Mercenary Questions.

[Sollac]

leveling a toon up to replace my arms as i wanna try summat new.

having played shield spec whilst lvling and pole spec in rvr(as an arms obviously).

wondered:

with up coming changes in a few months do i spec:

DW - lvl 50 currently nerf but get better in 1.87

or shield - due to up coming parry and shield changes also in 1.87

or hybrid:

50 dw, 35 weapon, 42 shield, rest parry which seems to be the choice the yanks are taking atm.

obviously dw will have positionals and higher damage output, shield will provide better defence etc etc.

discuss:

 

[Agrigo]

It sounds like a good idea, but personally im just too lazy to have to manualy switch a shield in every time i want to slam something so id go the 42 into parry!
Oh and you would loose any charge you had in your offhand every time you switch weapon to shield.

 

[Sollac]

It sounds like a good idea, but personally im just too lazy to have to manualy switch a shield in every time i want to slam something so id go the 42 into parry!
Oh and you would loose any charge you had in your offhand every time you switch weapon to shield.

so you cant use qbar to change from shield to dw easily ?

thought it would be ok if main hand , shield and then off hand in 2hand slot?

I have a mythic respec so will try both.......
start off with 50 dw, 35 weapon rest parry
cheers

 

[Agrigo]

You cant, the Shield takes your offhand spot so you have to manually switch it from your inventory every time you want to slam!

There was talk iirc that they were working on some change to allow what your saying ...but nada yet!

 

[swords]

Pff just get used to ninja swapping, slam then own its as easy as that

 

[Cloudz]

I tried slam spec for awhile, Had its ups and downs, Dmg was less but having 9 second stun was nice.

Dont play anymore and havent read about these new changes so I have no idea what would be best

 

[phade]

I find 50 DW 39 weap and 42 parry works well for me.
Yeh you get 9sec stun with slam but with a high parry you can hit with the parry chain style reflection and hypnotic darkness which is a 8 sec stun.
So shy away from shield and leave that to the pallys and reavers.

 

[Manisch Depressiv]

Charge + slams + BLs + stoicism + det = good.

 

[Robin the Brave]

50 DW, 42 Shield and whatever weaponspec you need with rr to reach 51 for groups.

50 DW, whatever weaponspec you need with rr to reach 51 and rest parry for solo.. in 1.87

atm Dual shadows is totally gimped without 50 weapon spec and Dual Wield lacks a decent anytime so you pretty much need 50 weapon spec for that..

ofc in 1.87 even with 50 parry i doubt you could kill a heavy tank ;p

 

[raid]

i had 42 shield on my merc. had played zerker a lot with (obviously) no shield spec, and compared to that i think slam was really good. swapping sure sucks tho. no idea what the upcoming changes are, but as usual i doubt theyre anything groundbreaking ;O

 

[Sollac]

thanks all,

went for 50 dw, 39 weapon 42 parry 6 shield

very surprised at the attack/swing speed of the merc......

ventured out into rvr but got caught unbuffed and not fully armoured ...

have a mythic respec anyways so might try the slam route after a month or so.:england:

wondering why i didnt try one sooner

 

[AmeinoN]

50 slash 50dw was and will be the best dmg spec ever!

 

[uspe]

dunno how merc works with shield too. but
with DW i can say :
50 DW 50 (crush - thrust - slash ) rest parry.
i have tried 50 DW 50 parry rest crush i can say it was good. but with new patch parry gonna ger nerfed grrrrr

good luck with your merc soll

 

[uspe]

50 slash 50dw was and will be the best dmg spec ever!

yes if you have highlander merc.
h-o merc and the future minotaur merc. no believe me
crush is more...................outch!!!!!!!

i dueled once when my brighton merc was slash with a h-o crush merc. managed to reach his life 50% and i felt lucky before kissing the ground.

 

[MrBic]

dunno how merc works with shield too. but
with DW i can say :
50 DW 50 (crush - thrust - slash ) rest parry.
i have tried 50 DW 50 parry rest crush i can say it was good. but with new patch parry gonna ger nerfed grrrrr

good luck with your merc soll

Parry isnt getting nerfed.. its getting boosted.

From camelot herald
Shield

- A character's chance to block will no longer be penalized when facing a character who is dual wielding.

Parry

- A character's chance to Parry will no longer be penalized when facing a character who is wielding a two handed weapon.

- The penalty to parry when facing multiple attackers has been greatly reduced.

Evade

- A character's chance to evade will no longer be penalized when facing a character who is dual wielding.

Dont really get this

yes if you have highlander merc.
h-o merc and the future minotaur merc. no believe me
crush is more...................outch!!!!!!!

i dueled once when my brighton merc was slash with a h-o crush merc. managed to reach his life 50% and i felt lucky before kissing the ground.

Slash and Crush are both str based only. so if the H-O is better with crush it will be better with slash.


The diffrence in the races arent that huge if all went 15 str 10 qui at creation. H-O will have 406 str (fully buffed 101 str in template) but only 244 Qui with 101 qui in temp.
Higlander 386 str 254 qui
briton 376 str 264 qui..

HP diffrence isnt gonna be 1 swing of dmg even

Briton will only need to get 87 qui in temp.
H-O will still have to get aug qui 2 to get to/over 250 qui and that is if he manages to get 101 qui in template without gimping alot.
Highlander for me would be the best choice.. atleast going crush or slash,
The H-O will have roughly 75 more weap skill without any RA's. and the dmg shouldnt be that much higher on the H-O, the Highlander will evade and parry more.
The highlander will have easier to make a better temp (imo) without having to use very expensive items.

The H-O will reach 400+ str easier tho and wont have to buy any aug str to do so.

H-O's are ugly as h**l and the cloaks dont cover up their big asses

Minotaurs starting stats are similar to H-O's but with 10 less str,con and 10 more dex..

 

[Martok]

with my merc i only lost to 1-2 HO mercs.

dont know much about the gimps or new patchs im afraid but crush and slash are both str based. what people lack in str they can make up for in quick it all = out in teh end some are better with dmg over time some are better with 1 mass hit every few secounds!

 

[Manisch Depressiv]

Chain has an advantage vs Crush, that's it.

 

[Fahdlan]

you lose to everyone Martok ;< ;x

 

[Konah]

h-o merc and the future minotaur merc. no believe me
crush is more...................outch!!!!!!!

i dueled once when my brighton merc was slash with a h-o crush merc. managed to reach his life 50% and i felt lucky before kissing the ground.

Duelling isn't RvR. Overall slash is best, unless all you ever fight is mids. Crush stun chain wastes too much damage/time. A low damage 2 part chain to land a short duration stun when you coulda just killed them outright with 2xbackslash or backslash+flank.

Slam is a good option for interrupt bot duties... but then so is a heretic ;p

 

[Manisch Depressiv]

Slam is a good option for interrupt bot duties... but then so is a heretic ;p

I agree, Heretic is a good interrupter, but a stoicism/det with tank with charge and banelords can run in and slam easily half of the group, especially those people running with purge 1 only (and most Druids/damage casters seem to go low purge from my experience) and if they purge, they are open to root/mezz, if they don't purge the group is mostly likely dead.

Armsman can fill a similar role, can't AoE interrupt while slamming but has fury and better magical resists.

2 slammers even better for the group as it's not as easily BG'ed as against one slammer.