v1 Agent Nano Document!

[Ninewood]

oh by the way...
1.detaunts
2.detaunt procs
3.bail line
4.skill lock decrease line

makes a total of 4 useless or near useless nanolines.

as i said, bail line may not be 100% useless, but close. and skill lock? fc posted (ages ago, granted) that skill lock is capped at 50%, so what's the use of having three buffs higher than that in addition to the stuff from symbs etc? and what does it do? decreasing stim time from 40sec to 20 secs! oh my! can almost make up for all the def and off we lost.

ps. what i'm refering to above is "This stat reduces the time your skill is locked by 1 percent per point. On e.g. a First Aid Kit - Skill Lock Modifier 15 would decrease the First Aid lock time from 20 seconds to 17 seconds. A lock can never be reduced by more than 50% of the original time." Supposed to be from an old patchnote.

edit: can you imagine? it's gonna be: [xxx ooc] xxx: collector team lf agent for detaunts - [xxx ooc] xxx2: 12 man team looking for agent w top detaunts, too - they're gonna be all over us...

[Mordo]

A team has no desire for us. None of this crap is gonna get us teamed. Healer, tank, DD, crowd control, that is what they are after. I refuse to become a buff totem for a raid force so they ditch me afterwards. This is what warcraft did to paladins in burning crusade. We want to be useful and needed and this is not going to work.

[Parranoid1]

Your trolling is terrible. I've put forth more suggestions in this thread than you are ever going to.

I'm not trolling, i'm telling you to calm down from your doom and gloom end of the profession posts. You know, the same thing the mod did?

You've also put forward 2 suggestions. All the rest have been poorly concealed whines.

And lol if you really believe that 650 NCU is "more than most"

Awesome, even though I said "as much as if not more than most", but dont let that get in the way of a good story. By the way, that number I pulled out of thin air. Just logged on and with no buffs running i have 751 NCU in combat gear, thats with viral compiler, hardcore CPU upgrade and evade NCU. That is a lot of NCU.

Suppose I need Essence of Behemoth and Superior First Aid. Why does it matter who I get them from? Short answer: IT DOESN'T.

No, for behe and sfa it may not, but being able to self buff soldier, fixer, enfo, doctor buffs on top of your agent buffs in a pvp situation IS a problem for getting some form of balance. Which is the point of what they are doing, being unable to buff yourself with twinking scenario type buffs is an unfortunate side affect.

I personally think that currently the draw backs for mimic are a bit steap, having said that they will likely get changed AND as lupus said we need to wait for this last bit of info.

Did the complainers maybe think that this secret they are holding is another piece for our defensive toolset, that will give us an alternative to needing those evades. Pperhaps something they haven't mentioned yet? Maybe its a conceal rework that allows us to resneak during combat? Maybe its something that hasn't been seen or really thought of before?

Lastly, Arlanon, it seems like you are in a rut with regards to thinking. I've seen you focusing very much on commenting on doctor mimics, frankly I'm looking forward to haveing other mimics that will be viable BESIDES doctor. I'm bored silly of assault doctor, leaving things as is will just throw us back to having to rely on doctor in most situations.

[agentwolve]

I think if this is the direction they want to take mimic, just delete it all together, it was very creative and a unique idea by the original developers behind the concept. however if they insist it needs to be changed so drastically its always going to a problem to have it "fairly" balanced, in it's current form it is not OP yet its getting slammed into the ground here.

Would rather agents just be their own profession instead of an agent that had been crippled by a modern day trader.

Someone even pointed out, 20+ heal efficiency against losing RRFE is basically a loss of defensive without taking into consideration the actual lack of evasive defense and no offense, I think even shades could have a more reliable aimed shot after AS and dmg is debuffed. :9

[Leetlover]

I think they show gross disrespect to 10 years of developement and us, the players.

This is not a rebalance, it's deleting a profession and creating a new one from their own head.

They should rebalance existing professions and refrain from erasing old repetoir.




Feel free to remove this part (but make sure it's read if you do Ana) if it's inapropiate;
I suspect "professionals" been purposedly neglecting the feedback from customers of subterfuge, sniping and stealth due to contempt/disdain. I know one of them openly said he would pursue his own agenda and try make agent a defensive class or something. However, if any of you have some decency PLEASE NOTE: I am totally against the new direction and intention of FP. I consider it as a scam accounced as a rebalance.





I pay to play agent, the sophisitated ranged assassin that specialise in subterfuge skills.

Make a new profession called 'Vicariate' but please, just stop whatever you doing with FP.

FP can be 1 nano (instead of 3 stages) without penalites, and TP 2min cooldown.

A simple work around to the NCU wipe could be an NCU wipe of all non-agent nanos (ie, any FP'd buffs).

But why? So agent have to ask for several buffs like anybody else? How does that pertain to 'rebalance'?

