I am fairly new to Mercs, so I want to check out what the recent opinion is. I feel like the Tank is by far the best, and the others not nearly as effective. But I am still only level 45, so I was wondering if I should learn the way to use the other types of Merc. Or do people only ever use the tank?
Depends on what class you are and your playstyle and if your talking Journeyman or Apprentice mercs. I main a Ranger and have always used the healer merc. Tried the tank but I did better tanking so the healer was better for me, plus I really learned my class. My alt is an Enchanter and she works better with a tank merc. Others say to run the tank till level 60 and he will level you up. I have never found that worked that well even when trying a tank on other classes. Maybe I just like to get in the fray and fight as opposed to standing on the side lines throwing out heals. I found the caster mercs to be worthless, and the melee ones are ok as back up. These are my opinions for you to consider and I am sure others will weigh in with their thoughts. Just remember not a single one of us are right or wrong. Its all how you play the game
The caster dps merc does more dps than the tank merc at some of the lower levels and tanks just as well or better than tank merc. I say better because you can put them on AE burn to simultaneously keep aggro on multiple mobs. On the downside, if an npc gets down to 10% health or so, the caster merc will sometimes refuse to cast spells on the mob, so you'd have to do the last bit of dmg yourself. Another downside is if you pull deep red mobs, the tank merc can slowly whittle down the mobs health, but the caster npc will get a lot of partial and full resists. But I think around level 50, the caster merc can start running out of mana, so the tank merc is better. And it might even be by level 45 that the tank merc does more dmg, anyway.
Most of the time I use a healer merc with my beastlord mostly so I can forget that I also have healing spells and instead just concentrate on damage. If you want to use a charm pet, do not use a healer merc. The merc will 'heal' the charm detriment. A pet tank is generally better than a tank merc because you have some measure of control over what is being tanked and can deal better with adds.
Tank merc can level you to 60 easy, with the right buffs and mob selection, even higher. After that it depends on class and if you are going to be grouped a lot or molo.
The tank is awesome at lower levels. You almost don't have to anything to help. But that doesn't last forever. Eventually the tank won't be able to solo everything and you'll have to work to keep it alive. One thing about the healer mercs is that they often use heal-over-time and delayed-healing spells. That's fine at the lower levels, but above 70 or 80, the mobs hit so hard and fast that you may end up dying before the heal completes. You can block these kinds of heals by right clicking on the heal buff and blocking it. Then the merc will use the instant heal spells. Above a certain level, your healer merc can rez you. If you need a rez, one option is to get a healer merc if you don't already have one and have it do the rez. I would guess that the tank and healer merc are used the most often. The melee and caster mercs are trickier and would be more for special use cases.
1-60 or 70, Tank merc. You go with Tank merc because a lot of mobs at lower levels tend to run, and the AE caster and melee dps are not going to follow them necessarily. Post 70, then what you choose will vary by your class. Melee & tanks will tend towards healer merc, while healers might lean towards melee dps or tank merc, and casters and pet classes will tend towards casters or healers.
For mage/shammy I use healer merc and melee dps merc. A lot of the time I could do without the healer merc, but I'm a bit lazy.
Thanks for all your wisdom, basically you were all correct. Within a few levels of my initial post, I had to change up and use a healer. But now I have another question, I am just into the 70s now, and I am noticing that my Healer Merc is a bit of a newb with his mana sometimes. Will a Journeyman be noticeably better? And how do they become Journeyman, do you pay for an upgrade, or do they level up on their own?
The only way you can get/use journeyman mercs is to subscribe to the game. Then you go to a merc merchant of your choice and they will be for sale. If you don't see "journeyman" listed then click the little arrow next to "apprentice" - its a drop down list. All mercs level as you level. And Journeyman mercs are very much better than apprentice. Mine tank and heal my group of 6 level 120's in NOS easily.
You can also get gear for them to help with their hit points and other stats. So starting at level 75 you can get merc gear from the NPCs in Ethernere Tainted West Karana with "Crude", next level is 80 and is called "Simple" then at 85 it's "Rough", at 90 it's "Ornate", at 95 it's "Flawed" and at 100 it's "Intricate" and finally at 105 it's "Elaborate". All of this gear is no trade and bought with Marks of Valor which are dropped from the Heroic Adventures in that expansion. Also at level 105 you can buy "Elegant" from the merchant in Lceanium in Empires of Kunark using Sathir trade gems. This gear is also no trade. The dropped gear for level 105 is called "Vigilant" and can be purchased from other players or in the baz and is tradeable. And now there is top level gear called grandiose.
Mercs have their own skill improvements as a tab on the AA window (v is the default key to open). As you adventure and earn XP, with or without the merc 'out' you earn Merc AA to spend on their specific advancements. Some of the skills apply to any merc type (like improved defense, improved health, etc) and others are specific to the merc type. It's clearly labeled on the UI which the skills are for.
Yes. The apprentice healer mercenary has around 8.8k mana and 195 mana regneration at level 71. The journeyman healer mercenary has almost 20k mana and 540 mana regen at level 71, so it won't run out of mana nearly as fast. Additionally, the journeman mercenary has an additional stance called reactive which will usually make it start casting heals sooner after you start taking damage. Edit: For some reason, I hired caster dps mercenaries instead of healers. The healer apprentice mercenary has a little better mana regeneration and the journeyman healer has even better mana regeneration at level 71 than the caster mercenary.
If you want efficiency for kills and leveling as fast as possible, the tank merc is the way to go from 1-65ish for every class, no question. It's not a real tank, especially pre 35 or so it will not be great at getting aggro off you, if you heal or damage too much too fast, but in most cases it will kill the mobs you're fighting before you get in any real danger. It does as much or more dps than the melee attacker or caster dps at lower levels, but takes a lot more punishment, regens faster and doesn't have some of the "try to avoid getting hit" AI as the others. Now if you want to take it slow, train up your defensive and offensive skills, a healer merc is very sturdy. There will be many times, youve got 5+ mobs beating on your healer merc, who will sit there and heal itself and be a very effective tank while you knock the mobs down one at a time. This works well, but is as slow as your own personal dps. At higher levels the Healer becomes the best and most widely used Merc, second is the dps mercs, especially the melee, as many classes have ways to enhance that kind of damage.
When the new expansion came out I could not tank the names as a 120 SK with a 120 Dru.....So i had the Dru pop a tank merc. killed all the names in the first two zones with ease using the tank merc instead of dps. I took alot of from other SKs over it, but simple math...I had 8700AC...tank merc has 15k+AC. it easily killed the lvl 129 namers in the new zones with my SKs Cleric healing it, and SK and DRU both trying to dps. Now Im reasonably geared (10.5 AC 4000hdex) and 125 I can tank the names, but the tank merc is definitely capable. Positioning sucked, but other then that I could almost afk kill most names.
