Another patch, another bureaucrat nerf. Just how unpopular does FC want crats to be?

[___________AngryCrat]

Bureaucrats are already the least played profession, because they basically suck, and everyone knows this. They are the weakest damage profession in the game by far, and often get bumped in favor of anyone else who can do damage.

So NPC pets in 14.6 can't be mezzed or charmed. This is on top of already removing crowd control and charm from almost all high level mobs in 14.5. Crats get the only AOE mezz nanos, and this would have actually been useful with NPC pet rooms. This is on top of the fact that root and slow nanos are largely useless already.

So why AGAIN is Funcom trying to lower the number of bureaucrats in the game? Is 1 in 25 characters too many? Almost 1 in 3 professions in now a MA or Fixer.

Can't Funcom do anything to make their crowd control matter, bring some intelligence and strategy to combat?

All that Funcom can seem to program is doing as much damage much per seconds as possible. Nothing else matters. No skill and no tactics seem to matter.

So when will Funcom stop nerfing the Bureaucrat and his role in the game? When 1 in 50 characters is a crat? 1 in 100? What will make them happy?

-AngryCrat

[Blackwing]

wether the pets go through uncalmable on the life server.

if that happens then nt and traders are worse off then crats because we can still root and pull back a room.

*edit i know they can root 2 but only the trader and crat have area roots *

[__________Specialone]

1. Crats don't suck.

most ppl don't play a crat because
a)They're harder to master than other professions
b)most ppl wanna be up front doing damage, not taking care of the team, managing adds/charming and commanding bots/pets

crats are pretty diverse - best calms, only charms, decent to good nukes, bot....shotty crats, dual wielding crats, bow crats....

crats aren't played as much as others because they are the one profession that can't be min/maxed in a easy cookie-cutter fashion - there are just too many choices

when teaming, i've always seen crats taken over traders and NTs for their mezzing and bot/charm (mainly mezzing tho)

but:
There is no Crat love here (14.6), and there has been no crat love in any patch as far as I can remember. We can be much improved. Uncharmable mobs in 14.5 don't help one bit.

as for charming mob pets? it's doesn't make sense why we'd be able to "charm" a mob that is essentially under the command of another person anyway...does it?

[Xaielao]

Believe me I feal for you crats. I've played a crat and it's not an easy profession to play.

I'd like to also say that being 'fixed' is a double edged sword. I, and every other old school fixer, those who's fixers are there main character and have been playing them for the past year and a half, really dislike the fact that there are tuns of fixers now adays, not because we feel theres competition or something, but because of the young phhixxers, our class has become known as an uber class played only by high lvls with twinked out noobs. The price on everything commonly used by fixers has doubled or trippled, with rare items increasing in cost by 1000 fold.

Anyway, enough about my fixer rant hehe, just seems to always be on my mind. I can only say I hope some day, that crats get a brake and get improved. Lets just hope it doesn't become another profession-of-the-month like fixers have. Cause you won't like it.

[Whiteboog]

YOU CANT CHARM ANYMORE!??!?!
that is abseloutly stupid beyond belief, that is the whole point of the crats existence :/, the crat bots are never going to match that of an engy because of dark blue nano skills and the pets arent even as good.
One of hte only reason people play crats at the momnet is because they can charm monsters. I dont understand why this has to be taken out at all, it wasnt causing any problems, the crat is a class that with some effort can be one of the very best (at least it could anyway) i remeber soloing chaos minions at level 47 but with a massive risk to my own life, now i wouldnt stand a chance with just a slow lame robot pet and some nanos that draw aggro instantly away from your pet so if youve invested intot he nanos skills to get a decent pet and nukes you dont have any spare for good armour and body dev therefore 2 shots and you die :/

[Whiteboog]

Ahhh right, after reading again i see that you said NPC pets cant be charmed, i figure by that you mean engys bots and such, at least i hope you do, if so then yay

[Whiteboog]

Rofl, wrong again, after reading another thread i saw that by npc pets you mean, npc pets, i didint realise that they were giving pets to the mobs in this patch, silly me

[Lilyflie]

It is my understanding that mob pets were brought in to make the profs such as crat and mp more like they actually are when you play them. in pvp I can charm another crats bot, so why can't I charm a mobs bot?

This is something I can agree is just not right.

[_____________kratify]

I almost fell outta my chair when I read above - that crats are lame and virtually useless! (my paraphrase)... That is utter nonsense...

I say this having played a Crat to level 156. A crat can be (and usually is) as important as a good doc in a 80-100% mission.

