Mercenary one shots kill the desire to click them.

First I will say I have a crit hole in my defenses, so a good merc crit is likely to one shot me. I could fix that but going from other people's accounts it doesn't help.

Second, I just encountered an average merc (not infamous and was only 3-linked). His name was Revus, the Turncoat. Now what made me not worry at all about this merc was I have 85% phys reduction from armour and granite, 10% phys dmg to fire, 6 endurance charges, 5k life / 1k ES, 83% fire/81% light/cold res, 59% chaos (although this wasn't chaos from what I could tell but it was quick).

Third, I had just cleared 3 abyss and I have a headhunter. I was capped out with Souls which made me feel like there was no chance I was going to die here. I also had the bubble. I kept my distance and pre-loaded VFoS so I could move when the counter started the fight.

Immediately I was one shot.

I am lvl98 so grinding XP is my main mission. Twice tonight I've been one shot my mercs. So I decided I'm not clicking them anymore. There just seems no point to it at this level. I've been clicking every merc, and every merc has gone down in half a second. But this one slapped me harder than the nerf on Chaos Vaal Molten Shell back in the day.

I know risk/reward is the key feature of this game, but there was no reward on this merc. I clicked for some bubblegum currency because the items aren't worth checking at this point in the league. Which leads to the other issue. The later in the league, the less the items on the mercs matter. So it's a good thing we have the pocket change bubblegum choice, but it's a bad thing because I loved finding good items on the mercs.

If the balance is done with the mercs after the last merc change patch, and the one-shots are here to stay, then what is the point in clicking them after level 95/96? The risk to xp for a chaos or two when you have 100div in your pockets seems silly. So do we have to buy omen of amelioration at 130chaos a pop just in case? I guess with 100 div that's not an issue, but it still feels like avoiding them is the best case scenario.

I think it needs a bit more tweaking. I'm not the only one with an end game build that can do ubers and yet gets one-shot by some invisible slapshot.

I dunno. Just my two cents, more of a whine than anything I guess but take it how you want.

If they made mercs too rewarding nobody would run t17's...and they wouldn't be able to justify their existence anymore if people just stopped doing them.

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Angrybagel#7431 wrote:

If they made mercs too rewarding nobody would run t17's...and they wouldn't be able to justify their existence anymore if people just stopped doing them.

Yeah. I don't mean put headhunters and magebloods on more of them. Just balance the risk/reward. I have no problem with being one-shot by a tasty merc if I saw a good item on it and thought "hmm that's worth the xp risk".
I probably over-stated the crapness of the items. There are lots of great items you can use in the recombinator. I've got a stash tab where I put the potential items for recomb and a few have come from mercs. So it's not like it's all trash.

Really though I don't even mind getting one-shot if I can see it coming. Big slams, templates, etc all give you a chance to skill your way out of it. The two one-shots I had tonight were zero clarity instagibs. I was out of the way (I'm running VFoS so I can wind up shots from offscreen) but it was just blammo and gone. Feels like there was no skill and the 200div of gear I'm wearing for defence and attack meant nothing. Not much else I could do.

after a certain point they no longer became a threat to me

They are no longer a threat to me, 99% of the time. But there are still one-shots.
I might be able to prevent it by becoming crit immune but I hear other crit immune people getting one shot still.
It's not everytime, but when you are lvl98 and farming 10% takes an hour, and that hour is erased from any kind of meaning in a way where skill cannot prevent it because it's not apparent, then it's a gameplay issue. It can be resolved unless it's by design.

Im convinced it isnt a crit issue, but a penetration problem. I think someone put a decimal in the wrong place on the penetration support gems, so they are 10x whatever they say against players. So effectively you are zero res against certain attacks. The most guilty culprits of one shots are the templars and marauders with vaal skills that roll penetration supports.