Weekly Discussion 79: Mercenaries. Discuss!

[GM ColdSpark]

Happy Sunday everyone! Last week we had a power-infused discussion about the Incarnate system. Great ideas were put forward - Writeup is here.

 

This week it's Mercenaries. Whether they've been to the stormtrooper school of shooting like the A-Team, rock some incredible 80's haircuts like Chuck or are simply amazing like The Wild Geese, Mercenaries evoke conversation it seems.

 

Weekly discussion 78 Week 28th Nov till 5th Dec 2020

YOU VOTED: Let's talk about - Mercenaries

 

Things to think about:

• What you like
• What don't you like
• How you'd change them if you were passed the developer wand of power

 

Standard reminder - keep it respectful folks. Don't make me send the Seven Samurai after you please 😇

Edited November 29, 2020 by GM ColdSpark

[PeregrineFalcon]

I wish I'd realized that this weekly discussion was going to be about mercs, I wouldn't have started a thread about it just a few days ago. My fault, I should have been paying better attention.

 

Anyway, my suggestions:

1) One fix would be to add some serious damage resistance to Equip Mercenary and some defense to Tactical Upgrade. This would make them tank-y compared to other MM pets. So it becomes the low damage/high survival MM set. This allows this set to be one where the MM can focus more on their secondary rather than their primary. Perfect for a support character.

 

2) Another low effort fix would be to add stacking damage buffs to Equip Mercenary and Tactical Upgrade. So they do lots of damage but they're still kinda squishy. Once again this solves the issue of this set being undesirable without requiring a lot of effort on the dev's part.

 

3) Turning Serum into a PBAoE that affects all pets, just like the various Mastermind upgrade powers and Force Field bubbles work now, would make this into a power that people would actually take.

[Clave Dark 5]

I thought we covered this one already?  I guess IO was hanging out on the MM forum too much, seen this chewed around several time by now.  😃

 

So um, yeah, they kind of suck but I still like them because one of my very first 50s back on live was an Merc MM.  Somewhere elsewhere on these forums a very knowledgeable and smart poster put up a good thread about how the rifle animations the Mercs use need to be upgraded to those that players use, and detailed how that alone would make them a better pet set choice.  I liked that suggestion a lot.

[screemer]

well lets start with the solders i guess

https://imgur.com/cmXunwV

these do not seem that bad. some weirdness with them having assault rifle heavy burst in both equip mercs and tac upgrade so they have it twice o.O. full auto is only 5 degree cone even thugs figured out how to make there pistols 30 degree. give one toxin rounds and one cold rounds so they are more debuff like maybe to fit in with the spec ops better

 

medic

https://i.imgur.com/Jpd9VOt.png

really does not get alot to do. still spends all day with stimulant as it can only keep 3 up at a time make it a area affect. or just scrap him for a 3rd soldier

 

Spec ops

https://i.imgur.com/nAtDbdn.png

The real disappoint here. rifle but as a upgrade eh give them that instead of brawl maybe make web grenade a aoe. they get a snipe yay to bad it does not do snipe worthy damage. give them a cone to replace brawl or make snipe snipeworthy. flashbang and teargas need to be 20- 30 sec cd's at most now the de buffs are worth something

 

Commando

https://i.imgur.com/Oqm53FF.png

and you thought spec ops were disappointing. full auto even the soldiers figured out how to do it more then once a minute. 4 FULL MINUTES on the lrm rocket what the actual fuck. you can double this speed by resummoning him with a 2 min cd rofl for a 4 min cd that rocket needs to be like 7000 damage so its atleast meme worthy at nuking packs or something

 

they all need to beefed up if they are going to be normal dudes taking on supers they should have fancy ammo toss there debuff grenades more and look badass doing it

Edited November 29, 2020 by screemer

[Greycat]

Well, *this* one's going to be popular... 🙂 I'm predicting some mention of Serum in 85-90% of initial posts...

Including mine, since it's one of the times I actually agree with general logic that it's "skippable."  The idea of making it an AOE... ok, maybe.

 

I like these for being security/paramilitary themed, they really fit some character concepts well. They're fairly straightforward, mostly ranged, you pretty much know what to expect.

