Calmers And Reflect Shields

[_____________Cloudehxx]

Originally posted by Ratty
I'll just say this then.
If I'm in a group, and my calms are being broken repeatedly, and there's no pets, and nobody seems to be attacking the mob, I ask if people have reflects on. Always the answer is yes and I just ask them to remove it. Not so much an issue at level 120+ when most people have decent HP/AC/evades, and you have a doc to just keep you alive.

Sometimes you get people like Cloudeh that, when under level 120, even if you prove they break calms, refuses to remove it, jeapordizing the lives of the entire team (usually not the person themselves cause they are secure in the amount of HPs and Acs they have, they could give a damn less if YOU die) and your only recourse is to get leader and kick them out, or leave yourself. Best to resolve that right in the entrance room before you rack up all this xp then die cause you get swarmed with adds you have to keep calming over and over, and as they start to agro on you you are one dead calmer.

.....Check out my char cloudeh and not cloudeeeh.

I think I know what Im talking about man.

And having played Calm classes before I can say that rarely does this happen.
It just a over exaggerated whine that nobody takes tme to sit down and REALLY think what happens, besides, if it isnt attacking the person with the shield, it would be calmed wouldnt it?

Can I say again? I have spent 176 levels + another 62 on my new enf and have always used a damage Shield and Calmers do thier job.

Hehe I even had 4 mobs on me and people manage to calm them all.

Damage shield that high up gives me what 400+ hp, now If I want that so called HP Advantage you can go stick it up your little tight nanomage butt.

I know what the **** im talking about, either Im wrong or these calmers aint doing something right, but aye you just press a button and hope.

And yes Mobs do come out of calm for no reason.
I did mongo in a mission and EVERY SINGLE TEAM MEMBER Attacked me in a 75% zone, If you have seen all the mess ups in the game why is it so hard to believe that a mob come sout of calm for no reason.

Jees.

[_____Real Kinky Ityn]

What Mercatura said was basically right, it is more prevalent in single target calms then area calms because with area calms the target doesn't get one last attack.

Single target calm lands
Target gets 1 retaliatory strike in
Target hits a reflect shield
Reflect shield damages target
Now after calms are broken what happens is the target gets 1 retaliatory shot in again then would normally walk around dazed for a bit, it take it's retaliatory shot but hits another reflect shield. this takes it out of daze mode and into fight mode.

Anyway if you are a calmer don't complain, there is nothing more annoying then being told how to play your class. You have 2 choices, re-calm it, if you chain calm sooner or later you will time it right after a shot and they won't get their retaliatory shot off and will stay calm or say "too bad so sad" I'll nuke the one everyone is working on and let the doc do his job on the tank and if the tank dies and complains to you tell him to shut is male-chicken trap and get back to mooch exp while he recovers.

In my whole career as a crat, and I soloed from 1-85 but am now at 164 I have died all of 2 times in teams. Both deaths were my fault. Crats are basically immune to death if you play with a brain, if you can't get your second calm to stick stop wasting your time on it and join in the damage, that's what docs are there for, if the tank bites it blame the doc who was busy looting in the room behind you.

[Ratty]

Read the post by Mercatura above, that explains it pretty well I have observed through my experiments as well. I had a soldier put a reflect on me and I would let a mob agro me and calm it and note the reaction.

Cloudeh, why dont you stop just talking BS and back up your statements with actual test results? Instead I have to read things like this:

Originally posted by Cloudeh


I have spent 176 levels + another 62 on my new enf and have always used a damage Shield and Calmers do thier job.

Either show what you know about how calming works, or you are not really helping the discussion.

[______________Rogoff]

Hmm, I am amazed that this went past Kwanju's summary (which I thought was a good one).

At low level:
If you're fighting worthwhile mobs, even one missed calm, just one, can kill a team member. Every calmer knows how it is when someone dies from an add and people *****. You're thinking "geez, I got a counter, wtf do you want?", but you just say "sorry", and suck it up.

