Battalion Buff - working as intended?

Question about battalion buff: So, from what I have read, as you unlock mercenaries and level them up, you will receive a "cumulative" bonus from those mercs, as long as they are above level 5. So, all of your mercs will give you there set bonus(s), up to 100 as long as they meet the requirement.
Is this working as intended? If I have one mercenary summoned, I can see their actual contribution by hovering over the battalion buff. However, I dont see the contrubutions from the "unsummoned" mercs, just the current merc summoned.
Now I do understand that the mercs need to be level 5 to count. All of the mercs i am currently using are BOL mercs (fabled and 1 celestial). I also understand that celestial will grant a larger contribution versus the fabled, and legendary then treasured.
Thank you for your time and respected feedback. I asked about this in global the other day, and was told it was broken and not working as intended. Myself, im not sure so thought I would ask.

Thank you,
Paragonvii

If you have recently reached a threshold with your merc, it may not show the new contribution level until you have dismissed/re-summoned it. Apart from that, yes it does work, but it's pretty underwhelming in it's effect. I got my cumulative contribution past 40 the other day, my fervor went up 0.3.
You get more for levelling up a solo green rune. So no point caring about it or putting effort into it.
My guess is they'll revamp that for the new xpac and make a new line of mercs to level up, make it ptw and make it a must-do.

I have 7 BoL mercs, Zel'Kriaz (6) (Celestial), Rosa Dod (6) (Fabled), Oor (20) (Fabled), Vlykorin (20) (Fabled)
, Melban (7) (Legendary), Grolla (14) (Treasured), and Hortis (16) (Fabled)

I only see the benefits of the current merc (if up) and last merc up (if down). The battalion of mercs is NOT working.

The battalion buff only gives the buff for the currently summoned, or dismissed mercenary. It does not give all the different buffs. All it does, is as your mercs contributions go past each threshold of 20, adds a miniscule amount to the quality of the buff you receive from the current merc. Sorry but it IS working. It's just... rubbish.

It is working just fine.

You can read the details for how it works here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/more-about-mercs.593822/#post-6600336

And if you want the actual numbers, you can find those here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/mercenary-battalion.594251/

It wasn't their finest idea.

I imagine it was something like this:
Right, we are adding a load of mercenaries in BoL and we need an incentive for players to level up as many as they can.
How about giving them a buff and improving it with each merc they level up?
Brilliant! So the buff will start off tiny and go up in increments?
Well no, we can't do that for two reasons. One, we're giving away a great merc in the premium bundle, that needs to be awesome from the get-go. Two, if we do that it'll be so transparently pay-to-win we'll never get away with it.
Ok, so we add the buffs together as you level new mercs?
Well... also no, as that would be hideously overpowered and unbalance the game, considering we have the premium merc, the other mercs buffs can't be too far off the quality of that one or again, it'll just look too pay-to-win, and punishing non-premium players.
Er.. so what will it do?
Well, basically nothing. The only option left is to have the merc initially at 95% of it's full power, and add the last 5% at extremely difficult to attain thresholds.
Won't the players complain? I mean, that sounds pointless.
Yeah, but not for a while, it'll take ages before the first batch start realising how pointless this is, and by then a good number will have bought loads of mercenary training baubles.
I like it, but can't help feeling the time spent on this would be better spent ironing out the ever-deepening creases in the xpac.
*collective guffawing*

End.

Hey friends, thank everyone for there replies! So this is *EXACTLY* what I was talking about. To my knowledge, all of the mercenaries he has listed should contribute (a cumulative effect) towards the battalion buff. They should all go towards a persistent buff, up to the number 100 total listed, when you check your mercenary.

I have a similar situation as this, all of my unlocked mercenaries should give a TOTAL (all added together) buff as they are above level 5, BOL and at least fabled level.

It is not supposed to be just one mercenary (the most recently summoned) that contributes to your buff, it should be all eligible mercenaries, up to that number 100 threshold. The number 100 threshold I am speaking of is easily checked by right clicking your summoned mercenary and it will say, for example, 8/100 contributed.


