Hi! Newly returning player from 2012, slowly working thru the expansions, up thru ROR sigs, doing solos now, Resolve 8970. For mercenaries, I am using Zel'Kriaz for an inquisitor healer (level 10), and Nuniun for a tank/healer (level 6). I have two general questions about mercenary gearing choices: Question 1: What gear should I be putting on my two mercs? I am currently using: Panda "Shadowed Excursion" armor on head, shoulders. The Casting Speed and Reuse Speed buffs on those panda items cut casting time and reuse time very nearly in half, and it seems important to be able to get off heals in a hurry sometimes. I can definitely tell a difference when those two items are equipped. Note that this Panda armor is actually from the next-to-last season of armor. Expedient Armor from the Music Box quests on tunic, forearms, legs, feet. High resolve, high potency, high stats etc. Free armor from Tishan's box in Hopewell Harbor on hands. No Expedient alternative, but at least it has good potency. The effects of the casting speed and reuse speed buffs from the Panda armor are shown in the following table: Question 2: What gear are folks using on mercs for baby alts (level < 100) ?? Thanks for all advice.
Interesting question. I personally just stick in whatever I have available in my bags that has high potency. Lol!
you should use mercs ONLY from this xpac, and they should be level'd to max 20 using mercenary training pots obtained from your overseer rewards. the older the mercenary, the worse the buffs are. (read this on the wiki) As for the merc stats, they scale with it's tier based on your stat For example, a treasured merc is only 20% of your stat, where as the celestial merc has 80% of your stat
Thanks for the reply. I'm aware of the points you are making, and don't disagree with them, but that wasn't my question. I'm asking for advice on how to select the best gear for whatever merc I'm using, how other players make those decisions, etc. Are other folks just stuffing random armor onto their mercs? Or are there some smarter thoughts out there? I would love to hear those smarter thoughts. One update I'll offer: I have discovered several hand-slot options that offer both Casting Speed and Reuse Speed buffs (Diaku Riding Gloves, Veilwalker's Gauntlets of Force, some others) that allow me to max out cast and reuse speeds, and freed up the head and shoulder slots to ditch the old panda armor in favor of additional Expedient armor items.
This is incorrect. It's "mercenaries from the current Mercenary Battalion season". And, guess what? The GU in April is likely to introduce a whole new mercenary season, so you can acquire and level all your mercenaries again. The Mercenary Battalion Buff is based on the mercenary season. Older seasons demonstrably have worse Mercenary Battalion Buffs. If you are low level, you don't really care about this much yet... any old healer mercenary will do, and Stamper Jeralf is pretty good. In 2020, mercenary stats were changed to become a percentage of the player's stats. Celestial mercenaries will share 80% of the owners stats, Fabled mercenaries will share 60%, Legendary 50%, and Treasured share 40%. As for what to equip on your mercenary, all mercs wear plate armor, no matter what their class. Mercs do not have to wear "mercenary-only" armor, either. You can put them in any armor that's at your toon's level or less. In RoR, a bunch of collections and the occasional loot box reward merc-only armor at level 410 (solo content) and 425 (heroic content). But you certainly can gear them out in Mastercrafted from-refined-ores, experimented-to-Visionary plate gear if you wish (that will be better than anything you can get in solo content). If that's beyond you, you can put them in the same gear that you can get from Tishan's Lockbox in Hopewell Harbor, upgrading from whatever you loot as you adventure thereafter. If you are in the process of leveling up from level 100 or whatever, the instant you hot level 125, go to Raj'Dur Plateaus and grab the Lockbox gear for you and your merc, then go back to your regularly scheduled AA-earning. According to DBG's Are You Returning to EverQuest II? article, "Mercenaries do not gain the benefits of Adornments, Item Sets, or Effects on their worn items."
