Agent Wishlist - 2015 Edition

[srompu]

Since the massive 18.7 changes, it's time for a fresh wishlist!
For historical reference, please see the previous wishlist.


How to use this List:
Here we discuss and present changes we'd like to see for Agents.
The list is a creation of the Agent Community and is never set in stone. To ask me to add something, please feel free to post in the thread, send a Private Message, or /tell Srompu ingame.
Items are prioritized by order to the best of my ability and I will re-prioritize things to meet everyone's desires.



1. Nano Formulae

• SL evac nano formulas could be faster cycle. 1 minute would be perfect. Needed for both in FP and out of FP.
• SL evac could have fear/stun resist added to them.
• The Waves/Blast and Shock nanolines would like a couple adjustments
  • They have very high nanoskill requirement. We're an artillery prof, but our top nano reqs are up there with MPs/Crats. This is a line where many of us can't even use them.
  • The Blast line detaunts, which we don't have the damage to need. Could we get a pvm-oriented proc debuff or something?
• Shorter duration on Mimic, with shorter cooldown on True Profession so we can change more rapidly, like MA stance, NT focus, or Advy morph.
• More buffs lasting through TP. Enfo and Adv die completely now.
• Faster buffing. We have 50s of pure nanorecharge if we buff agent, TP sold, and FP doc.

2. Weapon Diversity:

• Rifle diversification would be neat. Alien, Xan, LE rifles could each have different strengths.
• Option to diversify weapons using Ranged Energy and Bow, our SL group perklines.
• Faster AS for PvM on Longshot, X-3, Lux Incendiary, and similar.

3. Conceal and Aimed Shot:

• Ability to re-AS in PvM.
• Ability to sneak from aliens and punching bags with top buffs.
• Please buff the Cloaking device. The 18.7 conceal given is 65 at QL200, which is negligible.

4. Assorted Wishes

• Our Rifle, Aimed Shot, and Fling Shot skills are blue, blue, and dark blue, even though they're our main weapon skills. Our IP is tight as is, so changing them to green would be a huge help.
• Increase the Quality Levels available for the Agent Undercover kit so level 201+ Agents can use them.
• Make Michizure's Boomstick FPable.

5. General Balance

• We seem to be OP at 200 in BS, but not 170 or 220. Perhaps locking Snipe Shot 1 and Shadow Bullet to 201+ would fix this.

[srompu]

{Reserved for future flaming}

[Raggy]

I'm a big fan of diversifying weapon types.

How about a nano for Agents that reduces Ranged Init by a reasonable amount, making a 1/1 a 2.5/2.5 for example at 2k RInit/Full Def, but increases the ciritcal damage modifier (not the chance to crit) by 150% or some other silly number, making Agents slower but hit for ALOT more with a full crit setup.

[Xootch]

i think the thing we need most is sustain. that would be the most urgent.

i do think we should get access to nano controller unit. and i would like to see some of our dd nanos merged. we have 4(!) of them, which is a major reason we are desperate for ncu all the time.

also agree on the skill thing. i think i have poked you so many times on that topic people mistook you for a smurf back in the day when we were midgets.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

i think the thing we need most is sustain. that would be the most urgent.

i do think we should get access to nano controller unit. and i would like to see some of our dd nanos merged. we have 4(!) of them, which is a major reason we are desperate for ncu all the time.

also agree on the skill thing. i think i have poked you so many times on that topic people mistook you for a smurf back in the day when we were midgets.

You can't have sustain with insane gank power though, or you throw all balance to the wind.

Michi has made agents the strongest offensively as they've ever been, even more so, actually to a particularly large margin.

There are ways to build sustain - but they inherently limit gank power.

You got Srompu on one hand, with what? like 3300-3400 AR and very little defence.

The alternate route is the same as it's always been, and that's to swap out a lot of that AR for AAD/defence/evades - and that's been a popular setup for years.

If you want sustain, the new nanos available to agents will give you some, but they won't work nearly as well in the AR/gank setup. You can't have both, And asking for sustain when agents are already probably in the top 3-4 profs for PVP right now is maybe a bit presumptuous.

