The Spirit Realm

They rock.

The following are just my observations, and I have no parses, or mathematical information to provide.

I 3 box a Shaman,druid and mage.

Took Tier 5 (highest I could find) Ogre tank (attached to the druid) and a T5 Drakkin Healer (with the mage). I wanted to see if they would have their racial characteristics, but unfortunately wasn't paying atttention enough to determine. If anyone knows, please advise. The cost was much less than I expected, and the maintenance is pretty low (I easily earned enough on random drops to pay their maintenance).

I immediately regretted taking the Ogre as he is very fat, and blocks my view. Not a big deal to just shrink him, but if all of the races are the same stats etc. I will likely trade him in on a halfling tank. even if that seems wrong... The Drakkin I will likely keep, because she's cute, and doesn't really get in the way.

Took them out to TBS as I am almost done the hand aug on a couple of my boxes and also I wanted a relatively easy zone to run them through their paces, and get used to the mercs.

One of my big problems with boxing is the 'fox in the chicken house' scenario. Occasionally I will nuke too early on either the mage or the Druid and get a crit, which pulls agro and before I can get the mob out of the casters, one or more has low hp agro and then usually ends up dead before I can get them out. So, I wanted to test the tank in multi mob pulls, and with a mob on a caster. He performed admirably. Whenever caster had agro, he would switch to that mob and pull it off, then go back to the Main assists mob. The only time I ran in to trouble with this was when he had agrod far away, and I pulled an add in to the casters to see how much range he had. He didn't jump to the one in camp, I had to run it out by him before he would pull it off the caster.

The healer did great. First thing she did when I added her was buff everyone with symbol, as they had druid buff on. I deleted druid buff and symbol from mage pet to see what she would do and she immediately cast temerity on the pet! Tonight I want to repeat that but just delete the druid hp buff to see if she overides her own symbol with temerity.

She healed like a champ. Only time she got in to any trouble was when I pulled 4 l blues on to tank when she was at about 80% mana, then added a 5th after 2 were down. I helped her heal a bit off shaman, but wish now I had just waited to see what happened. Tank held agro on all 5 during this, and did really well.

The only oddity was, I ran off to check on a chest spawn with the mage and both the tank and healer merc followed him! I thought that might be due to mage being set as main assist, so I put the main assist on shaman. Both still followed the mage, even when I took MT off the merc tank, and put them both on passive. Not sure why that happened, or if it is a bug, but if anyone has any idea about that, would like to know.

Overall, they performed better than I had hoped and I really really enjoyed my 3 boxing with them. I might drop the healer and go back to doing my own healing, but she was just so handy - was totally like having reasonably skilled players in the group.

Anyway, my observations so far, please feel free to add your own! I give a big thumbs up to Mercs, and am very happy with them. I could easily see myself soloing with mage and a merc healer, or Shaman and a tank. Proably even druid and a tank, although I would wonder about the dps, as I really didn't check the tanks DPS output.

Peace

Bigcat, thanks for the observations, sounds like they are a very awesome alternative / augment that is definitely going to come in handy!

Good to hear, and thanks for the details!

-Crom

need.
more.
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So, was looking at the Merc vendors again last night, and notice that there is a drop down menu to get a JOURNEYMAN merc, as opposed to an apprentice (what I currently have, tier 5 apprentices). However the Journeyman would only give me tier 1, but it cost twice as much as the tier 5 apprentice. Also the write up was that they would be easily frightened, not very competent etc. This seems odd, as it doesn't seem to scale. Wondering if this is related to me rolling over to 81, and I have to be higher lvl to get better quality mercs??

Anyone have, or seen any writeups on this elsewhere? Seems to be a larger vacumn on information than in previous expansions..

Someone, somewhere knows what I need to know. I need to find them!

So, just to understand this then, the Tier 1 Journeyman IS superior in AI approach etc. to the Tier 5 Apprentice? That makes more sense, but the write up I read on the vendor left me a little concerned.

Do the Journeyman tanks subsequently have higher AC/hp etc.?

Thanks for your help btw, the information you already provided gives me confidence to try them, just looking for a bit of clarification.

There's are write up on them here Falc... errr Hawk.


http://home.comcast.net/~mathadon/Guides/SoD/index.html

Great, thanks.

Anybody know anything About using Mercs at lower levels? I thinking a tank merc might be just the thing I need to get my lvl 69& 70 runes in WOS at last.

