So to get the most out of Mergen’s AoE DPS, it’s looking like Rogue is a necessary part of any Mergen build because of capture.
Mergen’s biggest flaw is its high CDs. It’s not much better than cannoneer and musketeer in terms of DPS because of this, looking at each of them on their own it looks like both cannoneer and musketeer beat out Mergen in both the burst and sustained DPS departments. But if you pair Arrow Rain, Mergen’s strongest AoE, with capture then you’d receive a considerable DPS increase and Mergen could take the spotlight by a large margin.
I would say that for anybody considering Mergen, they should strongly consider Rogue as well.
Arrow Rain has high base damage, and each shot hits for that damage, it does not look like it is a fake multi-hit ability, but instead a true multi-hit. Because of this, capture is all too important for every Mergen build. One Arrow Rain at level 5, with just its base damage alone that’s 44,784 damage. This is not accounting for any possible crits or attribute levels either. Now with capture, it’s twice that, and since each hit is its own it has the full damage from any property attack or physical attack you have, and each hit has sacrament, blessing, or any other buff, as well as its own chance to proc a card debuff like minotaur or templeshooter. Arrow Rain is just too good of an ability, it’s probably Mergen’s best ability actually, and capture makes it that much better. Any Mergen not getting Rogue in their build is severely cutting their Mergen DPS.
With the way capture works too, then, should Sapper also be a core part of this build? What do you guys think? It would appear that you could create a build centered around capture and pool all of the Archer class’ strong capturable abilities into one class. Sapper 2, Rogue, Mergen. etc. That would make for enormous AoE capabilities, and who knows what future ranks may bring in the capturable AoE department. Arrow Rain is a pleasant surprise.