What's the best *mercenary* build?

Hi, everyone.

I want to make a character specifically to Accompany me while I solo things. A dedicated mercenary.

Problem: I can't find suggested mercenary builds anywhere.

So let me ask: what's the best mercenary? My guesses:

• Bowgun? Their raw ATK is remarkable. My guess for best Attacker merc.
  
• Knuckles? They have the most basic attack passives, and if their Aggravate + Strong Chase Attack can guard break, then the merc is contributing something other mercs can't. My guess for best Defender merc. [EDIT: @mayam confirmed merc guard break does not work. Scratch this one off the list.]
  
• Maybe Bow? ... They have the longest range, I guess? Would that help, given that mercs aren't great at dodging boss AoE stuff?
• Probably not magic device. I don't think weapon type matters for basic attack proration.
  
• Probably not staff. [EDIT: seems I was wrong to discount 'em.]
  
• Probably not hybrid weapons - Fu seems pointless without active skills.
• I know literally nothing about sword or halberd builds.

Then comes the actual building... my guesses:

• Stats?
  • Attacker ) 255 main stat, 21-42 CRT, rest into VIT.
  • Defender ) 255 VIT, rest into MTL.
• Skills?
  • 25 points Safe Rest tree for HP Boost + Fighter's High
    [EDIT: not known at this time if Fighter's High works for mercs. suspected not.]
    
  • 10 points First Aid
  • 10 points Attack UP
  • 10-40 points on weapon passives
    
  • Advice on which passives to *avoid* would be much appreciated.
    
  • Let's assume 55 skill points are set aside for smithing.
• Gear?
  • Attacker ) ATK, crit rate/damage, attack speed
    
  • Defender ) HP, aggro boost, guard rate

Your thoughts are much appreciated!

 

I'm glad to hear I'm on the right track with bg/brawler. Any more specific build suggestions?

I have wondered what it would be like to see an AGI brawler with Time Warp Watch + aspd-statted light armor + Yelb & Death Colon Xtals + Giga Speed Potion in action. Can the animation even keep up? xD

 

Why 1H??atk of 1h is very low.

i think BG with (atk+7%, dex+7%, dex+12) and arm stat (atk+7%, dex+%7) i was using it for making op merc
or u can use staff+shield(for good defence) whenever i see friends merc.staff user have highest atk 4k+ and bowgun user 4k- near 3.7k or less
BG and staff gives highest atk/matk per stat i.e 4

 

Staff can easily reach 4k on attacker while having around 5k-ish hp with 70+vit

I highly recommend play dead and first-aid for mercs for easy revives incase something unpredictable happens... Try dying when NPC are joining boss fights they revive you like field medics...

 

Imho a tank char equipped with staff or bg having 1000aspd is the best defender merc.
Close range attacker merc just dont work well they can do decent damage but their damage will be nowhere near you depending on your class and will die in 1hit if anything hits them.
That being said you always want your merc to be long range instead.

I already checked strong chase attack on brawler and it DOES NOT work on merc so I doubt any other passive skill like fighter's high would work as well.

I would prefer to reset if I die on a boss battle while soloing so I dont need first aid but play dead is really good so keep it lvl10 for your merc.
About stats/gears full VIT, the standard tank gears (HP + resistance) while add gear one winged headband + candela to reach 1k ASPD this needs to be your friend merc only for your own merc just carry giga speed potions with you and use them on your merc before switching and summoning to get easy 1k aspd.

 

it is becoz of arm and staff stat .mage mostly use (MI7% Int12 & MI7%) and sniper mostly use (Atk, cdmg ,crit) .if any sniper use stat like (atk7% dex 7% dex 12 & atk7%dex7%) its atk can go near mage's matk but atk will be little low becoz staff's highest base atk is 109 and BG's 82.

 

appreciate all the replies, especially ty @mayam for great thorough post

Holy crap thank you. I think that nixes the point of a brawler merc entirely, and it saves me oodles of potentially wasted skill points.

I had no idea that this trick could work for the Accompany partner. That's brilliant. Again, thank you so much. I'll also do this with Vita Plus.

This is good to know. I'll stat Atk/Dex for the bowgun gears.

I'm definitely not gonna do staff. Even at +S refine the discrepancy between staff and bowgun atk is only about 65, and there's no way I'm doing more than +E refine for a merc. And for that small a difference, I'd much much rather have the longer range of a bowgun.

