For those of you interested:
I'll be putting this up later today, you'll notice a lot of is it copied over from my other two reports since many things haven't changed yet, although there are a lot of little modifications throughout. Please critique it if you have the time, or just give a "looks good" if you can't find something wrong with it. Also, note that the actual report has a lot more formatting that doesn't copy over - italics, bold, color coding, etc. - the system that is used for the actual report that the dev's read is much nicer than this board and thus makes the report much easier to read. Thanks.
MERCENARY CLASS REPORT 12/8/1
The Mercenary received a boost recently on test server, by increasing the base Dual Wield chance from 15% to 25%. This certainly is appreciated and helpful, but the question on everyone's mind is, is it enough? Will this finally make it so Mercenaries are not overshadowed in every way by their Polearm Armsmen brethren? Let's take a look:
NOTE: I will often refer in my report to Polearm Armsmen as a comparison, since they are very similar to a Dual Wield Mercenary (pure tank with high damage and no shield). However, these comparison are also true for any tank that uses a 2-handed weapon, Polearms are just the most obvious example.
NOTE2: There is a convenient Quick Breakdown at the bottom of the report if you're pressed for time, although I would appreciate going over the entire report at some point as it did take a lot of work to put it together...
Recent Changes:
Dual Wield change - The 10% increase in base chance to do a double-hit using Dual Wield is great, and was sorely needed. I'm pretty sure everyone affected is very thankful for this change. The Mercenary team has been closely examining this change to determine if we can now outdamage a polearm Armsmen. We feel we should be able to, since a polearm Armsman already has more HP and more defense (our Evade I has nothing on Plate Mail) and matches us in every other ability, it seems only fair we have some advantage in damage output.
Unfortunately, although the 10% increase did help quite a bit, particularly at lower levels, other problems with Dual Wield have made it so Polearm Armsmen still have the damage output advantage.
From tests and studying the math involved, it seems that at lower levels, a Mercenary and an Armsman who do not use any styles will do about the same damage now - in fact, a Mercenary will actually outdamage an Armsmen in these conditions. However, at higher levels our advantage quickly drops, and if we throw styles into the mix, the advantage is clearly with the Armsmen at all level ranges.
I'm going to take a look at each of the reasons why an Armsmen still has the damage advantage, and explore possible solutions for those reasons:
1) Small weapons have an inherently lower DPS - This should speak for itself - having a lower DPS on our weapons means all the advantages of Dual Wield are spent just trying to make up the difference. Unfortunately, the only viable solution would be to increase the DPS of small weapons, but I consider this a bad solution because small weapons are cheaper than large ones. Both large weapons and small weapons have advantages that I think cancel each other out pretty well, but the cheaper cost of the small weapon has to be balanced somewhere, and DPS is that balancing factor. Increasing their cost would throw Crafting completely out of whack. Thus, I think we need to look elsewhere to solve this problem.
2) We can't offset the "first hit shock value" - Even with our fast attacks and lower damage variance, we can't offset the first hit that Polearm Armsmen get with how short battles are. Sure, if a battle lasted 5 minutes, we could offset it, but they don't. The only true solution I was given for this was to make it so when autoattack is pressed, the delay of the weapon is used before the first swing is made. However, I would consider this a nerf to a lot of classes, and I would really much rather have a boost to our class than a nerf to everyone else. I don't think there's any solution we'll find here.
3) Our damage curve doesn't keep up - Tests and math have shown that with the new change, at low levels we're doing great (before styles) but as we get higher, we start to fall behind in our damage output compared to a Polearm Armsman. Remember that at level 50, our Dual Wield chance changed from 40% to 50%, which isn't a very significant change by that level. The best solution here would be to change Dual Wield skill to give a 1% increase per point instead of a 0.5% increase per point. This would make a level 50 Dual Wield 75% of the time, which not only seems reasonable from a roleplaying perspective and makes putting points into the skill seem more worthwhile, but also keeps us almost even with Polearm Armsman in our damage curve throughout our careers (actually mathematically we would need a level 50 to Dual Wield 87% of the time to match a Polearm Armsmen's damage with everything else being even, just FYI).
