Doctor's Guide to Notum Wars

[_______________Hypos]

Most docs don't PvP well until they get to be rather high level, 150+ or even 180+. At that point, docs are rather hard to kill so the nanomage disadvantage doesn't seem as bad. On the other hand, if you get NT buffs, a doc doesn't tend to have nano problems, either.

Nanomages have an easier time casting all of our high level nanos. Solitus docs typically have to choose a nano route with their implant selection. However, if you're in a guild that holds a nice land control area (from notum wars) and you can get good towers up, then solitus docs don't have a problem here, either.

Just pick whichever you want.

[Downsizr]

A few general PvP tricks that might enhance your survivability :

- Use unexpected gadgets like root / snare boosted graft on an opponent. Many programs break easily that kind of thing, but you can get a few seconds more to reach a safer place.

- Use morphs on the battlefield : even if people to usuallt TAB for targetting, being an /anon Leet among atroxes won't make you a favorite target.

- Stay on the run. Don't spam heals from above a hill, move in circle staying close to your team, use towers and trees to interfere with targeting if you can do that.

[Niomay]

excuse me dear thread thread for bumping you

[Nursedaou]

¤

[TemplarRed]

Originally posted by (Gummizluv)
being an /anon Leet among atroxes won't make you a favorite target.

I'm not sure who bothers to /list anymore these days. I don't know too many people who aren't /anon 24-7.

But leet form is a nice conceal buff. In fact.. I'd highly recommend the use of conceal in mass pvp. Conceal is your friend. It's extremely effective vs. most players sub-level 180 who haven't yet raised perception, thanks to the 1K token board. It will help keep you safe vs. /assist the leader then multi-alpha tactics (a doc or an NT is most likely to be the target).

Give it a try, even if you haven't raised conceal at all. Just run the expirtise buff & stay clear of pets. Pets have high perception & tend to reveal you to enemy players.. thankfully, you won't see many pets on the battlefield.

Friends:
Your best friends on the battlefield are enforcers. Forcers kill traders. Stick close to your forcer whenever possible. But don't expect him to wait for you; he can't afford to, slowpoke

NT's are your second-best friends. A Kels dispencer with a CH healpet can do remarkable things.

[Toxinator]

*cough* sticky *cough*

[Jynne]

I'd like to add a couple thoughts after fighting at the MR base takedown over the weekend. I couldn't hit the towers (only like 3 people from guild total on were to defend if I made us 25% gas hehe) so I spent my time mostly with healing people on the towers, and a little with PvP when omnis were around my bunch of tower killers.

But mostly I healed. And I got a lot of thank-yous for it from people that I saved Whatever FC did to fix lag/CC it seems to help us out a lot for healing others in a mass battle.

At level 200+ battles I suggest you stay far back from the towers with your range increaser - if you go into an area where tower circles overlap, by healing you will draw aggro from the other towers that don't have anyone hitting them. Really it helps at all battles (I mean why tank anything if you don't have to?) So it helps to turn on the tower circles to find someplace to stand, but then I turn them off until I need to move to another tower because there's too much clutter.

QL 200+ towers hurt alot, and a couple 180+ people around me were killed by them on Saturday night. For a while I was the only doc healing tower fighters with the southmost attack team on the MR base, and it wasn't cool watching a couple MAs and even an advy die while I was in recharge from CHing someone else. Remember those melees have to run right up to the tower to hit it and so are almost always getting aggroed by those towers you are avoiding with your range increaser

Don't be shy to ask for another doc to come help you - I did, someone came, and we didn't have any more deaths to the towers while the two of us were there.

If I'd had the chance last night I'd have liked to team up with all melees so I could use A&O on them while they beat up towers. I think that would have been more efficient and easier on my fingers Instead I was crtl-tabbing constantly for hours and my hand still feels kinda cramped

On that note: I found that crtl-tabbing worked alot better than assisting the tower for saving more people. Like I said there are those "add" towers that overlap range with each other, and the occasional defender who takes a pot shot at someone then runs before they get alphad to pieces (sometimes successfully sometimes not hehe). Mixing the two seems optimal: do an assist on the tower to make sure you can heal its target first, then start crtl-tabbing to fix up other people.

So - new NW advice from me: At a high level tower battle stay with the tower killers and heal them. Don't get too distracted by PvPing omnis, trust other people for doing PvP cover. I only switched into PvP mode twice - once while the Omnis were trying to keep us away from the CT cluster and once when so many people were on the CT and there was so much lag for me I was CHing corpses instead of living people so I left.

