Where are we going?

[ArienSky]

How would you like the Agent to be?

I really don't think it's all that productive (more for your sanity as much as anything else) to keep going back to a comment from a single dev chat over four years ago. The game has changed immeasurably since those days and those devs are long gone from the team here. It's certainly no longer valid as 'what the devs think gospel'. Many changes have taken place since those days and the game is very different to what it was pre-Shadowlands.

We, as the current dev team, certainly don't 'rank' professions as 'they must be in that order' more that we work on ensuring they fulfill their role effectively within the grouping of professions. Yes, there are imbalances left to us by previous decisions and we work on those as we go along in the best way that we think is applicable. I really wouldn't hark back to comments that old, or at least as I say above, its not representative of the way we approach things now.

In responce to the Pre-SL dev quote of:
Desired damage hierarchy (im sure he will love me quoting this part )
<blackmane> It goes roughly in this order: NT (nukes), agent, MA (fist), shade, adventuer/soldier, keeper


All chains from the past is broken, with the new management.
So fellow agents, how would you like the agent profession to evolve; what should be "our thing"?


Here are some recent quotes on agents:
(though the above quote made me think that Agents are not meant to be DD as the previous devs suggested)

By every (and I do mean every) measurable statistic we have Agents are by some margin the strongest PVP profession in the game so I really don't think you guys need me to tell you your 'role' in PVP is as you are all exceeding good at it already.

Agents are very much the same as they have always been, a very lethal Direct damage profession and that holds true for both PVP and PVM.

It's not really 'think' its more we know you are statistically the best performing PVP profession by some margin. Its not even ambiguous or open to interpretation. On a profession by profession basis Agents top every measurable when it comes to PVP, most importantly the number of people they kill. This is especially impressive when considered relative to the percentage of the player-base that agents make up. Statistically there is not a profession even all that close to matching the killing power of agents in the actual PVP that occurs on the servers.

I don't think we have any specific concerns regarding agent damage (either in PVM or PVP) at the current time.

[Chrys]

If he's considering agents across all TLs, he's right... Agents are either #1 or #2 pvp prof for most of tl1-5.

[Biggysmallz]

you should have been used to the fact that you wont receive anything new worthwhile using in pvp.
Procs - no
Weapon - no
Nanos - no
Armor - hp setup with gimp AR anyone?

think it will get only worse, either you like it and stay or reroll.

edit: err okay TP, where everyone in duels hates you for that.

[torakx]

was thinking about lvling a keeper. i always said to mysef i wudnt roll one of those easy mode profs but atm my agent is used mainly for pvm at tl7 nowadays.
so maybe rk1 il do shade and rk2 keeper. just here and there in my spare time.

as far as how id like to see agents go, i think we should still be the masters of conceal and suprise attacks. meaning fast dd perks and good evasion techniques be it with redone conceal for agents or new nanos or perks for removing debuffs.
givine agents fast attack times on perks that rely on rifle will make most agents conform to what was more or less ment for us.ie best armor being combined sharpshooters so we can land all those rifle based dd perks. atm we got CS perk which is checking AS skill rest are rifle but low dd or slow as hell.

another thought i had was agents only being able to run in conceal( maybe runspeed-50% in conceal? or conceal and use kits etc to lose debuffs faster in sneak.

[Stabbymuffin]

The main thing I've always enjoyed about the agent profession is the utility we offer to our team (FP line). I would really like to see some expansion done on this aspect of the profession. Making available to agents some of the previously unavailable lines would be nice.

The most common profession I'm asked to mimic is crat. How nice would it be to have access to the motivational speech line?

Mimic: Keeper would also be nice. RP wise, agents figured out how to mimic the other professions, how can we have not figured out how to mimic the keeper profession by now?

[ArienSky]

I agree with Jimijazz; I like the utility functions of being agent; that things does not have to be done only one way, that we can change professions and do something else.
Sadly the utility of mimic tops at 170is, as we are then able to use all the FPable nanoes. After that we are.. Just Damage Dealers?
No longer multiple was to do things, just one: Doc.

One thing I mis is pets.

Our highest MP heal pet is lvl 113
and our highest combat pet is QL 152

No Eng pets
No Bureaucrat pets (though we have three nanoes that "Augments the bureaucrat’s robotic assistant, making it more likely to hold the attention of the target it is attacking.")

I would like to see that, along with MA and bow being more of an option for agent: The silent killer. as bows are more silent.
That or longer range on the rifle, especially for AS. 30m.. for a sniper, hidden, taking time to aim. You can shoot 30 meters accurately with a bow on old Earth..

Being a NCU heavy proff I indeed would like access to the fixer NCU line.

I think it is OK that true MPs keep the composite nanoes for themselfs.
But the Mez Pet and deamon would be nice

Keeper and shade would be a nice addition.
Keeper to make us more of a team player, while still dealing damage, and shade to let us explore the Sneak Attack option.


My personal wish is giving the agents an option of either being a DD or a support profession.
So we could either focus on support of our team and deal little damage, or go full out damage, on the expense of aiding our team.

