Mercenaries need to go core!

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goetzjam#3084 wrote:

1) Then what they have specific gear like heist characters do? I think what makes them interesting is that they CAN use player equipment, outside of the chest the rest is relatively mild in comparison. As far as being powerful aura\mf, isn't that a good thing to give solo players a way to get a fraction of what party players can get?

It's not what makes them interesting, it's what makes them broken. In fact, I'd even say it's what prevents them from being interesting; I would never, ever, ever use any merc other than Eruptor because no other possible mercenary with any possible set of equipment are better than a Kingmaker buff. Being able to put Kingmaker on exactly four mercenary classes instantly made the other 22 nonviable, two of those four can't wear a Prototype, and Eruptor has much better support abilities/auras than Earthshaker. "96% of all mercs can be discarded without consideration" is the polar opposite of "interesting" in my book.

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2) So basically make them something you always leave in town for bosses? I'm ok with this in general, but then it defeats the purpose of gearing one up if they are useless in deadly situations. They absolutely can die in a lot of situations, risk maps, reflect, ect. In regular t16 maps or against some boss encounters yes they don't die.

My builds aren't themselves immune to reflect so I don't take mercs into reflect maps, but I genuinely want to know how people are managing to get theirs killed to damage actually done by enemies/bosses. And if the solution here is to give mercs more base health so they're on par with Animated Guardians I'm all for that, but when my man has 5600 life and 80 fire res I don't expect him to just casually walk through an entire column of Exarch Bullet Hell Boulders without his life bar moving. The invisible "don't take damage" buff needs to go right the hell away.

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3) There is a cost, you increase unique monster hp by 50% for something in many cases that doesn't do the damage to negate it. Aside from dori proto chances are they just enhance a build to the point where people find it interesting.

The party scaling of More boss life is NOT an opportunity cost to having a merc, because you also get the extra currency quant etc without having to share it with other players. I'm talking about a specific active resource cost where bringing a merc with you or leaving it in your hideout is an actual choice you have to think about, such as having to pay a (smaller) gold fee every single area, or having them randomly steal gold/currency drops from you, or making their services be on a limited-time basis.

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Historically speaking you always take a merc with you into content in other ARPGs unless you know they will die or aren't geared up to survive.

I couldn't care less about what other games did, that has zero bearing on if it's right or wrong. But for what it's worth, the implementation of mercs in Diablo 2 was one of the worst parts of that game, for the same exact reasons I outlined above. They didn't give you more build variety, and they weren't interesting, because you could put runewords on them which instantly created a single-option decision. You could run a nightmare act 2 defensive merc holding an Infinity polearm, or you could be wrong.

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It's not what makes them interesting, it's what makes them broken. In fact, I'd even say it's what prevents them from being interesting; I would never, ever, ever use any merc other than Eruptor because no other possible mercenary with any possible set of equipment are better than a Kingmaker buff. Being able to put Kingmaker on exactly four mercenary classes instantly made the other 22 nonviable, two of those four can't wear a Prototype, and Eruptor has much better support abilities/auras than Earthshaker. "96% of all mercs can be discarded without consideration" is the polar opposite of "interesting" in my book.

Thats what you think, but many people don't like the flamelink guy and will run many different ones.

I know people that swear by the wander, some for the bow builds. There is more interesting options, especially if you consider kingmaker can be put on an animate guardian this patch as well. Plus the range of that buff is quite small, chances are you aren't getting it as much as you think. Whereas it would be higher uptime on guardian with meatshield.

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My builds aren't themselves immune to reflect so I don't take mercs into reflect maps, but I genuinely want to know how people are managing to get theirs killed to damage actually done by enemies/bosses. And if the solution here is to give mercs more base health so they're on par with Animated Guardians I'm all for that, but when my man has 5600 life and 80 fire res I don't expect him to just casually walk through an entire column of Exarch Bullet Hell Boulders without his life bar moving. The invisible "don't take damage" buff needs to go right the hell away.

Why, exarch balls can be eaten by a level 1 skele? Why even bother seeing the ball phase when you can 1 shot him from full hp on a number of builds, none of which requires a merc.

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The party scaling of More boss life is NOT an opportunity cost to having a merc, because you also get the extra currency quant etc without having to share it with other players. I'm talking about a specific active resource cost where bringing a merc with you or leaving it in your hideout is an actual choice you have to think about, such as having to pay a (smaller) gold fee every single area, or having them randomly steal gold/currency drops from you, or making their services be on a limited-time basis.

You get half a player bonus for that merc, in terms of cost I think its actually fine, theres no need for them to have a per map cost or per instance cost because they do die and when they die they do cost enough for you to gear them up. You maybe choose not to do difficult enough content for them to die or your build is ranged and they don't die otherwise, but in general they do have a cost to them.


Have you never played a game with mercs before, they cost to hire and to revive in EVERY single ARPG with them. No ongoing cost aside from revival as that would put players off of using them.

I don't know what build(s) you are playing to even get a reference to why you have a hate boner for them specifically.