 

The T1s are one time I wish the "odd man out" had slotting of his own. If I want to slot so Medic's heal is enhanced, it's wasted on the other two T1 soldiers. (Unlike, say, slotting the T2 'bots for defense or end use, or the Thugs T1s, since they all do the same thing, essentially.)

 

While we're on the medic - he's a medic. He knows his chemicals. Remove the frag grenade from him in favor of, say, toxic grenades, doing a debuff on the enemy and perhaps having a small chance to stun.

 

Just a couple of thoughts.

[Take One]

I just like to add that I think the aesthetics of the t1 soldiers is silly. They look like WW2 Marines about to storm Normandy, and not like modern soldiers at all. Ideally they should be unique models like thugs, each with some individuality to them.

[CrudeVileTerror]

I've harped on a particular idea for a while, so I'll link to one of the latest versions of that suggestion:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/23864-weekly-discussion-76-noticeably-underpowered-sets-what-needs-an-emergency-buff/?tab=comments#comment-288610

The short of it:  

- Swap Medic for a 3rd standard Soldier

- Swap Serum for a standalone Medic

- Swap Medic's Frag Grenade for an AoE Crashless Serum Buff with reduced numbers adjusted to reflect its new nature

I think this would preserve the Mercenaries Set's thematic elements and marginally increase the damage output to bring it up from dead-last.  It would also give the Set a tiny improvement to Bodyguard (a smidge over 2.2%).

This would also open the door for Mastermind Archetype Enhancements to be slotted in to one more Power, while preserving the Slotting options for Serum in the new Medic Power.

Overall, improvements, without being ridiculously overpowered.

 

 

 

But whatever solution is eventually settled on, I would just like to stress that Mercenaries is my main villainess' Primary, and I am a huge fan of the "death from a million pin pricks" coupled with the decent (although, could be better!) Control and Debuffs.  I certainly don't want an obsessive pursuit of DPS/DPA to obfuscate the existing themes and strengths of the Set, like what just happened with Touch of Fear.

[Zepp]

Mercenaries:

 

Aesthetics: Very white, very male. It would be nice to have some variety on these two fronts at least. In general, they look mercenary enough, but uniform color tinting, and gender/racial diversity would make them better.

 

Pet powers: Acceptable, but minor tweaks would make them better. Removing animation times and changing medic's frag grenade to a toxic grenade would seem appropriate. They could use some secondary effects beyond Commando's KB. Maybe decrease the cooldown for Commando's Rocket Launcher or have him use his flamethrower more. They tend to be slower but safer than other sets.

 

Pet upgrades: Not much to say here. Although Serum is going to be controversial. Unless you throw a Detonator on your pet the crash makes it fairly useless.

 

Personal powers: Probably the most skippable of all MM personal power sets. Thematically it fits, and unlike AR it is on scale with other MM personal powers. However, it doesn't have a visual aesthetic or a secondary effect that make it appealing enough to take these powers.

 

Overall, they have have traded damage for survival, but perhaps they could get a little of that damage back.

[Sakura Tenshi]

Off the cuff and in a vacuum from other great ideas that have been posited here and in the past...

 

Overall I feel like Mercs should be the jack of all trades and set the standard of MM primaries. A little bit of everything but no mastery. Some ways I might do this would be:

 

1. Replace the cones on Soldiers’ Full Auto with targeted AoEs. This might help increased damage output consistency as it takes too much micro management to get AI controlled pets to make full use of cones.
2. cut the recharge time in half for Soldier’s full auto, spec ops flash bangs, spec ops web grenades, spec ops snipe, and Commando LRM.
3. replace spec ops web grenade with the new toxic web grenade to give some damage diversity, similarly add some minor toxic damage over time to spec ops tear gas
4. Medic Medkit now is a targeted AoE to give it some additional strength. (I don’t know how strong the heal is, I do assume it’s weaker than protector bots heal)
5. commando’s flamethrower now leaves ignite fire patches
6. All mercenaries now have a scaling damage resistance to smash/lethal up to 24.75%, and all other damage types up to 17.5% (representing a mix of body armor and training)

gag idea:

• the Commando is now replaced with special Allied agent Tanya Adams. She carries dual pistols, C4 charges, and is immune to control powers.
• her dual pistols deal damage based on the target enemy’s rank and on a percentage base. (Minions and underlings take -100% HP, lieutenants take -20% HP per shot, bosses take -15% per-shot)
• against Elite bosses and stronger Tanya will instead place a C4 charge on them and run, the C4 charge will explode after 1.5 seconds dealing extreme (approximately tier 4 core incarnate judgement damage) fire/lethal damage to the eb/av/GM and all enemies around it.

