I want to add some DPS to my group and plan to get either a wiz or a rogue merc for that. Playing a chanter i got both haste and Clarity, so both should work at maximum. Which one does more DMG ?
I'd like to answer your question, but I suspect you misspelled "wizard" intentionally in your thread title. The "T" and "Z" keys are just too far apart for it to have been an honest mistake.
I imagine it is situational, but in most cases the wizard merc will outdo the rogue very easily (especially with chanter auras twincast and mana reiterate going). If you have to kite or something like that the rogue merc is the way to go, the wizard merc will just stand in the spot it's in after you aggro unless it's being hit.
I agree with Silku - the key is that you will be able to keep the wiz's mana flowing with your buffs. As a monk, I tend to use the rogue, but then I don't have a mana regen buff available. The wiz hits so hard (especially on burn) that your tank may have trouble keeping aggro.
Everytime I've looked into this the caster merc wins, the margin isn't huge but they do win. This is with both fully buffed or no buffs either way caster wins. IIRC couple days ago doing a 30 min lesson burn caster merc was at 6700 and melee was at 6200 on their balanced stances. Not sure on melee but caster merc on burn mode pulls a LOT of agro so watch out for that, when in burn mode they can put up 12-15k though until mana runs out (10-15mins)
I keep one of each. When grouped with a shaman and PC-tanking, I use the rogue on balanced. Caster pulls too much agro and shammy buffs are nice ADPS. When grouped with casters and pet-tanking, I use the caster on burn.
So when I play my Mage, Necro, Chanter, Druid box I have been using a cleric and tank merc. When I switched the Tank out for a wiz to pet tank, the wiz would constantly pull aggro and get summoned. Happened like 3 times in a row. It just slowed me down so I switched back to Tank merc. Is there a trick to getting the wizard to not be summoned? I had wiz on Balanced and had the "Taunt" button on with the mage pet. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks
I manually engage the caster merc and don't let her engage until about 85% of mob health. When I played a wizard, that's what I would do as well. Set the merc to assist and then you can hotkey or script "/mercassist" - this activates the merc when /mercassist is on.
I get my Rogue merc killed half the time, especially if I have him in aggressive mode, when I pull multiples and don't hit taunt stuff often enough. Then again, as others explained, you need mana regen for the Wizard merc.
Sie sind richtig. Mein Fehler. I used to use a rog merc when I wanted extra dps, but currently am using a wiz merc. On balanced I don't see too much of a difference in most fights, but where I was hunting at the time I was getting weird pathing issues with the rog one that made me lose some dps so I made the switch. Wiz merc on burn does nice DPS, but the others are right in that it'll grab agro if you're not careful. Since I'm kinda lazy, I'd rather sacrifice a little DPS by leaving the thing on balanced most of the time unless I absolutely need something dead quickly (and in these cases I usually forget to switch her back to balanced, so she'll die on the next mob).
Wiz merc produces a lot of aggro. Without a decent EM and pet DPS AAs, you won't be able to pet tank with a wiz merc. Wiz merc on burn out aggros everything in the game except for a merc / player tank spamming aggro abilities; you won't be able to pet tank with it.
Since you're an enchanter, wizard merc. Being able to haste the rogue is nice, but it's the only thing you can do to boost its' damage- the wizard you can use TC aura, MR aura, and feed it second spire and robe click if it's running out of mana on burn (or if not running out of mana, use third spire to increase its' crit chance a bit- mercs are lacking in AAs to real toons, so it will actually do something for a merc), and debuff magic. Now if you were boxing a shaman and a bard, I'd go with the rogue.
Since you are an enchanter I would go the wizard merc. Mana reiterate aura (or it's current version) and twincast aura will help the wizard merc more. But as mentioned above, wizard mercs do put out a lot of agro, especially on burn. You will find that unless the tank is constantly spamming agro, the wizard merc will pull agro off the tank. Bah above post beat me just
/highfive Lubianx EDIT: Oh, and to the OP, I don't know if you do more solo/molo or grouping with a merc, but don't forget that you have both targettable visages and visage auras, so you can help the wizard merc generate less aggro, or your tank generate more. If you use an aura, just have the relevant people in the group buffblock that aura (i.e. have your tank block deaggro aura).
Putting aside how things SHOULD work on paper.. honestly the rogue merc is better in virtually all scenarios simple because of how frequently wizard mercs bug out and stop doing anything for random intervals of time (a bug that does not seem to impact rogue mercs nearly as much)
I haven't had problems with wiz merc vs. single mobs when pet tanking; the problem is when there is a second mob, that sees the wiz attacking the first; then attacks the wizard merc, kills him, then it is in the middle of my box group's 'safe spot', and I have to rush to move my real mage/cleric/shaman... I want to get the wiz mercs to stand a little away from their owners (the cleric/shaman) so if they do draw aggro, it'll be easier to get back under pet tank control. melee DPS merc is out because of the pet tanking.
The Wizard on burn seems to do more primarily because it starts casting before the mob arrives in camp while the Rogue takes the time to sneak up behind it after it arrives. Not setting a Puller helps tremendously with merc inactivity and DPS. That's if you are camping a spot. If you're moving, you need the Rogue as the Wizard will stop moving as soon as anyone in the group has aggro, while the Rogue will continue, albeit at a walking pace. I'm a big proponent of buying ALL the merc slots, so you can immediately summon your other merc of the same type without having to wait 5 mins after switching or despawning it.
