Hehe, this is an interesting subject, it's always fun to see fellow players pop in and say nice things.
In PvM, MA's are probably the best longterm damagedealers as the game is on live now (14.5). Rivaled perhaps by some NT's, crats with 3 pets and a few well equipped enforcers, but on average MA's are the best here. We should be. Damage is all we do. Short term is another issue, most professions can pop off a good alphastrike but agents and soldiers do best here.
Now, in 14.6/14.7 we have a few issues that are a "bit" annoying to MA's.
* No rootbreaker. (check the DB's. We aint got one.)
* No reliable way to resist roots. (No way to get nano resist up to efficent levels and be an effective damagedealer.)
* No viable bows (except perhaps for the howling bow, quite likely on a 18hour unique mob somewhere, hardly balancing no?)
* No way to equip the few bows that actually do damage, have equip under 5 seconds and have a clip size of more then 3.
So, MA's will be dead meat to all the rooting professions in the game. Prove me wrong and I'll prove you wrong. Find a way to get the QL200 howling bow self-equipped (1001 bow req) on a MA and I'll applaud. Oh, and we kinda need to selfequip it... MA's swap weapons all the time. Starting with a bow up aint the solution, do you really fear an MA without brawl/shen/dimach? No? Thought so.
The suggestions from the original poster has some interesting ideas in this context. If MA's can't break root and can't resist a root and can't defend themselves while rooted, something should be done, right? Either raise the MA's ability to resist roots: Nano Nullity shield / Nano resist buff isn't such a wacko idea. Or, increase the ability to take damage wihle sitting there rooted: Short term massive evade boost (30 second GA2 perhaps) isn't such a wacko idea. Give MA's a way to negate roots: A harpoon for the MA to pull in a ranged opponent isn't out there. Or perhaps give the MA's a way to defend themselves while rooted: A way to actually equip those bows? (hint: bow buff?) And perhaps change the bows so that we can get them equipped before the fight is over? (hint: 5 seconds is too long equip time for a weapon that needs to be swapped around)
Granted, this is mostly for PvP, but PvP will be pretty important in 14.7. With the pending massive init penalties on ELLTS's and UVC, MA's will have 1% crit advantage over a ranged rooting profession with superiour crit weapons. And if the dewd fighting the MA chooses to not equip a scope there are plenty of viable non-critreliant weapons to wield up. MA's don't have that option.
FYI, this is a rather serious matter. The more experienced MA PvPers have kinda decided to go 15% scope and MoP and equip a flashpoint. That's their analysis and I kinda agree.
I know this sounds like a stupid thing to discuss when there are other professions who are in worse shape, but MA's were never PvP gods except perhaps in numbers at Camelot. The changes in 14.6/14.7 will put what is supposed to be the best damagedealer in the game (along with the NT) in a pretty sad state in PvP. I know I won't get much sympathy, but these problems are real and I see no solutions to them right now. Engies, crats, MP's and the other neglected professions will likely get love before MA's do, thus we will continue to fall. I think we will see a lot less MA's in the next few patches and please... refrain from the "good riddance". It aint funny.
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