It's a question of what the design intent is. EQ player skill range is a HUGE range. Right now I'd say the rogue merc is around the 60 percentile. It's going to be better than some of the players some of the time, but it most definitely is not better than all the players all the time. It really comes down to what the goal is for the merc.
This out DPSing group rogues is a skew in statistics. Firstly much of it is anecdotal. Very few people I ever play with are running a parser to have any factual data. Also, I regularly play with people who just absolutely sand bag. I am playing with bards and necros doing 50k DPS. 115 necros doing 50k DPS is inexcusable and pathetic player performance and should not cause a rogue merc nerf. This is not me being an elitist, I can see how many dots they are casting and how much mana they have and that DPS amount is a choice. Played with a bard and my song window had like 2 songs in it and the bard was doing 30k DPS. 2 songs? Don't nerf a merc based on these claims. Yes, the rogues are out DPSing them, but I am boxing a 115 mage with almost no DPS AA doing 100k+ DPS. I am a TBL raid geared ENC with my DPS AAs. My rogue merc is usually doing 180k DPS, but I, as an ENC, am doing 110k DPS with 3 dots and a few nukes. I haven't even bought my type 3 augs. I (ENC) burn at 300k DPS. PC rogues are burning over a million, with one of our zerkers burning at 2 million DPS on Tjoly. My ToV T1 mage box with almost no DPS AA about 100k DPS. I passed 115 merc wizards on burn at 110. My rogue mercs are doing about 180k on burn. I am parsing raid rogues at 200-300k up to 500k DPS not burning, and over a million burning. My wizard merc is doing about 70k DPS, and I am an enchanter running twincast, mana proc aura, and wizards are only pushing into the 80-90k DPS with my burns running. A modest raid capable wizard burned out over 1 million DPS on Tjoly. My warrior merc got 1-rounded by glassbeak stormbreaker, and is only doing 8k DPS, which is about the same as an enchanter animation. A lot of the players I am parsing in pickup group situations are being out parsed by rogues because they are sandbagging and the mercs are not. Don't nerf my merc because there are players who are sandbagging. I say sandbagging because I am comparing their DPS to my box mage DPS and when my mage is doubly their DPS something is seriously wrong. My Mage is not "uber". As for aggro, my mage earth pet with rage swords, horrifying visage and rogues with glamours visage can't keep aggro off of rogue mercs. And it's not by a simple 10% decrease in damage on the rogue. My rogues gank aggro like they are taunting. I can leave the rogue on passive until 80% and then click burn and they pull aggro in seconds. My warrior merc can't out aggro my mage rogue pet with taunt (*no* rage swords) which means that even with a significant nerf, warrior mercs wont be able to hold aggro off rogue mercs. A lot of this is probably because warrior merc DPS is just soooo bad. ALSO warriors BROKE in the last year. They are not picking up adds anymore. They used to grab multiple and offtank while I got CC but now they completely ignore adds, stay on one mob even if the add is standing next to them. Wizards pull aggro like flies. Why would a mob care? Meanwhile my Cleric merc does great. A cleric merc could put heal a player because they are responsive. They don't need a nerf or any real changes. So, a nerf to rogues means that tanks and DPS continue to benefit from cleric mercs, but those of us who need tank and DPS mercs take a huge hit. PLEASE DO NOT WORK ON ROGUES FIRST. PLEASE FIX WARRIORS AND WIZARDS BEFORE ROGUES. Let people trade high aggro for DPS until you get around to making adjustments. Warriors and wizards are MUCH more in need of tuning. This is what we need. I watch my parses a lot... Warriors need their aggro corrected, so they compete for it and so they start gathering up at leats one add again. They need a MASSIVE overhaul to their DPS, which would probably help with their single target aggro. Warrior mercs, based on what I parsed tanks at, need to be around 50-80k DPS. I give a wide spread because I would need to parse more tanks, but I think tanks with shield shouldn't have an issue getting to the 80-100k range. Wizards need a major boost. With an ENC in the group doing 70k on burn is crazy. Again my mage is doing 100k or so DPS without AA. I expect mages with DPS pets to be close to 300k DPS. Wizards need to be around 100k DPS on balanced and around 180k like rogues on burn. Their burn should be offset by their mana use, because real tanks are not losing aggro to wizards who are burning at a million DPS. Rogues need to work properly on balanced and do about 100k DPS. Higher with SHM or BRD. Rogues need to be where they are now, about 180k DPS, while on burn, but SK, PAL, WAR, mage rage need to be able to keep aggro off of them. Their burn time needs to be managed with their endurance, not their aggro. The zerker doing 2 million DPS didn't pull aggro. Cleric mercs are in a pretty good spot. They will out heal an up-and-coming cleric but a cleric with AA will both out heal them and vastly outperform overall with divine arb / AA. My cleric is group geared and well AA'ed and out performs a merc by an acceptable margin.
