Will I regret making a mercs character?

Ah so that's what it was. Cheers.

I recently got my Mercs/Storm up to lvl 32 and the increase in powers has made lvling alot smoother. The longish controls of Mercs could be reduced to be usuable more than every other mob, but when they are used it is useful. Mercs are not a BAD set, just not the most damaging.

In terms of dissapointing powers Caltrops and Rain of Fire for Ninjas need to be targeted at the toughest mob or else the power ends much quicker than the actual duration. Mercs are not the only set to have some gimped powers IMO.

The problem with Mercs is they do crappy damage, have lousy controls, and only have so-so resistances. They don't do -anything- definitively better than anyone else, on top of being outclassed in nearly every way by either Thugs or Robotics.

Starting with survivability, Robotics get more effective healing from the Protector Bots, and mitigation via defense and resistance, Mercs get the anemic Medic and resistance to two damage types. For control, Robotics get better control through stuns by the Protector Bots(They also deal damage with those same AoEs that stun- Shocking concept I know)along with knockdowns by all the Robot Henchmen, Mercs get some very long cooldown AoE Controls that deal little to no damage, along with a ST melee Stun and a ST ranged Immob, all of which is solely from the Spec Ops. I don't think I need to even get in to damage, and if I did I wouldn't need to say the words "L____l D____e" to sell a case on why Mercs lose in that category as well.

Personally, even in all their flaws, I like Mercs. I also like my Robotics as well, because they're both fun to play. It's just that Mercs got the short end of the stick in that they were a rushed, underpowered set thrown in at the nearing end of CoV Closed Beta that never really had their issues addressed. But really, It does always come back to the fact they under-perform as Masterminds, which is a shaky basis for balancing considering how completely godless they are compared to other ATs.

It's not that I wouldn't want them to get buffed, it's just that we've been asking for that for years now, and even when we were compiling lists of suggestions and fixes, I don't think there was ever even a case of any Dev or Mods making eye contact with said lists.

I think I got a little off topic, but to get back on topic: You won't regret a Merc MM unless you get completely frustrated and "Raaaage!"ed like myself and other forum-goers at the lack of attention given to them.

In that case, I am fresh out of excuses for my mercenaries addiction. Why? Why am I addicted to them?

Hi Guys.

This is an old topic for me, my very first Villain was a Mercs/Poison MM, that I thought up thematically with no real regard to the numbers or tactics involved. I still think up my characters thematically, but I do run some numbers before I go through the work ;P

Anyway, my Mercs/Poison is pretty much maxed out for debuff, the set can actually do some pretty impressive damage, even too groups. I still have this character btw, he's got all the accolades and is purpled out pretty completely. As far as a debuffing Mercs build go he's pretty much the best mathematically possible.

Here is the problem with Mercs in general, which are made worse by a terrible set like /Poison. Debuffing in this game works great on minions and lt's, and on regular bosses it can do the trick nicely too. But on the really tough guys (Level 54 bosses, Elite bosses or worse) the debuffing only gets you so far and it isn't enough for the strongly resisted S/L to do very much, ever. Thats debuffing with the Poison set even. So as the game ends you find yourself really unable to damage the enemy very much...

Which leads to the bigger problems of the set -- its complete and utter lack of damage mitigation. Like I said this is worse with Poison since Poison has none of this either (if only I knew back then what I know now!). But with any secondary, your boys will die. Just when you start to do some damage to your enemy, a couple of your guys are gonna drop dead, cut your damage output, you can't beat their regen, then the battle is thrown and thats that. You can't beat their regen even with /Poison's -regen ability, which doesn't work on EB's or even L54 bosses worth a spit.

I'm actually really, really hoping that the Incarnate abilities might bring some of these power sets back into action. If there was a good, solid, constant way to take care of your boys then /Mercs might actually turn out to be not half bad. The set just leaves gaps, regardless of your secondary.

Its really too bad, because I love the dakka dakka I always need more dakka. Mercs need A LOT more dakka. More dakka! If you roll a Mercs toon, hope that Incarnate abilities can fill in your gaps, because to be honest, you don't want end game mobs to fill your gaps for you

I've been running a Mercs/Thermal toon. Up to 25 so far and it's actually been a blast to play even before the Commando. Thermal really shines because you not only get shields for the pets like a bubbler, you get very solid heals and buffs like a pain with enough damage resist debuff in the later levels to keep the damage curve smooth. It also handily fills in that fire hole in merc inherent resists.

As for serum, I am picking it up. No slots as it's a situational power and one should be enough but slapped on a commando when things are going south will give you sixty seconds where he can hold agro with minimal support from you while you get everything set back up. With fitness being free now there's really not much reason not to grab it for that once in awhile situation where you really need it. Like a rez, but more proactive.

IMHO I think that Thugs/Dark is the most powerful combo. I have not tried Thugs/Trap but have a lvl 32 Bots/Traps MM and lvl 41 Demon/Traps MM.

Bots have some long activation times that can lower their DPS.

I believe Thugs by far are the most damaging pets and Dark offers the best combination of control power MM's have available.

This weekend I did tip mishes and my Mercs shined. In the mishs, I had enemies two stories up. My Mercs superjumped to clean their clocks. It was a sight to see.

Also, I was fooling around with options inside of the client and noticed an advanced settings for Pets. I turned it on but wondered if this applies to us.

I rolled a Mercs/Poison, and I regretted it. The Spec Ops are simply pathetic; their DPS is not up to the standard of the Jounin or Death Knights, and their randomly applied, long cooldown controls are not nearly as effective defensively as the benefits given by the Enforcers or the ProtBots. If you replaced Spec Ops with Thugs' Enforcers, Mercs would suddenly become a very solid set off that alone.

No idea how good or bad the demons are, so couldn't say.

My first MM was a mercs, and I didn't regret it until I saw how much better every single other primary is. Still, it's a mastermind, so you are gonna be fine.

I returned to playing some old mercs lately.../storm & /dark. I've come to the conclusion that, in my opinion, /storm is the best pair with merc. Yes, /dark and /traps are typically thought of as stronger, but I think in this one case that storm shines. Why? Hurricane. I've found that it keeps mercs alive better than everything else.

YMMV.

I'm 41 on both currently, and planning to take the storm at least up through t3 alpha - mostly as an experiment to see how good I can make the "worst" mm primary. I 2boxed 0/5 malta with the two of them yesterday, and it wasn't terrible. Probably got a few mez badges though... and I did turn it back down to default for the next one, but it was doable and I didn't die.

I'm playing on the EU today. Can enhancements be stacked three times on MM? I thought I could on my NA account. I could only do twice today.