Merc super cancer 5.0!!!!!!

Heh, just had a sin and a PT rip my face off using similar to what I said. Dead in <15 seconds.

They essentially ignored my shield (if you're dead before it ends it doesn't heal), and CC'd and AOE'd me to death once I hit reflect.

As it should be.

Edit: And got farmed in a queshball by 2 sins doing the same thing. GG Bloodlines

Since you can get the heal by clicking off the shield buff

One of these buffs is OK but 2 of them at the same time?

Reactive shield (the blue shield) being available every 30 seconds is a joke. That needs to be nerfed ASAP. I don't have a problem with merc's reflect or (now worthwhile) kolto overload.

Erm... we've always had reactive shield on such a low cooldown. We even had it back when skill trees were still a thing.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this Caprica. The only way Reactive shield is up so much is if the Merc is taking 24/7 damage. It was needed in 4.0 and still is needed now.

Before 5.0 was even datamined I posted changes for Mercs on the class sub forum and the pvp forums and it was 2 simple changes that would make the class perfectly balanced.

Energy Rebounder (The talent that makes energy shield come off cd faster when being attacked) and Stabilized armor (30% Damage reduction when stunned) Both of these utilities combined into 1 just like AP Powertechs have. Which would allow Mercs to take that talent and allow Arsenal/IO/Body Guard to have a good defensive utility and be able to take blazing bolts/unload w/e the healing ability is called on the move.

The second change would be being able to use Rocket out while rooted. Small change but huge for quality of life.
In season 7 I had 4 Arsenal Mercs over 1700 rating in solo ranked and 1 1820 or something in Team Ranked. I never played a game with out Energy Rebounder and Stabilized Armor dealing with the mass amounts of Operatives and Marauders was awful but manageable. Having both of those tied together would have made it so much easier because then i'd have been able to take Blazing bolts on the move + having rocket out available to use when I'm rooted (Should always have been able to use when rooted ..... Bioware smh)

Now with 5.0 live I came back to look at the Merc changes and what I see is awful. The Reflect ability can stay, 2 Minute CD easy to stop attacking them for the duration. Fits their kit perfectly for rotational cooldowns. The heal2full Utility on Reactive Shield needs to go it's stupid and overpowered, Kolto heal to 70% needs to be toned down to 50-55%

For me personally I picked up Merc at the start of 4.0 because I saw it was in a pretty decent place, enjoyed it in solo ranked because I won games with my skill at kiting especially on a Merc. Playing a few games today It's awful and not even close to as fun as it used to be. I free cast and just kill people. I really do encourage Bioware to remove the healing utility for Reactive Shield it's over the top and completely not needed.

tl;dr
Rocket out while rooted
Energy Rebounder and Stabilized Armor 1 utility
Remove Healing on Reactive shield Utility
Tone down Kolto to 50-55%
Remove healing from reflect ability, Maybe even lower the duration from 6 seconds to 4 or 5.

With these changes Mercs will again get tunneled in solo ranked first (above most classes) but actually have more of a chance to survive in 4 dps games compared to 4.0 when 1 stun with out a breaker means you're dead.

-Carthy/Smh 4 T1 Mercs S7 solo ranked rank 1 merc in team ranked.

but the 1v1 was nail-bitingly close and it took an eternity to kill him.