4 merc builds I wanted some support

Singleplayer Discussion
1

The last area brought many new mercs and some of them were quite impactful on PvE, now we have builds like bainegore and pirates which are viable but there are many possibilities not yet explored.

I’ll be honest, I’m not taking pvp in consideration.

Healin Trio

With the addition of baine, we just need a green merc with healing power boosting to combo him and chi ji in order to create a healing comp, that can be useful against bosses that need to be beaten slowly like balinda, and if the merc is rare it can be also a cheap opportunity to f2p players as baine is already rare.

Shadow
I think this comp has 2 main problems:

1- It still dont have a solid booster like brukan does with nature.
2- Its 2 main chars are both blue (Voljin+Azshara), so u are in a disadvantage vs fighter mercs

Maybe if one of them was red this could be a more solid comp as we already have good green mercs who can do shadow damage (Just remembering that I have no idea on how this could impact on pvp).

Dont get me wrong, I farmed some bosses with shadow already but its still too weak in comparison to builds like nature or frost.

Arcane

I think this build mechanics are based in 2 types:

Heavy single target damage is possible as Tyrande has good green damage just as azshara and blink fox, we just need a red merc to support this.

For a faster approach, We need to give millhouse the new buffs treatment, by absorbing his damage boosting equip into his 1st skill so we can actually choose between other equips.
Also If a red arcane merc comes, he could have a passive equip to boost arcane damage (just as rag does in the fire comp) and a multi target arcane 0 recharge attack with low-medium damage (doesnt needs to be an full aoe as millhouse already has one), maybe with some conditioning to boost his damage like Tyrande does with her 1st equip.

So I think the arcane team gimmick can either be slow with heavy damage or multi-target based.

Neutral mercs

Its about time we have a neutral merc, I dont know if this could be a nice balanced thing as it will not be able to take neither perform critical damage.
Maybe a merc that can swap roles with a skill and change the rest of his skillset depending of this choice so we can insert it in multiple comps.

2

Interesting thoughts… Below are my haphazard (sorry) attempts to contribute to this discussion.

4 merc builds I wanted some support

Why just four? I think there are so many more with untapped potential…

That’s one of the most obscure things I’ve heard re Mercenaries.

Oh, no, if you ask me… I’d rather green mercenaries actually did more fighting, as per their name… Make fighters great again! From the very beginning, we’ve had the likes of Scabbs and Illidan, and subsequently Xuen, to name a few promimement examples, who have had unique mechanics and a lot of potential, but first were either outshined by Blademaster Samuro, for example, or just couldn’t find their place in other teams (there have been some attempts to play Illidan in PvP, but for me he just didn’t particularly fit in… I suppose they say ‘outcast’ for a reason), and then, with the advent of ‘protector meta’ ushered in by Lokholar, improved Trigore (Year of the Hydra, baby!) and even Y’Shaarj (just look at him in comparison with Xuen… it makes the latter cry, although initially he seemed the most interesting of all Celestials to me personally — and turned out arguably the weakest and least used), were all but rendered obsolete. For now, it’s the likes of Elise, who can offer something extra, among the fighters who seem to be the most relevant. Green Balinda has already been somewhat dirty, although effective and much needed in a number of parties, now a green healer? No, no, no…

Sorry to spoil it for you, but Shadow has had, if you take PvP into consideration, one big problem: it’s been clearly unbalanced, blatantly overpowered in some aspects, much overused and extremely annoying; for the most part, this has been due to Vol’jin, whom I find the most annoying, meta-breaking, overused no-brainer and almost hate with passion just because of that stupid ‘big mistake, mon’, if nothing else, and enjoy killing him every time, especially at speed 0 or something like that, sending a message to his adepts that you can’t always get away by abusing annoying mechanics (oh, did I mention the ‘annoying’ part?). That, in my humble opinion, is a much greater problem with Shadow than any others.

Give one of the most annoying tribes even more? No, thank you.

Excuse me? You’ve got Y’Shaarj… and Kazakus, by the way, making it devastating against fighters even in PvE and being also much overused in PvP.

Arcane has had its big moment in PvP, mostly due to Long’xin’s equipment fuelling it and Tyrande’s rework; Blink Fox has also been phenomenal there, and if it hasn’t been used more, that’s, in my opinion, due to the abundance of netdeckers with their intellectual faculties (if any) constantly on holidays.

This has been less so in PvE… Millhouse has always been a bit of a glass cannon, this ‘tribe’ lacks sustain and healing in order to utilise e.g. spellpower (I used to farm the Heroic Corrupted Ancient with Millhouse, Cariel and Xyrella back in the day, relying on the Arcane Shot, but that’s about it), and the massive burst damage from Long’xin is more relevant to PvP.

Do we? I didn’t actually find his first skill or equipment that useful when I played with him (and sometimes I even relied specifically upon the Ley Line Wand, for instance when I was running Vanndar with some Arcane mercs, Millhouse coming in from the bench with big missiles, to have some fun). As said, his problem, compared to Jaina, for instance, has been his fragility and a ‘glass-cannon’ type.

I don’t like drawing such analogies, as making ‘yet another Fire team, except Arcane’ wouldn’t seem that unique. In that regard, Reno is an interesting one, so maybe having a red merc with some focus on sustaining the team could be more promising.

Wow, that’s a very interesting (no sarcasm intended) idea, and I like it!

(Some edits made)

1 Like