First time I had his room and holy cow that needs nerfing a little (even if it was partly bad luck)

 

Only just got 50 dg, so n 2nd bind yet.

Went solo floor 25 med, only had 1 door on the start room and 1 door n the room beyond it.

However the next room had a lvl 140 mercenary leader, holy cow talk about impossible?

Early on so no good armour and barely any food. I died twice in the process of doing a tiny slither of damage to it then thought erm yeah time too quit this floor.

How'd you go about killing it?

I was in full novite with gorgonite 2h til i quit

you can cosmic gatestone trick to kill merc leaders without taking damage.

merc leaders aren't that tough, you just were missing your second bind and you just aren't that experienced yet.

I would also recommend not using novite normally, as the magic penalty isn't worth it, but you were probably praying mage anyway, so yeah. It's not an easy room, but it will get better.

The mercenary leader definitely seems to be tuned in a strange way. From what I hear, the difficulty scales with the amount of players by having the guy call for more troops, not by actually increasing his potential maximum combat level. I'd say this makes things easier for larger groups, as quickly rushing in, getting in a few hits and then porting out again while the reinforcements arrive is just more efficient like that.

 

I also wonder what's up with the wide level range of the Mercenary Captains you encounter. While soloing, I've seen them as low as level 26 and as high as level 203, which just doesn't feel right.

 

I've actually encountered a level 203 MC right in the first room beyond the starting zone. While it may be beatable at that point through patience and fighting dirty, it will take a long while as the MC has a TON of hitpoints and at higher levels, quite a bit of armour as well (concrete robes I say). At that point you might as well quickly reset the dungeon, as fighting it like that just is no fun at all. While it's not impossible, it does seem to be poorly tested and a bit out of line with other challenge rooms.

 

 

If anything, I'd like to see their defence lowered drastically. It's just so annoying when you get in a few precious hits which end up doing a grand total of 0 damage, it feels like you're not making any progress at all when that happens and the waiting gets annoying fast.

The mercenary leader definitely seems to be tuned in a strange way. From what I hear, the difficulty scales with the amount of players by having the guy call for more troops, not by actually increasing his potential maximum combat level. I'd say this makes things easier for larger groups, as quickly rushing in, getting in a few hits and then porting out again while the reinforcements arrive is just more efficient like that.

 

I also wonder what's up with the wide level range of the Mercenary Captains you encounter. While soloing, I've seen them as low as level 26 and as high as level 203, which just doesn't feel right.

 

I've actually encountered a level 203 MC right in the first room beyond the starting zone. While it may be beatable at that point through patience and fighting dirty, it will take a long while as the MC has a TON of hitpoints and at higher levels, quite a bit of armour as well (concrete robes I say). At that point you might as well quickly reset the dungeon, as fighting it like that just is no fun at all. While it's not impossible, it does seem to be poorly tested and a bit out of line with other challenge rooms.

 

 

If anything, I'd like to see their defence lowered drastically. It's just so annoying when you get in a few precious hits which end up doing a grand total of 0 damage, it feels like you're not making any progress at all when that happens and the waiting gets annoying fast.

Rocked's theory is that the mercenary picks a single player in the party, and scales the combat stats around said person.

So if you have a single lvl 3 skiller in the floor, this theory predicts that 1 in 5 mercenary leaders will be lvl 8 mercenary leaders

secondly, the mercenary leader summons 2 minions per player on the team.

Merc Leader should have been a boss room, similar to Horde.

Merc Leader should have been a boss room, similar to Horde.

 

Agreed, kind of odd having a lvl 203 merc leader and then a lvl 113 shadow forger as boss :blink:

Mercenary leaders seriously need to be nerfed. Make the leader have 0 def, less hitpoints and less dps with spells, and all the minions have reduced hp/def as well as dps.

 

Try clearing a t11 mercenary in free play right now and you'll see what I mean...

Mercenary leaders seriously need to be nerfed. Make the leader have 0 def, less hitpoints and less dps with spells, and all the minions have reduced hp/def as well as dps.

 

Try clearing a t11 mercenary in free play right now and you'll see what I mean...

 

You are, afterall, playing a demo.

No matter what jagex calls it.

Darn noobs who can't kill the Mercenary Leader =@

Mercenary leaders seriously need to be nerfed. Make the leader have 0 def, less hitpoints and less dps with spells, and all the minions have reduced hp/def as well as dps.

 

Try clearing a t11 mercenary in free play right now and you'll see what I mean...

 

You are, afterall, playing a demo.

No matter what jagex calls it.

 

It should still scale

Mercenary leaders seriously need to be nerfed. Make the leader have 0 def, less hitpoints and less dps with spells, and all the minions have reduced hp/def as well as dps.

 

Try clearing a t11 mercenary in free play right now and you'll see what I mean...

 

You are, afterall, playing a demo.

No matter what jagex calls it.