I'm no control freak, people can play how they want, but if you run a reflect shield, you are willfilly taking a gamble with your life. That's your call.

*I'm* not gonna wear reflect, because I don't like to die. I will advise the doc not to wear one, because docs are my primary focus (in general). Everyone else is free to do as they choose.

However, if I calm that mob beating on you, and I hear the "wshhhhh" sound that means the calm stuck, I am already focused on the next add. If those 4-pt reflect bracers you're wearing break the calm, I hope you can tank it for 5 seconds or so.

To Kwanju's original point, I think mezzers can sometimes get overly concerned about people's opinion. I've been in a group where 3 people were attacking 3 different mobs, and someone told me "you need to start mezzing adds". Sigh. So mezzers start getting real anal about things that can get them yelled at.

[_____________Cloudehxx]

Originally posted by Ratty
Read the post by Mercatura above, that explains it pretty well I have observed through my experiments as well. I had a soldier put a reflect on me and I would let a mob agro me and calm it and note the reaction.

Cloudeh, why dont you stop just talking BS and back up your statements with actual test results? Instead I have to read things like this:



Either show what you know about how calming works, or you are not really helping the discussion.

Yeah okay Experience loses to you.
I have spent so long as a tank and every calmer I know can calm when I have agro.

So you must be sucking.

noob.

[_____________Cloudehxx]

Infact im in a team now with Voidmaker, Orikx and robocop1, al have shields and robo can calm everytime.

[_____________Kwangju]

I will say that if I am in a team and calms are always breaking, there is a big problem. Ninteynine percent of all my soldier teams, that have a calmer, go smoothly. But if I am in a team and we seem to have a ton of broken calms, then it's either of three things:

1) Calmers nano ql is too low, and is getting countered.

2) Morons and pets keep hitting wrong target.

3) Or the mission is buggy and the lag is affecting what we see. If the game is lagged and mob is already attacking, but on the calmer's screen the mob is just arriving. Then it is harder to calm if mob is attacking in full force, with reflects in team.

Most times it's just bad tactics, and lousy teamwork. If my soldier is pulling, and I see two mobs, I state this and wait for calmer to come in and calm, while I hang back. Or I will just pull a mob from a bad location and bring it to the team. Oh yeah, that means 99% of the time I don't blast the mob in order to pull .

Same way if I have no calmer, but I have a rooter. Rooter will go first, root one, run back, and we kill the unrooted one that comes runing around the corner.

If you run into a new room with four doors and mobs near each door, that is not the kill room, but peeps will rush in and start blasting away. Uber calmer or not, that is just bad tactics. And then some will blame the adds not calming well on reflects or a poor calmer, instead of silly tactics.

But if you want to team, and you have a good crat, I say give evryone RRF. but above all else, use your head, tactics and teamwork are what matter, not the ql of your gun and armor.

[______________Serena]

Also part of the problem here is.

Single target calm lands
Target gets 1 retaliatory strike in
Target hits a reflect shield
Reflect shield damages target

The mob has never in my experience landed a hit and recieved the reflect damage so the check is being done and failing even though no actual damage was ever recieved by you or the mob. The calm should do just that calm no retaliatory strike at all but should simply have a resistance check. After all you broadsided it with a calm before it knew what was going on.

[____________Vandamar]

Enforcers who keep Mongoing or Fixers who use area burst. I can usually work with reflect shields. A lot of mezzers do get confused by the current mezz bugs and confuse that with a damage shield.

[_____Real Kinky Ityn]

Originally posted by Kwangju


If you run into a new room with four doors and mobs near each door, that is not the kill room, but peeps will rush in and start blasting away. Uber calmer or not, that is just bad tactics. And then some will blame the adds not calming well on reflects or a poor calmer, instead of silly tactics.

