...could change the look of the visible primary/secondary and could fit in ornamentations...it would be 100x cooler than the current merc item stats. Make it so.
If merc gear was easier to obtain, I would be for this. but currently it seems level locked to players @ 100
Step 1: Make merc equipment capable of cosmetic effects, as described in the OP. Step 2: Make merc equipment for more people than those at level 100, but continue requiring CotF (or some other sort of unlocker) to be able to use it. Step 3: PROFIT! I didn't even "..."-ify a step. That's a clear and directly spelled out path to additional profit. xD
Good idea, but I think the problem here would be the multitude of odd Mercenary models that we have. I do not see them make meshes for all those different body-models like Alaran, Amygdalan, Goblins, Skeletons and you name it. Having said this, I guess it could be done for those Mercs that are PC-races. For these races they would not even have to make specific graphics: they could just add an Ornament slot to the visible slots and leave it at that. Would be cool to find some use for all the Hero's Forge stuff I am finding.
Spot on, I do not care what the merc or my character look like, function (stats) trumps form (look) every time. Right now, the merc items are pretty useless .
How did you come to the determination that merc items are useless? How did you come to the determination that upgrading your hat from T1 to T2 is useful? J5 mercs are already raid geared, you're just giving them an upgrade, and in that light, the gear makes sense. I don't know what more you expected considering that even a fully geared and AAed merc needs to be worse than a player, or we'll end up not being able to find groups.
My tank merc has 82769 hp and 6865 AC. Don't let that throw you off though, because I have a dozenish ranks of more hp and more ac...along with all the AC on merc gear I can get. I didn't think being "raid geared" in VoA stuff really counted. I have 10k+ more HP as a druid and with more AC and I am not even in current raid gear. Edited for spelling mistakes.
I agree, the expansion page said (and still says) Mercenary Gear — The ability for player to manage Mercenary equipment and provide them with powerful weapons and armor. So either their definition of powerful is hugely different from.. pretty much everyone else' or well.. you know... (and based on just how little we got from this expansion, and how pointless the gear seems and how painful the aa grind on merc is.. I doubt I'll be buying any further expansions until I am 100% sure its worth it. I don't even log my main in much anymore other then to farm stuff for my new alt. At least the 1-60something game is still fun.)
Except that you and the merc aren't playing by the same rules. You know since you are a PC and the merc is an npc. They can tune them however they want, who knows what this rAC is or what level of mitigation they have. As long as they are performing correctly comparing their stats to a PC is rather pointless.
I'd be happy if a merc tank was = to a mid-upper tier group geared player stat wise. I rarely have issues with the mercs myself, except when my healer decides not to heal me but will rez me ha. Mercs do the job they are made to do. If the gear gave the upgrade from mid tier group gear to top tier group gear I'd say that would be a good way to go.
You have to remember that mercs haven't changed since RoF went live over a year ago, in that time players have received a large increase in all stats. Adding 4 pieces of gear and a few AA do very little, they certainly don't close the gap to players to where they were when RoF launched. Think about how much have you improved since the launch of RoF. It's not like we had a level increase and mercs impoved that way.
Actually, we were previously capped at level 95 when RoF launched, so we have leveled up, and so have our mercs.
Within weeks of RoF going live the majority were level 100 and within 4 months when T3 was released we gained more improvements and when T4 was released we gained further increases over mercs. Our gains in CotF are yet again larger increases than a merc gets.
Excellent! Everyone having J5 mercs is a mistake. They should stagnate the current mercs and add more tiers. Just like a hardcore raider has better gear than a super-casual, the raider should have a better merc. That's how it was originally intended, and while I can't fathom why it wasn't kept that way, we should return to it ASAP without nerfing. With exceptions for people that log in for very short periods of time, and those who play while having other priorities distracting them, etc. mercs should almost never be chosen over players for group slots. Otherwise, I'd consider mercs too powerful. They're there to provide a minimum level so a group without certain classes can do something, not anything, but at least something. That's my 2cp, anyway.
I have to disagree with this. Mercs have nothing to do whatsoever with raids and raiders already have a rather big advantage in the group game, they most certainly don't need better mercs.