4) Dual Wield styles cannot keep up with Polearm styles - This is the big one - our Dual Wield styles are so bad compared to Polearm styles, that even if everything else were fixed above, a Polearm Armsmen would still waste us in damage output. There are actually several problems with our styles that are causing this. Here we go...
a) Endurance costs - Dual Wield styles cost a lot more endurance for how much bonus damage they get compared to Polearms. Because bonus damage is based on a % of the weapons damage and our small weapons have a low base damage, a Polearm will do significantly more bonus damage with one of their styles than we will with one of ours, but we sacrifice the same amount of endurance for our piddling little damage bonus. This means that to keep up in bonus damage, we have to do several more styles meaning our endurance is drained much more rapidly. When our endurance runs out, the Polearm user still has plenty left to dish out major damage with. I go into more detail on Endurance costs of small weapons versus large weapons further down in my report.
b) Only right hand does styles - When performing a Dual Wield style, or any style for that matter, it always forces the main hand to be used. If the style ends up being a double-hit, the bonus damage is only applied to the main hand. Dual Wield is supposed to have an equal dependancy on both hands, but this really throws that out of whack. If the bonus damage were applied to both hands instead of just the right hand, it would really help.
c) No advantage over regular styles - Many Mercenaries don't even use the Dual Wield styles, because their bonuses are no better, and often inferior, to the ones they get from their primary weapon spec. In particular, Slashing Mercenaries found that Amethyst Slash was far superior to anything Dual Wield had to offer in the way of styles. If Dual Wield styles had the advantage of a highly increased chance to do a double-hit when using them, they would not only see more use but may increase style damage output enough to start to even up with the Polearm styles.
d) Over dependancy on Evade - This is even more of a problem for Mercenaries that choose Thrust as their primary, since Thrust also depends highly on Evade. Since we only ever get Evade I, we don't evade very often at all. It would be better if our reactionary styles were based on Parry rather than Evade, but leave them based on Evade for the Infiltrator. Unfortunately, the problem with this is that even though we are better at Parry than Evade, we don't actually get Parry until level 17. In order to fix our Thrust and Dual Wield styles, Parry needs to be given at a lower level - I go into more detail on this problem further down in my report.
e) Not enough good "no opening" styles - Dual Wield styles seem more appropriate for a Rogue than a Tank. There is a distinct lack of frontal styles we can use in battles, particularly in RVR. While we do like having some good positional styles (I'm a fan of Shadow's Edge myself) it would help a lot if we had some more usable styles for every day fights.
The main problem with Dual Wield styles is just the fact that they don't do enough damage to justify their use. Using a combination of the above suggestions or just majorly increasing their damage output would really help to close the gap between Polearms and Dual Wield.
Bugs:
Missing Ratfang Thrust Style - Fighters and Mercenaries do not receive the second thrust style, Ratfang, which is used to chain into Wolftooth and Liontooth. Rogues do get this style. It is believed that this has something to do with the fact that Ratfang is a reactionary style going off of Evade, which Fighters/Mercenaries don't have when they get this style. In fact at the time this is normally received (it is only 4 spec points to get it) Mercenaries don't have Parry either, so the only thing the style could react off of would be Block, which you don't find a Mercenary doing very often since they don't use shields. The style is not received when Mercenaries get Evade later either, so Mercenaries never get it and thus can never do Wolftooth or Liontooth either.
Problems with /stick - Two problems - first the new reduced range of /stick is too extreme, the range should be at least the range of a healer's heal spell, or at least the range at which the names appear above enemy's heads. Second the /stick command sometimes does not work when the target is moving away from you. You move up to your target but are told that they are just out of range. This is most prevelant in laggy conditions where the client/server updating is not very quick, but can also be seen in non-laggy conditions if the target is moving full speed (even if you are moving just as fast or faster). Slightly lowering the distance /stick places you from your target or increasing the range at which you can hit a target in melee would resolve this. Either that or have the server know when you are using /stick and place your character in the appriopriate spot server-side for you.
High level styles still not received - Although it was said in a recent patch that this was fixed, reports are coming in that styles are still not being received for high level people who have too many styles, at least not on a retroactive basis anyway.
Parry and enemy players - Many players reported that Parry never once has gone off in an RVR fight. I could not find any Mercernary players that could confirm Parry actually did work in RVR. This could be perceptual but with the number of players that reported it and the fact that no one could confirm it did actually work, perhaps it should be looked into?
Major Issues:
Damage output - See my discussion under Recent Changes above.
Dual Wield styles - See my discussion under Recent Changes above.
