I've been playing mercenary for the past few months, got valor rank 83, 4 war hero pieces and swapped mods for the optimum crit/surge/power ratio. I played my fair part of PvP, so lack of experience or gear isn't the issue.

I am specifically referring to the Arsenal spec. Pyro is a bit better due to the slow from combustile gas cylinder, but still far inferior to the equivalent powertech build.

 

So, let's take a look at the Arsenal merc pre 1.2 - we had very low mobility, medium utility (15 sec cd knockback if talented, and a 4 second stun) and pretty low survivability (2 minute cd energy shield that only negates 25% of damage and power barrier that could reduce damage by up to 10% after 5 tracers). But on the upside we had pretty good dps and decent burst, being quite deadly if left unchecked.

 

And now let's see what happened after 1.2:

• First of all, we were promised that spamming tracers won't be an issue anymore. This was just a big fat lie, the entire arsenal tree is built around tracer, and our new highest damaging ability (unload) requires a tracer proc for optimum usage. Same for power barrier, tracer lock and heatseeker missile.
  
• Tracer spamming is even more required then before since you will be trying to get as many barrage procs as possible. The difference is our already very low mobility got hurt even more since our main dps skill (unload) requires you to stand still for the entire 3 second cast.
  
• After patch 1.2.0c heatseeker missile was broken. At first, it wrongly took into consideration heat signatures from other mercenaries when calculating damage, but BW's brilliant way to fix it was to make it completely ignore any heat signature, including your own. This can be easily tested with a friend or on the training dummy, the heatseeker missile damage is the same with 5 heat signatures or 0.
  
• Our greatest weaknesses, lack of utility and survivability were hit pretty hard. Jet Boost, the only escape ability we have got +5 second cooldown and power barrier's damage reduction was cut to half. That in addition to the damage increase from expertise makes our survivability laughable, despite the fact that we are wearing heavy armor.
  

 

If we draw the line, we can see that after patch 1.2 mercenary has by far the lowest survivability and utility, and only mediocre damage at best, making me wonder why would anyone want a mercenary in their ranked warzone group.

 

Tracer spamming is far from ideal, and in the long run I would love to see a redesign of the arsenal tree that will allow you to actually use other skills besides tracer 80% of the time. But until then, something must be done, either giving us our damage back or improving our survivability and utility. As things stand now, mercenary is broken and there is little reason to play one in PvP.

The jet boost one was the worst. We lack a lot of abilities other classes have, but that jet boost helps to make up for it (since we can give ourselves a few seconds to regroup from an assault). Losing the ability to do that was a real killer, since we don't really have anything else to help us against multiple enemies.

 

The shield was useless anyway, so no loss there. After playing the Sorc and loving the way that shield works, I have a newfound dislike for the BH's shield.

I like the way you put everything...one addition...mercs are dead in pve now too. This whole thing is insane!!...and worst of all. Bioware couldn't care less...where's the yellow posts?? the ones i see do not address the current heatseeker issues at all. Now I have to go merc pyro...yeah...thats reeaallll viable for pve. Its their plan to make people reroll...then they will nerf the hell out of that class too. There was nothing wrong before. Way to treat your customers. Edited April 24, 2012 by Annikus

I've been playing mercenary for the past few months, got valor rank 83, 4 war hero pieces and swapped mods for the optimum crit/surge/power ratio. I played my fair part of PvP, so lack of experience or gear isn't the issue.

I am specifically referring to the Arsenal spec. Pyro is a bit better due to the slow from combustile gas cylinder, but still far inferior to the equivalent powertech build.

 

So, let's take a look at the Arsenal merc pre 1.2 - we had very low mobility, medium utility (15 sec cd knockback if talented, and a 4 second stun) and pretty low survivability (2 minute cd energy shield that only negates 25% of damage and power barrier that could reduce damage by up to 10% after 5 tracers). But on the upside we had pretty good dps and decent burst, being quite deadly if left unchecked.

 

And now let's see what happened after 1.2:

• First of all, we were promised that spamming tracers won't be an issue anymore. This was just a big fat lie, the entire arsenal tree is built around tracer, and our new highest damaging ability (unload) requires a tracer proc for optimum usage. Same for power barrier, tracer lock and heatseeker missile.
  
• Tracer spamming is even more required then before since you will be trying to get as many barrage procs as possible. The difference is our already very low mobility got hurt even more since our main dps skill (unload) requires you to stand still for the entire 3 second cast.
  
• After patch 1.2.0c heatseeker missile was broken. At first, it wrongly took into consideration heat signatures from other mercenaries when calculating damage, but BW's brilliant way to fix it was to make it completely ignore any heat signature, including your own. This can be easily tested with a friend or on the training dummy, the heatseeker missile damage is the same with 5 heat signatures or 0.
  
• Our greatest weaknesses, lack of utility and survivability were hit pretty hard. Jet Boost, the only escape ability we have got +5 second cooldown and power barrier's damage reduction was cut to half. That in addition to the damage increase from expertise makes our survivability laughable, despite the fact that we are wearing heavy armor.
  

