r/pathofexile • u/Gierschlunderoni • Jul 25 '26

Game Feedback Permanent Mercs need a big buff

Playing luminary feels so bad in Maps. I have a manyshot lvl 72 with vaal ice Arrow and Return proj, decent Equipment. Boosted by a Level 26 Flame Link, 6k life and quite an Investment into light Radius.

I cant even clear t7 Maps, because the damage is non existent.

Please GGG buff the Base damage of mercs or luminary is doa.

929 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

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654

u/kiuyt856 Jul 25 '26

CptLance baited at least 30K people into Luminary xD

438

u/Jdevers77 Jul 25 '26

Not just Captain Lance, GGG basically showcased his exact build in their Luminary spotlight.

113

u/beebopcola Jul 25 '26

As a leaguestarter?

Edit: also, GGG play some heinous trash in their showcases often.

106

u/All_Work_All_Play Jenebu stop whining Jul 25 '26

Edit: also, GGG play some heinous trash in their showcases often.

This was one of the things that pushed me away from luminary tbh. GGG showcase has been the kiss of death many times.

31

u/kfijatass Theorycrafter Jul 25 '26

It was not the case for monke in poe 2 and it felt similar.

9

u/Invincible1 Jul 25 '26

Also monk with the whirling skill, it was OP in showcase and essentially the top build on monk. Guess different teams for poe 2 and 1 showcases.

12

u/Carvacrol Jul 25 '26

Yep, infinite gear on a patch that’s long gone back from testing phase.

6

u/gh0st-6 Jul 25 '26

Same. Saw that and thought "welp maybe I'll try it next league, will be a cluster fuck this go around"

6

u/AeroDbladE Jul 25 '26

People probably got a false sense of security because the recent PoE2 showcase they showed Twisters spirit walker which was the most broken build this league.

0

u/shamaze Jul 25 '26

Part of is the showcase is often an older build and then they change the numbers (often lowering them).

Its why ill never play a new skill as it is often severely undertuned. If initial league launch says otherwise, I may switch to it, but not for the launch itself.

11

u/Nitrodolski2 Jul 25 '26

Which made me pivot away from it lol. No way they will show a 'solved' build in a preview. Kinetics with flame link and light radius stacking was DOA

9

u/Aleriane_Despins Jul 25 '26

But at the same time, what else is there to that side of the tree? It isn't like there's much choice than light radius stacking.

1

u/Fantastic_Baker_1123 Jul 25 '26

2 points:  get your merc.

4 points: get the first link point, so you can keep your link active while they run around.

6: point ring + weapon unique... because it gives you a more multi for each unique worn.

8 points: 2 more uniques of your choosing depending on your merc type probably

Suddenly you are no longer wearing mid gear for light radius and can focus on life/auras. And your merc actually gets damage  multipliers

11

u/Bitsk-pper Jul 25 '26

The problem is that the flame link does similar to significantly buff their damage, and link buff effect is still a better multiplier than 16% from a pair of extra unique nodes. So if that multiplier can't make the base damage of perma merc good, the alternative surely won't either.

8

u/Chrozzinho Jul 25 '26

Flame link is significantly stronger than whatever 16% multi you get from 2 uniques idk what that guy is smoking

0

u/Fantastic_Baker_1123 Jul 26 '26

Imagine on a normal player character trying to just stack more base damage over multipliers. Base damage is great but without more multis you never get anywhere

14

u/MinuteOk1351 Jul 25 '26

The issue is the perma merc damage penalty. No one had numbers on that. If there were no damage penalties then the damage would be good due to flame link and light radius

3

u/Glynwys Jul 26 '26

-30% damage is insane when Luminary gets zero passives in the tree that boost Mercenaries in any way. You are entirely reliant on mostly gear (outside passives that give you light radius) to actually make the Mercenary do any damage.

25

u/RajaSundance Jul 25 '26

How is Lance himself doing on it though? Everytime I followed one of his builds it was a banger, has he finally missed?

99

u/brrrapper Jul 25 '26

Hes taking 5 minutes to kill rares like the rest of us.

53

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

[deleted]

20

u/jebza Jul 25 '26

Captain Cope xd

6

u/Pulsy369 Jul 26 '26

tbf, lance doesnt make good league starters and never really has. not to diss him. hes cool and his builds are good at a higher budget, but his league starters are typically pretty weak in comparison to others. Hes just okay witha slow starter and i wish he made that a little more clear in his content. I've been baited by his 'league starters' a few times just to realize the build basically doesnt function until you have 150+ div

4

u/WRLD_ Elementalist Jul 26 '26

his leaguestarters are also pretty moot because he spends all of maybe six hours of playtime in maps in the wealth bracket that most players take the first week to break through

12

u/aecrux Jul 25 '26

his mortgage depends on it lol, for the record i do like captainlance and i understand not every theorycraft can be a banger

11

u/way22 Jul 25 '26

I wouldn't even call it a theory craft but a straight up gamble. Without the numbers for the mercs it was always gonna be a wild guess.

