Adventurer Nano Documentation

[Redesine]

Mountaingoat,

You're overlooking the fact that advies have had tools intended for tanking for a long time. It should be no surprise that they still have these tools. They even had (shock horror) AoE taunts.

All that's happened here is that the tool has changed. Has it gotten better in some areas? Yes. Has it only gotten better? Absolutely not, there are a vast amount of sacrifices that advies have had to make to get these changes.

Consider the healing power (damage mitigation and aggro) that adventurers currently have in dragon form. Consider the AoE taunting ability from 3 nukes. Consider the evades boost they get from their buffs and auras. Consider the damage boost from same.

If you buffed a dragoned advy with RRFE and more ACs, they would be a better tank in terms of damage mitigation than the new tank form. They would have better evades. They would have better damage. They would also have similar (not as powerful) AoE taunts. BUT, the difference would be wholly made up for in healing agg... and yet, next to no advies actually do this...

Why?

Because they can do it better in other forms. And yet... You STILL don't see advies tanking any large encounters.

If low-powered emergency AoE taunting made such a difference and the new proposals for tank morph were anywhere near the level that has been suggested in this thread ( ) then you would see a lot more advies already doing this.

All that has happened is that the tanking form has been given some boosts at the drastic expense of pretty much everything that's important for an adventurer now.

If you think Keepers or MAs should get more taunting power. Great. I'm sure a lot of people would be happy with that. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with adventurers and you should take it up with the Keeper/MA profs.

If you think Advies will even come close to the abilities of Enforcers or Soldiers... well I'm afraid that's just silly.

[Gatester]

Agents don't tank raids because they really struggle to hold aggro over there teammates on the mob that everyone is fighting.

Agent AOE taunting is ~130000 taunting per minute.
Adventurer AOE taunting is ~12600 taunting per minute.

That is 1/10th of what agents can taunt on adds. Now without going into the details about auras, healing aggro, teammates debuffing adds, and ofc aggro flicker and broken taunt mechanics, by sheer numbers alone you have just completely refuted your own claims about adventurer capability.


As for your soldiers/engineers not being needed for reflects comment, not only does the TEAM not recieve reflect benefits from an adventurer, but no one ever complains about having those DD professions in their teams. So, why invite an adventurer to tank when you can get a soldier to tank or have an engineer help your other tank be stronger? There are at least 5 professions you would always choose over an adventurer so exactly how many teams cannot find at least 1 of those 5?

Advs have the ability to take damage extremely well, which is what your earlier post said and what I was referring to. Advs self reflects are 7% currently btw... Not tanking raids? You mean because they don't have TAUNTS, which they are now getting? They go from not being tanks to being tanks out of thin air...

So you are referring to current adventurer survival when making assumptions about post-balancing adventurer capabilities? See, that is your problem right there. What you need to do is imagine an engineer now trying to tank post-balancing. That is why post-balancing tank morph will be useless outside of leveling teams.

Adv damage is 10's of k's better than enfos. How many 10's of k's I don't know exactly, but would estimate at least 50k dpm better.

Better than I thought, I figured you were going to claim an adventurer was around 100k dpm higher, similar to an MA, shade, soldier, or NT. Keepers are closer to adventurer damage but based upon the documentation, keeper damage will increase quite a bit while adventurer damage actually decreases. Now we have MA, shade, soldier, NT, and keeper which could not only do more damage than an adventurer on a single target, but they also have far better survival and damage mitigation (although I should wait to see the NT document).

For AOE taunting needs, if agents cannot properly tank utilizing 10x the taunting capabilities of what adventurers will have, then you cannot make the claim that they will replace enforcers.

[Hometown]

Just delete advs. Why the hell do we need a jack of all trades profession? ( this suggestion isn't sillier then most of the posts here no matter how you twist it :P )

[Hometown]

stuff

Man, where do you get what AGENTS will be? Did they release the docs yet? No. So cut the retarded comparisions, yes adv tank will be viable no matter how you twist it. Another thing is, your theories are far away from reality, sometimes I am wondering if we play the same game here.

[Gatester]

Man, where do you get what AGENTS will be? Did they release the docs yet? No. So cut the retarded comparisions, yes adv tank will be viable no matter how you twist it. Another thing is, your theories are far away from reality, sometimes I am wondering if we play the same game here.

Comparing the AOE taunting that exists NOW for AGENTS to the AOE taunting that adventuers will have in the future is retarded? Do you slam your head into walls frequently? Perhaps I should compare fairies and unicorns to adventurer taunting capabilities rather than existing game mechanics? Oh look a Leprechan, that means adventurers will also gain +500 damage add, but it will be less than the density of cobblestone.

