All races can become mercenary

All races are almost even for playing mercenary.

Inconnu=+dex -str -qui

Saracen=++dex -str -con

Highlander=+str +con -dex -qui

Avalonian= +qui --str --con

Parry is based off of DEX

Evade is based off of QUI and DEX

Weapon Skill is based off of Strength mostly. (50% dex for thrust damage)

Blocking is based off of DEX

Mercenary raises 3 stats:
+45 strength
+15 Con
+23 Dex

A Stats priority for Briton would be (Pawn String):
Strength: 1,5
Con: 0.75
Dex: 0.5
Qui:1
High weapon speed: 1.5
Balanced weapon speed 1.25

A Stats priority for Avalonian would be (Pawn String):
Strength: 1
Con: 1
Dex: 1.5
Qui: 1.5
High weapon speed: 1.25
Balanced weapon speed 1

A Stats priority for Highlander would be (Pawn String):
Strength: 2
Con: 0.5
Dex: 0.25
Qui: 1
High weapon speed: 1
Balanced weapon speed 1.5


Mercenary is low in the list of priority target for RvR (from Enemy)

Mercenary is high in the list of priority groupmember for RvR (from Allies)

Mercenary should switch between 2x 1-hander and shield for slam.

Mercenary should aim to have 42 Shield for RvR

Mercenary should try to equip the slowest weapon possible when dual wielding.

When dual wielding, mercenaries should aim to balance the weapon speed of each of their weapon.

The role of the Mercenary in RvR is to run and KILL tanks who are running at your realm members (cloth, healers)

Positional style are better than anytime styles.

Dual Wielding is 100% Strength based, but it has no impact.

When Dual Wielding, your weapon spec is accounted for in the Weapon Skill measurement.

Thrust Mercenary is better to kill Midgard Tanks.

Slash Mercenary is better to kill Hibernia Tanks.

Parry>Evade>Shield when Dual Wielding.

Shield>Parry>Evade when using a Shield.

Quickness reduces your style-hit damage, increases your base hit damage.

Critical Strikes are one of the most sought after RA of mercenary.

Critical Strikes and Faster Swing speed synergize well for Mercenary.

An Avalonian Mercenary w/ starting stats +15 qui + 10 con, all else equal, will attack 6% faster than a briton with 60 quick starting stats. The Avalonian will be able to land 3 positional during a slam, while the briton will land 2. (unbuffed, templated)

Mercenary Avalonian is viable with starting stats in quickness.

Slam is better than gimmick weapon switching (split spec) for 10% more damage.

Mercenary have access to Determination reducing the duration of CC up to 75%.

Mercenary is the IVth best tank of Albion, behind Paladin > Armsman > Reaver.

Mercenary can tank.

Mercenaries should not spec into Dual Wielding until they get some points in Parry.

Mercenaries unlock parry at level 17.

Mercenaries are highest priority for Strength buff.

Mercenaries are third highest priority for Dex/Qui buff (after Armsman and Scout)

Requin wrote:
Thrust Mercenary is better to kill Midgard Tanks.

Slash Mercenary is better to kill Hibernia Tanks.

Thrust

bonus damage versus Midgard Chain (Healer, Shaman, Warrior, Skald)
neutral damage versus Hibernia Reinforced (Blademaster, Bard)

Slash

bonus damage versus Hibernia Scale (Druid, Hero)
bonus damage against Midgard Reinforced (Berserker, Savage)

Flank>Shadow's Rain (29 side combo) is the #1 priority at any point. Rain is the highest growth style in the merc arsenal.

Shadow's Edge (lv6 backstyle) and it's two followups are actually pretty bad. Edge specifically does not have the growth a positional should have and is already weaker than anytimers other factions get. This is where slash starts shining over the other damagetypes; if you have Backslash (39 slash), use that instead. The crush and thrust counterparts (Divine Hammer/Pierce) aren't worth using as long as you can get an Edge followup.

Dual Shadows (50 frontstyle) is great and essentially removes the need to even have an anytimer on your bars. The only argument that could be made against it is the bleed, but the bleed is actually strong and can add up to hundreds of extra damage over the duration of a fight. Think of it as a flat 25 damage add every time you use it, which is also really noticable in PvE when attacking high level mobs. This is basically your anytimer, except it has higher growth than even Doublefrost.

A Stats priority for Briton would be (Pawn String):
Strength: 1,5
Con: 0.75
Dex: 0.5
Qui:1
High weapon speed: 1.5
Balanced weapon speed 1.25

A Stats priority for Avalonian would be (Pawn String):
Strength: 1
Con: 1
Dex: 1.5
Qui: 1.5
High weapon speed: 1.25
Balanced weapon speed 1

A Stats priority for Highlander would be (Pawn String):
Strength: 2
Con: 0.5
Dex: 0.25
Qui: 1
High weapon speed: 1
Balanced weapon speed 1.5

I don't know if I'd call this simple. All I want to know is what's the best race to choose?

