Hearthpwn

heads up: Galvanger's Task 8 "Defend the Village" says (and should be) "4 fighter coins", but it's really 4 protector coins

another heads up.. Mi'da does NOT count towards "damage against bosses" tasks

Quote from Shipmen >>

And I would like also to criticize the nerf to Varden. Sure that he is was a strong mercenary. But why do they want him with an RNG. Mercenaries have been appreciated because it is low RNG (with flip coins).  If they start to add RNG to characters, it will be another RNG based mode where people complain. 

 Varden seems to be a lateral change in PvE but a nerf in PvP. They're stronger against single target or in mop-up situations, but it's certainly a nerf for wide boards (and bosses that summon adds).

Yeah, Trigore is out of hand. It was "first damage only" for a reason. Unfortunately, it'll likely be this way for awhile since they tend not to make balance changes until incremental patches, so don't expect to see anything until 23.1 at the earliest.

Quote from Shaft >>

Merce what? Sorry to tell, but that mode is dead already.

 This is not constructive.

well, bear in mind that I'm not buying packs (not with money, nor gold.. I haven't spent gold on packs since Balinda); these are packs I've gotten just from pvp and tasks. Since it seems we're not going to get new mercs (not counting Murky, who is a freebie) until 23.4, which is months away, I figured I may as well open packs until I got Deathwing and Drek -unless- I got enough coins to craft them first.

I wasn't actively farming.. just doing my daily tasks (before the task change yesterday) and if it wasn't too much of a bother to complete the tasks and run Dragonbone or Undead Ony at the same time, I'd do those for the Drek/Deathwing coins. It just so happened that right when I was about to have just enough coins for both Deathwing and Drek, they popped out of a pack. I got 5-6 (wasn't actively counting) portraits along the way, too. So now I get to sit on any packs I get (I've already banked 5 more today since getting Drek) until 23.4.

so I got Drek on the 24th pack after getting Deathwing..

now, this may be -super- coincidental, but I got both Deathwing and Drek from packs when I was fewer than 15 coins each from being able to craft them. An itch in the back of my mind says that if you would otherwise get coins from a pack that would put you over the top, the pack may give you the merc instead, but I doubt that, since it wouldn't make sense from a design perspective, and I -think- I remember long ago a pack gave me Uther coins that put me over the top for crafting

Quote from fusilli >>

Hmm. Any suggestions for speeding up the 'kill 40 enemies with dragonqueen's gambit' Q? You can't realistically use cookie, and most weak minions are weak in attack too. Maybe some of the felwood trash - the satyrs that summon imps, or the imps that copy? Don't really want to have to rely on softening up the enemies just for them to suicide before I can cast it!

 Pair Alex with Balinda (fire elemental) and Ragnaros (Blazing Rune). Aim for +fire treasures if you can get them, try to soften enemies up with Frost Dart and fire ele to stack fire weakness. 

The enemy's attack only counts as the -base- damage for Gambit.. the rest of damage follows weakness/+/crit rules.

Also damn, ever since I realized that about Xuen, that song's been stuck in my head every task I clear with him.

I also got Alex today and I'm realizing so many of her tasks are just.. awful. The requirements are absurd on so many of them.

You should be able to get Vanessa from packs once the track changes.

Also, I just NOW realized all of Xuen's tasks are 'Eye of the Tiger' lyrics.

It's been fixed and they've disabled Mi'da for now.

• [Added 4/5]: The team is aware that completing the Mi’da Bounty in Patch 23.0 will cause a crash that locks you out of the Mercenaries Game Mode. The team is looking into the cause of that crash and solutions to it now, but in the meantime we recommend that you DO NOT TAKE DOWN MI’DA AT THIS TIME. It’ll be happy hunting time again soon.

so it sounds like no new mercs until 23.4, at which point they'll release a ton at once.

Because I'm impatient and got bit by the gambling bug, I opened more packs.. so 9 deep with no Drek..

currently, I'm frozen out of Mercenaries because of a bug, so I'm about to post a warning about it

• [Added 4/5]: The team is aware that completing the Mi’da Bounty in Patch 23.0 will cause a crash that locks you out of the Mercenaries Game Mode. The team is looking into the cause of that crash and solutions to it now, but in the meantime we recommend that you DO NOT TAKE DOWN MI’DA AT THIS TIME. It’ll be happy hunting time again soon.

Yeah, this happened to me as soon as I finished the Mi'da bounty. Reloading the client didn't help.

so given that no new mercs were announced today (except Murky, who doesn't count because he's a track freebie), I went ahead and opened more packs, getting Deathwing on the 38th.

Now, do I keep opening packs to try to get Drek, or do we think they'll surprise announce more mercs next week?

Ah yeah.. on principle, they're not getting a single cent from me until the coins issue is addressed (though I did buy that one-per-account $5 deal that gives you a guaranteed legendary.. that's how I got Edwin).

So, the "published" legendary rate in Mercenaries packs is "1 in 20". Well, that has decidedly not been my experience.
Ever since the pirates pack, I've strived to maintain a full mercenary collection with each new batch release. I lucked out and got Valeera within 8 packs, but since then, it took me 63 packs to get Balinda, 60 packs to get Long'xin and am currently 32 packs deep with neither Deathwing nor Drek'thar.. nowhere near "1 in 20".

I'm certain a new pack is going to be announced with the upcoming expansion, but I'm currently debating on what to do. Given that there's no pity timer to speak of, I understand it likely makes no difference whether I continue opening packs before the expansion or just wait until after (to get whatever new mercs they add), but it just -feels- wrong; that if I wait, then those 32 packs I already opened this batch feel "wasted".. like it's resetting some sort of counter if I don't pull Deathwing or Drek before the patch. So my head is telling me to just wait for the patch before opening any more packs, but my heart is screaming "suuuuuuuuunk coooooooooost!".

Thoughts?