The MP Wishlist, 2010 edition

The MP Wishlist, 2010 Edition

This wishlist is the result of several threads started in December 2009 with the intent of finding out what MPs would like to see in terms of improvements to their toolset. Unlike other wishlist threads where the focus is usually on TL7, I created several threads with the intention of seeing where our strong and weak points as a profession are and find out where we could use the most improvement. Therefore this thread will focus on the results of those threads and will be sorted by Title Level, with General requests at the end. The older Wishlist threads this takes the place of can be found at MP Wishlist, 4.0 and Profession Balance Specific Wishlist.

The Discussion thread for this edition of the wishlist can be found here.


TL2: 15-49

• Combined Nanoskill Debuffs: A one-stop shop for debuffing an opponent has been requested for a long while. With Unmakes usable at TL2, a Composite Unmake would be ideal for this TL.
• There is no root/snare calm removal for this title level. Having some sort of removal option for this TL would be excellent.
• One suggestion put forth is that perhaps all parts of the Meta-Physicist toolset should be present and available by level 25, instead of the current progression, where you have some parts of the toolset available off the bat but others are level locked to 75 or 100 (root/snare/calm tools, creations, etc.) or simply aren't present in any way.
• A lower level version of Nano Shutdown is requested to the tune of 300 points, not unlike the version seen cast by Windcaller Yatilla in TOTW, which would fall under the same principles as the "Having all parts of the profession's toolset available by lv 25 or so" concept.

One problem encountered in this TL that isn't really part of the wishlist is that Traders can reach both staggering amounts of NCU as well as outside buffing and can thusly debuff by huge amounts, thus lending to rather lopsided numbers of traders at this TL using the best drains. As one suggestion put it: "Level Lock Trader Drains".



TL3: 50-99

• The same problems with root/snare/calm removal found in TL2 are present here until lv 75, where the first root/snare removal nano is available.
• Some sort of calm/root/snare resistance at this title level would be nice.
• One of the problems facing MPs who pvp at this level is the fact that there is no viable equipment option aside from the highest red shield you can possibly equip and a parry stick of some sort. Another type of defensive option would be nice for this TL so that it's not always about who has the highest QL red shield.

TL4: 100-149

• Runspeed is a potential problem reported at this TL, in that we don't have enough.
• By 100 most MPs can cast the top RK pets and the next pet after this is lv 165 for Biazu. A few more pets, or more improvement to them, or lowering the level locks, would help the long stretch between Caco/TEP and Biazu greatly, especially in light of the improvements in MP nanoskills over the last few years.
• The current top MP nukes, Metaing's Improved Mind Quake and Metaing's Improved Glacial Lance are currently in level locked quests and are requested by lower level MPs, specifically in the 100-118 range.

On the whole, the consensus is that this is the strongest TL for MP play in pvm and pvp.


TL5/6: 150-189 and 190-204

As there isn't a whole lot of TL6 in terms of MP play I'm lumping TL6 in with TL5 in terms of wishlist.

