Agg/Def woes and NanoCasting - What can be done?

[_______________Garzu]

Originally posted by BonzaiBob
Sorry Garzu that won't fly with me. Your main damage comes from your casting skills. Most if not all of which are green to you and all of which are useful in many ways.

You do not "need" to increase your evades or weapon skills as a NT. That is just how you chose to play your character. However for a MA its different because none of the skills they "need" to raise everyday are green to them.

I would also like to point out that I was wrong about Brawl being a green skill, its actually a light blue....

First i would like to know what you mean by "need". Cause we certainly need to raise our evades, its beyond discussion, it would be the same as saying that MA dont need to raise nano skills.

And our dmg sucks compared to Enf, MAs (crit buffed) Agents, soldiers, traders with shotgun. NT NEEDs gun to keep up.

[___________BonzaiBob]

Jaakka

When you talk about a heal spell you have to include the recharge time in your statements so that people understand that you can't just chain heal.
Yes, most of our heals go off in 1 second or less but the recharge before you can cast anything else is 7 or more seconds. With the aggro bar set at 75 like you mentioned above you can add 1/2 a second to both casting and recharge for a total of +1 second to every heal. Unless my math is wrong...

I think you might be right about my Nano init. I think I may have accidentally clicked it a couple times early on. Came to that conclusion after asking a few other MA's what it cost them.

[_________________Xen]

My vote is leave it as is. Why would I want to fumble more for quicker casting? Just be patient and wait till your +100. Also, I think the idea of casters being able to be full def without any penalty makes no sense.

As for Bozai, I think that MAs have a huge advantage when it comes to ips. Yeah you have a few more skills to spend on but almost all of them are green or aqua. In fact isn't nanoint the ONLY dark blue skill that MAs invest in? Come on, try a class that has the majority of its green skills in tradeskills (fixer comes to mind). So what if you can't cast heals quick. Your a backup caster anyways and if its that big of a deal reconfigure your implants.

[______________Jaakka]

Originally posted by BonzaiBob
Jaakka

When you talk about a heal spell you have to include the recharge time in your statements so that people understand that you can't just chain heal.
Yes, most of our heals go off in 1 second or less but the recharge before you can cast anything else is 7 or more seconds. With the aggro bar set at 75 like you mentioned above you can add 1/2 a second to both casting and recharge for a total of +1 second to every heal. Unless my math is wrong...

I´m very aware of the recharge time, but I think that it´s fair. If MAs (or doctors or adventurers) were able to chain heal without delay, it would be too powerful. I only mentioned the attack time because often that´s what people mean when talking about casting times. I still feel it´s fair for every profession to be forced to raise nano initiative in order to cast at a decent speed on a lower agg/def setting, just as every profession is forced to do the same for weapons.

[FunnyFace]

Originally posted by BonzaiBob
It does NOT work logically as it is!
If your fighting aggressively how are you supposed to concentrate on nano casting? If your taking more damage how are you supposed to concentrate?

Try playing a class that actually uses a mix of casting and melee and see how you like it the way it is. Just because its not broken for you (one or two classes) doesn't mean it isn't broken for other people!

Why don't you try playing a Martial Artist and being the team healer and see how things go? People will die and you won't be able to put any points into nano initiative because it has a 20 IP multiplier for MA. If that wasn't bad enough your green evade skills will mean nothing because you can't lower your aggro bar. Your green physical initiative will be useless as well because once you have 150 in this skill while playing at full aggro you are attacking as fast as is possible.

The idea behind a MA is that you have green evade skills and green physcial init. so that you can lower the aggro bar WITHOUT losing attack speed. However because our heals are incredibly slow and they are also our main grouping skill we MUST play full aggro. in order to heal ONCE every 8-10 seconds!!! Lowering the aggro bar would mean one heal every 10-12 seconds depending on how far you lower it and what heal is cast!!

That means that 4 of a MA green skills are totally useless to them!!!!!

Now explain to me again why it is you think it isn't broken?

Sorry didn't mean to be insensitive to your plight but it seems like you're mostly upset that your nanos take to long to execute in the first place. I think that the ideal would be 2 separate bars one for weapons/melee and one for nano. But if you slide the one for nano to full defense, meaning you'd take your defense in to full account at the moment of execution and thus lower the likelyhood of interruption, don't you agree that they should take longer? I mean from a pure game balance point of view, since the exact nature of nanoexecution is too clouded for me to put in 'reality' terms..

[_______________Garzu]

Originally posted by Jaakka


I´m very aware of the recharge time, but I think that it´s fair. If MAs (or doctors or adventurers) were able to chain heal without delay, it would be too powerful. I only mentioned the attack time because often that´s what people mean when talking about casting times. I still feel it´s fair for every profession to be forced to raise nano initiative in order to cast at a decent speed on a lower agg/def setting, just as every profession is forced to do the same for weapons.

I dont think we should chain cast, but as you said. "I still feel it´s fair for every profession to be forced to raise nano initiative in order to cast at a decent speed on a lower agg/def setting, just as every profession is forced to do the same for weapons. ". Difference between nano init and ranged init is that nano init do not have an impact on recharge at all, maybe it should not have just as big impact as it has on execution, but some impact is very much needed, at least it is for NT.

[______________Yazule]

my opinion.. short and sweet

max agro = faster damage (more damage over time)

max agro = less defences

makes sense to me and I think it is fine as it is.

If you fumble more at max casting agro (the idea that was put up) your damage over time would be the same or smaller, so what good does it do you?

[______________Jaakka]

Originally posted by Garzu



I dont think we should chain cast, but as you said. "I still feel it´s fair for every profession to be forced to raise nano initiative in order to cast at a decent speed on a lower agg/def setting, just as every profession is forced to do the same for weapons. ". Difference between nano init and ranged init is that nano init do not have an impact on recharge at all, maybe it should not have just as big impact as it has on execution, but some impact is very much needed, at least it is for NT.

I´m with you on this one, there is no reason that nano initiative shouldn´t affect recharge time as well, but this is also the only thing that´s not fair about this whole initiative discussion, according to me.

[Cosmik]

The Agg/Def slider will stay as it is. I tend to agree with those that say it's good as it is. Agg for a more attacking stance, and Def for a more defensive one. Plain and simple. This is where Nano Initiative comes in. By increasing Nano Init you execute nano programs faster - in the same way that increasing Melee Initiative will increase your melee speed. Again, plain and simple (I like that ).

I understand the desire to be able to be at full aggressive yet use your defensive skills, but doesn't that go against the meaning of defensive? To have the advantages of running at full aggresiveness (attack speed) you must also have the disadvantages (lack of defense). It works vice versa too.

So, there are no current plans to change the Agg/Def bar.

Originally posted by wingchen

2) Casting classes would be able to slide to defense, getting rid of that annoying auto-attack back against mobs who hit them.

Again a Crat for example is busy trying to mez, charm, root, fear, etc. and while trying to crowd control, a mob hits him from behind, swinging him away from a vital target at the time when he's about to charm a mob killing one of his team mates. IF he could have been on full def, the teammate would have been saved instead of him swinging around and cancelling the cast.

A way to turn off auto-attack, regardless of the Agg/Def bar status, is currently being discussed. If it gets the nod, then this will aide in situations like to describe above.