 

If we draw the line, we can see that after patch 1.2 mercenary has by far the lowest survivability and utility, and only mediocre damage at best, making me wonder why would anyone want a mercenary in their ranked warzone group.

 

Tracer spamming is far from ideal, and in the long run I would love to see a redesign of the arsenal tree that will allow you to actually use other skills besides tracer 80% of the time. But until then, something must be done, either giving us our damage back or improving our survivability and utility. As things stand now, mercenary is broken and there is little reason to play one in PvP.

 

This is very VERY sad...

Very sad because it is very true. Where are the responses from BW?

You seem to be listening to the gunslinger group.:mad:

Dont forget we have no interupts but vanguards just about spam interupt us, Snipers just got a damage increase today but yet they kill us with ease before hand and should have gotten a damage decrease. All in all BW is failing on many fronts and are losing a crap ton of Subs. But yet you have the ones that will post in your thread that merc is fine and your data is flawed and mercs still own. I wonder what they will say after there is almost no population or comunity to play there toons against. <ponders>

I completely agree with everything said! BIOWARE, GIVE US SOME INPUT ON YOUR BREAKING OUR CLASS.

/signed

 

I completely agree

I think this is crap. They have nerfed the Tracer missile and heck I get ripped apart now. I pvp a ton before the new fixes came in. Now it's just so ridiculous I hate to even go into a battle field. Dang I love pvp!

As far as pvp goes, completely done with my merc. No point in getting frustrated whether you're a pro or noob, all the same. Melee completely stomp Arsenal with just one interrupt/stun and Pyro just isn't much better unless you're ignored the whole time.

 

Still enjoy my merc in pve but I'm likely going to spec heals from now on.

Totally agree on this. No utility, no survivability and mediocre damage.

 

If this game was one of those football games u played as a kid. You playing a merc would be the fat guy always picked last. This is how BW ruined us just in time for ranking....

This can be easily tested with a friend or on the training dummy, the heatseeker missile damage is the same with 5 heat signatures or 0.

 

For what it's worth, Powertech's Ion Gas Cylinder (tanking) has been broken since before launch. I (and tons of others) remember it not hitting for tooltip damage even back during beta testing, and STILL nothing has been done to address or even acknowledge the problem.

 

Let's face it, this game is melee heavy. Tons of players want to swing a glow bat, it was like this in SWG too. BH was beyond broken in that game for a very long time. I hope that it won't be like that in SWTOR, but I'm starting to lose faith.

 

I rolled a Merc the other day. Love my PT, but that character is pretty much maxed out (War Hero/Rakata geared) and just doing weekly HM Ops runs now. I wanted to see how Merc played and it's a lot of fun so far, but there are definitely some issues.

Why not learn to play merc pyro correctly? It is the most mobile spec in the game, and has some of the highest damage. I can easily pull off 500-600k in a huttball game without breaking a sweat as pyro, and rarely die. The slow on rapid shots also makes you very useful in a ranked warzone. In short 'it is the merc pvp spec'...go play it.

Why not learn to play merc pyro correctly? It is the most mobile spec in the game, and has some of the highest damage. I can easily pull off 500-600k in a huttball game without breaking a sweat as pyro, and rarely die. The slow on rapid shots also makes you very useful in a ranked warzone. In short 'it is the merc pvp spec'...go play it.

 

I play Merc Pyro. I score at the top of 99% of my wz matches. My damage numbers aren't different from yours. But frankly you are being a douche when you wave your stat numbers and claim them as justification for everyone else being wrong. They aren't wrong. They simply aren't as skilled as you. But the entire premise of BW's ingame stat collection system is to drive class balance changes based on aggregate player productivity, not yours or mine.

 

Moreover your attitude is highly likely to lead to another condition that you might not be so pleased with. The more average skill players leave the Merc ranks, the more the Merc productivity numbers become dominated by the remaining higher skill players. Which raises aggregate Merc productivity. Which in turns drives BW to nerf Mercs further. This is exactly what happened to Concealment Operatives. In short when the only Mercs left are those that can average 400k in damage, it is a certainty that BW will nerf them down so that they can only average 200k. This is how BW manages class balance.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Macroecon

Why not learn to play merc pyro correctly? It is the most mobile spec in the game, and has some of the highest damage. I can easily pull off 500-600k in a huttball game without breaking a sweat as pyro, and rarely die. The slow on rapid shots also makes you very useful in a ranked warzone. In short 'it is the merc pvp spec'...go play it.

 

lol 500-600k? I call bs...BTW thanks for the offer to learn to play pyro but its not to my taste of play style. I tried it a couple of times for a good few hours and just wasn't my thing. I hope Bioware look into arsenal mercs again because I don't love the game enough to level another char, merc is what I want to play. Prob going to spec healer and see if thats fun, Arsenal is not at the moment, I cant see why they didnt make a stacking debuff on tracer or something for extra heat if you use it too much ? I mean thats what all the QQ was about, lack of skill or using proper rotations etc didnt see a need for a damage nerf on the tracer. I also agree with the other poster about survivability alteast give us one or the other, like we wear heavy armor and I have battle master gear in every slot yet I die pretty fast. to most classes with similar gear. Basically arsenal sucks in PVE damge compared to other classes & PVP it definitely has been nerfed hard. Who was testing this on the public test realms? they did a pretty average job.

