Mercenary kinda sucks now.

[Mastigando Plástico]

Yeah, I'm aware there are tons of discussions on how this and that character is good or bad or whatever, but I simply couldn't keep this to myself this time: the mercenary was nerfed into the ground and I have absolutely no Idea why. Not to this extent, at least.

Bigger cooldowns, lower damage output and an HP counter comparable to the hutress'. Ok, the devs didn't feel he was playing the way he was originaly intended to, but why in hell EVERY aspect of him had to be nerfed? One of these would have been enough. It's not like anyone was complaining before, he wasn't particularly overpowered, felt great to slash and dash frantically through the map, HP was already low enough that he could be killed by a malachite wisp in a single bad dash. Flow-charty? Yeah, but it was a fun playstyle and not for everyone.

Now I do have to sit (not literally but you get the point) in the enemy's nose for 2.5(ish) seconds waiting for the third slash to come out to apply a debuf that is the only way the mercenary can do any real damage again, meanwhile I'm bombarded by hitscanners and fire balls and what not. Wanted him to be more technical? Why not introduce an alternate primary that is a single slice with cooldown with the same properties of the third strike of the combo? Heck, have the third dash apply the debuff, that way I'd come out of it ready to deal damange instead of having to stay there poking the enemy with a shiny stick for laughable damage, having to survive with as much HP as an archer that has the option of firing halfway across the map. That's not high risk/high reward, that's high risk/♥♥♥♥ your reward.

Maybe I'm just having a hard time adapting to his new playstyle, but I insist there was nothing wrong with what we had previously and I have little reason to invest time gittn' gud when there's the Loader, who is as broken and godlike as ever and no one ever talks about nerfing her.

[mrqwer4]

True

[Aidal]

This is one thing I agree with, Mercenaries kit is intended to be skill, but this is bit excessive, there's not actually that much ROI on the exposed debuff, the 300% damage increase lasts one strike, and shaving off one second of cooldown doesn't really help because you can space out your cooldowns enough to loop them nearly forever.

I feel like exposed should have the skill cooldown removed, and place it on an alternative attack, perhaps the M2, but this runs the huge risk of double magazine greatly increasing mercenary damage. Still as it is now, it makes his kit too vulnerable to really use.

[Zeddy]

Originally posted by Aidal:

shaving off one second of cooldown doesn't really help

One second of cooldown per enemy. The 3rd strike can expose quite a lot of enemies due to its significantly larger hitbox.

300% damage increase seems to be there so you can trigger bands without the uppercut.

[Millenia]

Mercenary seems complete ♥♥♥♥ compared to that other hookshot guy.

[Malakith`4f]

The expose should last for one entire skill instead of one hit imo. Half your kit simply doesnt really benifit from it. The only skill its usefull for is Rising Thunder.

[Jimmy Hunter]

Originally posted by Malakith`4f:

The expose should last for one entire skill instead of one hit imo. Half your kit simply doesnt really benifit from it. The only skill its usefull for is Rising Thunder.

Atleast 800% procs with both Rings are decent. Too bad Expose gets consumed with your allies or minion damaging the monster you're fighting.

[Crusader]

Idk if it was nerfed but merc definitely sucks for the final boss especially compared to loader. In fact everybody just sucks at that area / fight except loader.

Merc’s attacks are multi part, meaning to get the entire damage in the enemy has to be standing still especially the RB move. Due to the final boss teleporting constantly, half of your attacks with merc just end up missing most of the time.

Loader on the other hand really just uses her punches and her dash / flying fist punch move, kill the final boss probably the fastest due to the flying punch doing so much damage on hit in one go and leave the area easily too without getting softlocked such as with engi.

And ik people are going to say “just get mobility” but that mobility is just nowhere near as useful for the rest of the game really.

I think they kinda dropped the ball with final area and the final boss as a whole. It just feels like a bunch of polygons strung together randomly. And the final boss is cool sure but getting to him takes so long, the level just drags on and on. “B-but this was done due to the timer” honestly the timer is not even the problem it’s the area softlocking you because you lack mobility that’s the hard part or annoying part about the whole thing. I think the timer is quite unnecessary. I actually wish that it just dropped you straight into the boss like aurilionite or whatever his name is or even better, if you could get more loot before the boss. But you really can’t not counting the blue items and the item exhange area that again softlocks you if you lack mobility.