Ariensky

[Biggysmallz]

Btw Agents were able to cast Demon some pretty long time ago
And you can use both crat charms for 2 heavy vortex dmg dealers in inf mishes
But mweh Im not pvmer so I will leave it here.

[Tlatoani]

Could this mean that maybe the actual team of developers don't share the view of the old one who discontinued the FP line?

Because there are lots of buffs and items that could make the agent profession way more enjoyable and useful to our teams without making us overpowered in any way.

For example as others said the NCU buffs from fixer, or how about the fixer grid? the beacon warp line from engineers, the warp and anchor nanos from MPs and engineers or the Briefcase of Holding being visual profession?

Because if this team of developers think that we're too overpowered to deserve anything good for battle and because of that we're getting the nanos we're getting (the DoTs, roots and the other useless crap) then I'd rather have nanos and items to make the agent more versatile and useful in teams.

[Tethien]

I guess i agree with the mainstream here.

1. I would like to have some more PvE damage, in form of a higher ciritcal on my rifle, but it seems like there is no way for us to get that.

2. On the perks, i just would want Assassinate and Death Strike to be reworked.

Death Strike is so very useful that removing it and leaving the spot open on the hotbar would not make any difference. I can only, solely and exclusively land it when i fight solo and the target is a nob-boss with very high HP. (And i mean, high HP for SL standards. )

Assassinate is a bit more useful, there's always the thrill when killing Halen in a hard Inf Team Mish or when fighting an alien general with one team or less... in over 30% of all cases Assassinate strikes before the target dies. Still, these two targets and high-HP mobs when soloing are the only targets where it can be used.

Faster execution time would help both of those specials a lot. Removing the stun-requirement would help Death Strike even more, but i assume that's something we won't get.

3. On highest priority, i would want our mimic to be made more useful.

I would not go poaching in other professions arsenal as much as some people suggested here, but still i would like to get us some upgrades.

I mean, i would love to have the above mentioned fixer nanos available. But honestly, imagine we could also do NCU buffage and fgrid, what would a fixer be able to bring to a team which we'd not do as well?

The real profession should always be better in the job than we are. The problem is not that there is a gap that we fall behind, the problem is that the gap has widened over the years. (We got heals of a lv. 130 doc, we got pets of a lv. 70 MP. )

There are many nanolines where we can mimic the lower versions but can not access the higher ones. Usually these lines were continued with SL nanos, thus unlocking all the RK nanos of those lines would give us new options but the real profession would still be significally better than us. I would very much like that.

Also, some of the RK nanolines by todays standards are outdated even when speaking of the top nanos. The two lines which immediately come to my mind are doc heals and crat calms. Having access to the lower SL versions would be awesome, but i assume there'd lots of crying and screming ahead if that would be done.

Thus i would really love to see a suggestion implemented, which goes around the Agent forum since a while: create a set of agent-only nanos which can only be used in the proper mimic. Thus if an agent goes mimic, he can have a nano of similar power as Cellular Recuperation or Assauge Pain available, but it is Agent-Specific so Doctors would not complain that we would be stealing from them.

[Cyberleet]

Some of what I wanna see:

Extended FP-Ability

I wished them go over RK/SL/LE nanos and items with a fine-comb and open up more if it to agents.
This is probably what most players find the most fun with the agent-profession.

Stare of Cerebus, Sl-reflects, Portable Shopinterface, NCU-buffs etc is nice examples of things that could be made FP-friendly.
Not only for ourselfs but for others.

New forms of FP sounds fun too

Social items/Effects

More holograms and social things like that, it's real cool and unique.

Getting agent tools custom-fit more to correspond with our special abilities.

We love nanos that operate like the concentration lines, but the sureshot-line still doesn't work like it should.

Executing like those nanos do would help all type of agents in all levels in all kinds of FP-forms.
Dot-line could too and have cooldown instead,

It has very little effect on pvp but it helps agent utilise their special nanos more.

I would love to see new concentration line that adds AR instead or something else thats lethal :>

Having agent perks fixed

Death Strike, Assassinate are real cool perks true to the charracter. Sadly they are currenty useless for all practical purposes.

It's plenty of suggestions around to how they can be fixed.

Stealth

More tools availbable in sneak.
Toxic Shock and The Shot shouldn't break sneak for example but when The Shot lands.

Fixing stealth-exploits should have been done ages ago too

Extended Escape nano-line

Duration and functionality. I hope this is to creatively be enhanced. Same with our Space nanos.

Updated rifles to keep rifle-repetoir

I'd hate to see us end up with 1 all-purpose rifle in 1 equip complimenting that rifle

Agent Shock and Damage-nanos

I love to see a hybrid to take over and become unstackable with those nanos. Maybe some AAO added too?
Add effect to it too (like DB buff) without ruining our stealth.

This is most for ncu-issues.
We need a lot of NCU free for crit buffs, space nanos, escape buffs on the fly in combat along with having selfbuffs and FP buffs carried over with TP.

