I have a caster merc that never casts anymore. Never. Not once. Doesn't matter how many times I change merc setting or suspend unsuspend the merc.
This is super frustrating when your melee merc just stands there and watches you die. Please upvote this is you have the same problem.
I have had that happen with Dwarf healer Merc, ended up dismissing it & hiring one of a different race (Dark Elf in my case).
I will say this about the caster mercs...they are EXTREMELY fussy with regards to terrain. If they're even just slightly above/below the level of the mob, or if there's a tiny divot or pebble between them and the target, then they refuse to do anything. I end up having to move around/reposition the mob in order to get them to start casting.
Geometry is likely the cause of a whole plethora of things that are frustrating about Merc behaviour & often exacerbate the problems with EverQuest's pathing. Tank mercs not assisting, Healer Mercs not healing & DPS mercs doing nothing to Mercs bolting off miles away from you when their pathing goes haywire due to you moving to something / somewhere the pathing system cannot plot a course between it & you. As you point out the only workaround we have as players is dragging the mob far enough away from the problematic location that the mercs engage after overcoming whatever geometry affliction they had, my theory is they need to have a line of sight from their own feet to the mob's "feet" & to the "feet" of players, small terrain differences, furniture etc can really mess with that though even on flat areas the pathing can spectacularly & catastrophically fail. So yeah Mercs have their real eyes in their feet is my understanding. I've lost count of how many wipes I have endured due to pathing/geometry failures & merc interactions with these going awry. If I learned one thing it is that some areas are just a nightmare, if one of a mob, merc or autofollowing box paths funky or behaves oddly then expect everything else to also have massive problems there & prepare wipe contingencies.
Yep same thing. I recently came back after years. I am leveling a Druid with a tank merc. Half the time the merc just stands there, and will join in I guess when he feels like it. I died a bunch of times because of it.
