Could Merc/Mandos get some survivability before 5.0 please?

This explains so much about my initial 65 foray into merc PvP... I was like, maybe it's a gear thing. They see that I'm squishy. Now it all makes sense.

Yes, of course. But the contention I was addressing was along the lines of "Sorcs didn't get nerfed to add Phase Walk." They were, and I simply recommend that Merc players think carefully before requesting buffs.

carefully reread what you just said. that's a dps/burst nerf. that's what one or the other means. you cannot UDR on a merc. you just cannot. he's too powerful. he doesn't need to worry about maintaining range. nor does he really care about having to move since at 65, a merc has tremendous uptime on his required dps abilities while moving. therefore, you have to nerf the dps. that doesn't mean take away his toys. that could just mean take him out of the fight while his "barrier" is active.

Well, currently mercs get taken out of the fight period. So really, having a chance to at least continue to dps after a hard focus would be an improvement. I mean it's not like we can dps while using our new escape, which came at the cost of HO being heavily nerfed (more so than most other classes iirc, which I may not).

However, if it still means that we can burst after forcing a hard swap? I'll take it. Currently we're a weak link in the meta, sure we can dish out some damage given the right circumstances, but with all the DCDs other classes have, you have to question two things

- Is our burst actually high enough to cause the class to have such weak DCDs?
- Is our sustained damage and mobility enough to cause the class to have such weak DCDs?

I don't think either of those scenarios applies when you factor in the other classes DCDs. Sure 1v1 we're actually in a decent place right now, I'll take those odds any day of the week. However against focus (2v1, 3v1, 4v1) without any healing or tanking to mitigate that damage we're probably among the worst classes to counter that.

Hence a hard swap mechanic would be useful. I'm sure BioWare think Chaff Flare changes and our new "escape" were good enough. However when you look at our new escape requiring a utility point to actually be "good" at cuasing a hard swap, comes at a cost of dps for the duration and doesn't push us back far enough to be useful even when using that utility point. If the utility included extending the distance to 30m as well as stopping us being jumped to etc, then fine, I'd spend the point.

Chaff Flare has been gone over enough, so no need to say what's wrong with it yet again. As for the one main tool we've always needed, HO, that got nerfed while gaining our new escape. If BioWare had left that alone along with giving us the new escape, I could see that perhaps being a fairly decent compromise.

Look, none of us who play mercs would want to see us boosted to the ranks of FotY, because we all know that ends badly for classes. We just need minor tweaks at best, just to improve our class being the main focus. Not too much, otherwise it becomes imbalanced over the whole PvP environment. Baby steps, but trying to make BioWare understand baby steps.... seems futile. Most of us have played this class for a long time and know the pitfalls, we also know nothing we suggest or float is going to be listened to by BioWare, because "metrics".

While all of you are busy argueing over whether mercs are doing too much damage or dont have enough survivability, could merc healers please finally get some love? They are the ones that need the most help right now.

wrong is defined as god bubble. it broke the sorc class for pvp, and i don't want to see it happen again. even agreeing that mercs need help is dangerous because if bw listens, their next new ability will give 3000% defense for 12 seconds and the utility point will auto-resurrect any dead group members within 100 meters for the rest of the round.

it's not like i don't know how you are feeling about it. mercs are only the auto target about half the time. the other half they come for me on my sniper first. it makes us not practically viable in ranked and that sucks. the trade off for that is that we are the biggest threat in any match where we have support. you might say that that is not a good trade off, but it is the result of the mistakes they made making other classes op and the structure for ranked play that bw chose. they aren't going to change either of those things, and buffing merc defensives doesn't fix anything for anybody except mercs. it just creates another op class that the rest of us have to deal with.

as for merc heals, they are just kind of screwed, but again, ops are in the same place. the problem isn't with mercs and ops. the answer isn't to buff mercs, it's to fix sorcs, but they aren't going to do that so i don't know what to say there.

lol no.

if you nerf sorc heals (which you should) then nobody is worth a damn healing yolo. so no. they need to fix the matchmaking (trinity) or make all of the healers work properly w/o a tank.

as for mercs being in the same boat as op healers. lol no. op heals can still escape. merc healers are just target dummies once a fight starts. and w/o tanks they just drop. if an op drops, he's just bad. he should be able to kite and vanish much longer than a merc healer.

I don't think Mercs getting a straight-up target drop ability like Force Camo would be a bad thing.

It'd make mercs happy, and make enemies happy (since they're not getting hit by 24k+ heatseekers while unable to hit the merc).

And it wouldn't really be a hard thing to explain either, "Activate your armor's short-term stealth generator for 6 seconds, making you immune to all controlling effects and increasing damage reduction by 50%. Activating an ability ends this effect prematurely."

Mercs are fine as they are now.

Yes they suck at ranked arena, so what? Let them stay that way.
Don't make them change the class cus atm it's one of the greatest classes to play fun wise. If you meddle too much in the merc mechanics it might become a nightmare of cookie cutter cringe fest.

I want my merc to remain glass canon. I want him to be volatile and at the same time being able to die a horrible death after a simple mistake. That's what makes it fun. Don't touch mercs please.
It's basically one of the only things that keeps me from quiting swtor or having a huge break. For all that is holly don't nerf or buff mercs in a dramatic way.

Stealth mechanic on mercs? What is this world coming to? You people are out of your minds.

OFCOURSE NO! Are you joking? Merc/commando are dpsing as hell, two mercs can destroy whole warzone if they are not being attacked by someone. They need to be nerfed not opped lol. Having Additional 30% surge makes their damage insane and you ask to give them survivability?
0/10