[Testserver] Feedback on patch 18.7.0.20(21) changes

[lainbr]

After some days messing around in Test server looking at some MP stuff, I decide to make this thread. Mainly for you all give feedback and sugestions, so me (and Justin) can just comprimise all MP opnions to the Devs and see if we can push some things before it goes live.
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Sugestions and Feedback

Note: This is a compilation of sugestions within this thread. That means there will be conflitant sugestions among the list. Sugestions are sorted in order of appearance.

• A way to make MP sucessfully perk things. Like low evade players.
• Decrease def check on creation weapons.
• Move Beneficial and Hostily Scourge away from our damage debuff nanoline. --- granted on patch 18.7.0.23
• NSD should have a target CD lock, not caster.
• Give more evades to weapon MPs. At least give back those 250 ones we lost with the Sacrificial Shielding rework. More is more reasonable. --- partialy granted on patch 18.7.0.23
  
• Do anything to make agressive focused MP (mainly Bow ones) have a chance to kill anyone during the 20s of Sacrificial Shielding.
• Makes CoNC perk actions check nanoskills, not AR as offensive skill.
• Drop to the very botton the def check on Ranger. --- partialy granted on patch 18.7.0.23 and 18.7.0.24
• Make nanoskill based perks ignore AAD on their def check.
• Full rework on Channel Rage, putting some offensive actions worth enough for those 10 points spend there.
• Full rework on Soothing Spirits, putting some defensive actions worth enough for those 10 points spend there.
• Lower def check of all nanoskill based perks.
• Remove the target requirement of all pet buffs. Make then cast on pets without the need to have then targeted.
• Rework on 2hb creations to make then viable again.
• Faster activation on Ranger perk actions. (Also Starfall). --- granted on patch 18.7.0.24
  
• Bow buffs to MPs, like Supreme Kyudo (those that also gives AS). --- granted on patch 18.7.0.24
• Drop dodge check on Tigress.
• Upgraded evade buffs. --- granted on patch 18.7.0.23
• Make NSD caster locked and eNSD target locked.
• NR debuff attached to Cold nukes.
• Drop SS lockout to 1:55 minutes.
• A perk action (in Ranger?) that increases Bow, like Moonmist increases MA.
• NR debuff tied to Mezzpet.
• Make Rihwen the ql 215 pet and release the Notun Scourge.
• More AR to Attack pet. --- granted on patch 18.7.0.24
• Possibility to have a secondary Attack pet.
• Addition of perklines mentioned on old perk documents.
• Attack pet should do more damage than the MP. --- partialy granted on patch 18.7.0.24 (need further testing to confirm)
  
• Improve Healpet healling power on other pets and the master.
• Give us the Utility Pet.
• Attack pet should have 80% the power of the 2 attack pets of crats/engs together. --- partialy granted on patch 18.7.0.24 (need further testing to confirm)
  
  • 80% of the total health of Carlo + CEO Guardian;
  • 80% of the buffed attack rating of eng dog;
  • 80% of the DPM of Carlo + CEO Guardian, and so on.
  
  
• Rihwen should get nano-scaling like the other MP attack pets. --- granted on patch 18.7.0.24
• Longer duration on pet buffs --- already granted on patch 18.7.0.22
  
• Longer duration on MP buffs like evade and naCost ones --- already granted on patch 18.7.0.22
  
• Seperate the cooldown lines from NSD and eNSD.
• Better nukes that does more damage on debuffed targets. --- granted on patch 18.7.0.24 (it is now fixed)
  
• MPs does several diferent damage types. That is bad. --- partialy fixed on patch 18.7.0.23 and 18.7.0.24
  
• New poison nukes. Or change old nukes damage to poison. --- partialy granted on patch 18.7.0.24
• Nuke procs should do poison damage.
• Tone MP up to crat/eng level in AR.
• Give us a buff that bond us to our attack pet, strengthening both, giving both us and pet some amount of AR.
• MP's attack pet should be shamefully OP. --- partialy granted on patch 18.7.0.24
  
• Give minor aad/evade and aao/bow buff to OFAB pieces. Back, Helmet and Shoulderpads preferable.
• Summoned armor that suits MP toolsets.
• Some bow buff on Xtremtech Ring. --- granted on patch 18.7.0.24
  
