Pondering about a shieldmercenary, discuss please

[Misleath]

I have been considering a shieldmercenary instead of a ordinary mercenary with 50 weapon 50 dualwield 28 parry.

I would do autotraining and my final spec would be:
50 Weapon (Slash, Thrust or Crush haven't decided)
42 Shield (Slam, duh)
41 Dualwield (As high as you get with 42 shield)
6 Parry (Stupid leftover points)


Considering what you lose:
Some dual wield points (don't know exact effectivity of this, please enlighten me if you know exact effects of this).
44 DW Style (Stunstyle which is followup to parry, worthless)
50 DW Style (Very nice style which you will miss)
Low Parry (Could give a rats arse about this in RvR)

Considering what you gain:
The ability to switch to using shield guarding your sorcerer, cleric whatever in group.
The ability to slam targets (9s stun is broken)


Please discuss and give feedback on this.

[Retrakith]

Well, obviously your damage won't be to the maximum, and the follow up from parry is nice atleast in PvE anyway as it gives a stun, this spec might work quite well, I don't know anyone that has tried it so it might be worth a shot hehe, I'd say it's a good idea and should try it out.

About weapon type, I'd say slash, easier for levelling and also the near-by ToA is here, and has a nice weapon (forgot the name)
Anyway goodluck and say what you decide, and if it works

[Derric]

Let the paladin do the guarding,mercs are there to deal damage. ;o

[Misleath]

I forgot to write here: This is purely a RvR discussion not a PvE spec at all (altho it is easier to get groups if you got shield than if you dualwield) and I would do it with powerlevling and autotraining so I would have worthless weaponspec up to 48 anyway

Originally Posted by Derric

Let the paladin do the guarding,mercs are there to deal damage. ;o

I don't know if that was a joke but when paladin is mezzed he won't do so much guarding, and I think that slamming is pretty good in assist train and then switch to DW.

The real interesting question is if their is a big difference between 41 and 50 DW.

[Garok]

The Point of Shield Merc is slam then DW .. but swapping between Shield and lefthand wep requires swapping Weps on your Paper Doll (inventery) which is a pain and impractical in RvR (was ment to be solved a while ago but Mythic then said mercs arn't supposed to spec shield!)

If you fancy rolling a S&B / damage dealer best bet is Hybrid Arms

50 Pole/2h Best Styles

42 Shield Slam

29 Slash Anytime

Cant rember how much left for parry ..

With the new All Mele Bonuses should be easier to cap stats ...

[Corran]

Spec sucks to put it simply. Hendrick from OotKT tried it out on a stupidly drunken respec and regretted doing it.
For rvr merc is purely their for damage.
So tbh you should go with standard 50, 50, 28...
or 50 50 27 +rest shield for engage

oh and 1vs1 encounters in RvR the dw stun chain of parry is actually nice to get in there

[Derric]

I wasn't joking,if paladin gets mezzed he can either use Purge or slap the minstrel.

[Escape]

You may aswell go crush-spec and get the 6sec stun. Sure, slam is better but you'll do more damage with a full DW+Crush merc... and with the stun being 2nd in chain, you're less likely to hit bladeturn as you would with slam.

If you still go with a hybrid merc, 50DW and 41weapon-spec would be better, imo.



P.S. You can assign weaponslots to the keyboard now, for easy weapon/instrument switching.

[Danhyr]

also with crush and chain you kinda look like a cleric.. then u give em a surprise

[Beck]

Hmm.. not sure my half-ogre crush merc would pass as a cleric tbh.

[Sycho]

It's not worth it because you do not get any mob and there is no plans for it aswell as having a 6s stun in crush line, just spec that if you want a stun, doesn't really matter what race and spec you are, a merc is a very nice class.(though i wish i was 15 str 10 con half ogre crush :E )

That spec isn't bad if you can play it effectively though, if you enjoy it who cares what anyone thinks Oo

[Phusion]

Originally Posted by Derric

I wasn't joking,if paladin gets mezzed he can either use Purge or slap the minstrel.

most people forget that a paladin can intercept a target which is being dmgd aswell to break mezz :S

[Nxs]

Ignore what some have said here - if you have the time, and are interested to try a different spec then go for it.

Theres still too much cookie-cutter spec'd players, ok so there cookie-cutter for a reason, but wheres the fun in that ?

[Ivan]

Was levelling a shield merc and gave up at level 25, the way i see a mercenary in RvR is pure offense ... it is very likely you will not have time for a slam because the target was already slammed by a paladin. For PvE it is even worse as theres an excess of shield tanks there. To summ up RvR utility goes slightly up <but so does the number of things to do> while PvE utility goes down due to lower damage and wasted points on shield <as you wont be getting hit due to paladins doing what they are supposed to>.

PS: what Nxs said and Yeah all said go 50 shield to me <levelling my paladin> as a result i ended up with 42 shield 33 parry enjoying it alot although i do curse the fact that i dont have any off-parry styles.

[Rookiescot]

Try here mate ...... been discused a lot.

http://pub79.ezboard.com/flighttanksofdaocfrm2