[Ranylyn]

So it's no secret that Mercenaries are... basically ass. Let's go over some reasons.


REYNES

Positives: Nihilist to deal with Fire Absorption. Actually uses his skills at all ever.

Negatives: Will Charge Mind (without Brainstorm) when way too far away to hit anything, will stand around doing nothing when he is within range to do something. Wastes FP on hsdw despite never, ever using Exgalfa. Never has FP to do anything because of spamming the aforementioned useless actions.

Suggestions: If we must limit him to uncharged Fir and Sear, so be it, it'd actually make him more useful and less stupid. I'd also suggest giving him a more potent FP regen (Even if it's just cracked mirror, or a Tactician's FP recovery on tome hit) because 2 per turn for a foodless evoker is simply not going to ever cut it. As well, as he enjoys standing around doing nothing, make his normal attacks slightly longer range (Marksmanship bonus.)


ZORIA

Positives: Closes in to attack like she's supposed to. Ghosthand for dealing with Electrojams so she does not suicide as blatantly.

Negatives: Never uses skills at all ever. Also does not appear to have several key innates/passives.

Suggestions: If she's not going to use skills, shift her SP over to Poise, Rising Game, and the like. She's already the best Merc.


ALMA

Positives: Um, higher hp?

Negatives: Never uses any skills ever. Also does not appear to have several key innates/passives. Suicicdes on Electrojammers as if it was his one chance to get noticed by the woman he loves. Furthermore, his AI is just completely garbage. Let me illustrate with a screenshot. Just the turn before, 2 of the 3 beasts were on Alma, and I was beside Alma. I did not move. This is why all 3 are Solar Lanced; I was trying to set up a linear 2x detonation for a hyattr ally.



Alma begins by charging blindly in, Protect be damned. If you try to stay near Alma for protection, he just moves away to attack enemies. If you try to keep Alma between you and the enemies, the enemies just move into range with you. The result is an infuriating game of Musical Chairs, except the chairs are on fire and covered in chainsaws; one misttep and you suffer. Shine knights also suffer this exact same issue; even with their 3 range weapon, they attack, then move after just to piss you off!

Suggestions: Move Alma's active skill SP into passives like hp regen (Seriously, moving that slow and not even getting the +3 hp per turn to recover slightly as you hobble along?) and crit negation, because he never uses a single point of SP anyways. Give him Gunner AI and a modded 2 range spear; he'll stand his ground when within attack range, so his protect can actually protect someone for once in his worthless existance, "Bodyguard" my ass.


EVERY MERCENARY

Positives: Extra damage to help lower level players/ support oriented players. Scale with Leader's level.

Negatives: Effectively treated like Youkai are by the game (Enemies ignore them in favor of the player, Malmelo only touches them for half, not affected by food, can primarily only heal them at inns.) Rely completely on normal attacks (Reynes the FP waster and Alma/Zoria the "I refuse to use any skills" people) Do not get Tactician (Read: Can only attack once per turn uness they crit due to lack of skill use.) Unaffected by Bandages outside of battle. Newer characters can find the rapidly escalating Mura costs to be steep; you're not likely to have enough to rehire them if you wipe at level 15, for example.

Suggestions: Implementing a Mercenary Management menu (As was stated is eventualy planned, once more mercs are added) would go a long way to heping with this; you could toggle individual mercenaries on and off without turning them ALL off (Example, keeping Alma away from Electrojammers if going into a Whirlpool static) use items/skills through this menu to heal them between battles (I'm submitting an idea to make this work and not unfair in favor of support classes - see my "Party Management Menu" topic in Suggestions once I finish it) and may even be used for allowing you to choose between rudimentary tactics - like making Alma a braindead berserker vs a gentle guardian.


EDIT 1: Removed Some incorrect match about Mercenary costs. For some reason I was acting under the assumption their cost was 5* level since I usually hire them at level 1, but 5 is just their minimum cost. As such, I was making them out to be more expensive than they really are.

[Mivereous]

Hey, this shit is still annoying.

Mostly Reynes HSDW/Charge Mind bullshit, and the other two never using skills at all.

[Ranylyn]

After watching Reynes more closely, I figured out his problem.

Reynes has Bandit Gunner AI. Range of 3, any direction. So Fir often cannot be used due to needing a straight line since he sits at diagonals, and his tome is only a range of 2, so he usually just sits around just outside his attack range.

Making him go for a line (like gorgons or bandit archers) with R5 Marksmanship would reduce his fail by 80%.