• Creation bows, based on nanoskills and def check with NR.
• AAO proc (or Nanoskill do AAO nano)
• Multi Melee and 1hb added to MP symbiants.
• Add a new tradeskill to add Sureshot Glasses to MP OFAB Spec Helmet.
• Clarify which ones should be the standart MP weapons, which ones will be dev suported.
• Buff Rihwen. granted on patch 18.7.0.24
• Add 50 AAD to OFAB Back and 30 AAO to Xtremmtech's ring.
• Gives more NR and Mezz/Snare/Root resistance to pets. Workable ones.
• Increase the nano debuff on Metaing's Improved Mind Quake to -300.
• Add a Mongo Rage like nano or perk action for Attack pets. +AAD, +damage, calm/root/snare immunity, +range.
• Increased static AR for Attack pets. (Not sure if already mentioned above).
• Perk action similar to our HHAB action added to Channel Rage(?)
• Reduce AAD on Zset and gives more defense to all MPs from another item or buff.
• Make Zset left or right hand only.
• Leave Zset dual wield (lol).
• Empower our debuffs and make us the debuff profession we were used to be.
• Give a heal eff debuff proc to Mezz pet.
• Improvement on Unmake/Dominates.
• Improved NaCost debuff for endgame purposes.
• Hugelly increase damage on our nukes. --- partialy granted on patch 18.7.0.24
• Trox MPs are OP. Either increase equip time from Tigress and 1hb, or from shields, or from them all.
• Tie Sacrificial Shielding to Mongo Rage in a way you cannot have both in your NCU.
• MPs need more damage output, regardless setup. --- granted on patch 18.7.0.24
  
• Give more (doubles it) healling power to Heal pets. --- partialy granted on patch 18.7.0.24
  
• Give us nanos to make our pets more powerfull. (A lot more than Evocations do right now).
• Give MP's access to whole Kyudo buff line.
• Make most (if not all) MP damage poison type. --- partialy granted on patch 18.7.0.24
  
• Increase creation weapons poison proc damage.
• Give a poison proc to Attack pets.
• Upgraded Urn pet.

<It is done (until page 6) Pokes me if you think I got your idea wrong...>

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Old NPE changes thread
Old test on Testserver I did. Impressions and feedback

[lainbr]

What came for MPs on new 18.7.0.23 patch.

General Changes

• Removed total immunities from certain Trader, Doctor, Meta-Physicist, etc. buffs from all monsters; they still have some resistances to them, in addition to Nano Resist, however.
• Blunt Mastery
  
  • Bring the Pain - Shortened attack time, made AoE easier to land, increased damage, extended stun
  • Crush Bone - Extended effects while in PvM, easier to land
  • Devastating Blow - Halved recharge, lowered damage, increased def check
  • Quick Bash - Increased damage, shortened recharge, lowered def check, extended duration of "Affected by Quick Bash"
  
  
• Clearsight will fire off more quickly
• Dazzle with Lights will be visible in the target's NCU
• Starfall perks will execute more quickly, with some damage adjustments

Profession Changes

• Meta Physicist
  
  • Channel Rage lasts 2 hours
  • Beneficial/Hostility Scourge nanos have been separated into their own nanolines
  • Added "Improved Anticipation of Retaliation"
  • Shield of Zset offers less AAD
  • Sacrificial Shielding has a 4 minute cooldown
  • Notum Rejection will cancel running Nano Cost buffs
  • Spirit of Blessing/Purity have a 20 second recharge
  
  

Thats pretty much what came for MPs on new 18.7.0.24 patch. Lots of buffs, lil nerfs on Procs and... Testing!

Research Changes

• Meta-Physicist
  
  • Sow Despair: Increased damage
  • Diffuse Rage: Increased damage/init debuffs
  • Sow Doubt: Increased damage/init debuffs
  • Thoughtful Means: Changed to be a +25% nano cost debuff
  • Ego Strike: Changed to type 2, increased damage
  • Suppress Fury: Increased damage/init debuffs
  • Anticipated Evasion: Changed to type 1
  • Nanobot Contingent Arrest: Changed to be +100% nano cost debuff, -750 nano init, and 25% chance to interrupt casting
  
  

Profession Changes

• Meta-Physicist
  
  • Two new tiers of the Riwhen can be summoned, based on the stats of the Meta Physicist
  • Popshot/Clearshot should land more reliably
  • Spirit of Purity will correctly display a cooldown
  • Creation weapons will find their target more often
  • Mind Quake-style nukes will inflict poison damage
  • Added a +40 Bow/AS buff, "Eye of the Tigress"
  • Xtremtech's ring adds Bow skill
  • Increased evades provided by Improved Anticipation of Retaliation
  • Reduced Sacrificial Shielding's cooldown back to 3 minutes
  • Slightly improved heals provided by Spirit of Blessing
  • Lowered the recharge of MP heal pets' heal
  
  

What Michi told on Monthly Update and not on patch notes -.-

Profession Changes

• Nano Crystal (Pistol Mastery) can be uploaded and used by Bureaucrats, Doctors, Engineers, and Meta-Physicists
• The Rihwen's creepy hotdog fingers will hit for more damage, and inflict poison damage

[Oliveerz]

Something that grants us the ability to perk stuff. (Increasing the ranger/1hb perkline is simply not enough). We have been unable to perk many professions for a long time, and it bothers me. Pvp is simply not fun when you can't use your stuff fully.
Maybe decrease defcheck on creation weapons? That would at least make us hit more occasionally.