 

It should still scale

but if Jagex tries too hard to scale, we'll have the problem of ppl training DG on f2p like the first few days.

I'd rather Jagex didn't. They'd probably screw it up.

And if they didn't, it might cost them more worker hours than they can afford.

considering the "pro" dgers are above level 90...no they wouldn't

Soloing a level 203 mercenary captain is damn near impossible, so I'm with the OP on this one. This and the ramokee rooms definitely need to be bumped up to boss status, it's getting a tad bit rediculous.

Soloing a level 203 mercenary captain is damn near impossible, so I'm with the OP on this one. This and the ramokee rooms definitely need to be bumped up to boss status, it's getting a tad bit rediculous.

dungeoneering is meant to push your combat skills to the limit.

solo ramokee/mercenary leader are far from impossible.

With proper equipment and skills, soloing them is no problem at all.

I ran a 5:5 large floor with erichermit once, and soloed both a merc room and a ramokee room on the same floor w/o taking damage.

 

solo floor mercenary leaders and ramokees really shouldn't be bad at all.

Ramokees have much lower combat in solo, so you can feasibly tank them on 3 salves and proper safespoting/prayer.

Mercenary leader only summons 1 ally if soloing.

So just wait for 2 mages or 2 mages + 1 warrior summon and safespot for a no damage solo.

you can of course gatestone trick should your luck not be up to notch.

 

Once again, DG combat isn't meant to be easy.

Prayer flash gulega is harder than prayer flash Jad afterall.

Man up. This is how it's meant to be.

I mean I have not too much problems with the mercenary with only mages and warriors, just when he summons rangers, all hell breaks loose...

 

Every time I get the mercenary, he always summons more rangers than mages. WHAT THE HELL.

Soloing a level 203 mercenary captain is damn near impossible, so I'm with the OP on this one. This and the ramokee rooms definitely need to be bumped up to boss status, it's getting a tad bit rediculous.

Mercenary leader only summons 1 ally if soloing.

 

Actually, I mostly get 2 allies.

 

But yeah, I don't find them too hard, but they take a lot of time to defeat, which is the most annoying.

 

I usually just hope for a melee/mager spawn, or do gatestone trick.

Rocked's theory is that the mercenary picks a single player in the party, and scales the combat stats around said person.

So if you have a single lvl 3 skiller in the floor, this theory predicts that 1 in 5 mercenary leaders will be lvl 8 mercenary leaders

secondly, the mercenary leader summons 2 minions per player on the team.

That's great, but like I said, I've encountered both level 26 and level 203 Mercenary Leaders while doing a dungeon all by myself. Per that theory they should all be the same level, right?

 

As for the 'you're playing a demo' argument, isn't the point of a demo to convince people of a game's quality, such that they'll end up purchasing it, or a subscription to it? Mercenary Captains aren't really 'hard' to beat, as using the proper strategy isn't really that challenging. It is however pretty darn boring, especially in F2P, as you'll be hitting even more zeroes. If I were to run into an encounter like that in a demo version of a game, I'd probably question the developer's ability to create balanced and entertaining encounters for the premium content...

 

The proper no-damage strategy seems to involve waiting for proper spawns. Waiting and getting lucky just don't seem to be concepts you can base an entertaining encounter on. The only thing it tests is my patience.

As for the 'you're playing a demo' argument, isn't the point of a demo to convince people of a game's quality, such that they'll end up purchasing it, or a subscription to it? Mercenary Captains aren't really 'hard' to beat, as using the proper strategy isn't really that challenging. It is however pretty darn boring, especially in F2P, as you'll be hitting even more zeroes. If I were to run into an encounter like that in a demo version of a game, I'd probably question the developer's ability to create balanced and entertaining encounters for the premium content...

 

Blame Jagex for making a [cabbage]ty demo. :notalk:

I see some people pulled out the old its meant to be challenging argument.

Which is fair enough, but I strongly suspect most of you are talking from only ever having teamed it, since people don't solo as much outside rushing.

When soloing, especially if you are early on in a dg, the higher lvl ones you get are ridiculous. Granted theres a tactic to them which I apparently don't know but even so that tactic seems like its gonna take a looooooong time since you barely hit the thing and it has massive hp.

 

Taking that long to do 1 room of a dg that isn't the boss is just crazy, atleast with a team the hits pile up a bit more.

I ran a 5:5 large floor with erichermit once, and soloed both a merc room and a ramokee room on the same floor w/o taking damage.

In all fairness, Grimy has a hexhunter, that's cheating :P.

 

But yeah, solo should be no prob with flashing piety/turm and a decent spawn. 5:5 with t11 rangers hurts though. You need to have 5 people ready to beat the leader up and spread the attacks, which is what it is a 5:5 for.

Well the thing is, when you get a merc room right at the beginning, no one is ready. Especially in F2P, where they give you t11 enemies and lvl 100+ leaders on solos. They should at least give you a merc leader near your own level, and enemies 1-2 tiers above yourself.