Bioware please let Mercs be good in PvP again

[TyrellJonez]

There are a dozen threads showing how to "fix" Mercenaries and tons more complaining about the variety of problems. One more can't hurt right? Lets get to it.

 

Mercenaries are ranged high dps with low utility. That was how they were designed and the roll they play. Arsenal was favored as dps in PvP because of its high burst potential. Even if a melee got close, it would have already taken too much damage to continue the fight head on. This is no longer the case and Arsenal has fallen from favor. So how do we put it back up on high dps without making it over-powered for both PvP and pvE? By changing what doesn't work with Minimal effort. How bout this:

 

Kolto Vents: Vent Heat regenerates 7% of your health over 10 seconds.

 

Really? Thats crap BW and you know it. Every class can do 7% of ur health in one attack. Its useless. How bout this:

 

High Velocity Vent: When you activate Vent heat, it removes all movement impairing abilities and your movement speed is increased by 20% for the duration.

Hey that fits theme-wise! You vent heat. increasing your speed!! Since your a caster class, it makes sense to have a way to give yourself some breathing room when fighting melee! WoW! Vent heat only lasts 3 seconds so its not game-breaking, but it will give us that breathing room we so desire AND force us to choose to manage heat for sustained dps or run if being focused but risk not having our instant casts for kiting.

 

Ok so nobody wants tracer missle spam. Fair enough. But c'mon throw us a bone then!

 

Power Barrier: Power Shot and Tracer Missile have a [50 / 100]% chance to generate a Power Barrier that reduces damage taken by 1% for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.

 

Not bad, but lets make this work with what the developers have already done which is try and move away from Arsenal revolving totally around Tracer missle. How about:

 

Power Barrier: Power Shot and Tracer Missile have a [50 / 100]% chance to generate a Power Barrier that reduces damage taken by 1% for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times. In addition, Unload CANNOT be interupted while Power Barrier is active.

This makes it so Unload (which was buffed last patch) can actually be used! But its still not quite there yet...

 

Pinning Fire: Unload has a [50 / 100]% chance per hit to slow the target's movement by 50% for 2 seconds.

 

2 seconds? Not even noticeable. Make it 4 and then we have something worth using.

 

Last but not least is the lack of abilities to use while kiting. We have Explosive dart and heatseeker missles. Both on Long Cooldowns. Rather than reduce the cooldown, how about this:

 

Power Overrides: Reduces the cooldown of Concussion Missile by [7.5 / 15] seconds and Thermal Sensor Override by [15 / 30] seconds.

Yeah, concussion missle doesn't need anything. Its a PvE tool primarily and if your not gunna give it to us as an instant cast, its SUPER situational in PvP. Here, lemme help you:

 

Power Overrides: Missle Blast and Fusion Missle now costs 4/8 less heat while power barrier is active.

 

Hey now we have 3rd useful ability to kite with! Not just that, it won't be spammable because it requires power barrier to be active. And with Fusion missle not costing 1/4 of our heat, we can use it when we need to and not just when Power Surge/Thermal Sensor override is up. This also means we can use PS and TSO for i dunno, an instant cast TM, a free unload so we can manage our heat better and be able to USE those instant abilities to kite instead of spamming a weak Rapid shots.

 

How about it developers? Make Arsenal fun again! Pweez?

[TheHeat]

Arsenal was favored as dps in PvP because of its high burst potential.

 

This always bugs me. Arsenal has always been second tier in PvP for dps. If you were dominating with arsenal pre 1.2 it was because you weren't fighting people who knew how to play. I'm not trying to imply that Merc doesn't need a buff in PvP, but I just don't see how a -10% reduction of TM damage suddenly warrants a whine fest about how the mighty arsenal tree all of the sudden sucks in PvP. It's always sucked and the longer you embrace a non-mobile highly interruptable turret spec for PvP the longer you're you'll get shredded by players who know how to interrupt or line of sight you.

[Sookster]

I'm still kickin' it with my pyro merc.

[Werdan]

This always bugs me. Arsenal has always been second tier in PvP for dps. If you were dominating with arsenal pre 1.2 it was because you weren't fighting people who knew how to play. I'm not trying to imply that Merc doesn't need a buff in PvP, but I just don't see how a -10% reduction of TM damage suddenly warrants a whine fest about how the mighty arsenal tree all of the sudden sucks in PvP. It's always sucked and the longer you embrace a non-mobile highly interruptable turret spec for PvP the longer you're you'll get shredded by players who know how to interrupt or line of sight you.

 

Only bad players that got interrupted (EDIT and did nothing else) made the class suck. 1 button spammers that hardly ever used their other skills made the spec look terrible. I can't speak for other long time Merc/Commandos but it was rare for me not to use 15-20 different abilities per match. Whereas most of the bad ones were lucky to use 3-5. Heck, there was a video of a guy that ONLY used Tracer Missile an entire match and wound up with top damage.

 

The only way to fix the spec is to redo the entire tree and not make it so dependable on Tracer/Grav for so many things (armor debuff, damage reduction, HSM, Rail Shot, etc). Remove the damage reduction (Power Barrier) from TM and keep it Power Shot only. Allow Power Shot to add a heat signature and buff the damage. Keep Light 'Em Up for TM only. Make TM Instant but on a 12-15s CD and buff it's damage. Make Rail Shot Tech damage via a skill (for Merc only, not PT) or a skill that gives 10-30% chance for a second Rail Shot to fire. Buff Sweeping Blasters damage (reduce the cost as well) and add a slow to it, add an escape (I like the idea of an Intercede like Juggs have) and an interrupt or a third stun/mez.