[drakio]

<< Reserved for whining hard >>

[lainbr]

Here my own post:

I did some duels, pvp in general and a minimal pvm with Lainbr on test. What I can say in short is: we are much better BUT that is not enough.

Basically, we got a lot of new setup options avaliable. Adding with the new way shields works (all 1hb, can be dual wield and such) we now have several diferent ways to go being 1hb. Non Zset shields need work though (Justin can just talk better in this area). Problem: 2hb users got "nerfed". Without Zset shield, there is no reason to stay 2hb anymore, since it only have a bunch of crap and extremely outdated stuff. Besides quest staves, everything is worthless.
Bow got a surpriseling adaptability as well. With the changes in attack and recharge times, we can now decide between focusing AS and get better multiplier or go all round and put some nanoskills without losing the 11s AS. And there are several ways to do so: you can swap all CSS into CS, or change Eye and/or R-Hand implants to symbiants. Or a mix that you think that will work better. Seems minor to some, but having a way to focus on nanoskills may change a lot (there is a problem here, but I'll point out later).

The overall changes in damage debuffs helps a lot. Much less casting for same results, giving us more openings to nuke or use other debuffs, both pvp and pvm. The main problem is that both Beneficial and Hostile Scourges are still damage debuffs, so we cannot damage debuff AND healing eff. debuff someone for example (Adventurers and MAs anyone? ). Our biggest nerf in debuffs comes from NSD. It is far better than the initial idea though (7s, 28s cd), one of the removers was removed BUT it should be a targed cd and not a caster cd. We should have the options to NSD several times at once. This pretty much ruins MPs in mass pvp.

DtPwise. IT IS AWESOME. It solved lots of problems MP has with surviability. Ever more for bow MPs. But, as I said at the beginning, it is not enough. In pvp we went from "totaly roflstomped in 3 seconds" to "totaly roflstomped in 1 minute". Yeah, we still get roflstomped. We just survive longer. And sometimes we manage to win. But the win/lose rate is still too low. What comes to one big problem to bow (and any nonshield MP): we lost 250 defense from old Sacrificial Shielding. And, you know, we were already too low on evades. I'd want to at least see this 250 def back to us nonshield (if not 500 to make up our super low evades).

The second big problem to Bow: we do not have offensive power to kill anything. What I mean is, shield MP can be the highest defense in game, but bow MP are faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from being highest offense in game. To me that sounds wrong. Deadly wrong. So wrong that I would come to ask for a 1.5k aao buff on Tigress. Sounds like a troll, but, to me, a glass cannon should be a cannon, not a watergun. I also know it will never be implemented, so I go to a diferent aproach. First, like I said above, the attack/recharge reduction on Tigress (and Ranger) oppened some room to focus on nanoskills. And here is the problems: most, if not all nanoskill based perks checks 100% nr; CoNC perlike uses AR, not nanoskills; AAD counts on def check of all nanoskill based perks; ranger perklines checks 100~110% dodge. First thing first: ranger perklines should have a really low def check, period. Nanoskill based perks shoulnt be affected by AAD (and maybe AAO? :c) AT all, like promissed long ago. It makes sense to CoNC uses AR? No. Nanoskill based perks should also have a lower def check, cause nobody can boost nanoskills the way they boost AR right now (C'mon, 2.5k MC doesnt ever come close to the 3.7k static AR soldiers can get).

I know perks will only be really reworked later, but I think those perk changes above are a must. Also, a full rework on Channel Rage and Soothing Spirits perklines. Both have almost no perk actions for 10 point perk lines, neither for profession locked perkline. Give us offensive actions on Channel Rage and defensive ones on Soothing Spirits.

To finish, you could at least make all pet buffs to not require a target. It sounds weird that some doesnt requires a selected pet while others do.

To summarize: rework on 2hb creations; give Scourges debuffs their own nanoline (just like it is in old nanodocs); NSD cd should be target locked, not caster locked; Bow MPs need more def, at least the lost 250 aad from old SS; Bow MPs need A LOT of more offense; rework on our main perklines; quality change on pet buffs.

[Baby]

I'm a tad irritated here. In this thread you said "I don't like this idea", and now you're saying the new att/recharge in Tigress is good. And Bow MPs (or rather Non Shield MPs) deserve to get the 250 AAD from SS back, but the 100 AAD on Tigress was not okay?