• While our attack pet performs well in TL5 PvM play, it doesn't perform as well in TL5 PvP, being fairly low damage. Either pet damage needs to be rescaled, more pets need to be added, or a lower level version of the nano "Master's Bidding" should be introduced to help out MP problems in pvp at this TL.
• Belamorte has likely been the healpet MPs have been using since TL4 and during TL5 this healpet struggles to keep up with damage in pvm and pvp play. Either adding a percentage heal based on Soothing Spirits (max 10% or so at 201) or adding more healpets and lowering the level lock and reqs on the ones we have would be lowered.
• Crowd control and it's spammability on pets is really apparent at this TL: Most MPs usually have to ignore their pets as functioning or else spam Pet Attention. Crowd control resistances would be useful here, improvements to pet Nano Resist and/or how it works.
• Weapon diversity is a problem at this TL: In order to survive for any length of time, you need a pretty specific setup which includes the Shield of Asmodian and a Parry Stick, pretty much the same combo used in pvp since TL2.
• A specific request to make our Gold Shield line useful in regards to the incoming Parry action is found in the discussion thread.
• The Healing Staff of Alcofribas Nasier is a really good weapon, and not unlike the other Anansi quest rewards for Trader and NT, perfectly usable at TL5, but requires a TL7 quest to obtain. It's requested this staff be moved down a few TLs in terms of availability or just sold in the Ado/Pen gardens. Also would be nice if it would work for our poor healpets prior to Mortificant.
• MPs at TL5 are more susceptible to alpha strikes than a number of other profs if an opponent can get the AR. Some sort of 'oh crap' defense capability should be given to TL5 MPs, especially those who are looking to get out of the mold of 'red shield/parry stick' MPs that seem to be the only viable build in pvp from TL2 through 5. Suggestions are currently: Damage-to-Nano, Damage-to-Pet, and a lesser version of Sacrificial Shielding.
• Further discussion with Lupusceleri wound up with his input stating that while the damage from Biazu might be good in pvp, the AR on the other hand is not. This falls in line with general pet improvements, but his experience most recently with TL5 pvp gives a good point of view for where MPs stand and how best to improve and balance the profession here.
• This being one of the title levels that has the beginnings of the problems MPs face towards endgame, a Lesser version of Sacrificial Shielding is requested, in whatever form it's going to wind up taking after rebalance. Discussion thread here.

TL7: 204-220

• At this TL it's glaringly obvious how susceptible to CC spam our pets are. Improved Pet Attention isn't just a nice toy, it's an absolute requirement, and usually spamming it is the order of the day. Tweaking our pet NR, adding resistances to our defensive Evocation lines, and giving IPA short-term resistance to CC tools are all suggestions put forth to try to give the pets some amount of time to act in pvp.
• When our pets are actually able to engage an opponent, the opponent's immediate reaction is to start kiting. This cuts the amount of damage the pets can do down to a fraction, since they're busy trying to get back into range and even with the boosted runspeed all pets enjoy, the sync issues make it really difficult to match up with the target at melee ranges. Suggestions to make an opponent stand still long enough for our pet to GET to them are both new mezz pets with much higher AR (and/or lower NR checking mezzes) with lower break chances than 100%, and adding a short snare to the cold nuke line to slow down the target enough to have the pets catch up are both ideas put forth on how to improve pet usefulness in pvp at this TL.
• Pet base AR can be improved on both the Attack Pet and Mezz Pet. Mezz pets line could be extended up to 220 for more effectiveness in PvP.
• Players have requested several times that Sacrificial Shielding have a 30s or more lockout instead of 30s recharge as it sits now. Much of this is to do with inability to use the other parts of their toolset while under 30s recharge. MPs are very cast-heavy even without SS and often sit in nano recharge during pvp and most pvm, and having no access to their toolset because of SS recharge doesn't help matters at all.
• More evades or AAD. Currently the ONLY tool we have to mitigate incoming perk damage is through simply being unperkable, which doesn't run into the blockers from SS.
• Extensions of nuke lines: We get MIGL and MIMQ from TL3-4 and use them for the next 100 levels. More nukes would be nice!
• Improving the SL DD Debuff line: We cast 3 total nanos to debuff damage up to -920 damage from mobs or players. That's 6 seconds in nano recharge, and part of the reason why MP players complain about being in nano recharge 100% of the time. Merging the debuff lines would make this simpler and save time and grief. Improving our -healing and -nanodamage debuff lines would also be useful considering the amounts of boosts to both currently around, we're not shutting down their healing, just removing the gobs and gobs of bonuses everyone gets. -920 is also something of a drop in the bucket against modern endgame content, an idea is to give MPs a scaling DD debuff not unlike how traders have a scaling AC debuff, only scaling on the target's level instead. THis would give MPs a more flexible tool for assisting on high level boss-type mobs.
• Improved healpet healing or more healpets. Mortificant isn't able to keep up anymore, at all with modern healing requirements.
• Improve weapon buffing support from buffs, perks, and symbiants for non-creation weapon users. (Some of this is already in the works with Ranger perk extensions and Blunt Mastery)
• Pet pathing needs another looking at, mob pathing in general as well. Pets are still unable to clear a step a pixel or two higher than it's fellows.
• More damage from our SL pets: The damage was great in SL, 2 expansions and one booster later and it's way behind the curve of AR progression and damage boosting available. More damage is coming from the MP in high damage setups instead of the pet, which is a bit backwards considering we're a pet-based profession. There's been no input from the player base so I'll add my suggestion for damage in lieu: Endgame pet should be hitting for 2.3k per hit at minimum after buffs, etc., to become viable in PvM play as well as pulling their own weight in terms of the pet/master damage equation.

