Tracer missile tracer missile tracer missile tracer missile tracer missile

I'll explain a bit how Mercenary (and its republic counterpart) works, for those who genuinely don't know.
Those who want to troll will never be persuaded anyway.

Here is how an Arsenal Mercenary works (the one with tracer missile):

First of all it has to be said that BH has a heat bar instead of force/energy. Most special abilities have a heat cost. When the heat bar is full, the mercenary can only use the basic attack until heat dissipates or, if available, can use Vent Heat do dissipate 50/66 heat (66 if you put two points in bodyguard tree). Vent Heat is on a 2min cooldown, Pyro Mercs can purchase 2 boxes which will lower the cooldown by 30sec, full arsenal spec can't.
Heat dissipation is more efficient if your heat lvl is low, but the higher your heat lvl is, the lower your heat dissipation will be.
I don't have access to the game right now but if memory serves me it works like this:
0-39% heat->5 points dissipated per second.
40%-79%->3 points per second.
80%-100% heat->2 points per second.
In short: as a Mercenary you must keep heat low unless you want to be forced into a 30 seconds cooldown where you're absolutely useless and vulnerable. In order to have the best possible dissipation, we must keep our heat below 40%, unless we really have to finish off someone (to prevent them from scoring, so to say), in which case we'll have to deal with the downtime.

Mercenary Specials:
-UNLOAD: channeled ability, does good damage over its 3 seconds duration, 15 seconds cooldown. With proper template, its damage can be improved and it can have up to 100% chance of snaring a target for 2 seconds with each hit.
Via template, Unload has a 50% chance to vent 8 heat.
Very good ability, to be used everytime it's available.

-TRACER MISSILE: charged ability, 1.5 seconds cast time, no cooldown, 25 heat cost heat cost lowered to 16 via template). Each Tracer applies up to 2 heat signatures (depending on the template), which lower target armor by 4% each for 15 seconds and stack up to 5 times (i.e., you need 3 Tracers Missile to get the maximum amount of signatures).
Tracer Missile puts a vulnerability to Rail Shot on the target.. see below.
Also depending on template (full Arsenal have this), each Tracer Missile grants 1 Target Tracking (stacks up to 5), for each target tracking you get a 6% damage bonus on your next Rail Shot.
In addition, critical hits with Tracer and Heatseeker missiles have up to 50% chance of venting 8 heat (therefore, it's needed) and, via template, Tracer missile has up to 30% chance of proccing barrage, which ends the cooldown on Unload and makes the next unload hit 25% harder (see above).

RAIL SHOT: good damage, instacast, 16 heat cost, 15 seconds cooldown. The target must be incapacitated, burning or vulnerable via tracer missile for Rail Shot to work. Arsenal Mercenaries don't get the big bonuses (armor piercing, chance to reset its cooldown etc) on Rail Shot that Pyro Mercs get, however our high velocity gas cylinder (call it our stance, to be clear) lowers the cost of Rail Shot by 8.
It's a very good ability which we must use everytime it's available.

HEATSEEKER MISSILE: This skill is only available to those who go full Arsenal, is instacast, 15 sec cooldown, 16 heat cost.
Its damage is improved by 5% per heat signature on the target, meaning it's mostly effective once we have stacked our 5 (cap) heat signatures.

-POWER SHOT: same cost and cast time as Tracer Missile, no cooldown, but as an Arsenal the only benefit we get to using it is a chance to reset cooldown on Unload.
This special is intended to be the alternative to Tracer Missile for Pyros (who get lots of nice bonuses on it) and Bodyguards (they get nioce bonuses on this too, via proc).
Power Shot is pretty much only good to bait interrupts for us, because we don't get any of the debuffs/vulnerabilities etc out of Power Shot.

-FUSION MISSILE: damage on impact and burning on a 2mt radius from target, the burning lasts for 6 seconds. 33 (!) heat cost, 30 sec cooldown, 1.5 sec cast time.
It's a nice Dot and if the opponents are very close to each other (within 2m from target) it's AoE. The very high heat cost makes it usable only in certain situations or when we have our Thermal Sensor Override up (2min cooldown, 1.30min via template), which allows the next ability to be fired at no heat cost.

-DEATH FROM ABOVE: our best AoE, on targeted area, 25 heat cost and 60sec cooldown

-SWEEPING BLASTERS: another AoE on targeted area, no cooldown, but its 33 (!) heat cost make it hardly worth it due to heat management issues.

-MISSILE BLAST: instacast, 25 heat cost, deals damage to one target and little damage to up to 3 targets close by. Almost useless due to heat cost, only good to finish off a runner who's on the brink of death combined with rapid shots (our basic attack) and if we have heat to spare OR to prevent 2-3 enemies from capping an objective.

-EXPLOSIVE DART: explodes after a few seconds dealing damage to target and nearby enemies, 16 heat cost, 15 sec cooldown.

Have to cut it short now, I'm probably forgetting something for sure..

Anyway, if you read the above it's clear our rotation MUST be the following:
-Unload (the heat cost will dissipate before channeling is over if we're at 0 heat)
-Tracer
-Tracer
-Tracer
Now we have 5 heat signatures on target and 3x bonus on railshot
-Heat Seeker
-Tracer
-Tracer
Now we have maximum bonus on Railshot
Railshot.
If Barrage has procced in the meantime, we can do Unload again.. otherwise rotation restarts.

Depending on heat level and situation, we can try to add a Fusion Missile or Exploding Dart here and there if they are off cooldown.

