they said they dont want to make merc better or equal to real players. i expected the small up grades not sure why others thought diferently.
Because there's no point taking the development time to create the feature if it isn't going to do something (even if the something that it does is "be fun to play with cosmetically" -- it isn't even that, as all the gear is locked away on level 100 vendors and I'm guessing there's not many interesting cosmetic decisions to make even then, though a level 100 can correct me if I'm wrong.) If it's purely a marketing gimmick to sell xpacks, it's a trade of customer trust for immediate $$, which is just an outright terrible trade in a game this old. xD I still stand by the suggestion that there should be lower-level merc gear on LDoN vendors (and that LDoN should have a new vendor added that has modern equipment like Consigned Armor). There should also be cosmetically interesting merc gear available somewhere. Hero's Forge was such a hit that "merc dress-up" just makes sense. To Piestro and the Developers: basically... please find a way to sell us this feature using substance rather than marketing BS. Even if the substance is cosmetic, give us some kind of actual angle that we can see. 'Cause right now a lot of us aren't seeing it.
Or if it had a recommended level of 100, and the stats were just reduced based on merc level like it would be with a regular item.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that doing that would not have played nicely with something in the coding. (Whether or not that's a valid excuse for something that's part of what appears to be a brand new game system, I'll leave open to debate -- obviously I don't know the details of how code accomplished this.) I'm more concerned about what seems to be a simultaneous lack of both practicality and fun in the way the system has been implemented/populated into the game world. I literally cannot anticipate having any fun with the system at all, based on what I have heard about it so far, because by all accounts it (1) doesn't affect much and (2) is severely level-restricted when there's no good reason for it to be. With Merc AAs being available from 20 onward (which was a very good decision, to which I give many thumbs up), I was sort of expecting the gear to get back-integrated a little as well (don't just cite the pre-order item; that isn't anything close to integrating the system properly into pre-level-100 gameplay). Even if some hypothetical low-level-available merc weapons and shields were just ways to give your merc the weapon/shield graphics you want them to have (there's a wide variety of them that you see over the course of your leveling, and I know that I personally prefer some more than others) that would be a start. It would cause the merc equipment system to have a net positive influence on my urge to buy the expansion.
Warriors have just got some huge upgrades to help them survive more, the tank merc gets a few extra stats on gear and a couple of AA's. Why have tank mercs not had more improvements to help them survive longer where trash is hitting for 14K.
Yeah I feel very mislead. 1ST off ... tank mercs can not run HA 2nd merc aa's are a joke. just read them.. gives very slight inprovent 3rd the merc armor is well well roflmao. had to be a joke around the office some where,,
I don't think most reasonable people are expecting mercs to outgear real players. But an item with 800 hit points at level 100, when they already have 100 times that, is just not even worth considering. It's not even worth saying "Oh, neat!" And I like saying that!
If the mission were more rewarding you could at least accumulate enough just to buy them. But the missions are not rewarding at all so the merc armor slots on my guys are staying empty for a long time. I doubt I'll do enough of the HA to just have currency left to spend on them cause there's no point of it rotting on my guy.
I hate to not complain in this thread, there is so much wrong with this expansion and the recent nerfs, and yet ... EQ is a game of small upgrades adding up to something substantial. You'll camp for days for 10 more AC or 30 extra HEM on an aug and that's acceptable. Why complain when merc gear is similar. Consider the mercs as already geared (they are) and the items are like augs you give them. With the gear and AAs I assume they will be a little stronger than they were. I hope.
Optimistic though I am, even I am not sure increasing the merc's health by eight tengths of a percent when said merc is already splatting versus the Heroic Adventure content (allegedly tuned for player + merc play) is going to mean much. (Caveat: I have no firsthand experience of the merc splattage, but several people seem to be reporting it and given the general trend in opinions regarding tank merc performance I'm not sure I have much reason to doubt them in this specific case.)
I am not sure what you are trying to say here. If you mean they are unable to zone into the instance by themselves and complete the HAs, then I agree and you are correct. If you mean that HAs cannot be completed using a mercenary as your primary/only tank, then I disagree and you are incorrect. Mercs are inconsistent and at times completely unreliable, but, when they are the only option available they can be the difference between lfg and actually playing the game.
On a somewhat different note, is it a bug I should report that I can only see about 1/5th of the gear on Mercenary Morloro unless I uncheck "Show only items I can use" or is there some kind of unlocking quests I have to do?
Agreed. But at the same time, no one expected mercs to be nerfed right when these 'upgrades' went live.
What I don't get, like on caster and healer merc gear, 1 mana regen per gear when they already have over 2k combat mana regen, how much is 4 more going to help them out? Spell dmg and healing amt is ok, will help out more then the mana regen. On my 3 main toons they all have the 4 merc slots of gear filled and not notice any real difference, even the caster mercs on burn still parse at around 25k DPS. Got about 30 merc AA's for them and still not notice any real difference also, I know they shouldn't be on par with real players, but diffently thought they would be better then what they are now.
I'm on board with the idea in this thread that merc AAs could be a little more substantial, but I'd like to point out what if "on par with real players" is the metric then some mercs are already much better than some players at several things. So making them better but not better than players is a pretty fuzzy line when they're already beyond that line in some cases. Personally, I'd like to see more cosmetic mercenary stuff, like weapons or maybe even nimbuses that grant small buffs.
I'm assuming that merc gear will have increases in the near future. Being that the initial merc gear is a minimal increase in their abilities I WANT TO BE ABLE TO SELL THE GEAR BACK TO THE VENDOR. At a reduced price of course. It is used after all. Hate the feeling of dumping 3800 marks into merc gear that is going to be destroyed.
My healing merc has 5/8 healing acumen and all of the merc gear and I seem to notice a difference. I can tank like a beast with just him and hardly have to rotate out and let pet tank. If I pull 2 or 3 he can keep up my pet and myself better than before the gear/AA.
I honestly don't understand the healer merc AAs. First of all, it takes about 25+ regular AAs when I molo for a merc to get 1 AA. And for some reason you give them mana regen which means nothing since they regen so fast they never run out of mana unless they bug out and chain spam aoe heals. Also for some reason they want us to waste AA for 5 levels in spell resistance before we can make their heals better? This stuff is f'ed up imo. Also, the gear they get is not good enough for them to take hits or tank in current content. They are not supposed to be as good as real players, but they are not even close now.
Were you able to notice a difference before getting the Healing Acumen AA, with just the gear? Sounds like you've got the merc gear before merc AA, like most everybody else. And the complaint here was that the gear made no difference whatsoever.
