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| · Atlantica Mercenary Analysis: Main or Merc? |
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1/20/2009 |
It seems a question I get asked relatively often is how much better a main with a certain weapon is than their corresponding mercenary class. You'd think that, for the most part, having a main of a certain class would always be a better idea than stacking multiples of the mercenary in question, right?
No, not always.
A lot of the main classes tend to suffer from all sorts of problems. The biggest problem is that mains can very often wind up making themselves redundant as players level up their builds and discover interesting ways to use their mercenaries, and interesting strategies to progress in battles with. Therefore it stands to reason that the question I get asked the most is, which main classes are better than the mercenary ones, and why? Hopefully, we can answer those questions.
Sword
 The first of the classes you can choose to pick. Also, ironically, the most perplexing. Sword mains tend to have the completely absurd property of taking normal damage from Flame Sword, instead of resisting it like another Swordsman would. This is... whatever you want to call it, as a design and balance choice it's completely stupid. Thankfully, Swordsmen mercs make up for that by having passable magic defense (which gets better if you stack up on Spearmaster's Rings) and a surprisingly nice amount of health. Their main-only weapon isn't very good and has no realistic use outside of making your level 60 Flame Sword into an 82 Flame Sword (which probably does hilariously nice damage), at the cost of a delicious portion of vitality. It also doesn't do a lot of damage in PvP. Break Down is okay for an AoE skill, but it's nothing major or fantastic.
The final nail in the proverbial coffin is that the Swordsman mercenary has actual better stats than the Swordsman main, and the Swordsman main never, ever gets better stats than the mercenary himself throughout the main's career. All in all, the Swordsman is probably better off being used as a merc than being selected for your main character.
Winner: Mercenary, because you'll toss him for a Lady Knight, and you can't toss your main out.
Spear
 Ah, the Spearman, mercenary extraordinnaire. There's not a lot to say about him other than how solid he is. Spears do a great amount of damage in PvP, and despite the full-body testicle syndrome they seem to suffer when put on the spot compared to other melee mercenaries, their high damage that reaches one row in is nothing to laugh at. Lightning Spear is also a tremendously powerful skill at 80+, where, when properly leveled, two of them can drain and negate an entire column from being able to take their turn.
As a main, they're almost exactly the same, except that they seem to be able to acquire a much larger amount of defense. However, they do not have a very large amount of health. While Lightning Spear is a great skill, there's probably better things you can have your main do besides it. People who will run Spearmen will tend to run two actual Spearmen and have their main be something else, like an Axe user, simply for the skill variety, because Freezing Axe is good to have in a team where you're also going to be using Lightning Spear.
Winner: Mercenary
Axe
 It seems that every five minutes, a new axe main is born. Either people are purchasing Secret Vials of Amnesia to get in on the top tier goodness, or people create as axe mains on the suggestion of their friends, or they simply see that huge axe and go, I want that. All of this is for good reason, of course: axe mains are singlehandedly the best main you can choose at the start, mid and end-games. Having early access to Freezing Axe makes early PvE a breeze, and you will make your few, low division PvP enemies jealous with your 3-mercenary disabling powers. A lot of people tend to like asking, 'Well, if the axe main is so good, why not just run a Viking instead?' Because, my dear friend, Vikings are single-handedly some of the hottest garbage to ever exist. Sure, they have the upside of hurting like there's no tomorrow when they hit you in melee (and this is exarcebated by Seth's Will), but their defense and magic defense sucks. A lot. They also happen to get absolutely crap AP per turn.
So even though they have access to Freezing Axe and happen to put out respectable damage, Vikings only belong in builds where you want to run them ALONG WITH your axe main, not by themselves. By themselves they are either dead weight in your party, or you just are using them because you need your main to be something else and you just HAVE to have Freezing Axe. Alternatively, you think his Japanese voice actor is hilarious and so you kept him in your party because of how funny he sounds. Or you have an axe fetish.