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! .


Peace

I finally got a little free time this weekend and got a couple of mercs to join in with my normal duo situation. I currently have a raid geared lvl 80 Rogue and a somewhat casual geared 75 Shammy. We both got mercs, a cleric to go with my Rogue and Tank to go with the Shammy.

I tried a couple of areas with my mercs, and I was pretty satisfied with the results. Both of the mercs we purchased were Tier V Apprentices. The cost was easily covered with my normal runs, and the upkeep was not too bad. My intial thoughts are they are wonderful. The tank was able to hold aggro during a medium burn of my Rogue, and for the most part jumped right in on the fight. I did have 1 instance where the Tank and Cleric did run away, but the content was easily done with my Rogue and Shammy. My only issue was that for some fights the Tank did not engage right away, and my Shammy had to go up and hit the mob before he got the idea. I am not sure if this was due to the roles, or what have you. I set my rogue as puller/MA the Merc Tank as MT.

The only other issue was with the cleric running away one other time when I was just out with it. It is a little weird when it ran away, and was hard to tell where it was going.

I was very impressed with just the cleric in Dragonscale, where I was fighting Fiddle D and one of his little spider buddies. The cleric kept me alive for most of the fight, but the Mech Guardian walked through and squished us. I had a total of 6 mobs on me when the guardian came through with his push, and I almost won the fight. I will next time for sure.

My vote thus far... A Super Addition to EQ. I am so glad to have the Mercs.

One note on Apprentice vs. Journeyman confidence levels.

There are two elements to confidence.

The first is how many even con mobs it takes to trigger a confidence check. According to what I have read, Apprentice mercs make this check with 4 even con mobs aggroed on party if you have just you an a merc. More players and mercs in the party or lower con mobs will increase that. Yellow/Red con mobs will decrease the number of mobs needed. Journeyman mercs will take more or higher cons mobs to force them to make this check than Apprentice mercs.

The second element is how likely the mercs is to fail their confidence check and run away. This is determined by the rank, going from 25% chance and Rank I down to 5% at Rank V. I don't know how frequently they make this check if you get a big pull and don't lock down or kill some of the mobs right away.

So given the choice between an Apprentice Rank V vs. Journeyman Rank 1, the Journeyman merc will be more likely to run but only if faced by a more/stronger enemies than needed to frighten the Apprentice merc. This is in addition to having Rk2 spells/disciplines and slightly better armor.

I 4 box a shaman, monk, ranger, and warrior (main), all lvl 81. Warrior sits at around 25k 4100 buffed with a cleric and with those above toons.

I figured I'd go get a cleric merc and hit up crystallos. I was able to kill everything that spawned with no problem...then a squire spawned. I got him down to like 25% the first try with the above....not enough dps, had plenty of mana left, but FS dropped and then couldn't keep up with heals as good.

So, I figured, hell, lets get all my toons a merc. So, my ranger and warrior have a cleric, monk / shaman have a tank. In my group i have warrior, ranger, shaman, merc tank, merc cleric, merc cleric. In other group I have monk / merc tank.

Squire died very easilly...that is sooo cool I think!!

I am going to swap the tank and the cleric on the monk / rnager as the monk does more dps (2nd squire spawned and the monk / merc tank ks'd teh war, ranger, and merc tank).

All I can say is this is swweeet...I'll get my friend who boxes a rogue / cleric to get some mercs and we can take on 2-3 group content with just us!

Cant use mercs in raid instances. Not sure if other zones flagged as raid block em too but its possible.

Is there a big difference in tanking ability between an apprentance RK V and a Journeyman RK I? I tried using the apprentance tanking the timber lizards on the island in the steps and found that it was more mana efficent and faster to just root rot them I've not unsuspended the guy since.

A group I was in kept having the cleric merc (both Journeyman rk1, and rk6) tag mobs that the monk was pulling, on reactive, balanced, any non-passive setting they could try. When monk would FD, cleric would annul closest one (they were at least 50ft. away). Never healed monk, just tagged mobs. Any idea how we can stop this?

I like the cleric merc... I don't like the tank. Maybe I'm at a different stage than some or expecting something glorious, but against anything more than gimp mobs chain healing is required. I don't mean heal, cast a dot, heal cast a dot. I mean Dannals rk. II dannals rk II dannals rk II till it dies. I am used to playing the main healer in a group, I have no problem with that, but usually even on a medicore tank I have time to throw in some dps, a cougar, etc. I also don't need ancestral every fight but i do on the journeyman merc.

