Doctor Nemesis on BS

[Maeventura]

Well, farming on my doc some VPs for a last OFAB item, and I made a little list of the different Nemesis we, docs, got.

• trader : GTH takes away our defense. Didn't encounter a trader yet on BS, but this is clearly a nemesis to us, docs.
  
• MP : if you don't wanna go full def so you can use BI, they will almost always land that fecking NSD on ya, which makes our defense unuseable too.
  
• shade : since their perks got unnerfed, docs stand little chance: stuns and unstoppable sea of dmg.
  
• NT : got debuffing/stunning nukes too, but they usually stick to triples or doubles.
  
• MA : stuns, good dmg overall as docs are no evaders.
  
• crat : chainstun, enough said?
  
• advy : heal eff. debuff.
  
• agent : got stun procs and some sort of dmg proc doing huge dmg (got hit something for near 2k/hit from that sort of proc, dunno what it was)
  
• soldier : nubstick with too fast recycling on FA which prolly always caps on docs. Well, only when timing well they can kill docs, but still, too easy to do.

What I would like to suggets to even out the odds:

• Leave our dots untouched by shields and layers/coon. When using blaze dot, every prof should get hit by 1k dot dmg. Using shields and layers/coon makes our only real dmg tool aka dots useless. I mean, sol with AMS = 200 ddot with blaze? what a joke, their healdelta prolly covers that.
  
• All profs are cannonfodder when facing a crat using the three stuns (nano + double proc), but when seeing a crat, most can raise their defenses in time to survive till stun stops and flee. Alot of profs got stun perks as well (enfo, fixer, etc.). As we, docs, lose our defenses completely, I would like to see some resistance to all stun forms added to our prof. I mean, it's retardly hard for a doc to kill other peeps, and it's soo easy to kill a doc. Remember docs got like no AAD or evades, and they can't alpha people. They are forced to go full def to see the more common debuffs get countered, but then they can't instacast their SL heals, which is almost like if we were forced through a heal debuff. CH is only alternative in full def, but long recharge and no temp hp buff.
  
• Make capping speed variable. Profs that can't trigger any defense right before capping should cap faster. Pet profs got pets = defense, shield or layer profs got defense too, coon profs got defense, acrobat profs got defense too...

This is what I figured on TL7 BS. I don't like pvp, but I think to make it more bearable, such changes would be appreciated. Most docs aren't pvp twinks, we were never meant to be on top of the foodchain. But it is retarded to see advies or MAs survive stuff we, docs, THE masters of healing, can't survive, just because their defense is spread out on other specialties.

I don't want docs to have evades or coon or shields, I just want to stick to heals (real ones, like BI), be able to insta them full def to have a little chance to counter debuffs and get a viable defense, etc.

Concerning the stuns, why not add the simple code:
Target profession == NOT doctor

At FC: this isn't OP! If you think it is, roll a doc, put it in a normal setup (which is more likely to be pvm oriented) and go pvp!

I've never disliked challenges, went in inf on my doc selfbuffed without boots at lvl 175 and strolled around, surviving my own trains (docs need more runspeed *cough*), I killed dungeon bosses with just dots in a 40 minute fight, were every distraction meant death. But if BS resumes to docs to just die or run around like a headless chicken till you get stunned/rooted/debuffed and die, it ain't fun.

PS: is it possible to add to BS a code so all profs automatically cast relevant buffs (like gsf, rrfe, behe, ACs, layers) on docs when in decon room? Would be appreciated

[Malosar]

Concerning the stuns, why not add the simple code:
Target profession == NOT doctor

Just 1 comment as I'm the last person to really give advise on PvP. From my limited experience on BS, stuns are one of the only ways to kill a well setup doc. I can reach 20k HP self, without BI temp hp buff, and I'm nanomage. Some much better setup docs here can achieve more. I've stood there rooted with a few omni's beating on me and managed to outheal and break my roots and run away.

Then along comes a shade to stun me then quickly slaughter me in a few seconds.

My tactics on BS is to play distraction and survive, and throw dots around when I can. If I can have 2-3 omni's on my tail trying to take me down, that's 2-3 less of them hassling the real PvPers so they can do their part taking down the opposition with betters odds or taking control points.