I also found that knowing peoples' names helped me alot. I knew Ameno and Gothique and Nuuka were NTs so I kept a closer eye on their health for reflects damage. I knew Tinysmasher and Locol were eqb enfs hitting towers and drawing lots of aggro so I looked for them and make sure they stayed alive.

[____________Sanosukexx]

awsome guide, take heed of this young medics

[Nursedaou]

What we gotta do to make this sticky? Use bubblegum?

[Jynne]

This was sticky until we went through a stickythread cleaning

It's now linked from the "thread of good links" that is sticky. And from my sig. And stuff.

[Toxinator]

The moderators can. =)

Anyway - good guide. =)

[Ocura]

Thanks a bunch for this.
As I just returned to AO about 5 weeks ago after a 6 months break - things are still sooooo new to me. This made things a bit easier

*hugs*

[Letah]

I unsticked it cause it was getting crowded with good guides so I made that link-sticky that points towards all good guides

[Jynne]

Bumping up because I made a change: Added the following under Weapons:

UPDATED: 5/28/03
Rifle, or more specifically, the Aimed Shot special, is coming up for an 'adjustment' in the near future. In other words: Caterwauls and Ithacas are getting nerfed. The shape and form of this nerf are yet to be determined, however (in combination with the trend of new weapons being profession-specific and the upcoming release of Shadowlands) it is recommended by the Guide at this time that Doctors who wish to save their skill reset points not choose Rifle for PvP purposes.

Weapons choices that remain viable at this point are SMGs (mausser chemical streamer) and Pistols (Pain of Patricia). These weapons are short-ranged however, and so act more as self-defense weapons than offensive weapons. Decent range can be achieved with Movement Predictors and Vision Enhancer scopes (the init debuff on the VE is negligible since both weapons are burst-centric on full-def PvP).

[Zanthyna]

Very useful information. I haven't PvP'd yet (except for one tragic failure on my untwinked crat alt), but when I do, I imagine your guide will come in quite handy.

[Zanthyna]

This is *not* a bump. I mearly want this thread to move back to the top.

[TemplarRed]

Originally posted by Jynne
Bumping up because I made a change: Added the following under Weapons:

UPDATED: 5/28/03
Rifle, or more specifically, the Aimed Shot special, is coming up for an 'adjustment' in the near future. In other words: Caterwauls and Ithacas are getting nerfed. The shape and form of this nerf are yet to be determined, however (in combination with the trend of new weapons being profession-specific and the upcoming release of Shadowlands) it is recommended by the Guide at this time that Doctors who wish to save their skill reset points not choose Rifle for PvP purposes.

Weapons choices that remain viable at this point are SMGs (mausser chemical streamer) and Pistols (Pain of Patricia). These weapons are short-ranged however, and so act more as self-defense weapons than offensive weapons. Decent range can be achieved with Movement Predictors and Vision Enhancer scopes (the init debuff on the VE is negligible since both weapons are burst-centric on full-def PvP).

For a while now, I've been seeing more & more doctors shelve their rifles & ithacas in favor of short-range burst weapons; SMGs & the PoP. Time & time again I've tried to tell the aimed-shot enthusiasts:

Don't get overly worried about it.

Why would I say this, when the whole world is in an uproar over the impending Aimed-Shot-Nerf-of-Doom®? What rumors have I been privy to, regarding this nerf?

First... as one might expect, Funcom is busy with Shadowlands, as in all-hands-on-deck busy. Meaning, they aren't working on much of anything else at this time. The proposed aimed shot nerf is not slated to be implemented neither prior-to, nor with the Shadowlands expansion. In other words, there is no one working on any aimed shot changes at present. Also... there is still some question as to whether or not any changes will be made at all.

Secondly... there is no plan or proposal to make aimed shot a once-per-fight maneuver in pvp. Nor will one be required for a player to be in sneak-mode to use aimed shot vs. other players. The proposed change will require the player using aimed shot to have a certain measure of the skill concealment. I.e., you don't need to be sneaking, but you must be able to sneak.

How will this change aimed shot usage in pvp? Very little, unless said required levels of conceal skill are outlandishly high. If there is a conceal-skill check made vs. the target player's own perception, then aimed shots will be very easy for many players, because it is relatively easy to hide from other players via conceal.

Take note: If this is indeed going to be the case, then it is likely that even a title 5/6 doctor would be unable to effectively use aimed shot vs. title 5/6 agents who've maxed perception. To this I say 'good!' ..because I've met very few agents who stand a chance vs. a strong doc. Agents could use a bit of a boost.

