Crossbow + Mercenary.... completely sucks!
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I've been playing Mercenary for almost 1600 hours. All this time from the beginning I was hoping that the new patches coming would significantly strengthen the combination between the Mercenary class and the use of the Crossbow. I was disappointed and despite the different new content, the situation remains the same. Bad implementation between bad choices.
1. There is no diversity in builds when it comes to the Mercenary class. 90% of players use the "Deepest Tower" build not because it is GREAT, but because it is the most acceptable in DPS, despite the fact that it does 1/20th the damage of Bow builds or generally Meta builds... (Guess what the others do). My favorite build is somewhere between flammability and frost creation. I tried flammability to start, but passive nodes don't help because there are only two relevant ones in Merc's P.tree. Whatever I did to find another build stronger than the "Deepest Tower build" without sacrifizing defences, failed and with that i lost interest in trying any other attempt. (The only thing I'm 100% sure of is the upcoming nerfs to the Deepest Tower build. That ruins any hope in new updates.) 2. The Xbow seems very weak (besides map clearings) and before "genius" players judge this opinion, I will tell them to try to kill the Boss alone in an entire group using Crossbow in less than 20 seconds without any help from the group.Yes, because some combinations of class and weapon can do it in 3 seconds. What the h*** is wrong with you guys, don't you see the astronomical differences in DPS? And if you do, do you feel good playing as an elephant in a party of mice? Come on, where is your honor? As i did the experiment to kill a random boss with my XBOW (being in a full party) with no party help i counted 386 hits (with breaking continuously his Armour). After that my fingers feeld like i dived them into the water. Same experiment with some builds need 2-3 click...F*********. I will mention here that my weapon is top becouse it reaches 690 physical and 180 chaos danage. I don't want to think about how poor guys feel when they use mediocre Xbows. Balance should be the first and continuously priority of the next patches becouse right now it ruins everything except OP builds. 3. And after that Devs still thinking about if it is a good idea to bring of-hand gear to Xbow or not. For what??? For 10% more damage??? Seriously..... No Comment! 4. Another frustration I have with the Xbox/Merc class is the skills. Most of them, despite the help the herald skills provide in clearing the maps, are weak. The simple "crossbow shot" skill is much stronger than any other when fighting bosses. We need such as skills that use concentrated force on one bolt and not distributed over many bolts. Also, attack speed should be increased by 15-20% on all skills, because they seem too slow, especially considering reloading as a disadvantage compared to other weapons. To Devs: Please don't treat us like enemies. We're trying to help the game get better. Listen to what we suggest. It's good for your bottom line too. Your best game gets very few reviews on Steam and that's not because of customer malice, but because of the chaos caused by balance issues. Last bumped on Nov 22, 2025, 5:00:56 PM
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I like how you called people who judge your opinion "genius" with the quotes, even before someone joined.
Definitely made your point of view look better, and showed to everyone that you are open for criticism. So I am really interested to know in what build exactly you have invested 1600 hours, which is 200 days, 8 hours. And this is about the time people with jobs have spent working, since the release of that game. And why it is taking you so much hits to kill some map boss... Really want to see you POB. Like I am dying to. |
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Sadly I had opposite experience, it all depends how you use it.
It strictly depends on how you build, what your going for etc, Galvanic shards + shockburst rounds as a witchhunter I can run t15's and t16's, depending on the boss its either get him shocked and unload shockburst rounds and boss dies, or same thing but boss has some dumb phase I gotta wait out, or dumb movesets I mistime dodge and die. none the less map completion rate is about 80% just gotta learn boss phases more, sadly game has lost me as theres nothing to it in the later half, and drops are absolute shit, + the 0.31 nerf being nail in coffin, glad I juiced before hand :) 0.1 played witch, then heard minion nerf was inbound for 0.2 and decided to try out new class, had fun with ritualist but the build idea I had got thrown out window with 0.3, after a month of ritualist I made a warrior and fell in love. Finally wanted to try out merc can't remember what compelled me, believe it was seeing the last lament witch build and how broken galvanic shards was for clearing, but I fell in love with merc pre fast Issue is in campaign you dont get Shockburst rounds untill the legit end.... So read the skills, you start with 3, (1/3) = Armor Piercing rounds? Oh rapid fire bullets with multiple shots in magazine that breaks enemy armor? oh and legit the next tier of skill aka level 3 theres High Velocity rounds? these high velocity rounds do substantially more damage to armor broken enemies? Its almost like these are meant to be paired together throughout the campaign! Or you can literally just use 2 of mercs T1 skills, Permafrost bolts(2/3) to freeze + Fragmentation rounds(3/3) that explodes upon consuming frozen...... That works all of act 1, pairing it with armor piercing + high velocity is for wiping bosses, then just worry about EVASION/DEFLECT, armor is cherry ontop not focus, too hard to spec into deflect and armor applies to elemental as points would be too spread out and it wouldnt be a high enough % to make the needed difference. Every build must utilize the classes skills that are designed in a way to synergize in many different ways, key is you have to read each one, look at each key stat, build off that, not just hope things work, if thats not working, TRY SOMETHING ELSE, explore each and every skill, at end of day, merc might just not be the right playstyle. I have 1600 hours ingame total across all seasons, maybe 200-300 hours specifically on this class aswell, so if you have 1600 just on merc? and you havent found any improvements? as much as I hate being told this, could be a bit of a skill issue and thats ok, when you see someone jump off a bridge, do you follow? when you try the same thing over and over yet the result stays the exact same each time, its almost like you need to try something else, switch up the formula to your equation, and it might end up being substantially better, or just try a new class, and then go back and explore why you are having so much difficulty. Last edited by Jobama#9902 on Nov 20, 2025, 4:41:19 PM
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This is much better.
One magazine is much closer to my experience than the mentioned in the Topic 400ish hits. Id say half, let's call it one to be sure for map mods, etc... If the complain was "I have to reload once" I would totally buy it. Last edited by Skellymancer#5263 on Nov 20, 2025, 4:44:56 PM
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" GS+Shockbuurst round. Same shit again and again. And this we call it diversity. Tell me a fire build or a cold build or a poison build or something else that combines Mercenary and Crossbow... Becouse yea if we talking for another class+Crossbow there are some options. There is absolutely no balance at the moment. I lost interest playing Poe2 watching others kill bosses with one click, being in a full team. Of course, Crossbow can clear any t16 map, but without herald skills help I doubt it could. Whatever strategy you choose, "Deepest Tower" build is the strongest and actually the only usable with Mercenary+Crossbow combination. |
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I'm one shotting normal T16 bosses with a crossbow on an elemental spear build while people are crying on forums about how bad crossbows are; making me wonder if I'm the actual problem in this equation.
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It is unreal right?
This weapon type provides over tuned burst damage, and people still complain. But I am really waiting to see the PoB of that guy. Especially since he claims he worked 1600 hours on it. |
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I thought they removed deepest tower from the game after 0.3
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" What is your problem? GS+SB are clearing everything with ease. Can you play perma-pin siege cascade tactician? You can. Can you play EX-GS-grenade deadeye? You can. Can you play Ballistas? You can. Can you play Mortar cannons? You can. There are even some weird HOWA builds that outperform the average GS+SB. You can do a lot of builds. GS+SB is the easy way to go. Low demand of effort with guaranteed results. But there are some crazy good crossbow alternatives there. If you are ready to dive deeper into the game. Last edited by Skellymancer#5263 on Nov 21, 2025, 9:14:11 AM
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" seems to me that the deepest tower is out of fashion. the current fashion is constricting command viper cap which has replaced the deepest tower. 34pre98qua
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