The point is this: the class was built around Tracer Missile. If you don't like it keep in mind that they would have to change THE WHOLE ARSENAL tree to make the class different but still viable.
Adding a cooldown or the likes on tracer without changing the rest of the class would make Arsenal absolutely useless.

EDIT: I forgot to mention this but it's important.. all this can be countered by any class (any) with interruptions/KD/stuns if you have what it takes as in full health, shields or such ready to be used etc AND (most important of all) if you don't, any class can simply run away from the mercenary .
Some classes even get passive or active speed buffs, incombat stealth to escape, charge attacks to jump somewhere else and lose the mercenary, which make it even esasier.
But again, even if a mercenary opens on you, unless you're already half dead or wait too long, ANYONE can run away and there's nothing an Arsenal Merc can do to prevent opponents to do so or to kill a runner.
It's how the class was designed, it's essentially a turret: if you stay within range and let them fire on you, you're gonna die. If you run away or have the means to interrupt/stun/heal the first burst, you survive/win.

Indeed.

This video is what happens when you have solid pvp gear, do not get cc'ed because your enemies are not doing what they should and you are fighting ungeared players. As a merc I am insta-targetted in PVP because of peoples misconception that tracer missile is going to own them like that just automatically, when in fact the ability is not OP, there are many variables for that to happen, the average BH/MC will be ganged hard trying to ONLY spam tracer.

And as said, other DPS classes can achieve this if they spec for it as well with their own specials.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUUWI...layer_embedded

I don't think this guy read your post.

ROFLS. Seriously though, just make the armor debuff proc off of something else and the stacking buff of another abiltity. Comando/Merc is so boring. Give them some depth poor guys.

Had to switch to using a more tanky companion to maximize the purpose of half my powers and secondary benefits thereof (which seem primarily to be tank assists such as +10% defense when using the fast healing scan on the target as well as a reactive Kotto Shell heal), but my DPS is still plenty fine to do my dailies and beat things away from gathering nodes no problem.

In PVP, I have no business trying to burn anyone down and I basically can't even when I try anymore, but I'm very well set to run healing support. Not the most glamorous job, and I usually don't even post huge total points healed for being heavily tactical in where/how I throw my healing around, but I help my team win.

In hardmodes...oh yeah. Little bit of skill in heat scheduling and occasionally throwing a fusion missile out there to womp a dot on a boss when I've got some breathing room and that's where I've been shining, or throw a 60 second merc-universal CC on something during pre-fight setup for that matter.

Merc bodyguard, and I'd presume the trooper equivalent, can be super effective healers. Our heat or your ammo pool isn't as deep as a force healer's, but it replenishes faster and, I think, is more useful for a drawn out endurance run for that.

In PVP, I usually tap a tanky sort since I queue solo a lot when I can. Pulled off some great duoing stunts, though people can, will and do go 'HEALER DIE!" and rip you down under a focused dogpile...but that's ok.

It's been a great change of pace, and a real perspective swap. Effectiveness is undisputable, but the approach is totally different. Roll a full spec'd healer out there and you pull that role intelligently and you'll, often enough, be a heavy contributor to wins you're a part of.

'Course, if your team's a random and a fustercluck, you'll just melt a lot. But in that case, one does anyway.

I'd recommend anybody looking for a change of pace that has the option to give it a whirl. It'll help you get a real firsthand feel for the tolerances and abilities of a healer (and let you better tailor your DPSing or even tanking with such knowledge in mind) and you'll almost certainly be in high demand for every hardmode and op if you take the time to be a -GOOD- healer and work it like it's goin' out of style.

BH merc bodyguards and, again I'd only suspect, their trooper equivalents can be dead awesome healers, and I wouldn't want a different sort of healer for a long, grueling fight where decent heals are gonna have to just keep rolling like clockwork non-stop.


Edit: Also, DPS crit/surge gear is also great for a healer spec. Some folks seem to think you have to stack power to up your baseline, but if you're rolling around with 35-40% tech crit on a merc (or trooper) healer? You're literally critting over a third of the time, and with an enormous 85-95% surge rating (I roll with 89%) it's dirt easy to throw 4-6k heals pretty consistently and pull off 2500-ish crits with kolto bomb (a merc's AoE heal).

I've tried the power stacking and, frankly, it didn't up the baseline nearly enough to come out equal to rolling streams of consistently high crits. Kinda flies in the face of conventional healer gearing philosophy (The 'never rely on crits' truism specifically), but I've solo healed stupid PUG hardmodes with idiot tanks and scatterbrained DPS' effectively.

In a decently organized run, pfffff...your biggest worry isn't gonna be if you can heal enough, fast enough, consistently enough; it's gonna be if the crazy heal aggro is gonna pull too much hate at a bad time when you don't have breathing room to scale it back.

So, if you're rocking crit/surge gear, you don't even have to get new gear to give it a genuine feel. Just a respec (or two if you decide you don't like it).

I've got another one for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWEmf...ure=plpp_video

Skip to the :24 second mark for the laugh.

bwahahahahahahahaaa!!!!!!

All that guy does is complain about general melee vs ranged in MMOs. Also if he's a decent representation of the people whining about tracer the problem doesn't lie with the ability. He's doing the #1 mistake of any melee class vs cast-time ranged, using his gap-closer way pre-maturely. Why on earth would anyone start a fight vs a merc with charge? They are the second most immobile spec in the game, there's absolutely nothing they can do to prevent people from just running up to them.