What's the status of tank armor?

[Cathail]

Actually, the tank armor has had a nano delta all along, it just did not display it in the description. The "fix" was to display it.

I agree completely with the nano delta. Tanks are tanks, casters are casters. If you want to be a caster, don't be a tank. If you want that extra spiffy AC, expect to be hit a bit in the nano cost by it. But then I think the decus coats should have some negative impact too, otherwise they just take the place of tank armor.

I personally think the lines between professions are already being blurred too much by the various other changes, which is a shame.

[Oberan]

the negative impacts of the decus coats are that

1. They are a pain in the @#$#$ to find

2. That they are always significantly lower in level than tank armor found in missions. A decus coat CANNOT be the reward of a mission therefore it is always about 70% of the mission level. You could do a level 200 mission for q200 tank armor adding 1000 ac but if you did that same mission the decus coat you would get would only be about q140 meaning only about 700 ac. So yes that is a bit negative in terms of things

[Thyrra]

A weak NT friend of mine tried on some tank armor recently ( pre 13.0 ) and was very happy about the ac boost and his perceived increased survivability, until he found out it double the nanocost. He quickly put it away.

At medium lvls and above, most of us are using a whole lot of nanos to be competitive against ever-toughening mobs. Each recent patch seems to make mobs tougher. We adjust and rely on non-brute-force play tachniques more.

The balance changes that have been taking place have been made with the current ( at any given time ) balance of the game in mind ( at least to the players ). Fighting classes were tough, as they should be. Many changes were seen as nacessary by players ( under pre 13.0 ) conditions to balance things out. This change tip the balance a bit the other way.

I swear, if FC introduced a chef profession that they would be screaming to be the main tanks of the game becaus they can practice by swinging the cleavers all day long and they have more finesse; and its much harder to finely carve up a mob than to merely shoot it or squash it. That's a rant for another place.

Everyone has become relatively competitive. The people who want to super equip their characters as much as possible will find a way no matter what changes are imposed. For the average fighter, this increase in nano cost from tank makes some of their needed nanos prohibitively expensive.

I foresee tank armor gonig the way of battlesuits. Very few people use them because of their cost-beneifit balance. I used to drool over seeing those things. A friend gave me one; it sucks. I will keep it for social ocasions.

I assumed that tank armor was meant to be worn by people who wanted to tank mobs, to give them an edge. The newly fixed tank armor actually takes the edge off a person now. The 10% damage reduction ( no lower than min damage ) is not enough to warrant not being able to use your high end nanos. As a soldier I'd rather use the highest MK shield I can than tank armor. As and enforcer I'd rather use Mongo a few times than use tank armor. [ Fix Mongo, it's HoT stops after a few seconds; it stops long before it should. ]

Making the game harder does not equate to making the game more interesting and fun.

[_______________Talys]

I think that there are few responses to this thread because most people are more concerned about other problems. All things are relative, and I think the following 3 issues are more pressing for most people:

- Missions being broken were THE top priority
- With team heal aggro, tanks don't need good AC nearly so much, because docs get all the attention
- The NT range nerf was far more substantial

Again, please let me reiterate: I do not mind some penalties for wearing heavy armor. I do not want to be an uber caster.

All I want to do is to be able to use the nano formulas that were intended for me, while wearing the armor that was (obviously) intended for me. That's not so much to ask, is it?

All this change does is encourage people to play tank classes more mindlessly (soldiers who do not invest in mk, enforcers that do not use challenger except to equip, and enforcers that do not use mongo), or to wear armor that was clearly not meant for them.

[Oberan]

nt's have to raise their dark blue body dev. Why dont you raise your dark blue nano pool.

if you are over 50 you should have the 350 hp/nano token board

[_______________Talys]

Oberon, an atrox soldier with MAXED nano pool and a 250 merit board CANNOT cast anything over a ql 86ish Mk at *any* level! Mk 6, by the way, costs 1000 nano (without tank).

I am not saying "don't make it HARD to cast Mk", I'm saying "don't make it IMPOSSIBLE to cast Mk".

[____________Nintauri]

Originally posted by Cosmik


Well, it's hardly a nerf. It was a bug fix. Tank armor is meant to increase your nano cost 100% and as I understand it, if you had 600 nano points and were casting a nano formula that required 400 nano points (800 with tank armor), the fact that you could cast that nano formula with tank armor on was unintended.

I know some tank wearing players won't like this change (and honestly I thought more would be speaking up against it here in this thread), but I'll fire some questions off to the designers and try to get you some comments on this change. And yes, I'll also let them know your concerns.

I hate to disagree Cosmik BUT.. It is most definately a nerf. Call it a bug fix if you will but its still a nerf. Here are my reasons.

First - The people that wear tank most often are soldiers and enforcers who have hardly any nano abilitys anyway not to mention the very shallow nano pool. They are already at a huge disadvantage in this respect. So what do you do? You just made it nearly impossible for them to wear tank and use thier NF's in combat with this "bug fix"...