 

you could get the power wave skill if you gave them a staff (idk max range, but it's better than bowgun I think) if you had extra skill points

 

Today in Durrr I Don't Understand Tanks:

Does it even *matter* which weapon a Defender merc uses? Seems like by the time they get 255 VIT and 40-ish Mental and statted HP/Resist gear, there's just nothing left for ATK.

The choice of weapon for a tank normally revolves around your preferred long combo chains for squeezing the most aggro out of a Guardian (save tag). With no active skills, gear statted for HP, and no stat points to spare, how do I even decide on a best weapon?

I need to test how well various Defender mercs can keep aggro, and/or how well they retake aggro if I run around for a bit without attacking. Will I need to stat for +aggro?

 

You seem to misunderstand what mercs do.
Their main purpose is not attack or defend/generate aggro in fact they totally suck on both of these thing.

But 1 thing they are indeed excellent at is proration.
I hope I dont need to explain what that is by now.
To put it simply, the attacks of mercs are considered as normal attacks and they can prorate both physical and magical skills.
I am able to do insane damage with a ridiculously long non proration friendly combo because I have 2 mercs constantly prorating.
And thats what I always look forward to when I summon a merc.

So for me all they need to do is keep standing and attacking, and that too attack as quickly as possible so all I need on them is:-
1.) High survival and to gain that,
---> Long range weapon to stay away from the enemy attacks
---> High HP, resistance to take a lots of hits.
2.) If dead, revive quickly asap,
---> For that we have play dead lvl10
3.) Attack quickly,
---> To gain high ASPD, I use giga speed pots if its my merc and just simply find someone who has 1k aspd merc.

Thats everything a merc is best at. For a game like toram where nothing is explained and everything is experienced videos recorded by others and uploaded on youtube is the best source of information available for new players. That being said I suggest you watch this video

 

Mayam,, have you tried merc with power wave passive? im just curious. Wanna make my Agi/Vit Barehanded merc

 

Last time I remember someone said power wave didnt work either.
Also suzuki is a sly hoe, he wont let you abuse the instant 1k aspd of bare handed merc :/
Whenever a merc is bare handed it gets 0aspd instead of 1k

 

Make a full AGI rest VIT Brawler merc with ASPD/AGI gears (bonus points for no armor). GGWP!

 

That reminds me of @Cella and her awesome merc. I wish she lurked less ;_;

 

Aah, thats really sad

 

Btw, does merc got 100% hit rate?

 

Nope they got the same hit rate as registered, but I have confirmed that an attack even if it gets evaded or misses it still contributes to proration so that doesnt matter to me either.

 

IN THAT CASE brawler is best becoz of its aspd and than learn power wave skill and sub weapon "magic device" if md is not equipped as sub weapon dmg of range atk will reduce.
and power wave work for bare-hand .

 

Power wave doesnt works for merc. Tested just now. Barehand also makes 0 ASPD, no matter how much real ASPD or AGI you put.. @mayam is right

The proration does works like a miracle tho. Hats up for chicken curry again

 

This was my original plan but it lacks surviveability. Also there seems to be a dropoff in how effective ASPD is once you're past like 1200. (1000? 1500? I dunno.) And of course now that we know you can't add range with power wave, surviveability becomes an even greater concern.

But if I am understanding correctly, you could take *any* VIT tank, equiip em with *any* bow/bg and +aspd additional/special gear, and boom you have a merc for proration.

No wonder people don't bother to post merc builds.

 

One old forumer did post a mercenary build and yep it was a brawler merc with 5k something aspd it filled proration extremely fast and had highest aggro on a merc because of that as well. But she kinda mistook that fast proration for guard break procing from strong chase attack (Below there on the thread I prove that it indeed didnt work). I just confirmed again that power wave didnt work either so we can safely say none of the passive skills work on a mercenary.
http://toramonline.com/index.php?threads/storm-punch-mercenary.19373/#post-246576

 

RIP if it work it will be really good merc.i didnt noticed word "merc" in @Gummy101 comment when he said "merc with power wave".if i want tank merc I'll use tanky pet.all stat on vit and they can learn aggro skills i think it is better than merc becoz they can avoid red skill area or aoe atk depend on pet's nature.my pet is tank but lvl is around 20 so i dont know if it can tank boss or it is only good for low lvl boss.