Lack of a unique ability - Mercenaries are the only class in the realm of Albion that has to share every single one of their abilities with some other class. While it's true some other classes seem to lack uniqueness, all of them still have at least one skill or specialization that no other class does, except for Mercenaries. This also denies them any role in RVR other than "weak tank." Many players had ideas for unique skills to give Merc's. Please note that we ONLY want one or two of these, not all of them by any means.
Mobility skills - The top requested skill was something to increase mobility to match the "light tank" idea and give Merc's a unique role for taking out archers and casters quickly, then retreating. Here's some of the suggestions in order of popularity (based on how many people requested them):
Sprint II/III - Sprint that takes less endurance to do and/or has faster speed.
Charge - Faster form of Sprint that's activated on a timer (but doesn't use Endurance?) and increases the chance to avoid arrows/mez/stun while running (used to charge a mage or archer to close in quickly for the kill).
Second Wind - Timer-based ability that restores some endurance to increase how long can Sprint or help with use of Styles.
Run I/II - Allows Endurance to be regen'd while running OR give a faster base run speed.
Clear Mind - Increased resistance to stun/mez.
Guild of Shadows skills - The second most requested skills were things that went along with the idea of Mercenaries belonging to the Guild of Shadows. Here's some of the suggestions in order of popularity:
Detect Hidden - Seperate skill not linked to Stealth, just allows to see other stealthed people. This one was requested far more than any of the below ideas.
Tracking - When it goes in, many would find this fitting for the Mercenary from a roleplaying perspective.
Sneak - (Personally, I don't like this one much, but it was requested multiple times so...) Some kind of extremely limited stealth, maybe have it only last a few seconds and be easy to detect, maybe even limit it so you're never truly invisible just transparent, should be just enough to help get in close to archers/mages but not enough to step on the toes of the Archer/Assasin Stealth ability and not enough to allow us to be safe from random attacks.
Cheap Shot - Nasty style that's on a timer - 5% to 50% chance of a stun & snare & slow from next attack or high damage or something like that. I mostly liked this one for the appropriate name and how it fits with the whole Mercenary theme =).
Fighting skills - In the effort to ensure our damage output supremecy, some suggestions were made to improve damage output. These might not be necessary if some of the other suggested changes for damage output under the Recent Changes section were implemented.
Rapid blades - Self-haste that drains endurance rapidly.
Double attack - Similar to EQ's, a chance to hit with one weapon twice in the same round, making a maximum of 4 attacks possible in one round when combined with Dual Wield. This would ensure our absolute supremecy in melee damage output.
Whirlwind - Some kind of AOE melee attack that hurts multiple opponents at once, kind of like Diablo II's Barbarian Whirlwind attack, but alternate implementations are definitely possible.
Beserk rip-off - Some ability similar to Beserker's Beserk but with a different implementation - say every hit is a free double attack or something like that. This would probably be the easiest to implement but it's not very original.
Receiving Dual Wield - Every Dual-Weilding class except Mercenaries, Blademasters, and Rangers receive Dual Wield or its equivalent at level 5 (this includes Infiltrators, Shadowblades, Nightshades, and even Bezerkers). Indeed, in general all other classes receive all of their specialization tracks by level 5 except for Albion Fighter classes and Parry. Mercenaries and Blademasters do not receive the Dual Wield skill until level 10. Considering that Dual Wield is the Mercenary trademark skill, it seems odd that Infiltrators get the skill before them (Case in point: The web site doesn't even mention Infiltrators getting Dual Wield, but it does mention Mercenaries getting it, so why are Infiltrators getting it so much sooner?). In addition, some newbies have been known to put many points into Shields at 5-10 because they did not know they even got Dual Wield, and were upset at the wasted points when they hit 10. Dual Wield should be granted at level 5 instead.
Receiving Parry - Not getting Parry until level 17 (later than every other class in the game that gets it) really hurts the class in numerous ways. First, when Dual Wielding, Parry is the only defensive manuever Mercenaries get besides Evade. The other primary Dual Wielding classes (Bezerker and Blademaster) get the skill at level 1, as well as having Evade I by level 5 (Merc's get Evade I at 10 and that's the highest one they get). I see absolutely no good reason why Mercenaries should be missing Parry for so long. They are going to get it eventually anyway, and it would help the difficult and boring lower levels, so why make 'em wait for it when no one else has to?