The program-termination should only apply to a select few keynanos, if any.

Typical. You left out the part where I said our best heal would be Restorative Influx.

Or more healing from the rk-lines since CH gets 20 sec cooldown, which I think is good. Cause then the actual profession that we are can shine more at endgame without making us ridiculously OP.

Agent is designed as a sophisticated DD and is the pure offensive class in AO.

We should outkill our opponents, surriving through subterfuge, and the FP-bonuses. It is intended for us to be far less effective doing the task of the FP'd profession since the simulation is that we don't go undercover for the purpose of doing the job of other professions.

How about rebalancing the already existing profession?

What you are doing is fundamentally wrong.

Agent doesn't conceal themselfs as a doctor for the purpose of doing surgergy or the stuff a doctor would do, so... we should be notably incompetent as the FP'd profession and obviosuly our signature combat-abilities should remain fully effective regardles.

We chose agents because we wanted to be agents.

True dat!

Agent was first, agent comes first! Always adapting for the purpose of inflicting damage.

[Leetlover]

Simulations of some of the perk-repetoir sounds intresting.

They need to be carefull with some of the stuff tho. For example, BoL + A more modest coon as FP Adv could be fair and done without regulating the damage-capacity and unique repetoir of the agent.

We'd still have to rely on DD + subterfuge-skills/core-design in pvm and pvp-combat. Which is what we bought.

So that aspect would still be intact, which is of utter importance to me...my precious!

oh by the way...
1.detaunts
2.detaunt procs
3.bail line
4.skill lock decrease line

Escapeline is uber in pvp. Detaunts used to be effective and a lifesaver.

Adding skill-lock debuff as an addition to the current toolset seems too caster-ish for the agent-profession.

[agentwolve]

Tbh I think the new mimics look more like they are designed so we cannot use them for any other purpose besides buffing OTHER people, we cant even buff ourselves as it wipes our ncu when we change. So we can give people in our raid/team/city a whole variety of buffs from other professions .... but keeping them to buff ourselves is overpowered ?

[Leetlover]

No, for behe and sfa it may not, but being able to self buff soldier, fixer, enfo, doctor buffs on top of your agent buffs in a pvp situation IS a problem for getting some form of balance.

It's actually not. The impact is almost non-existant as buffs are easily accessible already.

It's CH in current form that causes disbalance to occur and holds the potential of the profession back imo.

Gnat's wing is easily replaced with the critical decrease debuffs, if not completely overtaken.

Wrong, it conflicts with sniping and also enforces caster-setups. Sureshot is a fun line to go 'hot' with. Don't touch plz!

[Leetlover]

I vote to keep the name as False Profession instead of Visual Profession.

Same

Also; It's intended for agent to be less effective in performing as the FP'd profession.

Currently as it stands agents don't have infinite NCU ( after the rebalance i still doubt this will be teh case) Why? b/c you need hard core cpu/viral compiler/ def ncu and the infused interrupt. Trust me , you can barely get that many osbs due to all the necessities an agent has.

Thats actually optional. Just saying. Lots play without CPU etc...I agree NCU is still tight tho.

[mawu]

Hardcore CPU will be needed I think. Didnt they say nano will be more of an issue than it is now? I think we might even go so far and IP pool.
Lucky the new Hardcore CPU thing has NCU on it.

[Ninewood]

Escapeline is uber in pvp. Detaunts used to be effective and a lifesaver.

Adding skill-lock debuff as an addition to the current toolset seems too caster-ish for the agent-profession.

detaunts a livesaver? well i just refer you to the twohundred other threads for a feedback on that.

escape line: yes, at the moment. but with the seperate crit decrease buff and roots shortened to a max of 6-8 secs and the run speed cap in mind, i think you may want to reconsider that statement since this buff essentially reduces root duration by a maximum of 5-6 seconds, more likely 2-3 - and maybe you noticed, there already is a root removal line in addition to stims. same applies for snares btw.

skill lock line: THAT is what's bothering you about it? oh god.

[Lupusceleri]

I'm not trolling, i'm telling you to calm down from your doom and gloom end of the profession posts. You know, the same thing the mod did?

You've also put forward 2 suggestions. All the rest have been poorly concealed whines.



Awesome, even though I said "as much as if not more than most", but dont let that get in the way of a good story. By the way, that number I pulled out of thin air. Just logged on and with no buffs running i have 751 NCU in combat gear, thats with viral compiler, hardcore CPU upgrade and evade NCU. That is a lot of NCU.



No, for behe and sfa it may not, but being able to self buff soldier, fixer, enfo, doctor buffs on top of your agent buffs in a pvp situation IS a problem for getting some form of balance. Which is the point of what they are doing, being unable to buff yourself with twinking scenario type buffs is an unfortunate side affect.

I personally think that currently the draw backs for mimic are a bit steap, having said that they will likely get changed AND as lupus said we need to wait for this last bit of info.

