I dont think somit is quite right with pets and oil slick, i had it in the past with a friends illusionist pets, the pets basically seem to see it as something and they shouldnt see it at all.
Also because of their dumb AI i dont think giving them the type of lack of agility Assault Rifle has is a good idea.
I think the pets should have good perception and do a tohit check for each attack and use the most available attack to effect the most foes with the most damage if they dont already, so they should have a various priority orders, on a single target its certain attacks come first and on multiple targets they may read is number of foes >= N and then use the most beneficial attack.
But i dont know enough about MMs, i have 4 but i just aint looked into them.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Mercs seem slightly less crazy AI than my attempt at ninjas so far. They do waste damage, but then they are blasters after all
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
Mercenaries must sometimes be given commands to adjust for quirky behaviour, and messed a bit with, for better performance.
But it's not so much work with them, as with the melee types IMHO. Less micro management. They generally behave fairly well, with a few basic commands. I personally find mercenaries mostly reliable. I have played around with the Robots as well, but only up to level 40. The robots have fascinating odd moments of their own. :-)
The issues listed here are valid of course. The mindless spamming of attacks, when they become available. The suicide medic, whith the odd priorities. The not-quite-getting-what-invisibility-do-for-them Spec-Ops, that sometimes snipe, sometimes have other plans. ;-)
TA may simply not synergise well with mercenaries, since they manage to conjure up a fairly good amount of XP otherwise. Thanks for sharing your experiences, and for the warning. It may be a sub-optimal combination, at least.
It could be your MM is in a bad level range currently as well. The game can seemingly grind to a halt for most sets at some point, especially when soloing. I might have missed the level of your MM, I see you got some high level toons otherwise.
---
Oh sorry, forgot to mention my lvl, currently at lvl39. The previous lvls were somehow still doable by going plain on the newspaper missions, but now i start cleaning up my story archs (and to unlock the 40 content) where the real problems start (CoT, longbow and Carnie are my main enemies at the moment).
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
Longbow and carnie burn patches screw with all MMs I believe, or at least I hope. Have seen them mess up Necro, Thugs and now you report Mercs too. The pets dont know how to deal with pets such as burn patches and the like, and you need to pester them more
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
[ QUOTE ]
The previous lvls were somehow still doable by going plain on the newspaper missions
[/ QUOTE ]
ouch thats got to be a boring way to level, if i solo i have todo the main arcs and get special EBs, some really hard ****, badges for people who simply like to team and level fast. i'd goto sleep on news mishes.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
My Merc/Dark Owns and whats is the chance all ur pets r gonna attack at the same times err very low
every /dark 'owns', so whats your point?
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
Ninja's FTW!
[ QUOTE ]
1 thing for sure now, this toon is going hibernating untill i see some decent fixing regarding these issues. So if u ever wondering going Merc/TA.. read this post and think twice.
[/ QUOTE ]
You should have posted this a year ago when I started playing CoV... 
Yes, you are so correct. At first I thought /TA sucked, which could be true for all I know. But over time you can't help noticing all the quirks in the Merc primary set.
On the other hand if you make it to 50 with this combination without the "help" of other players you surely can be very proud on yourself. 27 levels to go in my case... 
Some combinations are obviously never played inside Cryptic's offices or they would not perform so bad. 
Google's great
intitle:"index.of" mp3 gus.gus
[ QUOTE ]
Some combinations are obviously never played inside Cryptic's offices or they would not perform so bad.
[/ QUOTE ]You mean the devs actually play the game? 
[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand if you make it to 50 with this combination without the "help" of other players you surely can be very proud on yourself. 27 levels to go in my case...
[/ QUOTE ]
Thats the thing i struggle with each time i pick a toon to play with.. he's 39 and 3 bars, seems so close, yet so far. But i got more 'weird' combo's i could be proud of to hit 50 with, so i still can leave him alone 
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
After 3 days trying to even get 3 bars, i'm totaly fed up with this MM.
Fullauto's. They use it at the most wrong moments, cleared nearly a full group of mobs, 1 mob left. 10 health left of a mob and Commando starts his full auto.
Redraw animation. No you dont have to put your gun away when u take down 1 mob and 12 are left. Keep it and continue attack. Waste of time. AR blaster dont have to do this, even I dont have to do redraw my bow every time i do a power.
Nearly all powers they have are massive DoT based. This means if 1 mob is left and about 25hp left, 1 merc starts his 5x5 DoT. At the 2nd DoT hit, the other 6 decide to do fullauto, a long animation DoT. Result... 10 seconds wasted for 25 stupid hp.
Seals snipe. Again, they hardly use this power. It seems u have to keep them 100ft away and then let attack them a mob, only way i managed to get them to use snipe.
Oilslick. When i see a large group of mobs, i put down oilslick, disruption arrow and use the xmas hold power to ignite it (nrg dmg). Then i move my pets just outside the oilslick.. they start to attack the damn oilslick! Make it worse, the moment you cast oilslick underneath them and ignite it.. they run away.
Healing of the medic is pathetic. Defensive or aggressive mode, doesnt mather. He continue's attacking even if another merc is red-colored hp bar. Being hold/sleep/stunned for ages, still he doesnt understand he has to use his mez-power on his own master.
Today i noticed also, the moment the medic gives a mezz-resist to any other, they all stop attacking for a moment. If this applies to healing also i dont know, see previous note. This gets really annoying when i finaly got a boss hold, and they just stand there doing nothing and they already have little DoT power.
Can it get worse? Yes.
Longbow bosses can drop a disruption grenade, carnies can do ignite patch and CoT earth casters have quicksand. Once they cast this, pets run towards the 'source', redrawing their weapon and not responding to any command.
And why do they ever run in melee range? They have a 90ft range gun, use it and dont run in to use a stupid brawl power because they think its cool.
Ice arrow. You target a mob, do the power and the mob just continue's to attack. As you continue with your animation, the arrow fires off and FINALY you see 'miss'. TA is this way, you get used to it somehow.
I play also a thug and robot MM, both have pretty fast 1st and 2nd upgrade powers. With mercs, the 2nd upgrade takes stupid long, roots your character solid for about 3-4 seconds and additionaly your pet for 4-5 seconds.. per pet.
1 thing for sure now, this toon is going hibernating untill i see some decent fixing regarding these issues. So if u ever wondering going Merc/TA.. read this post and think twice.
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!