Why did you even bother putting Avalonians on the list?

As a general advise, thrust is much more usefull in RvR as you will have an advantage at hitting healers, shammies and warriors while being absolutely neutral to hibs. While slash does have a great anytime style, its bonus is negligible considering the fact that it is still advised to use DW positionals in combat and you will end up with a penalty to damage on mid support which does tend to pose a bigger threat than hib, talking from past experience.

angerinc wrote:

A Stats priority for Briton would be (Pawn String):
Strength: 1,5
Con: 0.75
Dex: 0.5
Qui:1
High weapon speed: 1.5
Balanced weapon speed 1.25

A Stats priority for Avalonian would be (Pawn String):
Strength: 1
Con: 1
Dex: 1.5
Qui: 1.5
High weapon speed: 1.25
Balanced weapon speed 1

A Stats priority for Highlander would be (Pawn String):
Strength: 2
Con: 0.5
Dex: 0.25
Qui: 1
High weapon speed: 1
Balanced weapon speed 1.5

I don't know if I'd call this simple. All I want to know is what's the best race to choose?

How do you want to spec? Thrust? Saracen or Briton, Highlander works too. Anything else? Highlander

How do you want to spec? Thrust? Saracen or Briton, Highlander works too. Anything else? Highlander

Not really.
If you want to cap quickness:
For highlander:
50+75(equip)+75(castbuff)+12(aug qui)=212 quick
50+75(equip)+51(potbuff)+12(aug qui)=188 quick
50+75(equip)+93(classbuff)+12 (aug qui)= 230 quick

The avalonian will cap qui without spending points in quick (70+75+93+12)=250
But 250 is not really needed, 241-246 is best together with MoA 3, MoP 3, and potted/casted haste=17%/20%

With 3.6 mainhand and 2.6 left hand, 238 quick, 17% potted haste, MoA4 (12%) you hits at 1.5 speed.
With Legion jedi-blades (slash) 4.2 mainhand 3.2 lefthand:
With 9% haste from MoA3, with 17% pot haste, with 245 quick your mainhand hits at 2seconds, with 246 at 1.99 seconds
With 15% MoA5 with 20% haste proc, with 250 quick, you would hit at 1.56 with dual wield.
Celerity would be needed to get to swing cap. (albs do not have celerity right?)

Briton vs Highlander (slash)
75, 65, 60, 65 for briton
80, 70, 50, 65 for highlander
the difference is 10 points of dex are divided into +5str +5con when choosing highlander, the tradeoff is a lot lower perspective of switching to thrust while highlander.

Inconnu vs Saracen (thrust)
50,60,70,50 -->60,70,70,60
50,50,80,60 -->60,60,85,65
You give up hp for dex and quick more dps for lower survivability. Mercenary at level 50 only gains 15 in constitution, if you wanna spend some realm points into toughness then go saracen.

The racial stats minmaxing is hard to take too seriously when I have vietnam flashback images in my head from BMF firbies and briton slash mercs destroying literally everything. Realistically speaking, the times your merc gets nearsighted first on inc because you're a saracen or an avalonian will be more valuable than the dex/qui bonus could ever be. Shoutouts to luri heroes.

thrust is much more usefull in RvR as you will have an advantage at hitting healers, shammies and warriors while being absolutely neutral to hibs. While slash does have a great anytime style, its bonus is negligible considering the fact that it is still advised to use DW positionals in combat and you will end up with a penalty to damage on mid support

you're talking about advantage of thrust but don't mention the lvl44 snare? if anyone wants to make a max tryhard build for RvR that should be the main thing to think about.
I'd go as far as saying the slash damage type is more advantageous against midgard in general because berserkers (and to a lesser degree savages) become the most attractive targets in many scenarios when the players progressed past the "lets tunnel each others supports and see what happens"-state.
The opposite could be said for bards and blademasters, those come with slashing resistance but make generally unattractive targets to begin with. This almost feels intentional, don't you think?
I specifically remember (and did it myself on my druid as well) for scale users to downgrade to studded because we were forced to take maximum action against "have fun healing this"-ragnarok berserkers as well as slashing mercs being everywhere. Slashing just becomes more valuable as long as Uthgard doesn't do this.

Getmoney wrote:Flank>Shadow's Rain (29 side combo) is the #1 priority at any point. Rain is the highest growth style in the merc arsenal.

Shadow's Edge (lv6 backstyle) and it's two followups are actually pretty bad. Edge specifically does not have the growth a positional should have and is already weaker than anytimers other factions get. This is where slash starts shining over the other damagetypes; if you have Backslash (39 slash), use that instead. The crush and thrust counterparts (Divine Hammer/Pierce) aren't worth using as long as you can get an Edge followup.

