Mercenary feels awful

Would love to see some slight changes to X-Bow, I'm having fun with the merc though, but yes the reload becomes a tedious task after a while, my biggest issues with x-bow is:

1. Reload slows you down
2. How often you need to reload.
3. Reload speed is slow/clunky even with nodes.
4. Swapping skills for "combo" feels bad due to the reloading animation.

feels great for single target, but for clear it could be better.

keeping in mind that these views are from a point in game where I've been unlucky with loot/gear and I'm still in the campaign section.

Actually just using the ammo skill again reloads it (even if it wasn't at 0 allready), Attack Auto-Reloads but sometimes gets stuck a bit if you use any other skill around the time you hit 0 Ammo.

Also:
At lv 55 currently (Start Act 2 Cruel) as a Ingnite Merc using just Expl. Shot for Trash and Grenades to explode on Bosses/Rares.
Works quite well now (started to feel good at about lv 35-40) before that it was a bit of a chore true.

Before that i used High Velocity for Single Target and Flame-Wall and Galvanic Shot(shoot through Flame Wall) for Multi-Target Map clearing

Mercenary is the EASIEST start of all classes. I re rolled into mercenary yesterday. I Died only in act 2. I only took damage from bosses, never any mob touched me in act 1.

I reached end of act 2 in less than 3 hours (took me 11 for warrrior)

It is super agile. OP view is 100% opposite to reality.

My experience is completely opposite to yours, i started ranger but basically played with a crossbow all the way to Maps. Early on, I used the permafreeze rounds into frag rounds(shotgun) and that was enough to clear most trash mobs and also do decent boss dmg. Just link the frag with double barrel and it's enough to clear most anything and bump your boss dmg.

After act 1, I started experimenting with the explosive shot + grenades and it was good dmg but very clunky, wish I knew about the flash grenade at the time.

The game changer for me was when I realized i could just use armour piercing rounds with chain into high-velocity rounds linked with scattershot and double barrel. That gave me tons of boss dmg and helped me breeze through act 2 and 3 after I got a decent crossbow. Like seriously, I deleted most bosses in act 3 with the above combo.

A good clear skill is galvanic shards, it took me till act 3 cruel to realize just how good it is, it's insanely fast and deals with most trash mobs.

Haven't touched on grenades so far since i didn't like the delayed dmg aspect of it, but i've seen others do some really strong builds.

Basically, just try to optimize what you have, ggg finally did a buff to the abysmall drop rates so you should be able to get a decent weapon to carry you through.

Yep.
There is definitively issues with both reloading, swapping skills, and using grenades. Countless times the game doesn't register me swapping rounds, and reloading gets you animation stuck if there are enemies nearby until you click another ammo type.

The basic 7 magazine shot is still my best boss attack in level 22.
That is really sad.

Overall the power of the class is decent, but a lot of the skills feels lackluster even with 3 links, and falls short of the base attack.
Reloading should not slow you down as much as it does, even with 70% faster reload speed the animation seems to take just as long, even when the barrel is fully loaded the animation keeps going.

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eldheim#2436 wrote:

Yep.
There is definitively issues with both reloading, swapping skills, and using grenades. Countless times the game doesn't register me swapping rounds, and reloading gets you animation stuck if there are enemies nearby until you click another ammo type.

The basic 7 magazine shot is still my best boss attack in level 22.
That is really sad.

Overall the power of the class is decent, but a lot of the skills feels lackluster even with 3 links, and falls short of the base attack.
Reloading should not slow you down as much as it does, even with 70% faster reload speed the animation seems to take just as long, even when the barrel is fully loaded the animation keeps going.

The reload bug exists.. and will eventually be fixed.


But lack of damage? THe repeatign shots skill can eath half health bar of most bosses in one burst.

It feels like I'm being punished for not choosing the bow.
Fired a few basic attacks? Here, reload.
Fired a skill? Here, reload.
You want a quiver statstick equivalent to help you out? Here, reload for you instead.
Ooops, rolled before reload finished? Here, reload.

I mean, how is that a fair design?

It is not fair, I think it is too strong actually.

"

wurro#1715 wrote:

It feels like I'm being punished for not choosing the bow.
Fired a few basic attacks? Here, reload.
Fired a skill? Here, reload.
You want a quiver statstick equivalent to help you out? Here, reload for you instead.
Ooops, rolled before reload finished? Here, reload.

I mean, how is that a fair design?

It is far more powerful than the bow imho. The skills do more damage per shot.. and the freackign machien gun mode is absurd. You fire 50 shots in 3 secodns....

Some rounds have in-built longer reload 'bonus', like electro rounds.

But I agree, that X-bow rounds feels way weaker than greandes.