[sultryvoltron]

You can't have sustain with insane gank power though, or you throw all balance to the wind.

Michi has made agents the strongest offensively as they've ever been, even more so, actually to a particularly large margin.

There are ways to build sustain - but they inherently limit gank power.

You got Srompu on one hand, with what? like 3300-3400 AR and very little defence.

The alternate route is the same as it's always been, and that's to swap out a lot of that AR for AAD/defence/evades - and that's been a popular setup for years.

If you want sustain, the new nanos available to agents will give you some, but they won't work nearly as well in the AR/gank setup. You can't have both, And asking for sustain when agents are already probably in the top 3-4 profs for PVP right now is maybe a bit presumptuous.

Yeah, but why do soldiers and agents, the only two professions limited to artillery symbs, not get a single point of heal delta in any slot? Even if we could just get 2 or 3 of our symb slots to give heal delta then other Mimics could be more viable with a very small effect on balance.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Left arm gets HD.

But if you want to evade then you give that up.

HD really isn't that effective unless you have stronger mechanisms for damage mitigation.

But that's my point. If you want to stay in such a hugely productive offensive role, AND you want damage mitigation paired with latent healing, you'll become way OP way too quickly.

Hence, take your role and run with it - play it well! There's a great niche for the epic ganker and it can turn tides in BS, bor or war. And, trust me on this, if you can gank a capper/caller while stun locking him, it doesn't matter what your HD is.

Interestngly, I was considering a HD setup on my 200 agent. I was thinking along the lines of: 270 dodge/HD leg, 270 AAD/evade/HD feet, then left arm arti, use red belt, agent SE helm, and a fcouple other slots dedicated to stam, then start with mimic enf, to buff behe, then swap to doc for CR, then swap to soldier for TMS and AR boost.

I kinda thought it would be a pretty cool method to boost latent healing quite considerably especially with the added CR to get up to around 300HD per tick.

Also, if fixer/soldier want HD so bad that they swap leg/feet symbs for feet, why shouldn't agent? You're not that special are you?

[srompu]

How about a nano for Agents that reduces Ranged Init by a reasonable amount, making a 1/1 a 2.5/2.5 for example at 2k RInit/Full Def, but increases the ciritcal damage modifier (not the chance to crit) by 150% or some other silly number, making Agents slower but hit for ALOT more with a full crit setup.

This is a decent idea actually. I wonder how it could be implemented.

i think the thing we need most is sustain. that would be the most urgent.

Yeah, but why do soldiers and agents, the only two professions limited to artillery symbs, not get a single point of heal delta in any slot? Even if we could just get 2 or 3 of our symb slots to give heal delta then other Mimics could be more viable with a very small effect on balance.

What sort of sustain do you think would be best? Are you thinking along the lines of FP-based defense, or something more general like a faster evac cycle?

Michi has made agents the strongest offensively as they've ever been, even more so, actually to a particularly large margin.
You got Srompu on one hand, with what? like 3300-3400 AR and very little defence.
The alternate route is the same as it's always been, and that's to swap out a lot of that AR for AAD/defence/evades - and that's been a popular setup for years.

At 220, we're actually pretty squishy regardless of setup. I appreciate that level 200 Agent is possibly OP, though. We've got a few ideas on the table for perk scaling. If you've got some specific ideas to balance them it'd be great to hear.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I have exactly zero ideas. I'm still coming to terms with all the changes and wrapping my head around them. I'm still recovering from you waxing my ass like 13 duels in a row just TESTING perkability vs my MA on TL :P

I haven't played my 200 agent yet since patch either, been too busy.

From what I've seen so far, 220 agents are kinda squishy, but they deliver kills like nuke going off in your backyard; so I feel they are pretty reasonably balanced.

I mean, if you want more survival, fine, but lets tone down the perk checks/execution speed then.

[Xootch]

I have exactly zero ideas. I'm still coming to terms with all the changes and wrapping my head around them. I'm still recovering from you waxing my ass like 13 duels in a row just TESTING perkability vs my MA on TL :P

I haven't played my 200 agent yet since patch either, been too busy.

