Yes, but the BIG damage people see from tracer missile is only when there are existing stacks of the armor break already on their target. This would greatly diminish the dps output from tracer and likely cause the merc with a guaranteed 5-stack of increased damage to their other abilities to actually use them even on a target that doesn't have the armorbreak effect - simply because they'd need to deal real damage.

I have a new alternate proposal to the TM spamming nerf - instead of decreasing its damage or increasing its CD, how about making it only have a set % chance (something like 30%, maybe 50%) to apply the armorbreak effect and maybe damage resistance buff (if you're a true arsenal spec, that is) but still let it always give the user the buff to increase damage from their other specials? That'd put it more in line with how other skill-specced classes are granted their buffs (one example: madness sorcerers with the wrath skill). Whether or not the damage resistance buff would also need a % chance to procc would possibly be overkill, but by causing the armorbreak debuff to require a chance to procc would certainly be less severe than the type of nerf which is likely to result based on the current proposals to reduce its damage or increase CD.

force leap/charge doesn't cause an actual lockout like the true interrupt skills and typically by the time you actually land on the target due to animation, the effect has ended unless you're either very close to begin with or have points invested to increase its duration by a second, which I haven't tried.

Wow, snipers needing a buff? Seriously? They can usually hit almost as hard as most arsenal mercs do without a 5-stack of tracers on the target. Sure, their big spikes have longer activation timers, but they get the survival benefits of cover - I have a sniper myself and it's quite beautiful - especially if you have another sniper teammate and you coordinate attacks and swap handling knockback-roots. Very fun class to play, but not very popular since so many people went for knifer/op.

You're only svery squishy and vulnerable to element and internal (or is it kinetic? I forget) types of damage. You should be only moderately squishy (due to the lack of mobility/cc) to the damage types that armor gives resistance to.

Again - DoT's + LoS alone isn't going to drop someone that can heal at least 30% of their health with a fairly short activation timed heal. So... no, that won't kill them.

In the case of the hybrid merc, or even an arsenal merc, tracer missile definitely DOES DO enough damage to kill a sorc. if you're able to spam it. And I'm well aware that the better arsenal mercs do much more damage with their other skills, provided that they have at least SOME active tracers/gravs (again, lets not solo out mercs, commandos do this, too).

2 DoT's (Crushing Darkness + Affliction) without an active Deathmark and "Wrath-procced" Crushing Darkness isn't much damage. Even if I were to put all 3 DoT's on with an Active Death Mark, it'll usually only end up dealing about half health if they were hitting hard and the target doesn't heal themself (unless it's a poorly geared player) and let's be honest: if I'm LoS'ing one of these hybrid mercs, he's obviously going to heal. So... what was your point?

Oh, and I'm not just talking about mercs, commandos too. Seen quite a few of them doing the same exact things mercs do. I feel sorry for mercs getting soloed out for complaints, but I suppose it's due to the fact that most servers are heavily Imperial and at least 75% of warzone queues end up being imperial vs. imperial hutt-ball unless you're on a perfect queue rotation with the pubs (whom usually stop queueing if they've lost 3 warzones in a row). My apologies.

Well, there's certainly a new "flavor of the week" that I've discovered lately: Mercs that are hybrid into arsenal and healer. Yeah, its burst damage is a great deal lower than a traditional arsenal specced merc, but in warzones they'll still end up dealing at least 200k+ damage and healing. Also talk about tough to kill.... wow. Tried to 1v1 one of them with my madness sorc (which can usually excel at popping arsenal mercs 1v1) and didn't work out to well for me. If they're spamming tracer on you and you interrupt it, they'll use their cooldown attacks unless they're low in health, in which case they just heal while tracer is locked out and if you go for interrupting their heals, well then you're just gunna' get tracer spammed to death. Very tough hybrid class to successfully defeat in a 1v1 for a sorc. Worst of all, these guys do their best to avoid getting singled out and forced into a 1v1 since they're at their best when paired with any other long-range classes - like all mercs - (they tend to go for a 5-stack of tracers on everyone and let their group-mates deal the retarded damage whille they keep their groupmates healed - and if they don't have someone to heal, then they'll just keep spamming tracer). Very clever hybrid, I must admit. As to whether or not tracer NEEDS a change, this should prove to even the pure arsenal specced mercs out there that it's at least a tad bit silly and capable of being abused even without large skill tree investment.

This is some sort of bug, and it seems to apply to every class, not just Merc/Van but I'm not 100% certain as to what the cause of it happens to be - usually when I interrupt a Merc/Van that's spamming tracer/grav, they'll use a different skill within 1 second of the interrupt (provided that they're not one of those silly people that only hotkey tracer/grav and assume the skill to be their "I win!" button and run around like a chicken with their head cut off until the disrupt effect ends).

I'll agree that tracer missile is NEEDED for mercs almost exactly the way it is, but it should probably have its damage value reduced simply for the fact that it gives buffs and armorbreak effect. If they reduced its damage but maintained everything else about it (spammable, debuffs, buffs, relatively low heat cost), then it should function more appropriately as intended. I can't think of any other skill in-game that can function as beneficially to its user and still dish out comparable values of damage at the same time. If tracer's base damage is reduced, mercs will still tracer-spam initially (as well they're supposed to), but it'll result in the mercs to use it more strategically, rather than being able to spam it to get a potentially guaranteed kill without having to use other abilities. I'm not saying to cut the damage it deals too insanely, but cutting its damage by 25% wouldn't be too terrible. This won't result in a drastic change in how a good merc plays right now, but it would definitely force those less skilled mercs that only use tracer missile in pvp to change their tactics. That's my 2 cents. So, please, lets not gimp the class - but maybe put it in line with its damage potential to be comparable to say a jugg's armorbreaks.