[Graftmage]

Uh, it still takes a zerg to kill doc on BS.

[Ober]

Uh, it still takes a zerg to kill doc on BS.

Any two profs can kill a doc easy, if they use their brains.
Even a 27k hp doc.

Tbh tho, I've laughed at agents ever since LE, and Adv nemesis nano is ... annoying at worst.

[Maeventura]

I use W&R just to bother the peeps cos of the -100 nanoskill, but it surely could get a dmg and debuff boost for pvp.

For the tactics, I try to do the same, but usually, one of the few that run after you got root/stun/calm. So distraction works, but is quickly ended. It sure allowed me to win a couple of BS, but with real pvpers, such tactic is like... irrelevant. :/

Now running around full def with CH ready, I survive for a longer time, but this doesn't mean we have it easy. We are prolly the nerfest prof in pvp and I think it's time to allow us either do more dmg (but I consider this as less "doc"-like) or to get defenses.

On the zerg to kill a doc-comment: an undisciplined horde is needed to take down a doc, but two profs can without problem if the chair-keyboard interface is capable enough. And I consider that if any prof should survive zergs, it's doc. We are at most an annoyance anyways, where's our dd? I prefer FC ungmping my pvp dmg even more, bt let me survive 50 clammies zerging on me cos I'm doc. But that's how I see the prof.

For the agent subject, well, I am pvmer, so not used to pvp tactics at all. But staying toe-to-toe to good agents who can CH themselves + stun and trigger some dmg proc higher than even all best doc dots combined + AS + higher normal dmg is a challenge. Too bad I dislike pvp that much, if it was a pvm mob (with slightly toned down dmg), I would have loved the challenge.

For the advy nemesis, yeah, it's an annoyance, but when you got zerged, it gets real hot for my poor doc bum. ^^

[Graftmage]

Any two profs can kill a doc easy, if they use their brains.
Even a 27k hp doc.

2 > 1, this is how it should be. It is not, sadly.

[Ober]

2 > 1, this is how it should be. It is not, sadly.

Well, 1 doc can rarely kill 1 anything else solo, unless they decide to stick around to die. Simple as that.

Not to mention, many profs. have the ability to beat doctors in duels, if they know their ****.

[Stillian]

I'm just under 16k HP selfbuffed, which is gimp, and it usually takes a small zerg to drop me. I don't object to stuns, just crats chain stunning

[Maeventura]

Indeed Stillian, a short stun from time to time is ok, but docs should at least be protected from chain stuns. Maybe add some code that casts a 100% 15s stun immunity on us after one stun.

@ober: indeed, that's how I kill most profs, when the guy tries to pvp me for more than two minutes and his defenses are wearing down. Well, usually there's a small zerg passing by killing me or the other prof, so doesn't take more than 3 minutes.

My main gripe is that docs can barely kill anyone, but gimps or afkers, and that we are too easily killed.

I would like to enjoy pvp and/or BS too as a doc, but running around (or away would be a good represantation) trying to land ubt and dots (full def makes it way harder, but if you go full agg, you die too fast cos of much more debuffs landing), with poor dmg farming (and thus way harder title farming for the titlelubbers, but I personnaly don't care) is not fun at all.

I feel more like a haze with dogs running behind it and hoping to make them drop over my crap I leave behind than a survivor or a menace.

[Doctorhyde]

There are lots of things in both this thread and the wishlists that would help Docs.

Stun protection, some form of passive defense (yeah yeah, I know, BI insta on DEF won't ever happen ... whatever), etc all would be very welcome.

Getting some DoTs that ignore reflects would be very handy. I'd also like to see DoTs that do around 1/2rd the damage of the top DoTs (ticking every 3 sec instead of every 2 and doing 2/3rd the top DoT dmg) -but- have RK DoT durations (2-3min) instead of 10-30sec. Agent's new DoT lasts for 1:30 and ticks every 3sec so the duration idea isn't unjustified. Both of those DoT improvements (piercing and duration) would make people a little more wary of us.