Whatever the case may be, agents are unlikely to be affected, & title 5/6 players might want to consider maxing their conceal skill... not too big an issue for many level 180+ players. However.. lowbie pvp might see some changes, as many lower level non-agent players simply do not have the spare IP to waste on conceal. Or... they might be forced to seek out pronouncement of greatness/cloak of night buffs prior to battle in order to use aimed shot.

Why have I decided to share all of this now? Well... it seems that Morphex has let this cat out of its bag just recently. The report that Cz passed along to him dovetails with what I'd heard. And suffice it to say, I still enjoy my snakemaster greatly ..I'm glad that I did not IPR & I will have concealment fully maxed by next level.

Originally posted by Morphex
Basically, Cz denied some of the rumours that float around:

FunCom has never said that the AS change is coming in Shadowlands. They have never even said it is coming this year. That does not mean it is not coming this year, but they will sure let us know first

FunCom has never said that we will not be able to fire more aimed shots during a fight. They have only said that firing an aimed shot will be requiring concealment. Not sneak mode. Concealment.

They have also never said that concealment will not be fixed before AS is changed. Anyone claiming they have, have either misread or misunderstood an FC statement.



As you probably understand, FunCom aren't giving out much info about the AS change yet, because they don't have much info on it. Gaute basically just said that they want AS to be requiring concealment in PvP, and nothing more, it is probably still just in planning.

This also means that any AS change is still quite a bit of time away. And there is no reason to keep discussing back and forth about a change we do not yet know how will be implemented. As soon as I get more info on what/when/why they are implementing , I will let you guys know.



I mean, for all we know, the change will be a concealment vs. perception check without involving sneak mode, just to keep those soldiers and fixers from killing people so easily

So grab a beer and chill ^^

gogo aimed shot /rocky

Just an afterthought: who else sees the underlying pvp nerf for neutrals (hint: concealment mods; just one more reason to love your 1K token board )?

[Jynne]

Hehe Madhava... I haven't reset rifle or AS either I just maxed pistol and burst for my PoP. But I don't really think I'll be using my caterwaul anymore once SL comes out. It's an educated guess... but Doctors look to be channeled towards pistol weapons in the future. Maybe some of those pistols will even have aimedshot for some reason... there's no way to tell.

It remains to be seen how this will play out - don't forget an adventurer can buff perception by outlandish amounts - like, +600 I think during TL6. So it could be that a new 'standard part' of the pvp buff package for any player will become Lupus Oculus or whatever it's called along with behe RRFE etc and therefore aimedshot would be pretty useless against people who remember to get their buffs for anyone but agents (who can buff conceal by like +600)

I'm standing by my advice... especially since we don't know what weapons and nanos may come with SL. If you don't want to set yourself up for probably IPR use in the future, don't go rifle now

[TemplarRed]

Originally posted by Jynne
It remains to be seen how this will play out

Too true, Jynne... especially considering that the most desireable pvp weapons for level 200+ players will most likely be something new; something other than PoPs, ithacas or caterwauls, at some point in the near future

I would just hope that there will be more than one option available to us as a 'weapon-unspecialized' profession. And personally, I hope that shotgun and/or aimed shot will still be is among the viable choices available to us (I'd prefer to save my remaining IPR's for as long as I can). As the situation appears now, it should be. As far as I'm concerned, a given profession isn't going to be channelled in any direction weapon-wise, until (using us as the example) doctors get pistol buffs.

As for perception buff usage in pvp... considering that our most dangerous opponants (forcers & traders) are constantly stretching their NCU to its very limits via their own self-buffs stacked atop of the accepted staple pvp buffs: sentient viral recoder, then add in eccence + doc team health + GSF + RRFE + hack-n-quack + nano repulsor + engie sloughing field... I'm not sure which forcer or trader would have the extra room for karma harvest, blood makes noise, lupus oculus, what have you.

Granted, the agents & venturers will probably have enough perception on-hand to nullify aimed shots from sniperdocs. That's just fine with me... I do hope it makes them think they can beat me

[Jynne]

Muahaha

Given that AS is so popular though and given that it's so powerful, I think people would make room for it. I know I'd rather have +600 more perception than say coruscating screen (I have almost 700 perception already so I can self-equip ql 250 VEs situationally) if it would mean that 11 of 12 professions on the game couldn't AS me anymore. Agents being the exception.