Merc being affected by cycling

The merc is affected by the follwoing cycling mod(Players and their Minions deal no damage for 3 out of every 10 seconds) on t17 maps. The merc sometimes doesn't deal damage. This clearly shouldn't be the case since this mod only states players and minions, which in no other instance affect the merc. Can this be fixed or can the merc be counted as minion/player everywhere. Some consistency would be nice.