However more offense isn't going to make us live longer. Would be welcome but we need the stun protection and GTH mitigation. What we need the most for defense, imo, is 2 things: stun protection and GTH mitigation.

I made a long list of things that I think could help below. But after I got done with it (and chopped out the ones that are redundant, yes, this post WAS longer) I realized -1- thing could work to fix a LOT of our problems.

Summary: Extend our Vaccine line to include GTH and Stun resistance and improve the duration and % resist of the Vaccines (for details see # 1 below).

1) Extend our Vaccine line of nanos (currently the top Vaccine only resists Divest and Plunder trader lines and only 26% for 45sec). Extend the duration significantly. Make the resistance 50-70%. Add GTH to the list of protected effects. Add Calms (stuns) to the list of protected effects. Add a 30% shield versus NBS'ed Triples (I wouldn't mind it being a REFLECT but a shield is all that is needed to mitigate the damage).

This would effectively simulate DEF against Traders and NTs (actually DEF would be more effective against NTs, since we would fully resist much more often, than just a 30% shield but it will help) and would help mitigate stuns while not making them completely ineffective. And note that I said against NBS'ed Triples. I would put ALL triples but then NTs will gripe, and given our HP a normal triple is only a threat if we're close enough to dead that a FA or Burst is an equal threat.

(following not necessary, just some ideas for devs) Given how little alot of other profs seem to worry about our issues this could even be made a team aura. Or at least a team nano. It would fit the same role as we have now with things like Hale and Hearty. And if made an aura it could lower duration of the things it protects against (say, -1 minute) when it refreshes. We have enough active nano casting. I'd love to see something more hands-off. But hell I'll be fine with extending Vaccine (though ... seriously ... doesn't the word "Vaccine" SCREAM passive protection?) and keeping it self-only. I'll gladly refresh it on myself regularly just like I do Life Channeler.

... OR if that is too much stun protection, remove stun protection from #1 and ...

2) Nano that lowers our heal efficiency by 50% (meaning after our 20-30% bonus that our heals do 70-80% of what they say on Auno) and gives us +1K nano init. We can then do BI on DEF but its not the 10-12K BI heal we get now ... more like a 8-9K BI. This would "fix" us against Traders, NTs and MPs (I don't worry so much about MPs except in groups). I didn't say it would OP us ... all 3 would still have a chance of landing their messes on us, but we'd have a real chance of fending them off long enough to kill (if they're too dumb to run), get away, or get our friends to our spot before we're dead. Yes we can resist GTH a time or two before it lands as it stands now, but its spammable and we won't resist it for long. DEF would make us resist much more.

AND/OR ...

3) Give us a nano that, when we would normally be stunned, roots us (like a stun) BUT lets us use our heals on our opponents as a nuke (and prevents the heal nanos from healing us). BI would, for instance, do up to 12K damage but 1/2ed for PvP. What this would do is make it so that stunning still roots us ... and leaves us without the ability to cast heals on ourselves. We could still perk heal (like we can now). We would still be stuck in one place (like we are now). But our offense is immediately quadrupled and so people will at least have some reason to not want to stun us. We die in a zerg situation but in ganks we have the possibility of killing the ganker.

(that last idea is something I haven't posted nor seen before, people may hate it, hence why its "radical").

Just 1 comment as I'm the last person to really give advise on PvP. From my limited experience on BS, stuns are one of the only ways to kill a well setup doc. I can reach 20k HP self, without BI temp hp buff, and I'm nanomage. Some much better setup docs here can achieve more.

I've gone over 27K w/BI + enfo and its still a problem. 1:1 we're ok against most anything except Trader, NT or (good) shade. But BS isn't about 1:1. Not only that but a LOT more people have realized they have easy access to stuns via perks than bothered with it when BS first came out. Anyone can stun now.

It is a pretty big problem for any doc who wants to PvP. We're so unkillable 1:1 except for a few profs (the profs that can rightly gripe about squishiness against most other profs, ironically) that people scream nerf and call out the excessive cases ... but we're so damned squishy, defenseless AND dangerous (in an indirect sense) in a mass situation that we're instasplat.

