Could MA/Enforcers get a way to deal with damage shields?

[Meetshield]

Last night in what was gonna be my last mission of the night, I enter the area and proceed to take out the two even level mobs in the first room, yes there were only two... more on that in a sec.

I took both of these guys out with a bit of a struggle, after all they were both the same level as me, and I had to dimach one, and got lucky with a few brawl crits, so I was able to keep myself healed up enough to stay ahead of the damage I was taking which was considerable (1900ac at lvl 54 and I still get pounded like I was wearing paper). I beat both of them and healed up and restored my nano pool, and got ready to head into take on the rest of the mission.

I enter the main room and from the other side of the very large room, 2 mobs come running out of one of the side rooms, both wearing damage shields. Oh crap, but at least they are low green, so if I can take out two even con agent mobs, I should be able to take out 2 low green adventurers, or so I thought. The two of them where hitting me fast and hard, their damage shields were tearing me up, so I zoned out to try and heal up and then head back in... When I do I get attacked by some mob outside who chased me back into the mission (fortunately I was back at full health and nano when I was attacked). I head back in and both adv mobs are still there waiting for me, and they proceed to kick the living crap out of me... CHANGING AREA...

So here is the dillema, I can barely take out mobs who have damage shields, since I hit them for minimum damage, and their damage shield adds so much extra damage that I cant heal myself up fast enough to stay on top of the damage. I posted this before, but the numbers are very signifigant:

Mob A with DS: damage taken = 3000+
Mob B without DS: damage taken = 4-500

Keep in mind I only have about 1250hp, you do the math.

All things are equal on both mobs, except the damage shield. Im not anti damage shield, nor do I want to see them nerfed, but I think the close combat specialists should have some way of dealing with damage shields. We need to be able to dispell them or something. I try doing missions with no human npc's but I end up with all grey bots on 50%, or scooplets who dont give any xp.

Im not into the run around and kill stuff method of getting xp, I dont care for outdoor hunting, EQ is to blame for that, but I really like the mission system, where I can go in solo, and clear out the entire place and accomplish the task. Its one of the best things in AO imo. Please please fix the problems in them, and please give us some way to deal with damage shields. I dont like just sitting there watching myself die, I like to have at least a fighting chance.

Or it could just be me... I can addapt, but its just that these mobs with DSs are sooo much tougher than any other mob (cept debuffing trader mobs but thats another whine hehe).

[Oberan]

heh for the amount of ip, nano cost and ncu the shields take along with the pityfull damage they give they should be doubled or even trippled in effectiveness.

They dont even compare to reflect shields which reduce damage (oh how my adventurer would long to have reflect instead of damage shields)

[________________cson]

I don't think he's talking about human Adventurers in PvP because players don't have 10k HPs. The NPC Adventurers will stack two damage shields for a total of 50 points! My MA has 3000 HPs but hits for 109 min damage. Even if the NPC didn't hit back, it's a struggle to take one of these down. But they DO hit back.

[________________Ming]

..AND they heal themselves as well. It's really quite obnoxious trying to kill one of these. If it weren't for creative advanced pathing techniques (CAPS) (tm) I'd never be able to kill them for loack of nano to heal with. Thankfully, they're also dumb as rocks and and I can play ring around the rosy with them until my nanokit recharges.

[______________Yazule]

You want to talk OBNOXIOUS HEALING ™ !

I was in a mission, me and a doc. Came across a veteran doc. We whack it to within 20% of its life and he casts a complete heal on himself (10,001 hp heal).

Well, I got a doc, I am not even thinking of dying, so we beat him down again to about 30% and he complete heals again.

Third time he complete heals again.

Yep, you guessed it, there was a 4th complete heal

5th time too.

We did manage to kill him on the 6th full health bar though. It was a LONG fight and got rather tedious. The only good thing is that we got 250k exp for him (that is a record for me anyway) and it dinged me hehe.

Seems the more damage you do the more exp you get. We laughed about it afterwards. My doc could cast 1 complete heal and his nanobar would be empty. It would take him 4 simple nano kits (standing ones) to get enough mana back to cast it again. That is 30x4 = 2 min. Those docs, silly little unkillable NPC's. If I were soloing that mission (well it was too high for that, but EVEN IF I were of comperable level) that mob would have ended my life garunteed.

[Meetshield]

No, please dont get me wrong, there isnt a problem with PC damage shields. Its the NPC mobs that are the problem. They have so many hp that their damage shield becomes more deadly then their weapon. Plus they have this uncanny ability to stack unstackable nanos. And yes, you cant forget they have an unlimited nano pool and heal themselves several times.

I guess damage shields would be fine if they didnt have so many hp and that unlimited nano pool.

They have so many hp cause Funcom balanced the mobs against the twinkers.

Guess it all leads back to the damn over-equipping issue.

*sigh*

[cold]

You should have seen the NPC adventurer I met yesterday. At level 38, a 18pt damage shield. That's a QL47 nano. Heck, my adv could not use a QL20 damage shield until about level 38. I have about 800hp, and really fast weapons, and I did minimum damage. Decided not to try again =)
Next up were orange A500 Elite droids. I can beat orange snakes, so I should be able to beat these, right ? Yup, after about 5 zones per A500 when I was lucky. These guys should've been deep red.

[________________Miir]

Yellow (even level) NPC advent (102 meta).

55 point damage shield, 21 point reflect shield.
Pet hitting for minimum damage every hit.

That advent ripped through 3 combat pets and 3 heal pets.



Deep orange fixer in next room barely scratched my pet.

[________________cson]

Ok, I'm able to do 60% missions again at lvl 106. I'm an MA. I'm doing fine against yellow and some orange MOBs. Then I come across an NPC doc. He's yellow. He casts a muscle exhaust nano so my heals take about 10 seconds to cast. Then he stacks two DOTs that do 150 damage each. Plus he's got a pistol that does 180 damage. I didn't have a chance in hell.

[_______________Garzu]

Originally posted by cson
Ok, I'm able to do 60% missions again at lvl 106. I'm an MA. I'm doing fine against yellow and some orange MOBs. Then I come across an NPC doc. He's yellow. He casts a muscle exhaust nano so my heals take about 10 seconds to cast. Then he stacks two DOTs that do 150 damage each. Plus he's got a pistol that does 180 damage. I didn't have a chance in hell.

This is exactly why most of us wants the overequipping nerfed, because at the same time they will reduce mob toughness.

[Meetshield]

Well I just got killed again by getting double teamed by two green damage shield wearing mobs. Im about at my wits end. This is not fun, this sucks. Its not fun to lose 75k xp because of the DAMN MINIMUM DAMAGE BUG THAT ISNT FIXED YET, and the overpowered npcs. The higher I get the less fun this game is. You guys (funcom) need to fix this stuff asap. Forget about the stupid trade skills, and fix your broken game! This is ridiculous.