Punished for using a Rare Merc - Starting to get annoying

It's hard enough to get a hold of most of the rare mercs. I was ultra happy when I found Perrin Wonderhoof, a really good healer merc in Withered Lands by accent the first time I went into the cave where he resides.

But why do we have this annoying 3 plat summoning cost and ridiculous 5 minutes respawn timer? The 2 minute respawn timer is annoying enough on regular mercs.

It's not fun doing the Wurmbone Crag [Advanced Solo] the first time only to get killed on a mob that slashes around on you, kills your merc, wastes your plat and forces you to sit and browse the web for 5 minutes while waiting for the merc to be respawnable.

It feels many times as if we are punished for using rare mercs rather than rewarded.

Imagine dying 6 times in a zone you've never run before or just because it's hard. With no chance of survival without the merc that's 18 plat wasted and 30 minutes waiting for respawns.

Not okay. The 2 minute timer is well enough to avoid exploiting or whatever it's there for in the first place.

No need to punish us for being "lucky".

Nice post, however if you think the Rare Merc is useless, try being a templar and attempting to do the signature quest, got to Advance Solo, notice the Solo in the title?. No way anyone who thought up these quests has ever played a templar, we have no dps, and the merc just dies. I have a merc golem from Skyshine but being a templar is useless for this Signature quest. Supposed to be solo? Good luck. Half of our damage spells the mobs are immue to and the rest hit for 6K for the biggest hit. Good luck died over and over again and even jousting can't kill the last named in Wurmbone Crag. What is up with this? I agree your merc should have the same respawn timer. Just so ya know waiting two minutes to die again in less than the time it took waiting is not fun.

To imgay001:

[Advanced Solo] zones are really meant for two players, in my experience. I don't know why they continue to use the moniker "solo", and I'm not defending it. As a Templar, you really should find a friend to go in it with, so the two of you can work together to be successful in the zone. A Templar plus any tank class, or a Templar plus a good DPSer, will conquer any of the [Advanced Solo] zones

Regards,
Irving

I agree. Some of these zones are a bit too tough to be called solo zones. And they don't seem to be coming in he right difficulty order. The Temple of the Faceless is far more dangerous than the Throne of Fear for example. FAR more dangerous, especially the gorilla boss. I've done both these zones without a merc.

As for the instances after that, I've been to both crag versions. I am currently in Crag's End right now, waiting for my merc to respawn after having been killed by about 10 adds on a boss mob.

I play warlock and I can say it's everything but soloable with that class too. Mainly because most mobs are non-rootable and you need a merc for them to heal you because you are forced to act as a tank. And the ST zone has lvl 102 mobs in it. Despite being earlier unlocked than the wurmbone crag. That makes no sense.

I am level 93 now. Don't know how much the remaining 1 ½ levels will change my outcome, but from what I see right now, these zones are more or less impossible without a merc. Possibly soloable if you are raid geared.

If they decide to make zones so hard you need to use mercs in them to survive, I am fine with that. But I am not fine with spending 3 plat everytime I die and wait 5 minutes because there is no way I can solo the stuff without him.

Not another "Advanced Solo is not solo" thread. We already hashed this out in 3 other threads.

Advanced Solo is not tough enough. There is still a huge jump in difficulty between Advanced Solo and Heroic. There is absolutely nothing interesting to play in a small group that isn't all raid geared.

Tried the Contested?

Actually, I would be very grumpy if they designed solo stuff that pretty much 'forces' people to get a merc. Mercs are supposed to be optional.. something you get when you can't get a group or a needed class for group stuff.. not something you're required to have for solo stuff.
Unfortunately I'm not surprised that they've started designing 'solo' content that 'requires' a merc if you're not overgeared
(and, yes, I realize that the advanced solo zones aren't really solo zones, but they are a required part of the solo questline.. which, of itself, has some bits that are nearly impossible for some classes to solo. Things like scripted waves of mobs that swarm you in the overland zones..)

I find it frustrating that 90% of the time a normal merc would do the same job as an elite merc, but I can't dehire it so I'm forced to spend the additional cash for no real benefit.

But then I think to myself, stop your whining, you have an elite merc that many can't find (I've been trying to find them up for 6 months on my alts).

