Allods Online Forum

thanks for posting this, it is an important topic. maybe it helps some players!

i figured out these things the slow and painful way

to me it seems for the strenght of the mercenaries the runes do play a LITTLE role but the gearscore is the most important factor (as always and everywhere in this game)

stormer is the worst mercenary because she need to (slowly) run to the target and if they are apart she will only damage one enemy

also, the change of the gamemechanics (inflation of damage, then reducing values by several 0's) made things complicated, there was a time where mercenaries were far too weak no matter your gearscore

for a rookie player it might be hard to understand when to pull back mercenaries, when to take cover and so on. it takes time to learn

anyway, i am happy we have them. i remember when they were not free and you had to pay 200 gold for every merc adding to 1000 gold, which was about the amount of gold one astral run made you. as i only did astral for gold i soon stopped doing it and just farmed the golems at frontier and later the undead at wandering isle.

when the update with free party collection at astral academy came, i did astral all day until i had no more keys, on every reinc. could not go to astral anymore after spending all keys back then. made so much gold back then

Quoted

Guess your runes will not working, so no 250% -200% dps . Unbelieable that too.

This is a commonly misunderstood information by many players.

Incense mechanic was only like this until version 2.0.02. Incense provides the following benefits – a stat bonus, a damage bonus, a healing bonus, an increased defense against crowd control spells, the effects of any equipped runes, and access to special patronage spells.

In Patch 2.0.02 ( April 26th 2011) you will not need to activate Incense to receive the following benefits – a stat bonus, a damage bonus, a healing bonus, the effects of any equipped runes, or access to Martyr’s Salvation. Instead, these benefits will always be available after gaining patronage. Using Incense will grant a player an increased defense against crowd control spells and access to the remaining three patronage spells.

As a result, incense is not required outside of PvP Activities.

Mercs on p2p are useless except for matron's insta puries. No idea on the rest of topic, we don't have to deal with this runes or patron topic.
f2p sounds like a hassle to me. We don't even have this merc buffing on p2p so unsure how much of a change that makes to the mercs. If it does, then that means that every unbuffed merc is underperforming on f2p, which makes it even worse than it already is on p2p?
I am just used to making fast run groups from our guild and be done with it after 5 to 6min per run.

Quoted from "u_212847356"

Other has addons, which is telling "your bless not active" - and what if not active?
-guess your runes will not working, so no 250% -200% dps . Unbelieable that too.

Quoted from "Astafieva"

This is a commonly misunderstood information by many players.

Incense mechanic was only like this until version 2.0.02. Incense provides the following benefits – a stat bonus, a damage bonus, a healing bonus, an increased defense against crowd control spells, the effects of any equipped runes, and access to special patronage spells.

In Patch 2.0.02 ( April 26th 2011) you will not need to activate Incense to receive the following benefits – a stat bonus, a damage bonus, a healing bonus, the effects of any equipped runes, or access to Martyr’s Salvation. Instead, these benefits will always be available after gaining patronage. Using Incense will grant a player an increased defense against crowd control spells and access to the remaining three patronage spells.

As a result, incense is not required outside of PvP Activities.

yes totally forgot this, wanted to comment this topic aswell!

the only reason for incense is to use martyrs skills and protection from longterm CC in PVP (icy grave, hypnosis and so on)
as almost noone uses these skills anyway and martyr skills are expensive with little effect - so unpopular - there is pretty much no reason at all for using the incense
i also regularly see (veteran!) players who think no incense means less damage which is not true and easy to test

Quoted from "Dragagon"

If it does, then that means that every unbuffed merc is underperforming

mercs are only underperforming if you have too low gearscore
observed this multiple times
if you have low gearscore the bestiality potion buff from itemshop wont really help either
a new player should stick to al-rihat activities, these are simple to understand, simple to do and give you all the gear you need
dont need mercenaries, players or anything there, just you and the mobs, lol
this makes you ready for battleground (parallell sign for BG while doing al rihat) which awards some gear from time to time aswell

i havent really been to astral for long time, except for the weekly spark-exp quest where it requires you to kill the boss of an astral allod

Mercs also scale off the runes of the player who hires them

At the shop there is this buff at this price ( for me - maybe has some tiny % reduction)

Premium 2 level it allows your party to have 1 buff for free. Don't look at the Prelium 1 description, because it says you should have. Maybe you want to sue my games and ask your money back for scamming the custommers )
Premium 4-5-6? it has 2 mercenary buff for free
Premium 6?-7-8 it has 3 mercenary buffs for free.