Dual Shadows (50 frontstyle) is great and essentially removes the need to even have an anytimer on your bars. The only argument that could be made against it is the bleed, but the bleed is actually strong and can add up to hundreds of extra damage over the duration of a fight. Think of it as a flat 25 damage add every time you use it, which is also really noticable in PvE when attacking high level mobs. This is basically your anytimer, except it has higher growth than even Doublefrost.

Backslash is draining to much endu to spam . And since enduu is always a problem on alb for light tanks , i wouldnt choose backslash .

Adaom wrote:
Backslash is draining to much endu to spam . And since enduu is always a problem on alb for light tanks , i wouldnt choose backslash .

This.

Also the frontal styles bleed, while its a nice damage increase, can also be a mez breaker. Care should be used when using this because the bleed lasts a very long time and if you are pealed and the guy you were on gets mezzed, the mez will break with a bleed tick.

United states leads the world in number of people who believe in angels.

Uthgard leads the world in believing Quickness reduce you hit damage, but increase your DPS.

Requin wrote:Dual Wielding is 100% Strength based, but it has no impact.

What does this mean? More str != more dmg with dual wield?

Thalien wrote:What does this mean? More str != more dmg with dual wield?

I'm not 100% sure what Requin meant exactly, but your Dual Wield weaponskill is a hidden value, like your Shield weaponskill, so that might be why Requin says it doesn't have an impact.

Anyways, Dual Wield is governed completely by Strength, just like Slash, Crush, Two-Handed, and Polearms. This is particularly relevant if you want to use Thrust weapons, because any Thrust styles you use will be based off 50% Str, 50% Dex, but when you use Dual Wield styles, they will be based 100% off your Str.

But it seems the effect of strength on damage is kinda low. Anyone knwos more?

Tested Bm on Pendragon and +18 strength was max 5 dmg more. Could be variance.
39 or 50 blades didnt change dmg on cd.

more str = more weaponskill = better defence penetration? dmg?
more skill = more wepaonskill ( would mean it would be good to go 50 weapon, same benefitas str gives, weaponskill)

In the berz forum was this link posted. Don't see any str or weaponskill in dmg formular.

https://web.archive.org/web/20080918194 ... C/info.php

And found this info

https://sites.google.com/site/daoctests ... -on-damage
http://www.postcount.net/forum/showthre ... trength-RA

Thalien wrote:But it seems the effect of strength on damage is kinda low. Anyone knwos more?
Tested Bm on Pendragon and +18 strength was max 5 dmg more. Could be variance.
39 or 50 blades didnt change dmg on cd.

Have you done comparison tests on Uthgard 2.0? I'll try to do some testing to see how much extra damage exactly Str buffs give me. Going above composite 51 in Blades shouldn't increase the damage of your Celtic Dual styles.

Thalien wrote:more str = more weaponskill = better defence penetration? dmg?
more skill = more wepaonskill ( would mean it would be good to go 50 weapon, same benefitas str gives, weaponskill)

I haven't done any testing on it, myself, but everything I have read so far tells me that Str should increase damage/defense penetration with Str-based weapons. To get the most damage/defense penetration from your Dual Wield styles, you should spec 50 DW, and increase it past 50 as much as you can. Raising your sub-spec (Slash, for example) up to composite 51 will raise your minimum Dual Wield style damage, but not maximum damage, or defense penetration. Raising Slash past composite 51 will only help when using Slash styles, not Dual Wield styles.

Also, one of the devs made a post awhile ago saying that weaponskill is just a sum of various factors (I can't search dev posts for some reason, so maybe I'll find the quote later), and that number itself doesn't mean anything other than "you have this much strength, plus this much weapon spec, etc". Instead, it is the individual components of "weaponskill" that may or may not increase damage, defense penetration, etc, and I don't know if they contribute proportionately.

Thalien wrote:In the berz forum was this link posted. Don't see any str or weaponskill in dmg formular.

https://web.archive.org/web/20080918194 ... C/info.php

And found this info

https://sites.google.com/site/daoctests ... -on-damage
http://www.postcount.net/forum/showthre ... trength-RA

I would like to see more testing done on Uthgard, as I'm a little wary of what methods they used to reach their conclusions. They may have been testing Str at much higher values, or with items/procs/bonuses that aren't present on Uthgard. In general, though, I agree that Strength is not the most important thing in the game when it comes to damage, and you would be better served going for RAs like MoP and Dualist Reflexes, over Aug Str.

When it comes to race choice, I think there is still a lot of debate to be had. If Str isn't as important as a lot of players think, should the other stats be weighed more heavily? Or should we instead be thinking more about racial resists, or size? I'm still of the opinion that for an RvR min/maxer, size is the most important consideration, making Inconnu probably the best choice if you don't care about looks (or if you just really like fish people!).