Improving Mercenaries

Serum could be the answer. Lower its recharge time a bit. And make it so it works on ALL of your henchman. Also, change the janitor look on the first three henchman. Looks matter for City of heroes.

*Commando

You could play off the idea of a Malta Engineer . Give him a gun turret, maybe a shield drone with a +7.5% defense bonus, a henchman buff for +dmg, or even a mortar turret for some stationary AoEs ( not the same as /traps, this one should be purely AoE damage with a stun/KD effect ).


*Soldiers (T1 pet)

Earlier posts had some good ideas for these. But Im all for removing the grenade for medic, and giving them to the other T1s. Again, medic needs to use his heals more in combat. During the halloween event I decided to go ahead and get the new badges for my Merc/ MM, and the medic rarely used his heal in combat. I do not agree, the medics I know from past wars risked their own life to save others. That means healing in combat!

*Spec Ops

Love these guys. Again, as already suggested, they need a crit for being in steath with their sniper shot, reduced recharge rate for mezzes and give them a grenade for some -def/-resist. Or even an attack with a toxic DoT.

As for serum, theres nothing left for me to say about this power that hasnt already been said.

Overall, I dont think this set is terribly out balanced. It just needs some recharge times reworked, and maybe a few extra perks for the 2nd upgrade. Back in the day, before PvP was reworked, my Merc/dark MM would eat pretty much any AT.

*Also an aura that gives +resist to confuse for commado

Ok, first let me cover something (do not read this if you know the history of the Commando)

During CoV Beta and I "think" early launch the Commando had access to the Gun Drone.

Ok, now that that is cleared up let's move on. Since we're going will-nilly with improvements let's start with a basic annoyance for everyone: Serum.

Ok, so, I got to level 18 and I'm ready for my awesome power! Oh, wait, what's this? Ugh, Serum is rather lame...That's a reaction most of us experience. While Serum does have its uses it is mostly a HIGHLY situational power that pretty much requires you to pump blues into the pet it crashes on. I will admit I do like some of the awesomeness Serum presents in rare situations, but Serum is otherwise a somewhat wasted power in that respect.

I feel the power needs revision, either that or it needs to be replaced with something much, much more convenient and not so highly situational.

Thoughts?

Serum should hulk out a character. I mean literally turn him HUJE AND ANGYR and smash people with melee attacks (super strength) for the duration (also gives Tanker taunt aura)

Wow, just stumbled on this thread. I agree with most everything here... move grenade from medic to soldiers and give the medic a boost in his support ability. A critical stealth strike for spec ops would be cool... they have tear gas? And yes, the stun doesn't last long enough or happen often enough. I've been unimpressed with the commando, even after tactical upgrade. After reading this I think it's because his cool stuff doesn't recharge often enough for me to notice he's even used them.

I also respec'd out of Serum. It's ok but nothing spectacular. If it recharged a little faster and gave a damage buff I'd probably take it again. It seems pretty lame compared to what other sets get. I'm not really for changing it completely, just make it better at what it does.

Oh yeah, they could REALLY use some fire resistance at the very least.

Now that I think about it, why not give Mercs interchangeable ammunition when using supply drop? Make supply drop clickable and have it not only heal everyone once dropped, but allow supply drop to also specialize which Mercs get which kind of ammunition. What I mean to say, is that the power I suggested (supply drop) be much like Dual Pistols that are coming, in that the supply drop can be pre-set to give your specified type of ammunition to each individual mercenary once dropped (while also applying the full heal and full endurance +15% damage bonus).

Be nice to give them some exotic damage if anything (even if the ammunition change from supply drop only lasts about half the recharge time of the power or less rather than being permanent).

You know, the ability to do more exotic damage types might alone make Mercs a much more balanced set against the rest of the AT. Not much resists Cold, and no other MM set offers it, for instance.

Just adding my opinion, I'd like to see serum affect more pets for its recharge or be replaced with gun drone. Actually given preference over the two I'd like to see gun drone more and I dont mean some watered down version of the blaster pet. I want the same gun drone devices blasters get. Just my opinion of course. It would be nice to see a dev opinion on this.

As a newer player I was wondering, "why do people say mercs is underperforming?" but I see the problems here and noticed a few quirks with my own use. My Medic actually used to use his heal a fair amount until he got Stimulant and the Commando runs out of EN way too fast. While not everything in this list is needed, a few key fixes would help them. One of the more interesting things mentioned was exotic damage. While the Spec Ops should get Stealth Strike, I think it would also be good if they got the Cryonic Rounds from the Council Marksmen. It would be a second snipe and would apply both a slow and -recharge to the enemy.

I REALLY like the idea of the Marksman rounds.

Well, the new thermal secondary helps the Mercs live longer with the +resist and powerful debuffs.

Bump to the front of the class :P

I'd like to state, that I really hate the idea of "hulking out" your pets with serum. It just doesn't feel right for the set. Actually Dz131's idea I like quite a bit and would change/add to it like this.

Replace serum with a "Promote" power. This ability would have a fair endurance cost and long recharge, very long. Basically it would be a third upgrade for either a single pet or for a group of them.

For instance, Promote the Commando and he gets the Tactics, , an additional AoE of some kind, and a small flat bonus to Damage and Resistance

Promote the Spec Ops and they get Manuvers, a cryo snipe or taser, and again a few small stat increases

Soldiers would get Assault, a grenade attack, and the medic would get basically the triage beacon in a toggle aura form, and again small stat increases.

I didn't think that through much but you get my idea. Personally I feel people underestimate Mercs, however Serum is still horrible. I think the worst part about it is lets say you're fighting a tough EB, you toss your commando serum, he lives, all the other soldiers drop like flies. Now you're fighting with one slightly more damaging T3 pet, sure he isn't going down but you aren't doing much.

I thought something like Piercing Ammunition buff would be good. Supposedly Mercs are really crazy good, but ONLY after you get your minions and lts slotted with an Achilles' Heel chance to resistance debuff...and all 5 pets count as different sources, so they can stack the res debuff like crazy. Very nice for a bunch of pets that basically exclusively inflict Lethal damage. I've never bothered to try that out since Achilles' Heel res debuff is an expensive invention on redside's dead/market flipper run market though.

But a set that only gets good with IOs is sort of a suckily designed set, and there weren't even IO sets back when Mercs were created...

So. Serum--a useless buff--could be converted into a buff that grants -Res to a selected mercenary's attacks for a brief period. Sort of like how Ninja's Smoke Flash grants a selected pet the ability to bust out a few critical hits for a spike of damage. Smoke Flash Jounin, he goes choppy choppy better. Piercing Ammunition a Merc, all mercs do better blasty blasty (and your teammates too)

Just make sure to sic the merc you buff on the Boss so he's not wasting those shots, heh.

What if the mastermind could use the serum on himself?

I know all about the cottage rule but I think for this set they need to push that rule to the side.

What if they reworked it to be like a mini third pet upgrade. I haven't thought of any figures that's open to discussion. Have it enhance stats though instead of giving powers like the normal upgrades do. That would make it unique compared to other sets. 3 pet upgrades instead of just 2. Just a thought.

And could someone please get those blasted grenades out of my medics hands!! What's the point of having a part time healer if he's always gonna lob a grenade and be the first one to go down? I don't get it. He acts just like the Arsonist from the thugs set except the Arsonist has no buffing powers so I expect him to go down first. I don't expect the one pet I rely on to help heal/buff the rest of my pets to be an aggro magnet!

Is it wrong that I wanted the ability to call in an airstrike at level 18?

Yeah... probably.

I should just go to Warburg.