oh where oh where ha my little cleric gone?Follow

Are you just trolling?

What you are saying does not represent something anyone with any amount of play time in Everquest beyond Planes of Power would say so I assume you are looking for a fight.

Edited, Dec 6th 2008 9:41am by Reyla

Could be they were all out playing. I never understood why some people sit in the GL all the time in the first place.

If you're panties are in a wad over how you were treated here then go to www.evilgamer.net and whine there.

Here's a though, try xp'ing without cleric buffs. It's possible, really it is. Even if you're naked you can still get xp in places. Why do you need buffs?

Yeah sorry if the response was less than pleasant but a question like that can be answered just by using mercs in different situations and observing.

For example, I know first hand for a fact that my 72 Monk with 450 AAs tanks 100 times better than a Merc of the same level Apprentice 5 or Journeyman 1.

I just scrapped the tank merc and tank myself and I'm just a Monk. A Warrior of my level and gear would put the merc to shame even more.

In my opinion, mercenaries are NO Replacement for a real player. They are good, when you need a rez, clr buff, or a healer that is attentive but not so bright, and generally just casts hots, promised heals, and complete heals, rarely casting quick heals, depending on stance, and are at their best in an efficient stance for grinding easy content, you could solo, but would have some down time every few mobs for health / mana.

At least the clerics med, when they can, but they are very inefficient even in efficient stance, and not good at judging situations and adjusting. Warriors, never med, and run out of Endurance fast in any group. As others have said, clerics have huge heal aggro, and their over healing doesn't help. You can work around alot of their problems, but it takes different strategies and makes the group way less efficient overall.

And I'm not sure, but from observation, it seems they take more than their far share of experience. In every circumstance I've been in, replacing a merc with even a non-active player ends up with more experience, unless it was the only healer in the group, and resulted in lots of downtime without the cleric merc.

One of the best things about mercs tho, is they do pay attention and react even if it's not the best of all reaction choices. Another descent use, is a slaughtering group taking low damage, you can suspend the merc for 5mins then unspend long enough for a complete heal, then re-suspend and continue grinding.

Generally I've only found a good use for War mercs for nameds or other multiple mobs, in a group without crowd control, as they're descent off-tanks, but again will prob burn up 50% of their End during the fight, and require forever to regen it, since they never sit.

So, overall, they have their uses, but are in no way a replacement for a real player that is at least moderately attentive, and knows the very minimum of how to play their class.

Yther Ore.

i'm with tweelist, why do you need cleric buffs to solo ?

Why not?

My self-buffed SK at 71 would still get destroyed by the dark blue con drakes in Sunderrock. With a healer merc (which, at 71 means Conviction), I can handle them as single pulls pretty easily -- and they are easily single pulled. Why on earth would I give up the fairly decent SR "solo" experience (even with the merc siphoning half of it) and stick to anemic experience from low light blues in old zones?

There's no special reward I'm stealing for pseudo-soloing drakes. I'm just advancing my character and getting more for my time than I would be fighting Tier 2 PoP mobs while buffed with Cloak of Discord (oh boy! +350hp!). I have no idea why people would object to that.

Beating up stuff in the Hole, the xp-drain from a merc makes them a waste anyway at my level. But if I'm grinding actual xp then my goal is pretty much to make as much xp as I can as quickly as I can so I can hit my goal and go back to dorking around. Really, nothing is going to make killing piles of drakes "Fun" In which case a merc (and cleric buffs) helps out tons.

Sure, ya find what works for you. Personally, I can go through 7+ drakes in SR before my own mana requires me to med a moment. That's "solo" with a merc, mind you.

I'm just wondering why anyone would begrudge me the ability to get decent xp just because I'm using cleric buffs and whatnot. Or why I shouldn't be "soloing" something if I can't do it without external buffs/potions/etc. I solo what I'm equipped to solo at the moment -- if I'm well buffed, I solo harder stuff. If I'm merc buffed, somewhat easier stuff. If I'm self-buffed, I solo crap mobs for AAXP. Some opinions above are that I should only be doing the last one.

I agree with the full quote, but edited down to the snippet to comment:

My enchanter did so well solo xp (via charm) that necro was the only class I played that didn't feel like I was going too slow on (XP-wise) afterwards.

Granted there were certain level hiccups on the way where tactics suddenly failed, and that was some time ago so I concede it may no longer match my recollection, especially since my chanter isn't anywhere near the current level cap.