Here's what I'm seeing. This is a Journeyman V with no buffs, it's on Balanced, and my Rising Fury merc AA is 0/15. Combined (7): a restless Coldain in 679s, 85.42M Damage @125.80K, 1. Nuthille = 74.93M@134.04K in 559s, 2. a cold skeleton = 6.72M@10.84K in 620s If I add enchanter haste it goes up to this: Combined (7): a restless Coldain in 739s, 107.67M Damage @145.7K, 1. Nuthille = 93.23M@172.34K in 541s, 2. a cold skeleton = 6.93M@10.32K in 672s {H} I also included my charm pet DPS so you can see how low that is. Also, to keep it alive for this test, I chain stunned and I gave it glamorous visage, waited to build up some pet agro, etc, if anyone was wondering. It definitely got agro pretty quick even with that. Beimeith's 60th percentile comment makes sense. The merc is probably fairly similar to your average group geared player but a good player will outdo it significantly. Also, since it is intended to a do a lot more DPS than in the past that 100k mark mentioned above doesn't sound too bad. But even if that's what you want as a target, it seems to be doing around 25% to 30% too much right now going by my quick test. The caster merc has way lower DPS and has some other issues. Like I don't really think it should be casting AEs on balanced. But that's probably for another thread/time.
w The real problem, I think, is that the merc doesn't have haste by itself, so when they tune it, they tune it without haste. Once you add in Enchanter haste is where it starts getting higher on the scale.
Sorry, this is disingenuous and self serving. Merc behavior is not merely POOR. It is WORSE then it was when mercs actually used their respective abilities pre-111. Rogue, Cleric, Warrior, definitely do not use abilities they did at 110 and below. Wizard merc not so much difference although they refuse to engage a deep red con (spell resist logic?) that a rogue and warrior merc are able to attack.
I agree 1000%. There is a SERIOUS flaw in merc logic post 110...with all 4 mercs. Simlpy decreasing rogue merc DPS to help with agro isn't going to fix the underlying problem. I can sit there and watch all 3 of my 115 wizard mercs chain cast level 105-ish level spells and never use their newer nukes. Mercs are just flat out broken post 110.