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I couldn't care less about what other games did, that has zero bearing on if it's right or wrong. But for what it's worth, the implementation of mercs in Diablo 2 was one of the worst parts of that game, for the same exact reasons I outlined above. They didn't give you more build variety, and they weren't interesting, because you could put runewords on them which instantly created a single-option decision. You could run a nightmare act 2 defensive merc holding an Infinity polearm, or you could be wrong.

O i see here you give 0 shits what other successful games have done or integrated them. I doubt we are going to agree or come to any useful discussion when it comes to the mercs because you loath them for what seems like no actual reason other then you think they are some infinity power buff, when in many cases an animate guardian will do the 90% of what you are using a merc for next league, without gold cost associated with it.


The d2 thing is funny because every single mod has created diversity when it comes to mercs. The same thing can be done for POE after this patch. But nope you turn down any other option because LUL many merc cant wear kingmaker so its all shit.

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goetzjam#3084 wrote:

Thats what you think, but many people don't like the flamelink guy and will run many different ones.

I know people that swear by the wander, some for the bow builds. There is more interesting options, especially if you consider kingmaker can be put on an animate guardian this patch as well. Plus the range of that buff is quite small, chances are you aren't getting it as much as you think. Whereas it would be higher uptime on guardian with meatshield.

Yup, that's me for example. I couldn't care less for the meta mercs, because they don't do shit for my build. I'm using a Toxicologist for Grace and Malevolence + a very high attack speed and decent aoe to debuff the enemies with blind/curse on hit. Just saw another one with grasping vines on hit that could open up some really nice ele poison build with the eater boots.
It's refreshing to have new opportunities if u're not locked into a meta slave position.

I strongly disagree that 90+% of mercs are useless. There's tons of builds out there and I bet all of them can benefit from a certain subset of mercs.

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goetzjam#3084 wrote:

The d2 thing is funny because every single mod has created diversity when it comes to mercs. The same thing can be done for POE after this patch. But nope you turn down any other option because LUL many merc cant wear kingmaker so its all shit.

This is literally going to happen, though. Water always finds a crack. People will gravitate towards the most efficient mercs that can carry the most useful support gear, effectively turning them into an AG you don't have to use a summoner build to utilize. A merc that can use Kingmaker to boost your DPS is going to be infinitely more desirable to the playerbase at large than the ones who can't.

The doryani merc meta isn't a joke. Everyone's doing it, for good reason.

So unless GGG strips away the ability to put player gear on mercs and gives them exclusive items you can find like Heist crews, the meta is going to gravitate towards whichever one gives you the most DPS once geared. AG is literally an example we can look to for this.

And let's not forget the massive amount of nerfs to the players that would happen to allow mercs to exist in the game, that are now forced into every build to compensate for the DPS you just lost.

EDIT:
Inb4 "not everyone runs the merc gear meta". Yes, and? The game doesn't get balanced around the players who don't run the meta. Never has, never will. They're the ones getting screwed when all the nerfs happen, forcing them to take the meta mercs or be content with mediocrity.

IDK about infinitely more desirable, not everyone plays crit and there are other sources of culling strike in the game.

Plus the mercs give use to many uniques that would otherwise see no use.

Do I think the league has to go core or its a failure, nope, do I think it could go core and be fine, absolutely as long as it has some key adjustments.


Maybe their solution IS to make it cost gold per map\instance its brought into, that way the player must make a choice. That being said a undergeared\nilla merc is actually a detriment to most people.

Aside from lighting builds because of dori, assuming that tech gets removed completely. What remains "totally busted", the merc carry build? Just stomp down the top used mercs and make them less powerful. But the game would be better with mercs then without.


I'd argue they could even add the mercs core as things that don't join you in maps but rather can be assigned out like mappers, to delve with, heist with, all for a gold cost to run said content.

No thanks. One season with them is enough, move on. They would need to do a lot of changes nobody would like before they could add them to the core game.

-1 It's cool that they added additional content in this expansion but the league mechanic is kind of meh. I would prefer cruicible weapon trees over mercs just as an example.

plz no mercs core tyvm

AG already fits that purpose, so not in the slightest.

the only way this would ever go core is if they won’t have auras, we can’t gear them and they cost a ton of gold to revive. The amount of power we get from them is unlike anything else we’ve ever had from a league mechanic by many a mile

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Ulsarek#7159 wrote:

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Pizzarugi#6258 wrote:

Instead of typing the same message out, I'll repeat what I said elsewhere:

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No.

You don't want this added to core. Giving everyone an Animate Guardian for almost free is going to result in significant power spikes for all players. Whenever something like this happens, GGG nerfs the entire game by boosting all monster HP and damage. I've seen this happen 3 times, and each time it has, barely-viable builds are no longer viable, and the things that made builds powerful are now a necessity.

Mercs won't become an option in this scenario. They will become not only a requirement for any build, but only a specific group of mercs will become the only choice.

Trust me on this, you don't want them to go core.

I still want them core. They're amongst the best things that happened to this game in a very long time.

wow you didn’t read a thing he said and if you did you clearly don’t understand.