Other learnin's from/about Mercs. The following is just my observations, I have no parses on any of this.
FYI: I 3 box shm,druid,mage (previously have boxed paladin, cleric and monk as well. Cleric not so seriously as druid and shaman typically could combined heal as well as a cleric for me.)
So, been using the mercs pretty steady since their inception. Put them away when replacement players of the class (tank or healer) are available, as I still prefer real players over mercs, as the mercs never have anything funny to say. or any good stories.
One thing I particularily love about the mercs is that I no longer am competing with folks for plate drops. I don't know quite how to word this, but I still believe that mercs are better over all for people as less folks like me need to box tanks and healers, which keeps slots open for them in groups.
So, I always have my cleric healer out when no player is available, but typically don't use the tank merc if I can avoid it. I find I am killing just as fast with out him, and I don't want to split off that bit of xp when the mage pet can tank just fine. All 3 of my guys carry a merc though, 2 have tanks, and 1 has a healer. I have enough healing power in my group should the healer merc go down or need support, but if the mage pet goes down things get ugly fast so I keep 2 merc tanks as back up, and pop them out as required. I have top level available to me on all 3 (the first rank of Journeyman).
You can pop them out instantly in a fight, if you have room in the group. When you suspend them, it takes five minutes before you can pull them out again.
I 3 box my group in a lot of Beza instances right now.
My healer, (Drakkin) which I affectionately refer to as Bambi, loves to buff. If she has a choice between buffing you and dieing, she will choose buffing. She heals like the wind too. Normally I run her on EFFICIENT, but I have reactive hot keyed for named fights, and adds. She seems to heal faster (and definetely burns up her mana faster) in reactive. I have run her in reactive by mistake and found that I need to stop pulls for her to recover mana more often.
The biggest difficulty I have found with her, is her positioning. She will buff by running out in front of the group, buffing whoever needs it, then sitting down. Usually right beside mage pet.... Interestingly, she will grab agro (proximity I am guessing, much like a player) from the mage pet, so I have to adjust her back by running back a ways from mage pet, and she will then reposition further back. I don't find her moving away when she catches agro, she will quite often just switch to healing her self... Note that with a merc tank this typically isn't an issue as the merc tank easily holds agro over her. I don't worry about where she is standing unless there is AE involved when using the merc tank.
Another problem area is buff selection. If you don't have the druid buff, she will temerity you. if you do have druid buff, she will symbol you. We had a little contest to see who could get the buff on faster between druid and her, to which I found out her temerity can overwrite my druids buff! hehe. The trick I found was to get the druid buff on before she started casting Temerity. Once she started her cast, she would overwrite the druid buff.
Two ways I have done that.
1: Put her on passive till all the other buffing is done. (usually I do this on a wipe), then throw her to efficient or reactive and she will buff symbol on the toons with druid buff, then single shot temerity on those that don't. (I delete druid buff from mage pet)
2: (typically I do this for single buffing one of my toons) start the druid buff cast and just before it lands delete the temerity on the target being buffed. Usually she doesn't catch that before starting her own buff.
Another issue with her is that she is kind of lazy on buffing symbol. At 81 she has grp kaerra rk 2 and whatever the new symbol is called (Darriana something or other IIRC), also rk 2. On a rebuff she will always cast the grp kaerra over the single buff, SO LONG AS NOONE IN THE GRP HAS THE SINGLE TARGET SYMBOL.
This is good if you want to get going fast and dont care about the xtra hps, but if I am not in a hurry I will let her cast the grp buff, then delete it off one of them. She will then cast the higher lvl symbol on that toon, then I just delete them off everyone else and she single buffs everyone with the higher symbol. Usually I scold her about this too, but she never replies, except to yawn once in a while. She reminds me a lot of my wife in that regard...
Also, I found it very important to set group roles with her, else if the puller is hit she runs out to meet and heal him. If toon is set as puller, she waits with the group till puller is back.
Merc tank: Which I like to call Thumper, doesn't seem to put out much dps. He tanks ok, but seems to be high HPs, low AC as named were getting full hits on him. I always keep him buffed with temerity from healer, and as much buffs as I can put on him, but I'd sure like to give him some pet plate....
I always set the group roles, and find that makes a huge difference on what he will do. If there are multiple pulls, he almost always stays on the one that the Main assist is on, but will pull adds off my casters, then switch back to main assist target once he has agro on the add. I tried him and healer merc on Rusty in FM, and we got molested. She just wasn't able to keep up to the healing required. I got a little messed up dealing with an add so couldnt contribute in those critical seconds. I don't know if maybe his discs were down or not, but it wasn't pretty and we didn't win. Tried twice with the same results, as both times I had one add, that took me enough time to deal with that the merc tank was down, and Rusty had done a good job of chewing through mage pet. So at 81 at least, they weren't able to keep up with a Tier 3 named. (FM is tier 3, right?). On FM or Beza instance 2 pulls, they were able to keep up till I could get 1 Vped. Rarely he would chase the Vped one and pull it back, but still was able to heal through that. Mostly I don't use him, if I can mage pet tank, as described above.
I still haven't determined if one race is better than another on tank (ogre vs. say Halfling). If anyone has any idea about how to do that, I could watch for it. E.g. When an ogre resists frontal stun by his racial, is there some kind of message that would let you know that happened? I guess the easiest would be to see if he ever got stunned, (as he is always facing the mob) and try a different race and see if he was getting stunned.
Ok, that is about all I have on them so far. I am thinking of getting 82 in Beza, then starting on Void B access to see if I can get a higher lvl merc!
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Peace