Target NSD lock has one problem: Only one MP can NSD at a time. With a caster lock you could theoretically keep a player NSD'd for 20+ secs if you have 2 or more MPs around, while with a target lock the opponent would get some sort of immunity for a short period of time.

[jooo]

ranger perklines checks 100~110% dodge. First thing first: ranger perklines should have a really low def check, period.

What's funny, is that if Ranger perkline would have 80% check on all perks against dodge ranged (like Pistol Mastery perks do atm), MP with its Bow AR still couldn't perk 95% of the classes in endgame pvp. That is literally broken. If only we could make ranger MP only perkline and make the perks have 50-70% check. -- The 110% check against dodge on last Ranger perk, Clearsight, is kinda joke for MPs. Also wtb faster activation than 5s.

Definitely MP needs some love with their Bow. They're literally the only bow user in game and doesnt even have Bow/AS buff.

Does DEVs give any support on idea of making the Bow bright green for MP's?

P.S: Am I the only one who think Supreme Kyudo ( http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=273370 ) should've been MP nano and not MA? It's like we've been robbed out of our toolset by MA's, whom dont even need or use that nano. Literally an #WTFLOL moment --- Could professionals suggest to Michi/DEVs that MP's also would get access to Supreme Kyudo, we already share many things with MA's as it is now in regards to bow skill buffing items (sureshot glasses, alb bow huds etc). This makes totally sense. Hopefully Michi is reading this.

[Oliveerz]

You guys adressed my concerns perfeclty. Thank you.

[jooo]

To make an MP only change in regards to Bow doing something in pvp, it would be simple solution to make Dodge ranged defense skill on Tigress go to around 90 % from 100 %. Wouldn't affect more efficient perkability though, which is what we're asking here. Would rather get something which makes our perks land better, even a little bit better so we're not always seeing all perks go failure. It's funny OP'dness difference when you cant even land your perks to Enforcers (def based enfs) and the said Enfs on the other hand lands everything on you while keeping you stunned/feared.

lainbr said it well; if we're gonna be glass cannons in Bow setup then lets be that. But we're not those cannons, only glass. There is no balance currently in that setup. Neither is in Def setup, where you basically cant die but cant kill anyone. Still need some changes. Bow setup needs to get back those lost defenses for starters and maybe get an upgraded evade buff from our old 60 buff on top of that. And more AR somehow. Won't touch def setup as I haven't got much experience or interest in that.

Even NT's got upgraded evade buff from their RK version. Almost every class whom had evade buff got it upgraded at endgame. MP seems to be forgotten? Do we see Improved Anticipation of Retaliation in next patch? 400 all evades is my suggestion (self only, the old version stays target).

[lainbr]

I'm a tad irritated here. In this thread you said "I don't like this idea", and now you're saying the new att/recharge in Tigress is good. And Bow MPs (or rather Non Shield MPs) deserve to get the 250 AAD from SS back, but the 100 AAD on Tigress was not okay?

Target NSD lock has one problem: Only one MP can NSD at a time. With a caster lock you could theoretically keep a player NSD'd for 20+ secs if you have 2 or more MPs around, while with a target lock the opponent would get some sort of immunity for a short period of time.

Your sugestion was to make Tigress 1/1, which is absurd ;p 1.5/1.5 seems pretty well balanced so far.

About NSD: ththat's my opinion as a PvP'er, where you need to debuff as many doctors as possible. Maybe make NSD caster locked and eNSD target locked? Dunno really. Also sorry, I forgot the PvM aspect :/

[lainbr]

What's funny, is that if Ranger perkline would have 80% check on all perks against dodge ranged (like Pistol Mastery perks do atm), MP with its Bow AR still couldn't perk 95% of the classes in endgame pvp. That is literally broken. If only we could make ranger MP only perkline and make the perks have 50-70% check. -- The 110% check against dodge on last Ranger perk, Clearsight, is kinda joke for MPs. Also wtb faster activation than 5s.

Definitely MP needs some love with their Bow. They're literally the only bow user in game and doesnt even have Bow/AS buff.

Does DEVs give any support on idea of making the Bow bright green for MP's?

P.S: Am I the only one who think Supreme Kyudo ( http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=273370 ) should've been MP nano and not MA? It's like we've been robbed out of our toolset by MA's, whom dont even need or use that nano. Literally an #WTFLOL moment --- Could professionals suggest to Michi/DEVs that MP's also would get access to Supreme Kyudo, we already share many things with MA's as it is now in regards to bow skill buffing items (sureshot glasses, alb bow huds etc). This makes totally sense. Hopefully Michi is reading this.