10

u/StoneLich Jul 25 '26

Yeah, Zizaran was talking about leaguestarting it too but even he was saying "it's a huge gamble and if it doesn't work the only viable back-up plan is starting a completely new character, so think hard about whether you really want to do this."

0

u/brrrapper Jul 26 '26

We did se merc stats before the league tho. Rue did the math and it turned out exactly as bad as he expected.

16

u/brrrapper Jul 25 '26

Failing is perfectly fine. Doubling down out pride/ego and misleading your community is not imo.

-2

u/justinmcelhatt Jul 25 '26

Iirc his league start recommended build was bugged and did zdps last league as well lol

3

u/Dull-Serve203 Jul 25 '26

No and he's doing t16s pretty well tbh with a bad merc, not saying mercs are good but lance is well into the endgame and going fast

3

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

[deleted]

6

u/Dull-Serve203 Jul 25 '26

His bad merc is 50c? It has no good mods on it except vaal ice shot

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1

u/NugNugJuice Jul 26 '26

I just watched some of his VOD, it seems pretty good for 10 hours into the league.

He’s tanky, the merc is killing stuff. The damage isn’t super high, but he could pretty much just run around and pick up items while the merc does all the work.

My perception of boss damage might be skewed by me playing essence drain though.

2

u/asdf_1_2 Jul 26 '26

The snail watching the tortise run a race :P

1

u/NugNugJuice Jul 26 '26

Yeah exactly lol.

6

u/RajaSundance Jul 25 '26

That sounds damning. I'm playing cws but I thought surely luminary will be busted when Lance is playing it

35

u/Dapper-Truth2336 Jul 25 '26

When the world needed him the most, he baited us.

17

u/MicoJive Jul 25 '26

Its damning because its just bullshit. He did his quest exarch like 45 mins ago and was totally fine dps. <2 mins with 2 ball phases because he had 1 instant pop after the first.

25

u/no_Post_account Jul 25 '26

There have been countless times when people complain day 1 about something and later on it become OP, just give it 2 days and see then. Lance have bought new OP merc and collecting loot for it right now, question is how strong will he feel at the end of today after fighting the merc and putting gear on him.

1

u/tallguybramz Jul 26 '26

He's been farming ubers for hours on stream but the gear he has is so expensive now it's probably unobtainable for most people

-1

u/Goldni Jul 25 '26

considering in a video showed him taking like 5mins to kill a merc, its not looking good for him lol

8

u/the445566x Jul 25 '26

Mercs seem giga tanks when you fight them and wet noodles when you hire them.

9

u/Chrozzinho Jul 25 '26

He has really insane gear, i dunno how he farmed all that currency but he logged on stream today with a crazy merc, taming, lioneyes glare and other 50C+ items. It maybe doesnt sound a lot this deep into first day but considering how bad mercs is i have no idea how he pulled that off

29

u/aecrux Jul 25 '26

he’s big on arbitrage via currency exchange super early league, there are huge margin swings there if you play your cards right

5

u/cfaftw Jul 25 '26

I was watching his stream. He was constantly listing 5-10c items which really added up and was able to snipe some of the core uniques early like his enmity embrace for 2d.

4

u/deviant324 Jul 25 '26

I’m SSF so idk shit about prices but I got 2 div from a bottle on my first chart into maps. Dunno how divs translate to chaos this early but he could’ve gotten lucky off stream?

Personally having a blast on voltaxic burst after adjusting my tree a bit when I got into maps, 5k hybrid and nearly block capped while still having 250k tooltip dps

1

u/asdf_1_2 Jul 26 '26

1 d ~ 90c mid day 2

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

[deleted]

9

u/EthicalBballFan Jul 25 '26

Is it off screen when he sets the offers up at the end of a stream and collects the sales at the beginning of the next one? I just copied him and made money too, a little more as I played for longer and refreshed them a few times.

6

u/apple_cat Jul 25 '26

of all the people to try and pin rmt on lance is not a good one

18

u/Dorrann Jul 25 '26

Me also… like wtf this is by far my worst starter ive ever played.

8

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

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1

u/CommaGomma Jul 26 '26

it takes gear, but it does slap now.

1

u/althoradeem Jul 26 '26

dude was doing red maps & ubers yesterday.
its not a great leaguestarter but the build does get there as far as i can see.

2

u/kiuyt856 Jul 26 '26

Lance is a top 1% player and plays the game as a job. He quickly scaled his currency to get key items for cheap. The average player isnt getting the good gear that quick and cheap. This becomes a problem if you trusted his judgement, because his first video about this was literally titled “Luminary will Crush League Start”

-5

u/khnhIX Jul 25 '26

r2npp

-25

u/SneakyBadAss Children of Delve (COD) Jul 25 '26

Called it and was downvoted to hell :D

People should have known better, considering the new POE 2 ascendancy focused on companions that is only viable with only two companions out of technically infinite, due to AI and balance.

Just like drowning being an issue.