 

Regardless of what they do, they need to add a few levels of difficulty to the spec. Having played a Merc (V65) since June beta last year until patch 1.1 in January, a Marauder (V88), Assassin (V64), Trooper (V55), and (work in progress) a Sniper(V23), I can tell you that DPS Merc/Commando is BY FAR the easiest class to learn in the entire game. It is quite literally rolling your face on the keyboard easy. It can still dish out good damage but, like Concealment Operatives nowadays, they are better off playing a more team oriented gamestyle instead of the lone wolf turret they used to be.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Werdan

[Sinsavz]

This always bugs me. Arsenal has always been second tier in PvP for dps. If you were dominating with arsenal pre 1.2 it was because you weren't fighting people who knew how to play. I'm not trying to imply that Merc doesn't need a buff in PvP, but I just don't see how a -10% reduction of TM damage suddenly warrants a whine fest about how the mighty arsenal tree all of the sudden sucks in PvP. It's always sucked and the longer you embrace a non-mobile highly interruptable turret spec for PvP the longer you're you'll get shredded by players who know how to interrupt or line of sight you.

 

That is nonsense. Pre 1.2 arsenal was an absolute wrecking ball, and the overall nerfs are way more than just 10% to tracer.

 

Not gonna talk about the state of arsenal right now cus it's such a tedious discussion, but to say "it always sucked" is just wrong. It was brilliant at what it did.

[Cempa]

Its not merc per say rather how much over buffed Marauders are right now its insane how much damage they do before they die...And dieing takes enough time to kill at least 2 Mercs.

[T-Assassin]

Its not merc per say...

 

not a Merc problem as much as it is an Arsenal PvP problem.

 

Arsenal is very viable, in the right hands, it's just that easy to counter when the opponent is > awake. if you don't get interrupted, Arsenal is great...that's a very big if, and a very bad opponent.

 

and it's "per se"

[TheHeat]

...and the overall nerfs are way more than just 10% to tracer.

 

Such as?

 

Arsenal is very viable, in the right hands, it's just that easy to counter when the opponent is > awake. if you don't get interrupted, Arsenal is great...that's a very big if, and a very bad opponent.

 

Right, but why would anyone want to rely on their opponents being asleep at the keyboard? I don't understand why the people on this forum are so bent on making our PvE tree (which is great in PvE, by the way) viable in PvP rather than focusing on the hard fact that our PvP tree is what needs real attention.

[Daiyukie]

Or nerf Pyro Powertech and give Pyro Merc some of them goodies.

[silvershadows]

Such as?

 

 

 

Right, but why would anyone want to rely on their opponents being asleep at the keyboard? I don't understand why the people on this forum are so bent on making our PvE tree (which is great in PvE, by the way) viable in PvP rather than focusing on the hard fact that our PvP tree is what needs real attention.

 

 

Because all specs should be viable in some way in pvp. Even if this means introducing pvp only abilities. You should NEVER be cornered into a spec you don't want to play because its the ONLY viable choice.

 

That said, I never have much trouble on my arsenal merc, and I have even less on my bodyguard merc.

[TyrellJonez]

Its not merc per say rather how much over buffed Marauders are right now its insane how much damage they do before they die...And dieing takes enough time to kill at least 2 Mercs.

 

That is largely correct, Pre 1.2 we had Jetboost on a 15 second CD timer. So when a marauder or PT jumped to you, it was Jetboost (causing a slow) then TM TM, HSM, RS and IF they were still alive, Rocket punch (another knockback) and run and kite till jetboost was up again and rinse and repeat till dead. Hutball was awesome for mercs cuz the smart ones sat on the top ledges and knocked anyone who came close into the pit below.

 

Now melee is the bees knees in pvp and everyone can interupt us all day and our defensive cooldowns are the worst in the game, we are easy targets to anyone paying attention to where that missle just came from.

 

Its not people, its the mechanics of the class. We RELY on Tracer Missle for....everything. Guess who isn't gunna let us cast it more than once? The thousands of people who cried "NERF TRACER MISSLE SPAM" and were heard by the Bioware gods.

 

And thus the Mercenaries were cast out....

[AcePortgas]

That is largely correct, Pre 1.2 we had Jetboost on a 15 second CD timer. So when a marauder or PT jumped to you, it was Jetboost (causing a slow) then TM TM, HSM, RS and IF they were still alive, Rocket punch (another knockback) and run and kite till jetboost was up again and rinse and repeat till dead. Hutball was awesome for mercs cuz the smart ones sat on the top ledges and knocked anyone who came close into the pit below.

 

Now melee is the bees knees in pvp and everyone can interupt us all day and our defensive cooldowns are the worst in the game, we are easy targets to anyone paying attention to where that missle just came from.

 

Its not people, its the mechanics of the class. We RELY on Tracer Missle for....everything. Guess who isn't gunna let us cast it more than once? The thousands of people who cried "NERF TRACER MISSLE SPAM" and were heard by the Bioware gods.

 

And thus the Mercenaries were cast out....

 

I like the way you describe the famous mercenary

[LyonsPride]

I do somewhat agree, i adapted to the nerfs by making my cycle more diverse, but the problem is the heat and my survivability. it is very hard to fend off against melee classes even with knockbacks, they need to buff flamethrower as a tool to use to keep them at bay, i no marauders are a different class, but they got 3 good pvp specs, we have 1, and its the one that everyone uses, healing as a merc has gone pointless since healing other mercs who have trouble killing people because of no real damage does not encourage me to heal or attempt to dps a healer who can heal them selves in no time because of a barrier.

[vimm]

Or nerf Pyro Powertech and give Pyro Merc some of them goodies.

 

Interrupt!