Kudos for you. And I was thinking on something like 20~50% def check on Ranger xD
Well. I know Genele promissed us some bow buffs. Maybe we will get it later. I can poke Michi bout it as well.

[Baby]

Your sugestion was to make Tigress 1/1, which is absurd ;p 1.5/1.5 seems pretty well balanced so far.

About NSD: ththat's my opinion as a PvP'er, where you need to debuff as many doctors as possible. Maybe make NSD caster locked and eNSD target locked? Dunno really. Also sorry, I forgot the PvM aspect :/

First of all, it wasn't my suggestion, second it neither was 1/1.

I was referring to PvP as well. That's why I said player. If you NSD a doc with target lock it would mean after 10s the doc gets NSD immunity for 20+ sec. As a matter of fact with the remover, NSD wouldnt even do a thing to that Doc. I understand the point that you want to spam NSD like a maniac, but it makes a lot more sense to time your NSD with another MP than to just be able to "aoe"-nsd in Tarabox or on a field.

[drakio]

250 more aad will be clearly handy.

I can't belive our top evades buff is still Anticipation of Retaliation, while traders/nts and even soldiers have improved ones!

Also a mini nr debuff attached to Metaing's Improved Glacial Lance will be awesome :P

[lainbr]

First of all, it wasn't my suggestion, second it neither was 1/1.

DOH. I probably completely misread the whole thing. So, I'm sincerely sorry. :/ Apologies.

I was referring to PvP as well. That's why I said player. If you NSD a doc with target lock it would mean after 10s the doc gets NSD immunity for 20+ sec. As a matter of fact with the remover, NSD wouldnt even do a thing to that Doc. I understand the point that you want to spam NSD like a maniac, but it makes a lot more sense to time your NSD with another MP than to just be able to "aoe"-nsd in Tarabox or on a field.

I guess we have diferent point of views here. And I think both of then are valid. Because: working with another MP is a really good aproach. But, to be sincere, in any mass pvp I participated in my life, there where 1 doctor for each team at least and 2 MP for the whole faction group. So I prefer "aoe"-nsd in these kind of situations. BS, duel and team pvp otherwise, your idea is better.

[Metafly7]

I don't really feel like explaining everything with large texts so Ill just put my vision in short texts unlike usual and respond to earlier reactions. Also I will mention if things need to be done fast or if later along the line is a possibility

So first of all which seems to be the biggest talk here.
Our defences are poor, we have a semi soldierlike oh **** button but that only lasts till the second wave of alphapower. Therefore:

• Sacrifical Shielding should get a lockout of 1:55 minutes in line with being able to withstand the obvious evade killer (Mongo Rage)

• In documents there was talk of an improved version of anticipation of retaliation, this seemed almost fair at the loss of 250 AAD from the old Sacrifical Shielding. That tradeoff is met partly by the new DtP but that does not justify not adding an improved evades buff. This definitely needs to come in aswell. (This however might not be directly needed before things hit live, although it would be a what seems to be relatively easy fix)

• As a responce to the damage debuffs and the percentage debuffs, I do have to disagree there, even though it sounds nice to be able to debuff that much power from a target, I think it also pushes for us to think smart before we throw out our debuffs. The way this is handled in my eyes can stay the same

• Hardest part for defences is the difference between shields and bow setup. One general buff like the improved evades are okay, but more general stuff may be over the top for shields and to few for bows. Therefor it has to be attached to something that only bow Mps can make use of. The idea of evades on the bow strikes as odd, in the perkline might make more sense. A definite answer on that can however not be given really.

As for the offencives on a bow Mp:

• We have finally gained some AR (200) but that is indeed not gonna change much for us in the end. We do need more attack rating and the only way that is possible is to have it directly into the skill it requires, a Bow buff is a must for this to work. This can however besides in the buff itself be in the perkline aswell. A similar thing to Moonmist for MAs could be used for this. IE bow nano buff along the way of 200 and the perk action lasting for a minute with a minute 2 minute lockout or something worth 300 scaling untill lvl 200 1,5 skills per level or along those lines.

• Attack rating also comes in the line of nukes and our pets however. Now that AS requirements have gone down we can sacrifice AS for nanoskills so that one could be called fixed as for nukes. Nanochecking perks however will need the AAD in defence mechanisms removed however (this is something that has been mentioned but also doesnt have to be implemented before patch hits live). An NR debuff like mentioned before is actually not a bad idea but could maybe better be tied to the mezz effect on pet, so that the control over this function would be harder to maintain personally

Our pets are probably however actually the biggest portion of the whole problem and this seems almost entirely neglected at the endstage of the game. In this aspect I could actually almost not be more disappointed. The attack pet has received some MA skill, but as mentioned elsewhere this does not raise the damage at all. Our attack pet should be feared and make people run, but that is something most people have stopped doing over the years already and this extra MA skill will not change that much at all. Nowadays people talk about how Carlos and the Engineer dogpet are horrible, Rihwen is the lamb of the three. And it does feel like a spit in the face not seeing that aspect change. Part of this is our fault however too, because we talk about our Bow as much or even more than our Rihwen.

