Feldon We reported last week on the double-casting of AoEs by Destiny of Velious HM (hard mode) raid targets, making many fights either nearly impossible, or requiring exceptional luck.
According to Kander, this is now being looked at:
It is definitely a bug and we definitely intend to fix it. We have code looking at it right now.
Meanwhile, Gninja remains our point man on all things Mercenaries. At the prodding of players, he has nailed down some issues, first with Defiler mercs not taking advantage of wards:
Took a look at this. It seems they are still warding but they are giving heals nearly full priority. I will rebalance it a bit so they keep wards up as well.
and on the subject of mercs not being diligent about keeping pets or warders alive:
I will take a look and see if I can find the problem. Mercs “should” heal pets with single target heals. If they are not it is a bug and I will see if I can fix it.
Gninja is aware of, but unable to reproduce an apparent bug with mercs not being re-summonable once suspended not for 2 minutes, but 24 hours.
I have seen reports of this but we havent been able to reproduce it on our end. The only thing I can think of is that it is some sort of UI related issue.
He then asked for character name, server, and details to help diagnose the issue.
For those who continue to be concerned about mercenaries that “cower” when too many mobs are wailing on them (as unintentionally happens on the first named in Forgotten Pools), Gninja reminded us that even when playing the ‘cowering’ animation, mercs are still acting, but at a reduced potency:
If the cower visual aspect is causing confusion I can see about getting some better visual aspects added in instead of making them cower but the mechanic of them gaining a debuff when they get too much attention is not going to go away anytime soon. This does not mean that we might not release mercs later down the road with larger thresholds but for these base mercenaries the threshold will be staying as is for now.
Bug of the Week
A bug we have personally seen regarding Beastlord Warder Specialization Points (aka Warder AAs). You can buy the end-line abilities (giving you a new 5th or 6th Primal) even if you don’t have the 3 points needed to buy them. The number of Available Warder Specialization Points will display as -2. However your Warder SP will reset every time you zone.
“This does not mean that we might not release mercs later down the road with larger thresholds but for these base mercenaries the threshold will be staying as is for now.”
Sweet! I take this to mean; they’ll be putting more powerful mercs on the broker to buy with SC.
At the risk of getting flamed;
I always thought that the Mercenaries should have been on SC /shrugs. They tend to take away from grouping and if you enter a DF group, (which I no longer do anymore), half of it is filled with mercs.
IMO, the people complaining about the mercs cowering are generally people using them to solo intended group zones. In all honesty, if they are strong enough to run a DoV group zone boosted by only a merc, then they should be able to put together ANY DF group (even if the others are noobs/learning their toon) and pretty much make it successful.
By the way, I do have a couple of characters that can solo some of these zones boosted only by a merc. Yes I was doing DF to run others through the zones as I went until all of my groups turned into one or two players and a bunch of mercs.
I apologize if I sound negative on the subject. It’s just my opinion.
@Coopendor
If you go back and read transcripts from SJ’s interviews regarding mercs pre AOD release… your descriptions is exactly what they are intended to do. Open content to players who would otherwise not have access to it. They are intended to allow 1-3 players to run heroic contnent.
@Pyratt
Now that you mention it, I do remember that. Guess the merc’s are nearly working as intended.
I am not necessarily against merc’s. Really I’m not :).