I got mercs for all my characters the day the patch was launched, around a month before A3 India went paid.
These days I'm levelling my mage, who is currently lvl 28, and has a merc of level 29.
People in game have been amazed to see me with a merc and everyone says you have to be >30 to get one. Well, however you look at it, here I am, with a merc since level 1.
Having a merc that's very close to one's own level just rocks!
My mage is an elemental mage-not known for their defence. The merc is an HK merc, with the PS points for magic evasion and evasion being used up currently. In the beginning I used up the magic evasion one, not being clear on how to use em mercs effectively, and no way can i afford 5M to reset points.
Nor do I wanna start a new merc.
So anyway-this merc is also G3 (I set points for my mercs every 3 levels, i think I posted about this strategy long back. This lets your merc stats match those of equipment so that it can wear em properly. My merc for eg, has the stats of a lvl 17 mace HK. It has a mounted Khaen Shuthern (G3 mace) and is VERY effective in helping me against gerges and rescas.
Not everyone can have this advantage, i.e. you'll probably wind up at lvl 30 with a lvl 1 merc-but get it up and at par (or even higher) than your character for maximum effect.
One way I use is-set the merc to defend mode (press M) and wait for a resca to zap you. Merc goes off to bash up the resca, and you can deal with the vonoy that spawns! So I end up roasting vonoy, while merc kills the rescas for me-thats teamwork!