Did the complainers maybe think that this secret they are holding is another piece for our defensive toolset, that will give us an alternative to needing those evades. Pperhaps something they haven't mentioned yet? Maybe its a conceal rework that allows us to resneak during combat? Maybe its something that hasn't been seen or really thought of before?

Lastly, Arlanon, it seems like you are in a rut with regards to thinking. I've seen you focusing very much on commenting on doctor mimics, frankly I'm looking forward to haveing other mimics that will be viable BESIDES doctor. I'm bored silly of assault doctor, leaving things as is will just throw us back to having to rely on doctor in most situations.

Listen to this guy. He's talking sense.

[Ninewood]

although that is true, that still doesn't solve the problem of having 4 useless nanolines while at the same time having nothing we can contribute to a team.

personally i think mezzing would be the way to go in terms of team usability.

again: I'd perfer defense over detaunts.

[Leetlover]

For the detaunting-feature to be sucessfull and meaningfull it should be limited to only one item/repressor (and maybe 1 nano for using it during a perk-que) and have immidiate effect regardles of the damage-disparity between the agent and any of the team-member. Monster can attack agent again when h8 is rebuildt.

The primary point and importance is for the feature to be fun. Strategical gameplay/convenience secondary.

Any other implementation of the effect will only disapoint those who are enthusiastic/exited about the mechanic and annoy everyone else. The proc-system is not suitable for the purpose of using it...imagine have mongo as a proc? Doesn't work in practice and would be utterly useless and unfun

Hardcore CPU will be needed I think.

I hope not, maybe for FP-purposes but agent isn't designed as a nanocaster-combatant.

Overall, I think they focus overly/too much on mathematical circumstances...and why destroy&redefine a profession instead of actually rebalancing the existing profession?

[Lupusceleri]

Concerning the detaunts thing:

It's not EITHER detaunts OR a defense. It'll be detaunts AND a defense, as in they co-exist, and they don't exclude each other.

The detaunt line already existed, devs merely boosted it up to levels that miiiight be useful if we get a new weapon in the future. The Blast detaunt proc line already existed too but nobody used it because it conflicted with the Waves DoT proc line - what the devs have done is merge Waves with Shock, and separated the detaunt proc into their own line: this means you'll gain up to 55 "extra" NCU if you don't want to use the detaunt procs!

We didn't have to give up anything, or make any sacrifices, to get access to the detaunts. If we did, I'd be the first guy to tell Funcom where to shove their detaunts.

[Mordo]

I know this won't be a very constructive post but I have a friend who plays aion. I showed him the document and explained the changes to our tool set to him. He laughed all night long about it. His first thoughts were they want to remove us from this game.

Now, are we getting a defense? A bail nano isn't going to help us in pvm. "Oh no the beast I'll run away"... The nano skills to use it are too high if its meant as an emergency button. If I get drained debuffed and want to escape I cant even cast it.

Sharp object buffing is okay I guess I don't use it myself as I lack the IP for it. The accessibility of items to use with it is also a problem. Making these items store buyable would be nice.

Whatever this "secret change" is I can't begin to imagine how it would result in such massive nerfs to mimic. Are we going to be able to use touch of marius?

[Leetlover]

Ideally, they make escape-line into one nano (disappear) that we can access early in the game. Should resist fear.

Now, are we getting a defense?

Please no, my DD! Imo def should be via moderated performance from FP-usage only. I like how it is a pure offensive profession. A sophisticated assassin and subterfuge-specialist that can go undercover. I really hope the idea of changing agent to this 'vicariate' is abandonded entirely.

A big issue is that the unique repetoir is ineffective or badly implemented.

Damage-progression f.x stagnates after tl5, instead of continuing to increase proportionatly.

[Parranoid1]

I just had a crazy though, if I remember correctly, when enfos use taunts in pvp, they will actually get the aggro of that player, ala 12m. Maybe the opposite of that for agent toolset, stops that attacking on the agent and allows for reconceal. man I'm looking forward to this last bit of info.

Thing is, if they move the agents defense tools to be part of the agent, rather than coming from the mimic, then we will have our defense in any mimic. Then we can just pick to play whatever we want.

[Lazy]

Damage-progression f.x stagnates after tl5, instead of continuing to increase proportionatly.

rebalanced perk dmg scales with AS skill with large increases on all agent perks at 1k, 2k and 3k as skill.

[Leetlover]

Maybe the opposite of that for agent toolset, stops that attacking on the agent and allows for reconceal.

Suggested the same, would be cool yeah

Thing is, if they move the agents defense tools to be part of the agent, rather than coming from the mimic, then we will have our defense in any mimic.

Sounds OP

I suggested new holo's with collition tho, this way we use snare vs melee and holo 2 dodge ranged in between of shots while using the FP-benefits for any possible advantage we can get.