From what I've seen so far, 220 agents are kinda squishy, but they deliver kills like nuke going off in your backyard; so I feel they are pretty reasonably balanced.

I mean, if you want more survival, fine, but lets tone down the perk checks/execution speed then.

is that is your fixer cry version 2.0?

just because you can pewpew an afk target does not mean op. agents die insanely fast these days.

yes, our offensive power got a boost. true. how does that not allow us to have sustain? other profs have far more powerful offensive power AND better sustain (shades, nts anyone???). also, the perk changes went along with prof changes for everyone. we can kill some folks yes, even some we could not before, but overall our 1 on 1 success rate has even dropped, as pointed out in the other thread. so. no. what you feel has nothing to do with reality.

@srompu: i don't know. for def to work, there is too much stuff flying around that can't be evaded. and the amount of def necessary has gone up tremendously, too. everyone has a capping aimed shot. nukes, etc. its hard to find something reasonable in that setting. def alone won't ever save us. situationally, we can evade perks now, on a high cooldown. either the regular heal needs a boost or ch cooldown needs to drop. or we need some other form of defense. or we need a form of offense allowing us to better pierce defenses. because what good are all the perks if we cannot kill with them because people have absorbs, reflects and heals. if we were the nuke in the backyard knuckle thinks we are, one could justify our "squishyness", but we are not. as I discussed in more detail in the other thread. again, its not about pewpewing afkers or people that don't knowhow their defenses work. because if you cannot kill something first try these days, you are dead. with no sustain you are dead before you can try again. and for most profs, its not enough. sure. evac and porter saves you. or repressor. but that is situational. the problem with the way we are supposed to work these days is a)too much damage that def is worthless against b)too many profs with viable defenses that can easily survive our damage long enough to shut us down or kill us. the obvious solution is to sneak and kill someone with the element of surprise. but that is not how i want to play my agent. sneaked 99% of the time. and there's a good chance you die after the gank anyway.

as you know, haven't seen the latest changes. you know better at what patch i quit than i do

[dritst]

is that is your fixer cry version 2.0?

just because you can pewpew an afk target does not mean op. agents die insanely fast these days.

yes, our offensive power got a boost. true. how does that not allow us to have sustain? other profs have far more powerful offensive power AND better sustain (shades, nts anyone???). also, the perk changes went along with prof changes for everyone. we can kill some folks yes, even some we could not before, but overall our 1 on 1 success rate has even dropped, as pointed out in the other thread. so. no. what you feel has nothing to do with reality.

the obvious solution is to sneak and kill someone with the element of surprise. but that is not how i want to play my agent. sneaked 99% of the time. and there's a good chance you die after the gank anyway.

as you know, haven't seen the latest changes. you know better at what patch i quit than i do

You should get ingame now. We are better alphaer than shade, nt now. We got great AR, we can perk most. About the sneak thing, at least in bs i didn't even bother cast ruse 4, all is about the timing (key is evac/ch/ LE+stim) and yes i find agent are doing atm pretty well. HP/AAD reflect and 3100+ ar = what you should aim.
Keep in mind that maybe we die fast sometimes (and it isn't true if you know time your def, if you know how 90% of pvper use their alpha ) but other too Honestly, even if i was quite septical when i saw the 18.7 patch, new change ftl! Long life to mizh!
Kill faster than they can dmge you, use evac when shade charge you and alpha it back!!

http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=200755 my setup atm, i could change some stuf (cancer mem+CC helm 300 instead of SSD, giving up nr1 (2600 useless vs mp nt :X it work great against doc!)
I might rest full auto (useless for my playstyle) to max first aid <3

[sultryvoltron]

Also, if fixer/soldier want HD so bad that they swap leg/feet symbs for feet, why shouldn't agent? You're not that special are you?

Yeah, but the question is why should they have to?

[Tlatoani]

I don't like much how these discussions turn out into a whinefest of "HOW IS IT POSIBLE THAT X PROF HAS THIS AND WE DONT. WE SHOULD HAVE TRIPLE AOE AS NAO AND 8 HOURS NULLITY SPHERE FOR SUSTAIN"

So...

Jack of all trades, master of none.

Also, Professional Assassin.

