Why do Mercs "suck"?

I hear about how Mercenaries suck, but I never see any reasons why they're considered the worst primary for MMs. Is it just because they all do Lethal damage and Lethal is one of the most resisted damage types in the game? Or are there other reasons I'm not seeing?

My sole level 50 MM is a Mercs/FF MM, so I know a thing or two about Mercs. The reason people say they suck is many-fold.

1) Damage, as mentioned. They don't do a ton of it, for a couple reasons. First, they seem to just do lower damage in general, but I'm not sure of that entirely. The lethal damage is a big component as well, though they are not alone in this (Ninjas and Thugs do a lot of lethal damage, but no one really complains there).

2) Pet AI being insufficient to properly leverage Mercs powers. Mercs use a lot of cones that aren't very wide for their AoEs. Both the Soldiers and Commando use Full Auto and Buckshot and the Commando uses Flamethrower. Because they don't try to line up the cones, they frequently only hit a fraction of available targets. Compared to other primaries, which mainly use standard AoEs, it means they do less damage. Though the Commando also has LRM Rocket and M30 Grenade and the Medic has Frag Grenade to add in traditional AoE.

That's not the only problem, however. Spec Ops have several mez/debuff powers. But the powers are on fairly long timers, don't have amazing effects, and either don't have a very large AoE radius or have small numbers of max targets, because they also rarely hit the entire group. Additionally, the AI doesn't know how to stack them or anything, so you'll rarely get holds to effect bosses or the debuffs to have significant effects.

3) Bad non-pet powers. Your MM attacks suffer the same drawback as the Mercs attacks, being all lethal/smashing. Additionally, your pet buff power, Serum, is easily the worst of all the MMs, with mediocre effects.


However, despite this, Mercenaries do have some benefits, such as the ability for all of them to slot the Achilles Heel chance to debuff proc, their decent toughness, the Medic usually keeps you mez protected with Stimulant, and their exclusive ranged attacks (though the recent bug that forces all pets into melee negates this somewhat). They're probably the worst MM set, but even the worst MM set is still very good overall.

My first and only lvl 50 is a merc/traps, and I've played all MM primaries to at least 30, so I think I can field this.

The primary weakness of mercs is the useless crowd-control of the spec ops.

The extreme-recharge, extremely unreliable teargasses and flashbangs are essentially useless. The Spec Ops give up any and all AE damage in exchange for web grenade and, well, that's about it. The Lich and Oni are not exactly reliable with their CC, but they both blow away the sad excuse of the merc tier 2 pet. And nevermind the utility of the Enforcers' leadership auras or the Protector Bots' heals + bubbles. (protector bots even bubble the MM himself, cementing Robotics as the king of MM primaries.)

Even if the teargas hits, it only holds the enemy for a few brief seconds. Certainly nothing worth changing your tactics around. If the spec ops' teargas and flashbang were removed from the game, I doubt I'd even notice.

Mercs do have a bit less DPS than thugs or bots, but I don't mind that in itself because the medic comes in handy. What bites about the set is that it is alone among MM primaries without any real support powers in its tier 2 or 3 pets.

Okay, this boosts my confidence. My most recent MM is a reroll of an old Storm Defender with a military type background who kind of fell into a Bosley/Lady Blackhawk sort of role for a female friend's mostly female SG (strictly RP-wise, unfortunately he can't actually pilot a plane for them), so I thought it appropriate for him to have his own team of soldiers that he heads up.

I don't know anyone else who has anything good to say about Serum, but I personally find it very useful on my Mastermind. He's Mercs/Poison. When fighting tough bosses, EBs, or AVs, I give my commando Noxious Gas + Serum and send him into melee. Serum makes him tough enough to survive and give him knockback protection so the enemies get the full effect of the debuff from Noxious Gas.

That MM was my first villain, so he ended up being my main redside badge hunter... when I ran a MoLRSF with friends, my main contribution was debuffs, largely from that method with serum and noxious gas.

I can see why it's lackluster for most people, though. And I would love to see the Spec Ops do more consistent mezzes!

I don't think mercs really suck to an extreme degree, it's just that several of the other sets, especially Thugs and Demons, are so much better it makes Mercs suck by comparison. The tier 2 pets don't do anything particularly useful and Serum is a giant piece of crap.

Other than that, they look kinda boring. They look more like drab, 80s soldiers than high-tech guns for hire. If mercs looked really awesome I guarantee they would be a lot more popular.

They suffer from AI stupidity pretty bad, too. A lot of their attacks are cones.

