I think it gets a bad rap because of the high number of mercs who aren't just spamming it to stack for unload, but spamming it because that's all they know.

 

I've lost track of the number of times I've interrupted a tracer spammer, and they literally just stand still for 4 seconds, never cast anything else, because they're so confused that their 1 button doesn't work

Exactly this. I've interupted one only to have them wait a few seconds... hit it again, interupt again... have them wait. Read the skill descriptions for other skills! You should always be prepared for an interupt with something else in your arsenal.

Read your other skills. Put some thought and strategy into your game. How fun could it possibly be to just hit one button over and over again?

- 50 jugg main, 50 merc alt

people act like everyone who plays a merc designed the class to be stupid. Well i have news for you! we had no idea how stupid it was going to be when we rolled it, but now we have a 50 and we arent going to delete it just because of tracer missile!

I run the 24/17/x werdan spec which is gold, but when there is no healing to be done, yes i have to tracer spam. I say have to because if my knockbacks are on cooldown there is little else to do. As a hybrid spec there is no buff to unload and railshot has always been little more than garbage in my eyes.

tl;dr heal spec is the only decent merc spec until you have the gear to make pyro viable,

but its not our fault the class "takes less skill" than other classes! we didnt know!

Two knockbacks, a ranged stun and a shield with interrupt immunity sounds pretty decent to me.

Interrupt immunity on shield is heal spec, not arsenal spec

Read your other skills. Put some thought and strategy into your game. How fun could it possibly be to just hit one button over and over again? You aren't using your classes full potential if you just use one skill. I am sure there are DOTs, CCs, etc. that you could be applying instead of just Tracers over and over... and over... and over... and over. As an Immortal spec'd Juggernaut I think I use anywhere from 15-20 skills regularly.

We only have 5 other single target ranged abilities:

1 stun 60s cooldown

1 finisher move 15s cooldown

1 channeled 15s cooldown

1 rail shot, needs to have tracer applied or we cant even shoot it 15s cooldown

1 rapid shots, our no cost ability that does very little damage

We have like 6 aoes which we all use when you fools group up, 2 heals, a mez (very situational in pvp), outside of this we have 2 melee abilities one we all spec for a 4 meter knockback on so its useful in huttball and useless everywhere else - the other doesn't work in pvp, of the two other ranged abilities we have 1 is far too high of a heat usage (25% of our power for 1600 damage when it crits) and power shot which is replaced by Tracer Missile...

What do you people want arsenal mercs to cast? After 1-2 tracer missiles, i only cast tracer when the rest of my single target abilities are on cooldown...which is still very often

I've got a 50, but been leveling up a Vanguard.

In the 10-49 bracket, I'm 44 now and there's ALWAYS 1-2 49 twink Mercenaries. ALL they do is Tracer Missile spam, even though they have other skills. If I interrupt their Tracer Missile every once in awhile I'll see an Unload, but that's it.

Aside from their idiocy they still spam 2500 damage attacks on heavy armor, and in the 10-49 bracket you've only got 11500-12000 health.

I have to agree that the mechanic is a bit broken. I don't exactly blame mercs for tracer missile spam. It's almost as if Bioware intended you to do it.

Arsenal talent line pretty much screams 'Tracer Missile'. You get the skill and talents that improve with your use of Tracer Missle or at least work closely with it.

I believe it was poorly designed and not to mention a boring mechanic. They should have thought of up of something else then an entire line devoted to just one skill. Of course everyone is going to freaking spam it!

Like I said I don't blame Commando's or Mercs for using Tracer Missles or Grav Rounds. I do however blame the morons who don't know how to interrupt. If it bothers them so much then clearly they aren't playing their class right. I've found that most mercs I've encountered go in to a state of shock or at least *** when I interrupt their tracer missile spam.

You're not being bashed, the classes themselves are being bashed. Big difference.

See the issue is really the perception that most commandos and mercenaries are newbs at PVP because they don't use any other skills when interrupted (indicating they are clickers and totally baffled by being interrupted). Those same people can wipe the floor with a lot of other classes just due to how beastly OP the armor debuff on tracer spam is combined with the critical damage set bonus.

This leads to "no-skilled newbs with a lot of power" syndrome and unfortunately decent PVPers are lumped together with the freeloaders.

I would argue that in higher level PvP it's the hardest class to play because we're constantly getting stunned/interrupted and then we have nothing we can do.

LOL sorry man but this is a joke. Well firstly, yes it is a massively boring class because of the spam I rolled PT just because I didnt want to be a spammer. But you are one of the easiest classes out there TO PLAY so atleast be happy for that. Even in melee range of a jedi tracer spam will lead you to victory, and if you ever need to toss a couple heals on yourself you have those just to make it a more easy class. When interrupted, use unload/rail shot. If they interrupt unload, spam tracer. If your having trouble playing a merc then your definitly doing something wrong, they are broken beyond belief.

Who hates em? I eat Mercs with my Marauder anytime of the day.

The words, 'Nom Nom Nom Nom' came to mind.

LOL sorry man but this is a joke. Well firstly, yes it is a massively boring class because of the spam I rolled PT just because I didnt want to be a spammer. But you are one of the easiest classes out there TO PLAY so atleast be happy for that. Even in melee range of a jedi tracer spam will lead you to victory, and if you ever need to toss a couple heals on yourself you have those just to make it a more easy class. When interrupted, use unload/rail shot. If they interrupt unload, spam tracer. If your having trouble playing a merc then your definitly doing something wrong, they are broken beyond belief.

Well you obviously don't understand the point of this post.

If you think Arsenal Mercs are easy mode ... Let me re-phrase this.... If you think ELITE Arsenal Mercs are easy mode, then you've never PvP'ed with them.