I'm pretty sure this was fixed. I had sent a list of spells the caster merc was using a couple months ago and they were changed. Mine has been casting new spells. Edit: Just did a quick test for caster merc on Balanced with no merc AAs for DPS. The spell line up seems ok to me (except katelanga isn't ideal since its AE). I can try Burn mode a little later. It did benefit slightly from lingering cry a couple random gift of chromatic haze from my stuns. Combined (6): a restless Coldain in 549s, 22.66M Damage @41.27K, 1. Naechalle = 15.63M@28.74K in 544s, 2. a cold skeleton = 5.24M@9.87K in 531s {H} Combined (6): a restless Coldain in 549s Naechalle - 142 --- Claw of Feshlak - 13 --- Concussive Shock - 5 --- Ethereal Brand - 17 --- Katelanaga - 2 --- Pure Wildscorch Beza - 67 --- Received Gift of Chromatic Haze - 4 --- Received Glamorous Visage - 1 --- Restless Ice Cascade - 33
I can make another bug for caster merc issues if you want but I figured I'd add some stuff here while I'm doing some testing and others are making comments. The main issue to me is still the melee merc doing way too much DPS in addition to too much agro. However, here's what my caster merc looks like on Burn mode. One interesting thing to note is that even with Voice of Sagacity it ran out of mana after about 5 minutes of casting. And it did stop at around 10% to cast Quiet Harvest so that check seems to be working fine. The only real AAs I have for mercs are focused on general things for clerics. I do have 10/25 Improved Mana and random merc gear from last expansion that would effect this mana issue. Spell wise it seems to be casting reasonable things on Burn but our Ethereals did get a big mana cost increase in ToV. Ideally, maybe swap Blast with Restless Ice Comet in the cast order. But what we see here is really that people need to be smart when using mercs. If your group is hitting all its ADPS you might want to switch to burn mode for a caster merc. But you'd want to switch back fairly quickly. Maybe even add a twincast trigger for your merc so you can switch when claw procs it for them. Stuff like that. If you really want to get more out of these. Combined (5): a cold skeleton in 325s, 15.92M Damage @48.99K, 1. Naechalle = 11.33M@38.53K in 294s, 2. a cold skeleton = 3.39M@10.45K in 324s Combined (5): a cold skeleton in 325s Naechalle - 57 --- Ethereal Blast - 23 --- Ethereal Brand - 27 --- Pure Wildscorch Beza - 1 --- Quiet Harvest - 1 --- Received Gift of Chromatic Haze - 3 --- Received Glamorous Visage - 1 --- Restless Ice Comet - 1
I did some comparative testing of rogue mercenaries behavior (not DPS). I set myself as tank, puller, and assist. I pulled one easy mob at a time. I let them attack on Burn stance and even tank, keeping them healed. Level 115 vs 107 abilities used: Level 115 Kislay - 52 --- Cloaked Blade Stab II - 29 --- Drachnid Blade Strike II - 23 Level 107 Sembin - 47 --- Bite of the Shissar Poison - 1 --- Bite of the Shissar Poison Strike - 45 --- Strike of Impaired Vision - 1 As you can see, the level 107 merc used it's Strike of Impaired Vision abilitiy to drop aggro (back to the 115 merc btw) when it took over taking for a moment. This was on Burn stance. The 115 merc never did this and that is the crux of the problem. Perhaps it's because the last rank of Imparied Vision is below the usable rank of a 111+ merc. Does it simply need a new rank to regain usage? Is the problem just that simple of an oversight? The last rank is listed below. What rank of merc uses that? When does that rank fall off the available set? [37747] Strike of Impaired Vision Target: Single Range: 240' Resist: Unresistable Reflectable: No Focusable: Yes Casting: 0s, Recast: 22s 1: Decrease Hate by 280000 Text: Your vision is clouded with blood. According to Lucy, this spell was created in 2012 and last modified in 2017 (not relevant here). So it seems the higher level merc has forgotten this ability for some reasons the Devs SHOULD fix please. I'm sure this problem applies to the other merc archetypes. Strike of Impaired Vision Detail | History | Raw Data Date Change 2017-11-16 16:47 Changed Show_dot_message from 1 to 2017-11-16 16:47 Changed Range from 200 to 240 2017-09-21 13:05 Changed Location from Unknown(0) to Any 2017-08-15 18:22 Changed Not_shown_to_player from 1 to 0 2017-06-16 19:18 Changed Location from Any to Unknown(0) 2016-04-18 22:56 Changed Show_dot_message from 0 to 1 2015-06-12 19:29 Changed Allow_spellscribe from 1 to 0 2012-11-23 22:18 Initial Entry -- Meanwhile about DPS. The 115 merc on Balance stance would simply STOP ATTACKING when it took over tanking. It's DPS would plummet to the same level as the 107 merc (this is how the 107 took over tanking briefly). This is beyond a DPS problem or lack thereof, it is a problem with merc AI and available abilities. A mountain giant craig on 4/29/2020 in 237sec Kislay Level 115 --- DMG: 6111599 @ 25787 sdps (33396 dps in 183s) [50.15%] ------ Total: 6111599 -- Pierce: 6111599 ------ Normal rate: 100% (100% of DMG) ------ Attempts: 116 -- Hits: 111 -- Misses: 5 -- Defended: 0 -- Accuracy: 95.7% --- DMG to PC: 1345530 @23487dps Sembin Level 107 --- DMG: 5821020 @ 24561 sdps (31635 dps in 184s) [47.77%] ------ Total: 5821020 -- Pierce: 4855773 -- Backstab: 965247 ------ Normal rate: 100% (100% of DMG) ------ Attempts: 784 -- Hits: 738 -- Misses: 46 -- Defended: 0 -- Accuracy: 94.1% --- DMG to PC: 70599 @14624dps
I don't know rogue stuff in general, but I'm wondering if merc abilities are like some Focus AA lines, where later ranks only work with specific spells/abilities and not the entire line. Does the merc code need to be checked to make sure they're "focusing" the right thing?