A bigger concern with missing Parry for so long is the detrimental effect it has on our styles. Looking at the Dual Wield styles, you?ll see the second Dual Wield style, Twin Return (granted at spec 4), is supposed to chain off of Parry. Since we don?t have Parry by that point, it instead chains off of our very rare Evade. This makes it so every Dual Wield reactionary style we get is based off of Evade which we hardly ever do since we only get Evade I (the exception is Reflections which is based off of anyone in the group parrying). It would be better to have more reactionary styles based on Parry since if we spend any points in Parry it will go off more often than Evade. The current system severely hampers our ability to do reactionary style chains. This is really unfortunate since one of the few advantages of having fast weapons is the increased chance to pull off reactionary styles .
Parry needs to be granted at level 5, or at the very least 10. In fact, I would say give it to Fighters at level 1 like Vikings and Guardians - why are Albion fighter types lacking this skill for so much longer than Midgard and even the magical realm of Hibernia? If Parry is not going to be granted at level 5 or lower, than at least make the second Dual-Weild style that goes off of Evade, Dark Tendrils, chain off of Parry instead so we don?t have so many styles dependant on our extremely low Evade skill.
Reactionary Styles Problems - Reactionary styles are difficult to execute in laggy conditions or when fighting double-hitting monsters (why can monsters double-hit with two handed weapons anyway? No player class can ever hope to double attack with polearms, so why can humanoid NPC's?). The reason for this is that just after parrying/evading and pressing the reactionary style button, by the time the server gets the message that you want to do that style the monster has already attacked again and the style fails (epsecially if it's a double-hitting monster and it was the first hit of the double-hit that you parried/evaded, then it's completely impossible). This game traditionally has tried to avoid forcing people to have "twitch skills" but these styles are difficult to do even for the experienced twitch gamer. I suggest instead of forcing it to be "after the action but before you get attacked again" have it be a straight timer like "within 3 seconds of when you parried/evaded" regardless of whether or not you were attacked again during that time.
Style endurance costs - Because the bonus damage from styles is based on a % of the base damage of the weapon, and because Mercenaries are generally expected to weild two quick weapons, the Mercenary is forced to do several more styles in order to have the same bonus damage as a slow weapon user.
To demonstrate this, please examine the following example. Let's take two classes that do the same damage over time, a slow weapon user and a light fast weapon user. We'll call them Slow and Fast.
Assume both Slow and Fast are doing the same style. Assume this style does 10% bonus damage.
Slow's weapon normally does ~50 damage per swing. He can get 2 swings off in 10 seconds.
Fast's weapon normally does ~20 damage per swing. He can get 5 swings off in 10 seconds.
We'll ignore misses for now, just assume they are both hitting greys (we're concerned with endurance costs not which style does better damage).
Now let's say that each of them has 10 seconds to damage the mob, and that they execute the style on every single swing.
Slow does 55 damage per swing (50*10%=5 50=55) and gets 2 swings, doing a total of 110 damage.
Fast does 22 damage per swing (20*10%=2 20=22) and gets 5 swings, doing a total of 110 damage.
As you can see, doing the same style on every swing ended up with the same damage for both Slow and Fast since the style's bonus damage is based on a % of the base damage and they both had the same base DPS. However, Slow did the style twice and Fast did the style five times, meaning Fast lost 5 times as much endurance to do the same bonus damage! This means the Mercenary goes through Endurance much faster. It has been suggested that the endurance cost of styles be dependant on the weight of the weapon, such that it would take the same endurance to do the same amount of bonus damage for both small and large weapons.
Minor Issues:
No Thrust initiate weapon ? When becoming a Mercenary at level 5, you are given the option of a [slashing] or [crushing] initiate weapon, but no option for a thrusting weapon. Believe it or not, sometimes non-rogue tanks want to try out Thrusting, they should also be given the option to get a nice free initiate weapon in their chosen spec path.
Beartooth thrust style - This style is based off of Block, which Mercenaries essentially never do. This is very unfortunate, since combined with the missing Ratfang chain we are missing a large portion of our Thrust styles!
Using Shields in RVR - Since a shield and our secondary weapon both go into the same slot, it is very difficult to quickly switch to a shield for purposes of blocking arrows/spells in RVR. Please consider allowing our secondary weapon or shields to be put in the 2-handed slot so that we can hotkey a switch between two weapons and a shield+weapon combo.
