gbaji wrote:
Yeah, I've not really looked up parses and whatnot, but I'd assume that melee mercs would be pretty similar (maybe even a bit better?) at single target DPS, while the casters will help with AE..
Well, I went ahead and downloaded a parser (Gamparse) and ran one DeadHill HA. I don't really know how to combine all the fights in the parser to give an overall parse of every fight for the HA/time-span. All I'd be able to do is link each individual fight. But it's pretty clear caster mercs are pretty far ahead on DPS compared to melee mercs. I even have the melee merc on auto, so she jumps on the mobs ASAP, while I hold the caster merc back till my warrior fire offs all of his agro disc and it's still not even close. There are a few fights where the melee merc came out ahead, but the caster merc is usually not far behind and that only happens when I was a little late calling /mercassist. And even though I am holding back on the caster merc, the majority of the fights, the caster merc comes out ahead and many times....far ahead on DPS. I suspect once I get all or enough silent Arcanum AA's to reduce the casters generating hate and can have 2x caster mercs on burn and autoassist, it'll be pretty ridiculous DPS. Agro is not to much of an issue with only 3 points spent on Silent Arcanum. By the time or IF, I lose agro, the mob is less than 20% health or dies in the run towards the caster.
I was seriously going to go melee merc and caster merc, but now it will be 2x caster merc. I will work on getting the melee merc AA's, after I get casters done as a just incase I do some high MR named or something, but for everyday trash mob killing, it's caster mercs all the way.
I think lvl96 was a pretty big DPS bump too. I noticed before the caster merc was doing @60k a nuke. Now she is over 100k a nuke. 2 caster mercs doing that....yeah
In all fairness though, I do have my enchanter with his hate reducing aura and twincast aura up which helps casters.