Yes I will stand by it, they are one of the hardest classes to play 1v1 when you are fighting someone that's equally as talented. This thread isn't meant for sub-50 PvP because all classes don't have their talents. This is competitve 50 PvP. Premade v. Premade

Well you obviously don't understand the point of this post.

 

If you think Arsenal Mercs are easy mode ... Let me re-phrase this.... If you think ELITE Arsenal Mercs are easy mode, then you've never PvP'ed with them.

 

Yes I will stand by it, they are one of the hardest classes to play 1v1 when you are fighting someone that's equally as talented.

That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard.

That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard.

There's a fine line between being perfectly fine with ONLY using Tracer Missile and doing decent damage...... and then wanting to play to the most ability of your class by not only using Tracer Missile, but to actually learn your class and be up there in damage with the Sorc/Sages and Powertechs

People cry because they're stupid and don't want to adapt.

Mercs are easily locked down, send someone with interrupt and a melee to dance with them and you've rendered them pretty much useless.

As for "mercs only spamming tracers!! omg nubs" statements..

I have 20 keybinds and most of them are used on a frequent basis.

The only instant ability we have that doesn't have a 10-15sec cooldown is Missile Blast which hits for a useless amount and costs way too much be even worth having on the hotbar.. along with the flame thrower.

I have 19k hp and using Battlemaster gear with a few pieces of the champion gear and 2 Rakata set items and 2 more none set PVE items and regardless of how many abilities I use in the warzones.. there's always some douche bag that sees a missile and calls me a tracer nub.

But hey! tracer is our core dps ability which buffs all the other attacks we do.. so excuse fwcking me for using what BW has given us!

Then again.. we all know Grav Rounds are perfectly fine because they have less visible graphics! ^^

And having Power Shot keybound is actually important in PVP, as you will get focused by multiple melees all the time.

Atleast that's the reality on my realm.

If they don't zerg me down, I will punish them.. it's simple as that.

Well you obviously don't understand the point of this post.

 

If you think Arsenal Mercs are easy mode ... Let me re-phrase this.... If you think ELITE Arsenal Mercs are easy mode, then you've never PvP'ed with them.

 

Yes I will stand by it, they are one of the hardest classes to play 1v1 when you are fighting someone that's equally as talented.

I agree. I can't say that there are many, if any classes that an arsenal merc can easily best in a 1v1 situation, where gear is on equal grounds. Tracer missile is incredibly easy to stop. Take it out of the equation, and you are forcing the merc to use abilities which cost much higher heat, and don't hit as hard without the procs that they gain from TM. Also, if you stop them from doing TM, you prevent them from proccing a defensive shield.

In group situations, even if a merc is left uninterupted and spams tracer missile, if the group has a healer it is very easy to heal through it. Unless a merc gets super lucky with crits and their opponent is really weak, then a healer will negate the merc's damage, and in a few seconds, the merc will have overheated. Unless Vent Heat is off cooldown, heat takes a long time to drop to the point where the merc can use his abilities again.

Once a merc is overheated, they are the easiest class in the game to kill, hands down.

I don't play a Merc, that said.

I think is stupid just because you have 3-4 keys to use on a normal dps rotation get called easy mode.

Skill on PvP isn't about how good you are on doing dmg but how good using ability's that don't do dmg,or its just a who have more keybinds fest. The way you use yours defensive/offence cooldowns , interrupts, stuns and more important at all is position yourself.

Really Tracer spammers mercs are a joke and easy to kill.

I've lost track of the number of times I've interrupted a tracer spammer, and they literally just stand still for 4 seconds, never cast anything else, because they're so confused that their 1 button doesn't work

This. It makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little just thinking about the number of times I've seen this happen.

The simple reason is that the single ability is overpowered, not the Merc per se.

Introduce a cooldown to the ability, lower its damage, or prevent it from critting and nobody will complain anymore.

Agreed. On the receiving end, tracer's a high damage ablity, with no CD, and a stacking debuff on target.

High damage abilities should have a CD or a high cost; there's no strategic resource use evaluation otherwise. Abilities that have no CD should be "auto-attack" type wherein it's low damage because there's no CD (i.e. Warriors pitiful 3-500 triple attack). Granted tracer's got a 1.5s cast time, but it's also got a low resource cost, which is why people bash its use.

The OP should roll a warrior, getting it up to a high enough level, and feeling the frustration of facing seemingly unbalanced ranged classes, then come back to the forums.

Why do people bash Tracer Missile spam? What else are we supposed to do? ..... Not play our class the way BW has intended for it to be played?

 

 

I would argue that in higher level PvP it's the hardest class to play because we're constantly getting stunned/interrupted and then we have nothing we can do. Unload and Rail shot mean nothing if we don't have Tracer Missile stacked on the target.

So in that case, I'm just going to Jet boost you off the ledge and try to run away.

 

 

 

We're (Arsenal Mercs) the easiest class to solo. I don't understand why we get all the hate.

3 tracer missile hits is all it takes to stack full signatures and make your other abilities hit hard. It's a design flaw that tracer missile crits harder than power shot. It BW did what they were supposed to do and buffed powershot while nerfing tracer missile damage, (about 20% to each should do) then you would start to figure out the answer to your question.

I think it gets a bad rap because of the high number of mercs who aren't just spamming it to stack for unload, but spamming it because that's all they know.

 

I've lost track of the number of times I've interrupted a tracer spammer, and they literally just stand still for 4 seconds, never cast anything else, because they're so confused that their 1 button doesn't work

This is it basically - "welp, this mean Marauder just interrupted my Tracer Missile... I'll just S-key this way and hope he goes away"

I know TM is a big part of the rotation and I get that but it gets a bad rep entirely through people who literally do nothing but cast it on loop forever.