Second - Do you realize what this just did to the RP - Social aspect of the game? You now have Soldiers and Enforcers running around in Cloaks or Coats looking completely rediculous. A lot of people plan thier armor for aesthetics as well as functionality. I think this should be revisited and a more "balanced" negative modifier used.

I am not saying that there should not be a penalty of some sort, maybe even a -5 to all nano abilities or something along those lines, but this current penalty IMHO will effectively remove Tank Armor from the game.

[_______________Garak]

Yes, it's to fix a bug.
But before, tank armor still did up the nano cost to double. It didn't require you to actualy have twice as many nano points as it needed.. But if you didn't have that many, it drained ALL of your nano.. That is enough of a negative factor to have non-tank class's not want to use it.

But it was not a bug anyone wanted fixed, there was is no reason for it. It's a bug fix,, but it's also a nerf.

Like the original poster said, it will just cause soldier/enforcers to wear decus/nano cloaks instead.. Which does not really make sense.

Tank armor was balanced, now it isn't. Simply as that.
No one denied that, no one said it was overpowered.. But it was nerfed.

If Funcom wants to fix stupid bugs (when they should be fixing far more serious ones).. Fine. But at least add something to tank armor to conter balance this.. Make it 1.5x the nano, or up the AC.. Something to make it not so useless.

[Keldrys]

There is a way around the nanodelta that may seem annoying but it works. You unfortunately have to use a piece of tank armor that you can take on and off with just self-buffs. When you want to cast MK or whatever it is you want simply take it off and then put it back on. You can hotkey it in your shortcut bar. Yes I know most people can't take their tank armor on and off without help with others, but if want to keep using it and avoid the penalty this is one way. Yes it's a minor hassle, but just wanted to throw that out there for those who hadn't considered it.

[________________Miir]

Oberon, an atrox soldier with MAXED nano pool and a 250 merit board CANNOT cast anything over a ql 86ish Mk at *any* level! Mk 6, by the way, costs 1000 nano (without tank).

If you SHIFT + RIGHT CLICK on Nano Pool you would see that Psychic is the primary requirement.
Look one skill up and tell me what your Pshychic skill is.

It's the same weak argument that Nanostealth had about his HP.

Don't whine that Atrox have a small nanopool if you didn't bother to invest IPs into raising your nanopool.

Besides, shouldn't there be a drawback to playing an Atrox?


If casting that Total Mirror Shield is your main priority, then remove your tank armor.

[Keldrys]

Miir, apparently you are unaware of bugs with nano pool. It doesn't matter if you increase psychic, the only way to increase your nano pool is by pumping nano pool itself. Try it yourself, increase your psychic (and the corresponding increase in nano pool skill) and see if your nano pool actually increases. IT DOES NOT. This also applies to psychic implants.

[Thyrra]

Originally posted by Keldrys
There is a way around the nanodelta that may seem annoying but it works. You unfortunately have to use a piece of tank armor that you can take on and off with just self-buffs. When you want to cast MK or whatever it is you want simply take it off and then put it back on. You can hotkey it in your shortcut bar. Yes I know most people can't take their tank armor on and off without help with others, but if want to keep using it and avoid the penalty this is one way. Yes it's a minor hassle, but just wanted to throw that out there for those who hadn't considered it.

I do just that when I'm buffing. Some people have asked me why I take off my tank armor to buff. After I tell them that tank takes off 2x the nano as normal casting, they see the wisdom in it. I can afford to do this because I don't use equipment I can't self buff to, except implants for which I get help from docs.

There is some time used up when unequipping an item. This makes you have to wait longer to cast if you take off your tank armor. There is some time used up after casting that you can't use items. This makes it take longer to put your tank armor back on. If you need to cast a few times in one fight, because the mobs have inhumanly high hp ( especially since it seems the PvP rules on how much damage we do seem to affect human type mobs ), equipping time becomes an issue.

If I need to deal with that hassle to cast each time I'm in battle, I'd rather not use the tank armor at all. The benefits from the armor are not that great anyway. A reduction of 10% of ac, to a minimum of mobs min dmg, is not worth it. I'd rather have the use of mongo than a few hp less in dmg on each hit, if the mob is not already doing min dmg.

Originally posted by Oberon
nt's have to raise their dark blue body dev. Why dont you raise your dark blue nano pool.

This points to a flaw in the game's current state. It should be possible for each class to succeed doing their own specialty, without having to use too much of other prof's specialties. With the recent changes everyone is looking very much alike. Now everyone is going to be wearing the same coats. It will be hard to tell professions apart. The guy in the nanocloak might be a soldier now; how boring.

[________________Miir]

Miir, apparently you are unaware of bugs with nano pool. It doesn't matter if you increase psychic, the only way to increase your nano pool is by pumping nano pool itself. Try it yourself, increase your psychic (and the corresponding increase in nano pool skill) and see if your nano pool actually increases. IT DOES NOT. This also applies to psychic implants.

I think maybe you should double check that.

The guy in the nanocloak might be a soldier now; how boring.

I highly doubt a Soldier would raise their Int/Psy high enough to wear a Nano Cloak.

[Thyrra]

Originally posted by Miir


If you SHIFT + RIGHT CLICK on Nano Pool you would see that Psychic is the primary requirement.
Look one skill up and tell me what your Pshychic skill is.

