Mercenaries are laughably weak

[Heatsink.5794]

There's hardly any point to taking a mercenary camp if the helpful NPCs are pushovers. Can we get these guys to the gym so they're strategically useful?

[Svarty.8019]

Guards and sentries used to be much more difficult to handle, too. 

 

NPCs in WvW suffer the repeated effects of power creep. Capturing objectives used to be an achievement. It's not now. It's routine. That's why some of the old-time players are kinda nostalgic about it. Ofc, it was never right, but it was certainly better.

 

Ahat exacerbated the issue by nerfing objective defense (e.g. arrow carts (many times), wall hit points, dragon banner) way too much.

[TheGrimm.5624]

57 minutes ago, Heatsink.5794 said:

There's hardly any point to taking a mercenary camp if the helpful NPCs are pushovers. Can we get these guys to the gym so they're strategically useful?

 

Haven't just sat back and watched recently, on their own can they flip the camp? May have to test that. Their main purpose is to distract enemy camps and bolster friendly camps and having had enough encounters in frogs they do create a mini-objective to draw fights into so they do serve that role. Wouldn't increase their power but potentially increase their count. 

 

28 minutes ago, Svarty.8019 said:

Guards and sentries used to be much more difficult to handle, too. 

 

NPCs in WvW suffer the repeated effects of power creep. Capturing objectives used to be an achievement. It's not now. It's routine. That's why some of the old-time players are kinda nostalgic about it. Ofc, it was never right, but it was certainly better.

 

Ahat exacerbated the issue by nerfing objective defense (e.g. arrow carts (many times), wall hit points, dragon banner) way too much.

 

Agree here and when you add in players reaching max WvW required levels to buy all their WvW traits let alone infusions and they are outmatched. The reason I wouldn't increase their base power is for the new players that don't have all the extra bits yet, but increasing the number balances the floor there a bit more.

[ZTeamG.4603]

38 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

 

Haven't just sat back and watched recently, on their own can they flip the camp? May have to test that.

I think the frogs can take a tier 0 camp that isn't defended by players on their own. I've come across the the green side camp under attack with the ring up, 2 frogs still alive, just 1 veteran scout left, and no enemy players in sight, but I'm pretty sure the other mercenaries are too weak to kill more than 1 or 2 guards.

[lotus.5672]

1 hour ago, Heatsink.5794 said:

There's hardly any point to taking a mercenary camp if the helpful NPCs are pushovers. Can we get these guys to the gym so they're strategically useful?

Frogs are absurdly strong, ogres are ok I guess, dredge are weak.

[Svarty.8019]

1 hour ago, lotus.5672 said:

Frogs are absurdly strong, ogres are ok I guess, dredge are weak.

In my opinion, the Dredge are the strongest, the Frogs are ok and the Ogres are the weakest.

[Riba.3271]

My main gripe with NPCs is that they take focus to flip fast, are pretty useless and 1 person can flip them back easily. I think it should be replaced with capture point so you don't have to run around and overthink minmaxing for something so irrelevant.

 

The space on the map should be upgraded with something that is between tower and a camp. It wouldn't have supply or block movement between towers, but stick walls you can kill pretty fast with 15 people or 1 siege weapon (the stick walls that existed on desert map but without ability to climb over). They would still provide mercenaries to nearby camps while not preventing blobs or guilds from destroying them.

 

They would be located at skill points at each NPC, so not directly hindering movement between towers, just cool things to capture with some strategic importance.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Riba.3271

[Luthan.5236]

They are mercenaries ... maybe they should add an option to give them money (gold) ... to make them stronger. If the team gathers 1000 gold ... maybe turn them into legendaries? (For less gold ... into elites/champs.)

[Zyreva.1078]

1 hour ago, Riba.3271 said:

My main gripe with NPCs is that they take focus to flip fast, are pretty useless and 1 person can flip them back easily. I think it should be replaced with capture point so you don't have to run around and overthink minmaxing for something so irrelevant.

Oh no, players have to think instead of stack and cap (brain) afk? What a tragedy!

1 hour ago, Riba.3271 said:

The space on the map should be upgraded with something that is between tower and a camp.

There are enough objectves for PvDoor and not enough space where walls, siege and guild auras don't interfere with combat, so no.

 

WvW is primarily a PvP game mode, so NPC aren't supposed to do a whole lot on their own. Mercenaries are still helpful vs smaller forces and players do flip them for that reason. No change needed.

[Riba.3271]

59 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

There are enough objectves for PvDoor and not enough space where walls, siege and guild auras don't interfere with combat, so no.

True, I am big speaker against guild auras providing combat stats. I don't know why it is still in the game.

[Brandon Uzumaki.1524]

We need new mercenaries, here's a few:

Pocket Raptor Mercenaries.
Awakened Canid Mercenaries.
Icebrood Mercenaries (spam chilled).
Big Nose Ted and his gang (can solo a boon blob).
Aetherblade Mercenaries.
Dwarf Mercenaries (from Forging Steel).

Maybe more, but these are the ones i could think of at the moment hehe.

[Gorani.7205]

On 12/9/2022 at 10:57 AM, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

WvW is primarily a PvP game mode, so NPC aren't supposed to do a whole lot on their own.

I just realized by your statement, that could describe WvW right now very well, but might not be true when the idea was initially created and how WvW should be going on in the future.

I think when WvW was created it was designed to be a World vs. World mode and not a large scale PvP mode with scaled up battle groups compared to the 5vs5 we have in structured PvP and tournaments. Worlds now contribute most to whether a server (or Alliance) performs well (of badly) via large scale fights ("a PvP game mode"), because player agency of contribution of other factors has been reduced over the years (player choice of what & when to upgrade, the importance of supply as a resource, NPCs that matter, structures that must be sieged or defended).

[Zyreva.1078]

28 minutes ago, Gorani.7205 said:

I think when WvW was created it was designed to be a World vs. World mode and not a large scale PvP mode

WvW IS large scale PvP (which does not equal "stack everyone in one blob btw, just like sPvP isn't 5vs5 deathmatch).

NPC were never very impactful on their own - arguably even less in the past than they are now with more and more automatisms.

[T G.7496]

They're decoration, aren't they?

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

they all can flip camps on their own, unless t3 with buffed guard,s / upgraded guard then probably not

 

as player, u realize ur wvw-masteryline hold buffs against them... on a fresh character, without ascended gear, and good food/oils and the mastery buffs, most of the big mouth potatoes here would probably even lose against any of these

 

the mercs on alpines are jokes tho, they cannot even kill a single guard. idk if RBL even has mercs.

 

overall, mercs are not useful, but that's the least issue of Wvw. NPCs and pvE related things should never carry you in a mass pvp largescalemode anyways, it barely matters how good or weak they are. like the gamemode itself is dryed out of new things as hell, they shouldn't focus on  buffing NPCs at this point

 

with all the class nerfs, its just boring, stale and sh#t to play atm simply.

[Venport.3925]

3 hours ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

they all can flip camps on their own, unless t3 with buffed guard,s / upgraded guard then probably not

I'd say mercs stop being able to flip camps around t2 cuz the additional guards camps get around then really buff them up, and the alpine mercs haven't really counted as real mercenaries since the quaggans were removed