Parry and Dual Wield - Many players felt that while Dual Wielding, the chance to Parry should be increased since we have two weapons to parry with. Parry chance should be 1.5 - 2x normal while a second weapon is equipped. This would ensure our defensive superiority to Infilitrators (they don't get Parry, but they do get DW + Evade VI + rogue stuff compared to our DW + Evade I + chain), improve our chances of doing reactionary styles (if they are fixed to work off of Parry instead of Evade I) and allow us to be emergency backup tanks if no Paladins or Armsmen can be found. This may be unbalancing though, testing would be needed (and I'd rather have our damage output increased and be given some unique ability before considering a defensive boost, at least for now).
High solo downtime - Mercenaries still have some of the worst solo downtime I've seen. This is largely because by the end of a solo fight they have very little HP left and no way to recover it. I think fixing a lot of the above issues would take care of this, but one other option would be to give some kind of downtime-decreasing skill such as Mend from EQ's monks, or if you give us Second Wind perhaps make it increase HP as well as Endurance. Just a suggestion.
Lack of spec path variety ? This may not really be much of an issue since some would consider this a benefit (less decisions, more focused power), but there?s really very few paths open to the Mercenary - most just max a weapon and Dual Wield and dump the rest in Parry. Some may argue that you could put a lot in shields, but there is absolutely no good reason to do that ? if you wanted to have high spec in shield and sacrifice Dual Wield, you?d be better off with an Armsman or Paladin who gets all the same skills plus better armor and more HP. The only thing you?d be missing is the short bow at an earlier level but Armsman get crossbows later on and I really don?t think having a bow a few levels earlier would be worth losing out on plate mail and more HP. Perhaps Shield spec should be replaced with a different spec altogether, one unique to the Mercenary class to set it apart.
Balance:
With the recent changes, it will take more time before we can have a true feel for the balance of the class compared to other classes. Although it is clear that we are now closer in balance with other classes in Albion because of the increase in base Dual Wield chance, it is not yet clear how much of an overall balance change this made.
Quick Breakdown
These are most of the changes we'd like to see made in a quick summary in no particular order:
<*> Consider changing the Dual Wield skill to give a 1% bonus to the double hit chance per point rather than the current 0.5% bonus to complete the change to Dual Wield damage output (before styles).
<*> Fix Dual Wield styles to do more damage and be more useful using any of the methods mentioned in the Recent Changes section.
<*> Reduce the endurance cost of styles when using a light weight weapon to balance the cost of endurance for doing the same amount of bonus-damage-over-time as a heavy weapon user.
<*> Add some unique/interesting ability to the Mercenary to make them more desirable to play similar to how Bezerkers get Bezerk and (later) Shapeshifting.
<*> Give Dual-Weild and Parry skills at level 5 instead of 10 and 17 to match the majority of other classes and to fix the problem of most of our styles having to chain off of our very limited Evade I because we don't have Parry when we get the styles.
<*> Fix /stick to work better when chasing enemies with it, and increase its range to a more reasonable distance.
<*> Fix the missing Ratfang Thrust style bug and the missing high level styles from hitting the style cap bug, and make Beartooth chain off of something other than Block.
<*> Allow shields to be put in the 2-handed slot so that we can hotkey a switch between two weapons and a shield+weapon combo for RVR purposes.
<*> Improve reactionary styles interface to be more lag friendly (by allowing them to be done based on a straight timer rather than "before getting hit again" or "before attacking again")
<*> Replace Shields spec with a more appropriate class spec, perhaps something to make the class more unique since it makes no sense for a Mercenary to put points into Shields anyway (much better off being a Armsman/Paladin if you're planning to give up Dual Wield to spec in Shields).
Summary:
While the Mercenary has the potential to be a fun class, and the recent change to Dual Wield has increased their appeal, a lot of Mercenary players are still disenchanted with the class's lack of uniqueness and are dissapointed with how it compares to Armsmen. Also there is a feeling of being shafted compared to other melee classes, especially those from Midgard and Hibernia, in how late they get their core abilities like Dual Wield and Parry. Overall the class has great potential, cool styles to play with, and has a good concept from a roleplaying perspective, but there is little compelling reason to play one when compared to similar classes and they have a distinct lack of depth.
Zauron
(playing on Test as Zarthen Blade)
Mercenary Team Lead
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Zauron (aka Rubikant)
DAoC Mercenary Team Lead
DAoC Beta Tester since March '01
Founder/webmaster of the DAoC Yahoo! group  |
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