It's the same weak argument that Nanostealth had about his HP.

Don't whine that Atrox have a small nanopool if you didn't bother to invest IPs into raising your nanopool.

Besides, shouldn't there be a drawback to playing an Atrox?


If casting that Total Mirror Shield is your main priority, then remove your tank armor.

I recently read a report about a bug where spending ip in Psychic did not raise your nano pool. If this is the case, your point about raising linked stats is irrelevant for now.

There is a drawback to being an attrox as is, most of its skill are dark blue. You need to spend more ip to raise them than others do.

Would you be thinking along the same lines if nanocloaks doubled the damage you take, making casters have to have twice as much hp as they currently do?

[________________Miir]

I recently read a report about a bug where spending ip in Psychic did not raise your nano pool. If this is the case, your point about raising linked stats is irrelevant for now.

I know this is the case with nano resist, but when leveling up my newbie trader I distinctly remember Nano Pool increasing when I bumped up Psychic..

There is a drawback to being an attrox as is, most of its skill are dark blue. You need to spend more ip to raise them than others do.

The only difference between a Nanomage and an Atrox NT are the IP cost for the attributes listed on their first stat page (Str/Int/Sta/Agi/Etc).
Nanomage have the cheapest Int and Psy.
Atrox have the cheapest Str and Sta.
Opifex have the cheapest Agi and Sense.
Solitus are average in every skill.

Nano and Weapon (along with every other skill not on the first page) skill cost are 100% dependant on profession.

[Kavanagh]

Originally posted by Cosmik
I know some tank wearing players won't like this change (and honestly I thought more would be speaking up against it here in this thread), but I'll fire some questions off to the designers and try to get you some comments on this change. And yes, I'll also let them know your concerns.

It's quite easy Cosmik. Like me, many have given up, since you don't give a rats ass what we say anyways...

Sincerely
SvUpP
--
Who has been royally disapointed each time he installed a new patch....

[____________Nutbar03]

If you don't want to spen the IP to raise your nano pool, hust take off your tank armor when you want to use the MK shield. You'll be vulnerable to hits against your tank-less AC for a couple seconds, then you'll have plenty of time to put your tank back on while your shield is up.

For those that can't squeeze into their tank armor with buffs from other players- don't expect too much sympathy from other classes.

[___________Inzidious]

Scumbug, you had a point in your eh short comment (no offence).

I play an Atrox Soldier, and for me, it is important to use uber armour pieces, this also includes tank armour. There is kinda just two major problems to this as of 13.0:

1). I could switch to Decus coats, but this would force me to try and max out Agility (not one of my green skills). And as my implant template is made for maxing stamina (common for my most important weapon skills), i can't see how that could be done. This means, i will be forced to use LOWER ql coats than my actual level. In other words, NOT an option.

2). I simply cannot afford pumping 100s of IP into nano pool. First of all because this is not a good Atrox skill, second, cause i have a hard enough time trying to keep up my nano skills. This means that if i am to raise nano pool, i would either have to sacrefice my offensive skill (ie weapon skills, evades), or my more defensive/enhancement skills (nanos). In other words, NOT an option (either).

The solution MUST come from the designers table. And i doubt creating penalties to other types of back armour pieces would quite help me. In fact, doing that would leave me a bigger problem. Redusing penalty to perhaps 50%, or NF type based could be one way to do it. But the Tank class armours already have huge penalties already, especially to our evades, that something more flexible must be done.

Uber-concerned AO player....

[________________Miir]

RE: Psychic raising nanopool


Tested ingame on Soldier and Enforcer professions.

Raising Psychic by 3 points results in an increase of 1 nanopool.



kthxbye

[Laszarus70]

Cosmik,

1.--This *IS* a nerf, irregardless of what you want to spin it as. The power/strength/useability/whatever-you-want-to-call-it of Tank Armor is less now than it used to be. The word for that would be "nerfed".

2.--The reason more people aren't posting about this is that finding the appropriate area for posts amid the deluge of forums we've been flooded with is nigh impossible. The new forums are very poorly organized - and there's way, way too many of them. How can people complain about it, if they can't find it?

3.--This "bugfix" is poorly thought out. The penalties for wearing tank armor pre-13.0 were plenty high enough. Now they are waaayyyyy over the top.

4.--You want to make this change to Tank Armor? Fine, then you better make the Secundus Coats have some downside as well. Fair's fair. Currently they have *NO* downside. Note: instead of nerfing something *else*, why don't you just come to your senses and change Tank Armor back to having the more-than-adequate downsides it had pre-13.0?

Originally posted by Cosmik
(and honestly I thought more would be speaking up against it here in this thread),

5.--I find it fascinating that your interested in how players perceive this change by monitoring the volume of posts on this subject. What, exactly, are you saying here? If enough people complain will you change it back? Are you actually telling us that you make gameplay decisions based on the vocal portion of this message board? If you are, whoever is making the design decisions on the Live Team at Funcom is an idiot, pure and simple. It's no wonder this game is being driven into the ground