YAY sony, thanks for breaking healer mercs

[Destria]

<p>This morning before the update, my inquis merc was great, he healed and cured me wonderfully <still does even>, in fact, he even cured and healed himself.  As of the update, he'll still heal and cure me like a champ, but has a ZERO sense of self-preservation, he will get a dot and die, every time.  I played with numerous settings on him, trying to get him to heal/cure himself again, all to no avail.  Giving in to defeat I thought <hoped really> that maybe it was JUST the inquisitor, but was gravely mistaken.  The defiler merc spams wards and doesn't even HAVE a cure spell of any kind.  Warden, cures me and heals me and herself <3/4 of her heals ARE group/AE(tree)> but doesn't cure herself at all and still dies. </p><p>So....now that you have made healer mercs mostly useless, can you fix them back to how they were? You know, useful...just askin.</p>

[Lempo]

<p>The update notes do not even reflect any changes to mercenaries that should have caused this. Not that I don't believe it is happening, just the opposite if it is true I would not be the least bit surprised.</p>

[Nrgy]

<p>It's only to be expected after the huge thread about how OP Stomper was release... and people complaining about it, ad infinitum.  The norm around here ... crying for Nerfs becasue someone has something they can't be bothered to get themselves.  Continually pointing fingers at other Mercs/Classes/Quest Rewards/Spell/CA effectiveness to outline their own misunderstanding/laziness/lack of knowledge/issue is not the best way to get something "fixed".</p>

[Gninja]

<p>The healer merc AI was not changed with today's hotfix. I checked them in battle and I am seeing no difference in how they were behaving before. I will do a bit of digging and see if I can reproduce it and get it figured out.</p>

[Nrgy]

<p><cite>Gninja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The healer merc AI was not changed with today's hotfix. I checked them in battle and I am seeing no difference in how they were behaving before. I will do a bit of digging and see if I can reproduce it and get it figured out.</p></blockquote><p>Any progress on whether the Mercs can have a customizable AI priority (Healer/Cure) first, (Cure/Heal) second?</p>

[Gninja]

<p><cite>Nrgy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gninja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The healer merc AI was not changed with today's hotfix. I checked them in battle and I am seeing no difference in how they were behaving before. I will do a bit of digging and see if I can reproduce it and get it figured out.</p></blockquote><p>Any progress on whether the Mercs can have a customizable AI priority (Healer/Cure) first, (Cure/Heal) second?</p></blockquote><p>You will not be able to set prioority on healer mercs. Some mercs will cure first some will heal first. Your best bet is to find one that fits what you are looking for and sticking with that one.</p>

[yohann koldheart]

<p><cite>Gninja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Nrgy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gninja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The healer merc AI was not changed with today's hotfix. I checked them in battle and I am seeing no difference in how they were behaving before. I will do a bit of digging and see if I can reproduce it and get it figured out.</p></blockquote><p>Any progress on whether the Mercs can have a customizable AI priority (Healer/Cure) first, (Cure/Heal) second?</p></blockquote><p>You will not be able to set prioority on healer mercs. Some mercs will cure first some will heal first. Your best bet is to find one that fits what you are looking for and sticking with that one.</p></blockquote><p>how about a little insight on why defiler merc dont even have a cure spell ?  lol</p>

[Gninja]

<p>He should have a cure spell. I am looking into it and will get into a hotfix as soon as I can.</p>

[Mohee]

<p>Im enjoying the Warden merc grouped up with My Guardian =) works quite well.</p><p>I've always felt the Templar/Inquis merc were terrible no matter what you tried to do with them.</p><p>But this Warden... great healer <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> stays ranged and just heals me. perfect for what I want her to do!</p>

[Alenna]

<p><cite>Mohee wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Im enjoying the Warden merc grouped up with My Guardian =) works quite well.</p><p>I've always felt the Templar/Inquis merc were terrible no matter what you tried to do with them.</p><p>But this Warden... great healer <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> stays ranged and just heals me. perfect for what I want her to do!</p></blockquote><p>I have the mystic heals pretty well also using him with my swashie and BL</p><p>might try the warden with my monk though</p>

[Mohee]

<p>Thanks Alenna! I totally forgot there was even a Mystic merc. I'll have to try that one out as well =) I love mystics</p>

[Alenna]

<p><cite>Mohee wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thanks Alenna! I totally forgot there was even a Mystic merc. I'll have to try that one out as well =) I love mystics</p></blockquote><p>He's in New Halas in the buildign with the city merchants.</p>

[Lempo]

<p>I see no perceptible difference in Stampers behavior myself after an hour or so of messing around with him.</p><p>BTW GNinja thanks for popping in here a few times and answering/clarifying things.</p>

[CorpseGoddess]

<p>Any ETA on a fury merc?  As a bruiser, I always did like having a fury to duo with... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Firecracker]

<p><cite>Gninja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The healer merc AI was not changed with today's hotfix. I checked them in battle and I am seeing no difference in how they were behaving before. I will do a bit of digging and see if I can reproduce it and get it figured out.</p></blockquote><p><p><span><p>I also /bug some problems similar to the poster but it was with a defiler merc on two different characters of mine of spamming wards continuously. I even zone to see if it would fix the issue, but it didn't. It did start after I had engaged into combat on both characters.</p><p>Something else I might add, is when I buy another merc the merc like goes hay wire when I zone for he/she don't show up in the zone until I (hire) them back from merc window but does still show in my group.</p></span></p></p>