I could be making comments about things we know now and compare them to actual numbers FC has given us to prove my point, but that would be retarded.

[ElBoogy]

Gatester was referring to the actual taunting power of agents, not the one post balance.

And his theories aren´t far away from reality, if you could have a soldier for your team, you would use him over adv anytime and the possibility for an adv to become a tank doesn´t make soldiers obsolete they still will be prefered over an adventurer for tanking, and not only this, an adventurer will think twice about tanking because even in a team being kitty or wolf (or whichever form they will become) is preferable over the tanking morph thingy which just has to much of a sacrifice bound to it.

So i don´t see the point of the argumentation the changes would leave other profs less preferable than they are now compared to adventurers.


Oh and by the way, look at the Pit Liz Morph, it was designed for tanking purposes for sure (AoE nuke, AoE DOT!, 7k short HP buff, buffs HP/AC/DMG, all what was missing were the taunts), so yeah advs were designed to tank something if they like.

Why we get true calms oh hm let me guess... maybe because we had true calms all the time?

Don´t know about you, but I never had problems calming mobs even when they got aggro on me... back then we had the bugged hatelist whipe, and after it we had a very easy little trick to calm... so i don´t see a huge difference here... oh and the main reason for crats to get teams was the XP Buffs and Perks all the time, oh wait... they have auras that helps the team.

[Redesine]

Man, where do you get what AGENTS will be? Did they release the docs yet? No. So cut the retarded comparisions, yes adv tank will be viable no matter how you twist it. Another thing is, your theories are far away from reality, sometimes I am wondering if we play the same game here.

Exactly! How dare someone try to prove their point with mere evidence?! How could he back up his opinion with figures and examples?! The nerve of Gatester!

What he should be doing is posting wild unfounded claims and ridiculous, unconstructive suggestions! Right?

Eff off, Gatester, we don't want your numbers and fact-based hypotheses here!!!

[Odov]

It's 63% reflects in total (full bio shielding gives 3%).

It's 40% against 30% RRFE and it's slightly better in SL, since soldier's aura is 29% for the team. Devotional Armor from Keeper might, or might not stack with all that, but even without it, reflects are better then the ones keeper can get. Heals can be done by other advie, doc, MA or MP.

I think advie will make pretty good tank.

Right, but still makes me nauseated when people keep calling it TMS. Roughly 6% of the time adv will have 63%. Agent in mimic sold will have a base 75% reflects for approx. 67% of the time.

I see current advs like this:

I'm a 220 Adv. I have nice single target heals and emergency heals. With my top wolf buff and mother wolf I have a buttload of evades/aad. I also have 200-1000 added evades from acro, and a 10k absorb shield. I usually run around with 37% static reflects (7% if there's no soldiers around).

I see tank mode like this:

I'm a 220 Adv. I have 40% static reflects (but can't get rrfe), 500 NR and +7k ACs. I have (guessing) 100-500 added evades from acro and a 10k absorb shield. For 10 seconds every 3 minutes I have 63% reflects and a 1.2k damage shield.

Which is better?

I vote new wolf mode with rrfe.. but hey, I'm sure most will go for the new "TMS" adv.

[Redesine]

Right, but still makes me nauseated when people keep calling it TMS. Roughly 6% of the time adv will have 63%. Agent in mimic sold will have a base 75% reflects for approx. 67% of the time.

I see current advs like this:

I'm a 220 Adv. I have nice single target heals and emergency heals. With my top wolf buff and mother wolf I have a buttload of evades/aad. I also have 200-1000 added evades from acro, and a 10k absorb shield. I usually run around with 37% static reflects (7% if there's no soldiers around).

I see tank mode like this:

I'm a 220 Adv. I have 40% static reflects (but can't get rrfe), 500 NR and +7k ACs. I have (guessing) 100-500 added evades from acro and a 10k absorb shield. For 10 seconds every 3 minutes I have 63% reflects and a 1.2k damage shield.

Which is better?

I vote new wolf mode with rrfe.. but hey, I'm sure most will go for the new "TMS" adv.

In before "Taunts!!11eleven! "

[Bonghigs]

Exactly! How dare someone try to prove their point with mere evidence?! How could he back up his opinion with figures and examples?! The nerve of Gatester!

What he should be doing is posting wild unfounded claims and ridiculous, unconstructive suggestions! Right?

Eff off, Gatester, we don't want your numbers and fact-based hypotheses here!!!

Too awesome not to quote.

On-topic: Exactly this above!

[Mountaingoat]

Agent AOE taunting is ~130000 taunting per minute.
Adventurer AOE taunting is ~12600 taunting per minute.

Congratulations, you can tank the mobs that no one else is fighting. Now how about the single mob that everyone is needing you to tank which your team is currently fighting? Adv will easily out agg an agent there, which is what I've been saying all this time.