General Wishlist Items

This part of the wishlist covers MP player wishes that extend through the TL ranges. As such, they don't fit within any one given TL and are placed here.


Pets

• To give the Mezz Pet more usefulness than just mezzing a single target, a number of nano lines have been suggested to change the mezz pet nano or to give it a proc that would give the mezz pet more abilities instead of just the single-target mezz. Suggestions are: AoE Calm, Single calm with lower NR check, nuke, blind, single-target fear, casting layers on a friendly target (as a 'heal' or 'guard' action), and nano healing a friendly target.
• With the news that the Mezz Pet line was going to be split into several 'utility' pet lines, discussion was had as to what would best work for the MP in both PVM as well as PVP. Newer suggestions include extensions to the MP debuff lines, so a mezzpet that debuffs nanoskills/damage/inits/etc, a snaring pet, an AOE blind pet, and an anti-fear pet (though fear resist is also requested in our nano-interrupt line, further down.) Another option put forth is to simply have the Mezz Pet start out blank, without an attack or nano loaded up and then load one of many options into it.
• Healpets need to heal more. Belamorte's castable by lv 100 and by 150 is struggling to keep up with the healing demands for content of that level. Either we need more healpets stuffed in from the top end down (and shove Mortificant the Eternal down a TL or 2 for castability) or adding a percentage heal to the healpets we do have that scales with perks trained in the Soothing Spirits perkline. The percentage heal would answer another problem we have, that of keeping our SL/AI pets standing. Assuming either solution is implemented, my thinking is that at 220 we should be seeing healing from our healpet come to the tune of 2.5k-3.5k per healing cycle. This puts us closer to keeping up with Adventurers, the other Jack-of-all-Trades profession, as well as improving our desireability for pvm content and survivability in pvp. On top of this, shortening the attack speed of the healing nano (while increasing the recharge a small amount) would likely give the healpet ability to stay with it's healing target more. As it is, healpets are usually too busy playing catch up to heal.
• Our 220 pet, and ONLY our 220 pet of all endgame pets has an AI expansion lock to upload and cast. Carlo does not, Widowmaker does not.
• Much discussion has been made about what a new pet or 20 would look like, and the best answer to date has been asking for pet morph nanos that would morph the targetted pet into looking like, but not having the attacks of, certain types of mobs. There's lots of requests for rather mighty-looking mobs such as Hisii Berserker, Void Hydra (LOTV type), Notum Scourge, etc. The best option to mind would have parts drop from the mobs that could be simple-tradeskilled into a nano that would then morph the pet.
• One possible solution to the pet kiting problem suggested by Flyingengi would be to alter the APF nano Touch of Poison (pet damage change to poison, adds 30 poison damage) to also include a DoT proc of a certain amount (suggestion is 400 poison damage per second for 5-10 seconds), which would both improve pet damage in pvm as well as give it longer acting damage in pvp should the opponent decide to kite the pet.