It’s really ironic how bad the last area is and how their release patch notes for 1.0 under “known issues” it says: “There are no issues, this game is perfect” except the game literally softlocks you if you lack mobility. I think I barely made it back by using the captain the other day with 2 feathers. BARELY. Not to mention the scrap bug that was found at day 1. There’s clearly some issues hoopoo lmao

[Crusader]

And yes ik, i think they supposedly fixed the softlock from the item exchange area. I haven’t checked back in a few days. Still on my way back from the level as engi with a feather and a red whip i still softlocked myself at launch day. I’m not sure if they fixed that one yet

[Mastigando Plástico]

Originally posted by Crusader:

And yes ik, i think they supposedly fixed the softlock from the item exchange area. I haven’t checked back in a few days. Still on my way back from the level as engi with a feather and a red whip i still softlocked myself at launch day. I’m not sure if they fixed that one yet

I understand your frustration Crusader, and while I don't disagree with you, I can't help but point out that we are getting out of topic here.

I'm just glad I was not the only one who thought merc's balance tweaks were underwhelming. I believe everything would have been fine if this exposed mechanic was introduced via alternative skills instead of becoming the only option. That and the reversion of the health nerf which I can't begin to come up with an excuse for. Using shaped glass now has become a bold move, to say the least.

[NarbeVoguel]

Merc is my main, and melee is the only way my dumbass brain can tackle this game.

I still have mixed feelings with the new Mercenary changes. On one hand, I love them, it's a riskier but more rewarding style of gameplay for him, BUT, I'm not gonna deny that: 1- I miss the old merc, interestingly enough both characters play VERY differently. 2- Idk if it's the damage output of the Expose debuff or the fact that allies can consume it, but it's veeery underwhelming starting stage 3 (monsoon) or so, the expose debuff damage is not that big of a deal, and by this point, you probably have drones or beetles consuming your expose, and when you're counting on that cooldown reduction, turns out it's not there anymore, leaving you heavily exposed (I swear no pun intended) to the hoarde of enemes you're trying to get rid of, which is dangerous af given how the hp nerf makes him super squishy now. And given how the cooldown on his Binding Flash skill works, the expose debuff is not going to do it any favors, so I'm considering using strides of heresy to see how that goes.

I would've preferred if the expose was just a passive chosen at loadout just how you can choose between poison and blight for Acrid, but then again, it messes with the character's base stats, dunno how that would work, and how it would affect other characters in future updates... Or maybe fix the expose debuff so it's consumed only on sword hit? Because I try to keep my exposes tidy to strategize better but then turns out a firework or the tesla coil consumed it.

There's also the Mithrix fight, with the merc is tedious as heck, because of his random teleporting around, very difficult to expose him, and too squishy to at least go riskier and try to m1 the s**t out of him.

[Thug Killadome]

I dont really understand the whole thing of them not liking Merc playing holding down M1 while using their cooldowns when the expose mechanic basically has you doing the exact same thing but you need to wait for the 3rd hit to connect to do anything

I'd live with it if it wasn't for the awful hitstop and the stupidly long distance you cover doing dashes that pushes you too far out of M1 reach anyway

[Gone Oh!™]

The problem is we're not playing Merc the way the devs intended: on Drizzle.

[Qwerty]

Agree, He sucks big time. Also he no longer has iframes on the start up of his dash which is complete BS and goes just great with the armor and health nerf he got. Why? Why waste time nerfing him like this? How about making Artificer a better character instead? Or making Acrid something more than a kiter because melee is ♥♥♥♥ with the broken enemy scaling.

[Aidal]

Originally posted by Zeddy:

One second of cooldown per enemy. The 3rd strike can expose quite a lot of enemies due to its significantly larger hitbox.

300% damage increase seems to be there so you can trigger bands without the uppercut.

I am aware, it does not change the ROI fact by a large enough margin. If you can hit multiple enemies in a single strike, you're likely going to be in trouble, especially early game, when your only source of mobility is your skills, which you need to use to dodge or position yourself to place the expose debuff.

Trying to apply expose to a horde I find myself using Blinding Assault to guard against damage between strikes, by the time I'm done they're either dead and expose did nothing for me, or there is one or two survivors left that I could have just hit with Rising thunder and killed regardless.

Mid to Late game you can obtain enough damage to render exposed moot almost entirely.

It's value starts low, and only decreases through the game as the value in mobility increases. You can argue that attack speed would counter that, but I still have to stop sprinting/jumping, and I still need to spend at least a second striking the enemy.

if you luck out and get four crowbars (300% damage on targets above 90%), then you don't want to waste your opening strike on some normal attack that only deals 130% damage, you'll want to use blinding assault at least, rising thunder if you have it, to get out the most damage possible.

Again, its impractical as it is, and late game borders on totally useless.

Edit: Grammar, I just woke up.

[man]

"advanced players would benefit more from it and weak players wouldnt benefit more from it" (or something like that im bad at english).

I dont see how exactly nerfing his survivability and adding a small buff that isn't really good would raise the skill cap for mercenary.