Who all thinks a Bard and a shaman merc would work with players

That was not the idea behind mercs and it does also not work, which is proof enough that it never was the idea behind mercs which is only your projecting theory as you are to bad as a player to box without mercs. As example when someone does box a ROG+DRU, where is the slower and good ADPS ? The group does also lack a good tank as the tank merc is weaker than a monk and far weaker than a ranger. It is positioned between a rogue and a monk tank which does lead the whole tank merc concept ad absurdum. It is not a tank at all, just a pseudo tank.

The idea behind mercs was to enable weak soloing until a group can be found, and to reduce the need for boxing. Debuffs and slows are a must have for challenging content. They are just not needed in the trivial farming content that you are used to box with the help of mercs (30-45 sec per kill). See, you are projecting again.

These Iven vs. the community threads are exceedingly lame.

Essentially zero value, because you're unable to have a constructive conversation under critique.

Randomized is the community ? LMAO

Don't think that's clever for a second. It's lame, and everyone knows it. Be constructive.

Lol i'm not the one asking for more boxes from other classes because i'm bad at the game lol

Regardless or your extremely far off base jab, that was the idea behind mercs and that is exactly how it works. Take any 2 classes in the game, even double Cleric, and they form a group, because one can pick a tank, the other a DPS and now you've got all 3 roles covered.

Wizard and Monk, one takes a Tank, the other a healer. All 3 roles covered
Enchanter and Druid, one takes a tank, the other a dps. All 3 roles covered

You can do this with any combination of 2 classes in the game.

Slower (this is embarrassing as you claim to play a rogue at high levels): Rogue... slow poison
ADPS: Druid with damage shields + Great Wolf

Fun fact for you: procs are considered spells, as such they're able to be resisted and modified by such things the crit damage increase from Wolf and Crit chance.

Tank merc is actually stronger than both in regards to defensives in a sustained situation. Sure Rangers and monks can use abilities to tank momentarily, but that's it. For sustained and constant encounters the Mercenary is better. Still not as good as a real tank, but better than monks and rangers

It is a tank. Just a weak one. Rangers are pseudo tanks.

"This will allow any two classes to get together, and instantly have a group with a viable tank and healer, or a Melee to hire a healer to "Solo" or a healer to hire a tank, again to "solo", etc. Alternatively, the DPS class can be used to flesh out a duo or group for faster kills" as per Alla

Projecting? Lol I've got your post right here saying that EoK was made for level 105 characters in raid gear from TDS expansion. I was currently level 103 and 102 killing mobs (that were supposed to be hard for raid geared characters from the prior expansion) in less gear and lower levels and AAs in about 35 seconds. You trying to claim it's trivial because I was able to prove you wrong, after claiming it was hard for level 105 characters in raid gear, definitely isn't me projecting anything lol.

That would be equivalent to me going into CoN at level 117 with CoV gear and calling it "trivial" because I'm able to tackle it while you cannot. And debuffs and slows are definitely not "required" for challenging content (guess it depends on what you call challenging - at 110 and 109 i've completed Merc + Partisans in EW and working on Kael's and GD's next with the same BST + Bard + Healer merc combo).

They're nice to have, and more beneficial when you do not have a full group. But if you've got 6 characters tackling content, the slows and debuffs (again, while nice) are not a necessity. There's plenty of people using Tank and Healer mercs at from 120-125 and doing just fine without said slows and debuffs and "handicapping" themselves by using mercs.

Does just taking random shots in the dark with your bold takes usually work out for you when they're so easily proven wrong??

great.... now even cleric mercs wont be able to find a group.

The only way I can see any major code and dev time being put into mercs would be if they are locked behind the next expansion.

Quite likely. Time is money and with a small development team (especially) it would be best to find a way to recoup costs in a timely fashion.

You could become Daybreak's dev ressource manager.

Clearly you've never played with a healer merc. Their heals are garbage as it is because of no healing focuses/crit aa's, etc. A shaman merc would be even worse off healing. Mercs do however need to be improved and maybe even allow 1 person to have 2 out at once if they want to slightly reduce people running illegal programs to play for them and bring players back that can never find groups to keep them interested in EQ and at least allow them to progress in the group game.

ROFL!
True!

There aren't cleric mercs, there are HEALER mercs.
They should NOT have cleric buffs!
They either should have NO buffs OR buffs that don't stack with ANY priest hp/ac buff.

I see no reason why there shouldn't be a buff/debuff Merc,
It could cast haste/regen spells, buff melee and spell DPS, and debuff mobs.
No direct heals, no DD, no mezzing.
Are they 'needed'?

No, but for the same "it depends on the content" reasons that the current mercs aren't absolutely needed either.

False premise.

Mercs are there to fill a missing role. Like you said, it's not a cleric merc (but it is) - it's a healer merc.

Buffs aren't a role in a group lol

Healer mercs are clerics. I don't know what is so hard to accept that. Their spell variety is a bit limited but they are still clerics. It would be good to rename all the mercs to their true class instead of using vague synonyms. If additional mercs will ever be added, that might be needed anyways.

I'd support a support merc that's somewhat of a leather-ambiguous class. Haste, slows, sow, snare, limited heals and some fisty melee damage. Sorta like a beastlord without a pet.

The joke went over your head

I think snare is a good point. They could add snare to the wizard merc. It'd be simple to add they would just have to add it the spell lineup. They could make it so it uses snare in balance but does not cast snare on burn. It could help some people. I doubt it would prevent anyone from getting a group.

So....you want a FTP box toon? That's what I'm hearing.

A toon that doesn't aid in a fight
A toon that does not help form the holy trinity of group composition
A toon that saps exp but does not increase exp gained per <insert unit>
A toon that occasionally casts a buff or utility spell
A toon that otherwise is entirely afk but you still have to give it attention because you don't want it to die?

Y'all are asking for a FTP account buff bot to PL to your current level

It would be faster and more beneficial for everyone to spend 5 seconds and run to their lag pile and ask for buffs before starting your grind session

Diagnosis: FTP schizophrenia. Paranoia, hearing voices. The voices did forget to tell you that AllAccess can also use mercs. It's obvious that you fear that the class that you play, the beastlord, will be nerfed by adding a merc version. Then nobody would group with you anymore, so nothing would change for you. But other players could receive a more usefull merc that could be added to their holy trinity.

You're the only person I've ever come across that either lacks, or just miscomprehends every point of a post.

Common phrase. Has nothing to do with the literal meaning of the word (yes I caught your joke, but the fact you're joking about it means you believe it lol)

Yup, and the reference to FTP is the power of mercs.

I fear nothing lol and i play most classes minus the Cleric, Wizard, and Shaman. Doesn't matter what they add to mercenaries, it's not going to "nerf" anything. Much less my performance lol and I'm not the one who has issues getting groups.

If I did, you'd see me creating threads about having 50 level spreads in new expansion zones, or changing how Rogue's escape abilities work, or to add new mercenaries. Yet, I haven't done any of that.

People who have the holy trinity have no need for a "utility" merc or a dual specialized merc lol.

PS - you need to learn what the holy trinity means.