Summary: Melee and caster merc gear give no real parseable difference to DPS. Details: Parses way shorter than intended - I got bored. But DPS was pretty stable in every case by end of time period. Parses were: Either no gear or full CotF merc gear No buffs Level 103 combat dummy in Arena on Test server On every gear change, merc was packed and char camped out/in - to hopefully not have the "Gear-Doesn't-Count" issue. Melee merc. Burn stance. 8/10 Rising Fury AA No Gear: 24,036dps over 2.7 hours Full Gear: 24,648dps over 3.2 hours Caster merc. Balanced stance. 8/10 Mystic Destruction AA No Gear: 18,830dps over 13.0 hours Full Gear: 18,850dps over 4.7 hours Casteer Merc. Burn stance. 8/10 Mystic Destruction AA No Gear: 24,689dps over 5.0 hours Full Gear: 24,744dps over 5.3 hours
Mercs are beyond broken. A caster merc tanks better than a tank merc, and merc healer kills people with it's delayed and duration heals.
HA / SD on player gear does nothing meaningful. Mercs were not going to suddenly be an exception. Expecting gear to have any real impact on mercs misses the point that gear was not what was holding them back. Sure, poor stats didn't help, but good stats (well less bad anyway) is not going to make them play better.
Not DPS, true, but put all (EoK) tank gear on your healer merc.....lives longer, heals more, doesn't run out of mana.
This wasn't intended as a comparison between Casters and Melee. But the results in that were far closer than I'd expected. Granted no ADPS or buffs, but for my groups those would help melee more than caster. I'd also imagine the caster to be more beneficial in bursts - such as a real Group-pulling environment. If anyone can suggest some mechanism to better test a DPS comparison between the two, I'd gladly try it.
I really appreciate these DPS tests. Great info! In my experience, the tank mercs got a huge boost and I have been able to use it (along with a healer merc) to tank named in the T1 EoK zones. Including the red-con Zakija + a yellow con add. The Delirious Berzerker killed me twice, but I suspect that had more to do with high initial burst damage and the healer mercs not reacting fast enough. But the tank mercs seem to be champs - and even hold agro wonderfully! Some videos of mercs in action here.
Nice data. Wouldn't mind seeing a similar test with the new caster DPS gear, and a test of how much mitigation the tank gear offers.