Winner: Main
Gun
 One of the harder differences to analyze, the gun main and the Gunner happen to be extraordinarily similar. Their stats aren't too far off from each other, they will deal about the same amount of damage at equal levels... There's just not a whole lot of difference between the two. Which is confounding, because I'm supposed to write something to tell you which one you should be using.
In reality? If you're considering a gun main, in all likelihood you're probably planning on running something resembling three gun users in the mid row, and you're also probably considering at some point to make this mid line very angry with either Seth's Will or Brutal Will, and this mid row of gun-toting bastards will probably shoot the everlasting hell out of anything in your way. If this sounds like you, then gun main is a good idea. You're also going to need two gunners until you can replace them with some combination of Janissary, Inventor and Cannoneer at higher levels, so all I can say is that the Gunner main will be the one you don't replace. Gunners will eventually all get replaced unless you don't like the Janissary enough and want 3 gun users with an Inventor, and somehow also are getting a Cannoneer for 4 ranged haters in a single party (which is not a bad idea). Chaos Wind might as well be an afterthought unless you're specifically in an AoE build (in which case Cannoneer or Archer might be better choices for their other skills).
Winner: Tie
Bow
 Archers are kind of weird. They apparently used to be the bee's knees back in CB, when enough Archer focus fire was pretty much enough to GG your main into oblivion repeatedly, over and over again. However, Open Beta patches have not been quite so kind with our friendly female renditions of Robin Hood, and they have eventually fallen into the relative obscurity of being only used for taking care of ranged enemies and quieting down back lines that you've broken into.
Archer mains on the other hand have what seem to be surprisingly better stats compared to their tunic-wearing, constantly-laughing-when-you-click-them counterparts. They seem to combo quite a bit more than anything should be legally allowed to combo, they're good at sniping away at your enemies while sitting all the way in the back with the casters, and the added deliciousness of Chaos Wind puts a bit of pressure on your enemies to do something about you. They work alright in pressure builds and are pretty decent throughout. Not as solid a choice as an Axe main, but doable in some builds if that's what you're looking for. Just don't get hit.
Winner: Main
Cannon
 Artillerymen are interesting mercenaries. They have a cannon that deals physical damage in a cross section, which means that they can potentially stun a bunch of enemies given enough spreading of damage. Not only that, but cannons happen to do some pretty meaty damage to opposing ranged mercenaries. Deep Insight lowers enemy defense and shows you your enemies' remaining health, which is actually relatively nice, despite the defense debuff not being overly impressive numerically. Finally they have Deadly Shot, which as anyone can tell you is a complete spit in the face of anyone hiding off in the second row on low life that decides leaving your Artilleryman alive at low health was somehow a good idea.
But then the downfalls occur. Artillerymen take obnoxiously high damage from arrows, so any melee build with a Prophet or a build with more than one Archer is going to kill your Fabulous French Fusiller in about three rounds, two if the relatively finicky RNG decides that your Artilleryman needs to eat some tasty combos (and I don't mean the pretzel-filled-with-flavoring kind). His stats are also relatively average. In contrast is the Cannon main, who does more damage, has better stats, and does the exact same thing as your cannon-toting Frenchman, except pretty much being better at it than him. Artillerymen should, for this reason, only really be in a formation where your main already IS a Cannon, and that doesn't choose to instead run the much more superior cannon main / Inventor / Cannoneer setup.
Winner: Main
Staff
 I can summarize this quickly: if you're running an AoE build and would like to trade away Noble Sacrifice and having an Oracle for Evanescent Scud, or you're planning on running a multi-Shaman gimmick build that relies on Noble Sacrifice and your main totes Brutal Will and Blessing of Life, then go Staff main and post on the boards a lot about how bad they are when you're higher level. If you have any sense to instead prefer to use an Oracle, pick something else. Anything else. You probably aren't going to keep your Shaman once you get the Oracle anyways, but even then it's a better idea to keep her separate since she can at least die for your party's cause.
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