Working towards unlocking rank 2, 3 etc. Will talk more when i see those

The tank is good for fighting summoning mobs.

I am still level 81, I have the beginning 81 spells, so really I still fight like I am level 80. I can single pull selected skeletons from the graveyard area in Hills of Shade, lock them down with VP, and root rot them easily enough. I thought, "So I'll take a merc tank, he should be able to tank two of them for a few seconds until I get them both slowed, then I can keep him alive and even though we won't kill fast we can chew our way through all the graveyard mobs." Just to be on the safe side, I practiced on some of the single mobs outside the graveyard first, and he did ... OK. Even with a slowed mob, he took lots of damage spikes, more than 50% on many rounds. I kept languor and HoT on him continuously, plus direct heals and Ancestral Intervention, and when we moved inside the fence and got one add one time, it was all over in just a few seconds. My analysis is that the mercs have way less AC than our (family guild) tanks have.

On the other hand, to kill Shadowmane Champion in Loping Plains is now a complete cinch. It is always a single pull, but I find this to be a moderately tough solo, since the mob seems to have high skill in interrupting my spells. But with the merc taking the hits, it's easy to keep him healed, add a couple of dots plus dogdog and cougar, and the mob goes down.

Higher ranks of both classes do much much better. There was a noticeable jump in particular going to rank 4 Journeyman, they got smarter and more capable. Tank got discs, cle started using invuln & 11th hour, that sort of thing, besides big increases in core stats.

"A group I was in kept having the cleric merc (both Journeyman rk1, and rk6) tag mobs that the monk was pulling, on reactive, balanced, any non-passive setting they could try. When monk would FD, cleric would annul closest one (they were at least 50ft. away). Never healed monk, just tagged mobs. Any idea how we can stop this?"

Yes, you need to use the assigned roles. Set your monk as puller, and not as main assist. Using the "Puller" tag means the cleric merc won't heal them when puller is out of camp, and if it is that person's own merc that the merc won't follow. Setting the "main assist" means that whatever that person has targeted, is fair game for the tank merc to assist and attack, or for the healer merc to Annul (if its got debuffs on). I'm guessing that in your scenario that the monk was set as assist, or whoever was, was pre targeting the mobs.

Hope that helps,
Crom

I am currently utilizing Tier V apprentice mercs, both a healer and a tank to go along with my Rogue and Shammy duo. For the content we are currently doing they have worked like a champ, but I will admit for the most part I have been doing missions that were needed for past progression. I have also dabbled a bit in some LDoNs, which have previously been closed out to my shammy since it is my newest toon. I have also taken on content that had previously been outside of what I could do as a duo or solo on my rogue.

My biggest question that looms in my mind is how will these mercs hold up to more advanced content? I would love to work through the new expansion from a progression standpoint with my little homemade group of 4, but I really wonder if a merc tank can handle it. I would also like to take my litt;e group and do some of the zones such as Ashengate, Frostcrypt, and of course so of the last expansion zones for gear and experience.

I am probably expecting too much from my Merc tank, but could he handle it or maybe one of his beefier brothers?

Your thoughts...

According to Brohg, in a post up above, the higher levels are beefier.

In the meantime, those of us who are using apprentice5 or journeyman1 mercs, we need to experiment to figure out how to get reliable use out of them.

For the moment, it seems to work best for me to think of the tank as a pet: stronger than dogdog, but still more trouble than he's worth most of the time.

Which means, in ordinary solo content -- which for me at almost-82 is Hills of Shade and Fortress Mechanotus for the various quests I am slowly working my way through -- I keep the merc suspended, and I solo the way I always do, root rotting, keeping five or six dots up, killing mobs steadily.

But that doesn't always work. Sometimes mobs are in groups and have to be split; so I have a pet necro, who adds a little bit of dot damage but mostly snares, runs, and feigns. And sometimes there's a mob that summons. With root rotting (or with kiting) the tactic is don't get hit; with a summoning mob the tactic is keep the tank alive. So five dots get swapped out for defensive and support spells: and after the hard mob is dead, all the pets get suspended again and it is back to business as usual.

