Fixed Internally Rog Merc and Runaway Aggro

Discussion in 'Resolved' started by Eteract, Apr 14, 2020.

  1. kizant Augur

    1. The thread is about the rogue merc and specifically the aggro problem it has.
    2. DPS for that merc came up as a related topic because that is what generates the aggro and the DPS increase this expansion is much much larger than it has been in previous expansions. Which seemed like a bug.
    3. Ngreth is concerned that the merc DPS should not be outdoing a group geared player. Clearly, the intent is still for mercs to do less than players and not be replacements for them.

    An average grouped geared rogue with enchanter haste probably is doing in that 170k to 200k range. And I'm sure there are some players who even have trouble doing the 170k. So, if it does help solve the aggro problem then they should considering lowering the DPS for those two reasons. Fix the aggro issue and keep it inline with the intended changes. That's the main issue here.

    I pointed out that Wizard mercs have issues and even commented on a few of them but I didn't intend to go into full details because that's not on topic. The situation is similar to rogue mercs. A pretty good wiz in group gear is doing a similar 170k to 200k but some players may be closer to 150k and having mana issues. Generally, sustained DPS for rogue probably is doing better than that Wizards at this point.

    But Ngreth also made a point about wanting a high aggro/high DPS option for mercs and that being the intent for the rogue. That implies to me that wiz is the safe option and should do less DPS than the rogue merc. I've already established that base rogue merc DPS is around 130k and that it needs a reduction when compared to average group geared rogues. The Wiz should then also be doing less than that reduced value. IMO they should cut the rogue merc down from the 130k baseline to maybe 100k and figure out how to increase the Wiz to 70k or 80k from it's 35k ish.

    The problem with your post isn't literally with ALL the points your trying to make. It's that all your examples and data are a bunch of nonsense. You're fabricating biased scenarios to make the points you want and it's sad. Finally, yes, enchanters are a DPS class and you had good ADPS for your biased tests. Any good enchanter with ADPS would beat a rogue that doesn't even have haste.
  2. kizant Augur

    My point was that IF that was an intended change then I can understand why they made it. If you want mercs to behave more like players with regard to DPS output then why wouldn't they behave more like players with regard to dropping aggro? The only reason I can think of for wanting a high DPS rogue merc that can also tank is that it's easier and some people equate easy with fun. Even when the mechanics don't really make sense. Personally, I don't enjoy that sort of game. I'd like as little in the game as possible to be over powered.
  3. Vumad Cape Wearer


    The thing about you pointing out it being a biased test is that I started out with providing the information so as to acknowledge the bias. I know the data is skewed, but knowing that variables allows it to be scaled.

    It might seem like I am on a tangent but I assure you I am not. I do not believe the issue at hand here is simply changing the modifier from 110 from x3.5 to x2.5. That is a bandaid and does not address the problems occurring with rogues. All 3 mercs are having issues. THey situation as a whole needs to be addressed.

    Edit: Based on post #42 I think we are in a lot more agreement on this than you realize.

    The rogue mercs doing 130k DPS are doing it on burn. A real rogue burns much, much higher.

    I will agree with you that rogues need slight adjustment in their DPS, but not a sweeping one, and it's not the fix to the aggro problem.

    My rogues without AA should be doing 100k DPS, I can agree with that. But they should also be doing it on balanced.

    Currently rogue mercs are doing like 20k DPS on balanced and 130k DPS on burn. The aggro issue is not a DPS one. Balanced and burn are both not working right. If we wanted to reduce DPS to reduce aggro, we'd just put them on balanced, but the aggro itself is not working. I don't believe it is a DPS problem.

    Rogue burn needs to be addressed like wizard burn. It needs to be managed with endurance. Currently rogues are not using any of their endurance.

    I did my best to get a rogue parse. Yes, this is a ToV raid geared rogue with all of the AA. I understand the bias/skew in the numbers. Just trying my best to get real numbers. I don't have access to an autogrant rogue.
    The rogue did 185k sDPS with auto attack. Just press Q and stand there.
    Pressing any more buttons than Q, the DPS was 396k sDPS.
    Burning for this rogue is about 1.5million.
    Wulfhere likes this.
  4. Vumad Cape Wearer

    I have a proposed solution...

    It's a pretty sweeping change but I think if you'll keep an open mind you might like it...

    Add an ability to rogues and wizards that they use when they are on burn. It's always active while burn is selected. The ability would be something like "Mercenary burn 111-115". The always active ability would increase all DPS output by X, all mana endurance use by Y and reduce aggro by Z.

    This would allow aggro adjustments to be made so that these mercs are not pulling aggro all the time and DPS more appropriately on balanced. Aggro is not the correct way to manage merc DPS.