Mercs can't just spam abilities like Strike of Impaired Vision. It's for saving it once every so often. They should probably add that back but it wouldn't solve the bigger issue. It would just make the merc live an extra 30 seconds.
I'll be blunt when it came to my girlfriends merc getting aggro we were of the opinion. "If he dies, he dies." Death downtime acts as a balance
What you're describing here sounds like a good and intended change that they've made. A rogue is not a tank and it should stop attacking when it gets aggro. Then it would resume once the tank has it again. Especially since they've increased the DPS so much it would make sense to have it work closer to a real DPS class. Plus the last thing you want is someone using a high dps rogue merc as both tank and DPS.
I'm back with some real numbers. The sample size is small, but sufficient for the current state of the discussion... Lets fist start with aggro... #1 merc rogue on burn #2 merc wizard on burn #3 mage rogue pet with taunt #4 MERC WARRIOR on AGGRESSIVE The player stats ENC --> 115, TBL T1 raid armor, good augs, all DPS AA, Rk 3 spells, Dissident 6, all available DPS AA MAG --> 115 (USING ROS SPELLS), ToV T1 group armor, poor augs, ONLY autogrant DPS AA + a few ranks of pet fury (172/189) CLR ---> 115, ToV T1, good augs, no DPS AA Merc WIZ ---> 115, Wizard belt but other 3 slots are rogue, vigilant armor, 7/15 mystic destruction AA Merc ROG ---> 115, cleric armor, 0 DPS AA Merc WAR ---> 115, Tank vigilant x4, 0 AA ENC is running twincast and nuke proc auras, and has maxed synergy (mage has no synnergy), dissident 6 GamParse 2.0.0.98 29 combined fights... ENC = 137.k sDPS (Of this, pet 8k sDPS) Merc ROG = 130k sDPS MAG = 103k sDPS (of this, pet is 31.5k sDPS) Merc WIZ = 50k sDPS CLR = 12k sDPS Merc WAR = 9k sDPS 1 full burn fight... ENC = 382k sDPS (forgot pet) MAG = 253.5k sDPS (of this, pet is 108k sDPS) Merc WIZ = 131k sDPS Merc ROG = 104k sDPS CLR = 34k sDPS Merc WAR = 8.5k sDPS 2 residual burn fights... ENC = 332k sDPS (Of this, pet 11.5k DPS) MAG = 184.5k sDPS (of this, pet is 94.1k sDPS) Merc ROG = 99k sDPS Merc WIZ = 74k sDPS CLR = 23k sDPS Merc WAR = 8.8k sDPS Conclusions (from a limited sample size)... - The ENC, a non-DPS class, held the highest DPS. - The rogue did out parse the mage, but also as a pure DPS merc offers 0 utility to the group. A real rogue should out DPS this merc no problem. - The mage USING ROS SPELLS was 30% behind the rogue. Upgrading the spells would easily fix this (honestly I didn't realize I didn't update my saved spell sets). - The wizard merc who had half their AA but the wrong armor did ONE HALF the DPS of a mage that has NO DPS AA, mediocre augs and is using spells from the last expansion. - The cleric did NOT cast any DPS spells. All of the cleric DPS was from INTERVENTION heals. - The warrior merc did LESS DPS than the ENCHANTER animation AND less DPS than a cleric passively from healing. This is all with mercs on burns but PCs only casting spells. The ENC Burned 300% more than the wizard on burn, which benefits from ENC ADPS The MAG burned 150% more than the wizard on burn, which benefits from ENC ADPS The wizard merc ran out of mana about 30-40% faster than the mage, and about 50% faster than the ENC. Combined with the abilities of PCs, the MAG / ENC didn't run OOM until after 20 