We're effing great at -duels- but on BS? Pretty much we're walking target practice. Especially since if they don't kill -us- they can't kill our friends. So I can't blame them at all for doing it.

FC's repeatedly stated that they don't balance for 1:1, which is fine. But some balancing for what is happening now is needed. Especially when you look at our state in PvM with most places that used to require a doc now being doable w/out and Docs getting pigeonholed into a few places like Informant, 42, etc.

Speaking of PvM for a sec ... I'm told FC is considering making dungeons where some Doc action is -required- just to complete it, so Docs won't get left out. If true then A) that's just an implicit admission we're being obviated elsewhere and B) That's the worst "fix" imaginable since we'll HAVE to go there for people and still won't be a requirement elsewhere.

We said it was going to happen, starting when LE first came out. PvM in the sense of being unneeded and PvP in the sense of being fodder. Its happened. Go fix it. We're not asking for 1:1 balance and we don't have problems with solo ... except for the fact that for most of us that's all that we do anymore.

Personally I doubt PvM can be fixed, as it would require either massive buffs on the environment OR would require nerfing some other profs. AO won't accept either. The only other fix to PvM would be to adjust our AR and damage which would make us essentially watered down pistol advies. WE won't accept that.

But PvP? Can be addressed. It won't happen until FC devs really play TL7 docs in "real world" situations like BS though. "Real world" meaning on RK1/RK2 where they're going against real players, not on test where they're going up against people who have had levels inflated and/or are other devs, etc. They have to see the other side of the doc story. Right now I think most have only tried to duel them (based on various FC comments over the years) and gotten pissed at hitting a brick wall then.

[Maeventura]

Sigh, once again I can but only bow for hyde's wisdom.

Think of my poor back, j00 darn poster!

[Doctorhyde]

PS. If the Doc wishlist is ready to be updated then these are my votes, in this order:

a) Extend the Vaccine line (see post above, item #1).

b) DoTs that have longer duration but somewhat less damage than Bone Eater and the PvP DoT.

c) DoTs that partially ignore reflects.

PPS. Thanks for the .sig material Mae

[Maeventura]

What sig material? (PS: no time to check around, still at work )

[Ober]

Great stuff hyde.
I really think you should put that in your sig.

About vaccine, yes please.
30-50% divest/plunder
70-90% gth
10-20% stun resist (at most, tho tbh stuns are ok, really)
100% crat chain stun procs resist.

And make it aura as you say, or a buff.
Aura that visually refreshes a 50s nano every 60s ie (so we have some downtime on it, for skilled players to use, just like old lotp).

Or just full def, and delete GTH, NAOW.

[Doctorhyde]

Great stuff hyde.
I really think you should put that in your sig.

I did, but after the post, its in the bottom of the clusterofbump. I don't want it at the top because I don't want too many trolls hitting it.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Doc must die must die must die.

[Phylicity]

Well, farming on my doc some VPs for a last OFAB item, and I made a little list of the different Nemesis we, docs, got.

• trader : GTH takes away our defense. Didn't encounter a trader yet on BS, but this is clearly a nemesis to us, docs.
  
• MP : if you don't wanna go full def so you can use BI, they will almost always land that fecking NSD on ya, which makes our defense unuseable too.
  
• shade : since their perks got unnerfed, docs stand little chance: stuns and unstoppable sea of dmg.
  
• NT : got debuffing/stunning nukes too, but they usually stick to triples or doubles.
  
• MA : stuns, good dmg overall as docs are no evaders.
  
• crat : chainstun, enough said?
  
• advy : heal eff. debuff.
  
• agent : got stun procs and some sort of dmg proc doing huge dmg (got hit something for near 2k/hit from that sort of proc, dunno what it was)
  
• soldier : nubstick with too fast recycling on FA which prolly always caps on docs. Well, only when timing well they can kill docs, but still, too easy to do.

Sorry, i really dont agree with your list of nemesis proffessions. Only ones that are a problem to docs are MA's, Crats and shades.