I always liked that. And we all started the same way; watching a screen with different professions trying to decide what suited our tastes more.

The prof is based on James Bond character, flexible, adaptable char that gets the job done via not power but adaptability. We are not really specialists in anything, we are all professions and also we are nothing.

I always thought the fun part is how both, assassin and jack of all trades interacted. And it was a continuum between assassin and jack of all trades.

The line between one extreme and the other was never really clear cut. But Michi tried to define it. FP Agent is clearly to be assassins, we don't need sustain here, we need to kill fast and that's our best defense, I don't think the changes to escape nanos are meant as a defense, it's 15 seconds of invulnerability you have to kill your opponent.

FP is a means to have fun in other ways, not necessarily an instrument to be better assassins, this might come as a shock to some, but playing others toolsets without killing much is also fun. And I play the game for fun.

Fun comes in diversity and that is how I would like our profession to progress.

1. Nano Formulae

• The Ruse of Taren defined us as cute little midgets with sniper rifles. Could we get a social effect at for this? If the code ever permits, it would be amazing to be at least partly tiny again, even just client-side.

I wasn't particularly fond of being a midget, I thought the social armor aspect of the game got diminished (!) with it. Same with the effect we have now. We should have the ability to choose. But about this effect of now, the pros are that we can hide all buffs and effects under it, so no messages above our head or flashy colors. That is, good for duels and PvP, but I actually like that now we have more messages popping on top of our head, and that was fun in PvM. Also, cons, I almost cant see myself. Have you guys tried DB2 recently? sometimes I fall from it because I dont know if I will land correctly because I see everything but myself lol. Maybe tweak the transparency a bit?

[*]The Waves/Blast and Shock nanolines would like a couple adjustments

• They have very high nanoskill requirement. We're an artillery prof, but our top nano reqs are on par with support/control profs. This is a line where many of us can't even use them.
• Scaling from Sickening Shock to Unsettling Shock is whacky.

Very much agreed, we have nanos that someone programmed for us, and we cant even use them.

• The Blast line detaunts, which we don't have the damage to need. Could we get a pvm-oriented proc debuff or something?

In lower levels starting with AS would pull aggro. After that you just needed to click on the old repressor and aggro was off. The truth is, the mechanics of Multi AS in PvM depend lots on the aggro list of the mob we are attacking, specifically the difference between the first place and you. Detaunts make Multi AS possible, just not many people know it. If anything, I would ask they increase the amount of detaunt, something similar to today's The Repressor.

• SL evac could have fear/stun resist added to them.

This please, it goes perfect with the idea of them.

• Shorter duration on Mimic, with shorter cooldown on True Profession. This would let us change specializations more rapidly, like MA stance, NT focus, or Advy morph.

I wanted to comment on a trend that seems potentially very dangerous to us, that is, buffs of one FP disappear when the FP ends. If this path can be avoided in the future, and fixed for the ones that are starting to work like that (like fp adv), that would be awesome.

• Because we spend a lot of time in mimic, we tend to be low on nanoskills. It would be great to get some lowered reqs and/or more nanoskill support from equipment. Access to the Nano Controller Unit would be nice.

Something that is unique and awesome about agents is we can use other profs' armor. But this hasn't been updated in quite some years. I just can't remember all the items I wish were FPable that I consider to be great for us and also not OP, like that Nano Controller Unit. Because the database of items is so extensive, it would be difficult to go one by one and check if it is viable to FP. The devs just need to keep us in mind when they make new items, for example, I'd like the new Dust Brigade modules to be FPable. Another easy one to check would be on the Of

2. Weapon Damage:

• We'd like more PvM damage available through rifles. We're still ODed by pet profs, shades, soldiers, and various others who also bring nice auras/tankiness to a team. It would be nice to be able to specialize in damage enough that the De-taunt Nano Formulas and Procs become useful.
• Rifle diversification would be neat
  
  • Give Cobra Mk 6 a massive crit.
  • Give Silenced Kyr'Ozch Type 3 a +100 aao Glory proc.
  • Give the Rebuilt Perennium Sniper a root proc or something.
  • Give the Longshot a damage boost and let it check 70% dodge.
  • And so forth
• Option to diversify weapons using Ranged Energy and Bow, our SL group perklines.