[zenijos10]

Some crazy ideas:

 

A. Take Cover:

Get rid of Serum totally.  Replace it with "Cover Generator".

When mercs are near it they get +def, +regen +range and +acc.  It doesnt move, once you cast it, thats where it is.

 

B. Toxic weapons:

Add a little toxic damage to all attacks.  They're well compensated and the future risk of using these kinds  of weapons is worth the pay today.

 

C. True Medic:

Medic is unkillable like certain lore pets.  Does no damage, healing slightly increased can half health rez the player on a long timer.

 

D. Terrible Idea Everyone will immediataly (and rightly) disagree with:

Their mercenaries right?  They're in it for the pay.  Use influence to buff them, call it hazard pay.  +50 damage,  1/2 influence earned goes to mercs.

Edited November 30, 2020 by zenijos10

[ZorkNemesis]

I played Mercenaries on Live.  Launch day CoV character was a Mercs/Traps.  Oh boy was it rough, and while I saw value in the variety of debuffs the set comes with, they're not potent and their cooldowns are far too long.  Plus general pet stupidity.

 

The Soldiers are pretty weak.  Burst and Heavy Burst just aren't strong and I recall hearing their values were actually pulled from the Family guns, which also suck.  Their Full Auto is also junk, long animation for lots of 1s, at least the Commando does 6s with his ticks.  The Medic is nice for the stimulants but the heals are too weak to be effective, even with an SO heal in the power my Aid Other was more potent unenhanced.  Not to mention the Medic loves to aggro everything with his hand grenade, resulting in him dying first in every encounter.

 

Spec Ops aren't bad.  Long cooldowns on Flash and Teargas don't help their cases however.  They also love to run in to clock people with their rifles, but I understand that got fixed a few months ago and now they only do it as an opportunistic attack.

 

Commando I don't really have a problem with, aside from long animations and an abysmally long recharge on the missile.

 

On the positive side, I do love the fact that of you focus the guys on a single enemy you can basically remove their defense.  Counting your own version of Burst, you have twelve quick -Def powers in rapod succession, resulting in enemies experiencing that cascade defense failure that you usually see fighting Longbow, though all that lethal damage is still scratch damage in the end.  I also appreciated the Spec Ops and their crowd control abilities, though hate how long it takes for them to use more.  Flashes and Gas just have too long a cooldown, and they love to burn both at the same time.

 

I haven't played Mercs since live, I got so discouraged by then (and Mastermind playstyle in general) that I never even got it to 50.  I would have hoped they do better but they just suck.  They underperformed horribly, their best powers take too long to recharge, and the damage is so heavily resisted you may as well be pelting mobs with rocks instead.

 

Also, obligatory Serum is complete trash.  Way too long a recharge for a negligible effect that also causes the one pet to suffer an endurance crash.

[Zepp]

Thought I should post this here.

 

[Monos King]

20 hours ago, screemer said:

they all need to beefed up if they are going to be normal dudes taking on supers they should have fancy ammo toss there debuff grenades more and look badass doing it

Agreed.

[Coyote]

One thing that bothers me about them is that special ops soldiers taking on supers should probably be using more grenades and traps than just unloading bullets. I'd like to see them all get a low-damage Grenade with a chance to knockdown. That will help with both their damage and survivability, if they're regularly putting out knockdown AoEs.

 

That, and fix the rifle animations to be shorter bursts, and balance-wise they'll be a lot better.

 

Serum does need a fix, change, or something. Whether it becomes Triage Beacon, or a short-term PBAoE buff to them, right now it's so skippable that I don't even recall seeing it used. Ever.

[KC4800]

Replace Serum with a "Fortify Pack"-like power. Call it whatever you like. Make it give defense and resistance instead of Defense and Regeneration(what Fortify Pack buffs in Beast Mastery). This would require the ability to build a "Pack Mentality" that can be consumed.  I can see it as the MM, through using his own attacks, leads and builds a team comradery through his actions, making his henchmen want to work harder.

