AI armour? pfff

I've been having a ton of fun playing my 200 agent without a single piece of AI armour.

he's awesome in PVM:
* I can crank out 90k+ DPM in inf easies (my 220 engi is doing 225ish) and I can easily OD many mid SL players.
* I can fully easily play doctor in S7 or IS or any level relevant content


In PVP I haven't had any problems either.

with 15k+ HP and nearly unlimited nano I haven't had any encounters that are 100% to lose - 200 traders are bad, but not unbeatable by gank.


So I guess the point of this is that I think AI armour has been overrated, and my opinion is that there's more opportunity to PVP using support setups than some people realize.


So, does anyone else have any experience using non-AI armour based setups that compare favourably?

* a couple years ago I got sick of trying to play a moderate evade prof (MA), who was really only an evade prof for 1:40 out of every 10 minutes, so I made my engi my PVP main. Engi's are perfectly capable of providing reasonable support in PVP by using a HP setup with remodulator, perhaps swapping to grenade or AMEP/IDBEP for tower PVM.

* I feel similarly about my doctor, outfitted fully in OFAB/Ejathos, I've been seriously contemplating going bow on doctor, and trying to sort out a setup where I could use either a tiger MK6 (maybe QL 225 or so) or a union arbalest for the pew pew's.

* NT's again, same thing, you don't have to worry really about evasion and AR, it's just a matter of making sure you have the right nanos.

So what other prof/setups work nicely for this?

Shuyin will say MR keeper with DB armour and a supernova swap

What else?

Fully PVM perked shade work better then fully PVP perked shades vs many profs, including enfs, docs, soljas, agents.

Full nanoskill setup crat is one of the best support profs in the game, in pvp.

Full HP NT can eat an enfo alpha.

Full HP agent is only good for tl5/tl6. In tl7, you won't perk anything.

Soldier with melee alpha swap and +dmg gear hurts more then a troaler solja :)

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Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich

Engi's are perfectly capable of providing reasonable support in PVP by using a HP setup with remodulator, perhaps swapping to grenade or AMEP/IDBEP for tower PVM.

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By this metric any profession is fine without AI armor, an MA provides healing and critbuff "support", a crat provides aura + debuff "support", etc.

Essentially any profession that does not rely on having the absolute best AR or the absolute lowest specials cycle can succeed without AI armor. In support professions AI armor is also often used to compensate for skills lacking in symbs (mostly AS), they could use imps in place of AI armor but it's suboptimal. So while doing without AI armor is great for "a crat" it's not great for "a troa'ler crat".

I threw away troaler on my crat. Viola! Most of my nanos now land, evades are higher, dd is better, DD in pvm higher, still have some css, 3 pieces, sleeves, boots. Othwr than that better in everyway than it was with 7 css. Also 4 bil cheaper.

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Originally Posted by Georgesmith

I threw away troaler on my crat. Viola! Most of my nanos now land, evades are higher, dd is better, DD in pvm higher, still have some css, 3 pieces, sleeves, boots. Othwr than that better in everyway than it was with 7 css. Also 4 bil cheaper.

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And now, your only chance of hitting people in PvP is through pets and nukes. Good luck killing any decent advy/fixer without AS.
I agree, crats are much more powerful in a full nanoskill setup, but then again when you use it in PvP, you will rely on others to finish off your targets.

How much of the price of supple bots do you think comes directly from the need to boost aimedshot?

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Originally Posted by Trypha

How much of the price of supple bots do you think comes directly from the need to boost aimedshot?

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Over 50%, that's for sure :)
AS is a necessity in PvP only because the ammount of evades people can get exceeds the amount of AR needed to reliably hit them. My crat has 3.8k static def.(iirc) I think besides MR professions, only soldiers can get that much AR and soldiers don't really pose too much threat for a crat, unless they use AS.
It's cost and fotm conditions aren't due to aimed shot, tho. It's costly because there's very few people actively farming viralbots, unlike previous years when population was at it's peak. And it's a necessity for most professions because it provides exactly what those professions need, like AR, evades, specials or damage, all in one piece.
I miss the days when you needed to tradeoff def for AR. Nowadays, the difference between a full offensive setup and a full defensive one is just a few swaps in rings, huds and utils. :)

I just know that there is a lot of hate for aimedshot mechanics but I've never been able to grasp what might take its place. But it seems like anything that takes away aimedshot would also make huge amounts of AR unnecessary, and therefore make supples less necessary, right? Would be great to kill two birds with one stone, if such a solution is possible.

imo, NT, pet profs and doctors (and any melee prof with MR) are in the best place in terms usability, without the massive *forced* expense of needing a supple set.

