Merc ACC Pathetic, Avoidance increase a crock!!!

I'm not experiencing the full issues that others are with the tank merc though we have me doing part time heals + 1 healer merc in the group (not sure if I saw everyone else saying if they had a single healer or multiples). But as stated the spikes pretty much kill the tank a lot more than it used to.

Have any of you taken the time to seriously consider the differences that this expansion brought about with damage output in regards to your mercenaries? The max hit in CoTF was roughly 11k with the worst of named in T2, with TDS introducing 20k+ hits in T3. Player power was seriously deflated here. I've gone from being able to pull six to seven unslowed mobs with a cleric merc in Argin-Hiz mines to maybe three to four without any discs and a raid cleric in Arx?

I'm not saying the tank merc changes haven't been negative, but then again, I haven't seen any statistics or parses here to substantiate those claims regarding a 100 tank merc versus, say, a 105 tank merc all things being equal on the same mob. Its a given that your merc is going to get beat down in TDS. I notice that I can't do what I used to in this expansion - your merc can do even less than it could before. You need to take it back to Argin Hiz or run some parses on Roon and let me know how that goes. I'm still open to the idea that the merc *is* better, however the content is just that much more brutal this time around. Like it or not, this expansion was tuned up to present much more of a challenge than what we had over the last couple of years.

Final Stand has no conflicts with Foresight. It has a mitigation component, not an avoidance component. If Final Stand is causing Foresight to drop, it is a bug. What will cause Foresight to drop is if your merc initiates the Fortitude discipline, which does have a conflict even for players. I would love if Fortitude did not overwrite Foresight, but it has been brought up repeatedly for years with no change.

I use a tank merc when I'm 2 boxing. I've had no trouble with the tank mercs in TDS. The T1 / T2 zones are pretty easy with them. In T1 I can pull mini trains of 5 or so on the tank merc and it will tank them all. In T2 it can tank the named mobs easily. I finished T2 hunter and it tanked the majority of the named for me. In T3 it is a bit more of a challenge with a tank merc. If the tank merc uses final stand disc then it can tank T3 named mobs. It can tank them without discing but requires a ton of healing. This is of course with a boxed shaman though and not just a merc healer healing. If your tank merc is getting owned by trash mobs then you might want to invest in a real healer.

Pwnz, I am seeing the same issues in CoF with my tank merc as I listed above for TDS. They wanted things spikier; they're spikier. But my husband and I just finished up (over the last couple of weeks) mercenary I/II in Neriak, Partisan II in Neriak, Partisan/Mercenary II in Bixie, Partisan/Mercenary II in Dead Hills. So I am testing in both content.

Spiky does not even begin to cover it. Again the analogy of the fly. Sure you can avoid the hits, but when you get hit you die.

Mercs now are only good IF they can avoid, but with the large tune-up of HP's the likelihood they will avoid enough hits to avoid getting killed by a few spikes are NIL!!!

My 105 merc cannot even take on Roon or Shroon in EW anymore while shammy slowed.

You devs need to fix this. I 4 box, which means I pay 4 accounts. These latest rounds of nerfs puts me in a position of wanting to quit this game again. Last time I quit was for several years. Next time will be for good.

But then again, I guess if you ignore your customers long enough they will eventually go away.

With the Shaman are you using Growth? Sluggishness? Are you using Spirit Guardian for a big heal over time or Union of Spirits? Are you spam healing with the Shaman? Your tank merc should be able to tank Roon or Shoon just fine if you do all of the above.

Wanted to just confirm this. Equipping any secondary item on a tank merc at level 105 seems to cut merc DPS from 8000 without a secondary to 5000 DPS with one. I tested it with both a HP shield and with two HP swords once the item went into merc's secondary DPS dropped like a stone.

Oh? That explains a lot. I'd guess the aggro generation goes down too, and would explain why as a bard I keep having to manage aggro against a merc tank too. And yeah, they seem way below their old tanking abilities and it seems like it's the spikes.

Makes sense. Mercs, like pets earn massive aggro from swings. Going from 2 weapons to 1 negates that alot.

Thanks Crystilla. I was throwing out a hypothesis, given that TDS has had a difficulty increase. If you're noticing a harder time than before in older content, then I believe there is a problem to be had. The developers specifically stated that the mercs would be more effective and gain more benefit from a full set of raid buffs - mainly, that the DI table with old AC values made buffs a moot point. Do you have a feeling that with full raid buffs, the problem is still pronounced and negative?

Do you feel that a shield on the mercenary is adding any net positive to its tanking abilities? I'm curious if it makes any substantial difference, as it would in a real tank, or if its a moot point and not really to be done.

So this is all about making mercs better for raiders then groupers?

No clue how the merc does with raid buffs because we aren't using them. I don't pull a merc out in guild hall/lobby and let them soak in the buffs from raids ever. I play with the buffs that are available to us in the group only. So that's surety, ranger buffs and sometimes haste/clarity if I take the time to log in my chanter first (it's a rarity that happens because usually the group wants to move).

Full raid buffs on mercs that by their nature can only be used in group content? That's Dev logic at its finest.

In T3 zones I have to equip the tank merc with a shield and have the bard sing max AC/avoidance songs along with max heal/heal crit songs to keep the tank merc propped with a single healer merc on reactive. The tank merc's life expectancy against T3 named is usually around 5-10 seconds. Switching to two healer mercs and using a pet to tank results in about 15 seconds of life expectancy for the pet.

T3 mobs that can quad 22K dmg hits just tear through tank mercs and pets.

Seeing their AC plummet post-101 and seeing them die to two-three rounds from a single mob, just taking their word for it that avoidance somehow increased just isn't enough.

The items I used were all pure +HP items so there should been no changes in tanking ability unless merc has abilities that require a shield. My observation was tank with two HP swords seemed to have less agro then tank with hp shield and sword. But I don't have enough information to say if that is simply a RNG effect are something provable.

A observation from pet change is that removing the DI1 bias from pets caused the number of DI20 hits versus named mobs to increase much more then it did versus non named mobs. You may see same affect with merc's versus named.

Then you have a third part the planned change to mobs hitting for large percentage DI20 versus players that hasn't been implemented yet. I expect that change to impact players, merc, and pets because the change is to how mob does dmage and not to the PC/NPC receiving damage.

Really until we get changes to how non player control mobs hit it's going hard to judge if merc, pets, and group geared tanks are balanced versus content or not.

I believe that a group that goes the extra mile to acquire all relevant buffs, and properly debuffs a mob, should get better results than a group that runs with "whatever".

No by reducing the amount of DI1 hits on merc they have increased the impact of AC from buffs and ATK debuffs on mob have on mercs overall performance. If merc is always getting hit for DI 1 then AC doesn't really matter. By removing that DI1 bias AC buffs ability to reduce the average DI hit downward comes into play much more often for mercs and the relative value of buffs increases.

The impact is the same for gropers and raiders. the use of term raid buffs here simply refers to quantity of buffs not quality.