This premium buffs ends at your premium : 25th of the month, and is free for each run you que up, account based, not character.

Free mercenaries "are good" until Blue gear sector for everyone.
Everone, noob or experienced if fills the party with merc has a good chance to clear it even with low runes.

At the epic secotor it becomes a bit "not so comfortable" : the players are moving faster, taking less dmg, doing more dmg.

At legendary sector: low GS + row rune + inexperienced player: impossible to do it with 5x mercenary.

For me: with runes orange color, if Itake the very low GS gear from Astral academy, not is Fablet and 80% stats, without any buff, is hard a bit.
But if I get half set, like 8 slot relic gear and just the other is trash, than is fine, not needed the buff, but takes very long.

As the DPS:
An unbufeed mercenary in this relic secor does 300k to 1000k dps, mosty depends on the player GS and not the runes.
Runes matter for YOUR protection and jeep those mercenaries alive.

A bufffed mercenary deal like 2000k-4000k dps,
While I do 4000k -12kk ( depeds if Iam with draconics or without and many othen things like which class ansd build andd stats)

So a buffed mercenary is "a regular 8/8 player with full grears, without draconics 43.5 - 44.5k gs" in my oppinon.


New player to Rihat?
-hm, how much time does it take to kill 1x Bee? and 1 Orge or Hydra how many imes need to CC it?

In my oppinion a new palyer should take the gear from Astral academy.
Depending if the mini seazon just started , than the gear at AH price is high, but in a few weeks becomming to normal.
So if you do a few maze and waste your money to a few cheap ear, like weapons are cheap, and a few gears, which has low protection wrist , hand, feet... is an option.
Other to ask friend and guild to carry 3-5 times and let you loot, you will res they if they fall )
I have helped a guildie, after 3 runs he did't die at each hit and after 5-7 run was a low GS viable player ( 1500k-3000k dps)

AFTER getting the 90% gear, you can upgrade it at Rihat and you can do the soloable quests alone, as how it meant to be. So you can have "fast 103% and later 106% from Rihat ( 2-3 weeks) , and 1006% it is a good to start the BG and earn a few slot of draconics, weekly

Some greedy palyers, without patience sign as healer and dps too. The sistem will see there is 4 dps only, so it comes the 5th as heal OR dps so it will put as heal. ( but he is in dps build and dps stats and don't want to switch build...
Soeveryone is looking around what bugged the game with 5x dps.

Just press the CTL+M and see who should switch now to Tank/heal... and you can start arguing, the tidiot will be there...

Than it comes the other smart / brilliant idea:
He is tank, so take somebody else the haler!

Why man? - why?
You should be alive, always.
You should be in your healer range in able to heal / purify you.

Same if the player healer don't take the tank:
- fore sure needs to heal the tank, and yourself too.
- but if any other player takes the tank, than the player should have higher priority to healit than the tank, because the player is wekaer than tank and die faster and when dead it will pull with him the tank too ... and the healer don't want to belive this...

The problem is: this forum is read by those players who knows how to use mercenaries, and not by those who can't use it and don't understand EN, DE, FR.

It realy should be conest with reward , probably some costume... for "mercenary user certificate" reward...and people may start using it properly : hire, attack, move back, retreat, attack )

It is a spell "Petrification"
Nobody likes it, because it will CC a mob and makes inmune to your dmg, hence can't kill it (fast)

But there are cases:
- low GS player want to do an astral ( relic sector now)
- it will sign another player, who deals even less dmg than Rowdy ( the lowest dps, cince he is a tank), so Ican consider his dps and usefullness = 0
( today I was with a player with GREEN gear, while at astral academi you get Fablet 80% , but he is comming with green....)

