Category: Mercenaries Date/Time: Wed Apr 12 01:00:25 2023 Character: Level 120 Magician (Main) Zone: Darklight Caverns Location: 806.19, -609.71, 187.66, 187.82 Description: Melee merc's refuse to engage in combat. Pet tanking with a mage pet, and a bard in group. Does not matter if its mage's merc or bards, both will not engage at all or until the fight is almost over. I assume it does not like pet tanking so it does not know when to engage. This has been going on for years. Could also be bard songs on puller, not sure. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
When I saw the title of this thread, I said to myself "I bet this is being reported by a Mage". So, what you observed is very likely when one of your Servant swarm pets has aggro. Servant pets generate a TON of hate, especially when focused with a high level EM item, and often steal aggro from a Mage pet, even with Taunt on and Hate weapons equipped. This bug/feature/oversight/annoyance has been around quite awhile, probably since Mercs were first introduced. The bottom line is, Mercs do not view the Servant pets as a Player or Pet, so it will not assist when a Mob is attacking the Servant pet. If/when the Mobs switches to the Mage pet tank, it will assist and start attacking. If a Servant pet takes aggro again, the Merc will stop attacking. I've personally never had a Merc assist issue with a Pet tank, when the pet actually has aggro on the Mob.
There's more to it then being a mage and it feels new to me. I blame the merc simplifications of the past couple of years. For example: my druid recently died at the start of a fight and her rogue merc (auto-assist balanced) would not engage. My paladin (who was tanking and had plenty of aggro) rezzed the druid mid-fight and the druid had to toggle auto assist for the merc to finally engage.
Melee Merc will not engage unless it is set to burn, it will not engage when set to balanced, this is with a beastlord tanking not a pet. Server Vaniki