[Tigress]

<p>This cannot be too hard to replicate.  My newly hired inquisitor merc does not heal themself and doesnt appear to use group heals, only single heals.  Pls fix.  TY.</p>

[yohann koldheart]

<p><cite>Tigress wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This cannot be too hard to replicate.  My newly hired inquisitor merc does not heal themself and doesnt appear to use group heals, only single heals.  Pls fix.  TY.</p></blockquote><p>its not happening for everyone though, so it prob is hard to replicate.</p><p>my inquis merc heals and cure himself like he did before i dropped him to try the other healer mercs</p>

[gourdon]

<p>The patch has nothing to do with this.  Sometimes the healer mercs don't heal themselves.  There is likely a hole in their logic that causes this to happen under uncommon circumstances.</p>

[Wentil]

<p>Since we're talking about healer merc frustrations, can we please get the option to have the healer merc focus on healing pets?</p><p>Bdorn seems to be hit or miss on actually healing my pet. If I pull aggro onto myself he's an absolute rockstar and can keep myself and himself standing for a long time. If my conji pet is doing the tanking, he will often wait FAR too long before he starts healing the pet, if he does at all. Out of frustration and panic, I'll toss my own heals in when the pet gets to 40%, but if I'm in a tough fight, 40% might be too late. I tried duoing with the merc in Library and all he did was stand around and take 25g while I did all the healing.</p>

[S_M_I_T_E]

<p>I know not everyone plays a healer but for those that do that SK merc is absolutely stunning.  Better than the Brigand hands down.</p><p>I tried the healer mercs healing me tanking in raid content and they were just so weak it didn't matter.</p><p>Maybe it's time to enable the healer mercs to use master level spells as a [player healer + merc tank] is far more effective than a [player tank and a merc healer]. </p>

[Valonia]

<p><cite>S_M_I_T_E wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I know not everyone plays a healer but for those that do that SK merc is absolutely stunning.  Better than the Brigand hands down.</p><p>I tried the healer mercs healing me tanking in raid content and they were just so weak it didn't matter.</p><p>Maybe it's time to enable the healer mercs to use master level spells as a [player healer + merc tank] is far more effective than a [player tank and a merc healer]. </p></blockquote><p>You did not say what you are raiding, but if it's anything in DoV, then chances are high that the crit chance of the merc is not high enough. I don't know about the rare mercs, but the normal ones feature 150 crit mit and 150 crit chance. So they can survive quite alot of things but their damage/heal potential gets worse the higher you climb through the DoV instances.</p>

[Araxes]

<p>When I used the defiler, he constantly cast wards outside of combat, ran out of power in about 1 minute as a result, and was useless.</p>

[Brigh]

Mercs are just dumb anyway. Three times my Bdorn failed to heal a character when I was down in the red at 10-20%, and so 2 times out of those 3 I died. I stood right next to him and he failed to do his job.

[Odys]

<p>My most despited  dev claims that merc have not been changed, stomper cured himself aand he even used a group cure. I did part of ascent with him and my paladin and he cured the elemental dots.</p>

[Destria]

<p>I think its pretty amazing how they enacted the mercs, healers are stuck at adept lvl spells/abilities, while mages are at master, and fighter/scouts are at expert<I may be switched around on the mages/fighters/scouts>.  It really makes no sense to me.</p><p>As for my original post, inquis still crap and not healing/curing himself, but hey, atleast they gave the defiler a cure now...can they get him to stop spamming wards out of combat next? and maybe fix healer merc AI in general.</p>

[Odys]

<p>Currently before level 80, mercenaries dps are superior to players. They don't lag and they switch target immediatly.</p><p>When dealing with several mobs, if my dear warlock is on offensive (protect master, protect self) she retarget faster than me.  An unlike me she does not target objects. She is also more robust than most players.</p><p>Indeed she is somewhere between a normal player and a level 90 mentor.</p><p>At 90 they seem very weak, stomper HPS is ridiculous if compared to the one of a level 90 warden (even in PQ gear). But yeah stomper cure faster than any player, sometimes i have the impression that he can cure and heal while running.</p><p>As example my beastie love to jump from gnomeland HQ to practise savefall, when he does that he has no reactive on him (stomper is asleep we in city), as soon as he lands he get healed. No player can do that, since he receives heals while stomper is in the air.</p><p>I also witnessed perfect "precuring" from stomper, that is saw a DOT blinking half a second on me. Stomper saw the DOT before i saw it.</p>

[Brigh]

<p><cite>Erszebeth@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think its pretty amazing how they enacted the mercs, healers are stuck at adept lvl spells/abilities, while mages are at master, and fighter/scouts are at expert<em>.  It really makes no sense to me.</em></p><p><em>As for my original post, inquis still crap and not healing/curing himself, but hey, atleast they gave the defiler a cure now...can they get him to stop spamming wards out of combat next? and maybe fix healer merc AI in general.</em></p></blockquote><p>My experience using the defiler is that he barely says anything. When he cures, you don't know for sure. I have only seen him talk a handful of times saying he is curing. He also doesn't seem to heal that much when it is needed.</p>