    So on balanced the rogue/wizard would do normal DPS and use mana at a normal rate.

    When the player switches them to burn, they will activate the ability and use X more mana for Y more DPS at Z less aggro. They'ed work more like players. Just instead of using spire they would blast out all of them mana in 90-120 seconds. The modifiers XYZ can be modified independently allowing burn to be a burn and balanced to be sustainable.

    Their burns would be tuned by era just by adjusting X, Y, Z. Say x3 DPS, x3 mana, x0.5 aggro. It could be tuned by going to x4 mana or etc.

    Here are some proposed targets for DPS (base, no AA)...

    Base DPS (balanced)
    Wizard DPS = 115k
    Rogue = 110k (slightly less than wizards because they can still DPS without endurance).
    Warrior DPS = 80k

    Aggro can be adjusted properly once performance is controlled with mana / endurance.

    Also propose increasing the AA modifier to 2-3%, so a 100k DPS target for a merc would be 130-145k DPS with AA.

    Change the aggro AA on the DPS mercs to one that improves the burn ability by increasing X and decreasing Y on the DPS/mana modifiers during a burn.
  5. Ngreth Thergn Developer

    I numerically quadrupled the damage that the Melee mecenary does. This should increase it's aggro naturally, but I'm also checking on it's spells.
    Wulfhere likes this.
  6. Wulfhere Augur

    Even if it was intended, I don't understand it because it's not fully thought out. Consider that we have a good DPS rogue merc finally that also has been dumbed down. I don't think its DPS is too high, rather just about right but its aggro is too high and the topic of this thread. Now this dumber merc will tank like a fiend if set on Burn stance and it will stop attacking on Balance stance to throttle its aggro and passively try to let someone else tank.

    So if we accept the simple solution from NGreth to reduce its DPS, well it is still going to behave in this bad way. It is still going to (burn) tank like a fiend but with lower DPS, hurting the molo clerics and enchanters (rune tank strategy). It is still going to stop attacking while balanced and thereby throttle its DPS all by itself (it already does! so why nerf?). So to me the proposal to simply reduce its DPS by any amount is NOT solving the problem because the merc is already doing that on Balance stance.

    All rouge mercs will tank on BURN (they can be set to Group Tank after all).

    On Burn or Balance stance, a level 1 (when does ability start?) to 110 rogue merc will actively reduce hate if it becomes the tank and, if on Balance stance, stop attacking (if still the tank, so same behavior confirmed).

    A level 111+ rogue merc on Balance will only STOP ATTACKING if it becomes to tank and wait it out. Setting Group Tank mode doesn't affect the rogue mercs behavior wrt autoattack. A 110- rogue merc will actually do more DPS because it will use Strike of Impaired Vision on cool down and get a few swings in before becoming the tank again and stop attacking.

    To suggest or recommend a simple DPS reduction is avoiding the real issue of rouge merc bugs. Their DPS is not the bug and not the problem. The bug is that they're not using Strike of Impaired Vision. They are not overpowered IMO.
  7. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    To me, a merc should never be the preference - but a stopgap in case you cannot find that particular archetype role for your group.

    Look what happened to clerics with the mercs. Do you EVER see a Cleric LFG? Nope. Because mercs supplanted them.

    Same thing will happen to DPS if you improve mercs. Keep the melee merc exactly as it is. Decent DPS, but you better have good aggro management in order to use it because that's the tradeoff.

    Merc users want to have their cake and eat it too. The game suffers because of it. Mercs are too good as it is.
  8. Wulfhere Augur

    You're being very narrowed minded. Many hundreds or thousands of paying customers have very little time to play per session. Viable mercs fill group roles for that 20 to 30 minutes that person has time to play but no time to form a pickup group. They are not stop gap and should not be door mats either. You want to take the game away from them? You want to take that revenue away from DPG? No thanks.

    Not having mercs or not having viable mercs hurts the game for far more customers then those who don't use mercs at all, or consider them a stop gap because they have hours to play per session. Witness the number and volume of threads reporting merc bugs as evidence that the issue is bigger then your own game experience or style.
    code-zero and Vumad like this.
  9. Metanis Bad Company

    They should just do away with the dps mercs altogether. Only the tank and healer are indispensable. The healer is just about perfect the way it is. The tank needs to scale better to current content.
    Sancus likes this.
  10. Funky Augur



    i disagree with the doing away with dps mercs. considering i box a tank, bard and healer most of the time, having the extra dps is nice.

    but i do agree the tank does need work. between using discs at random times they didn't need to and just overall squishiness.. they are not very good
    Wulfhere and Nennius like this.
  11. kizant Augur

    It seems pretty well thought out to me. That's why I was taking a guess that maybe it was intended. With balanced it's doing a little less DPS and trying hard not to die. In Burn mode it's just going all out and will of course pick up aggro fast. It's not really about the merc choosing to tank on burn mode. It's just a consequence of burning and not caring about aggro. I can understanding not preferring it this way but it seems like a reasonable approach.
  12. kizant Augur

    This is false. I posted my parses earlier in this thread. The rogue merc does around 130k DPS on balanced without any ADPS and with zero merc AAs. The only thing that prevents it from doing this DPS is if it has aggro and stops attacking or gets killed.
  13. Wulfhere Augur

    That is a non sequitur sorry.

