like mad. If you're fighting on even slightly uneven terrain, the caster mercs will do strange things. I would try a rogue merc...they do more damage anyway.
I stopped using caster mercs a while ago, for a couple of reasons. Melee merc can be on burn full time, never has any problems, never has to med, never pulls agro, never runs all over the place like an idiot. Caster merc AI is horrible, in more than a few ways. They will often do dumb things, at the worst times. Probably the worst AI of the bunch really, mostly down to their 'I'm going to run away now after I agro' programming. Mercs in general have a *lot* of problems depending on settings. 'Puller' has some really horrible behavior, where mobs will or won't engage depending on what pixel you are standing on, or once in a while will just decide to run out 100 yards and engage that mob that's on the way into camp. I wish they would spend time fixing stuff like this, instead of nerfing classes.
This is not true in my experience. Often healer mercs cast around corners and through walls when healing me. The do have trouble positioning often and can end up healing through floor/ceiling too. They cannot heal across the dreaded water/lava vs air boundary, same as everyone else.
I think the wizard merc is (by far) the best for most classes up to level 60 or 65. Their ability to Burn AE and tank a small swarm gives them top score on levelling. 2 or 3 is even better if you're power-levelling more then one toon.
Odd, I use a wizard merc all the time (great synergy with my chanter, wiz, wiz combo) and never have issues. I only have main tank and main assist set so don't think it would be puller. I do lock down agro with my paladin so maybe you're right its an agro issue or as the other poster mentioned a zone specific one.