• Some discussion was had and considering the potential for a 'damage-to-pet' option opening up for MPs in the future, it would be wise to consider splitting the Attack pet line into several flavors, one with more HP/ACs as your generic 'tanking' pet, the role the RK demons were sort of intended to fill, a general melee damage pet not unlike our current meatball line with better damage and maybe more weapons, and a third line for a ranged attack pet with options for either one big hit on a slower cycle or smaller hits more quickly. If the Attack Pet line is split up as well, taunting and detaunting tools would likely be essential, since the RK demon line only uses one weapon and is easily outdamaged by the RK meatball line. One request is very specific in asking for multiple attack pets available to the MP at any/all times.
• With the discussion on splitting the attack pet line, the healpet line was discussed as well. While having the 'classic' healpet with it's straight, single-target heal is one thing, several problems need to be addressed when it comes to the healpet's capabilities: It cannot heal our pets for beans, it has no 'team heal' mode to cover against AOE damage or the like, and in pvp it has to catch up to it's intended target and then stand there for 3-4 seconds casting its heal. Several ideas have been brought up to look at this problem: The splitting of the healpet into several lines, one for the normal 'straight' heal (with a good, solid bonus for healing a pet) an AOE healing pet, more like a healing totem pole that follows the MP and heals the team/raid/etc., with another version to heal in pvp, where HoTs with consideration of adding blockers has been requested. Another request, and one that's both interesting and a twist on the healpet, is the addition of an anti-healpet line, which would block healing recieved by the target, while the healpet was on the target. This last would be an interesting twist and both useful and a higher-priority target than the MP casting this pet.
• Another major problem with pets is the fact that it takes at this time 30 seconds to cast 2 of our pets, the Attack and Heal pets, and both are very susceptible to this little thing called death. Given that it takes 30 seconds to cast a new pet, and then another 15 seconds or MORE to buff each pet, as the Evocations each have recharges of 5 seconds, it has been requested that MP pets get tweaked to where instead of dying in battle, they 'faint' where they cannot take an action for a certain amount of time, then start to regain health as per usual and are able to act again. This would reduce the rather severe penalty currently when it comes to MP pets that the MP is more crippled than other professions would be in similar straits. Failing that, reducing the cast time on all MP pets to where it's possible to get a pet back into the fray without dying first is a must.
• The hands down ultimate problem facing MPs with regards to their pets is the lack of scaling. Our manifestations are supposed to be an extension of ourselves, unlike the robots of Engineers and Bureaucrats, or the charms of the latter. With that in mind, it would be likely that our pets would scale to some effect with our own skills, but this does not happen. The bigger problem is that with stat inflation happening as it does now, without some level of scaling any set level of numbers our pets are given in the future stand to risk being passed up and made obsolete in the future. On top of this this presents a situation where a casting-heavy profession is given little to no incentive to maximize their nanoskills because the core parts of their toolset, the pets, do not scale with skill. A simple solution can be seen here in a Scaling Pet Idea Thread
  

