I have a silver account with a L 12 SK. I am looking to get a healer mercenary. I am offered a Tier 5 Apprentice or a Tier 1 Journeyman. I have no idea which to choose. I would appreciate any suggestions. Thank You
There should be a difference in price shown. This will sound funny but you'll be better off using a tank mercenary for another 50 levels. Use your lifetap spells and out of combat regen to heal up. It helps to get a chloroplast buff from a druid/shaman before you set out along with any other buffs you can beg out of people.
At silver access level, I don't think you can use a J1 merc. Anyways, what Moogs said is the best advice. The tank mercs are quite powerful until 60-65.
And now my 2cp's The difference between Apprentice and Journeyman is mostly just amount of mana, hit points etc. The run away factor is often used but my experience is that a Journeyman Merc will run the same as an apprentice. And as has been said, the cost is different. Meaning that if you use a Healer Merc for buffs and rezing, then a Journeyman Healer is a waste of plat. Now then this is how I always use mercs from level 1 to level 87 (so far). I use the con system (your level relationship to what your going to fight). Red Con, Tank or Healer depending on if the Tank can really survive the encounter, which has already been noted most likely can survive better than you can. A tank being the Main Tank is not departmental to any class. To the contrary, it can be the disposable one rather than you. Yellow Con, DPS Melee, Tank or Healer depending on the DPS Melee's ability to survive and your character not dieing (that sounds complicated but isn't, just dont over think it) Ok, DPS Melee is not going to pull a mob off you (exceptions will be noted later) a Tank will. White Con and lower, Same as above but now you can consider the DPS Caster (Greatest DPS of the 3). Stances, The tank is aggressive, the DPS mercs have Burn, the DPS Caster has DPS Area. Both Burn stances will most likely end up getting that merc aggro. BUT in my experience the mercs can handle it. All mercs have Passive, this means that if the entire count down to the next charge is Passive then the merc will waive its fee. Roles, Right click the mercs name in the group list, select Role. I make the tank's role Main Tank.
I did a berserker molo to 85 with a cleric merc. I found the A5 to be better simply due to having more mana since they use weaker heals. J1 cleric always ran out of mana much fasterand used bigger heals than I usually needed.
I don't have the stats, but it's possible the J1 cleric runs out of mana faster because it's set to Reactive, causing it to cast higher mana cost spells. The apprentice mercs don't have the Reactive stance. It's possible that if you set the J1 merc to balanced, it wouldn't run out of mana faster than the A5. The other difference would be that the A5 only casts rk. I spells and the J1 casts rk. II spells. So the J1's equivalent spells will have slightly higher mana cost, but will also heal for more. The J1 should have higher mana regen than the A5, too. Finally, I believe the A5 merc can only cast 90% rezzes, but the J1 can cast the 96% rezzes.
Hum, ok, now you have made me need to look at that. I have not used Apprentice since I came back in March and saw there was a difference.