Thanks bio way to break your game im canceling my sub. why even have merc bh in the game at this point. Edited April 25, 2012 by Hallowtip

Mercs/Commandos are completely fine.

Mercs/Commandos are completely fine.

 

would you share some of the good weed you are smoking?

Mercs pls stop crying. There is a girl on The Swiftsure named Steph Wmmwwmmwwmmw that kills me every time I see her. She hit me for over 5k even after 1.2 nerfs. If you want to QQ roll sorc heals.

would you share some of the good weed you are smoking?

 

yeyeyeeeeeeee:cool:

 

Tbh it's all about filling a particular roll in warzones. If you are being focused in a warzone then that means they are not on your healer which = free healing. If they are on your healer then you are left wide open and we all know what happens with a wide open gunnery commando (unhealable damage).

 

So quit the whining and realize that you are meant to excel in group play. The same thing can be said about powertechs. They are even more squishier then commandos because they have the save rubbish defensive cooldowns and have to be in MELEE range to get their damage going which makes them prone to being blown up.

I score at the top of 99% of my wz matches.

 

I think you mean top 1%.

 

I tried it a couple of times for a good few hours and just wasn't my thing.

 

Trying a new spec for "a few good hours" is no way to form an opinion about it. Give it at least a week, or you're pretty much just talking out of the side of your mouth.

So much QQ and no screenshots of these zaaany stats? 500-600k Pyros? Lmaoooo.

What server? What opponents? A premade of Fresh Roleplay only 50s wanting to try out PVP?? haha Unreal. Every class plays a role and has their own unique ways of contributing.

 

Arsenal mercs were NEVER MOBILE. So any other issues rely on your team and positioning and overall PvP savvy. This thread has weeded out all the junky Mercs, excellent work! The original post with TLDR and War Hero claims, Your team and team composition needs fixing in a serious way.

So much QQ and no screenshots of these zaaany stats? 500-600k Pyros? Lmaoooo.

What server? What opponents? A premade of Fresh Roleplay only 50s wanting to try out PVP?? haha Unreal. Every class plays a role and has their own unique ways of contributing.

 

Arsenal mercs were NEVER MOBILE. So any other issues rely on your team and positioning and overall PvP savvy. This thread has weeded out all the junky Mercs, excellent work! The original post with TLDR and War Hero claims, Your team and team composition needs fixing in a serious way.

 

your char is a slinger i bet, instant powershot spam

So much QQ and no screenshots of these zaaany stats? 500-600k Pyros? Lmaoooo.

What server? What opponents? A premade of Fresh Roleplay only 50s wanting to try out PVP?? haha Unreal. Every class plays a role and has their own unique ways of contributing.

 

Arsenal mercs were NEVER MOBILE. So any other issues rely on your team and positioning and overall PvP savvy. This thread has weeded out all the junky Mercs, excellent work! The original post with TLDR and War Hero claims, Your team and team composition needs fixing in a serious way.

 

Uhh, 500k-600k is very possible in Voidstar; huttball less so but if you spammed aoe and dots like an idiot and was a stalemate at mid you could get it done. I've seen similar games as a pyro merc.

 

As for the fresh 50s thing: big numbers like that hinge on you playing with and against experienced healers so people are alive longer to take more deeps. Such screens of these matches tend to have equivalent amounts of outrageous healing as well as damage. Maths.

 

Whatever your opinion is on arsenal, other people find it deeply flawed and in fact broken since 1.2. If you're happy positioning yourself and then melting whenever a melee class makes you his ****** then great, but other people get sick of it and go pyro instead. Pyro dps is good, you should try it.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Diddley

I think you mean top 1%.

 

 

 

Trying a new spec for "a few good hours" is no way to form an opinion about it. Give it at least a week, or you're pretty much just talking out of the side of your mouth.

 

Actually now I think about it, it was more like a few days probaly a week because I was raiding as pyro I remember now and I did say I tried atleast a couple of times now and it is just not a fun play style for me. I'm pretty sure I can judge that over 3hrs/3days/3weeks it is not fun (I'm not playing for epeen numbers or ohemgee I'm rated in the top 10 in the world etc)...So what your trying to say is we are a group class only and useless in a PUG or solo? I think thats what the point alot of people are trying to make...1vs1 against a marauder etc we stood a chance before, but now we get smashed. Also to the people saying they do 500-600k damage in a war zone, this is pvp, not pve, numbers don't mean as much as they do in pve, I'm pretty sure you had some of the best gear and just dotted up everything you could and pretty much focused on dps rather that the WZ objectives. Is it possible for a merc? maybe, but I have not seen it on my server, not even close. Is it possible for an arsenal merc? they would get half that damage...THAT is what is I am trying to say, arsenal is broken atm, not sure if its just the bug, surely there should not be such a gap between the two specs damage even with the 1.2c bug.