Thanks for the reply. Interestingly, I was comparing "Merc-Only" Expedient armor vs the player-wearable Expedient armor that is farmed from the music box quests. At a quick glance, they actually seem identical, however on closer inspection I did note while identical in almost all other stats, that the Merc-Only version does have better mitigation. My current strategy then for gearing out my merc (level 125): Make sure the gear has at least 100 casting speed and 100 reuse speed (hand slot has several options on broker, or head and shoulder slots from next-to-last panda season) Hand-me-down >410 resolve gear from my toon as they gear up (few and far between as a casual player) Merc-only Expedient, where available Music box Expedient, where available Free stuff from the Hopewell Harbor tishan's box
Ditto Komatus. Thank you OP, this is a good question. I am hoping to get some responses which help me as well. I'm a solo/mojo conjy and use healer mercs (per recommendation from server mates). Any advice for me regarding mercs and/or pets would be appreciated.
Splint, I like what you are saying and are wanting to find out about armor. You have not mentioned anything which increases potency. I have been advised to use high potency items. Is this because I solo or is it poor advice?
I keep getting conflicting information on this; half say use adornments etc. and half say don't. Thank you for clarifying and giving me a location I can look at to better understand. Do you know why these do not apply to mercs? It seems to me it is the armor or adornment itself which has the benefit. If it is non-merc gear, why do these not apply as if it were being worn by a player?
In RoR, you personally need about 1 million Potency. Crit Bonus (as well as Crit Bonus Overcap) are the important stats this expansion.
I don't know. I have always adorned my merc armor, but what I quoted was an official DBG article. One assumes that they know what does and does not work
Mercs Only from this xpac. Am I correct in assuming that older mercs lose their value? So if I have Kaeron Nyx, celestial from marketplace, will now be at a level of Fabled and Legendary is equivalent to Treasure? Mercs will scale down with each new xpac? Looks like the only way a 'non-raider' will get a descent merc is ... pay the higher price for the xpac? As a side question: Why can't we use ANY Famliar as an appearance? I tried to use my favorite appearance but got the message: "This Familiar may not be used as an appearance for your currently equipped familiar." Thanks Sigrdrifa for the wiki suggestion; I'll check it out.
They don't "lose" anything. The new ones just have bigger and better stats. If you are low level, any healer is fine. But at end game, what a mercenary is most useful for is the Mercenary Battalion Buff. If you summon a merc and look in your maintained spells window, there will be a coin-like icon. Examine that and read exactly what the buff is doing. Compare that to mercenarie sof other classes and other "mercenary seasons" (which do not line up with expansions, BTW! I kinda expect a new merc season in April with the GU, TBH) No. That is not how it works. It's more like the reason level 10 armor isn't useful once you are level 125. They are old and have much lower stats as compared to newer mercenaries. If you are not raiding, you don't need bleeding edge stats. The average player is not going to obsessively collect every mercenary from a given Mercenary Battalion Buff season, unlock all of them, and level them all to level 20 in order to maximize the Battalion Buff. There are other mercenaries in the VoV Mercenary Battalion Buff group. There's even another Celestial merc, Sanders King, that apparently is obtainable via in-game methods. But if you are not running heroics or raids, any of the current season healers should be sufficient for Solo content. Some of the Familiars have an appearance of "flying", and I think that the issue of appearance is whether it walks or flies. I never have my Familiar visible, so I dunno for certain.
As for gearing I try to get any merc I use to 100% reuse and cast speed, past that I throw on anything with ability mod and or HP bonuses. Ever since Thalumbra I have only used healer mercs and having them with 100% reuse and cast greatly helps them cast and recast heals and cures on me more often. Having their ability mod higher improve their heals and higher HP helps them from dying early on after expansion release. Tank/DPS/support have all seem to be worthless past lvl 100 from what I have experienced on any of my toons. Tanks are awesome pre lvl 100 and DPS mercs are well NOT really DPS as they just throw peanuts at mobs....
This ^^^ I would add only that I put adornments on my mercs. I use any extra reds that fit the merc from my bank that I have no use for. In RoS I had 6 of the red adorns you purchased for coins off the goblin on the cliff for a while and it made them outstanding. But those runes don't work in RoR so I am now putting an extra Gleeful Ire and Desiccation as well as CB adorns everywhere I can on my merc.