In short, I wan't to see more of the sneak-assassin in agents ^_^

[Xootch]

well i think we need an ar boost to be actually able to perk folks, we need a crit rifle and i think sneak attack should be included in an agent rifle. i know this is much to ask but look at us. you can't even alpha gimp opi docs with all the new hp stuff without it. either that or give us more defence. something to deal with all the stuns, debuffs etc out there. we need a major push either defense or offense wise.

what would also be a nice idea imo would be an anti spec nano. something like pierce spec aborb or something that works like our crit buff.

[Cyberleet]

Agree with DD and AR.

I understand the concept of rounded professions like Soldier/Keeper/Adv
- but we don't really stand out in either at all compared. It's a bit skewed based on Sil's definition of agents.

Originally Posted by Silirrion "a very lethal Direct damage profession."

The limitations is FP I think, which is very powerful.
With all the debuffs it is now it can be more relevant to make us become that. It IS a very challenging profession to develope.

The most sophisticated profession AO has ^_^

[Tlatoani]

Hey check the quotes posted up there, those by Silirrion :P

Trying to convince Funcom that we need AR, better perks, a real defense or damage is just useless, they have their "statistics".

And honestly at this point, I'd prefer to get more holograms than more worthless DoTs and roots, because that's what we're going to get if we keep on asking for PvP or PvM love.

[Aimily]

Originally Posted by Silirrion "a very lethal Direct damage profession."

Aye Sir! with a light blue main attack skill :

green skill : 200x5 + 20x25 = 1500 base skill before trickle/stuff

light blue skill : 200x4 + 20x20 = 1200 base skill before trickle/stuff

We're a pure artillery prof according to symbs we can wear, but we lack 300 AR by design... go figure

Hopefully our green psychology and tutoring (yeah really, that one is green) make up for those 300 AR we're lacking...

WTB a 75% NR def check spammable 300 dodge debuff, now that would be a useful nano for us.

[Wakizaka]

Last I checked everyone had green Tutoring...

[Cyberleet]

WTB a 75% NR def check spammable 300 dodge debuff, now that would be a useful nano for us.

Thats a great suggestion actually and a continuation of Projectile Magnet.
Psychology requirements removed from repressors would be nice too along with increased damage-capacity

[Manaas]

Aye Sir! with a light blue main attack skill :

green skill : 200x5 + 20x25 = 1500 base skill before trickle/stuff

light blue skill : 200x4 + 20x20 = 1200 base skill before trickle/stuff

We're a pure artillery prof according to symbs we can wear, but we lack 300 AR by design... go figure

Hopefully our green psychology and tutoring (yeah really, that one is green) make up for those 300 AR we're lacking...

WTB a 75% NR def check spammable 300 dodge debuff, now that would be a useful nano for us.

I think you're a bit confused, The colour of the skill doesn't determine the amount you can raise it by (but generally is a good indicator) Agent rifle and aimed shot skills can be raised by 5 per level even if it is light blue, it just means it costs more IP. In shadowlevels I think its still 25 per level but I'm not completely sure as my agent isnt tl7.

Continuation of the projectile magnet nano would be fantastic, at the moment I hardly ever use it at tl5. A 220ish debuff would be enough I think since the fixer one debuffs ALL evades and it does so by 180ish and this combined with the generic dodge debuff (-20) would give an additional 240 AR to agents which is a fair sacrifice to casting ubt first or CH.

[Aimily]

My bad, i thought the amount of skill you can raise is linked to skill color

While checking that fact on aoskills i also found weird things : base rifle when maxed on an opi agent is 1332 (237 trickle + 1095 from IP), which doesn't go with either 4/20 x level or 5/25 x level.

And then i remembered of title level caps, who make all toons loose quite some levels worth of IPing into the main skills.

What pushed me into that mistake about green/light blue skills is that high-end soldjas have about 300 more AR than high-end agents (and iirc have green assault rifle, tho i could be wrong on that too ), and i found unlikely that perks/nanos/equip could all by themselves explain those 300 AR.

Anyway, i still WTB upgrade to projectile magnet

[Monkeyninja]

Agents are a very good class, they just seem to slip up alittle at tl7, So maybe add a 215 micic that can mimic some of the lower ql nanos from other classs? like lvl 210 doc/advy heals or some of the more crapy reflect auras (like 20-25).
That and mkaing assasinate check like 30% hp (its only 15 or so atm right?) and fire in 1-2 seconds would probably keep you guys balanced but stronger. stuff like that, that wouldnt effect the lower lvls where agents are undinieably power houses in every sense of the word



ps.
Just a note, fixers cant use there 180 debuff before tl6 (like lvl 190 or something) so long as a new projectial magnet wouldnt be used by tl5 or lower agents i think it would be all cool.

[Biggysmallz]

THink we all agree that lower lvl agents are quite powerful. Situation quite similar to trader one actually. But I wouldn't want doc/advy SL heals tbh. Why? Because they are hugely nano-init dependent and CH is best for us. Only issue would be aggro from CH in SL. If we had new heals we would have more responsibilities in pande raid, like now its only RL: Agents go mimic:doc for ubt (10docs in raid), you get agg noone heals you, you die.
Thats the reason why im against sl heals.