Your tactics are obviously different, since your main is a rogue. Still, at the level you are currently working, you say the two mercs work well for you. So push it up to the next level, and see how much harder it becomes. Might be too hard, and you find yourself stuck. But what you are already doing might work just fine; or it might turn out that you need to figure out a slightly different tactic in the next hardest content. Give it a try, and see what you find out.

So, based on Broghs note about higher lvls being better, I pushed through to VOID B access over the weekend (extended weekend for me, as I took Monday off, and Tuesday was a holiday here). Getting VOID B access was fun and profitable, but that is another post.
T1J = Tier 1 Journeyman
T2J = well, you probably figured that out.

I box a Shm, Mage, Druid. Use 2 merc healers and a merc tank.Again a disclaimer, no parses just observation and results of conflicts.

The T2J mercs were a HUGE jump in capability I found. Previously, when I tangled with named in FOS (Field of Scale) by the end of the fight (and occasionally at the beginning of the fight...) the T1J merc tank is down, both merc healers are OOM, and I am tanking with mage pet, healing with druid, supported by shaman. Sucked but it worked.

With the T2J mercs, I have been taking down named in Kurns tower, and everyone is alive when it's over. I still find that the merc healers let the merc tank get a bit low, and expose him to spike damage, so I will often assist on heals from the druid, but they HAVEN'T LET THE MERC TANK DIE ONCE SINCE I GOT THEM, so maybe I should give them a shot at completely handling the healing. They've earned it.

The T2J tank does a great job (as did his predecessors) at holding agro, and pulling adds off the casters. The only place I have had a problem is trying to do the VOID C access pyrdaann event, where 4 rangers jump the guy. I had to get some friends to help on that as the merc tank just wasn't able to get them off pyrrdaan before he died.

I still typically suspend one healer and the tank when I am just xping or doing trash mobs, but that is getting more to economics now. The T2J cost ~ 50p per 15 minutes, so that is adding up to 600pp per hour. I typically can make more than that on drops, but they don't really add enough on trash to make them worthwhile to have out. I do find though that if I accidentally get a 2-3 pull, I will pop them out ftw.

The T2J healers definetely have a much bigger mana pool, and the T2J tank seems a bit beefier. I have noticed no huge difference in their AI approach, although I think the merc healers are a bit smarter. My T1J merc healer would often stand beside the mob and heal, occasinally grabbing agro from the mage pet (this is when I had merc tank suspended) The T2J seem to always position themselves somewhere 'smarter'.

I am curently working on VOID C access so I can get me some faster smarter ones yet again!

One thing that is a bit of a pain is positioning any merc tank. The only way I have found to do it is move where you want him, put in on passive, let him run back to you, wait till the mob gets there, and throw him back to active. Clunky, but it works. Merc tanks do an excellent job of keeping agro, so that is never a problem any more.

I switchswtiched the races on my T2J mercs also. The ogre was blocking my view, and I was never able to determine any significance of an ogre vs. other race so went for something smaller. I like having 3 different races on the mercs, as it helps me visually determine who is where. I have a halfling healer (size) Drakkin healer (size and they are kinda cute), and Half elf tank. I like the cheesy looks of the half elf! Wish he had a cheesy little moustache!

Anyway, just some more of my experiences with mercs.

used a T2J merc healer last night in libary.
ever time I cannied it was healing me.
I ended up trying to canine between pulls and the peep was switcing the the merc to passive but that did not allways work since the pally/tank wanted to have a mob in camp at all times.
so I just only cannied when when the AA poped and casted the spell cann at that time only.
Still merc healer when OOM a few times but i guess it was less then when I was allway poping the spell cannied.

That merc was probably on Balanced or even Reactive, Fendaann. My mercenary sits on Efficient pretty much full time when she's up, and I just get the occasional Promised heal from her. That's a style I like.

My setup is a gimp paladin and a COA/Demi/DoN equipped shaman (I'm fresh out of retirement after 2 years) both of which are 80.




For progression through VoidB I was using 2 T1J warrior mercs (an ogre and a troll at first). I decided to try them out on trivial content early on and took them to pofear to clear the zone. Everything was real easy until I came upon the giant imp who stuns and spawns adds. My troll merc was getting stunned, ogre merc was not. After this I decided to trade in the troll for an ogre.

With two T2J ogre warriors I was able to take down Terrorvenom in Old Commonlands (3k hitter) with hots and spam healing from shaman (and still being able to cougar and hot tank)...