Mezz - Calming 2-4 Aces/RMs (or any mob much higher than your team's avg. mean level) has a lot of value. With AoE mezz (disrupted psyche, etc.), all i have to do is run it 1 time and every mob in the area stops and looks stupid while we level them 1 by 1.

Further - with a shot of mocham from any MP (all of them have it by 125-130), I can run around with - not 1 - but 2 Aces (love the melee types) and they will typically hold aggro 80% of the time even with the team making blitzkrieg.

Boss rooms - charm 2 of the boss's lackies and everyone jump on boss - game over.

Damage dealing - Nuke (Rule of One) - up to 3000+ dmg every couple of seconds. Who needs a pistol? I put on an X3 for kicks (2k crit every so often - more for style than anything). Use pistols for a little while, but realize the nukes are second only to the NTs, and typically much faster.

Stuns - ah yes, pull aggro off the failing enforcer for a few moments with a good shot of Living Embalming on the mob - they really get upset when u stun them.

Money machines - if I (or any person in RubiKa) want any item in the game (that u can get from solo missions) - piece of cake - walk in, AOE mezz the entire way - in 5 min or less I have item and am back in town for more Crat goodness. Need to make money? No problem... I made probably 50 million credits running missions for people, grabbing items that they couldn't get without a lot of buffs and combat - and my fee - a mere 1 mill credits (usually cheaper than what the item would sell for on the shopping channel).

This is just hitting the highlights of strategically using a Crat the way they were designed to be. I didn't mention the bot - I usually don't even need him...really.

No - crats aren't the biggest/baddest all by themselves - but if the Crat is doing things right he will never be "alone" because he has up to 2 big red mobs and a big red bot smashing through things while he grabs chest loot, eats a snack and thinks of running for president of rubika!

My 2 pennies on being a crat - don't underestimate the value of your misunderstood team mates.

~Bravvo - 156 Crat/RK1 ~

[Abalz]

Originally posted by AngryCrat
Bureaucrats are already the least played profession

I thought engy's were making that claim?! One of you two classes better do better research I guess

[_____________Borrace]

i love crats in groups!

i love their little robots charging into the forray!
i love the mezzing!
i love the exp adds!
i love the crit adds!

crats are cool!....but, they really aren't built for pvp. they are built for group play. unfortunately, the coolest aspect of the game (meant only for crats), i.e. player made missions, was never fixed and instead yanked from the game. if player made missions were back in the game, crats could have a really really fun time on rubi-ka.

i appreciate crats! you all rock the house!

[Highorbit]

Originally posted by Abalz


I thought engy's were making that claim?! One of you two classes better do better research I guess

Crats have always been least played as far as I can remember.

Engi's are just crap and showing no sign of improvement ever..

[Mercatura]

Crats are the least played still. Don't worry, engys took a big hit.

Crats don't suck though. Not by a longshot. Not yet anyways. Very useful in teams. Most highlevel teams know this too, from my experience anyways.

FC's ideas for new content really do suck for crats though, making many of their abilities useless or pointless. They've basically decided that they didn't like some of the ideas that the original people came up with, and nullify them.

"Crowd control makes the game too easy, and players are killing our mobs! We can't have that."

[Darkbane]

Hehe, sme people just haven't played a 'crat then... To be honest, whilst I carry a gun, I rarely use it. Get a good melee MOB charmed and your bot, send them in, sit down, recover nano and health, eat lunch, make the coffee, wander in nuke the MOB a couple of times just to finish it off... Any adds? Charm the first one and send it in too, calm the rest...

Sure, it may not *always* go exactly to plan, but... And, ok, I'm only mid 50s, but I've teamed with higher level 'crats with my main quite a few times, and having a pet Vet Enf on your side... hmmm, lovely...

Sure, there are a few things need looking at, but 'crat are still one of the more powerful professions.

[_____________Rebbeca]

Crats are fine in missions, but are useless outside of them. All of the new high level content is centered around mobs that are immune to most forms of crowd control. Sure snare might work, but what is -1000 run to a mob that has like 2k+ and the snare breaks almost instantly. Nuking said mob is futile as the nano resist on those mobs is way too high, pets dont' have the attack rating to hit them consistantly and neither do we. There is nothing around that we can charm and no one needs an xp buff.

[____________Strycker]

Heh, if crats are gimped, what are NTs? At high level, a crat is a NT with somewhat better weapon skills, slightly better evades, an admittedly so-so pet, far superior calm, and at least as good with the top-end nuke.