Other Areas

• Casting the Dxxxx of Will (Desecration, Defilement, etc) nano line will overwrite the Malaise of XXX line from Bureaucrats. This means that in the event both professions happen to be in the same team/raid, the MP loses out to the init debuffing because it's higher priority on the team's list of preferred debuffs. Separating the lines will solve this and also make the DD debuffing more attractive by not cancelling out the Crat debuffs. EDIT 9/22: With the release of the Bureaucrat nano document the Malaise Line of initiative debuffs are moved into the same line as Doctor init debuffs, so our debuffs should be fine to use once the rebalancing is put into effect alongside UBT or Malaise.
• Our LE procs need work badly: On the whole the only 2 procs used for most of an MP's career are Anticipated Evasion and Regain Focus with the occasional NSD proc thrown in. Retweaking the debuffing procs so they're based more on the SL debuff line than the RK debuff line would make them much more attractive to use in pvm or pvp play, and since they're on their own line, would also help the conflict of debuff with Bureaucrats and their Malaise line.
• Creation weapons need to be updated and brought up to speed. Their damage isn't very high even for RK content and in SL they're next to useless past TL4. Having "Empowered" versions of creations that are found/bought in SL would give MPs more useful tools in that regard without overpowering froob MPs. Another option would be having a Creation Mastery line that would buff both creation weapons as well as improve them with perks in the line much like Healpets are improved by Soothing Spirits. Either way, improved creation weapons should enjoy a higehr TS percentage for their attack rating.
• On the subject of Creation Weapons, improving the Gold Shield and Blue Shield lines so they have more effect than they currently do would potentially improve the options MPs have for creations aside from just 'red shield/parry stick' in pvp. Suggestions are giving a static HOT and more Max HP to the gold shield line, and giving the blue shield line Damage-to-Nano, more Max Nano, and a nanodamage % boost.
• Several times over the game's history Creation Bows have been asked for, being useful for a ranged damage option that would play to the MP strength of having excellent Time and Space skill. Having some sort of proc not unlike the 1hb/2hb core creations would be handy, and more than a few times Bow Special Attack arrows have been asked for that would be usable with Creation Bows (since most BSA arrows require the user be wielding a Bow weapon, which a creation bow would not count as)
• Korovasuka has requested that creation weapons be able to disable, aka not be used to attack, since the long recharge and attack of the various 1hb creation shields may interfere with attempting to get 1/1 on the main hand. I will test this and determine what and if any problem exists, however one solution to this would be, since all 1hb creation shields have horrible attack ratings anyways, making them 1/1 or less.
• XtremTech has suggested, as well as others before him, that we get an AOE damage debuff so we can better debuff larger numbers of mobs and or adds during raid situations. During these times it's very hard for us to keep many mobs debuffed since our debuffs are both short duration and we need to maintain 3 debuffs at once on any one target. Keeping 2 mobs fully debuffed is not easy, keeping 3 is very difficult and requires great timing, and more than that is probably not possible without rk4 implants or other wetware, though in raid situations more than 4 mobs isn't unheard of. More details can be found in this thread.
• Damage-To-Nano looks like it could be a useful addition to the MP toolset, potentially as another way to mitigate incoming damage (that gets by Sac. Shielding), and while Nanomages are getting access to it as a breed, MPs as a prof do not have access to it. Discussion thread here.
• A long running request for the MP profession is to both reduce the casting time of our SL garden warps as well as extend the lines so we can go to all gardens. Leaving out the first and last several gardens for this long, especially when we are the mass transit option, doesn't make sense.
• With the advent of Fear effects in pvp, it seems natural to request that Fear resistance be added to the Nano Interrupt line, the top nano of which is called One Mind, One Purpose. It was also requested that Knockback resistance be added, however as Knockback has not been implemented as of yet the need is not yet present.
• Being able to see what LE procs are running on our fighting/nano target would be helpful. As it is if one has to have Effects turned off for whatever reason there's no way to tell if you have managed to run a debuff proc of any type.
  

Relevant Threads

This short section is for the relevant threads that were made and are used as reference for the MP wishlist.

TL2 MP Experience and Concerns in PvP

MP Concerns for TL3 in PvP Discussion

MP Concerns: TL4

MP Concerns: TL5 Discussion

TL 7 MP concerns

Utility Pet Discussion Thread

Healpet Discussion Thread

Attack Pet Discussion Thread

Scaling Attack Pet Idea Thread

Another Attack Pet Idea Thread

Version Info


First version of the MP 2010 wishilst finished up 12/31/2009 (just in time for the new year!)

• Basic wishlist information parsed from the various threads and input into the wishlist
• Few last minute additions from X and Fixietrox.
• Few more ideas stuffed in 1/11/10
• A fresh edit on 3/19/2010 to include the rundown of the various pet idea threads and the fear resist idea.
• A quick edit on 4/15/2010 to go over formatting and to add the +nanodamage and +Healing Eff aura ideas.

Other Areas, Continued.

• Another idea that's been percolating in MP minds lately to improve desireability in teams is the addition of team/pet auras that would improve nanodamage, healing efficiency, and maybe damage boosting for all friendly pets in the area. It stands to reason that if we can debuff something, we can also give a crack at buffing it, too.
• Bow users are very keen on asking for more Bow skill through every possible means. Nanos to buff bow do not exist outside of Martial Artist self-buffs, but Bow is one of our primary weaponstyles. More Bow and more AS support is requested by those MPs using bows.
• Making the Anchor and Recall nanos actually make sense would be appreciated: Their only real purpose seems to be recalling dead teammates while hunting outdoors, which lately is more and more of a soloing endeavor. Teams are usually found either inside mission instances or within boss or raid instances which makes trying to recall dead teammates flatly impossible. For a nano pair that is supposed to take the place of RK's Beacon Warp line, it doesn't do a terribly good job of it.