Now, for the most is "impssible" to the astral and the game creators are the guilty creating such a content like this... and they will leave the isle with sad oppinion.

From a pack of 4-5 mobs not all are the same, somethimes one is harder or has special abilities , usually one worth to CC -if is "impossible" to do it.

Imagine on P2P server you want to play, when nobody is online! - you have to do it yourself and can't -expect to carry always somebody, because you don't want to take marcenaries!!!




You can chose one now to CC 30 sec.

At the previous packs it was the Fox, which has a stun, which interrupts casting / channeling spells, so I have used this CC on the fox.

Quoted from "Dragagon"

Mercs on p2p are useless except for matron's insta puries. No idea on the rest of topic, we don't have to deal with this runes or patron topic.
f2p sounds like a hassle to me. We don't even have this merc buffing on p2p so unsure how much of a change that makes to the mercs. If it does, then that means that every unbuffed merc is underperforming on f2p, which makes it even worse than it already is on p2p?
I am just used to making fast run groups from our guild and be done with it after 5 to 6min per run.

Of course are not useless, see my proof!
sub serer sound like to much hasle to start there to suffer.
Some basic CS stuff, which are not expensieve you can get only with Mark of Acomplisments (or whatever name it has) . As I know that is based on votes. Imagine me and you want to do the race for the same event for those Marks, maybe if I win you will gkick me... so I can't count realy on those Marks!

Every unbuffed merc are underperforming at f2p, unless you learn to use it and adjust your expectations.

If your ( and other from f2p server too) expectation it is to do the whoe allod in less then 5 min ( sometimes I did in less than 4 min) than maybe the expectation is not realistic.

A boss fiht should take a certain amount of time, to see how is underperformin the Profieciency stats, why is bad the to much Brutality and the PvP build in general. I would say a boss fight should take 1-3 min, and not 2 hits... just because you got gear from Heroics + full PvP draconics.




Here is my expectation and vision about the earing sistem:
The bease gear 90% at the curent color miniseazon should drop at astral.
Players should be able to get it IF they has the correct build and spell rotation and runes meant for astral ( level 7-8 at thr moment ) and with the 80% gear from Astral academy. Slowly , but should be able to kill a boss in 4-6 min fights. Should be able to take packs down with CC.


After getting half set of relic ears ( 6-9 slots) they should be able to do the soloable quests and updrade they ear to 103% and than to 106%.


At this point, when you have 103-106% gear, you should be "overgeared" for a regular astral, since my expectation the mobs and bosses should be for 90-100% gears set. They should be at that level , wat they drops to understand it easier.


At 106% should be able to do even the group bosses, some gof tham, depending on CS items, tactics, tricks.


And here should come, which is not comming: peope shld "que up" to heroics! The 103% than the 106% .


If would know more the tactics, they wouldn't fail so many and wouldnt be impossible to do Heroics.


The draconics gear is droped from PvP event so measure the poer at pvp events not astral. In my expectations.
Oh, you ARE coming with draconics to astral and have different performace expectations that is ok, but the mercenaries aren't meant to e the same.

some thoughts considering what was written above:

- lisa's petrification is also very useful for the turtle-boss
instead of luring the turtle into the ice to disable it, juts disable it by this spell
- as for base gear / plaer with green gear you encountered:
at astral academy next to the anvil there is a NPC that gives you an up-to-date gearset! (every miniseason!)
- this is sufficient for all basic tasks
- game should maybe direct players to that NPC every new miniseason. like with a quest that becomes active every new miniseason. or go full spoonfeeding-style and send this chest with the gear via mail

- 5 minute astralruns are a thing for groups consisting of knowledgeable veterans and the "ideal" way of doing things but in no way are a value to measure against for rookies or casualplayers
these consist of 6 FULL-DPS-specced players with full bloodlust and bosses die faster than they can deal any relevant damage. awesome experience. sometimes players ask in worldchat for a quick join to their astralparty, this is the opportunity