It seems like gaining leadership AAs has become a thing of the past. People only turn on LAA long enough to get the inspect buffs LAA, assign MA, and maybe one other. In my opinion, this is because the amount of XP that it saps out of your regular/AA stream, isn't worth the 10HP/whatnot that is offered by the other options. On a side note, I have also noticed, that Mercenaries could use small boosts here and there. Not enough of a boost that they would compare to a real player, they never should. But, a boost none the less. With lvl 100 coming soon, if a Mage pet still out tanks a merc tank, I think it would be time to at very least consider this thought. I'm not saying nerf mage pets, I play a mage sometimes, and their pet's tanking ability is a very integral part of the class, I just think that they shouldn't be quite as far ahead of the merc who's sole purpose is to tank. If I'm not mistaken, the only leg up that the merc tank has on mage pets, is the ability to allow other player characters to be in melee range, and also aggro tagging multiple mobs on its own accord. I do honestly think that LAAs would be an appropriate way to give mercs the needed boost, and in a reasonable fashion too. Having LAA for merc mitigation / avoidance bumps, as well as damage via crit chance, or critical-heal chance would also be appropriate for the other classes, while also bringing new life into the LAA system. I would expect that this would not overbalance the group game, because only certain people even bother with LAAs in the first place. And if said people dedicate that XP sap to LAA, they should have the benefit of having bonuses with the mercs as well. Giving not only your group the edge that LAAs were built for, but the also mercs themselves a little pat on the shoulder.
Unless pets can suddenly keep aggro off of a PC they will never out tank a merc tank. LAAs are not going to be added to because they decided they would rather add that stuff directly. As for what leadership AAs that people actually would buy now it would be Spell Awareness, HoTT, designate targets, designate person who can designate targets, and maybe the various Offensive, Defensive, HP, Mana, and END enhancements. The 2 you mentioned have been partially or completely given away.
Experience demonstrates it. Pets by design cannot tank where PCs and Mercy tanks can. If you have only casters sure pets are fine, but most groups are not only casters. So until pets keep aggro over PCs in all circumstances they are not better tanks.
lets put it this way: do pets hold agro better then mercs or players? ... if the answer is "no" than pets do not tank better .. they may be able to stand there and take hits better .. but that is only one small part of tanking.
I almost forgot this post was about LAA for merc abilities. The OP has a good point, why not have LAA that increases the potency of certain merc abilities? Rogue mercs that can assassinate, cleric mercs that put up divinity aura, caster mercs that use twincast and silent casting (activated of course).
they one time said that most of the good ideas for leader points ended up becoming normal AA's... but while on the idea of mercenary AA's... An AA that allows a self beneficial buff to land on the owner of the merc and the merc (spells, potions, poisons and other clicky effects)... possibly an AA for each class that would have a triggerable spell/disc/ability to buy... maybe something like: cleric merc: you click the button and the merc attempts to cast pacify on the target... Wizard mercenary: a teleport, like the guild hall, maybe the same stones, but you hand to the mercenary and it teleports the group there... Warrior Merc - defensive disc on a AA hotkey? Rogue Merc - maybe an AA to add a locustlure to the rogue's weapons, and a hotkey to turn the use of it on/off (to proc slows or not)... there's the mercenary name change, maybe one in the future to add a gear graphic preference... (I liked the house of thule swords, ect... it'd be nice if I could get the merc back to those on looks only
what would be fun would be to code mercs to be like pets and display any weapon handed to them! no additional stats of course, but just for display purposes so our mercs can look at bit different from 99% of the other mercs out there... and while your at it let us dye thier armour too!
if nothing else, bring back the mummy wraps from last haloween... that let us do short duration illusion mummy that landed on mercs too... wolfform, night dark terror (scarecrow) works on mercs, and a couple other illusions, but most won't... so we don't get any way to change the merc...
I would love an AA that would allow me to hand potions to my merc and they use them, like Haste, DS etc...
I would love for a LAA or a regular AA to have the ability to either block certain buffs on mercs OR add more buff slots to mercs. Now that would be a fantastic change!
Sure my monk can't melee while a pet is tanking, but a pet can tank a tier 4 named and I cannot. It makes me a sad panda.
Guys keep in mind that a pet's (I'm assuming you are mostly talking mage pets) tanking ability is GREATLY dependent on two things: (1) The level of the Enhanced Minion focus item the mage has. (2) How many AA the mage has spent on pet abilities. The above two things make a HUGE difference in how well the pet tanks, as well as how much damage it does. So a pet summoned by a level 95 mage with an EM8 earring and not many AA spent on pet abilities is VASTLY INFERIOR to the same pet summoned by a mage with EM16 earring and hundreds of AA spent on pet abilities. But, as several people have correctly pointed out, no pet can hold agro over any other player within melee range, so pet tanking is only viable in caster only groups. And no matter how skilled the mage is, in the event of a bad pull, no pet is as good as a real tank. OTOH, a level 95 T5 Tank merc is a level 95 T5 tank merc. They are all the same (minus difference in buffs of course). Oh, and I happen to agree that the T5 Tank merc could use a boost at the higher levels.
Well the problem with the tank merc is it doesn't utilise it's disciplines very well. With just the healer merc a tank merc can tank in windsong all day as long as it doesn't have to do a named.
this. you compare a mage pet to a tank merc. mages have a lot of abilities to keep our pets alive, and a brain behind when to use them.
my pet keeps aggro off of me all the time. fd> aggro also your a monk, they seem to think they are some kind of uber tank due to avoidance etc.. so get in there and tank! I can honestly say I hate when I join a group with a monk tanking, I have to fd more often then I care to