• Rihwen needs to raise his white flag and become the 215 pet as in documents. Notum Scrotum needs to leave his safe harbor at the 255 incarnator in Inferno and march for its ultimate victory under our control. This needs to happen very fast, and i mean if not this patch then the very next. His attack rating needs to make people fear it and its speed of damage aswell as the punch he packs needs to show it. Now we dont want the same mistake as with Zhok, but we do need people to kite us again! Only then will that -runspeed proc have an actual effect.

• Healpet however SEEMS a job well done, and I have to say I liked the mezz land on Yidira aswell. An alternative pet (secondairy attack pet) is however still something of interest (again not something for this patch).

Now for the available perklines
Perklines are plenty for Mp and one does not have enough perkpoints for what u want to perk. I think atleast the profession specific perklines need to be thought over and reworked. Soothing Spirits for instance is a confirmation that Mortificant does not hold enough healpower on its own, this is a perkline u have to invest in or u simply do not survive. It feels more like buffing a weakness then strengthening a power, this has to be different, also if we have three pets one line can not be only meant for one particular pet, because that means ur already spending 30 points if u need to buff three weaklings already. Id like to see a maximum of one SL line and one AI line to be about pets and between the two cover all pets.

• Rework the profession specific perklines, make them feel like empowering a strength not covering up a weakness. (Does not need to be coming patch but does need to be soon)

• Addition of perklines along the lines of the ones mentioned in the old documents, making a choice needs to remain in the mix

As feedback usually cant be done in numbers ive mentioned few and left open a lot of interpretation for the devs themselves. But this is my experience and im ofcourse open to critisism.

[lainbr]

Kudos to you as well Metafly And...

Rihwen needs to raise his white flag and become the 215 pet as in documents. Notum Scrotum needs to leave his safe harbor at the 255 incarnator in Inferno and march for its ultimate victory under our control. This needs to happen very fast, and i mean if not this patch then the very next. His attack rating needs to make people fear it and its speed of damage aswell as the punch he packs needs to show it. Now we dont want the same mistake as with Zhok, but we do need people to kite us again! Only then will that -runspeed proc have an actual effect.

Damnit, we should get old Zhok reincarnated in Notun Scourge and no dev should touch it!
Okies, on a serious matter. I know I focused on bow feedback because, you know, I'm bow and I want bow setup to work propelly while pet changes affects all MPs but doesnt address those specific bow problems.

Changes on pets are needed for ALL MPs alltogether and hasnt being forgotten (not from me at least). We are THE pet profession, so our pet should be the strongest. Our attack pet should have more dps than us, in any setup, and sucesfully hit anything. Our healpet should really heal, or at least heal better other pets and their master? Mezzpet should be master of all nasty tricks *couch* *Utility pet* *couch* Too much? I dont think so. The problem is that pet rework is not a simple matter, it demands lots of dev power that AO doesnt have at all. I can sure poke Michi about it as well, since every single MP that ever played agrees that we need reworked pets. Sadly I'm afraid that it will probably postponed to later in the All Might Rebalance.

P.s.: I gonna summarize all feedback on first post soon.

[JustinSane4]

Ok, my thoughts.

TL;DR - We should get a new, much stronger attack pet. Quality of life nano improvement suggestions at the bottom of the post.

First, there's a ton of good stuff in 18.7 for MPs already. It's going to make being an MP a lot more fun. However, we're starting from a bad place - we've been the bottom of the totem pole in everything but solo PvM for years at TL7. Until the 18.7.0.20 patch notes came out, I hadn't even logged into AO for months, because having an MP main is just depressing as it stands (and SoZ builds like me are doing a lot better than Bow builds currently).

Even with all the improvements we're getting, we may still be near the bottom of the pack at most things.

We're not going to compete with Shades, Crats or Engineers for damage. We're not close to Doctors, Advs or now MAs for healing and are also behind Shades (!), Traders and Keepers. Keepers have also probably pulled ahead of us as far as "useful generalist to have on the team" now that they can run attack blockers and AAD/AAO aura at the same time. In PvP we can pick between C- offense and D+ defense (Bow) or A defense and D- offense (dual SoZ). At least we can be good at something now, but being unable to kill or be killed may well not be every Anarchy Online player's idea of fun (even if personally I'm looking forward to it).

