TiTs Mercenary 2.0

I was looking at the new mercenary perks and changes and thought I'd give a review of them.

Mercenary Perks
Aggro Management
Opposite of Smugglers: have Mercs draw more enemy aggo, letting them shield vulnerable Anno/Kara/etc. from getting blasted.

Fen:Ignore ‘dis.
//Reminder for later date: add Taunt ability. Have said Taunt work outside combat too (ie, put a debuff down)

@@ A taunt ability would be great for mercs with them having a similar role to a tank. I would suggest that the taunt ability gives a damage reduction from all sources of about 15-30% with no effect in single combat, otherwise the Merc could get ganked pretty easily in some fights.

Special Abilities
Power Strike is Inferior to Rapid Shot
Rapid Shot stacks with Extra Shot. Power Strike doesn't. Boost its damage by +100% at Level 8 and that should sort it out.
Fen: Ye, do this.

@@ Power Strike is inferior to Rapid Shot at the moment but a +100% buff would instead make Rapid Shot a lot less comparable due to the fact that it has a rather severe accuracy penalty outside of a few select weapons (Secure MP). Allow Power Strike to stack with Second Attack and either reduce the accuracy penalty for Rapid shot or keep the buff to +50% to keep them in line.
Power Strike will have more reliability and Rapid Shot will have more damage potential at a risk due to extra critical chance from consecutive hits.

Mercenary 9
Perk: Heavily Armored. The defense bonus granted by worn armor increases by a portion of your Physique. (1 per 10 pts.?)

Fen: After discussion, a physique based boost would be bad for ranged merc-bros, and a % based boost would feel too much like “Armor Tweaks” from techbros. Instead, it reduces the effectiveness of Sunder on you by 50% (resulting in a 25% armor nerf instead of 50%).

@@ This perk is way too situational and is a slap in the face compared to the Smuggler and Tech Specialist tier 9 perks.
I suggest instead a perk that buffs Second Wind to heal 75% of your max HP(+25% increase)

1A. Rending Attack: When you make a Power Strike, you leave your enemy's armor Sundered for a short while, decreasing their Defense.
1B. Suppressing Fire: When you use Rapid Fire, your barrage of attacks leaves your enemies Staggered for a few turns, decreasing their combat effectiveness.

@@ Both of these are good although I'm not sure what the Staggered debuff is.

2. Giant Slayer: While your enemies have more Health than you do, you gain a bonus (5%?) to Critical chance.

Fen: +5 crit against enemies 7’ or taller. RIP, Kaska/KhorganMech

@@ Again I feel like this is too situational. I think it would be better if it gave +5% damage vs small enemies and +5% crit vs tall enemies. Could be called David and Goliath as a new name.

Mercenary 10

Perk: Single Minded: Your Willpower increases to the maximum for your level whenever your Health drops below 50%.

@@ Some anons made a good point about this perk, how it trivializes putting points into willpower and its lack of utility on mobs that focus on lust or direct damage.

@@ A perk that boosts the accuracy of ranged attacks by a significant amount(20%?) and the damage of melee attacks by a small amount (5%?) for the rest of the battle when you go below 33% HP would probably be more useful. It would make for a good tactic to allow yourself to be damaged before using Second Wind to boost HP back to acceptable levels.

1. Lunge: Your melee attacks can affect flying enemies normally, and your basic attacks also have a very low a chance to stagger grounded opponents. //(5% chance of pc.physique()/2 + rand(20) + 1 >= target.reflexes()/2 + 10 check to apply sunder)
2. Bigger Guns: You can use Heavy weapons without needing to meet the physique requirements.
Fen: seal of approval.  8======D

@@ These two look decent but I'd need to be certain of what classifies as a heavy weapon. Are they weapons with the Power Armour tag or a new group of weapons waiting to be introduced?
Mercenary 11

Perk: Helldiver: Gain 10% resistance to thermal damage.

@@ This perk is really disappointing when compared to the Smuggler's Die Another Day perk and has no real usage outside of a few niche scenarios.

@@ I thought up a perk which would maximize Physique and Aim while boosting either of them by 10 or 20% if they are already maxed with a debuff that reduces Intelligence and Willpower by half for 3 or 5 turns.

@@ This would allow ranged Mercs to utilize melee skills more effectively and vice versa while still proving useful for characters that specialize entirely on one side of the tree.

1. Sturm und Drang: You fire one inaccurate ranged attack at your target, with a chance of stunning for a round on a hit. After the shot, you leap in and deliver a full basic melee attack set with a greatly heightened chance of landing a Critical hit if the target was stunned.

@@ A really interesting idea for an skill but requires ranged Mercs to invest in Physique to make any real use out of it.

@@ This problem could be remedied with my potential replacement for the Helldiver perk or the second hit could simply be changed to a ranged attack to make it useful for ranged Mercs.

@@ The first hit should have an extremely high stun chance to compensate for the low accuracy and the second hit should either bypass accuracy checks to make it useful on evasive foes or have more damage than a standard hit to make that potential crit all the more painful, otherwise the damage might pale compared to Rapid Shot/Power Strike.

2A. Overhand Blow: You leap into the air and come crashing down on your foe, dealing heavy melee damage with a chance to stun the target for a round. (Copy/paste power strike damage adjustments)

@@ An anon pointed out how that this ability is too similar to Headbutt/Power Strike and I agree. Adding an AOE effect that deals 25-50% of the damage to all foes and keeping the stun chance would make it a great ability in group fights. Should have a high energy usage to stop it from being spammable.

2B. Stunning Power: Your Power Strike ability now has an added chance to stun the target for a single round.

@@ A good buff to Power Strike to make it more useful.