Mercenaries need to go core!

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goetzjam#3084 wrote:

IDK about infinitely more desirable, not everyone plays crit and there are other sources of culling strike in the game.

You forget permanent fortify. You are hard-pressed to find a merc skillset that outperforms perma fortify, 50% crit multi, and culling strike in a single item. While ALSO retaining all the buffs and skills that merc is already carrying. And mercs do a pretty damn impressive job staying within radius of you without you even needing to use that "to me" skill.

Add to that the broken perquil toe / doryani and you are left with 90% of all mercenary choices simply being the WRONG choices. Objectively...wrong. You can choose to use others, but you'd be objectively choosing to get less. You are allowed to do that, ofc. But its like running a 500 dps weapon when you have a 700 dps weapon in your stash.


Sure, there are other sources of things. But the point is that you don't need those other sources. It isn't just about "I don't need that on my merc, I can get it by doing/equipping xyz": its about what having all that on your merc opens up for your build.

Also....animate guardian is incomparable: on a non-minion build, an AG basically needs a 4L on its own to stay alive in fairly basic content. My AG has the best possible items it can have, defensive and offensive, lvl 21 with global +2, in a 4L with all three defense minion supports (life, meat, resist), automated recall.....and it dies to t16 harbingers. It is completely unreliable in juiced content or t17 mapping. It is much more reliable to put the buffs you want and need the most on your practically unkillable merc, and not waste any skill slots.



Mercenaries are a poorly designed, supercharged revisit to oldschool offhand stat-sticks. They need to never see the light of wraeclast again when this league ends. People like them now because of the absolutely obscene levels of power they give you......but you need to take a step back and look at what they truly mean for the game, and what they do to the game.

Hell....crucible and original harvest should come back long before Mercenaries ever go core. And since neither of those will ever happen....

no, mercs are mega broken. WAY too much power creep

Rather than wearing normal items maybe mercs could wear a few pieces of "merc gear" like the heist rogues have "heist gear"? Lower the effect of their auras and maybe you'd have something balanced.

I just think they're going to be removed since it's too much of a headache to balance around.

Mercs in the Diablo II LoD expansion were probably one of my favoirate additions. I'd love to see them go core.

That said, they probably need to be re-worked pretty heavily to be "helpful" rather than such a massive source of power. In other places I'd theory-crafted some ideas, and I don't need to retype them here.

So, hopefully we can see them again after a substantial second-pass that makes them more sane.

I dunno if it's been said here I've honestly not read every post in this thread, got about half way.

Personally I'd love to see Merc's go core, but not in the way most would think,..

I could see them in core as a instanced random chance per map. Meaning you randomly find them in your map Like a non-spcec'd chance for any other league content on your Atlas Passives. Maybe there are passives associated to them for more chance of encounter, better gear, ect, ect... Their gear would be static, and skills random as they are now based on the base class of the Merc: Str/Int/Dex or any combination there of.

This would give some cool stat boost while say jucing:

"Hey cool, in my SUPER JUICED T17 I got a Merc with Determination / Vitality / Enduring Cry, This maps gonna be Hella Fun!"

Or maybe you find a Merc for that super Juiced map with Hella Increased Item Rarity ..

Otherwise I can't see the Aura Bot Merc being a well balanced sidekick in core for a very very long time...

I would pay for more merc slots.

Got to catch them all.

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zakalwe55#2432 wrote:

I would pay for more merc slots.

Got to catch them all.

Wholeheartedly agreed. Three isn't nearly enough for all the builds I still want to play.

I hope mercenary go to core and already post a purposal here
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3818014

in short, to gain access to mercenary. you need to put unique mercenary abyss jewel in an item to access mercenary but it will disable your animate guardian.

and you will gain unlimited stock of mercenary builds because it bound to a jewel.

mercenary is tradable and searchable in trade site.

I'm convinced people who are pro mercs are completely out of touch.

The only conceivable way that mercs wouldn't break the core game is if they are not allowed to equip any interesting items. No Doryani's prototypes. No perquil's toes. No Defiance of Destinys. You get the point.

I don't want a core game where lightning builds do 12x the damage of everything else. And if you do, you need to get off your keyboard.

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PrimordialDarkness#3913 wrote:

I'm convinced people who are pro mercs are completely out of touch.

The only conceivable way that mercs wouldn't break the core game is if they are not allowed to equip any interesting items. No Doryani's prototypes. No perquil's toes. No Defiance of Destinys. You get the point.

I don't want a core game where lightning builds do 12x the damage of everything else. And if you do, you need to get off your keyboard.

sure some combinations are broken and need to be addressed but overall is a nice addition that many including me would like to see going core.