Mercs: G.I.Joe without knowing the other sets are good, thus losing half the battle.


GEEEEE IIIIIIII JOOOOOOE! Knowing is half the battle!

All pet sets suffer in AI category honestly.

Mercs are really are subpar compared to the other sets you could choose from. As mentioned in the other post, the Spec Ops need their mez powers looked at with extreme scrutiny. Extremely long recharges and extremely low durations really doesn't help. Of all the ranged sets, Mercs AoEs are very tight coned. The medic is next to useless as his AI doesn't allow for him to use his powers wisely. The only decent pets is the two Tier 1 and the Tier 3 boss pet. In short it leaves a lot wanting when compared to other sets.

My only Merc is a Merc/Pain with perma WoP, He also has assault to help with damage. Every one of my pets is slotted with the -res proc, it doesn't stack, but they can keep it perma w/o trouble. He's a decent toon, but not my strongest MM combo.

As said in the other mercs thread , pretty simple to fix. I have emailed this several times to them.

All Pet ( most important )

Remove all melee skills!!!


Soldiers

Make cone 10 or 15 degree arc, up from 5 degree.

Spec ops

Halve recharge of all control skills
Give critical strike when coming out of stealth
Change SCAR rifle to laser energy/smash

Serum
Remove all hit/dam and change to regen/recov with small AOE. like Emp Adrenaline Boost, 100% enhanceble. Keep 1000 recharge.


Or

Scrap Serum and replace with turrets. The ability to summon stationary turret set ( auto gun, cannon and missile ) that is enhanceble with pet and pet recharge sets.

Mercs don't suck; they are a Mastermind set, so they are awesome pretty much by dint of that alone That said:

• They whittle enemies away with small-number DoTs of the most-resisted damage type in the game
• What little AoE they have is (mostly) tight cones; the ones that aren't tiny cones are on recharge timers that would bore Methusalah to death
• Their controls are on recharge timers that are too long to say the least
• Serum is terrible and needs a lot of love
• Specops have pointless stealth ability
• Medic thinks he is Jack Dempsey
• Insert more bitterness here

Mercs don't suck. The pet bug is killing them right now making them run into melee but they're awesome in the 20's+ and when slotted correctly. They're one of the MM's that don't benefit from the double pet procs like zombies and thugs do, but I've seen many merc MM's rip it up on the map.

tip: slot an achille's heel: chance for -res in soldiers and spec ops, it helps with the lethal resistance pain.

Mine does fine Yes the mercs arent that strong but I have Achilles heel - res and Lady Grey Negative Energy proc on soldiers and spec ops that make them hit much harder Remember~ all the attacks they use often (aside from the friggin melee ones) give -def @_@ and the lady grey proc pretty much doubles their damage when it works!

Thats the main reason I made my mercs MM....The procs!

Well, I'm not at the point of having IO set yet, but my Mercs/Storm is chugging along just fine (although since he's in Praetoria, I mostly solo, which means I haven't played him very often because all my friends are bored with it and I've been doing an inordinate amount of teaming of late).

good call going with /storm too, tornado happens to take recharge-intensive pet procs as well, so you can give them all the DEF and RES pet boosts later too.

I think the biggest "problem" with Mercs is that the don't do much burst damage. They pew pew pew just like Bots, and there's a more or less constant stream of LITTLE orange numbers, but not many big ones.

They also have a lot of powers that they don't really ever use correctly, something that seems to effect Mercs disproportionately compared to other pet sets. My highest Mercs MM is only a level 24, but even when I'm teamed with one I find myself wishing that toon was a Thugs MM instead. It's just sort of lackluster.

But at least they aren't Ninjas.

If the issue is burst damage that doesn't bother me at all. I'm a tanker at heart (with a healthy amount of love for Dominators and Masterminds too) so awesomely high damage isn't what I expect (it's nice though).

My Mercs/Storm is currently on hold, but I may pick him up again. I like the combo on him thematically better than a defender or a corrupter.

Wouldn't removing their melee skills mean that when they do run into melee, they'll do nothing?

I also have a huge complaint with the commando. I leveled a Merc/Dark to 50 and played it for a few months at 50 before gutting it in frustration.

the commando has a lot of attacks with knockback. He loves to use them first. Then his AOE non-knockback powers he uses on lone enemies that have been tossed around and are not near anyone anymore. This severely limits the actual damage he deals compared to his potential damage.

I see your point, but I wasn't talking about including IO sets.