There isn't any important part of the game where MPs are a top 5 profession - not duels, not mass PvP, not PvM healing, not PvP healing, not PvM DD, not crowd control. The NSD nerf still really hurts, even if it's a lot better than what was once planned for NSD.

So why did we roll MPs? Many, maybe most, of us knew all this when we made our characters. While no two players are the same person, the basic answer is pets. We really like pets. Personally, I appreciate the pet improvements we are getting. The extra health for our attack pets, higher level top heal and mezz pets, +15% heal efficiency for Mortificant, improved mezz ability for the mezz pets, reduction in the damage our pets take from DtP, snare proc - that's all great stuff. And I appreciate the thought behind the 120 MA buff in Touch of Poison, even if having done quite a bit of testing I'm pretty confident that MA skill drains and MA buffs do not help or harm our pets' DPM.

However, I've got to second Metafly7. What we really, really want is to summon Godzilla in the form of a Notum Scourge.

We want a truly powerful pet, one that would bring us closer to the power of the other pet professions. Crats can nearly double our DPM. That's not an exaggeration - here's a link to the testing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...Hc&output=html https://forums.anarchy-online.com/sh...ons-and-builds . The top reported MP damage was within 40k DPM of a doctor - in generalist setup, not a DD setup - and 190k DPM behind the crat. Doctor DOTs outdamage our fully buffed endgame pet - even if they are only running on one enemy.

We have one real pet while Crats and Engineers have two.

While it is true that we have a heal pet and a mezz pet, and that they are a vastly more stylish defensive tools than other professions get, they really are just defensive tools - tools that can be rooted, snared, debuffed, killed or loose line of sight. Our top heal pet is currently good for about 7200 health/minute, or a bit over 10,000 with sooth spirits 10 perked. If we could trade our heal pet and the entire soothing spirits line for Bio Cocoon, our survivability would actually increase. Bio Cocoon gives a static 3% reflect, 4,760 healing/minute and 5k absorb/minute, and absorbs are much more valuable than just healing. The 890 ACs count for a bit too. We haven't even gotten to Engineer's spec blockers. Yidira, even with the upcoming buffs, can't compare with Crat CC - and Crats have real evades and weapons that do damage at the same time.

Our pet damage is pretty close to half that of the other two pet professions, because we have half as many pets. Engineer pets are way better in PvP (crazy AR, stacked reflects) and Crat pets are terrific in PvM. We are far behind both professions, in both PvP and PvM pet damage and utility (again, heal pet doesn't count - Mortificant + Soothing Spirits is our primary defensive tool just like spec blockers + Biococoon for engineers and evades/CC for crats).

I'm not saying we should do as much damage with one pet as Crats and Engineers do with two. But it should be a heck of a lot closer. If we are the only pet profession with only one attack pet, it should be easily the most powerful attack pet in the game. Personally, I think it should have 80% of the total health of Carlo + CEO Guardian (which would put it at 77,880 health), a buffed attack rating (not including aggressive construct empowerment) 80% of the buffed attack rating of Ravening M60's 4366 (which would give the MP attack pet a base AR of 2993), and 80% of the DPM of Carlo + CEO Guardian (they are at 131k DPM on high AC mobs, so this pet would have 105k DPM on high AC mobs.

All together, for our pet to be 80% as good as both Engineer or Crat pets - which seems more than reasonable to me - it would need 77,880 health, an unbuffed attack rating of 2993 (or 2873 if the 120 MA buff on touch of poison is changed to AAO) and a buffed high AC DPM of 105k. For comparsion, Rihwen on TL has base AR of 2261, health of 64,968 and does 82,080 DPM on high AC targets.

It would be awesome if we had a Notum Scourge mesh to go with it. But either way, that's what our endgame pet needs to look like if we are going to be closed to balanced compared to the other pet professions. From what little I understand, it's labor intensive to get a new pet into the game, since it needs artwork support. It'd be wonderful if we could get a Notum Scourge pet. But if development resources do not allow for that, I firmly believe The Rihwen should get nano-scaling like the other MP attack pets, and at 2450ish MC/TS he should look like the pet described in the paragraph above.

This pet upgrade would largely address the problem of bow MPs getting the glass part of glass cannon without getting the cannon part. Nearly all professions could continue to survive indefinitely against a dual SoZ MP with the above attack pet. But adding in AS every 11 seconds (and Ranger + CoLA perks and normal attack damage) could be enough pressure to actually win fights.