    How is making the merc dumber result in a better outcome for the player? Please consider what I said more carefully:
    This is the central ability that has been removed and I argue not by design.
  14. Wulfhere Augur

    I agree with your disagreement.

    Removing mercs for low dps classes (e.g. cleric) sounds like troll bait to me.
    Funky likes this.
  15. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    How is keeping mercs as a stopgap group member being narrow minded?

    You say 'viable mercs'. It sure sounds to me like you advocate for more powerful mercs.
  16. kizant Augur

    I didn't disagree with the recommendation that it should start using that hate reducing ability again. But like I said earlier, using that ability once every couple minutes wouldn't fix the aggro problem it currently has since it would be right back at the top very quickly.

    Also, for anyone interested. Here's a sample of how and what I'm testing to come up with the DPS numbers I've posted previously. I added a Gamparse comparison at the end for anyone who thinks my overlay is fake or something. Youtube is still encoding it so it may take 10 minutes for the high res version to be available.

    Sancus, Wulfhere and minimind like this.
  17. Vumad Cape Wearer

    Except Metanis is a cleric. I think he's being serious.
  18. Wulfhere Augur

    Strike of Impaired Vision has a 22s cool down and in my testing, I can get the 107 rogue merc to keep it on cool down. It's quite effective and another one of the abilities the merc has lost also has a hate reduction (Bite of the Shissar Poison). The 107 merc does use that. If the 111+ merc wasn't broken it would be in good shape IMO and at current DPS tuning (which I also think is fine).

    [49386] Bite of the Shissar Poison XI
    Target: Self
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 0s
    Duration: 2h+ (1200 ticks), Dispelable: Yes
    Max Hits: 60 Offensive Proc Casts
    11: Add Melee Proc: Bite of the Shissar Poison Strike XII
    Text: You poison your weapon with Bite of the Shissar Poison.
    Will proc *#11%N, which does *#11#1 damage and decreases hate by *#11#2, on melee attacks.

    [49388/6090] Bite of the Shissar Poison Strike XII
    Target: Single
    Range: 200'
    Resist: Poison -1
    Reflectable: No
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 0s
    1: Decrease Current HP by 22426
    2: Decrease Hate by 16331
    Does #1 damage and lowers hate by #2.

    Again, the 111+ rogue merc is broken in regards to using abilities that 110 and below use to reduce aggro and maintain their attacks (DPS). It's DPS is NOT the problem.
    Velisaris_MS likes this.
  19. kizant Augur

    So, if I let my merc be the only thing on aggro and it's forced to tank I do see it using it every 22s. However, if I play normally and give a 110 merc haste and NET and let a charm pet tank then it only uses it once every about 100s. And charm pet aggro is not what it used to be. It's actually kinda bad. That tells me that the merc just doesn't generate a lot of aggro in the first place when it's only doing around 45k DPS to need to use abilities like that very often.

    Then if I take my 115 merc and give it NET and haste. Then let my charm pet build up 2 minutes of aggro before having it attack. It goes from 0 to 100 and starts getting hit in about 10 seconds. Spamming that ability every 22 probably isn't going to cut it. DPS definitely plays a factor.

    Right and adding more and more hate reducing abilities back would just make the merc OP and Ngreth said there should be some challenge involved here. Plus considering that it does do similar DPS to average players it probably makes sense to do both things. Reduce DPS by a bit and add one of the hate reducers back. I still think 25% to 30% less DPS would be ideal. I guess we'll just have to wait and test the version he's working on.
  20. Wulfhere Augur

    No offense and thanks for actually going back to test things Kizant (/salute). Hopefully our testing of how rogue mercs performs helps. Admittedly, our speculation of the merc's performance after it's hate reduction bugs are fixed is just that, speculation. I want Ngreth or the responsible Dev to say in a patch note what conclusion is drawn after as careful testing (at least!) as we have done, and what fix is in that balance.

    We're really debating for an audience of One (The Devs).

    Cheers mate.
    kizant likes this.