I was using a J5 tank (Level 95), 12 Merc AA's, two pieces of Merc equipment. Cleric and Enchanter buffs. Mob was a hungry thief DB Mob in Agreth. Lasted about 15 seconds. I might have had a rune on it too, I cannot recall. In which case add another two seconds. My experience has been since about level 80, I only use the healer and Wizard merc. The others are superfluous.
Tank mercs worked fine up until RoS. I used one prior to having a real tank in my crew. Killed everything, including named with one through the EoK expansion. You don't use a Merc tank + Merc healer. You use a Merc tank + real healer or a real tank + merc healer... expecting both was too much back then. Now they need an upgrade obviously (and it's being looked at).
Is that the mob you have to feed with rations on the cursor to stop its DPS increase? If so, that's why he probably ate your merc.
Hehe, I never heard about that mob. Sounds fun @Nickalispicalis maybe try some other mobs in the same level range. If the tank lasts better (and I suspect it will, I had good experiences at that level), then that's the issue, a mob with a special trick.
Who would have thought that changing mercs from mitigation based to avoidance based, then continuously making mobs accuracy and strikethrough values raise through the roof would make mercs so much worse
This guy http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=38189 spawns from a hungry thief in Argath. He looks just like the thief mob so it's possible that's what happened.
Healer merc would be way more useful with a simple button that triggered their 'tank is taking damage - heal him' behavior on demand. Preemptive healing Realistically though, healer mercs do just fine in current content. I won't comment on tank mercs as I do not have one.
What I would like to see would be a screen similar to an Old Man MacKenzie one where we can actually pick the spells and discs the merc's can cast. Also finely put in the raid level ones that cast R3 spells that was promised so long ago. Make it unlock the current expansions R3 spells if your character is present for killing the final boss of an expansion.
Another point to consider, which I didn't see mentioned in this thread: Positioning. Often, when I get more than one mob, the tank makes no effort to keep both/all in front of him. I've seen many situations where he can tank 4 no problem with them all in front of him, but in the same zone with the same mobs, he'll take more damage with just 2 mobs, if one of them is in back of him. So, that would be another good addition, if it can be done. And it would benefit all levels of tank mercs (and all ranks, as well!).
All mercenaries should be just a step above uselessly awful. That bar is subjective, obviously, but any of them qualifying as "good" to anyone should be enormously suspect, probably a problem.
This is what I'm tired of seeing, healer mercs replacing real healers because for the most part they are "good enough". And tank mercs that cant do anything, not even take a hit like they are supposed to. Healer mercs need to get dropped down a notch and tank mercs need to get bumped up a notch.
Healer mercs are just as "good enough" as tank mercs. The problem is people are used to tanks having to be the strongest/best geared in the group. Think of a merc like a really poor player. You can sometimes live with a poor healer if the rest of the group is on the ball. A tank is often the point person and a poor tank causes pain. (as a tank, a poor healer causes pain - I prefer to fight more than 1 mob at a time)
Been 3-boxing through EoK, enc/dru/mag. Chanter merc a tank, all top merc gear, full AA. Dru merc a healer, also full gear/AA. Mage merc a wizard. Druid was mostly doing damage, dropping occasional backup heals. Tank merc had no problem with any EoK stuff including named in Chardok/Lab/Droga. RoS, also not bad but relative merc power took a bit of a nosedive. Hope they bump em up.
Healers mercs are honestly pretty bad. It's just not as noticeable because healing, unlike tanking, is a stackable role. If one's not enough, pop two.
My druid main has 5 tank mercs, which I use to keep raid buffed, it has max tank merc AA and atm half EoK merc tank gear and half TBL tank merc gear, with one real healer and 2 healer mercs, they have never been able to live through any adds in current content, and 95pct of the time they get one rounded on the second mob they fight. They have always been worthless, but(because its hard to admit that the devs would do this on purpose) I try to make them work again with every expansion. ATM my druid is doing progression super slow with a chanter pet to tank for them. Any PC or any pet of any class is at least 100 times more useful than the utterly pathetic tank merc. You can't even compare them to a healer merc. Stop and think about how often you see a mage/necro/beast/shaman/any tank class/all melee classes with the exception of rogues and zerkers out moloing with the OP healer merc. Compare that to how often you see Clerics/Druids/Chanters/Wizards/Rogues/Zerkers out moloing with any merc. 1000 times a day for the former, zero times ever for the latter. A merc healer will heal you wherever you are, no matter how strange your placement is. Tank mercs if they were capable of living to reach 10 mobs will mysteriously get stuck in a part of the zone you have never been in; which beats their other 10pct of the time trick of training and killing the entire group. Also if the tank merc is standing anywhere near a puddle they are unhealable by anyone but a healer merc Its like the devs are punishing anyone stupid enough to play one of those classes, furthermore healer mercs are a complete slap in the face to real clerics, As they get their rank 2 spells for free just because you leveled, while real clerics have to farm theirs, with very little ability to farm due to pathetic tank mercs. A cleric, much like most classes, is actually better off tanking and doing their own DPS while using a healer merc. To further outline the discrepancy between tank and healer mercs, healer mercs stack. So if you are some undergeared melee toon or pet class with a bad EM focus; you can just join up with two other people and do practically anything with 3 healer mercs. If anyone ever tries to use a tank merc, they are in for a bad time. The moral of the story: Don't bother playing a cleric/druid/chanter/wizard/rouge/zerker, unless you box them with something that can both tank and take advantage of the OP healer mercs.
Or, work on the old quests and progression you missed years ago, the tank merc works pretty well for underleveled content. <---- Sure, I could pure solo in HoT, and maybe VoA. Once I hit RoF, the tank merc is actually useful. And CotF, and TDS. Starting in TBM, he starts getting less useful, and by EoK, it's more aggravation than it's worth. I never even bothered in RoS.
I am happy they are making a tuning pass with mercs at end game. Why not extrapolate those changes downward so all level ranges can enjoy the changes?
When you guys are looking at the mercs, are you guys intending to do a stat balancing pass or an AI behavor pass? Maybe both? Or no plan set as of yet and just the plan to give them a pass over? I am sure you guys read the feedback on them but just personal observations before i stopped using them... - All mercs need some base spell sheilding. Maybe 70% of the average player and some AA or gear to get closer to real player numbers. - For non burn situations, using Gameparse, at 110 DPS mercs for me were hitting between about 24k to 28k dps. By about level 105 or so, my SK was almost at that point with just a 2her and autoattack. I think atleast 70k dps out of them would be something to shoot for, if not more. - 110 tank merc dps was only coming to about 11k to 13k. If they are going to dualweild, i think that aspect of them should be higher. Perhaps add sword and board stance where they do the dps they are doing now to allow some tradeoff? - Tank merc could use 1 or 2 more tanking discs. 1 for the normal always on lockout abilities fighting normal NPCxs ,1 for when the Rare NPC fights go on for awhile. - Cleric merc's need some spell casting adjustments. Like when to rezz vs buff. When to use group heal, HoT, and promised heals.
That would be higher than, lowballing, at least 9 out of 10 players. It's plausible that maybe a quarter of those would notice before being told explicitly why they were being passed over suddenly. A slim minority of those would take it as a wakeup call and get good. The rest of those that noticed would just throw up their hands, rerolling as an SK or magician.