Suggested Convenience Improvements:

1. It takes too long to buff our pets. It would be nice if the Evocation buff line had short nano recharge, and if Healthy Manifestation and Evocation of the Pure casted on all pets like Evocation of the Reinforced does. Longer durations would be awesome as well. I assume there is a game design motive behind their short durations, but I don't really understand what it might be.

2. Longer buff durations on the Nano-cost reduction line and Anticipation of Retaliation would be nice, perhaps 4 hours like the 18.7 composite nanos. As a few others have mentioned, more evades in the Anticipation of Retaliation line would be cool too - in the old nano-document, we were going to get a +400 duck/dodge/evade buff. That'd be awesom, but any improvement would be nice. I would suggest that for any (hypothetical) evade buff improvement beyond +120 duck/dodge/evade, that half the amount of the increase past 120 be taken out of the AAD of SoZ, so that dual SoZ would have exactly the same AAD + evades as it would have now with the top outside evade buff running.

Finally, thank you. Even if the improvements you have made to our tool set are all you make, either because other things are higher priority (poor Traders!) or you disagree with us and believe MPs have been boosted enough, thank you for caring about MPs and for doing something. I really do appreciate it. And personally, I've always cared more about not dying than killing, and am really looking forward to the 18.7 patch. I'm a bit of an oddball among MPs that way though .

Edit: Just did some further calculating, and our 18.7 healing (15,238 healing/minute by my testing), is also behind agents in FP doc (they've got at least twice the healing we do), and Enfs (about 42,000 healing per minute + 11,000 absorbs a minute assuming 50k health). We're about even with NTs spamming absorbs (though, to be fair, an NT spamming absorbs is not having a good day). So we can out heal Fixers and Engineers (they've got about 2/3 the healing we do, including absorbs for Engineers), Soldiers (half the healing we've got) and Crats. Keepers are at 19k healing per minute + 5k absorbs per minute. We're the 9th best healer in AO in 18.7. I think I was happier not knowing that actually .

[jooo]

When I first tested new NSD at testlive I was surprised that eNSD and NSD was on the same cooldown. I didn't think much of it. Now that I think about it, after all these complains and seeing how nerfed our NSD is, it would be far from effective if our normal NSD and eNSD had different cooldowns. Now that they're on the same cooldown, it really makes the other NSD obsolete. I really thought they were gonna be on different cooldowns, to give some room for tactics - and the NSD still wouldn't be up that much, after all.

I think this idea could get support from many, including DEVs.

tldr: seperate the cooldown lines from NSD and eNSD.

[nanoforcer]

Very well put Justin, scaling of the whiner is probably what we have to settle with RIGHT NOW to boosta ok pet into a good one.
Let's hope changes happen.

[Baby]

I guess we have diferent point of views here. And I think both of then are valid. Because: working with another MP is a really good aproach. But, to be sincere, in any mass pvp I participated in my life, there where 1 doctor for each team at least and 2 MP for the whole faction group. So I prefer "aoe"-nsd in these kind of situations. BS, duel and team pvp otherwise, your idea is better.

I thought about your suggestion to make one NSD Caster locked and one Target lock again, and I think it would be a nice idea. We could situationally decide which one to use, and it would require to pay attention to the scene. I think I like that.

_____

I might throw in some thoughts as well.

Nukes! - The idea of debuffing first to get more dmg out of the nuke is a nice idea. It just fails as crats still do ~7x more dmg than us with this mechanic.
Mezzpet - I would gladly trade it for either a 2nd att pet or a real calm. I'd prefer the 2nd pet though.
Evadebuff - Yes improve it.
Snareproc - I'm not too familiar with the old docs, so maybe this was suggested. But to me it came right out of the blue and I don't really see a real use yet. Rihwen gets rooted/calmed all the time anyway so it's questionable how often it will actually fire. I personally would like a stunproc instead. But not on pet, on the MP. Seems also more reasonable with our toolset since we have a stun already. A useless stun I'd gladly trade for the proc.
Dmg Types - Gosh, this has been bugging me forever. As a Bow MP, I do Poison dmg, MQ does Energy, Glacial/Clearsight do cold (in regards to the new change), Clearshot does Chemical, Combust + TD does Fire and Supernova does Radiation. I wouldn't mind some item that works like the Bracer of Recondite Flames and overrides Dmg. I think it could help boosting our DD.
SI Skill - I might be completely alone with this, but the only reason for an MP to skill SI is 8hr CMO. So I decided to not care and reset it. I simply don't want to waste IPs just to buff others 8hr cmo. But a longer duration comes handy and I would love to see the SI Skill req to be reduced. If we get a better Evade buff, I would also not mind to see it get a low SI req as well, because it's imho completely unreasonable to expect MPs to waste so many IPs for just one buff.