I spent about 50pp on Wurmbone crag and end with my ranger on the bosses. I've now gone through them on my zerker and warden 2 boxing, and can honestly say that 99% of the time I didn't need the warden at all. Some classes (read fighters) have it easy, casters do not. My ranger struggled on some. Using mercs for a lot of the bosses are more of a hindrance than a benefit. I found the only way to stop them dieing is to park them away from the fight and the scripts and run back from time to time for a heal. It didn't always work but saved me some plat.

Just finished Chelsith so I can't speak for the dungeons after that. But the fear dungeons were soloable. The other dungeons after that has been impossible with a merc. The only place the merc was in the way was the end mob in Crag's End, where he decided to die almost immediately.

But soloing the end boss was, thank god, pretty easy (didn't try challenge mode). The only bad thing that happened was that the first time the encounter broke when he had like 1-2% hp left. Also had another boss encounter break in this zone (near the entrance to the caves) because the boss decided to fall down into a pit.

But the main issue I have is not the 3 plat, it's just inconvenient. But somewhat understandable since it's more powerful. What bothers me is the unneccessary 5 minutes respawn time. There is no real reason to have such a high respawn time on them. What are you supposed to do during those 5 minutes other than alt-tab and check the web?

Agreed. The 5 min timer is annoying for no purpose. We are already paying significantly more for the rare merc. The 5 min just gets wasted web browsing or similar. I see no reason for the 5 min timer. Lower to to at least 3 min if not 3 min to match the regular mercs.

Advanced solo can be soloed if you are geared well enough.
I don't need a merc with my conj in the "advanced solo" SS instances.

Advanced solo is easily soloable for some classes with or without great gear, my necro is in SS faction and legendary gear going through them all the first time, and only used a merc for WE boss on challenge mode, troub is raid geared and doesn't need a merc for any of it, but can't do WE challenge boss without solid heals, zerk in unadorned SS faction gear and mediocre (at best) jewelry rarely needed a healer merc cept for WE challenge boss, brig can't get through any of it without a merc. Those are just the ones I've done the Sig line on so far, I am admittedly putting it off on my defiler and coercer because the idea of those instances makes me cringe doing it on them.

As for the main point, I agree completely, 5 min wait time just because its an elite merc is stupid. Atleast on the 2 min wait time its just enough for rez sickness to go away, tho I still wish the 2 min wasn't there either.

healer mercs are too Stupid and very Aggressive to be bothering to rezz me, he just go gung-ho solo a named boss, and once it done he come to rez instead of rezzing right at the moment when i get dropped'

in the words of Donald Trump, i say to these healer mercs, "You'e Fired!", all of you healer mercs are useless, they shouldnt be tanking and heal themselves when i am down. their healing tactic need overhaul....
Devs, these are totally wrong, healers are not seem what they are suppose to do.

their priority is curing any demetris effects, keeping the tanks alive, and rezz anyone that fall asap, but not at the end of battle.

Mercs, You are all fired!!!

As a inq with kenny...its all gravy. Inq reactives + kenny on ward and fallback heals makes it hard to die unless you are trying to solo something that is just not going to be soloed.

That being said I do wish you could still swap out mercs using elites...the only time I really need kenny is during really hard fights...really hard fights.....did I mention really hard fights?

Kenny is not stupid by any means from what I have seen.

+1 to swapping em out, even if it cost the initial cost to swap em, just having the option there in your inventory once you've already hired em once would be great.
i.e. everytime you hire a merc it gets added to the drop down already in the game, and if you change mercs pay the 5pp, not game breaking, not imbalancing, and doesn't impose any kind of restriction that isn't already there.

Set the merc to None for protect and None for Assist. Also, make sure the little icons in the pet control window are clicked off as well. Set like this, your healer merc will not take part in the battle and will heal and cure you instead. The werewolf templar merc is actually very good at healing and curing, even when I have him set to Assist me.

Levels help with taking on these zones too. My poorly geared (a few reactant items and mostly quested stuff) necro is doing much better at 94 than he was at 92. There are fewer battles where I actually need the merc. The Necromunger in Wurmbone's End is too tough no matter what. I can't seem to avoid getting swarmed. It probably doesn't drop anything (like the rest of the named before the boss), so it really doesn't matter.

The necromunger is a ridiculous fight for the solo instance, I've only successfully killed him on my troub, and even then I was kiting him all over that little area to do it. As it is, I attempt him once on each toon to see how badly I get face *****, and then move on, he only drops the usual trash orbs, and really isn't worth the headache, Mrelg-challenge is by far an easier fight.

He's really easy as a beserker and I had no issues on my ranger although I had Kenny to help. He dies quick with decent dps.