Spot on! Yes definitely yes to this.

3. Conceal and Aimed Shot:

• Please make the Cloaking device useful. The 18.7 conceal given is 65 at QL200, which is negligible.

I'm kinda bothered quite some that with maxed concealment and best buffs, there still things we can't hide from, a lot of TL7 content and of course aliens are a pain or impossible to hide from, geez, we can't even hide from the punching bags at the duel room!

4. Assorted Wishes

• Increase the Quality Levels available for the Agent Undercover kit so level 201+ Agents can use them.

Imagine agents could be hired to change faction for a few times to help on tower wars. Orgs of Agents, assassins for hire could be possible (dreaming is free!)

[Tlatoani]

because what good are all the perks if we cannot kill with them because people have absorbs, reflects and heals.

So we have some sustain with FPs. If you are fighting someone that cant be killed in FP Agent, FP something for sustain. Then it becomes a combination of your offense and your sustain versus your opponent's, and I think we get mostly a better offense against profs with a lot of sustain, so, it is, at least in theory, balanced in that way. Comparing sustain vs sustain is not the way to analyze it. Could have a better analysis if we talk specific profs here too. But maybe we need another topic for PvP, now that everything changed.

[sultryvoltron]

[*]Increase the Quality Levels available for the Agent Undercover kit so level 201+ Agents can use them.

Maybe it's possible, maybe not, but I'd like to see these be a temporary side change.
For example change from Neut/Omni to Clan for X hours where X scales on quality.

This would allow Agents to "infiltrate" by making them non-tabbable by the side they want to assassinate.

[Xootch]

i was ig until recently. the thing is you CANNOT kill faster than they can dd you. at least people that now what they are doing. except for a couple of professions. but hey, if you are happy dying fast (like totlani), thats fine with me. yet if you kill anyone other than advy, ma or a trader (they got more changes after i left, not sure), your opponent is doing something wrong, you got them with their pants down or got lucky. period. we do have no sustain with fp. my equip is endgame, all i am missing is an acdc and a gaunt pad. maybe the latest patch brought significant changes, but i doubt it. and i doubt you can kill a doc with rrfe. even with booster/pe swap. the perk dd will do nothing against a doc as you cannot put more dd in the stun than before all these patches. and once the stun runs out, a doc will just laugh at the dd dripping in. i have played countless hours until my account ran out, which turned out in about 1k kills or so. my bottom line is: 1 on 1 successrate is down compared to before patch. only some of the other profs still have l2p again. yes, may all be me, sure. but i have not seen any agent doing better in game during that time, not the clan ones, not the omni ones. not the ones with names not the ones i have never seen before. and certainly not the ones claiming to do well in game. so.

all this is not really surprising. how many profs were you struggling with before the patches that you could not kill because of perk dd and ar? exactly. so now its easier to perk things away but that does not mean you can kill things you couldn't before. except for mas maybe. our biggest problem before the patch was that ch was countered so much. how did that change? we got a def nano that evades dd that did not kill us anyway most of the time. so even historically i see no reason why these changes would improve our 1 on 1 success rate. all they did was making it easier to perk things away that we could kill before at the cost of dying much much more easily. seriously, the only prof where i think this changes anything is ma. the rest, it may feel better but its not. and against mps, nts, soldiers and fixers we are certainly off worse. most profs you can now perk easily without end game equip you could perk before with endgame equip or kill by other means. so yeah, i see how it feels nicer.

but hey. if you guys are happy with the playstyle leetah advocated for such a long time - go be merry with it. it is not how i want to play my agent so all i take from this is that i wont reactivate. so win win

[SirAronar]

Issues I'd like to see addressed/improved from my character's perspective/experience:

a) Better efficiency with NCU for levels 125-200. 6x 64 NCU isn't enough to support Mimic buffs and running damage buffs at the same time, but enough spare for Concentration. Would like to see damage buff NCU costs dropped a lot and Concentration made to take 0 NCU like how Adventurer morph short buffs were updated.