After playing an MP and experiencing being nothing but a warm body to teams, I really think each profession should have something that's important in a group, at the very least be a backup to an important role. An MP's tools are out competed or downright unnecessary. Therefore I have a strong aversion to advs (who already have their own unique role), in this case, barging into territory and polluting the most critical aspect/tool of another profession when it comes to them getting teams. Anyway, it seems I'm in the minority here so maybe that says something. And it's not like the adv profession is off limits to me rolling one .

[Notcrattey]

Adv will easily out agg an agent there, which is what I've been saying all this time.

By how much, and would that discrepancy do much to help single target aggro against other professions?

And there's no question that the cooldown alone makes advies less effective AoE tankers than agents, and that's a pretty critical fact. So yah, advy's are going to be pretty **** tanks.

[Aeliniyah]

Just a little reminder about AoE calms: AoE calms are used to get aggro from the ADDS that nobody's attacking! The taunt value for that doesn't have to be very high. If some stupid sob goes and attacks an add that's not called and dies, you can just laugh at him and move on in most cases.

The reason why agents cant tank for crap (at the moment) is that they can't hold the aggro on SINGLE TARGET, which the DD's of the team are also attacking. And most agents aren't build for tanking anyway.

The new advy will be awesome secondary tank. In fact it's gonna be so awesome that most teams will propably rather pick a couple of advys to the team instead of for ex. a keeper + advy. Because that way if the first advy fails at tanking, the second one can step in. And there are A LOT OF ADVY's in this game. It's one of the most popular professions... so welcome to Adventurer Online.

In my opinion Adv's didn't need the tank morph, or the new calms. Other than that the changes look ok to me.

I'm not really complaining though since i can always join the lovechild club and level up my advy.

[Cyberleet]

Something I thought would be cool is if IOTP got reworked to be a little bit more like ICH.

Comparing the AOE taunting that exists NOW for AGENTS to the AOE taunting that adventuers will have in the future is retarded?

Agent actually have a detaunting toolset. It's only as FP soldier/enfo they can taunt.

So you're really talking about someone else's toolset, not agent...kinda.

[Zwelgje]

Something I thought would be cool is if IOTP got reworked to be a little bit more like ICH.


Agent actually have a detaunting toolset. It's only as FP soldier/enfo they can taunt.

So you're really talking about someone else's toolset, not agent...kinda.

Just an assumption: Looking at the Enf and Soldja Doc, an Agent will get the same agro tools (or close) as they will get. So single target taunting will get like this?

Enf > Soldja > Agent > Keeper > Advy ? (I could live with this order of taunt strenght)

[Notcrattey]

Just a little reminder about AoE calms: AoE calms are used to get aggro from the ADDS that nobody's attacking! The taunt value for that doesn't have to be very high.

Clearly, but in the case of advy AoE taunts, if new mobs are introduced soon after they already taunt they really can't manage them can they?

[Shirayuki]

About agents' taunt ability in current gameplay:

I, for one that have an 220 agent as my main toon,
the only 'viable' tool for holding aggro is nothing but the CH.
9k ess w/ mimic enf -> CH in doc is the best tanking setup for, at least, my agent.

I also have a friend whose main is a 220 adv (PvM melee setup), so my little comparisons here:

Taunt: aggro from CH, in current game, is almost at the point of being ridicious.
Only enforcers with their 50k taunt have any chance out-aggro the CH spam, so no contest here.
Also, heal-aggro serves as calm-friendly "multi-target" taunt, so its better as pseudo AoE taunt as well.

Tanking Ability: For pure tanking ability, my friend (an adv) have always been a clear
upper-hand because of his better def rationg (which is without acrobat) and the emergency
protection tools (acrobat, coon etc).

Max HP wise I can be better than him with the 9K essense, but you know, it will not help
much if I keep being hit for 7~10k... having lesser evasion and no emergency protection
alone prevent me even considering tanking such end-game encounters.

Being that said, and reading the doc several more times, I see current proposed 'Tank morph' a bit lacking.
With expected evasion nerf (both from buff and acrobat), I feel adventurers in tank mode
will suffer much more constant hit from their encounter, and 40% reflect won't negate it much.
And I don't even consider the pseudo TMS... +20% for 10sec every 3min? joke.

In order to the morph to be 'useful' state, thel bio cocoon need to be real-tuned for them.
(like, 1k absorb x 15 ticks w/ 3sec delay, recharge 80sec --- to fit with 'stable negation' concept)


And again, for mezzes... I still believe it should be removed from adventurer toolset as said in my earlier post.
I mean, 'delete' rather than 'tweaking'. Why?