Sure, there are points at low and mid-levels where crat nukes are clearly inferior to NT nukes, but Rule of One really does match Izgimmer's Enveloping Flame in damage over time, and may well exceed it. If you think NTs have adequate damage output, then crats must be better off -- just look at their skills for things like FA and assault rifle compared to NTs, or indeed look at any of the other weapon skills for that matter, since NTs have the worst weapon skills in the game. Then compare calms, and see that NT calms have higher resist, and crats have AOE calm.... Sure there are a few NT nano lines which crats don't have, but they don't affect damage output, and the special crat lines are if anything more desirable than the special NT lines.

Anyhow. I think crats are generally desired in teams at low-to-mid level for crowd control and the experience buff, while a good high level crat should be at least as good if not better than the equivalent level NT in terms of sheer damage output, which is the critical factor for high level teams (apart from staying power, at which both NTs and crats are just about equally miserable, though I believe crats have a minor edge in evades too.) Then too, for solo play, the crat pet may be lame, but it is there, and doing some damage, and perhaps distracting mobs momentarily at the start of fights, so that is yet another advantage, even if crat pets are useless in most missions, like other pets.

[_____________Rebbeca]

Well NTs are really in the same boat as us on high level mobs.. the difference is that they have been at least given some hope that their profession will have the use of some thingie that will let them cast uber nukes.

As a crat all I want to be is the master of crowd control. Yet all we get is a letter by a dev stating something to the effect of we're begining to possibly consider thinking about analyzing the effects of whether or not we need to start looking at the aspects that made us think that we should consider the role of crowd control at higher levels. Maybe.

[___________AngryCrat]

Strycker

What you write is just not accurate. NT weapon skills are the same as that of crats generally. Rife and pistol are the same. Shotgun is actually cheaper for NTs.

Most Crats can't even self-cast Rule of One at Level 200 unless they are lucky enough to get a Jones Vest (nanomage only). And because the 50% of the attack skill is a blue MC, it usually hits for 1375 (minimum). Crats either need to gimp themselves to a bot that dies in 7-8 hits and cast Rule of One, or make a good bot but only cast a nuke that usually hits for 863 points most times.

Izgimmer's Enveloping Flame can be cast by most NTs by when? Level 150? And it's fire based and does much damage.

And yeah, "theoretically" crats have better crowd control, but what does it matter when FC is disabling this feature anyway at high level?

Just today in fact I was turned down by a pickup team who said "we already have a calmer, we need someone who can do damage"

And that's not the first time I've been turned down....

[_____Real Kinky Ityn]

Originally posted by Strycker
Heh, if crats are gimped, what are NTs? At high level, a crat is a NT with somewhat better weapon skills, slightly better evades, an admittedly so-so pet, far superior calm, and at least as good with the top-end nuke.

Sure, there are points at low and mid-levels where crat nukes are clearly inferior to NT nukes, but Rule of One really does match Izgimmer's Enveloping Flame in damage over time, and may well exceed it. If you think NTs have adequate damage output, then crats must be better off -- just look at their skills for things like FA and assault rifle compared to NTs, or indeed look at any of the other weapon skills for that matter, since NTs have the worst weapon skills in the game. Then compare calms, and see that NT calms have higher resist, and crats have AOE calm.... Sure there are a few NT nano lines which crats don't have, but they don't affect damage output, and the special crat lines are if anything more desirable than the special NT lines.

Hunh?

Crat and NTs have identical weapons skills except for Physic. Init., which is LB for crats v DB for NTs. We also have exactly the same evades, all DB.

Ro1 is a good nuke it's damage over time is not as good as IEF, and none of our nanos have debuffs associated with them, unlike IEF, GA, COF and the crown line, you have AC debuff nukes, Stun nukes that do damage, Nano skill reducing nukes, evade reducing nukes, AOE nukes (Best damage over time in the game, VE), lol what a load. Not even going to mention NS and it's not too rare nature any more. I love how you harp on the crat AOE calm and brush off your AOE nuke line as if it's unusable.

I played a high level NT (160+), I don't own that account anymore, and when I came back, I was hard pressed to decide if I wanted to do another NT or try something new. I know both classes very well, and to hear someone come here and spew off a load of typical whiny NT nonsense really gets under my skin.

Anyway CHECK YOUR FACTS before you post nonsense.

[_____Real Kinky Ityn]

Use this as a skill refrence:

http://aovault.ign.com/thegame/skills/