Most of what you say is true but this remains level specific stuff. At 165 I could care less where I kill a mob or if there are 10 adds. I know the room you are talking about, there are several other similar ones that lead to a lot of adds, but nobody dies past 150 except by bugs and boss rooms where something goes very wrong. I haven't died in a mission since 110ish. I teamed with a noobie team yesterday, all 120-130ish, and these guys are all asking "are we calming?", "can we use reflect?" My answer: "It doesn't matter", and "I don't care" They freak out because my tactics are run into the main room and start fighting everything, esp the big open main rooms where you will add from every room around it. It doesn't matter because a 150+ team can kill them all. This is a valid tactic at 165.

When we get to the boss room the questions "kill the boss first and calm the adds, or kill adds first?" My answer, "It doesn't matter I don't care" because I just make them pets if the team is trying to kill them, and if they are killing the boss sometimes I make them pets or sometimes I calm them.

Just do what works. Reflect shields do break calms. I usually don't re-cast a calm more than 1 time, I assume if it breaks 2 times someone wants to tank the mob and I can drop 6k in nukes in the time it takes me to calm it twice. At that point I let the doctor do their job. The QL of a nano that calms has NOTHING to do with the calm sticking or not, the only thing it effects is Attack/recharge and the duration of the calm. the only thing that matters is your PM/SI vs the targets NR in determining if a calm is resisted or not. Personally, I usually take reflect in team missions myself, but I usually stick to area calms that aren't bugged like single target calms where mobs get a "last strike" in.

There is no dogma on the one right way to do anything. Do what works with the team. If people die something isn't working right and adjust, or get a team without morons, which is 90% of the reason why team members die, because they were 10 rooms behind picking a chest with a rat in it, or make a wrong turn and nobody notices, or are too busy looting to help fight. Of course that's all specific to that 100-140ish level range too.

I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, just saying that the best thing you can do is not sweat it, have a fun time and compromise.

[_____________Kwangju]

Yeah, high level crats charming the Ace Enforcer in boss room and tanking the boss with it. Gotta love those crats

[_____________Kwangju]

Geez, I need to revive this again.

My soldier was just in a team of all lvl 130+ peeps, and the trader declares no shields, the fixer states even bracers are bad for missions and the adventurer refused to give my soldier his damage shield. Argh!!! All this after the trader stated what an uber calmer she was before I recruited her.

Adventurer later said if I insisted, then he would let me have the damage shield. But what the heck, we had an MA in the team. We all know soldiers have a hard time holding aggro from an MA of the same level, so I decided not to "insist" on the damage shield.

It was amazing to see the mob add, that was shooting me, get calmed even with my dreaded deflection shield hitting him.

[paperjockey]

Just get a run buff, and pre calm 5 rooms ahead of you, easy to spot retards who dont assist and no one breaks my calms usually.

[_______________Jonus]

This thread is very intressting for us soldiers .

/me turns his reflect shield on.

[Autocratt]

Originally posted by Stah
Just get a run buff, and pre calm 5 rooms ahead of you, easy to spot retards who dont assist and no one breaks my calms usually.

That is my definition of an uber calmer (though 2 rooms is enough, 5 is just for show ). As my buddy Statecraft once said, reflects are never a problem if the mezzer controls the adds before the group gets to them. Very proactive, very successful and the team loves you for it. In other words you don't let the group have a chance to be uber stupid, (but stupid you cannot prevent )

For my own experience as a crat in mid levels, I've had to argue with teammates to keep reflects ON, not OFF! My only problem is telling them to stay behind while I mez those dangerous junction rooms (you know, the 4 exit rooms surrounded by 5 extra mobs) or up lifts. Before 14.7 I never had a problem mezzing 2-3 mobs without any heals.

Now I have spoiled a few tanks in my life. I remember one who when he wasn't in my team would be telling his mezzer to do as I did (and getting the poor NT or Trader killed a few time LOL) Mezzing ahead or mezzing up would be my msg to my team. If you hear that too, then you know you have an uber mezzer.

(This is one reason I really wanted to play a crat because your play style can make you stand out sooooooo much more than better equipment, rares, buffs, etc.)