minutes, the Wizard ran OOM several times. Again, the warrior merc did less DPS than the ENC animation and a cleric using only intervention heals. Also the warrior merc can't keep aggro off of anything. The DPS of mercs on burn is much too low to justify their aggro. !!!!!PLEASE DO NOT NERF ROGUE MERCS UNTIL CORRECTING WARRIORS AND WIZARDS!!!! Rogue mercs don't even need a nerf when being out DPSed by enchanters. I'll try to get PC rogue parse soon. PC rogues and wizards will obliterate rogue merc DPS.
Why in the world are you comparing the DPS of a raid geared enchanter with DPS AAs and good caster ADPS to a rogue merc with no merc AAs and no melee ADPS? And then vs an autogrant mage? I'm sorry Vumad, but you should be embarrassed for that entire post.
Wow, not often I disagree with you Kizant, and it seems like you're missing the point of the information I posted. Contrary to your response, a 115 rogue merc on Burn stance will absolutely tank. It will not try to drop aggro at all. Conversely, the 107 rogue merc will still drop aggro with Strike of Impaired Vision (-280,000 hate is quite a lot). On Balance stance, the 115 will stop attacking in lieu of using that ability it no longer has access to (and that I think is the bug in question). Apparently you think this is by design and the right way to go. I don't. As to players' strategies, of course any of the mercs can be in a tanking situation. All but the cleric merc can also DPS, although the cleric merc does riposte now (starting at level?) to prevent some forms of power leveling. A wizard merc on AE Burn stance is by far the best low level merc for tanking and XP gain. Sure a rogue merc really earns a group spot after 111+ with its DPS, or in the case of a priest classes (mainly clerics with low personal DPS) where the warrior merc fails to perform. A cleric can molo with a rogue merc but not with a warrior merc because the mobs die too slowly or not at all.
Same as you. GamParse 2.0.0.98. My point there was to show that my 115 rogue merc on Balance stance chooses to stop attacking rather then activate Strike of Impaired Vision. Because of that bug, it drops far below it's normal DPS to be sure. As I said at the top of my post, I wasn't measuring DPS just behavior.
Well I'm definitely not embarrassed for pointing out that ENC animations out DPS warrior mercs. I forgot to mention I haven't bought any companion's fury. I'm also not embarrassed for pointing out that cleric intervention healing a merc rogue creates more DPS than a warrior merc. Nor am I embarrassed for pointing out that the wizard merc also pulls aggro from the warrior merc. And not for pointing out the a base mage does more than double the DPS of a 7/15 wizard merc with the same aDPS and much more utility. And I'm not even embarrassed for comparing a raid ENC to a base rogue merc, because it's a pure DPS class, and it should be able to easily out DPS me. AAs would put it what, 10% ahead of an ENC? gimmeabreak. That doesn't need a meaningful DPS reduction. It should be behind me without AA and it should be ahead of me with AA, which it is. So embarrassed of the entire post? Hardly. The point is the point. The entire merc system needs tuning, and it needs to start with warriors and wizards. You're a wizard. What's your DPS looking like? Pretty close to the 50k my merc is doing?