Now I've switched to a T2J ogre warrior on my shaman and a T2J dwarf cleric on my paladin. I'm now able to load on 4 dots with my shaman along with my craptastic dog and panther (duration wasn't nerfed like cougar's was). My DPS has about doubled with this setup. My survivability has also probably doubled now that I have someone else doing the primary healing. The cleric seems to do very well on trash mobs while set on efficient.

All I have left to do for VoidC is the group escort mission and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to pull it off with this setup (though a mezzer would be GREAT...)

SHAMAN TIP: Block the clerics heal over time spells... this will stop them from giving you a hot every time your hp start to drop from canni while on efficient. I'm not sure if they will still spam you every canni while on reactive though.

Awesome Bloxr. Thanks for the 2 great tips! I am gonna switch back to an Ogre tank now that you have confirmed they have their racial ability. Worth the trouble of shrinking them for that!

good useage on blocking those hot spell too! excellent idea.
Did that stop them from casting it? I know it stops it from landing, but I am curious if that prevented them from even attempting to cast it. Not much experience with the spell blocking.

This would also be a smart way to stop them from hitting my boxes that I don't want Gallantry on *(using druid buff and symbol)

I am curious Bloxr, how did you manage the 4 rangers on the last part of the Pyrrdan event? I couldn't keep them off of him boxing 3 with J2 tank... Did you go with 2 tanks on that? Hmm. That might have worked... Maybe even 3... so tempted to retry it to see if I could win boxing it. Almost worth the 10k plat it would cost me to switch mercs in and out.
Peace

edit: Wish I had suggested a simpler description method sooner, but in any case, would be a lot easier to call them

A1 (Apprentice, Tier 1) A2 etc.
J1 (Journeyman, Tier 1) J2... etc.

Is it too late to offer this simpler system for mercs?

BTW I was playing with a parser in Oceangreen Hills today and the level 82 DE J1 tank was hitting between 393 dps and 423 dps on the light blues there with about 4 cougar procs landing per fight. More than I was expecting. By comparison, my 81 warrior hits about 370 dps with the same buffs and no discs (no idea if the merc disc'ed or not) with Tardunk's poker and his 1.5. However, the merc tank seems to have about 17K hps buffed and is AC-Lite (takes about 35 dps in dmg more than my 3.2K warrior) FWIW

*edited to add that the numbers are in dps, not actual hits...the parser did not separate out the cougar procs is why I included that info.

The hit damage isn't a really useful number without the haste. Instead of looking for high hits, to evaluate the damage being done you need to turn on logs (with "/log" , or with "LOG=TRUE" in your eqclient.ini) and use a parsing program. It averages out the damage versus how much time between swings, double & triple hits, etc.

Last night i did Elder Longshadow #5 trying to get the DB clicky; my healer merc kept me up no problem throughout, but i was OoM nearly the entire time, because the bastiches kept Malos'ing me, and for some reason my cleric healer thought I looked pretty with that little flame on me.

So my question is: what cures Malos, apart from RGC?

RGC? Remove Greater Curse or Radiant [Group?] Cure?

My primary association with the RGC acroynm is Remove Greater Curse, and that will not, or more properly should not do anything to Malo and its predecessors and successors.

The Radiant Cure AA line is the only player ability or skill that will have a chance of removing that and other detremental effects that lack a counter component that can be remedied with a standard cure (poison, disease, curse, corruption) -- like snare, root, fire or cold based dots, etc.

Radiant Cure - AA all priests get + pallys?
Pure Spirit - spell shaman get has remove detrimental - that can cure it
dispel magic line of spells can remove it

So, my latest mercs are J3, and like all their predecessors they are dumb like rock.

Pulling, with all the correct setting, puller, MA, MT, if I flop monk at the front of kurns tower, merc tank will come all the way from the back and agro the mobs. The clerics aren't quite as dumb, but they are in love with the tank and will run out and heal him when he does that... I've found the only way to keep him from his suicide run, and to keep the girls from sharing the koolaid, is to put him on passive when I pull. Outdoors it seems to work ok, but indoors its a futile effort to keep the tank alive on any kind of splitting type pull.

Everyone else getting about the same response? Anyone found any other workarounds other than putting them all on passive?

Perhaps the problem is that I am putting the merc tank as MT. Will try putting that on someone else and see what happens tonight.