I'm aware of the benefit:
I have a fully outfitted engi (6pieces), ranged advy (7 pieces), crat (7 pieces), fixer (6 pieces), all with CSS except engi with CC, and I'm acutely aware of the benefit of using these armours to load up on AS/AR/special AR/evades, but I'm tired of doing it.

What boggles me, is how so many people are just cramming like crazy to GET the CC/CSS, while complaining about the price, but at the same time, completely fail to take a broader look at the game and their potential contribution.

My feeling on this is that doctors don't need CC - the AS just isn't going to do enough damage with troaler that it's worth being THAT much more gimp. In real PVP, a doc with 30k HP will be a LOT harder to take down than a doc with 22k HP. A nicely defensive setup doc with appropriate buffs could with a bit of skill keep a raiding/griefing party alive long enough to not have to meep.

Engi - this one is a bit more theoretical, but imo engi pets do pretty decent damage in PVP, and, you could setup for a lot more HP on an engi if you weren't focussing on AS skill. For me, personally, when I'm on my engi I'm, without fail, the first one called on any grief, and usually die because I get the full force of the other side bearing down on me... without a doc I'd never live, BUT, if I went with a much larger HP setup, it would mean that maybe an agent could keep me alive with a well timed CH.

But engi again, is the prof you want to stay alive! If an engi and a doc are still rolling around on the other side, it's going to be MUCH, MUCH more difficult to make kills.

Trader - this can't be the first time people are thinking of this, but a trader in full CS instead of CSS is going to present a much greater REAL threat than one in CSS. A trader in a support team with engi and doc can have a profound effect on dealing with fixer spam. it's no secret that fixers are strong and the "fotm" but seriously, a trader can do a crap ton of hurt as a caller using a remodulator: call target, cast industrial sabotage and your target is going to eat bullets

crat is the same for me. a crat with full evades setup/CS is going to be a much greater threat in real PVP than an AS monkey (I am a hypocrite here to some extent because I've been hounding every piece of gear contributing AS on my crat, but I'm increasingly growing annoyed with his failing peripheral toolset. A crat that can't land a root is bloody useless.

if you make a team or an RI with even a few of these uber-supporty types, you can be so much more effective as a group.. so why is everyone and their dog rolling fixers?

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Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich

Engi - this one is a bit more theoretical, but imo engi pets do pretty decent damage in PVP, and, you could setup for a lot more HP on an engi if you weren't focussing on AS skill. For me, personally, when I'm on my engi I'm, without fail, the first one called on any grief, and usually die because I get the full force of the other side bearing down on me... without a doc I'd never live, BUT, if I went with a much larger HP setup, it would mean that maybe an agent could keep me alive with a well timed CH.

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The difference between an Engy in a totally impractical, all out HP setup and one that can cap the recharge on Troa'ler is only 4k HP. (a b)

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Trader - this can't be the first time people are thinking of this, but a trader in full CS instead of CSS is going to present a much greater REAL threat than one in CSS. A trader in a support team with engi and doc can have a profound effect on dealing with fixer spam. it's no secret that fixers are strong and the "fotm" but seriously, a trader can do a crap ton of hurt as a caller using a remodulator: call target, cast industrial sabotage and your target is going to eat bullets

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I wish I could go back in time and unread this :p Why is -1100 defense and no damage vastly superior to -350 defense and an immediate -30% hp on the target? And furthermore, why not just force the doc to use remod in this scenario since his "AS just isn't going to do enough damage with troaler".

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crat is the same for me. a crat with full evades setup/CS is going to be a much greater threat in real PVP than an AS monkey (I am a hypocrite here to some extent because I've been hounding every piece of gear contributing AS on my crat, but I'm increasingly growing annoyed with his failing peripheral toolset. A crat that can't land a root is bloody useless.

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Greater Restrict Movement ftw?

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if you make a team or an RI with even a few of these uber-supporty types, you can be so much more effective as a group.. so why is everyone and their dog rolling fixers?

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Team towers, for most people in AO, occupies only a tiny fraction of their playing time and it would make little sense to build your whole setup around it.

This post brought to you by people with too much time on their hands.

Well AI armor has a fundamental flaw. CSS that is, combining offense and defense in one piece.

IF this was not in a combo I'd pick evade armor on my advy, crat and fixer.

On Soldier and Engi, i'd go with offense, Doc I already do full HP.

AI armor is poorly designed, It'd be best if CSS would be changed to include say ranged weaponskills + HP, just like CMerc. In same breath make some kind of armor that focuses more on evades and hp or nano capacity. (not nanoskill)

Strong, Supple, Enduring should mix on one hand, and Observant, Spiritual and Arithmetic on other. This way we'd have a real tradeoff. Trick or fist type of setup.

As posts above say, why is ao now so low on sacrifice, full def to full offense is 4-5 items away. Hardly any tradeoffs.