 

Take away the useless weapon redraw of the gun animations is also a good idea.

[Black Zot]

Serum, no matter what you do with it, will be a trash power so long as it has that crash at the end.  NO power in this game (or ANY game) is strong enough to justify a crash.  Of course, Serum is terrible even without it.  It either needs the cooldown lowered or to be AoE ... or both, maybe.

 

The mercs themselves are another mess - all lethal damage plus the extra penalties pets face for being downleveled means you'll be seeing more 1s than every other number combined.  In exchange for that, they're supposedly one of the more survivable sets.  HahahahaNO they aren't.  Lower the cooldowns on some of their bigger attacks to the point where you can actually remember they have them, and give them enough resists for it to matter, and you (hopefully) end up with a workable powerset.

[357trall]

I would like to see the medic go away and be replaced with a third soldier. Make it so the soldiers start out with assault rifles(instead smg) and get a first aid kit and rifled grenades(that way they can stay at range) as they get upgraded.

 

Spec ops, turn one into a sergeant.  The sergeant could have leadership skills, but otherwise be similiar to a soldier. The spec ops could have it's web grenade/flash bang/tear gas be aoe(I haven't seen them affect more then one target).

 

I don't know about the commando, just seems like tougher soldier with a flamethrower and a bottlerocket right now.

 

Serum is pretty worthless with it increaseing attack and hit by 7.5%, affecting only one target and having a long cooldown. Right now my mastermind is mercs/nature and I use wild growth and overgrowth, it gives 50% attack and hit( I think) 11% resistance ,and 150% regenerate(don't really remember) to all my mercs and character. It's not permant but has like 30 seconds between recasts, I think something like this could give inspiration to what serum could be.

 

Also I would like to see mastermind attacks be able to slot ATOs, right now only the pets can. Would be nice if the upgrade powers could hold the aura IOs, atleast the recharge pet ones.

[Galaxy Brain]

I think what absolutely should happen is the Medic becoming a separate pet with it's own version of an AoE serum it can provide. You get it at lvl 18 anyways so its barely even a change there. The medic should have limited offensive potential as described in @Monos King and I's rework, and ideally it should have some sort of cone or other AoE attack that spreads a debuff like the proposed Suppressive Fire. 

 

The soldiers can then get a 3rd actual source of damage and should be the rank and file minions that provide lots of -Def and lots of dots. I'd say they could stand to have Frag Grenade too somewhere in their arsenal on a long cooldown since there would be three of them (and also should make grenades hit harder when they do toss em).

 

Spec Ops likewise need cooldowns shortened to where their controls are up almost every mob if not every mob. When they work, they're great. Its just you only get them like every 4th encounter if not less. Adding in actual snipe damage and exotic damage here would be nice too.

 

The Commando I feel should be the heavy damage, though burn patches are overdone for MM pets. Making it into an actual death machine for both AoE and ST would be nice so you have an actual blaster on the team would be sick. Hell, make him a little squishy since you have a medic on-deck along with Serum.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Lancek]

They look horrible compared to the Malta

[Hedgefund]

I confess to not reading prior comments, so I'll possibly be posting thoughts already conveyed.

 

This is fresh on my mind, Mercs was a recent "grind to 50 then take all iPowers to t4" so I spent a good amount of time with these dudes.

 

One word sums it up - damage. 

 

Make it two words - pitiful damage.

 

Every fight was a slog.  I can't provide numbers but I've seen them elsewhere on the forums in this regard and Mercs were just abysmal.

 

On to other things.

 

Serum - may be the worst utility power any MM has.  I took it, muled some resist uniques in it and called it a day.  Something with a 60 second uptime with a 1,000 (THOUSAND) second recharge better be an amazing power.  It ain't.  I'd probably use it just for yucks if not for the crash but I'd rather have a minion stay active than 60 seconds of "god mode" followed by a period of thumb twiddling.

 

Serum may have more utility if one pet could do tanker duties but they can't.  So, outside of "cottaging" Serum, my suggestion would be A#1 - take away the crash.  Nerf the resists if needed.  Heck, nerf it more and make it aoe.  Suggested change - mag protections = 4, resists = let's say 20 (as a starting point).  Set recharge = 400 or 360.

