Merc Slots, Is 3 enough?

I am thinking about purchasing the Merc slots from the store. 8 seems like to many, 3 sounds about right. Any suggestions?

Well, if you want to ask how many is enough, the answer is zero. They're ultimately a convenience unless you care about having your characters as heroes. I can imagine it would be handy to have early access to a Rit, another Mesmer and a Necro though, especially if you're like me and comprehensively go through every quest in a region before moving on and thus can go for quite a long time without a full set of heroes. You seem to have settled on that already anyway.

Well, I just thought it would be neat to have some of my other characters in a party together. More for Roleplay purposes. Lol

I have just one --a rit since you get them so late in nightfall and eye (still have yet to finish woc in hm so dont have the other one) . So I really dont see the need to get more than that--there are plenty of necros and you get olias pretty fast (livia is just as long as xandra but still easy and part of the story line).

so 3 is more than enough.

Yes no mercs are actually needed per se. I agree. However I wouldn't remotely consider playing without them ever again. It is so cool to have a party of 8 all made up from your characters.

I'd get the full 8-pack cause it has better value per merc bought. And it allows easy flex of various mega builds.

If you don't have 8 toons to choose from you can just create a pvp character at level 20 in 30 seconds. They can travel to the Great Temple of Balthezar and can there be recruited as a pve merc.

Just remember to strip important runes/insignias off and remove weapons if you change one of the mercs out for another though. Which makes the 8-pack even better. You are less likely to need to change the mercs you have already. So no endless stripping of stuff and the one time your forget and you lose 3 Survivors and a Spawning etc.

So yeah I think the 8 pact is way way better and wish they had a 10 pack even. But I can limp along with 8 okay and when I need a monk or a third mes -- have 2 mes as mercs -- use one of the in game heroes. I couldn't with just 3 mercs though. Never ever. With 8 I have all my characters with parties that fit them in the main without endless shifting and hassle. Best add-on they ever came up with imho.

Is it possible you're mixing something up?
Xandra is very easy to get and well ahead of almost all heroes in eotn (except for the starting 3):
Visit the HoM (so that the doors for the other zones are open), go to Gunnar's Hold (which is the closest outpost from Eye anyway) and do the tourney. Done.
So as soon as I get access to EotN, Xandra is mine.

For the original question: I have none. You get access to all important hero classes so easily, I don't see the point.
If you wanna have'em for RP reasons, then only you can answer that Q anyway: How many of your other chars do you wanna drag along? If you wanna have a full party of your own toons, then the answer is obvious, for example. If it's only your main char you wanna have company with, the answer is obvious.

nope not mixing things---if you dont have most of the rit skills unlocked the tourney is not so easy, not to mention of the last 5-6 times doing the tourney it took me more than 10 tries to get her to even show up (took more than 15 to get khamu).....so just about the same as unlocking livia--which is part of the eye quest/mission line anyways.

Well, to clarify:
I don't bother with Magni, so I don't bring a real tourney build.
Therefore only some changes to my char's build in order to be self-reliant are needed.
So no rit skills used by me.

I don't even care enough about Khamu. So as soon as I unlock Xandra, I finish that particular tourney, but then it's basically over. If I have unlocked Khamu until then, fine. Otherwise, no harm done. I don't use him anyway.

But you're right about the randomness, that can be really annoying and frustrating.

Edit: Brain fart. Big one.
Move along, nothing here to see.

There's no need for any elite to unlock Xandra, just grab a bunch of binding rituals and restart if you see she's not in round 2. Shadowsong alone in the doorway goes a long way.
Level is not important either, my lvl 10 ranger did it with just a couple of spirits, no SoS.

well my dervish (warrior 2ndary) level 10 had plenty of issues (had just reached level 10 so had just unlocked eye etc.)...was just easier to pick the merc rit up than trying to get thru the tourney.

(yes I have ALL skills unlocked....just had not picked rit 2ndary for most characters who got to the tourney later---past when eye first came out--- so they had NO points left for 2ndaries since most were level 10, and most were nightfall characters so rit was not an option when they had to pick originally)

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(edit: nice save there naturelover )

(no clue what you're responding to ... really ... )