b) Better out the box Bow support, such as changing the IP cost for the skill to a 14.0 rate so it gets 5/level and an overhaul of Crossbows to have standardized clip sizes (30), toss in bows getting a standard of 21 too. Toss some +Bow skill on our buffs (because NCU is too tight to add more skill buffs to it).

c) Decouple Aimed Shot from Recharge speed and allow slower recharge weapons to be more usable for sniping. Game has become too much of 1.0-1.5s attack speed or bust due to special recharges, and AS has it the worst. Would love being able to use AS per enemy running a mission without having to use a fast weapon. Alternative, allow Agents to reset the cooldown of AS whenever they kill a target in range to give XP.

[srompu]

@srompu: i don't know. for def to work, there is too much stuff flying around that can't be evaded. and the amount of def necessary has gone up tremendously, too.

Don't worry, it's not you. There's less survival. I can't duel many profs, and that's crappy because I like dueling. Dritst is a top-notch pvper on trox in def setup saying he dies fast and asking for more defense, so imagine life for everyone else.

However, I'm excited because agent seems to be improving. Before, I'd log something good like crat and ride around fearing and rooting and letting Carlo bash people. I'd be happy even though I was bad, because I could beat people sometimes. Agent feels like that now. Someone summed it up by saying they wanted to play their agent sometimes instead of never. I absolutely agree we need more defense, but oh man it's so much better.

I wasn't particularly fond of being a midget...
...Maybe tweak the transparency a bit?

I wanted to comment on a trend that seems potentially very dangerous to us, that is, buffs of one FP disappear when the FP ends. If this path can be avoided in the future, and fixed for the ones that are starting to work like that (like fp adv), that would be awesome.

I'm kinda bothered quite some that with maxed concealment and best buffs, there still things we can't hide from, a lot of TL7 content and of course aliens are a pain or impossible to hide from, geez, we can't even hide from the punching bags at the duel room!

I'll downgrade the old Ruse in priority. What does everyone think of the transparency? I kind of like it as is. Does anyone prefer it more or less transparent?

I'll add the points on FP, conceal, and FPable armor to the wishlist. Anyone else have thoughts on these?
I wish all the FP buffs could persist through TP. I wonder whether TP is being phased out in favor of a better system.

Maybe it's possible, maybe not, but I'd like to see these be a temporary side change.
For example change from Neut/Omni to Clan for X hours where X scales on quality.

I think this is how they work at the moment, although QL1 is 7 minutes, and QL200 is 140 hours. I wonder if people would use them despite the tokens getting trashed. QL201+ would be mega-cool.

...Would like to see damage buff NCU costs dropped a lot and Concentration made to take 0 NCU like how Adventurer morph short buffs were updated.
Better out the box Bow support
Allow slower recharge weapons to be more usable for sniping. Game has become too much of 1.0-1.5s attack speed or bust due to special recharges, and AS has it the worst. Would love being able to use AS per enemy running a mission without having to use a fast weapon.

These seem pretty reasonable. At those levels, how much +Bow would be needed to be effective?
I remember swapping weapons at TL5 just to AS. Do you think an easy change would be some rifle recharge speeds tweaks? Are there any weapons you're thinking of? The X-3, Longshot, and Focus/Rebellion Rifle come to mind.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Issues I'd like to see addressed/improved from my character's perspective/experience:

a) Better efficiency with NCU for levels 125-200. 6x 64 NCU isn't enough to support Mimic buffs and running damage buffs at the same time, but enough spare for Concentration. Would like to see damage buff NCU costs dropped a lot and Concentration made to take 0 NCU like how Adventurer morph short buffs were updated.

TBH this is a pretty serious problem for other profs too. Keeper comes to mind... since ward+immi got split theres another 40-50 NCU gone, anti fear was added, another 20 NCU gone, and some buffs just use an inordinate amount of NCU that seems completely disconnected with the actual modifiers.

I can only imagine how difficult it is for agents, but lets just say the problem isn't only for agents. I think NCU scaling needs work almost all the way across the board.

[srompu]

That's true.
What if the general aura bases took significantly less ncu, for Agent/Keeper/whoever else.