 

I'm finding it hard to elucidate my issues with the medic.  The utility he adds just seems suspect.  

 

Just so I'm not a completely negative Nelly - the Commando has my favorite entrance of any MM minion.

 

Also I found M30 to be a good opener that's good for proccing.  I never took the two ST attacks.

[Zepp]

Hmm... was thinking if the Medic replaced Serum (as an untargetable pet with no attacks that could heal and hand out a crashless serum), could he/she be replaced by something like a Malta Operative Engineer or Sky Raider Engineer?

[WumpusRat]

Mercenaries have a lot of problems when it comes to what they're meant to really do. Some of the key factors being the low durability compared to some other pet sets, the incredibly lackluster level 18 ability, the commando's insane cooldowns, and the fact that they do purely lethal damage. 

 

Some suggestions I'd have to change them around:

 

1) Remove the medic from the tier-1 pets and just give them a third soldier. 

2) Slightly improve their resists (they're wearing body armor and gear, it should provide some small amount of elemental protection as well)

3) Give the spec-ops a group damage buff similar to the Thug Enforcers leadership and reduce the cooldowns on their CC abilities slightly

4) Replace Serum with a new pet power: Medic, a soldier equipped with a sidearm (just a ranged basic attack) and Aid Other, Injection, Aid Self, and perhaps a small +regen aura. This would also open up another power to put pet auras into, something Mercenaries is lacking in (as are several other sets, who should get something similar).

5) Reduce the cooldown for the commando's LRM and Full Auto abilities to 24 seconds each, rather than 240 (!) and 60.

 

As another option, since Merc damage is so lackluster without the Achilles Heel proc (which, since the set doesn't have a 4th pet power, means you're eating into your pet damage even more), perhaps giving the 32nd level upgrade something like "Armor Piercing Ammunition: -10% resist debuff" or something.

Edited December 1, 2020 by WumpusRat

[Monos King]

Already said everything I needed to say in GB and I's thread performance wise (link above), but I wanted to echo potential cosmetic changes. Giving the medic (as the level 18 power) a makeover and changing the soldiers too would be a good idea. I'll just recap absolute needs.

1. 3 soldiers, medic becomes special pet
2. Vastly lower activation times
3. Add greater debuff variety (-res, -special etc)
4. Medic gets serum
5. Serum changed to affect multiple pets (method can vary)

Edited December 1, 2020 by Monos King

[xl8]

Some1 once suggested making the Medic a stand alone power. @crudevileterror echoed it above. I like this one.

I'd also have him apply serum (PBAoE) with no crash, rather than serum be its own power.

 

There's some really good suggestions in here already...

On 11/29/2020 at 4:59 AM, PeregrineFalcon said:

One fix would be to add some serious damage resistance to Equip Mercenary and some defense to Tactical Upgrade. This would make them tank-y compared to other MM pets. So it becomes the low damage/high survival MM set. This allows this set to be one where the MM can focus more on their secondary rather than their primary. Perfect for a support character.

But they do tend to lean towards meeting the standard rather than being interesting.

 

I'd personally like to see the Mercs MM gain the option to choose to upgrade pets as different special forces; low damage/high survival (battalion), medium damage/buff (covert ops), or all out damage/low survival (marines). These could be within the power choices themselves (pick one, rest grayed out) or be like a swap ammo power. This is in effect the way the MM's stances work, but taking it a step further to compensate for mercs' weaknesses.

[Monos King]

9 minutes ago, xl8 said:

I'd personally like to see the Mercs MM gain the option to choose to upgrade pets as different special forces; low damage/high survival (battalion), medium damage/buff (covert ops), or all out damage/low survival (marines). These could be within the power choices themselves (pick one, rest grayed out) or be like a swap ammo power. This is in effect the way the MM's stances work, but taking it a step further to compensate for mercs' weaknesses.

That'd be cool, and in the future I'm all for it. People have been tending to lean towards the standard since we can't do anything radical or different from the general MM format yet. We'd be seeing that happen for every single MM, and a mastermind archetype revamp would be so large it would likely be an entire issue. But I like that idea anyway.

 

I had a couple of ideas for swap ammo though, and as far as that goes alone I think that could happen now.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Monos King