Am I wrong on this? If I am, forgive me. If I am correct, then I believe it is NOT working as intended, as you should get a persistent buff from all eligible mercenaries, at the same time with one buff, the battalion buff.

No, you only get a buff from the current merc, but it is boosted (by a tiny tiny fraction) by the cumulative contribution of all your BoL mercs.
It is working, it is working as intended, but as I said above, it IS rubbish. It is a miniscule, inconsequential effect.

Okay I see now, to be fair, here are the words for eq2:

"Mercenaries that have been unlocked to hire anywhere grant a persistent "Mercenary Battalion" buff even when suspended. Every mercenary that you have unlocked to hire anywhere may contribute to Mercenary Battalion, with higher tier and higher rank mercenaries contributing more. While each type of mercenary will grant a different buff, all mercenaries of that era contribute to the effect of all other mercenaries of that era. The last mercenary summoned will automatically cast its Mercenary Battalion buff on the owner whether it is active or suspended.

To make a mercenary contribute to the buff, summon a mercenary that you have unlocked to Hire Anywhere which is also at least rank 5, and its contribution will be added to the total. Contribution is increased at rank 5, 15, 20, and eventually at rank 25 when that is unlocked. While you have a mercenary summoned, you can right click on it to check how much it has contributed to the total.

Contribution can be increased up to 100% and will not further increase the effects once 100% has been reached."

As it reads (in my honest opinion) it sounds like it could be BOTH ways to me. It should be a cumulative effect, but then it says its the last summoned merc. So its a bit confusing.

At least know I know how it works, im a bit sad about it. Have been collecting mercs, leveling them to try and get there total battalion buff effect, which isn't going to happen. A lot of work into mercs when really I just need the 1 for the buff that I need. This is *very underwhelming* compared to what I thought it would be.

Thank everyone for there replies and help, I always appreciate it.

agreed friend. I think its confusing and the buff is underwhelming. appreciate the help.

We've all had that moment! Hey, there's still a good reason to accumulate mercs, and that's to add to your overseer quests. So don't feel bad.

Thank you for your post. If this is working as intended, it seems confusing and complicated.

BUT I would like to point out~ if you did the math on all of that (second link), thank you so very much and snaps to you I mean it

YUP. I put a lot of effort and $$$ into the merc thing, and my plan has failed at this point.

At this point, take which ever merc whose benefits you like and up it, and don't brother with the rest.

If you don't have a merc summoned for healing, curing, or verdict, and you don't have the lotto pay-to-win merc, then I think Rosa Dod gives the best buff (fervor, crit bonus, and ability double cast)

Hopefully the wikia article helps you choose how to proceed with the battalion buff.
(https://eq2.fandom.com/wiki/Mercenary_Battalion)

Thank you for the link friend!!! So I have rosa, horthis, zel and tarsil. Which is best to level for the battalion buff? if im not mistaken, horthis is a tank, and he gives the same buff as tarsil and maybe even rosa? its confusing lol.

anyone know by chance if one merc has a "stronger" battalion buff over another (besides zel, that's stronger since celestial but I dont really want an ability modifier battalion buff).

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/more-about-mercs.593822/

is more info there

Hire each merc, see what battalion type the buff is (which you can see before rank 5, and some BOL mercs have weird battalion types), consult the page to see what stats you prefer, then train the highest rarity merc of the type you want.

For example, Melee type gives twice the CB of Support type, but no ability double cast or ability mod.

Yes, this is not a bug, but it must be a mistake by DB (or DP).
See, DB must be interested in doing let us unlock many mercs for 150 or 135 DB cash to reach contribution 100, and DB must be interested in doing let us level the mercs for DB cash (for example if we are missing two days for level up the merc and find a 4hours ten day researcher). And what is DB doing? DB only gives us a joke of 0,3(!) fervor when we reach the Battalions contribution from 20 to 40 or from 40 to 60... So there is absolutely no reason for us to reach contribution 100 and we better save our DB cash. THAT CANNOT BE INTENDED BY DB.

I am afraid im going to agree with this post.