If that group is having issues, you're doing something wrong. You have two slowers, a real healer and should rarely have multiples. I've killed named in Arx with merc healer, merc tank and enchanter slowing. The shaman can slow better and heal better than what I'm using. And you were having the tank die 25% of the time previously at 100 against Roon/Shoon? That said, that group is perfect for just letting the pet tank and either grabbing a healer merc or dps merc in place of the tank. Two healers on the earth pet plus slows should be solid. You'd also kill things faster using the enchanter to nuke rather than dots. Only the debuffing dot has any value.
Healers mercs heal worse than group healers. DPS mercs dps worse than group DPS. Why should tanks be any different? They're meant to fill one role in a group if you can't find a real one, and be 'good enough' to get stuff done, assuming you have real players in other roles. Have you ever tried gearing up a tank and staying on top of all the augs and AA's required to do your job while nobody else in the group has anywhere near similar gear/aug time invested just to be adequate?
BTW. I have 3 accounts.... Wiz/Bard/War... this set up with merc healers and merc dps works fine. You simply need a real tank with high AA.
Why are you guys trolling this guy? Sony closed four games this year. Four games that were run into the ground. Do you think the forums of those 4 games were filled with trolls like you defending every bad decision? I know that constant negativity is annoying, but people get angry about changes and come here to voice it. "New Account" can also mean someone who has been fed up enough to finally post after years of playing - that's a bad sign.
I assume a major issue with using both a tank merc, and a healer merc, is that you can't block certain heals on the tank merc like you would do for your pet.
To address a few of the points above. OP Is not just using a healer Merc - he has a Shammie in the mix too. Tank mercs have always sucked relative to normal expected Merc suckage ,and many pets. This gap has already been complained about - Tank Mercs NEED some lovin'. This change only adds to the already great suckage gap - wrong direction. Real tanks indeed require too much work for a casual box group (unless you want to Main a tank anyway) Group tanks are very hard to find unless your guild is doing TDS progression. (and you keep pace) Threatening to cancel your 27 accounts carries little weight in these parts. That said; The recent EXP and Tank Merc changes (and TDS in general) hurts casual box groups the worst. Box group owners provide more income to SOE than the "Lone Raider". -Rat (Who skipped buying TDS for 2 outta 4 accounts and let 2 outta 4 go FTP - you do the math)
They do suck that is for sure. I believe they said they would be adjusting them.. but at the rate they do adjustments it could be a long time. I also believe they said they will be making the same changes to all tank mercs below lvl 101
Like the others posted, drop the tank merc, bring out another healer (one set to reactive, other set to balance) and let your mage pet have at it. That would be the easist solution. If that doesnt work, take a look at your group and change one of your box toon classes. I would drop the shaman and pick up a paladin box. You maintain your spot heal capabilites and trade out your sham buffs for Brells while picking up a tank class for defensive discs. If you want to redo more, drop the wiz and enchanter for an war/bard. You likely get very little dps from the enc which could easily be replaced by the bard and the ADPS from the brd/sham along with flipping a tank merc for wiz merc would make up the difference from losing the wiz. Changing a box toon is very very easy these days. Yes, you will need to farm out ac augs for any tank, but you will be able to PL your new toons in levels fairly easy to get to 100 and then you will have around 6k free autogranted AA. You can flip boxes within 2-3 weeks if you know where to go and what to do.
I am always amazed how people FAIL to read!!! I heal with my Shaman in addition to the Merc Cleric. That has always been successful, UNTIL the TDS nerfs. Please READ comments in their entirety. And comprehend WHAT is written.
As mentioned above; drop your tank merc and replace it with the level 104 earth pet. Is it safe to assume you have a decent pet focus? You can get an EM15 very easily in Neriak (if you're broke) or purchase an EM16 in the bazaar if you have some plat. I'll also assume you have a decent set of pet AA's (autogrant will give you all the necessary ones). Since you came here I'll also assume you're familiar with EQ message boards. Given your box make-up I'd suggest asking questions in the various class boards for how to improve specific game play for each class. Although the mage boards aren't very active there is still a ton of useful information regarding AA's, clickies, etc. Samana's also isn't very active but once again there's a lot of very useful information in there. Before coming here and flaming it might be better to see if you can improve your game play or change a couple things to make EQ (this also goes for life in general) more enjoyable.
Come on guys, Tank Mercs are totally fine if you have: -A shaman slowing and healing-over-time with Ancestral Aid -An enchanter crippling and chain runing -A bard playing only defensive songs -A cleric using bastion and all the other fun short duration cleric buffs and spam healing -A druid using Spirit of the Bear and spam healing Without all of the above, you won't be able to take down a t3 named.
You are proping good band-aids. The real issue at hand is that Tank Mercs are virtually worthless in thier present state. The rest of the Mercs set a pretty good standard of "competance" - tank mercs fail to meet it. -Rat
Could tank mercs use some love? Yes. But I think the real point of this thread is you need to learn to use the tools you have. Tank mercs cannot handle multiples. You either need a puller or crowd control. The poster has an enchanter, so that should be covered. Alternatively, punt and root with the shaman. Tank mercs will likely die against unslowed named (a real cleric or excessive healing could mitigate this). The poster has both a shaman and an enchanter, so that is covered. I can take T3 named using helix + mental contortion with a single healer merc. He has the tools available to make a tank merc work even in T3 TDS. Groups without the tools could very well find that tank mercs are useless in higher end content. Tank mercs do have gaping holes with the wrong group make up. However, if he really wants to maximize the tools available, getting rid of the tank merc for pet tanking is the best option here. And that's the theme. Learn to use what you have. You can't just roll four classes, box them and expect easy without learning how the classes work.
Hrm. Interesting idea. Would a 'drinking bird' be considered a violation of the rules for, say, working up begging? I don't think that can be construed as a third party program in any way... I'm not sure how automated it is, given it requires human interaction to start and keep going periodically. SoE? Thoughts?
I seem to recall WAY back before Kunark expansion came out that the "Drinking Bird" was considered an exploit and a bannable offense. However, I guess you would have to be able to prove it. But then again back when Verant owned this nightmare, before Sony, they would ban you for suspicion of these things because they had so many users they did not care.
Drinking Bird is exactly like "autofire" which SoE has said is legal as long as you are at keyboard. In this day and age with bindable keys, it's very easy to set up a healer on raids to continously spam their heals. This is apparently legit from a SoE point of view. I've personally set up a Dice game on Erollisi Marr using nothing except scan and processes the log file and using the paste from keyboard function within EQ. By SoE own admission, this must be "legit" as Gamparse and GamTextTriggers are both allowed to scan the log files and process them for information that isn't readily available within the game (otherwise why use them?). GTT also pastes the information to the clipboard. And you can use an "autofire" to trigger the paste into EQ. My game is free to play and so far I have given away just under 5million plat.
