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)