Mercs are a great addition to the game, I hope they go core.

so the main objections seem to be power creep and extra loot which is what every other league adds to game.

the extra loot argument honestly seems laughable when kingsmarch is in the game, it is a literal currency printer. Do anything in game = gold, you put it in kingsmarch and it spits out loot at you via mappers and shipments.


The power creep is a lot more valid but there is already scaling in place to account for this by giving them multiplayer scaling.

If mercs are too strong they can increase the scaling.

I agree the Doryani's thing should be fixed and any other edge cases that make them over perform.

Mercs "out of the box" are not that strong in the endgame, they give you an aura or 2 or a curse but again by having the merc you are buffing the mobs to account for this bonus.

What makes them powerful is giving them gear. That means more items have value, like how high tier uniques are now being priced based on how much dust they produce at Rog.

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only a specific group of mercs will become the only choice.

the merc you choose is based on what synergy the merc brings to your build. X merc is never going to be the best for everyone.

again its all optional - if u want base PoE with no additional scaling then don't run with a merc.

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Benwastaken#2446 wrote:

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only a specific group of mercs will become the only choice.

the merc you choose is based on what synergy the merc brings to your build. X merc is never going to be the best for everyone.

again its all optional - if u want base PoE with no additional scaling then don't run with a merc.

Except that's not how that's going to work in practice. Everyone is going to focus on taking str/dex/int mercs so they can have access to the full spectrum of support gear, turning them into a more intelligent Animate Guardian.

Mercs aren't very capable combatants unless you dump extremely pricey gear on them, but they are great at being a tanky aura bot to give you even more DPS you didn't have before. And knowing this, GGG will make this specific merc setup the only viable option for all builds going forward after they rebalance the entire game to account for them.

I'm okay with mercs as a temporary power fantasy league, but I'm going to hate later being forced to have them on board as support to account for mobs being made harder.

This is a bad idea.

nope, nope

they are shit and if they get added, ggg have to nerf every player skill by 30% and then your build sucks until you have you merc and it's gear ready

imo mercs are as bad as D3's forced sets

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Pl4t1numX#4325 wrote:

besides powercreep and a loot multiplier its a boring "take 1 item" box. out of a league mechanic perspective this was the worst league in many years.

Took them 11 months for this. Do we have any hope for another good season?

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Pizzarugi#6258 wrote:

I'm okay with mercs as a temporary power fantasy league, but I'm going to hate later being forced to have them on board as support to account for mobs being made harder.

This is a bad idea.

When exactly was the last time GGG actually made the base game harder to compensate for new player power creep? Oh right,never.

The game has only gotten easier with each patch that introduced new permanent player power , and we've all been speedrunning red maps with less and less effort ever since.

If mercs were to go core (spoiler: they probably won’t), mobs wouldn’t suddenly become tougher to “compensate.” They’d just be one more grindable layer slapped on top of all the others. Let’s not pretend GGG has ever scaled monster difficulty in line with how bloated player power has become over the years.

I think they could be splendid if they are brought into line. Their current state is overturned, but this is pretty common for league content.

The biggest issue is they seem to me, to be too durable. I have been too busy getting my standard Kingsmarch set up to try the league, but from what I see and from my guild pals talking, they are very very easy to kit out uniques.

- Limit them to ONE aura, warcry or curse. One per merc. Given how much people spend to get one more curse or aura, and their power, it should be 1 per merc absent extremely expensive gear that is generating auras/curses/warcries.

- Reduce their durability so that most of their gear will be defensive layering to keep them alive. If people are able to gear mercs like an animate guardian, and not have them drop dead twice a map in red maps, they're probably too tough.

- Give them mana, and force investment in regen, leech, mana/life on kill etc to sustain.

- Make them follow player resistance rules, including penalties.

- Remove any innate armour, es and evade other than that provided by base stats.

- Make them follow player stat rules for dex, str and int if they are not, and scale them to an average range based on merc type.

- Toggle a few select uniques that were intended for players to make sacrifices so they don't work with a merc. Protottype, Toe, ect.

- Cap auras, curses, warcries, and merc skills/supports at level 15 or 17.

- Any mechanics that apply to players that don't apply to mercs need to. Drowning orbs, mechanical one shots, reflect, no leech, no regen, ect.

- Animate Guardian Rules - if the merc dies in a map/area, you can't rehire him for that area.

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The way I see it, the merc should be a cool helper for the campaign through T-16. T-16.5 through T-17 should deleted them unless the player really buys them some very expensive, top shelf gear. Pinnacle bosses and uber pinnacle bosses should chew them up in seconds.

With just these adjustmets, they will be a nice addition to the game, and a decent help to most players. (Campaign - T-16 is where most of the people in PoE sit). A nice fun feature. The super rewarding content will require extremely expensive gear to keep the merc alive - and the very pinnacle content trophy bosses will kill them nearly instantly.

I hope the mechanic goes core with some proper balancing. It has a lot of potential.

the way johnathan presented merc, saying they wanted merc since a long long time but couldnt get them earlier, imo, they will stay.

now how do they balance that, no idea.

and yes the risk is if they re powerful that you have to put items on them, and if they balance them by makingn them more squishy, now not only do you have to find how to survive you also have to do the theorycraft on your merc. hope they dont overcomplicate this.