MPs and traders can be annoying but docs have perklines to deal with those. Advys are just hard to kill, but they find it just as hard to kill you unless they stun you with a brawl and alpha. Soldiers have that Remedie inhibitor nano which is rather annoying but the majority of soldier's i've encountered have not bothered to use that on me. Agents? Well, its a case of who catches the other one off-guard first. I've got a habit of hunting agents down in battlestation, throwing UBT and dots, landing malicious probibition and laughing my ass off at them. Lasty NTs. NTs cant really kill docs on their own. Never had an NT kill me solo, ever. UBT on them and watch them run away!

[Doctorhyde]

"traders can be annoying but docs have perklines to deal with those. "

Tell me how your perks help you with GTH?

Drains weren't a big problem for us before GTH. Yes, we dropped to DEF and switched to CH while drained. But it was a fair fight, pretty much even if both players were of similar skill. But GTH negates all for us while its active.

Lasty NTs. NTs cant really kill docs on their own. Never had an NT kill me solo, ever. UBT on them and watch them run away!

Good NTs have enough nano init that they shrug off your UBT and just go AGG while fighting you. The only time they care about you is if you UBT -and- Muscular Malaise lands. They won't do it often but if they bother to NBS triple you while you're being hit by someone else (ie, you're around 75% HP and haven't healed yet thinking you're ok) you will go down. They're screwed from using some of their defenses for awhile but they'll be laughing anyway and "0wnz0ring a doc". That's why I mentioned damage protection from NBS triples but not normal triples (which I agree we tank quite fine). Most of the NTs I know actually wouldn't care if we had some NBS protection anyway, its considered relatively cheap.

Agents I agree with you on ... if they catch me napping I'm toast but otherwise they can't kill me.

MAs? I disagree with you. Except for a couple of highly skilled MAs (who can wtfpwn me and I bow to their skill) I -love- to see a MA come charging at me. Nothing pisses off a MA more than just sitting their tanking them until they go away.

That's the way things should be for a doc ... GREAT players able to kill a doc but MOST players in a stalemate at best. And if we had some stun resistance (without negating it completely ... I think Ober's 90% resist is toooo high) those MAs (and enfs and shades) who can ALWAYS kill me will only SOMETIMES kill me ... while I'll never kill them unless they choose to stand around and fight ... again the way it should be for docs. We can't win unless the opponent is duelling (meaning they can't just run away) or insists on standing their ground BUT we are very very hard to kill outright and (this is the point of this thread) shouldn't be pure cannon fodder against certain classes. Yes we -should- outlive small zergs and take a little time for medium sized zergs. Not saying we should never die but, since we can't kill anywhere near as fast as any other prof, we shouldn't die nearly as fast either. As it is in alot of situations we go down like a [won't say it, that's not my style ].

[Maeventura]

Sorry, i really dont agree with your list of nemesis proffessions. Only ones that are a problem to docs are MA's, Crats and shades.

MPs and traders can be annoying but docs have perklines to deal with those. Advys are just hard to kill, but they find it just as hard to kill you unless they stun you with a brawl and alpha. Soldiers have that Remedie inhibitor nano which is rather annoying but the majority of soldier's i've encountered have not bothered to use that on me. Agents? Well, its a case of who catches the other one off-guard first. I've got a habit of hunting agents down in battlestation, throwing UBT and dots, landing malicious probibition and laughing my ass off at them. Lasty NTs. NTs cant really kill docs on their own. Never had an NT kill me solo, ever. UBT on them and watch them run away!

All soldiers I saw casted that green nano on me, through maxed NR + HHAB. Must be me being unlucky.

I must excessively suck, but some agents got very nasty 1K+ procs + stuns + AS. even if you got alot of hp, when stun lands, you'll die for sure. And like hyde says, NTs, depends if they got NBS or not, or if they gank you while you're trying to occupy someone else. Advies usually don't kill me on their own, but I can't kill them either, so it's bout the first one to flee or to crack down. Bout MPs, we don't got anything against calm. Don't recall having something against NSD either, although playing full def on BS saved me that hassle. They still got stuns from perks too I think, usually AS + pets. So except if you were only facing gimps, or are uber setup compared to me, I don't see how they can be taken lightly.

[Graftmage]

Ever used free movenent, battle prepared virus scanners/nano doctorate perks, eh?