[Ratty]

After much much playtime as a crat, I'll just say this.
Everyone in the team, keep those reflects on. Just keep them off ME. If a calm fails cause of a reflect, I can just keep mezzing and chances are that will agro the mob onto me, then it's all good cause I don't have any reflects on, right?
If there's some trick to calming a mob that is attacking a person with a reflect on, I haven't found it. If anyone wants to say reflects/damage shields don't break calms, we must not be playing the game. But it's all good if your calmer themselves doesn't have reflects (and isnt a total wimp and can handle a little agro as the calms fail).

[Peep]

I have a 160 crat and 143 trader so have had a lot of experience with calms and reflects.

For those that do not calm, the problem is not that calm is broken but that the calm has reset the mobs hate list. If that mob had it’s calm broken by 40 points reflect damage it will agro whoever calmed it not the wearer of the reflect shield.

First off there are not only reflects that can break calms. Aoe snares and roots, mongo, reflect shields on bots, demotivation speeches and aoe burst clusters. The worst of the lot would be reflect bracers, my god people this item not only reflects the attacker but also any previously calmed mobs close by. Is the 2 point damage off a reflect bracer worth losing players over?

I was teamed with a fixer once that liked repeat cast his aoe snare. He told me that aoe snares have no affect on calms, people like this just are not worth arguing with. It is easy enough to protect yourself move back into a room just cleared, if the mob then follows you calm it out of the line of sight of whoever is breaking the calms.

This is what I do in teams. If I have problems calming I switch on “other hit other” to find out who’s breaking it. If it’s a “reflect bracer” I will mention it to the player, these things are stupid, they offer almost no protection. If they refuse to remove it or deny wearing it I don’t bother calming anymore no point getting myself killed.

If on the other hand it is a damage shield I take note of who is wearing it. One of the best things with calms is it resets the mobs hate, when a player is 1/3 health I will calm the mob allowing that player to disengage and pop a nano. If that player is one with a damage shield I will wait till they are running for their life before I attempt the calm.

I have found there is no point arguing with people over reflects just note who uses them and alter your game play accordingly.

[Ratty]

Best thing is to just try to do a quick test for the non believers. If you're a good calmer, nobody should die during the test. And it's better that everyone knows how the game actually works, right? Especially if you got soldiers to cast reflects, or advs to cast damage shields, or people to cast slows, just see what happens. Only takes a few minutes and is pretty educational.
Then if you want to discuss tactics, like, ok leave on the reflects, just keep them off the calmer itself, or have the calmer go ahead alone and calm rooms with maybe a healer covering them, or whatever tactic you want to agree on, you can discuss it. That's what working with a team is about.

One time I offered to prove it to someone in a team, they kept avoiding my offer, never allowing me to prove it. In that circumstance you can't even have a discussion because they aren't willing to experiment and learn. In that circumstance you just have to either take control of the team and kick that person, or just leave the team and find another. When you're in a team, the selfish actions of one of the players can result in people other than them, including you, to die, so better to deal with them before you even begin.

[Razorbak133]

Gotta agree with those who mention at lower levels, reflect/damage shields can be a real nightmare. Mostly cause of slow recast time and nano skills that might not be maxed. Pretty much, once you hit 120ish, most calmers have insta cast calms so can redo if it is broken.
However, some people get some really screwy ideas about reflects and calms. Was in a mission with my 120ish doc and asked the Sol for a reflect buff. The Sol refused to cast it on anyone cause it interfered with calms and he wanted to live, not die from adds. Then the $#@!^%$#^ proceded to chain cast MK shield through the entire mission!!!!!
Just had to share some insanity.

Anyways, at lower levels it is probalby better to give up your reflect shield if you have a calmer in team. After all, you will only shave off a small portion of damage at lower levels and a half decent doc or a couple of backup healers will easily heal up that little bit of extra damage.

[Lhoke]

I have not read the second page here so i could be missing something.. but to all you ppl complaining about calmers asking u to take down shield.. try play calmer once.. :-)
Usually when i calm in missions now i just run ahead of team and calms whatever thats there before team arrives and are killing some other mob.. but at lower lvls i could not do that..