First lets get it out of the way mercs suck, yadda yadda. Quality isn't what I want to talk about. Now, Is there a way to actually control where merc tanks setup to return after a kill? is it some product of where the group is? or where is was set to be main tank? or some black magic? I get started and its fine then I find that I have to pull past my group to get them to come back to where I want them. It would be nice if there were "Guard Here" or even better guard here but don't leave this radius kind of settings. You can control pets a little. It seems like someone I am paying 1200 plat an hour should do what I want. Merc commands seem like a no-brainier. I don't want to call assist every pull(because I am lazy) Anyone have any constructive comments on merc tank management? When ever i am running a box bard and there is a melody going the merc tank will run off to meet the mob and I have to move everyone in line of site.
Make sure you use the Puller role on the appropriate character and make sure you stand your healers and casters a bit behind the area you consider your "camp".
^This You have to use the "roles" settings to manage Merc use, if you want to use Root as a CC ability you will also need to to take the "Main Tank" role off (temporarily) so that the Merc does not try to hold aggro on every single target and rush off to beat on the rooted mob as well as the MA target. The Merc AI isn't amazing but if you use the available tools it can be made to work better for you, the downside being the micro-management required. You can also use the passive/aggressive switch creatively, I will sometimes tag a mob with my zerker (boxes following) rather than pulling with the bard, allow the merc tank to engage & get aggro then switch it to passive & reposition my group (to avoid roamers for example) and once repositioned switch the merc tank from passive back to aggressive and finish it off. Using the Merc tank effectively is why I always use the Merc tank on my main pc now, the merc healers pretty much just do their thing but the tank you have to be a lot more actively involved - especially if you want to avoid it causing you problems like where it can rush around aggroing a ton of adds. The one thing you always have to be wary of is mob & merc pathing obey similar rules, if you notice a mob is pathing weirdly you 100% have to expect the merc to path badly too. So having a proper puller is going to be a massive help with using merc tanks to mimimise them wiping your group.
Most of it has already been covered, but I'll reveal the secret sauce. If you have the Puller role set and your mercs aren't where they are supposed to be, unassign the Puller role, and they will come back. Then reassign the Puller role. Repeat as necessary.
QFT. Worked for me very well when I did a lot of static camps. After a while, the tank will gravitate further and further away from the group (to a certain limit, of course). To the point where he's too far away from everyone else to do anybody any good. Have the puller stand just behind the rest of the group, and quickly take off and then put back on the puller role. I did it often enough to have a social macro with both commands, with a half second pause in between. These days it's been all roving group on the move, so I haven't been using the puller role.
Yeah, I see the Healer merc getting left behind a lot when we move with a Puller assigned. But my favorite was when the Caster DPS merc decided the best place to cast from was out of range of the mob. It seems to have something to do with steep inclined surfaces. Like the East wall of Lceanium or even butted up against the stone in the middle of the Druid Ring in that zone.
The merc follows its owner. A merc that get lost will warp to its owner. When the owner is the puller, the merc stays near a person in the group. When the group moves (or the merc runs off to fight a mob), the merc gets lost as above, but it will only warp to its owner, who is the puller, so it just stays where it is. The issue that the OP likely has is the merc chases a mob out, is too far from the group to return but not able to respond to the owner as the puller. Turning puller off will allow the merc to warp to the owner. One of the issues I struggle with is that mercs only respect the puller and no one else in the group. Healing the puller put the healer on the aggro list. A real tank knows to stay put and let the mob come to camp, but merc tanks engage anything that has any player in the group that is not the puller on aggro anywhere the mob is. The only way to manage this is to make sure no one is on aggro (wait to heal or fade) or put the merc on passive so it doesn't run out. As much as I would like to have much smarter mercs, the easiest way to manage the camp issue is to be able to click a person in your group (like we assign puller) and select assign merc. That way my merc will always return to that person as if it is their merc. It's a very simple way to fix this issue without addressing the AI. Being able to set an engage radius would be nice too, as long as they still chase mobs that run.
While solo/molo kiting the healer mob will always stand directly between you and the target. Not to the side but right in between you and the target. Guess who takes a beating first?
It would be nice if they could implement some of the things you would talk to a real player tank during setting up a camp spot. "Guard Here" at minimum and it would be awesome if you could then set a radius from the guard spot where they will wait for the incoming mob and only use taunt tools until it gets inside that radius. once an incoming mob casts a spell on a random person in the group the merc tank will run out to meet the mob no matter what you do. Its annoying and I hope they can fix it. I don't think it would take that long to fix.