Because, in my view, having an unfitting yet powerful toolset *will* stall the improvement
that adventurers really need. Imagine what "having CH" have done for agents when thinking about
profession improvement (or the FA postol for ranged advs in that matter).

I see some people welcoming the extended mezz line, but I've yet to see anyone says
"yeah it is what adventurers was lacking!" or something like that... I don't think they really need it.
(and personally, I've never seen adventurers really utilizing their calm, other than pulling one)


Then, so, what they get if it is removed? imo:

- The 'healer' form should get a new healing line, which cannot be casted on themselves.
The point is to increase their healing capabilities a bit more without making them too powerful solo-wise.

- The 'neutral' state should get access to the 'basic' single target heal.

For mezzes, we already have 3 caster professions and 1 pseudo one (agent) for the task
contrary to the "active healing" task that has only 2 real profs (doc, adv) and 1 pseudo.
Non-morphed state should be their 'neutral' stance --- one of their definitive ability like healing
should not be blocked there.


my two cents, again.

[Gatester]

Congratulations, you can tank the mobs that no one else is fighting. Now how about the single mob that everyone is needing you to tank which your team is currently fighting? Adv will easily out agg an agent there, which is what I've been saying all this time.

This is pretty much where my point lies, and honestly I do not think we disagree on everything merely what is and is not possible, what will and will not happen.

If the AOE taunts are ineffective then we can immediately disregard their impact on the future role for adventurers. Perhaps when a wave of mobs spawns and the advy can throw out cocoon, hit the AOE taunt, and then when the mobs are dealt with (mezzed) switch back to healing or damage mode, I can actually see some moderate use. Unfortunately, these situations are very rare and even if they happened having only enforcers capable of dealing with them, while also generally being the main "single" target tank makes it somewhat prudent to have another short-term mass tank.

For AOE taunters that are also tanking a single target, consider the role of an off-tank. While it is nice that enforcers generally perform the omni-tank role of handling boss, adds, and everything else damage wise, sometimes that is not the optimal manner for aggro control in raids. If an adventurer could handle all the weaker adds, then a more efficient single target tank would be preferred. Even enforcers are not the best single target tanks as the toolset of MAs, Shades, Soldiers, Keepers, and current adventurers are actually superior against a single prolonged encounter.

For single target encounters you run into the question of who is best suited for the tanking role. Rather than having the adventurer sacrifice other areas of performance to tank, a single target would be better handled by other professions based on the current documentation. Currently it seems Keepers > MAs > Soldiers > Enforcers > Shade > Adventurer will be the new order of preferred tank.


So that brings us to the main issues. Can an adventurer tank, and will adventurers take preference over other tanks.

If an adventurer can AOE tank, then it should not be good enough to replace enforcers in more difficult encounters. If an adventurer is able to substitute for an enforcer in those cases then the adventurer is too powerful as an AOE tank.

If an adventurer can tank a single target, then it should not be good enough to replace a soldier, MA, or keeper. Substituting for an enforcer is acceptable as long as enforcers are still preferred over an adventurer as a single target tank. If an adventurer is a viable substitute for a difficult single boss encounter over a soldier, keeper, or MA, then an adventurer tank morph is too powerful.

As long as the tank morph does not violate these two aspects of tanking I see nothing wrong with it. In my opinion, the tank morph does not make adventurers preferable tanks or even viable substitutes based on the increased difficulty keeping the adventurer alive as well as their difficult in maintaining aggro. If I am wrong, and I could very well be completely incorrect, then the tank morph has been too strong as you, Mountaingoat, have been claiming this entire time.


That is all I can say about this morph. I've put all my knowledge and the comparisons I could make up for everyone to judge so I have nothing left to add. Either way I think adventurers have been neglected as a tool for raids for far too long, and being strong in other aspects does not justify being ignored in others, so hopefully the balancing at least makes all professions have a purpose.

[Aeliniyah]

Clearly, but in the case of advy AoE taunts, if new mobs are introduced soon after they already taunt they really can't manage them can they?

Well... a lot better add management than what soldier or keeper can do, that's for sure. You know, the cooldown doesn't last forever, it can be recast from time to time. (30s iirc).

[Borgold]

So the butcher- sorry balancing ( must use dev speak) hits my adv lets see.

For me to be adv.

1. Can the morph heal properly - if it cant it dosnt matter what else it does i wont touch it as ill use another toon thats better for the roll.

That leaves me wolf and healer form.

2. Is the defense there - healer form only has better heals for others and no defense.

Only wolf left with worse healing and crap damage compared to the current one.

Another 220 bank toon is created - or not. 4 220 bank toons from this "balancing" is too many so it seems I shall be seeing the new game engine as a froob. Wont go through another SWG lvl cluster **** again.

Borgold