Mercenary feels awful

I started my first playthrough as Mercenary and just gave up to reroll when I got to Put aside skill, put aside gameplay mechanics, the class just feels clunky and awful to play. I hadn't noticed it until I got to that point because I also felt quite strong and could clear most content with just 1-2 skills.

As soon as I got to a challenging fight, I realized that there are glaring issues with Mercenary crossbow skills.

First: Reloading some of the skills (but not all) takes longer than advertised. I watch the animation, and the ammo counter on my skill bar and STILL have to wait extra time between reloads after the ammo has clearly been loaded.

Next: Switching out skills is NOT as smooth as it should be and sometimes is so unresponsive it won't let me switch at all.

I can't really describe it better than this and video footage wouldn't help because it'll just be me dodging and dying while I'm trying, in vain, to get my skills to swap correctly.

It's just not fluid and it needs to be for a playstyle like that.

If it ever gets fixed I'll try it again because I love the concept and the builds.

I almost bailed to at around level 10, but then I actually got 3rd support gem and suddenly Flash grenade is my main damage somehow.
The crossbows feel so bad though, the auto attack feels better than the rest because it's the only one that doesn't has to reload after 1 shot. It's very weird and demotivating, but I guess we just have to pull through en rely on grenades instead of our crossbow.

I didnt like any of the ammo skills, tey might be decent when you get a bit of +ammo and some reload speed but I decided to go grenades and it has been a blast (lol)

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I almost bailed to at around level 10, but then I actually got 3rd support gem and suddenly Flash grenade is my main damage somehow.
The crossbows feel so bad though, the auto attack feels better than the rest because it's the only one that doesn't has to reload after 1 shot. It's very weird and demotivating, but I guess we just have to pull through en rely on grenades instead of our crossbow.

Valid take, I just really like the crossbow skills and I want it to be fun and playable. The grenades should be supplemental to spraying enemies down with various crossbow shots. IDK just my personal take. Ranger has been a lot of fun instead.

weapon swap and reload speed is important if youre going that route

i agree it could still be more fluid and use some finetuning but the biggest issue i personally think is that damn bug were you just cant shoot or realod for some reason

otherwise love my shotgun merc

Had the exact same experience starting a crossbow mercenary as the first character. Slow, clunky and annoying to play.

Took a random +2 spells staff and ember fusillade with flame wall and i was rolling without any damage nodes. I thought, yup, it's a problem with how crossbows feel and there's no remedy in sight for another 20 levels, until you get to the reload nodes and higher level supports. Supposedly crossbows are op much later in the game.

Rerolled a warrior, facetanked everything with just some life regen until i got to act 2, where i do no damage.

There's a lot of balance issues in the game and people, depending on what gear happened to drop for them and what class they chose to begin with, have had vastly different experiences with the early game.

I hope they bring out the other weapon classes and skills soon, excited to see how spears and flails are.

whole game feels aweful

this game is worse than poe 1 in ever way.. it has better graphics and boss fights sure.. but it has worse gem system most skills are terrible or just dont work.. YOU get zero loot even in endgame maps.. you get 2 rares a map with transmutes augs and maybe so other bubblegum currency.. not a single person even had UBER LAB YET so GL casuals theres nothing fun about poe 2

What? I am having a blast playing him. Great damage and survivability, sliding around while kiting enemies is useful as hell. I am going to try Ranger, but I doubt it'll feel nearly as good.

There is a bug when recharging weapon, sometimes not shooting after that. I am using gas granades and explosive, it's not bad, but I had hard times with no loot during first levels.
I hope they fix something because It could be a nice class.

I don't know if I've missed it, but it would be nice if repeated button presses switch and shoot. Having a separate reload button that reloads the selected ammo.
An option to switch styles would be nice.